The man came down. He, like the King, was in late middle age, but slender, quietly dressed, and couth. His complexion was far lighter. Most of all, his movements, his very walk, were different from those of any other of Yl’s coterie. He glanced at Rarmon. The glance itself spoke only of un-Zakorian things. But he said, “It might well be. Certainly, Dorthar has accepted him as such.”
The voice of Kathus was a surprise. It had a little of the slurred accent. Some touch of Zakoris after all, then.
The two Karmians had grown bored with homage and stood up, trying to offer letters to Yl. Caal remained as he was.
The Zakorian guards, at Yl’s order, took Rarmon away.
“Drink, Kathus. Drink deep.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Yl, but not Kathus, drank deep.
“Thinking of Dorthar, Kathus? Her blood and entrails and ashes?”
“Vengeance,” paraphrased Kathus, imperturbably. His face was scarcely lined, for he had trained it from his early years to eschew expression. “And, of course, your promise I should rule Dorthar in your name. What there will be left of her.”
“And now you think Kesr of the Karmians will have Dorthar from me, when he and I have mown the white-hair half-breed into the muck?”
“I think Kesarh’s too useful, not to agree with all he may wish.”
“And then kill him and give it you?”
“My lord,” said Kathus, “I can be patient. Both of us know that skill, by now. Kesarh’s young and runs swiftly. And may stumble.”
Yl liked Kathus Am Alisaar, who had once been a prince and intriguer in Dorthar. It was in the way he liked a new weapon, or woman, or an animal that could do clever tricks. Kathus was wise. He had been helpful, making sense of the written aspects of a diplomacy Yl required but had no forbearance with. Kathus had fashioned an intricate network of spies. Yl’s blunt Zakorian counselors had not survived the flight to Thaddra. Kathus was the most sophisticated thing in his kingdom.
“Then counsel me,” said Yl.
“You return Kesarh’s envoys. You repeat the false vow that you’ll rebuild Ankabek—he doesn’t give a damn for Ankabek or Anack, we all know that, but he forgives your men the island’s spoiling, so you must play, too, and regret the offense. He’s shown you the other side when he destroyed your fleet off Karmiss, recall. You thank him also for your present, Raldnor’s bastard son. That’s the letter. The military dispatch goes separately and we’ve already discussed that. What, by the way, will you do with Rarmon, son of Raldnor?”
“He would have made a burnt sacrifice to Zarduk,” said Yl. “But Kesr mentions Raurm has lain with men. I can’t offer the god such filth.”
“How irritating.”
Yl grunted.
They had come into the King’s chamber off the Throne Hall. Yl’s eyes strayed across the room to the niche where there reposed a gigantic topaz. It had been a goddess’ eye, at Ankabek.
“The bitch watches,” he remarked. “Zarduk,” he said to the eye, “wears your gold. No use to look for it.” He stared back at the topaz, and seemed to forget the talk in hand.
Kathus reminded him.
“My lord, if I might suggest. Rarmon. Since you can’t burn him alive, he may be useful elsewhere. Further inspiration for your soldiery, a warning to your slaves and those by whom we are scrutinized. It should be told publicly who he is. He should be publicly abused. Keep him, as a figure of obloquy. There’s also the information he can impart.”
“It’s useless. The White-hair will alter his plans.”
“My lord,” said Kathus, “he will naturally do that. But to learn the original formula will suggest what the alternatives may be.”
“Ah. Sharp, sharp. Raurm shall be questioned tonight.”
“Give me charge of it.”
“You judge my captains too rough?” Yl was amused.
“I can’t be sure he has loyalties to anyone, even Raldanash. But he refused to assist Kesarh—Kesarh would otherwise have retained him. This needs inducement. He isn’t to be wasted.”
“What means?” Yl had become brutally curious. While not titillated by cruelty, it sometimes made him think.
“He’s been whipped in the past, knocked about all the way here. It asks something different now. We must remember, too, Kesarh didn’t bother to try persuasion. Kesarh seems to have assumed him unbreakable.”
Kathus, the regicide, walked quietly downward through the sloping corridors burrowing under Yl’s palace. It was interesting to him that the King of Free Zakoris had made his house less penetrable than his city with its high ungated wall, while under it he utilized the natural cave-system of the rock, reminiscent of Hanassor. The ships which had lain in caverns under Hanassor, had also been better protected. Though it seemed unlikely much harm would come to Yl’s present duet of fleets, two hundred and thirty vessels of which were in harbor, before summer opened the war. That was how close war was.
Long ago, Kathus had journeyed through the world, seeing how it changed after the Lowland War. In so doing, he used up the widespread caches of wealth he had formerly set by for himself against catastrophe. He returned to Alisaar where Shansar held sway, and turned from it. For a while, he manipulated affairs in Iscah and Corhl, and earned some prestige in the tiny city of Ottamet. These were all very minor exercises. He had Zakorian blood. At length, he went to Thaddra and to Zakoris-In-Thaddra. He did not tell Yl too much about himself, only enough to make himself precious. He never mentioned that he had murdered, albeit on a battlefield, the Storm Lord, Amrek. The deed, actually in retrospect, struck Kathus as a flight of fancy, almost poetic. It had served no purpose for himself. He had been younger and maybe, despite his own training for himself, had wished, in that wild aftermath of quake and defeat, the trumpets of history loud across the darkling plain, to sear his own mark forever on the scroll of events. But Kathus was not a poet. Yl’s taunting assumption that Kathus wanted revenge on Dorthar was itself poetic, and therefore wrong. Kathus merely wanted ownership. He had always wanted that.
He had by now entered the series of caves that were partitioned for dungeons.
He spoke to the guard. When the guard had removed a sliding stone, Kathus was able to peer into a narrow chimney. About seven feet down were the head and shoulders of a man, the one they called Raurm. The chimney was not wide enough for a prisoner to sit; even to brace himself by knees and back, and so lift the weight of the body from the legs, was out of the question for a grown man, though a child or a small woman might have done it.
The Alisaarian prince now known as Kathus stepped aside, and the stone was slipped back in place. The only light below came in via the grill when the stone was off. The chimney would now be in darkness again. The prisoner had been lowered into it by hooks passed through the ropes that bound his body, for the grill, like the stone, was removable. Food and water could be lowered in the same manner. So far, they had been omitted.
Raurm had dwelled in the chimney one night, a day, a portion of a second night. It would seem to him much longer, although not yet like eternity.
Kathus was fascinated. At this stage, when the stone was withdrawn, they usually shrieked and begged, staring and straining toward the hopeless hope of light and space. But Raurm had not even glanced up.
“At noon tomorrow,” Kathus said to the guard. “As you were instructed. It’s clear?”
“Yes, Counselor.”
Musing, Kathus went away, to drink unpleasing Thaddrian wine. And wait.
After the darkness of the cellarways, the midday light in the upper rooms hurt his eyes. His guards had left him in a small bright chamber, unbound, and presently Kathus entered.