Reality, however, was that if I'd tried to behave like that young officer I would have had my head handed to me, most likely on the silver salver the domina had his first brandy of the afternoon served on.

I could not chance that. Not after Captain of the Lower Half Banim Lanett and the rol match with the Lancers.

So I followed soldiering's oldest commandment: "Shut up and soldier, soldier!" I used the few hours allotted for Commander's Time to try to teach the men some tactical sense, but because we were never allowed out of the city to practice these tactics, nor was mere anywhere to leam city-fighting techniques, I fear my talks only provided the men a chance to learn that most soldierly of all skills-to sleep with your eyes open.

All I could do was wait for the year or so to pa.s.s until I was forgotten, and then attempt to transfer back to the Frontiers.

That, and explore the world beyond the barracks, beyond the regiment-the wonders of the City of Lights.

I have never thought of myself as a city man, nor do I especially enjoy a metropolis. But Nicias is a city to fall in love with.

Its most remarkable feature is responsible for its name. When the first men were created by Umar and sent down to this earth, before he withdrew into silence and let the world be ruled by Irisu and Saionji, they found a roaring pillar of flame, flame from a gas that poured from a spring in the rock. Centuries later, that fire was somehow extinguished, and the gas channeled into pipes that were first laid beside and men beneath the streets of the city. When the fire was relit every house, from mansion to shack, and the streets themselves had and have free light that also provides a measure of heat. Nicias has more fires than other cities, but the citizens count that the price to be paid and especially venerate Shahriya. The supply of gas has never slackened, never run out. There is a legend*mat the day it does is the end of Numantia and perhaps the world itself.

It's easy to numb the mind with figures about Nicias-capital of Dara Province as well as of Numantia, sitting on the eastern edge of the Latane River's great delta, forty-five square miles, perhaps a million people, although I doubt if the bravest census taker has ever ventured into the towering, rickety slums of the eastern side or the evil streets of the northern docks mat jut into the Great Ocean, nor has anyone numbered the people of the streets who sleep where sundown catches mem, wrapped in their single garment.

There are half a hundred parks, from those no bigger than a city square that are owned and maintained by those living around it to the great expanses like Hyder Park or, to the north on the outskirts of the sprawling city, Manco Heath. There are at least twelve branches and who knows how many tributaries of the Latane River that twist through the city. Some of them, like the main navigable branch the ships use, are untamed. Others are channeled into stone banks like ca.n.a.ls. Still others run underground, and are used to hurry the city's sewage to the sea.

I cannot conceive of anyone becoming tired of Nicias. Someone once said that a man could dine at a different restaurant every meal of his life and die before seeing mem all. I could cynically add he might die of surfeit or, remembering some of the street vendors I grabbed a hasty snack from, stomach poisoning, instead of old age, but I'll accept the saying as truth.

Nicias has everything, from cool, quiet streets where the rich have their townhouses to the poorest garrets; shopping areas from twisting alleys with the strangest tiny shops imaginable to stalls to market squares to great emporiums that will sell you anything from a needle to a funeral. But enough-if you wish to know more, purchase a guidebook or, better yet, journey to Nicias and experience its splendor for yourself.

Sometimes I went out on my own, sometimes, when I felt like chancing the riskier parts of the town, I asked Karjan if he wished to accompany me. If he found no other pleasure, he could at least drink enough so I wouldn't be sneered at for my temperance, and he had an amazingly good ba.s.s voice that made him popular in the minstrel bars.

I called on Seer Tenedos, and found him honestly delighted to see me. That became a bit of a habit. If I didn't have night duty, which only fell once every three weeks in the Helms, and had no other plans, I would drop by the Lycee of Command, which was ten minutes distant, to see if he had any ideas for the evening.

He'd ask how my day went, of which the telling took but boring seconds, and then tell me of his. I a.s.sumed he had a Square of Silence cast around his office, since his comments on some of the high-ranking officers he was teaching, or on the staff of the lycee, were scathing.

