CHAPTER FOUR
His business down the coast had gone tolerably well. There was always far too much to be done given the time and resources available. Still, things were coming together. With his new insights into the motivations of his patron he was coming to be more prepared for the aftermath, and with his recent recruitments and alliances the short term was looking bright as well. The outcome had always been fairly much ordained, of course; he had been commissioned to deal with Max, and there was no doubt Max would indeed be dealt with quite comprehensively. It was how one managed the loose ends and overall esthetics, though, that set the brute practitioner apart from the select virtuosi at the top of the form, or at least that was the ideal Fradjikan always preferred to pursue. Rather than the sudden descent of calamity from the skies, Fradi was partial to the gradually tightening web of encroaching doom, the progressive dropping away of escape routes and camouflage both, until the noose was finally drawn tight in an orgastic passage of revelation and inescapable ruin. It made one feel glad to be alive.
Nevertheless, being master of the web didn’t mean that one foresaw or planned out every last detail. Planning was only part of the game, anyway. If you were a commander of troops perhaps the greatest satisfaction might come from watching your plan reel itself out with every particular in its precise slot, the forces of each side marching as automata through their prescribed evolutions; an ideal rarely achieved, to be sure. Those who plotted plots, on the other hand, whether as their livelihood or just from innate disposition, were either flexible or found themselves cracked across the fault line of their greatest rigidity. That was the source of the real challenge - proceeding toward a fixed end-point through an ever-changing flurry of random events and the workings of fate. The real challenge and, to be honest, the real fun. But what was the harm in that? The most effective practitioner was the one at one with his job.
In Fradi’s experience, though, fate rarely got its workings into gear this early in the morning. Yet here was this Spilkas fellow, producing himself right into Fradi’s lap, as it were, of all things. Spilkas was now sweating as much as Lowell, the driver, or Fradjikan himself, but as Fradi had predicted the sweat had been both timely and effective. Lowell and Spilkas finished manhandling the last unloaded piece of baggage, the big trunk, back into the cab and stood back for a moment to pant. “Have you breakfasted?” Fradi asked Spilkas. “The inn provided a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice.”
“Orange juice, you say?” said the man, retrieving his pack from the side of the road. “A swig of that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“After you,” said Fradi. He opened the door to the coach. “Don’t hesitate now, come come. I won’t hear of it.”
“Did you make a promise to some god you’d meet a good-deed quota?” Spilkas said, “or is this just some compulsion to hobnob with the lower class?”
Spilkas had been deliberately trying to be irritating, and was succeeding rather well for that matter. “I also have some cheese and a modest assortment of fruit,” Fradi told him. “Look at it as payment for services if you like.” Spilkas grunted but at least gave off arguing, and let Fradi follow him into the carriage. Lowell mounted to the box and got them underway. Fradi doled out the refreshments and considered the situation.
Spilkas; a dispensable name, to be sure. Surely the name was as false as the one Fradi had used himself. (Which one had he used? - oh, Ballista, of course.) Names were quick camouflage on the cheap but nonetheless effective for all of that. At least the fellow wasn’t using one of those horrid tacked-on appellations, wasn’t calling himself Someone the Something, for instance. During a stint as facilitator to some court or another early in his career, a higher-level factotum, the principal chamberlain in fact, had taken to referring to Fradi himself as Fradjikan the Assassin, as opposed to Fradjikan, the assassin, which was how he had been hired. Well, Fradjikan had squared accounts with him, and ultimately with the entire court. Not out of spite, or anyway not spite against the court; it had been a pure question of business. His real employer in that case had been the court’s subsequent inhabitant.
In such ways are reputations built. Yet what was the background of this Spilkas, now at work with determination at demolishing a hearty wheel of Brie? Until he had appeared boarding the ship following the denouement in Oolsmouth Fradjikan had not detected his presence. Perhaps he’d merely taken passage with the others; it was too soon to tell. If Spilkas didn’t look any more impressive at close-up than he’d seemed from afar, he did have some potential in his own right. In particular, he was proving very adept at giving no information of any substance. On the other hand, he affected a cane even though he had no obvious impairment, and vanity was something that could be played upon.
“You must be on a lengthy excursion to need such a stout walking stick,” Fradi tried.
“Not much to look at, is it? If it wasn’t an heirloom I’d chuck it in a marsh.”
Well, so much for vanity. “What does bring you out on the road, then, and camping out on beaches?”
“Maybe you’ve heard there’s going to be a Knitting down the road here a piece? You got any more of those wheat crackers in there?”
Fradi passed over the hamper. It was likely this fellow would be nothing but a waste of time; most people were. Considered as a limbering-up exercise, however, even going through the motions wouldn’t be entirely a waste, and anyway all he’d be doing otherwise would be sitting with his own thoughts looking out the window of the carriage. On the other hand, perhaps Spilkas really represented something key, but something that needed a bit of digging to exhume. Fradi wouldn’t discard him until the possibilities had been exhausted; Fradi was not one to frown back when luck smiled. “Had you been long at sea?”
