The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz Aw looked at the coercer, then at Dolmaero. “Honorable Dolmaero,” he said, pretending astonishment, “you don’t mean to harm the noblewoman?”

“She is an abomination!” Dolmaero stepped toward Ruiz. “Bring her forth! It’s unnatural, an affront to the gods; she should be dead. We all saw her when the demons brought her here.” He looked at the others for confirmation, and their heads nodded like so many puppets. “Her wounds still oozed! Had the gods raised her, she would be perfect. Unnatural, unnatural.” Then, as if to himself, Dolmaero said, “She must complete her part. The elders have decided.” The Guildmaster looked down; regret flickered across his broad face.

Ruiz felt trapped, pulled between two impulses. Common sense dictated that he give up the phoenix. Suppose the paddock was observed? No lowly snake oil man would think to oppose a Guildmaster.

Dolmaero lost patience before Ruiz could make up his mind to pursue the sensible course. “Casmin,” Dolmaero said, turning to the coercer, “bring her out.”

Casmin shuffled forward quickly, grinning, and Ruiz saw that the coercer’s teeth were filed to points and stained red. Ruiz retreated before Casmin’s outstretched arms, backing into the hut.

In the gloom inside, Ruiz turned to glance back toward the woman. She had apparently heard everything. Somehow she had managed to crawl into the farthest corner. She was trying feebly to hide beneath some rubbish there.

Ruiz had no time to admire her determination to live. He had badly underestimated Casmin’s speed. As Ruiz started to turn back, the coercer was on him, dropping the loop of fiber over Ruiz’s head.

Casmin jerked him close, tightening the loop just enough to cut off Ruiz’s wind. “I’ll tell the master you resisted, shithead,” Casmin whispered in his ear, chuckling with delight.

Casmin began to dance him about, so that the scrabble of their feet would be audible to the listeners outside.

“Casmin?” Ruiz heard Dolmaero ask. “What’s going on?”

Before Casmin could respond, Ruiz snapped his head back into Casmin’s nose. Cartilage broke with a wet crunch and Ruiz felt hot blood spray his neck, but though Casmin’s grip loosened slightly, he didn’t let go. Ruiz lashed an elbow back into Casmin’s ribs. The coercer made a small shocked sound as the ribs splintered, and tried to push Ruiz away. Going with the movement, Ruiz bent at the waist and reached between his legs; he grabbed Casmin’s testicles and squeezed, using all his strength. With a high-pitched, breathless screech, Casmin collapsed, unconscious.

“Casmin?” Dolmaero sounded more worried. “Casmin, you are only to bring out the woman, do you hear? Restrain your enthusiasm, Casmin.”

Ruiz burned with adrenaline. He smiled what he thought was a merry little smile. He picked the coercer up by one leg and the scruff of his garment, and tossed him out through the dangling fibers that covered the door, into the sunlight. He stepped lightly after him, to see the guild elders staring in horrified amazement at the prone, twitching body.

“Don’t worry, honorable Dolmaero,” Ruiz said in a pleasant cheerful voice. “Casmin will restrain his enthusiasm.” He dropped Casmin’s strangling cord in the dust. “I suggest you all follow his example.”

No one spoke, so he went back inside.

Her eyes were huge in the dimness of the hut. She huddled in the corner, and for a moment she seemed as afraid of him as she had been of the coercer. “It’s all right,” he said as he went to her. “No one will harm you.” Not for a while, anyway, he thought — but he put the thought away immediately.

He lifted her and carried her back to the cot. She said nothing, though she clung to him more tightly than was necessary.

After a while she slept again, without uttering another word. Ruiz sat beside her and mopped Casmin’s blood from his neck, thinking darkly about his own folly. His only chance of survival, after all, was to remain anonymous until he found an opportunity to escape. The phoenix was a dangerous distraction, had already led him to commit two acts of conspicuous foolishness.

What was wrong with him? For some reason, Nacker’s shapeless face swam up into his mind’s eye.

Abruptly Ruiz felt a great weariness — prompted partially by his exertions and his less than optimal physical condition — but due more, he supposed, to his astounding behavior. That idea led directly to another: Was he growing too complacent for this profession? Or, worse yet, too old? The fact that he had survived so long in such a risky business was, he reminded himself fiercely, no guarantee at all that his life would continue.

It could end right here, in this ratty pen. He lay back to rest awhile. Casmin’s friends might attempt to avenge his humiliation, but Ruiz doubted it. It was difficult for Ruiz to imagine a stolid craftsman like Dolmaero creeping up to slit a throat. Besides, coercers of that stamp usually had no friends outside their own caste — only masters and victims.

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