Melome

'You're holding the spool.'

'Is that bad?'

'Release it.'

'Of course.' He let it fall and watched as it moved toward the girl, the reel climbing the strand to hang at her belt. 'I would like to talk business.' He added, as she frowned, 'At least let me make the offer.'

'Melome sings no more today.' Kalama was adamant. 'She is tired and soon it will be dark. Not even for two hundred kobolds will she sing.'

Twice what she would earn in a session; a score of spools hung at her waist. But if he should offer more? Dumarest decided against it; as Kalama had said, the girl was tired and the sky held the hint of coming darkness. In the softening light Melome stood like a broken animal, one which had been ridden too hard and too far. The lowered face was ghastly in its pallor, the bruised eyes ugly smears.

He said, 'I understand, but I want her to sing for me again. A private performance-it can be arranged?'

'Perhaps.' The lifted hand wavered a little, fell as, again, he smiled. 'You want to buy her?'

'Hire her.'

'For an hour, a day, a week?' Her lips twisted in a cynical lewdness. 'It will not be as you hope. Those in the grip of terror make poor lovers.'

Dumarest said, patiently, 'I want her to sing and that is all. To sing to me alone and to keep on singing if I ask. Once may be enough. One song-two hundred and fifty?'

'Not tonight,' she said quickly. 'One song, you said. If you should want more?'

'Five hundred for as many as I want. For a session to end when I say so.'

'Five songs only-and she stops if the strain is too great.' Again her mouth displayed cynical distrust. 'You have no objection to me being present?'

'None.'

'And my instrumentalists?'

'I want her to sing,' said Dumarest. 'Nothing else.' He jingled coins from one hand to the other. 'Here is fifty as proof of my good faith. At dawn?'

'At midday. Be at the house of the Broken-no, better we visit you.' Kalama nodded as he gave the address of the room he'd hired. 'At noon then, my lord. Be patient in your waiting.'

Patient but not foolish and it was dark by the time Dumarest left the market. Even at night the place was still alive; lamps burning with swaths of red and gold, blue and umber, the scent of cooking meats and vegetables hanging in the air together with writhing plumes of incense, sparks from torches, beams from shimmering orbs of kaleidoscopic hues. Mundane trading had ended, the vendors of hoes and seeds and domestic items giving way to others who filled the night with a different allure. Drummers and pipers together with dancers, the thin whine of strings, the drone of flutes. Gamblers who called from tables set with cards, dice, hollow shells. Women with snakes, spiders, crawling beetles. The tellers of fortunes and artists who created glowing picture on living skin.

Men who fought with knives.

Practice blades; edges and points shielded and capable of dealing little more than bruises and scratches. And the bouts lacked the savage intensity normal to any good fighter-the magic of Baatz had robbed them of serious intent so that the crowd laughed at bad play instead of jeering and the loser accepted defeat with a grin and a shrug.

'Sir!' The promoter had spotted Dumarest, noted his height, his stance, the hilt of the knife riding above his right boot. 'A bout, sir? You look like a man used to the arena. A little harmless sport to entertain lovers of the art. A demonstration of skill, the winner decided by popular acclaim. No?' His voice held a philosophical shrug. 'Then how about you, sir? Or you?'

Dumarest walked on. Ahead the lights of the boulevard matched those of the stars now illuminating the sky; clusters of vibrant colors, sheets and curtains of luminescence, nebulae like smoke. Too many stars and he longed for an emptier sky. One illuminated by the swollen bulk of a silver moon blotched in the likeness of a skull. Of constellations which formed patterns holding the likeness of men and beasts, women and creatures of the sea. The signposts of Earth-wherever that might be.

A world lost in distance and time so that even its name had become a legend.

But one now so close. So very close!

Dumarest halted, leaning against a wall, looking up at the sky and feeling again the surge he had known in the market. One born of the sudden realization that, at last, his search could be over. That the answer he had hunted for so long was at hand.

Melome could find it.

She had to find it!

Waking that moment in the past when, as a child, he had stood in the captain's cabin and stared uncomprehendingly at the volume on the desk. A book which had meant nothing at the time and he had turned from it in sudden terror as footsteps came from the passage. If discovered, he could be accused of prying or stealing, be beaten, maimed, tormented-his sadistic mentors had taught him well.

But that terror, stimulated by the song, would bring the book again before his eyes, the data it contained. All he had to do was wait.

Then noon passed and the girl did not appear and when he went searching he learned she had been sold to the circus of Chen Wei.

CHAPTER TWO

The man was a grotesquerie; a thing of extended limbs, massive ears, lumps, bumps, protrusions. A clown cavorting on stilts, the painted face ludicrous above a padded torso. The hair was like a brush touched with a dozen hues. The voice was like an organ.

'Why hesitate? The circus of Chen Wei waits to entertain you. See novelties, marvels, impossibilities. Wander in realms of mystic enchantment. Thrill to the impact of exotic stimuli. The chance of a lifetime. Not to be missed. Hurry, now. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!'

A bell clanged, three acrobats spun in a confusion of sequins and satin, a woman sold tickets.

'Ten for transport and the same for initial entry. Twenty, kobolds-thank you, sir. Keep the stub for your return.'

A dwarf guided Dumarest to where rafts waited in line urging him into the first where he sat on a bench next to the rail. A girl came to join him, another at her side. She was young, eager to enjoy her day, hopeful for masculine company but after one glance at his face she turned to her friend leaving Dumarest to stare at the ground below.

It fell away as the raft lifted, streaming beneath in an unbroken expanse of curled and matted vegetation dotted with delicate flowers. The afternoon sun touched them, turned them into scraps of gold, of ruby, of smoking amber. Flecks which looked like eyes and all of them mocking.

Why had he been such a fool?

Melome had been in his hand-he should never have let her go. Never have trusted Kalama to keep their bargain. What had made him so careless? He had quested the market and gained her address, verifying it from more than one source. An elementary precaution, but why hadn't he done more? Why had he been content to wait until it was too late? The woman had cheated him but the money was nothing; he would willingly give ten times as much to correct his stupidity.

'Mister?' The girl at his side pointed over the rail. 'Is that the circus?'

'No-I don't know.'

'Sorry. I thought maybe you'd been before. My friend thought you might have done. A lot of people have done. That is-' He wasn't listening and she knew it. 'Sorry.'

An apology Kalama would never have to make. She was gone, probably on the Yegor-he had seen the ship head for space wreathed in the blue cocoon of its Erhaft field. Robbing him even of revenge. Leaving Melome-his hand tightened as he thought about it. Closed in anger more against himself than Kalama. What use to blame another for his folly?

One caused by the wine or the shock of the song or the emotional impact of realizing what Melome could give