The Worshippers and the Way coaaod-9 Page 19

  Hatch and Berlin researched the Silver Emperor's quarters, interrogated guards and slaves, then returned to Berlin's office, baffled.

  In Berlin's office, mice – which had somehow become besplattered with vermilion ink, perhaps as a consequence of some secret sadism practiced by Berlin – dwelt inside a wickerwork cage. Hatch thought mice could eat wickerwork. But perhaps he was wrong, or perhaps – and here he began to analyse the situation with the rigor taught to him by the Nexus – the cage was daily renewed, or the bars lacquered with deterrent poison, or a new set of mice procured each time those presently in captivity escaped.

  Hatch was struck by the mice, and the way in which their lives continued, quietly and regularly, in complete innocence of the disaster which was mounting to its heights outside the palace of Na Sashimoko. It seemed to Hatch that he himself had much in common with such a mouse.

  "So," said Berlin, taking a chair, "our emperor has chosen to disappear."

  "You don't seem overly concerned," said Hatch.

  "Not about him," said Berlin. "He comes and he goes. He won't say where, but he's never gone for more than ten days at a time."

  "What do you mean?" said Hatch. "What are you talking about?"

  "Just that," said Berlin. "Sometimes our emperor leaves his palace, and, for all I know, this very city. I've never found out where he goes. I've never thought it politic to take too keen an interest in the subject."

  "So what do we do?" said Hatch. "Do we sit and watch the city burn?"

  "No," said Berlin. "In the absence of our emperor, I'm the acting ruler. That's what the constitution says. I'll order the troops into the streets to put down our revolutionaries as best they can."

  "What about Scorpio Fax?" said Hatch, conscious of his responsibilities to the man who had sought to warn him of the revolution.

  "Fax?" said Berlin.

  "He reported, he told us – "

  "Oh, Fax, Fax, yes. Well. Since his confession was too late to be useful, we should by rights have him executed for treason.

  That's what I'd do. But the emperor is usually more merciful than I would be in his place, so – I'll give Fax a provisional pardon, subject to confirmation by the emperor himself. You may tell him that when you see him next."

  With that, Nambasa Berlin dismissed Asodo Hatch, and the Frangoni warrior quit the palace of Na Sashimoko.

  It was by then late afternoon on the Day of Three Fishes, just three days short of Dog Day.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A simple ethic has long ruled Dalar ken Halvar: that the imaginary needs of imaginary people must take tenth place to the demands of those who really exist. Amongst the Pang, the brownskinned people who constitute Dalar ken Halvar's dominant racial group, both Chem and Yara alike have long accepted this dogma. How could it be otherwise, when the poor know from their very language that they are imaginary?

  It has long been the case that subversive notions, whether sourced from the Eye of Delusions or from the revolutionary readings of radical Combat Cadets, have found no favor even with those of the Yara who are most bitterly oppressed. After all, if they were to accept their own reality, then their lives would immediately become unbearable, whereas virtually all suffering becomes bearable if it can be shrugged off as but a species of dream.

  But now a cunning rabble-rouser has employed the accepted social axioms to produce an unexpected conclusion. He says:

  "We are the Yara. We do not exist. Because we do not exist we have no responsibilities to anyone or anything. We are but the waking dreams of the world, and who can hold a dream accountable under law?"

  This argument has proved unexpectedly potent. The Yara do not want to increase their own sufferings by acknowledging them, hence have no wish to become Real, but a formula which frees them of all responsibility to the real world has proved potently attractive.

  So on the sands a shadow stands

  Above a shadow stretched.

  And nothing happens – but amok

  The tongues demand the teeth,

  The steel striking -

  Demand that he

  Made murderer by skill decree – Fears for his own safety had earlier kept Asodo Hatch away from his own house. For, after all, Dog Java had made a determined effort to kill him, which suggested he might be the target of a conspiracy of murder. And murderers in search of Asodo Hatch would surely and logically look for him under his own roof.

  However, now that Hatch had been alerted to the danger of civic disorder in the City of Sun, he thought of his family rather than himself, and hastened back to House Takabaga with a view to securing the safety of his wife Talanta and his daughter Onica.