He'd sacked the other two instructors in the Military Sorcery Department, one for senility, the other for incompetence, and replaced them with young, eager seers as convinced as he was that sorcery must become the third branch of the army, along with the infantry and cavalry.

At first it was the two of us, but in a few weeks there were other officers, students, younger captains of the Upper Half or dominas, cl.u.s.tering around. At this point, his dissection of his students ceased, obviously. Besides, his pupils were more interested in elaborations of his cla.s.sroom lectures, accompanied as frequently as not by ill.u.s.trations on a large sand-table he'd had installed.

I stayed well to the rear of the crowd, listening intently. I was fascinated. On the surface, it seemed all he was talking about was bygone battles, demonstrating how a skilled mage might have changed their outcome with a spell of darkness here, a weather spell there, and so forth.

But there was more to Seer Tenedos's speeches than just history, and it took me a while to realize it. I think that if I'd not known of his hatred for the Rule of Ten and his absolute conviction that Numantia must be ruled by a king or face doom, I might not have noticed. He'd slyly put in a dig about*those who live in the past being strangled by its dead hand in the future or, if one of the battles had occurred during the time of the Rule of Ten, how the commander on the ground was the man who saved the day, not the panicked babblers in the rear. Tenedos was building a corps of disciples to his philosophy. There was certainly no sign of his being rejected and cast into outer darkness. The Rule of Ten had erred badly in making this appointment, as he'd foreseen.

Since the students all out-ranked me, I was beginning to feel most out of place, when Tenedos announced a new schedule. He would only be available for extra sessions twice a week. The other nights he wished to himself.

"One of them at least," he said,' promise you I'll spend with you, Damastes, a.s.suming you're not tired of the company of a growling magician. I can feel myself getting stale in this d.a.m.ned office. I want to get out, in the streets, among the people."

It was well he made his plan firm, because he became a favorite of the lecture halls. One interesting thing about Nicians: They would rather go to a hall and listen to one man spiel his ideas or, better, two flail each other as incompetent, barren-minded baboons than visit a gallery or attend a concert.

A side benefit of being the season's pet philosopher was the number of women who wished to have a private interchange to, as one lovely said, "make sure I properly understand what you're saying." That person must have required considerable explanation, because when I saw Tenedos the next afternoon he was exhausted, and begged off our planned outing for the chance for some sleep.

But that was about the only time I saw him tired. He had vast wellsprings of energy, and never seemed to falter.

When we went out of an evening, there was no telling where we would go, nor whose company we would be in. Sometimes it was an invitation to a party that Tenedos had gotten, or, not infrequently, one that came to the "Lion of Sulem Pa.s.s" as one broadsheet had called me, which Yonge never let me forget We were as likely to dine in the halls of the mighty as in some dockside shanty that happened to have the best oysters in Nicias, or to sit listening to four stringed instruments in a hall as watch naked dancers prance around a single man with a guitar and a voice that could move the dead in a wineshop where we carefully sat with our backs to the wall.

Nicias was a beautiful city, but it was not a happy one. There was something wrong, something amiss.

Rich people did not go about without an armed guard or two. The populace openly sneered at me wardens and, in the poorer sections where the men of the law went in squads, were as likely to hurl a cobble at their backs and run as not Soldiers were not respected, either, but were the subject of imprecations and sometimes, if the Nician was bold and the soldier drunk enough, waylaid, robbed, and stripped.

This isn't to say injustice was only on one hand. Every street comer held a shouting orator, as likely to be howling obscene stories of whose beds the Rule of Ten slept in as condemnation of the entire system.

They were certainly harmless, even if their numbers were worrisome. But the wardens seemed to single out these blowhards as desperate enemies of the state, and smashed them into momentary silence with their truncheons. And the wardens believed that anyone arrested was automatically guilty, and deserved a merciless hiding on the way to prison.

The beauty of Nicias was there, but no one seemed to want to take care of it. The streets needed sweeping, the sidewalks were generally blocked with trash, and too many of the buildings, public as well as private, needed painting and upkeep.

