Yama did as he was told. He was still too dazed to try to run. Besides, Sergeant Rhodean had taught him that in the event of being kidnapped he should not attempt to escape unless his life was in danger. He thought that the soldiers of the garrison must be searching for him; after all, he had been missing all day. They might turn a corner and find him at any moment.
The dose of cantharides had made Dr. Dismas talkative.
He did not seem to think that he was in any danger. As they walked, he told Yama that originally the tavern had been a workshop where ghost lanterns had been manufactured in the glory days of Aeolis.
“The lanterns that advertise the tavern are a crude representation of the ideal of the past, being made of nothing more than lacquered paper. Real ghost lanterns were little round boats made of plastic, with a deep weighted keel to keep them upright and a globe of blown nylon infused with luminescent chemicals instead of a sail. Ghost lanterns were floated on the Great River after each funeral to confuse any restless spirits of the dead and make sure that they would not haunt their living relatives. There is, as you will soon see, an analogy to be made with your fate, my dear boy.”
Yama said, “You traffic with fools, doctor. The owner of the tavern will be burnt for his part in my kidnap—it is the punishment my father reserves for the common people. Lud and Lob too, though their stupidity almost absolves them.”
Dr. Dismas laughed. His sickly sweet breath touched Yama’s cheek. He said, “And will I be burnt, too?”
“It is in my father’s power. More likely you will be turned over to the mercies of your department. No one will profit from this.”
“That’s where you are wrong. First, I do not take you for ransom, but to save you from the pedestrian fate to which your father would consign you. Second, do you see anyone coming to your rescue?”
The long waterfront, lit by the orange glow of sodium-vapor lamps, was deserted. The taverns, the chandlers’ godowns and the two whorehouses were shuttered and dark. Curfew notices fluttered from doors; slogans in the crude ideograms used by the Amnan had been smeared on walls.
Rubbish and driftwood had been piled against the steel doors of the big godown owned by Derev’s father and set alight, but the fire had done no more than discolor the metal. Several lesser merchants’ offices had been looted, and the building where Dr. Dismas had kept his office had been burnt to the ground. Smoldering timbers sent up a sharp stench that made Yama’s eyes water.
Dr. Dismas marched Yama quite openly along the new quay, which ran out toward the mouth of the bay between meadows of zebra grass and shoals of mud dissected by shallow stagnant channels. The wide bay faced downriver.
Framed on one side by the bluff on which the Aedile’s house stood, and by the chimneys of the paeonin mill on the other, the triple-armed pinwheel of the Galaxy stood beyond the edge of the world. It was so big that when Yama looked at one edge he could not see the other. The Arm of the Warrior rose high above the arch of the Arm of the Hunter; the Arm of the Archer curved in the opposite direction, below the edge of the world, and would not be seen again until next winter. The structure known as the Blue Diadem, that Yama knew from his readings of the Puranas was a cloud of fifty thousand blue-white stars each forty times the mass of the sun of Confluence, was a brilliant pinprick of light beyond the frayed point of the out-flung Arm of the Hunter, like a drop of water flicked from a finger. Smaller star clusters made long chains of concentrated light through the milky haze of the galactic arms. There were lines and threads and globes and clouds of stars, all fading into a general misty radiance notched by dark lanes which barred the arms at regular intervals. The core, bisected by the horizon, was knitted from thin shells of stars in tidy orbits concentrically packed around the great globular clusters of the heart stars, like layers of glittering tissue wrapped around a heap of jewels. Confronted with this ancient grandeur, Yama felt that his fate was as insignificant as that of any of the mosquitoes which danced before his face.
Dr. Dismas cupped his free hand to his mouth and called out, his voice shockingly loud in the quiet darkness. “Time to go!”
There was a distant splash in the shallows beyond the end of the quay’s long stone finger. Then a familiar voice said, “Row with me, you bugger. You’re making us go in circles.”
A skiff glided out of the darkness. Lud and Lob shipped their oars as it thumped against the bottom of a broad stone stair. Lob jumped out and held the boat steady as Yama and Dr. Dismas climbed in.
“Quick as you like, your honor,” Lud said.
“Haste makes waste,” Dr. Dismas said. Slowly and fussily he settled himself on the center thwart, facing Yama with the energy pistol resting casually in his lap. He told the twins, “I hope that this time you did exactly as I asked.”
“Sweet as you like,” Lob said. “They didn’t know we were there until the stuff went up.” The skiff barely rocked when he vaulted back into it; he was surprisingly nimble for someone of his bulk. He and his brother settled themselves in the high seat at the stern and they pushed off from the rough stones of the quay.
Yama watched the string of orange lights along the waterfront swiftly recede into the general darkness of the shore.
The cold breeze off the river was clearing his head, and for the first time since he had woken from his drugged sleep he was beginning to feel fear.
He said, “Where are you taking me, doctor?”
Dr. Dismas’s eyes gleamed with red fire beneath the brim of his hat; his eyes were backed with a reflective membrane, like those of certain nocturnal animals. He said, “You return to the place of your birth, Yamamanama. Does that frighten you?”
“Little fish,” Lud said mockingly. “Little fish, little fish.”
“Fish out of water,” Lob added.
They were both breathing heavily as they rowed swiftly toward the open water of the Great River.
“Keep quiet if you want to earn your money,” Dr. Dismas said, and told Yama, “You must forgive them. Good help is so hard to find in backwater places. At times I was tempted to use my master’s men instead.”
Lud said, “We could tip you overboard, doctor. Ever think of that?”
Dr. Dismas said, “This pistol can kill you and your brother just as easily as Yamamanama.”
“If you shoot at us, you’ll set fire to the boat, and drown as neat as if we’d thrown you in.”
“I might do it anyway. Like the scorpion who convinced the frog to carry him across the river, but stung his mount before they were halfway across, death is in my nature.”
Lob said, “He don’t mean anything by it, your honor.”
“I just don’t like bad-mouthing of our city,” Lud said sullenly.
Dr. Dismas laughed. “I speak only the truth. Both of you agree with me, for why else would you want to leave? It is an understandable impulse, and it raises you above the rest of your kind.”
Lud said, “Our father is young, that’s all it is. We’re strong, but he’s stronger. He’d kill either of us or both of us, however we tried it, and we can’t wait for him to get weak. It would take years and years.”
Dr. Dismas said, “And Yamamanama wants to leave, too. Do not deny it, my boy. Soon you will have your wish. There! Look upriver! You see how much we do for you!”
The skiff heeled as it rounded the point of the shallow, silted bay and entered the choppier waters of the river proper.
As it turned into the current, Yama saw with a shock that one of the ships anchored at the floating harbor half a league upstream was ablaze from bow to stern.