M Harrison: Viriconium

The survivor woke, flinched when he saw Cromis, his remaining hand clawing at the blue embroidered silks of the wall-bed on which he lay. He was a heavy-boned man of medium height, and seemed to be of the lower merchant classes, a vendor of wine, perhaps, or women. The pupils of his black eyes were dilated, their whites large and veined with red. He seemed to relax a little. Cromis took his shoulders, and, as gently as he was able, pressed him down.

“Rest yourself,” he told him. “You are in the tower of tegeus-Cromis, that some men call Balmacara. I must know your name if we are to talk.”

The black eyes flickered warily round the walls. They touched briefly on a powered battle-axe that Cromis had got from his friend Tomb the Dwarf after the sea fight at Mingulay in the Rivermouth campaign; moved to the gaudy green-and-gold standard of Thorisman Carlemaker, whom Cromis had defeated single-handed-and with regret, since he had no quarrel with the fine rogue-in the Mountains of Monadliath; came finally to rest on the hilt of the intangible-bladed baan that had accidentally killed Cromis’s sister Galen. He looked from that to Cromis.

“I am Ronoan Mor, a merchant.” There was open suspicion in his eyes and in his voice. He fumbled beneath his clothing. “You have strange tastes,” he said, nodding at the relics on the wall. Cromis, noting the fumbling hand, smiled.

“Your coin fell as I carried you from your launch, Ronoan Mor.” He pointed to where the three purses lay on an inlaid table. “You will find that all of it is present. How are things in the Pastel City?”

It could not have been the money that worried Ronoan Mor, for the wariness did not leave his face. And that was a surprising thing. He bared his teeth.

“Hard,” he muttered, gazing bitterly at his severed limb. He hawked deep in his throat, and might have spat had there been a receptacle. “The young bitch holds steady, and we were routed. But-”

There was such a look of fanaticism in his eyes that Cromis’s hand, of its own accord, began to caress the pommel of the nameless sword. He was more puzzled than angered by Mor’s insult to the Young Queen. If a man normally given to dreaming of bargain prices and a comfortable retirement (if of anything at all) could show this measure of devotion to a political cause, then things were truly out of joint in the land. Immediately, he found himself thinking: And did you need to know that, Sir Cromis? Is it not enough that the Pastel Towers shudder and fall overnight? There must be further proof?

But he smiled and interrupted Mor, saying softly, “That is not so hard, sir.”

For a moment, the survivor went on as if he had not heard:

“-But she cannot hold for long when Canna Moidart’s Northern allies join with those patriots left in the city-”

There was a feverish, canting tone in his voice, as though he repeated a creed. Sweat broke out on his brow, and spittle appeared on his lips. “Aye, we’ll have her then, for sure! And caught between two blades-”

He held his tongue and studied Cromis closely, squinting. Cromis stared levelly back, endeavouring not to show how this intelligence affected him. Mor clawed himself into a sitting position, trembling with the effort.

“Wise to reveal yourself, tegeus-Cromis!” he cried suddenly, like an orator who singles one man from a crowd of rustics. “Where does your service lie?”

“You tire yourself needlessly,” murmured Cromis. “It matters little to me,” he lied, “for, as you see, I am a recluse. But I admit myself interested in this tale of the Old Queen and her Northern cousins. She has a large following, you say?”

As if in answer, Ronoan Mor’s good hand fumbled in his clothing again. And this time, it drew forth a twelve-inch sliver of flickering green light that hissed and crackled:

A baan.

He drew back his lips, held the ancient weapon stiffly before him (all men fear them, even their users), and snarled, “Large enough for you, sir. You see”-he glanced sideways at the trophies on the wall-“others may hold forceblades. Northerners, they tell me, have many such. With whom does your service lie, tegeus-Cromis?” He twitched the baan so it sparked and spat. “ Tell me! Your evasions weary me-”

Cromis felt perspiration trickling under his armpits. He was no coward, but he had been long away from violence; and though the baan was in poor condition, the energies that formed its blade running low, it would still slice steel, make play of bone and butter of flesh.

“I would remind you, Ronoan Mor,” he said quietly, “that you are ill. Your arm. Fever makes you hasty. I have given you succour-”

“This to your succour!” shouted Mor, and spat. “Tell me, or I’ll open you from crutch to collarbone.”

The baan flickered like an electric snake.

“You are a fool, Ronoan Mor. Only a fool insults a man’s queen under that man’s hospitable roof.”

Mor flung his head back and howled like a beast.

He lunged blindly.

Cromis whirled, tangled his cloak about hand and baan. As the blade cut free, he crouched, rolled, changed direction, rolled again, so that his body became a blur of motion on the stone-flagged floor. The nameless sword slid from its sheath, and he was tegeus-Cromis the Northkiller once again, Companion of the Order of Methven and Bane of Carlemaker.

Confused, Mor backed up against the head of the bed, his slitted eyes fixed on the crouching swordsman. He was breathing heavily.

“Forget it, man!” said Cromis. “I will accept your apologies. Your illness wears you. I have no use for this foolishness. The Methven do not slaughter merchants.”

Mor threw the forceblade at him. tegeus-Cromis, who had thought never to fight again, laughed.

As the baan buried itself in the trophy wall, he sprang forward, so that his whole long body followed the line of the nameless sword.

A choked cry, and Ronoan Mor was dead. tegeus-Cromis, who fancied himself a better poet than armsman, stood over the corpse, watched sadly the blood well onto the blue silk bed, and cursed himself for lack of mercy.

“I stand for Queen Jane, merchant,” he said. “As I stood for her father. It is that simple.”

He wiped the blade of the sword with no name and went to prepare himself for a journey to the Pastel City, no longer plagued by dreams of a quiet life.

Before he left, another thing happened, a welcome thing.

He did not expect to see his tower again. In his skull, there was a premonition: Canna Moidart and her true kinsmen burned down from the voracious North with wild eyes and the old weapons, come to extract vengeance from the city and empire that had ousted them a century since. The savage blood ran true: though Canna Moidart was of Methven’s line, being the daughter of his brother Methvel, old quarrels ran in her veins from her mother Balquhider’s side, and she had expected the sovereignty on the death of her uncle. Viriconium had grown fat and mercantile while Methven grew old and Moidart fermented discontent in kingdom and city. And the wolves of the North had sharpened their teeth on their grievances.

He did not expect to see Balmacara again: so he stood in his topmost room and chose an instrument to take with him. Though the land go down into death and misrule, and tegeus-Cromis of the nameless sword with it, there should be some poetry before the end.

The fire in the rowan wood had died. Of the crystal launch, nothing remained but a charred glade an acre across. The road wound away to Viriconium. Some measure of order had prevailed there, for the smoke haze had left the horizon and the foundations of the tower no longer trembled. He hoped fervently that Queen Jane still prevailed, and that the calm was not that of a spent city, close to death.