Liberator Of Jedd Part 9

Now the man was giving orders, dismissing most of his party. Blade peered harder as Nizra stepped full into the glare of a torch. The man wore a flowing robe and a skullcap, as had the others, but the skullcap was a gleaming scarlet. A badge of office, Blade supposed, as was the gleaming chain that encircled the scrawny neck and at which the man continually fumbled with spidery fingers.

Nizra, with four soldiers in attendance, walked a short way around the lake, following a well-worn path, and disappeared into a tall, narrow house of the usual stone and wood. The soldiers did not enter. Blade watched as they spoke for a moment, then split into twos, one party remaining before the house, the other disappearing in the gloom to the rear. This Nizra was well guarded. So much the better. He would be that much more impressed when Blade appeared like a wraith from the very walls. For Blade was counting heavily on the first confrontation. It would decide his fortunes, and whether he would live or die.

He waited patiently until things quieted down. He had about two hours until dawn. Barge traffic between the landing and the pavilion ceased, though the dim lights still glowed and music came everlastingly over the quiet water. Blade made ready. He watched the two guards in front of the house intently. They were bored and sullen and patrolled back and forth, hardly speaking, each intent on his own thoughts. The only light was a guttering torch in a sconce over the door of the house that enlarged and distorted the shadows of the guards as they pa.s.sed to and fro. Blade moved in closer.

He had only the stone knife. This killing, for he meant to kill them for his own safety and for the effect of it, must be a matter of skill and timing and luck. The skill involved did not worry him, when he had to be, Blade was a most efficient killer.

Still he waited and at last the guards paused to chat for a moment beneath the torch. Blade had been waiting for that. He ran swiftly across the path and ducked into the shadows of a hedge that lay near the end of the near guard's beat. Blade crouched there, stone knife ready, waiting. It must be noiseless.

The guards resumed their pacing. The man was coming toward Blade now, leather harness creaking, short sword swinging in its scabbard, the faintest of star sheen reflected from polished iron armor. Blade took a deep breath and held it.

The guard pa.s.sed him. He was humming, very softly, a s.n.a.t.c.h of the refrain that came from the old Empress' pavilion. Blade let him get three paces past, then took him from behind with one brawny arm about his throat to stifle any cry. With his free hand he brought the stone knife around and sought for the man's throat just above the breastplate. The guard was strong and struggled mightily for his life, but Blade held him as he might a babe and slit the jugular neatly. Blood spurted, drenching the dying man and Blade as well. He did not mind. He wanted the blood on him.

Time was important now. The other guard would have reached the end of his run and turned back. Blade held the guard erect until he bled himself out, then lowered him and s.n.a.t.c.hed off the swordbelt and scabbard. The sword was short and wide, double-edged with a thick hilt, and very heavy. Very like an old Roman sword.

Blade hauled the body into the shadows, fastened the swordbelt around his slim waist and started walking toward the torch over the door of the Wise One's house. He went slowly, with a measured tread, matching his pace to that of the other guard now approaching. As he drew near the aura of light cast by the torch, Blade drew the heavy sword from its scabbard. He let it dangle by his side, concealing it as much as possible with his leg. The other guard must experience a split second of shock and surprise and terror, and Blade was counting on that.

Both men strode into the flickering circle of light. The guard said, "I have been thinking, Topah. How did you say it was that, "

He stopped, staring, his mouth gaping in surprise at the thing that approached him. This was not Topah! This was not a Jedd! This was not anything in the world he had ever seen before, this yellow-clad and blood-drenched corpse-burner with blazing eyes, this towering and muscular thing that was lunging at him now. Topah? Where was Topah?

"Topah, "

It came out as a mere squeak of death. Blade used all his ma.s.sive strength and put the iron sword into the guard just below the breastplate and above the groin. As he thrust, he twisted the blade in a cla.s.sic disemboweling cut. At the same time he used a backhand chop to smash the man's throat and voice box. It was over.

Blade put his foot on the corpse and tugged out the sword. He left it b.l.o.o.d.y. He dragged the body out of range of the torch and then turned and went into the house of Nizra, the Wise One.

He found himself in a short hallway. A taper burned starkly on a barrel-like table. Blade took blood from the sword and daubed it on his face, drawing a crude pattern around his eyes. As a part of his long-ago training as a secret agent, he had studied the ways of American Indians and the ways in which facial paint could be used to induce terror. He could have used a mirror.

At the end of the hall, a steep flight of stairs led upward. Blade leaped up them like a great cat, the b.l.o.o.d.y sword held at the ready before him. There might be more guards in the house. He hoped not. Dawn would be on him soon and time was at a premium. He wanted to get on with the business at hand.

