The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz unclenched his mind and allowed the oil to gild his perceptions again — until the next customer arrived.

Chapter 9

Two days passed pleasantly. Occasionally Ruiz was required by a dubious customer to sample his wares, but gradually the inhabitants of Stegatum assumed his reliability and began to buy without reservation. Ruiz dealt with a variety of townsfolk, and he began to feel a little more comfortable in his role.

However, not many of the locals could afford the prices he set, so on the third day business slowed considerably. Ruiz sat alone for two hours after lunch, awaiting his next customer. No one came, and Ruiz was deciding that perhaps it was time to move on to a larger town, when he heard the clank and hiss of an arriving steam chariot. A moment later a messenger from Lord Brinslevos stamped into the common room, dressed in the Lord’s black livery.

The messenger was a tiny man, almost a dwarf. But in front of Ruiz’s table he stood as tall as his body permitted him to. “The Lord requires your presence at Brinslevos Keep.”

Ruiz quirked his eyebrows. “Ah? And why so, if you’d be so good as to elaborate?”

The small man was impatient with Ruiz’s curiosity. “The Lord’s requirement is sufficient explanation. No doubt the Lord will reward you for prompt and humble service — or punish you if you deserve it.”

“No doubt,” Ruiz said gloomily. He began to collect his stock and stow it into his pack. It seemed to him that he had several choices. He could knock the small man on the head and disappear into the waste, there to risk being hunted down by a thwarted and annoyed Lord — and his huntsmen, who, mounted on fast striderbeasts and using coursing beasts, might have little trouble catching him.

He could knock the messenger on the head and steal his steam chariot. That might enable him to escape the local Lord, but it would have the disadvantage of marking him thereafter as a great felon, since only Lords owned personal vehicles, and they took this privilege seriously. Every law-abiding person on Pharaoh would be against him.

Or he could go along quietly, ingratiate himself with the Lord, and move on in a few days. Who knew, perhaps he’d learn something useful at the Keep. It was, after all, the Lords who sponsored the Expiations — the mage plays — that were the planet’s paramount art form.

Ruiz sighed. He remembered the mad face of Lord Brinslevos…. The memory made it hard to feel enthusiasm for making the Lord’s acquaintance.

Still, what other sensible choice was there?

“I must settle my bill with the innkeeper,” Ruiz said, when he had finished packing away his vials.

The messenger nodded indifferently.

Ruiz found Denklar in his storeroom, working over a slate of accounts.

“The Lord summons me,” Ruiz said, in a hollow voice.

Denklar showed no surprise. “Then you must go. Would you like advice?”

“Of course.”

“Then listen. The line of Brinslevos is ancient; the first Brinslevos was a conjuror of the Second Age, almost six hundred years ago. His descendants have grown increasingly strange. The present Brinslevos is eager to take offense, and his catalog of offenses is in constant evolution. But here’s a sampling: Don’t criticize any aspect of the keep, or the servants, or the livestock, or the cuisine — which is almost unendurable, I must warn you. I think Brinslevos scourges himself with that cooking, so that he can enjoy his sojourns here all the more. Don’t be in the slightest degree arrogant; at the same time avoid any whiff of insincere humility. Brinslevos has a nose magnificently attuned to insincerity, for all he’s mad. Above all, do not look admiringly at his wives.”

“I’ll try to bear all these things in mind. Meanwhile, don’t give my room to anyone else; I’ll be back in a day or two. Here, keep my staff while I’m gone… the Lord won’t let me take weapons into his Keep, no doubt.”

Denklar took the staff in careful hands. “No, he won’t.”

Denklar said no more, but Ruiz thought he saw a flicker of pity in Denklar’s hard eyes, which he found disconcerting.

Outside a somewhat rusty steam chariot waited, long and low, like an elongated cannon shell on four spiked wheels, with a small cab at the front, and a trailing coal carrier at the rear. The messenger directed Ruiz into the cab. Ruiz settled into a threadbare seat and looked about with a degree of interest, since this would be his first ride in a Pharaohan vehicle. The engineering seemed fundamentally sound, if rather flamboyant and idiosyncratic. The castings were embellished by elaborate surface designs, primarily of thorny flowering vines, growing in sinuous energetic patterns. The upholstery had once been luxurious red lizard-skin; a trace of the original color remained. Even the bolt heads were made to resemble tiny leering faces; their wide grinning mouths formed the screw slots. Rivets bore a stylized sunburst design. A thousand touches testified to the care and artistry with which the machine had been assembled, but the level of repair was not impressive.