The Golden Torc

by Julian May

  "Don't talk with your mouth full, Greggy dear," said the Queen.

  Tears began to trickle down the madman's smooth cheeks. "If only we could clone her!" And Bryan was quite aware that the Genetics Master no longer referred to Mother Nature. "You wouldn't believe, Grenfell, how primitive this outfit really is compared to my old lab back at Johns Hopkins."

  "Watch the tournament, Greggy," Nontusvel urged. "See? There's Ogmol coming into the lists."

  The Lady Eadone Sciencemaster gave Bryan an appraising glance. "And what preliminary conclusions have you been able to draw in these first weeks of your culture-impact survey, Doctor? Genetic considerations aside, we're worried that the Tanu may be becoming too dependent upon human workers and human technology. As you've noted, none of our young people choose a career in agriculture any more. The same is becoming true in other practical disciplines: mining, architecture, civil engineering, manufacturing."

  "All activities that fall into my province," Aluteyn put in, looking harried. "Creation House is overflowing with musicians and dancers and sculptors and apprentice couturiers. But do you know how many signed up for bioluminescence technology this year? Five! Another couple of hundred years and we'll have to light our cities entirely with olive oil and reed pith soaked in tallow!"

  "You may have grounds for your concern," Bryan said carefully.

  The indignant Craftsmaster said, "There's even talk of separating the arts and sciences entirely—spinning off a new Guild, if you please!—with mostly gold humans in charge of technology!"

  "Gomnol's idea, of course," Eadone remarked, entirely sedate.

  "I've been in harness since the old days," Aluteyn said. "I was one of the First Comers who defied the federation and made contact with Brede. There aren't many of us left now among the Tanu—the Thagdal, Dionket, Mayvar, Lady Eadone, the Lord of Swords, poor old Leyr sulking in the Pyrénées ... There! Even I give the damn mountains their human name! Just sixty-odd years of the time-gate and a millennium of Duat culture nearly gone down the drain. Even the best fighters these days are mostly hybrids! The world's gone to hell in a nightsoil cart."

  "Compose yourself, Creative Brother," the Queen said.

  Greg-Donnet showed his teeth in a wide grin. "You can't stand in the way of progress."

  "Oh, really?" said Nontusvel.

  A gray-torc usher opened the curtains at the rear of the royal box. He announced: "The Exalted Lord Nodonn Battlemaster and his consort, Lady Rosmar."

  A towering form in rosy-golden armor stood in the doorway, almost blinding Bryan with sunrise radiance.

  "My son!" cried the delighted Queen.

  "Mother!"

  "I'm so glad you're in time for his testing."

  The visage of Apollo displayed an ironic smile. "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I've brought a little present for Mayvar's fancy-boy."

  The Queen had risen from her seat to kiss her eldest child. Now she took the hand of a human woman dressed in a splendid costume and headdress of auroral hues and led her to the still-dazzled anthropologist.

  "And here's a surprise for you, Bryan. Just as we promised! Dear Nodonn will want to go down to the arena to witness the trial of Aiken Drum, so you two must sit together and get reacquainted. You do remember Bryan Grenfell, don't you, darling Rosmar?"

  "How could I ever forget?" Mercy said. Tenderly, she bent and kissed the anthropologist on the lips, then raised a playful eye to her resplendent Lord. "You mustn't be jealous, my daemon lover. Bryan and I are old, old friends."

  "Enjoy one another," said the Battlemaster.

  He opened the wicket and descended the stairs to the arena. The stadium crowd and the stormy sky thundered together in a concert of adulation.

  ***

  Watching from the opposite side of the stadium, Aiken asked the Lord of Swords, "Who's the badass archangel?"

  "You'll be finding out shortly! I understand he's brought something special for your testing from the marshes of Laar." Tagan went out of the sideline dugout to meet the Tanu champion. The jousting had come to a standstill in the uproar attending Nodonn's appearance.

  Stein, free now of his glass armor and gnawing the roasted leg of some large fowl, called from the passageway leading to the dressing rooms. "Hey, kid! Somebody here to see you. Your old pal, the B.C. stud."

  Raimo Hakkinen slid furtively into the dugout, pale eyes darting. None of the human or Tanu warriors was paying any attention to him, but he spoke in an anxious whisper just the same. "Only a minute of your time, Lord Aiken. That's all—"

  The trickster was aghast. "What's this fewkin' lord bullshit? It's me, Chopper—your li'l bitty buddy!"

