They started innocuously, offering their services to beleaguered law enforcement agencies. Lan didn' t doubt for an instant that the grey- clad soldiers were behind the increases in crime that they claimed to abhor and oppose. As the populace depended more and more on the interlopers and less on their own officials, the grey soldiers' grip tightened. Soon enough, they were the only authority, and any speaking out against them mysteriously died.
When their power became complete, the disappearances were no longer mysterious. They became public executions.
Zarella had died mysteriously, and Lan Martak had been accused of her murder- by Surepta.
The pattern repeated in Melitarsus. The minor variations mattered little.
Lan hurried on when he saw another tiny knot of the soldiers advancing. They laughed and joked among themselves, but their eyes were alert. They sought him. Whether or not Claybore directed them, the grey- clads were a menace and one that Lan couldn' t ignore. Little good Nashira' s protection if they killed him in the street.
He went into a pub and sat with his back to a wall, face down. The soldiers entered behind him. Lan tensed, his fingers gripping tightly on the hilt of his knife. He calculated how to kill the leader, then work on to the others while confusion still held them. It wasn' t necessary. They talked briefly with the innkeeper, then were summoned by a woman who had remained outside. Lan didn' t get a good look at her, but she wore the grey uniform.
The man finally approached Lan, after watching the soldiers leave.
" What' ll ye have, eh?"
" Ale and some information."
" Might be able to get ye both," he said suspiciously. His expression relaxed when Lan dropped a pair of gold coins on the table.
" The soldiers. What do you know of them?"
" Those boys?" the man laughed. " Ye fear them? No need. They only help out. Been havin' trouble with both some young vandals and those damn ' hoppers. Since them greys showed up, no trouble with neither. Right good fellows, they are. Even a woman commandin', too. Damn unusual in these parts to see that, but she' s an honorable one. They do good keepin' the disruptive elements out. Now, what kind of ale can I do for ye?"
" Never mind," said Lan. He left the coins. He left the pub. The pattern repeated. The subjugation of Melitarsus had begun.
CHAPTER FIVE
" Turn this way, Lan my darling, this way!" Ria wiggled about so that Lan Martak had no other choice. In a rush, he finished. As always, he felt drained from the intense erotic activity, but unlike the earlier times with Ria he now felt nothing more than physical tiredness. The spiritual thrill had gone. There hadn' t been emotional involvement for over a week. And Ria seemed to be performing, to be demanding more of him not through love or even simple lust but because of some hidden need to stage a choreographed play.
Lan felt Ria' s hot breath gusting across his chest. Her cheek pressed to his sweaty flesh in a way that now revolted him. Her fingers roved his body, teasing and toying with him in ways designed to arouse. Lan Martak experienced only disgust with what he had become- again.
Once before, when he' d come into a cask of jewels, wealth had altered his view of the world, changed his personality, made him into something he wasn' t. He had almost lost his- and Inyx' s- life because of the foolishness rising from inside due to the riches. This time he became no less the fool, but in a different way. He possessed no wealth but he controlled it. All he had to do was ask and he received. Hardly having two coins to clink together, Lan Martak still commanded a mansion, a beautiful, wanton, willing serving girl, the finest of clothing and food, anything he desired.
Again wealth had trapped him.
Lan' s only consolation lay in the fact that this time it was not mere wealth that drew him. As fine as the bed- and bedding- had been that first night, he would have moved on to seek out Inyx and to actively oppose Claybore if the magics around him hadn' t gently coerced him to stay. Nothing blatant had shoved him down next to Ria; the pressures were soft, easy, barely noticeable.
Lan' s magic sensing ability almost screamed at him now. He had noticed a honing of his skills in this regard and, while he could sense the spells, he lacked the acumen to do anything about them.
Puzzled, he glanced about the bedroom. Only Ria beside him, sleeping, caused the least disturbance. Lan disengaged himself from the woman' s arms and sat up, drawn to the doorway by the intensity of the magic. In the arched doorway he felt the titanic flow around him. The diamonds embedded in the walls glowed with inner light. Lan pressed his hands to them. The diamonds were neither cold nor hard.
His hands fastened to the pulsating gems, Lan entered the river of magic and went with it. He initiated nothing; the magic pulled him along. He tried to move away, to fight, and found himself unable to change his course. Relaxing, he dived headfirst and went with the tides of magic around him. Carried up and away from his mansion, he floated toward Nashira' s palace. The magics emanating from her audience chamber radiated like a yellow beacon in the night. He followed them down, down, down into the chamber itself.
" More wine," cried Nashira, presiding over the orgy. " Let us drink while our hero relieves himself!"
Lan turned to see the giant screen on the far wall. Ria' s sleeping face almost filled it. Nashira and the others thought he had left the red- haired woman' s side to answer a call to nature; they didn' t know he- his spirit- viewed their activities.
" Come, come, Clete," chided Nashira from her throne, " not so clumsy with Aludra. Don' t you remember how our hero did it? There, yes, shift your hips over. That' s the position. Now pleasure her!"
Aludra groaned. Clete thrust. The watching crowd burst into a frenzy of erotic activity. It became apparent to Lan what happened. These nobles of Melitarsus were so jaded that they required voyeurism to consummate their own sexual needs. He had been nothing more than a trained dog performing for their pleasure.
Nashira clapped her hands. Her son Kyle led out a creature hardly larger than a dog but with a single blunted horn on its nose. The boy forced the animal to kneel while his mother hiked her skirts. She lowered herself onto the horn, a look of supreme excitement on her face.
" Now, Kyle, loose the beast now!"
The animal bucked and twisted under her. The Suzerain of Melitarsus kept her hips firmly pressed downward onto the horn. Lan felt his stomach beginning to churn in disgust. Whether it was at the woman' s behavior or the expression of stark arousal on young Kyle' s face, he didn' t know. Nothing about Melitarsus was as it seemed. This decadent city and its ruler had used him- and he had allowed it.
The spells, at first, hadn' t been strong enough to keep him. The lure of beautiful women and an easy life had almost been enough.
" What' s keeping him?" demanded Nashira. " Ria must get him into action again. I need to watch them!"
Lan jerked his hands off the diamonds. He felt as if the skin ripped free, leaving raw wounds, but when he looked only normally callused flesh remained. The wounds were psychic. He turned back to the stirring Ria. Nashira had issued some unspoken command to the serving girl, rousing her, demanding further sex play for the Suzerain' s amusement.
" Lan, my love, come back to bed. Join me and I shall show you the wonders of the four thousand and fourth position." Her arms reached out for him, inviting milky- skinned arms meant to hold a man close. He fought the attraction as he knelt beside her.
" I want more than that, Ria. We have been too gentle. I demand more from you."
Her eyes shot open.
" What do you mean, my master?"
" You take me for granted. I must punish you for that."
" Master!"