“Your leg, sir—” said Odrian Kestivaunt.
“Damn the leg! The leg’s no excuse! The Coronal is coming, and the Lady with him. My place is down there on the pier.”
“At least let me change the poultice, sir,” said the little Vroon mildly. “There’s time enough for that.”
It was a reasonable request. Akbalik lowered himself to the stool next to the window and offered his injured calf to the Vroon’s ministration. Deftly, tentacles flying so swiftly that Akbalik could scarcely follow their busy motions, Kestivaunt stripped away yesterday’s bandage, laying bare the angry red wound. It looked worse than ever: puffy, swollen, the area of its jurisdiction over his leg expanding steadily despite the medication. Kestivaunt bathed it in some cool and faintly astringent pale-blue fluid, gently probed the raw place surrounding the wound with the tip of a tentacle, very carefully spread the lips of the cut and peered within. Akbalik hissed. “That hurts, fellow.”
“I ask your pardon, Prince Akbalik. I need to see—”
“Whether any baby swamp-crabs are hatching in there?”
“I told you, sir, there is very little likelihood that the one that bit you was old enough to—”
“Ow! For the love of the Divine, Kestivaunt! Just give it a new poultice and make an end to this poking around, will you? You’re torturing me.”
The Vroon apologized again and bent low over his toil. Akbalik could not see, now, what the small creature was doing; but it hurt less than what he had been doing a moment before, at any rate. Applying some mental emanation with those little wriggling tentacles, a Vroonish spell of healing? Perhaps. And a sprinkle of dried herbs, and more of that cooling blue fluid. The clean bandage, next. Better, yes. For the time being, anyway. Momentary surcease from the furious throbbing, the burning pain, the stomach-turning sense that slender tendrils of infection and corruption were gliding along the hidden pathways of his leg, reaching up toward his groin, his gut, ultimately his heart.
“All done,” Kestivaunt said. Akbalik rose. Gingerly he put his weight on the troubled leg, grimacing a little, catching his breath. He felt shafts of pain running up the entire left side of his body into his neck and onward to his cheek, his jawbone, his teeth. For the millionth time he saw the great purple swamp-crab, the hideous domed bulgy-eyed thing half as big as a floater, rising up menacingly out of the sandy muck before him. Saw himself adroitly turning away from the monster, smugly pleased with his swift response—stepping back from peril so quickly that he failed entirely to notice the other and much smaller crab, not much bigger across than the palm of his hand, slyly reaching one razor-sharp nipper toward his leg from its shelter in the crotch of a stinkflower bush—
“The cane,” he said. “Where’s my damned cane? They’re practically in port already!”
The Vroon indicated the cane, leaning against the wall by the door in its usual place. Akbalik limped across and took it and went out. As he reached the ground floor he paused, looking out into the bright sunlight, breathing deeply, composing himself. He didn’t want to seem like a cripple. The Coronal depended on him. Needed him.
It was no more than fifty yards across a broad cobbled plaza from the doorway of the customs-house where Akbalik maintained his office to the gateway of the piers. Akbalik moved slowly, carefully, holding the head of his cane with a tight grip. Today the distance felt like fifty miles.
Midway to his goal he became aware of the greasy tang of smoke in the air. He looked off to the north, saw the curling black strand climbing into the spotless sky, then the little red tongue higher up, licking out of a smallish building that stood atop a brick pedestal at least sixty feet high. Now he heard the sirens, too. So the crazies were at it again, Akbalik thought—first fire in three or four days, wasn’t it? And today of all days, with the Coronal’s ship landing at this very moment!
A line of Hjort customs-men stood across the entrance to the wharf, blocking access. Akbalik, not bothering to produce his identification, simply scowled at them and waved them out of his path with a sharp backhanded sweep of his hand. Moving past them without a glance, he went limping out toward Pier 44, the royal pier, draped for the occasion today in green and gold bunting.
Three ships, yes, the big cruiser Lord Hostirin and two escorts. The Coronal’s honor guard had come down the gangplank and was lining up along the pier. A little gaggle of Mayor Bannikap’s people was stationed just beyond them as a welcoming committee, with Bannikap himself visible in the midst of the crowd. “Prestimion!” they were crying.
“Prestimion! Lord Prestimion! Long life to Lord Prestimion!” The usual chant. How tired he must be of it!
And there he was, now, at the rail, with Varaile beside him and the Lady Therissa a short distance to their left, half hidden behind her son. To their rear, rising up out of the shadows, Akbalik saw the lofty figure of Prestimion’s two-headed magus Maundigand-Klimd. How ironic, Akbalik thought, that Prestimion, who once had no belief in sorcery at all, never seemed to go anywhere any more without that Su-Suheris magus at his side.
There in the group too—Akbalik was startled to see him—was young Dekkeret, hovering at the Lady Varaile’s elbow. That was a surprise. What was Dekkeret doing aboard a ship coming in from the Isle? Shouldn’t he still be off in Suvrael, seeking in the discomfort of the desert heat the Divine’s pardon for letting that guide-woman die—or else, what was more likely, have gone back to the Castle by this time?
But maybe Suvrael hadn’t supplied him with a sufficiently gratifying degree of the atonement, the penance, that he had so desperately seemed to want when Akbalik last saw him in Zimroel, and that strange spiritual hunger of his had led the boy to go from the bleak southern continent to the sanctuary of the gentle Lady for further repairs to his soul. Where Prestimion had encountered him during the course of his own visit to the Lady, and now was bringing him back. Yes, Akbalik thought. That must be it.
He hurried forward, wincing again and again as the stress of hurried movement brought him fresh pain. Shouldering his way into the midst of the scene, he took up a position right in front of the honor guard. This was Bannikap’s city, yes, but it was at Akbalik’s request that Lord Prestimion was here, and Akbalik wanted to cut through the official folderol as quickly as possible. He had hardly any patience at all left any more, not with that fiery pain gnawing at his left leg all the time.
“Lordship!” he called. “Lordship!”
The Coronal saw him and waved. Akbalik offered him a starburst. And then, as the Lady came into clearer view, he gave her her special sign of respect too. They began their descent to the pier. Mayor Bannikap came forward, his jaws already moving in the preamble to his speech of welcome, but Akbalik cut him off with a stinging glance and went to the Coronal’s side first.
Prestimion held out his arms for an embrace. Akbalik, not knowing what to do with his cane, tucked it under his arm and clasped it awkwardly to his side as he returned the Coronal’s greeting.
“What’s this thing?” Prestimion asked.
Akbalik tried to seem casual about it. “A minor leg injury, my lord. Annoying, but not particularly serious. There are many more important matters than this for us to discuss.”
“Yes,” Prestimion said. “As soon as I can get the stupid formalities out of the way.” He indicated Mayor Bannikap with a quick toss of his head and winked.
Akbalik turned from him and offered his homage to the Lady, and to the Lady Varaile. Dekkeret gave him a shy, uncomfortable grin. He was still keeping to the background.