  But on his way back to the Frangoni rock, Asodo Hatch saw precious little in the way of revolution. And on Cap Uba itself, all was peace.

  Consequently, Hatch was not alarmed to find his house empty, his wife and daughter gone. He presumed them to be worshipping at Temple Isherzan, or visiting the womenfolk of other households. Or it might well be that Onica was at her knife-fighting classes, and that her mother was there as a chaperone. The Frangoni greatly approved of their womenfolk making an earnest study of the great art of knife-fighting, for amongst the Frangoni this form of athleticism has long been held to improve the physical grace of the female form. However, it would be inappropriate for a young yet nubile girl like Onica to be alone with a knife-fighting instructor, hence her mother always accompanied her to her lessons.

  Once Asodo Hatch was safe in the Frangoni rock, and safe in his own house, his fears of civic disorder began to dissipate.

  Indeed, he began to think that both he himself and Nambasa Berlin had given way to a certain vapouring panic while in conference in Na Sashimoko. So there had been demonstrations? The "demonstrations" might well have been no more than the distantly observed activities of gangs of young men preparing themselves for the celebrations of Dog Day. There had been burnings in Actus Dorum, had there? Perhaps there had been a couple of cooking fires out of control. A boat had been pirated on the Yamoda, had it?

  Maybe one of the leaky fishing boats of that sluggish river had sunk in neck-deep water, as was a common occurrence. And as for soldiers being ambushed and massacred – why, that could be sheer rumor.

  And besides, Scorpio Fax had said – had he not? – that there was no revolution scheduled until Dog Day.

  Of course he had.

  He had said just that.

  Not till Dog Day, with the Dog Day drums to start it.

  So it was that when Asodo Hatch gained the peace of his house in the late afternoon of the Day of Three Fishes, he very shortly ceased worrying about the state of the city, and convinced himself that all was well, and accordingly committed himself to his bed, and was asleep within moments.

  As Asodo Hatch slept the sleep of exhaustion, the shadows of the afternoon lengthened into evening. And as the shadows lengthened, the fires which were burning here and there in the streets of Dalar ken Halvar were more easily to be seen. And it would have been clear to anyone standing atop the Frangoni rock that those fires were rapidly increasing in number.

  It was thus clear to the woman Talanta and the girl Onica as they made their way home from Temple Isherzan. And by the time they got to their own house, House Takabaga, it was evident to their untutored eyes that something of a widespread riot was going on in the city, and was gathering momentum as the gathering dark began to ensure a degree of anonymity for the rioters.

  Onica was all for waking her father, since she had a great faith in him, and was sure he would do something about the rioting. Talanta was likewise sure that the noble Hatch would do something – or try to. His sense of responsibility was such that he was unlikely to concede that any problem was too big for him, so there was every possibility that he would try to wrench the rioting city to order single-handed, and would quite possibly get himself killed in the process.

  And Talanta, who did not wish to add to her own problems by encompassing the death of her husband, accord
ingly forbade Onica to wake him, and counseled her to practice the meditations of patience.

  Thus peace ruled in House Takabaga.

  And peace ruled on the Frangoni rock itself, for the Frangoni were poor, and well-armed, and strongly consolidated upon their rock, and therefore not much of a temptation to lawless and disorganized rioters who had easier targets elsewhere.

  However, while the Frangoni rock was in peace, the Combat College was the scene of considerable alarums. Many Combat College students belonged to the Free Corps, which essentially supported the status quo. As soon as the rioting began, word went out from the Brick, the headquarters of the Free Corps. In obedience to commands from the Brick, vigilante squads began to form to put down the rioting, and many Combat College students went forth into the world to join those vigilante squads.

  Scorpio Fax, he who had informed Hatch of the impending revolution, had initially taken refuge in the Combat College. But he began to get increasingly concerned as messengers came and went, as Free Corps zealots went hustling off to participate in their vigilante actions, and as other Combat College students sought refuge in the safety of the College itself – bringing with them tales of burnings, and beatings, and upsettings, and sinkings, and kidnappings, and rapes, and mutilations, and murders.

