The Pharoah Contract

Flomel seemed to be considering. At last he said, in calmer tones, “You’ve given me good counsel once again, Guildmaster. I’ll petition the Lady for a more effective coercer. Perhaps she will loan me the great bug. Just the sight of that one should frighten her into helpfulness, and if not, we’ll pluck fingers from the oil peddler until she takes the point.”

Then the voices moved away, discussing the logistics of the rehearsals, supplies to be requisitioned, the choice of material to be performed, the changes required in the stage. Ruiz’s thoughts ran cool and distant, and he could feel the death net tug at him, a warning tension. He sagged against the wall. Just when the situation seemed worst, it deteriorated again.

Flomel was gone by the time the evening meal arrived. Ruiz took his dinner to his accustomed spot. To his surprise, Dolmaero joined him.

“Well, friend Wuhiya,” Dolmaero said, “I must apologize to you again. You heard?”

“Yes. Flomel’s a vindictive little fart, isn’t he?”

“He takes his art seriously; what more need be said? He’s a bad enemy. But I hope you’ll believe I was trying to do my best for you. I just couldn’t think of anything better.”

Ruiz looked at Dolmaero, appraising. Ruiz’s profession was one that bred cynicism, but in Dolmaero’s broad face, Ruiz saw only concern and weariness.

“I believe you,” Ruiz said. He seemed to concentrate on his meal, but he was thinking about the night ahead.

Chapter 19

When the Pung took her away, Nisa still felt a certain pleasurable lassitude, and so she was slow to fear. The monsters were gentle, and that seemed so incongruous that she walked between them to the personnel lock without thought of escape.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked the monsters, when she finally found her voice. But they were silent, though the one on her right showed a mouthful of needle teeth. Was it a smile meant to reassure her?

At the lock, the door startled her when it slammed up into the arch of the opening, and she tried to run away. The monoline collar bruised her throat when she hit the end of the lead, and she fell to one knee, gagging. The larger of the two Pung guards helped her to her feet. The skin of its hands was cool and hard — not unpleasant, but so strange that she shuddered. Thereafter, she went along, docile.

After a time she took an interest in the sights.

She began to understand the size of the compound after they’d been walking the corridors for half an hour. Her father’s palace was a collection of hovels, in comparison. The walls of the corridors were made of a slick gray-white substance that reminded her of unglazed porcelain. The walls were several times the height of a man, and the way narrow, so that only a ribbon of sky was visible above. It was very quiet, as though whatever life existed behind the walls was muffled by their thickness.

She couldn’t help looking into the observation ports as they passed the other paddocks, and a sort of detached horror grew in her as she stole glances at the beings penned within.

Some seemed to be human, though not any sort of human with which she was familiar. They came in every shape, size, and color — white as ice, black as charcoal, tall massive creatures, small nimble ones. They wore strange garments, and many bore strange disfigurements. Most of the men did not shave their heads. Some were naked, some wore garments of such magnificence that the person within seemed to disappear. These otherworldly people wore inexplicable expressions, used bizarre gestures; even their postures seemed alien.

The monsters she saw were less disorienting, since she had no expectation that she would understand anything about them. She saw a pen of creatures that resembled irrin, flightless birds of the Pharaohan drylands, except that these had massive brain cases that hung back over their molting shoulders. They huddled in a landscape of flat sand and low bushes, in small motionless groups, powerful legs folded under them. There was something piercingly sad about them, hopeless and resigned. Their great golden eyes were opaque with loss. Nisa felt tears sting her eyes, just from that one glimpse.

But there were other monsters that inspired no pity. In one pen she caught sight of a colony of swift reptilian predators that ripped at the still-moving body of an old woman. They had sly goat-eyes, and they seemed to be aware of Nisa as she peered through the cloudy glass of the observation ports. She shuddered and looked away.

“When will we get wherever we’re going?” she asked. The guards paid no attention, and she began to suspect that they didn’t speak her language.