The hairy man on his knuckles shrieked and tried to leap backward, throwing his hands up to protect his face, and Maggie whacked off his hands while slicing open his face, turned to her last foe who shouted, “Ah, damn you!” and leapt backward.
He drew his own sword ringing from its sheath, and from the cornice of the building above them, the batlike creature blasted its shrill whistle three times.
The swordsman didn’t give her a second to think, merely advanced on her, his sword blurring in the moonlight. Maggie was far outmatched in swordsmanship. She stepped back, and in her haste stumbled over the corpse of one of her victims.
The swordsman pressed the attack, swiping maliciously. She managed to parry with her own blade. His sword snapped under the impact, and hers flew from her hand, landed three yards away.
Her attacker jumped at her, landing a foot on her chest, knocking the air from her. For a moment, Maggie’s vision went black from the pain, and she raised her head feebly. Her attacker held his broken sword, its jagged edge lodged in her Adam’s apple.
“Here now, sweet lady,” he panted. “You see, all of your resistance has come to naught. I never wanted to hurt you.” Maggie looked up into his face, and a shock went through her. Though the man was tall, his narrow face was a pale yellow, and he was unnaturally handsome, lustrous, almost as if his face were cast in ceramics. And there was a kindness to his voice. He believed what he said. He didn’t want to hurt her.
He struggled with his free hand to untie a pouch wrapped to his belt, opened the pouch and pulled out something small and silver that glittered in the moonlight. It moved like an insect, a large praying mantis perhaps, but its body was sleeker, longer, and more angular.
“Here is the Word. Let it set you free!”
He put it on her chest, and the creature poised for a moment with one huge claw ready to stab into her chest. Then, carefully checking each direction, it began stalking toward her face.
* * *
Chapter 11
The Bock led Gallen over the hill and into a city market, on a wide street where canvas tarpaulins fixed to poles provided some shelter. Under the tarps, small, tan-colored men and women haggled with customers over the prices of exotic fruits and trays of fishes. The locals wore short colorful tunics that left their legs exposed. On their shoulders they wore hooded half capes made of soft, oiled leather.
The vendors’ stalls smelled strongly of curry, anise, saffron, vanilla, and pepper-salt and spices beyond number. The pair moved past brass potmakers, past coils of hemp, bags of wheat, down toward some docks where they had to pass human guards.
Forty ships had put into port, and the docks were awash with all types of cargo-bales of wool and cotton, silks and hemp. Crates filled with beans and furniture, ingots of brass and steel. The Bock explained that most of the people in the crowd were nonhumans, come to trade from far-off lands.
A batch of red-furred sailors in heavy leather armor were unloading a scow, singing a high nasal song. Gallen looked at them in wonder, feeling that something more was wrong with them than their fur, when he realized that they had no ears.
Among bales of cotton, a dark woman dressed in yellow silks sat upon a palanquin that was at the moment unattended. On a long metal chain she held a pitiable creature, an emaciated girl with greenish skin and sad eyes who squatted naked atop a coil of hemp. There were no other men about to bear the palanquin, and as Gallen looked at the woman, she squatted on her hands, and smiled at him. She moved in an odd manner, scratching her arm with her teeth in a way that was distinctly unlike anything he had seen before, and as she stared at him with glimmering eyes, the look of undisguised lust in her eyes frightened him, for Gallen understood immediately that she did not lust for his flesh, except to eat it.
“What is that?” Gallen asked in disgust, leaping back from the woman.
“That is a Herap,” the Bock answered. “Among her people, ten men are born for every female. Once she mates with a man, she dines on him, if she can.”
Gallen was truly dismayed by all of this, and soon the oddities he noticed among the locals-grotesquely enlarged chests, huge grasping toes, violet skin-all began to meld together in his mind, a seething collage of monstrosities.
A warm shower started, but despite the downpour, the people milled about freely, oblivious to such weather. If it had truly been the Bock’s determination to simplify parade Gallen through the streets, it could have taken Gallen back to Maggie then. But instead the Bock led him resolutely past the marketplace, down toward a district where the buildings began to close in, stone houses flanking the narrow streets, each house with its pillars and portico protruding out so far that they had to walk around them.
“Where are we going?” Gallen asked at last, wiping the rain from his face. “Consider for a moment,” the Bock answered, “but do not speak your guess.” And Gallen knew that they were going to see Ceravanne.
The Bock led Gallen down around the bay, and over a hill, farther up the coast. The city extended on for miles, stretching among the hills, and Gallen realized that they had been only at the very southern tip of it. The sky began to darken, and the streets emptied far too quickly, until few people walked the streets, and those who did glanced about furtively and would duck into alleyways when they saw Gallen and the Bock approaching.
“This part of the city isn’t safe,” Gallen said.
“If you wore weapons or more clothing, this would be a dangerous neighborhood,” the Bock answered. “But obviously you are carrying no money. A half-naked man and a Bock-no one would bother with us. Besides, are you not a killer?”
“A Lord Protector,” Gallen answered uncomfortably.
“A killer,” the Bock argued, a hint of distaste in his voice.
“And you disapprove?” Gallen asked.
“I am a Bock. We respect all life.”
“You must eat.”
“I have a mouth so that I may speak,” the Bock answered. “Beyond that, I take nourishment from the rain and the soil. I cannot comprehend killing. Life is precious-in all its forms. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. Some peoples are esteemed as less than others. For example, in the wilderness of Babel, there are creatures called the Roamers. Their ancestors were humans, but the desire for enclosure was bred out of them, and they were given hair and great strength and stamina, so that they might thrive in the wilds without shelter. They wear no clothes, and many in Babel think of them as somehow less than human, animals. The Roamers do not have human rights-access to human technology and the human system of justice.”
“That doesn’t seem fair to me,” Gallen said. “Why, back home, every man can have his day in court.”
“But for many subspecies of human,” the Bock countered, “the human system of justice itself is unfair. It requires them to think and act like humans-something they cannot do. And so we cannot hold them to human laws.”
“But what if a nonhuman kills someone else?” Gallen said. “Certainly you can’t just allow that.”
“All beings are held accountable equally,” the Bock answered. “In such cases, our courts hire a champion to hunt down the offender, and slay it.”
And suddenly Gallen knew why he was here. “The Inhuman.…”
The Bock glanced at him sideways, the wide portion of his head swiveling. “Yes. Champions have been sent to Babel to hunt the Inhuman, but they never returned, and still its power spreads. That is why our leaders requested a Lord Protector from off-world, someone licensed to use weapons that we keep restricted here.”
“So you want me to hunt down and slay this Inhuman?” Gallen asked.
“I want nothing of the sort. Whether the lion or the jackal wins this conflict does not matter to me. It does not matter to the rocks and sky and water. I see little difference between the goals of the Inhuman and your goals, nor do I see any difference in your methods for gaining control. Ceravanne says that your people fight for freedom, but freedom is an illusion, so long as the light within you is encased in a body made of dust. You are all slaves to your animal desires-”