  It became clear to Scorpio Fax that the revolution so long fomented, so carefully planned and so meticulously organized was getting underway prematurely. All kinds of possibilities occurred to him. Perhaps his own encounter with Asodo Hatch had been observed, and those with whom he had conspired had realized that Fax was betraying their cause, and so had decided to launch their revolution immediately, before it could be put down. Or perhaps some of the rowdiness which attended the days leading up to Dog Day had convinced some revolutionaries that their revolution was breaking out by itself. Or perhaps – Well, Scorpio Fax had an inventive mind, and he had invented up a full three dozen scenarios by the time night fell. And in the course of his inventing, he found himself creating unfortunate deaths for the purple-skinned Penelope Flute, the woman whom he had secretly admired for so long – and so fruitlessly.

  As Fax had learnt long ago, Penelope Flute was deeply committed to Lupus Lon Oliver. And Lupus, of course, was a Free Corps member through and through. Therefore, it had long ago occurred to Fax that a revolution which saw the destruction of the existing social order would see the Free Corps destroyed along with that order; and the pulling down and pullling to bits of the Free Corps might well mean the dismemberment of young Lupus himself, and therefore – Yes, let the truth be told!

  There are all kinds of reasons for getting oneself embroiled in a revolution, but the deepest motivation which had impelled Scorpio Fax into an involvement with Dalar ken Halvar's revolutionary cause was the hope that the overthrow of the ruling order might win him the woman he loved.

  Or might at least secure the destruction of the young Ebrell Islander who was proving such a successful suitor of her hand.

  As Fax sat in the Combat College, receiving successive reports of the growing turmoil in the streets of Dalar ken Halvar, his anxiety grew. And, when he had conjured up lurid images of the death or despoiling of Penelope for the seventieth time, he finally gave in to his fears – and exited from the Combat College, and hurried to House Jodorunda, intending to ensure the preservation of the life, health and safety of the delectable Penelope.

  When Fax came down Zambuk Street to House Jodorunda, he found an ox cart overturned outside that house. The ox cart had been carrying water barrels, which were being smashed by an enthusiastic gang of wreckers. The oxen had been slaughtered, and amateur butchers were hacking steaks out of the dusty carcases.

  The noise of this revolutionary celebration covered the sound of Fax's intrusion into House Jodorunda.

  Which he found empty.

  There was nobody at all in the house, except, in the bathroom, the delectable Penelope Flute herself.

  "Ah," said Fax, breathing his relief, pleased beyond the telling to find Penelope safe and secure.

  "What are you doing here?" said Penelope, looking up at Fax from the comforts of her bath.

  When Fax made no immediate answer, Penelope heaved herself out of the water like a wrathful hippopotamus, and Fax beat a hasty retreat, withdrawing into the outer room.

  "I was looking for your brother," called Fax, once he had put a door between himself and Penelope.

  "Well, you're looking in the wrong place," said Penelope, throwing open that door and pursuing Fax. "Because this isn't his house, it's mine."

  "Penelope," said Fax, moving impetuously to embrace the Frangoni female, for all that her fully-clothed female form was dripping wet from the bath. "I – "

  Penelope made a curt gesture of discontent. This gesture caused her bunched knuckles to connect with the underside of Scorpio Fax's jaw. Fax crashed backwards, taking a lacquerwork table down to ruin as he went to the ground.

  Fortunately, at that point Fax's combat training came into play, and he crossed his legs quickly enough to block the kick which Penelope aimed at his crutch.

  "Look, you!" said Penelope, looking down at Fax from the ominous tower of her height. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times – I don't want you sniffing round here any longer like a dog in heat!"

  Scorpio Fax was acutely conscious of the blue and green ceremonial tattoos which adorned Penelope's nose. She had castrated and killed one rapist, and was perfectly capable of doing the same to Fax himself if she thought him to be himself a member of that breed.

  "I, ah, I didn't mean any harm," said Fax.

  "Good!" said Penelope, picking up a lacquerwork table.