I remembered what Tenedos had said as we rode through Sulem Pa.s.s the previous year: "Ican feel the unrest in Nicias, in Dara. The people are without leaders, without direction, and they know it."

I, too, felt this tension, felt as if the city were a great, dry wheatfield, parched by drought, waiting only for a single man with a torch. And I was beginning to believe I rode the streets with that very man.

But very seldom did my thoughts follow those grim tracks.

Laish Tenedos was excellent company. Frequently when he went out he changed into mufti, since, as he said, "wizard's robes can be off-putting as often as they gain an advantage. I might advise you to follow the same practice."

Against regulations, I purchased civilian garb, and kept it in Tenedos's apartments, although I wore my uniform more often than not.

The two of us, sometimes accompanied by Karjan and Yonge, found ourselves in strange byways.

I remember...

... paying a boatman a few coppers to give us a tour of the sewers under the city, roaring along as if caught by rapids in his tiny boat, the curved overhead bricks dank and dripping, rats hissing at us from corners. Yonge got the boatman drunk and we almost lost ourselves for good before discovering an open grating to pry up and get our bearings.

... There was an evening that began quietly, a visit to a small tavern along the river where the first barrel of the famous sweet wine of Varan was available for tasting. Somehow tasting became drinking became guzzling and we ended up in a long snake dance down the riverbank, the Seer Tenedos, in full regalia, roaring drunk at its head, I just behind him drunk only on the laughter and singing, the wardens standing bewildered nearby, hardly stupid enough to club down a magician for being drunk and disorderly.

... We were at a formal dinner party. I was seated next to a pretty, if rather cold-looking, woman about ten years my senior who'd been introduced as the Marchioness Fenelon. Between courses we'd chatted of this and that-I was actually becoming able to make small talk. Then she turned to me, and I saw for the first time the pin she wore on her breast.

It was a solid gold casting of a long cord.

Time froze for me, and I remembered the cavern, another,

real, yellow cord of silk around my neck, and the murderous beauty named Palikao.

"What," I said, my voice as harsh as if I'd been reprimanding one of my men, "is that you're wearing?"

--*-j--~^* Anamatthft nin. Then ssne suuicu, guuvui v^.... "__r__me, but her eyes moved away rapidly.

"Oh," she said, "it's just... something I saw in a shop and thought looked smart. Just a bauble."

I knew she was lying.

... We organized an impromptu race among the carriage drivers of Hyder Park, and combed through nearby taverns to find enough pa.s.sengers to fill them.

The two sleepy wardens screamed and ran as they saw, pelting down on them, a cavalry charge of cabs, filled with drunk n.o.blemen and -women.

By the time the wardens had called out reinforcements we'd done two laps, awarded first prize, which I remember as an enormous stuffed toy, and vanished into the night.

... It was late and I'd gotten lost trying to find the party, riding Lucan up and down the lanes of an expensive part of Nicias, with walled mansions on either side of the road. Finally, I'd found the place described on the ivory card, and rode into its grounds.

I wasn't that late, I decided with relief, because the drive was still lined with carriages and there were a dozen or more horses being held by grooms. I dismounted, tossed the reins to a retainer, and went up the steps to the main house.

I didn't know the people who lived there, not even their name, but the card that'd come to me had promised an evening such as "I'd never forget," and so I took the chance.

A solemn-faced man opened the door, bowed me in, and shut it behind me. I thought it a bit odd for a servitor to remain outside, but shrugged and looked for a cloakroom.

I went through a curtained entranceway into a large room, decorated only in pillows and a rich carpet with the thickest*nap I have ever seen. It was well that it was so comfortable, because all of the bodies squirming on it were very naked.

Man-woman, man-man, woman-woman, man-woman-man: It appeared as if every possible combination was being tried.

A very small blond, as nude as the others, came to her feet and came toward me, walking as if she expected the floor to slip away from her. She had milky skin, curly hair, the face of an innocent child, and the perfect body of a young harlot "Good evening," she said. "Would you like to come between my t.i.ts?"

I had no idea what the proper response was then, nor do I now.