There were no guards. Another taper gleamed in the upper hall. There was a single door, half open, and through it Blade saw the Wise One asleep in a great bed with a canopy over it. This, if it could be called a luxury, was the only one. The room was barren, stark, with nothing but a chair and a table, on which were piles of books and papers, and a large clay pot near the bed.

Blade went softly into the room, carrying the taper, and closed the door behind him. There was a bolt and he slid it to. He walked to the bed and poked at the enshrouded figure with his swordpoint.

"Wake up," said Blade. "Wake up, Nizra. Wise One. Wake up!"

The head, like a huge bald melon, emerged from the covers. Small dark eyes, like dank moths, fluttered at Blade. The taut white skin, stretched over the ma.s.sive skull and marred not even by a hair root, mirrored the taper like an ivory ball.

Blade, towering by the bedside like a demon, glowering with his b.l.o.o.d.y face and clothes and the threatening sword, forever gave Nizra credit for his first words.

The dark eyes blinked. The thin mouth, tiny in the big head, said, "You are a fool. I am not dead yet, corpseburner. Get back to your proper work and leave me to my rest." The voice was another surprise. A rich and robust baritone with the promise of ba.s.so.

Blade covered his own surprise with a laugh. "I am not a corpseburner and you know it, Nizra. But that is all you know. Are you awake now? Do you hear and understand me? There is little time for us to reach an understanding."

The black eyes were studying him. Trying to understand, to cope, to sort matters out and decide if this was a dream or reality. And if real, how near was death? Because no man, no matter how dull and sleepy, could stare at the terrible figure Blade made and not know that he was very close to dying. The great bald head nodded and the little dark eyes blinked and the Wise One conceded this.

The marvelous deep voice slid down a note. "True. You are no corpseburner. Who are you then, and what do you want with me? And how came you into this house? My guards, "

Blade held up the blood-gummed sword. "Your guards, the two before the house, are dead. This sword and this blood prove that. I killed them easily and with a purpose, to convince you, Nizra, that I am what I will presently tell you I am. And to show you that I will kill you also, as quickly and as easily as I killed your guards, if you do not cooperate with me absolutely and without question. From this moment on, Nizra, I will order and you will obey. You understand?"

Blade took a step toward the bed and raised the sword a bit. He watched the spidery hands lying on the coverlet. Near the bedpost was a bell pull. The long fingers twitched once or twice, but the hand made no move toward the pull.

"I understand," said Nizra. "What do you want of me?"

There was no fear in the deep voice. The black eyes, for the first time Blade noted that they had no lashes, stared back at Blade. He knew then that he had very nearly met his match. For now he had the upper hand, by brute force, but one mistake could change that. For a moment Blade actually felt disappointment and a sense of pique, this Wise One, this Nizra, was either not afraid at all or he was a master of hiding fear. What he was displaying was curiosity. Plain and simple curiosity. Blade could not help wondering whether he, if awakened in the dead of night under similar circ.u.mstances, would have been able to summon such aplomb.

The man in the bed seemed to understand all this. He folded his skinny fingers across his chest and repeated, "What is it you want of me?"

Blade thrust his sword into the scabbard with a ring of iron. He kicked the single chair toward the bed and sat down. He crossed his own brawny arms and matched the dark eyes stare for stare. Blade knew that the time for violence, or the threat of it, was for the moment past. Now was a time for guile and cunning and the matching of wits. For self-interest. For compromise. He had won the first round, but the wedge was barely in the door.

Blade leaned toward the bed. "You will listen. You will not ask questions or interrupt. I will explain as best I can, but I tell you now that you will not understand. Or you will understand very little. It is in the nature of things."

He paused. Nizra nodded slightly and kept silent.

"I am not a Jedd," said Blade. "As you must know. I am not even of your world. Of your universe. I cannot even be properly called a stranger, because that would signify some slight connection with your world. I do not even claim that. I come from out in time and s.p.a.ce, from a place you never dreamed of, or ever will, and it would be useless for you to speculate on that, "

The little opaque eyes moved and glittered. Nizra was already speculating. Blade could almost hear the huge brain, beneath its bony carapace, clicking and whirring as the gears meshed and raced. It occurred to him that this Wise One was not so much a man as a thinking machine. It would be his bad luck, he thought sourly, to encounter a genius in Jedd. To make matters more difficult.

