“So then what?”
“Nothing. I joined in the wedding, and couldn’t leave until the sun got up. I assumed you’d be gone by that time, and went to sleep it off. Noon was your second choice, and here I am.”
Galutiyh sipped his drink, a vintage of Vardath, sweet and rosy. He said, “What a fibber you are, Yennef. Why dissemble? You slunk off with a young man. I never knew you had those tastes, but so what?”
“You followed me.”
“I had someone follow you.”
“After all these intimate months, you trust me so well.”
“Sensible, it would seem.”
“Anack’s gilt tits,” said Yennef. “He’s a son of mine.”
Galutiyh gave him a prolonged kalinx’s stare.
“My, my.”
“A by-blow, nothing more. But he’d tracked me down—being a friend to the Corhlan bridegroom.”
“Wanted to know why you had dishonored his mother, where the heirlooms were, that sort of thing?”
Yennef shrugged, and drank his wine.
Galutiyh linked his hands behind his head. He said to the sky, “Is it that I’m stupid, or that he thinks I am, or that he is, or that the Dream of the goddess has curdled his brain?”
Yennef did not answer this. He was used to Galutiyh, or had tried to become so. Instead, he responded with, “Down at the dock, I heard some of them discussing a quake in Free Zakoris. The ships brought the word, from Thos. But it may be exaggerated.”
“I know about the earthquake, Yennef. A paltry quiver, to a man of Dorthar’s capital. It’s this other thing I know that’s on my mind. Can it be that you’re attempting to shield him—this lover-son of yours?”
Yennef called the wine-server again. When he had had his refill, Yennef said, “My sons are in Dorthar. This one—there’s no bond between us.”
“Aah. And that is why you know nothing about him. Did you even inquire his name?”
“I know his name, yes.”
“And so do I, Yennef. Rehger the Lydian, a champion slave-Sword of the Alisaarians. Saardsinmey. A rare survivor.”
Yennef put down his cup.
“You’re aware that I’m less concerned with these supposed sorcerous occurrences. I was hired as a political hound.”
“In Dorthar, the political and sorcerous aims of the Amanackire are always considered jointly.”
Yennef, who had been to Amanackire Hamos, and got in the walls of ice, and next out again, not much wiser but a deal colder, was conscious Galutiyh had also gone there, and returned with all his superstitions in fresh trim. “The antics of the weather, and the quakes, the volcano and the wave at Saardsinmey—are necessarily alarming,” said Yennef appeasingly. “I see them as figments of a general unrest. Omens.”
“By which you mean you dismiss the Power the Children of Anackire claim to wield. History displays you are wrong.”
Galutiyh was a fanatic. It was useless to protest. It was indeed Galutiyh’s proximity which had kept Yennef from resigning his post as Dorthar’s agent and spy. You felt that for Galutiyh’s partner to renege, however honestly, would be grounds for Galutiyh’s cleanest knife in the throat. Most of two years they had been roaming now, paired like felons on a great length of chain. Neither had garnered much, for the Lowlanders of the farthest southern Plains were odd, and the ones in Moih only human, full of business and family, so if they had secrets they must keep them even from themselves. As for such bastions as Hamos, unless you could overhear their perpetual within-speech, what could you hope to learn?
Galutiyh was rising from the table, sleek and urbane. He was not much older than Rehger, but not so heroically made, and not as tall as the son or the father. A devout worshipper of the goddess, there was still a twig with red paper leaves tucked into his belt—they were to be had at the Anackire temple here. Galutiyh made sacrifice once every nine days. Not in rapture, which was the only reason for offering in native Moih, but out of dedicated respect. In the wilds, Galutiyh even would catch rats and snakes and make blood and burnt offerings. True Dortharian piety.
“Come with me, Yennef, my dear. I’m going to show you a wonder.”
Yennef had discovered that argument must be saved for extremes. He got up and went after Galutiyh.
“And as we go,” added the short Dortharian, “I’ll tell you a tale to knock two inches from your backbone.”
The fictitious persona in which Yennef traveled Xarabiss and the Lowlands was that of a merchant’s agent. Having been partly robbed of his camouflage at the Dragon Gate, he restocked the wagon in Moiyah and set off for Hamos. During this short journey, his nervous Xarabian servant vanished, and thereafter Yennef did not bother to-replace him. Galutiyh meanwhile, entering Moih a season behind Yennef, settled himself in, in his own way, and built up for himself over succeeding months a coterie of paid underlings.
It was one of these, lurking at the Anklet, who saw Yennef abducted by a Raiding Party. Much later, loitering at Arn Yr’s house, the watcher beheld the re-emergence of Yennef with a solitary companion, and dogged them to the Dusty Flower.
Something about Yennef’s companion advised the watcher not to try much more. And since he did not want to get too close, he was unable to decipher any dialogue. Instead he risked an old stratagem on the wine-shop doorkeeper. “I’m off. There’s a fellow in here I think I know. I owe him money.”
“Who’s that, then?”
“The tall one in the corner. The younger man. He skinned me at Xarar, only I never settled my account.”
“No fear,” said the doorkeeper. “I know that man. He was never in Xarar. He’s the Alisaarian, Rehger.”
“No, I tell you it’s ray beggar from Xarabiss.”
“Have it your own way. But I know it’s Rehger. He was a gladiator and charioteer, and he lived through Saardsinmey. You go up to the Artisans’ Guild and have a look at the bronze he made. A chariot and hiddraxi. They say he’s a find, that in a year or so he could be the best in the guild. Go on, you go and see, and then come back and say you owe him money.”
All this the underling duly reported to Galutiyh.
Galutiyh, who kept abreast of artistic doings, had already visited the bronze-work. As it happened, he had put in a bid for it, for his instinct was developed, and he, too, had caught the fragrance of rogue genius. Applicants to enter the guild did not give up their names publicly with their work. The Charioteer was accredited solely to an “Apprentice of the Studio of Master Vanek.”
Galutiyh, as he now promised Yennef, had started like a cat-snapped pigeon on bringing the two segments of information together.
Yennef looked at Galutiyh stonily.
“He told me his name last night. And that he got out of Saardsinmey.”
“But nothing else? And didn’t a distant harp-string twang? Can I trust you, Yennef my dove?”
They were in the square now, before the guild hall, and the five bronzes ranged about them, blinding in the midday sun.
“Here it is. What a group! I must have it now. I’ll instruct my man to raise the bid.”
Yennef looked at the bronze which his son had made. He saw only that it was very fine, then something else cut suddenly at his heart. Flesh of his flesh, which he had met with and parted from, had created this. The knowledge of whatever he had been, and was, his youth and manhood, his blood, his ancestry—had gone into it. Yennef reached out one hand, and the curved necks of the hiddraxi were under his palm, the chariot wheel, the shoulder of the charioteer. The metal was hot from the sunlight. It seemed to thrum and murmur like a hive of bees. It was alive with Rehger’s life. With Rehger’s life which in turn Yennef had created.
“Now Yennef,” said Galutiyh, “come out of your trance. We’re going to the studio of Vanek.”
Yennef let his hand fall away into the quiet air.
“You’re saying my son is connected to that insane Shansar hocus-pocus you’ve been suckling on.”
Galutiyh beamed upon him.