"Welcome to my party," she said. "We're having alot of fun. You look like a big one. Come join us. It's always good to find a new... face." She giggled.

"Yes," I said. "Certainly. In just a moment. But... let me go find a place to hang my cloak."

"I'll be waiting," she said, and began ma.s.saging her nipples with her thumbs, moving her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against each other in a manner she thought inviting.

I backed through the curtain and went out the door.

"Leaving already, sir?" the retainer asked, his voice completely neutral. I nodded, and started toward my horse, then turned back.

"Excuse me. But whose house is this?"

"This is the residence of Lord Mahal of the Rule of Ten and his wife, sir."

I mounted and rode off.

When Tenedos said Lord Mahal's wife embraced the new, untried, and radical, he knew not how well he'd chosen the word.

Then everything changed.

Seer Tenedos had suggested I attend a gathering in his place, since he had suddenly been invited to attend Lord Sco-pas on a matter of some urgency. He said I might enjoy it,

Isince it was a regular event most popular among the radical thinkers of Nicias. He said he'd already sent his apologies, and a note that I'd most likely be attending in his stead, so his "suggestion" was, not unusually, more of an order. "Do I keep my clothes on, sir?" He colored-I' d told him of the orgy at Lord Mahal's. "You'll no doubt meet some people far stranger than any of those satyrs and nymphs," he said. "But they'll keep their I clothes on there. Or most of mem will, anyway."

"Who's sponsoring it?"

"A young woman. Countess Agramonte and Lavedan. The Agramontes are a very old, very rich family.

It's said they own ~-.* lanrt to have their own state.

enough land to have men- own suue.

"She married well a bit more than a year ago. Count Lavedan has almost as much gold as she does, but she insisted on keeping the family name, and the Lavedans know better than to argue with an Agramonte.

"These are people well worm the knowing, Damastes. Please give them my apologies, although I doubt if you'll meet Count Lavedan. He's more interested in his family's shipping than politics or philosophy.

"Enjoy yourself."

The house sat on the waterfront, a huge rectangle, five floors high, lit with gas flares at each side of the entrance gates through a tall, wrought-iron fence mat was wonderfully sculpted. I dismounted and went inside.

I gave helmet and dolman to a doorman, and went toward the sound of conversation and occasional laughter.

I pa.s.sed a huge, high-ceilinged ballroom that was empty and dark, and found the party. It was in a circular room, comfortably and expensively decorated. A silver punch bowl sat on a sideboard.

There were possibly mhty or so people inside, and I saw what Tenedos meant They were dressed in every style imaginable, including at least two I hoped stayed original with the owner, and their wearers came from every cla.s.s from the rich- *est to the most humble. They were all happily arguing, listening, or waiting to rebut the speaker as an oaf.

"Ah," a voice came from behind me. "This must be the Lion of the Sulem Pa.s.s. Will you growl tonight, O Lion?"

I turned, a smile on my face, ready to comply with the joking request. Then the world shimmered around me as if a G.o.d had suddenly changed it to gold.

The woman was quite young, barely eighteen, I found later. She was just five and a half feet tall, her hair was dark blond, worn fashionably long and pulled to fall to one side of her face, ending just above her small, pert b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She wore a stylish, daringly filmy gown with thin neckstraps that crossed over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, leaving visible their saucy curves.

Her face was rounded, her eyes sparkled with intelligence, and she had small but sensuous lips. She, too, was smiling.

Our eyes met, and the smile disappeared.

"I... I am Countess Agramonte and Lavedan," she said, sounding suddenly a bit confused, her voice dropping to a throaty murmur.

I managed to come to some sort of attention, reached out, and took her hand and lifted it, bowing over it.

"Captain Damastes a Cimabue, Countess."

"You may call me MarSn," she said.

I released her hand, and once more looked into her eyes.

I drowned in them for a million years.

SIXTEEN.

Maranuddenly her expression changed, and I can only com-^pare it to that of a puppy who's done something wrong _** and expects to be whipped. ' am sorry, Countess, I mean Marfn," I said quickly. "I did not mean to stare."