But he continued: "I am not a G.o.d nor a devil, if you understand those words. I have been sent to your world on a mission, to do certain work, and when I have completed that work I will leave and return to my own world. I would like to complete my work in peace and without more killing. I would like to be a friend and not an enemy. If you will understand this, Nizra, and believe it and work with me and not against me I can finish my task and be gone that much sooner. Now speak, of all that I have said, how much have you understood?"

The ma.s.sive head lolled on its delicate stalk of spine. The eyes narrowed at Blade. A hand came slowly up to stroke the shining bald dome.

"I understand your words. They are plain enough. If there is a concealed meaning in them I will in time understand that also. If you speak truth or not I do not yet know, but I will know. At this moment I only accept. I do not believe or disbelieve. Let us leave it that way then. I have no wish to be your enemy unless it is to my gain to be so. It may be that you do speak truth, and I would be a fool indeed not to accept that and learn from you. I am not a fool. And I am not afraid of you. Not now. If you were going to kill me you would have done it at once."

Blade raised the b.l.o.o.d.y sword. "There is still time."

The little mouth smiled. "No. Not now. Because it is plain that you have come to make a bargain of some sort. So get to it. We will leave all explanation and questions for later. What do you want of me? And how are you called?"

"My name is Richard Blade. It will mean nothing to you."

Nizra blinked. "A man must be called something. Richard Blade? Two names? We in Jedd have but one. Did you come alone into our world?"

Blade kept his face impa.s.sive. "I came alone. I will leave alone." Ooma must be protected at all costs. He would not have her questioned, probably under torture. Nor the aunts, for that matter. Not even the fat drunkard, Mok, must be placed in danger. They had nothing to do with all this.

Nizra said once more, "What do you want of me, Richard Blade? It will be dawn soon with people astir and if we are to be friends and work together there are preparations and explanations to make ready. So what do you expect of me, and what do you offer me in return?"

Blade answered a question with a question. "How long will the old Empress, the Jeddock, stay alive?"

Nizra blinked three times. The scant brows over the lashless eyes raised in slight surprise, but he only said, "I am called the Wise One by the Jedds, and it is true that I am wise in many things, but I cannot answer that question."

"Guess, then. An estimate."

The tiny mouth pursed, then: "A minute, an hour, a day, a month or a year. That is my guess."

Blade glared, but gave it up. He tried another tack. "Is she senile? What is her mental condition?"

Nizra smiled faintly and interlaced his long, white fingers. "Her mind is filled with mists of the past. She is in a stupor and understands very little of what is said to her. But one thing, if the music halts but for an instant she knows it and complains."

Blade nodded and was silent for a moment, thinking hard. Nizra took advantage of the silence. "How got you past the Api, Blade? I speak of the main post at the valley entrance. I know how you killed Porrex and got past the frontier station, for I received signals, but then you vanished and now here you are. How did you avoid the main body of the Api?"

No mention of the girl. Just as well. Blade said, "I came around, over the mountains."

For the first time, Nizra showed clear disbelief. "That is impossible, Blade. No one can cross those mountains. n.o.body ever has in all the history of Jedd."

"I did," Blade said curtly. "I am here, am I not? Threatening your life and giving you orders. But enough of that, Would you say that the old Empress, in her dying state, is highly susceptible to suggestion?"

The great head lolled and the little mouth twitched in understanding. "Yes," Nizra answered. "I would say that she is. At least I hope so. I have been suggesting many things to her these past few days and she has seemed amenable." Dryly he added, "She signs any doc.u.ment I put before her."

Blade gave him a knowing grin. "That will be many doc.u.ments, I wager. All designed to perpetuate and consolidate your power when she is dead, Nizra? All designed to give you control over the Child Princess, Mitgu?"

The dark eyes met his without flinching. "It would seem," said the Wise One, "that we are men who think alike in certain things. Perhaps we can be friends after all, Blade. Or at least not enemies. Now suppose you tell me, what is it that you wish me to whisper into the old Jeddock's ear about you? And what doc.u.ment must be signed pertaining to you?"

Blade leaned closer to the bed.

"You read me well, Nizra, to a point. You will have a private audience with the Empress and you will tell her that, on this very night, you had a vision, "

The huge head rolled on its frail backbone and the mouth smiled in dry derision. "That will be no lie, Blade. I did. I am having a vision. A most grotesque and horrible vision, and visitant."

Blade made an impatient motion. "Listen. Listen well. You will tell your Jeddock that in this vision I came to you, in my very person, as I now stand here, and proclaimed myself as the avatar come to save Jedd. As the savior of your people. There is such a promise, I think, in the Books of Birkbegn? Mention is made of someone who will arrive one day to lead the Jedds to a better way of life?" He leaned to stare hard at the man in the bed.