“What sea?” said Spilkas, his mouth full of cracker. “I said I was on the beach, not on the water, didn’t I?”
“Perhaps you did.” There was no way Spilkas could know he’d been observed getting on the boat, and as a result no way for him to know that Fradi recognized his position as a lie. Not that Spilkas had actually come right out and stated that he hadn’t been on a boat. The difference between misdirection and outright mendacity was primarily a semantic one, though, or at most question of tactics. That wasn’t the issue. If Spilkas was at pains to make a casual acquaintance think he hadn’t been at sea there was obviously something there he deliberately wanted to conceal. His association with the others seemed most likely. Was the plan for Spilkas to act as their deep-cover agent in Peridol, clear of surveillance and free to carry out any secret schemes?
Could there be even more here? Could they be trying to set him up? Fradjikan, himself?
Fradi decided that that brief consideration was about all that possibility deserved. Yes, it was a possibility, but no, the chance was too low for reasonability. How could they plan against him; they didn’t even know he was there. Surely he had not tipped his hand to reveal, even by implication, his presence on the scene. The sun could flare and the oceans could boil, too, but the cost/benefit ratio in planning for the eventuality was similarly too stacked to make it worth worrying about. There was only so much looking over one’s shoulder one could engage in before one’s neck became irretrievably frozen in a retrospective attitude.
Nevertheless, it was useful to remind oneself occasionally that one was not a sorcerer. One might employ them, and one might know how to bend them to his purposes, and one might even have a professional but limited respect for them as lower-order tradesmen and functionaries, but one still had to admit they did have their own annoying tricks and their own peculiar delusions of grandeur. Indeed, though, delusions notwithstanding, there was no reason to get one’s own hands dirty grubbing around in the mystic arts. Why stoop so low when there were magic practitioners for hire begging on the streets, almost, when one’s own patron was a god of not inconsiderable power, even among gods, and when one’s allies included such as even a high contender for the throne of Gadzura? And when one was who one was oneself?
Why, indeed?
“Why do you keep harping on this sea stuff?” Spilkas said suddenly. “You looking to recruit a sailor?”
“I, ah, I was just on my way back up the coast,” Fradi began, his thoughts racing barely ahead of his words, “after a quick trip down to the cape to seek news of a ship overdue for its arrival in Peridol.”
“What ship’s that?”
“The Flying Pelican, out of Oolsmouth.”
“Who thinks up these names?” muttered Spilkas. “Any boat with a name redundant as that deserves whatever it gets, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Actually, Fradjikan had just made up the name himself out of whole cloth; not one of his finest moments, it was true, especially given his earlier thoughts on the adequacy of acceptable names or the lack thereof. “I don’t suppose you saw anything sailing past, while you were camped out there on your beach?”
“No pelicans, that’s for sure.”
“Perhaps some sailor colleagues of yours?”
“I know coincidence is golden and all that, but don’t tell me you were expecting to get the news you’re looking for from a guy you picked up at random on the road. Come on, Ballista. Here’s one for you that’s a lot more reasonable - you know any decent places to stay in Peridol that still have room?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Fradi. He had a few bottles of assorted spirits packed away in the bottom of the hamper, including a fresh one of aged rum; was it time to crack one of them? Maybe if he could get Spilkas drunk it would make him more helpful, either by making him talk more or making him talk less. If worse came to worse, Fradi could drink enough himself so he wouldn’t care. No, that would be unprofessional. It was still too early in the morning, anyway. “I do know that lodging is scarce; you may find yourself back on the road home as soon as you’ve arrived.” Fradjikan leveled a finger at Spilkas. “You should also know my personal staff complement is full, so don’t think about taking service with me to stay off the streets. Unless you have some particular talent I should know about?”
“I don’t know. What kinds of talent would you like to know about?”
“Anything you’re proud of. Or we could converse for awhile and see if something comes to light.”
A sardonic smile crossed quickly along Spilkas’ face and was just as quickly gone. “Go ahead and try. Talk’s cheap. It’s still a waste of time.”
Hmm, thought Fradi. Was there something there? “I’m certain you undervalue yourself. Everyone has some skill. No one is entirely a blank, a complete unknown.”
The sardonic grin flickered back. “Oh, yeah?”
“Any person with -” Fradi stopped himself, or more precisely the words faded away on their path from his brain to his mouth as his mind lost interest in them. Something much more interesting than words had just occurred to him. The more unknown Spilkas was the better. Fradi could soon change that anyway. In fact he could -
The plan seemed to spring together out of its disjointed parts like an exploding clock viewed in reverse, cogs and gears and springs spinning out of the air in a jumbled cloud of glinting streaks, forming into a greater order as the cloud condensed, and then fitting themselves together one against the other in a chorus of clicks and snaps. It was all Fradi could do to keep from rubbing his hands together in a paroxysm of satisfaction and beaming a triumphant smile at the man opposite him munching crackers, his guest, his patsy, the gear around whose hub his plan would turn. Oh, Fradi was in the groove now. And Max -
Just wait until he got to Max. He’d make him a - well, just wait.