  Fax did a combat roll which brought him to his feet, threw up his arms to shield his face from the lightweight table, then fled out into the night.

  He was hot.

  He was flushed.

  He was panting.

  And he was bitterly disillusioned.

  In the months of conspiracy which had been directed towards launching a properly-coordinated full-scale revolution in Dalar ken Halvar, Fax had indulged himself in confused but definitely salacious imaginings. In his fantasies, he had imagined himself taking advantage of revolutionary chaos to either seduce Penelope or else to subdue her to his will by exercise of brute force.

  He had imagined that Penelope would be panic-stricken, terrified by the noise, the screams, the crackle of bursting flames, the clash of steel, the roar of the riotous cloud. He had imagined her weeping, clinging, clutching, imploring. And he would have been a hero, stalwart amidst the storm, instead of – Fax slowed to a walk, heading west through the night along the dust of Zambuk Street. Perhaps if there had been a full-scale revolution, things would have gone as he had imagined. But instead, the thing had happened spontaneously, prematurely, and the results were desultory.

  Instead of a city awash with roaring flames, the night was merely sprinkled with arson. Instead of a howling mob, there was the occasional shout and – intermittently – some distant screaming.

  What is revolution without the bloodstorm riot which storms the prisons, overthrows the palaces and pulls down the high and mighty from their places of power?

  A revolution without such excesses is more a random riot than an effective political movement, and a riot was what Dalar ken Halvar was getting. The prison was tucked away in Childa Go, north of Na Sashimoko, in amongst the shacks and drying huts of the fishing center. There was no booty to attract rioters to Childa Go, and the fishing folk were not the kind to riot on their own account.

  So Fax was ready to bet that nobody was storming the prison, and that nobody was trying to storm the heights of Ogo Blotch to kill and rape, to burn and pillage, to force the defenses of Na Sashimoko and raid the very Hall, pulping the Silver Emperor to a mash of bones and setting the flames amok amidst his palace, leaving the Shrine of Thrones in smoking ruins.

  No, it was not that kind of revolution at all.

  Instead, there was a settling of scores,
a plundering of moneylenders, a vandalistic wantonage of arson for the hell of it, and much japing destruction in imitation of the careless saturnalia of the Festival of the Dogs.

  So what could Fax salvage from this debacle?

  Well – the death of Polk the Cash, of course!

  Fax knew the fair Penelope Flute to be in danger of being enslaved by Polk, who had taken unfair advantage of Penelope's poverty to obtain a mortgage on her flesh. Very well. Fax would take advantage of the confusion of the night to dispose of Polk.

  Then, if he could later win the heart of the voluptuous Penelope, he would confess the secret of that murder, thus confirming her in her love for him.

  With that thought in mind, Fax headed into the commercial center of Actus Dorum. Here every Ethnos Minor was to be found, for the place was home not just to the Pang of Dalar ken Halvar but also to a motley rabble of Ebrell Islanders, Southsearchers, failed wizards, Ashdan ethnologists and others who had come to the imperial heartlands by way of the trade routes.

  But when Fax found Polk's house, the moneylender was not there. Instead, Polk the Cash had gone to the Frangoni rock. This – or so said Polk's neighbors – was so that the noseless moneylender could take into protective custody the young Frangoni maiden Onica, youngest daughter of Asodo Hatch. It was known to the neighbors that Onica had mortgaged herself to Polk, and they claimed that the noseless one had decided that his investment needed special protection on this most uncertain of nights.

  So Fax hurried to the Frangoni rock, firm in his intent to ambush Polk at or near Hatch's house, then beat the moneylender to death.

  Well.

  The neighbors were both right and wrong.

  Polk's neighbors were right in thinking that the noseless one had taken himself off to House Takabaga. But he had not gone there with any confiscation in mind. Rather, he had gone there in search of his own protection. It is harder to imagine a greater compliment than this: that a moneylender should take refuge with the most mercilessly plighted of his creditors at a time of general riot verging on wholesale revolution. Yet Polk the Cash – who rightly counted himself an excellent judge of character – had paid the Family Hatch this compliment.