This time the little eyes avoided him, but not before Blade had seen the surprise and the beginnings of respect and even fear in them. Blade, of course, was only remembering what he had extracted from Ooma and Mok.

"You are most well informed about the Jedds, Blade."

He nodded shortly. "I am. It would be well to remember that, Nizra. But answer my questions. Am I right?"

"Yes. To a point. There is some vague reference in the Books to the coining of a, of such a personage as you mention."

Blade leaned back and crossed his thick legs. His thigh muscles ached and quivered and he began to realize how tired he was. He must sleep soon. When it was safe to do so.

He grinned at Nizra. "I see. You, my friend, are not a true believer in the Books?"

For the first time, the tiny mouth opened in a genuine laugh and he saw that Nizra was toothless. The shrunken gums snapped at Blade. "I have told you," said Nizra sourly, "that I am not a fool. I see what is in your mind and I will do it. I foresee no difficulty there. I will do it because, if you keep your word to me, it will be to my advantage to do so. I will gain by it. When you return to your own world, if indeed you spoke the truth about that, I will have gained even more. I am a practical man, Blade, and not so much interested in methods as in results. We have a bargain, Blade."

Blade smiled at him. "A good one for you, Nizra, as well as for me. If I am accepted as the avatar promised by the Books, and I am on your side, you will have a powerful ally against the captains who plot against you and who plan a palace revolution as soon as the old woman is dead. Not so?"

Once again respect glinted in the dark eyes. Respect and a degree of puzzlement.

The great head swayed in a nod. "I could almost think, Blade, that you are the avatar spoken of in the Books of Birkbegn."

Blade laughed. "Do not begin our partnership with more lies than you must, Nizra. You do not believe a word of it."

Nizra did not answer. He was getting out of bed. Blade retreated a few steps, sword ready, and watched. It was in its own way fascinating, this little scene within a scene, this mere act of watching Nizra disrobe and dress again. For the man was no more than a skeleton, a walking corpse whose bones showed clearly through the stringy, discolored flesh. Nizra was about five feet tall and Blade doubted that he weighed a hundred pounds. It was as though all the substance of the body had gone to the great head and the brain it encased.

Nizra wore a tent-like gown of a cloth that Blade thought of as tussah, a crude silk. This he took off before Blade without hesitation and with no shame. Then he donned a single undergarment of the same material. Over this he donned the same rich robe he had worn when Blade first saw him. Then the scarlet skullcap to partially hide the bald head. Lastly he took from beneath his pillow the chain of office.

"A moment," said Blade bluntly. He took the chain from Nizra and examined it. It was very heavy, of iron polished to a high sheen, and formed of many small and exquisitely forged links. Blade dangled it in his hand, weighing it, watching Nizra closely. There was anxiety in the dark eyes and the spidery hands reached impatiently for the chain.

"It is nearly dawn," said Nizra. "I must see the bodies of my guards, for if you are a liar I must know it now, and if you are not a liar they must be disposed of and a tale told." Again he reached anxiously for the chain.

Blade handed it back to him. Inwardly he was content He had judged Nizra correctly. Power, and only absolute power, was all the meat and drink this man craved. Lord Leighton had been right. This Dimension X did, in many ways, closely parallel Home Dimension.

Nizra slipped the chain over his ma.s.sive head and settled it into place. He looked at Blade with a speculative eye and with an openness that belied the cunning that Blade knew lurked in the man.

"I have been thinking," said Nizra. "There is nothing of it written in the Books of Birkbegn, and I have read them well and know them by heart, but it would be as well if the Child Princess Mitgu had a husband. A certain special type of husband, naturally. Would you be averse, Blade, to marriage with a child of ten? Who, like most Jedd females at that age, is very nearly a woman?"

Blade was completely surprised and taken aback. Nothing like this had remotely entered his planning. He took refuge in brusqueness.

"You look too far into the future," he said harshly. "There is no sense in discussing such matters now."

The vast skull swayed toward him. "I agree, Blade. But think on it. Think well on it."

The dark eyes glittered at Blade.

Chapter Fifteen.

During the next few hours Blade saw much to admire in Nizra. The old man was competent and cool and his brain was fertile. And the Wise One commanded unquestioning obedience from his servants and soldiers. Blade was washed and trimmed and given undergarments and a robe as rich as those of Nizra himself. He was given another sword, a better-made one with a hilt adorned with raw, uncut jewels which Blade could have sworn were rubies and diamonds. When questioned about the gems, Nizra said, with indifference, that they came from mines in the surrounding mountains. They were gewgaws, of no real value and used only for show. Such was the Jedd thinking. Blade made a resolve to see those mines as soon as possible.

