‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to do,’ the native said with a broad grin. ‘All I have to do to get poor fat Bersla soaking wet is lean toward one side or the other. As long as everybody is sitting up straight, the canoe will keep on sitting upright in the water. One quick lean toward one side or the other rolls that thing in the blink of an eye. Any time Bersla starts to relax, I tip his canoe over.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t like him. Nobody really likes him. If I don’t roll his canoe every now and then, one of the other paddlers will. Bersla hasn’t gone home dry for about three years now. We get wet, too, but our clothes dry in a hurry. Bersla’s clothes are thick and fancy, so they take at least a week to dry out. That’s a big part of what this is all about. He has to keep on giving us food to eat, whether he goes out in his canoe or not.’
‘You and I are going to get along just fine,’ Sorgan said with a broad grin. ‘What’s your favorite kind of food?’
‘Meat. Everybody likes meat.’
‘I’ll see what I can do to chase down some meat for you.’
‘What will you want in exchange?’
‘Information, my friend. Information. What’s your name, anyway?’
‘Platch,’ the native replied. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Sorgan Hook-Beak.’
‘How did you ever get a name like that?’
‘I had to work for it a long time ago. Let’s go have something to eat, shall we?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Platch replied with a broad grin.
Veltan came into the large cabin at the stern of the Ascension early the following morning. ‘It took me a while, but I managed to calm my sister just a bit. I explained some of the peculiarities of the Maag culture to her – after she’d sent the priestess Alcevan off on some meaningless errand. I made quite a big issue of what good warriors your people are. Aracia’s very arrogant, but she does know that her priests would be useless in a confrontation with the Creatures of the Wasteland.’
‘Unless the bugs happen to be hungry,’ Sorgan added with a broad grin.
‘I mentioned that, yes. When you get right down to it, though, it’s very unlikely that Aracia or any of her servants will even see any of the servants of the Vlagh. Your scouts will tell the assorted priests that the bugs are out there and that they’re living on a steady diet of people, but all that we’re really doing is diverting their attention from the real invasion – the one that’s pointed at Long-Pass.’
‘How would you say I should approach your sister?’ Sorgan asked. ‘I might have been just a little too rough yesterday.’
Veltan squinted at the cabin ceiling. ‘You might want to be a bit more polite today – not too polite, of course. Swagger a bit and brag about what a great warrior you are and how you defeated the servants of the Vlagh back in sister Zelana’s Domain and helped Narasan in mine. Then tell her that you want to talk about gold. Gold doesn’t mean anything to Aracia, but she’ll probably try to make you lower your price. That’s when you should storm out again and come back out to this ship. Try to make it look like you’re just about ready to sail off and leave her here to fight her own war. This is very important, Sorgan. Don’t ever back down when you’re dealing with Aracia. She will come around when she realizes that you mean what you say.’
‘You people play very rough games with each other, don’t you?’
‘Indeed we do,’ Veltan agreed. Then he smiled slyly. ‘Fun though,’ he added.
Sorgan rowed the skiff back to the beach. Veltan offered to take up a set of oars to help, but Sorgan said ‘no’ quite firmly. ‘I’m not trying to offend you, Veltan, but things go much more smoothly if there’s only one man rowing. We’d both look sort of silly if we were soaking wet when we went back into that throne room. If we happened to do something wrong, we could tip this skiff over almost as fast as Platch can roll Bersla’s log canoe.’
‘Did he ever tell you why he does that every so often?’ Veltan asked.
‘It takes the wind out of the fat man’s sails,’ Sorgan replied with a chuckle. ‘A man who’s soaking wet and dribbling water all over the floor doesn’t look very important. Platch despises Bersla, so he keeps him wet most of the time.’
Sorgan rowed the skiff up onto the same beach where he had beached her the previous day, and then he and Veltan went on up through the assorted buildings lying outside the temple.
Sorgan looked longingly at the ornate temple door. ‘I don’t suppose—’ he left it hanging.
Veltan shook his head. ‘Sister Aracia wouldn’t hold still for that, Sorgan. We might encounter the same objections when we tell my sister that we’re going to have to tear down some of the outer reaches of her temple, but that door is much too important in my sister’s eyes for her to agree to it as your price. Then too, how would you move it? It weighs tons, and even if you managed to get your hands on it, the sheer weight would sink any ship you could bring into the harbor. Stick to the gold blocks, Sorgan. They’re much more convenient.’
They passed through the long corridor and entered the throne room. Fat Bersla was delivering a flowery speech, comparing Zelana’s sister to a sunrise, a hurricane, and an earthquake. Aracia’s attention, however, seemed to be a bit divided, since the young priestess Alcevan was standing beside the throne whispering on and on. Sorgan sensed a certain competition there. It seemed that Bersla and Alcevan were each doing everything they could think of to get Aracia’s attention.
Sorgan walked up to the marble pedestal and looked Aracia right in the face – which was probably against all the rules. ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘Veltan tells me that you’re ready to listen to what I say.’
‘Not right now,’ Aracia replied with a note of irritation in her voice. ‘Takal Bersla is addressing me now.’
Sorgan drew his sword. ‘That’s not really much of a problem, you know. He’ll stop talking just as soon as I kill him.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Aracia exclaimed.
‘Watch me,’ Sorgan suggested in an offhand sort of way. ‘You’ve got a problem, and I’m here to solve it. Let’s dispense with all this foolishness and get down to business.’ He purposefully crossed the marble floor to where Bersla had just stopped talking. The word ‘kill’ seemed to have gotten his attention.
‘You have finished your speech, haven’t you?’ Sorgan asked, moving the point of his sword back and forth about six inches from Bersla’s face.
Bersla nervously backed away. ‘Holy Aracia will protect me,’ he declared, still backing up.
‘How?’ Sorgan asked. ‘You did know that she’s not permitted to kill things, didn’t you? I don’t have those restrictions. I can kill anything – or anybody – whenever I feel like it. You’ve got a very simple choice, fat man. What it all boils down to is shut up or die. The choice is entirely yours, though, but you’d better hurry. My sword’s very thirsty right now.’
Bersla flinched back, and then he ran out of the room.
Veltan was smiling. ‘I’d say that there’s a certain charm to Hook-Beak’s directness, wouldn’t you, dear sister?’
‘I will not tolerate this!’ Aracia almost screamed.
‘I think you’d better,’ Sorgan said bluntly. ‘I came here to protect you and your people – for money, of course – so let’s get down to business. I’ll start protecting right after you pay me.’
‘I will decide when – and how much,’ Aracia declared. She was obviously trying to regain control in this situation.
‘That might be very true, Lady Aracia,’ Sorgan said, ‘but I’m the one who’ll say yes or no. Be nice to me, lady, because I’m the only one willing to protect you. You’ve offended your big brother and your sister, so they won’t have anything to do with you. That sort of says that I’m the most important person in the whole wide world, wouldn’t you say?’
Aracia gave him a cold, superior sort of look. ‘How much do you want?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Sorgan replied. ‘How does one hundred blocks of pure gold sound to you?’
‘That’s absurd!’
‘It is, isn’t it? Let’s make it two hundred, then.’ She stared at him, her eyes suddenly gone wide.
‘It’s entirely up to you, lady. That’s the price. Take it or leave it.’ Then he turned and walked toward the door, not even bothering to look back.
‘I’ll pay! I’ll pay!’ Aracia almost screamed.
‘That’s more like it,’ Sorgan said. ‘Now you can see just how easy I am to get along with.’
‘He leaned on her, Padan,’ Veltan told their friend the next morning. ‘Very, very hard.’
‘I wish I’d been there to see that,’ Padan said with an evil sort of grin.
