The Incompleat Nifft by Michael Shea Read Free Book Online Page A

He never touched the invitation till he had finished his second drink and gotten up. Then he pocketed it quick and strode out.
    I knew his route from the inn to the main thoroughfare, and I got ahead of him on it, glancing back to be sure of his following. Haldar waited just past the first turning I took. As you've guessed, he stood by a chariot. He was barebacked and oiled against the cold—all in the mode of a Lurkna taximan. He stood far nearer the Quill and Scroll than Defalk could usually hope to find a vehicle, as the tavern was in a commercially dead zone. We could be sure of his taking our accommodations.
    "He's a minute back," I told Haldar. My friend threw me a leather sack. I sprinted ahead to the next lane, and turned down it. I ran, light and fast, to a cul-de-sac between two abandoned buildings. It was deep enough to look like a through-way when you first turned into it, but after a slight veer you saw it was blind. I passed this turn and crouched down.
    After a few moments I heard the chariot coming, and then Defalk's voice: "Is this a through way? I think not."
    "It is, my lord, and dodges the snarl of the carts on Vertig lane."
    "I don't want to lose time . . ."
    The chariot whirled past me. I jumped out to stand behind it while Haldar stopped short and heaved upward on the traces. Defalk spilled headfirst and backwards out of the cart. I brought up my sack's mouth to catch him and he tucked himself into it all the way to the waist, just as neat as your foot thrusts into your boot of a morning. Then Haldar was by me. We got the bagmouth to Defalk's ankles and knotted the heavy drawstrings. He was bellowing to bring the walls down. We righted him, and I punched him in the center of the ribs' arch, just enough to knock his breath out. He sagged, and we put him in the cart, folding him to fit the bottom. I got in the seat. Haldar turned the chariot and trotted us off to our lodgings in the wharfside district.
    Hitting him had been a relief—it felt like revenge. How could he be what he was, when he had had Dalissem before him, beckoning him to all he could have been? I found I was as angry with him as Haldar was.
    But, not being an idealist like Haldar, I couldn't help seeing it in a saner way too. The man had only been vain and weak. Cold-blood killing is bad enough, is it not? But to drag a living man down there . . . he was an oath-breaker. He'd sworn his life away, and it stood forfeit by all laws known in this world and the subworlds alike. I kept a firm grip on this fact in my heart, you may be sure. And wouldn't you have done the same, gritted your teeth and dragged away—for the Key of the Marmion Wizard's Mansion?

IV
     
    Two days after taking Defalk, we lay in readiness for our descent. Our captive lay between us, tied hands and feet, with Haldar's dirk-point in the hollow of his throat.
    I've said a great deal in saying we lay in readiness. Here's what it meant: We lay on top of a great velvet canopy that overhung the bed of Shamblor. The Fleetmaster himself was below us, in the bed, busy dying. Half a dozen other people were in the room. We were invisible to them all, due to the canopy's height, so long as we did not sit up, but the room was so quiet that even the growl of a man's stomach was clearly audible. I knew from some carefully stolen peeks, and from following their conversation, how they were situated.
    Two of them were druggists, and wore their sable cowls up in sign of professional engagement. They did not sit down, as their guild rules forbade this at a deathbed. Of the other four, two were seated. One was a dried-out woman, Gladda, the magnate's spinster daughter and only child. The other was her nurse-companion, a burly, short-haired woman with an oddly beautiful face. The remaining two were a cousin of Shamblor and his wife. They might have found chairs, for the room was full of opulent furniture, but they stood with a stoicism that conveyed a fitting sense of humility and gratitude