During the past few months, back in Home Dimension, he had undergone a rigorous and much-telescoped course in geology. Lord L had insisted on it, J had concurred, and Blade, who could do anything when he was interested and set his mind to it, was by now a good amateur geologist, something of a mining engineer. And besides being able to recognize most ores, he was somewhat qualified to judge oil-bearing terrain when and if he came upon it. Now, as he stood peering out a narrow window at the filthy, twisting streets of Jeddia and the mountains beyond, he thought that Project DX might at last begin to pay its way. To return some of the millions of pounds that had been invested in it. All it needed was for the hardworking boffins in Scotland to perfect the science of teleportation.

All that must wait. Survival, prestige, power and status were the important things at the moment. He could accomplish nothing without the latter three, and although survival was as important to Blade as to any man, it would mean little if he could not do his job. He wanted desperately, this time, to take good news back to Lord L and J, and the Prime Minister. News of tangible a.s.sets that could be exploited by England.

He watched a death cart creak slowly through the streets not far from him. The yellow-garbed corpseburner paused at nearly every house and waited while a body was brought out and flung into the cart atop the others already sprawled there. Nizra had said that the Yellow Death, this time, was the worst in the memory of the Jedds, and it showed no sign of abating. Blade filed the fact away. It might be a lever he could use one day.

He watched the slow progress of the cart toward the city gates and the dirty smudge of fires from the charnel pits. His lips twitched in a wry smile. Nizra had gotten rid of the guards' bodies in a simple and highly efficient manner, by calling a death cart and having them flung into it and hidden by other bodies. No questions had been asked.

Blade thought of Ooma and, for a moment, experienced a tenderness and a sudden rush of s.e.xual desire. He pushed both out of his mind. Ooma was safe with her aunts and the fat Mok, and so she must remain for now. When the time was right, if it ever was, he would send for her. Or at least go to see her. He did not think that she would come seeking him. Fear of the plague would keep her out of the city. Not that the Yellow Death did not stalk the countryside as well. It did, but the chances of catching it were less in open country than in the crowded and dirty city.

Blade continued to stare out the window. The cart had reached the gates now and was pa.s.sing out of his view. Blade tugged at his ear and frowned. Rats were unknown in Jedd. He had not seen one and neither Ooma nor Mok had known what a rat was. And insofar as he knew there were no fleas in Jedd. He watched as a window opened down the street and a woman poured the contents of a clay pot down into the street. She drenched a pa.s.serby, and there was a great contention.

Blade stepped away from the window and closed it. There was the answer. Human filth. Especially in the city. The Jedds wallowed in it and thought it nothing. Great reeking ma.s.ses of human excreta clogged the streets and, over the stench of the corpse fires, the city smelled like one vast urinal. Through the closed window, from afar, came the sound of manic laughter as another unfortunate went into the final throes. Blade shrugged, but his spine I was cold. It was not a way for a man like himself to die. What was delaying the Wise One?

Nizra, once the bodies were disposed of and his plans made, had been in a tearing hurry to take a barge and get to the pavilion in the lake. He had minced no words with Blade.

"Time works against us. If the Jeddock dies before I can arrange matters, that she recognize you as the avatar spoken of in the Books, I cannot promise the future. All the captains of the palace wish power and each plots against the others. They are in unity only against me. Thus far I have managed to keep them divided and weak, but when the old lady dies it will be another story. Then will come the showdown. We need each other, Blade."

So Blade waited, pacing the little room impatiently. He had promised Nizra that he would not venture out and indeed had no wish to do so. Still he was beset by anxiety, the terrible pain might return at any moment and Lord L s.n.a.t.c.h him back before his task was done. Or he might catch the Yellow Death and die laughing in torment. Or Nizra might suffer a change of mind and betray him, have him slain out of hand. With all these doubts to plague him, it was little wonder that Blade was in a foul mood when at last Nizra came into the room. By the slant of sun through the window, it was well past midday.

"You were long enough," Blade said roughly. "How does it prosper?"

Nizra fingered his chain of office and nodded, his huge head bobbing like a balloon on a string. "Well enough. I told my story of the vision and she believed. Or seemed to. She is always in and out of coma and it is hard to know how much she hears and understands. And she is very close to death. Are you ready? There is not a moment to lose. I had private speech with her, but the captains are alert and prowling like lice on a corpse. If the Empress dies before we can get her blessing and recognition, Blade, we are likely to find ourselves in a chancy spot."