  Aiken sent a quick probe behind bloodshot Mongol eyes ... and found chaos. There was hardly a sensible thought to be found in that bog of weariness and dread that was Raimo's mind. Somehow, the silver torc had exacerbated the personal devils of the former woodsman. His experiences during the previous two weeks combined with this functional derangement to drive him to the brink of brain-wreck.

  "The women, Aik! The goddam man-eating Tanu bitches! They been squeezing me like a lemon!"

  Stein slapped one great thigh and gave a roar of cruel laughter.

  Raimo only hung his head. He looked as if he had lost ten kilos. The formerly arrogant Finnish face had gone pinched and blotchy, the blond hair hung lank beneath a jaunty cap, and the once powerful body was shrunken within a costume that mimicked Italian Renaissance styling with its puffed sleeves, trunk hose, and codpiece. Raimo paid no attention to the Viking's derision but raised clasped hands and fell on his knees before the mischief-maker.

  "For the love of God, Aik—help me! You can! I heard how you got this fuckin' town eatin' outa your hand."

  Redaction was not Aiken's long metapsychic suit, but he plunged in to do the best he could for the tottering psyche. Some of the Tanu contestants for the games had begun to stare curiously, so Aiken pulled Raimo out into the corridor. Stein trailed after, chewing his bone.

  "They been passing me from one to the other," Raimo said. "All the ones who don't have kids—and there are a coopful! They try out all the silver guys—grays, too, if they like the looks of 'em. But if it turns out that you don't knock any of 'em up, they quit being nice and get their buzz by—by—Jeez, Aik! D'you know what they can do to a guy wearin' this friggin' torc?"

  Aiken saw. He moved quickly through the limbic system of the humiliated, hagridden brain, turning off pain circuits and putting up a temporary mitigating structure that would help ... a little. When things were at their worst, Raimo would be able to retreat into it and stay sane. As the woodsman's twitching features calmed, he pleaded, "Don't let 'em get me, Aik. We were buddies. Don't let the Tanu bitches ball me to death."

  A sudden burst of conversation and laughter sounded from the other end of the long passageway. Six tall apparitions of unearthly beauty, all rainbow chiffon and sparkling gems and floating blonde hair and on-the-gad pheromones, came gliding toward the three men with eager exclamations.

  "We farwatched you and knew you'd be hiding here!"

  "Wicked, delicious Raimo, to run away!"

  "Now we'll have to punish you again, won't we?"

  "Sisters! Do you know who the big one is? It's Stein! Let's take him, too!"

  There was a perfumed scurrying and a clash of coordinated coercive power against a mind-shield of gold, followed by mental giggles and impudent tweaks that set Aiken and the Viking on fire even though the psychic barriers were up. A single moan: "Don't let 'em." And then Raimo and the Tanu women were gone.

  "Holy shit," whispered Stein.

  Aiken shook his golliwog head. "Back in the good old Milieu, I'd of said, 'What a way to go.' But you wouldn't believe what was rattling around in that poor bastard's skull. A genuine fate worse than death! He just can't keep cutting it with those crazy broads!"

  Stein said, "Too bad you don't give lessons."

  "Aiken Drum!" came the mental and vocal command of the Lord of Swords. "Y
ou are required to demonstrate your power before the King and the nobility and populace of Muriah."

  "Oh-oh. I'm on." The trickster looked up at Stein, serious for once. "If they nail me out there, Mayvar will bring you to the place where Sukey's hidden."

  "Go stick it to 'em, kid," the Viking told him.

  ***

  "Be pleased, Awful Majesties, to accept the homage of the gold-torc human Aiken Drum, sponsored Candidate of the Venerable Mayvar Kingmaker, President of the Guild of Farsensors."

  Aiken rode up on the black charger to pay his devoirs. The plaudits were nearly as wild as those that had greeted the Battlemaster.

  Nodonn himself stood at the foot of the stairs with Tagan and the Marshal of Sport, his head bared and an expression of benignity on his glowing face. When the cheers had completely died away, he said:

  "Aiken Drum—your Venerable Patron has acquainted us with your considerable metapsychic talents. But these are not the qualities we seek to assess tonight as we weigh your candidacy. Instead, we would test the fundamental attributes that must characterize those of our battleworthy company—courage, resolution, intelligence. Demonstrate these as you meet the antagonist I have chosen for you ... His name, according to the sages of Goriah, is Phobosuchus. Most of his kind have been extinct for nearly fifty million years. But a few survive as living fossils in the regions south of my city, in the vast estuaries of the River Laar where the long-necked sea monsters come to bask and breed. By my mind's power I have subdued and transported him here to try your skill. But I charge you, Aiken Drum, to remember our conventions of sport! You may use no overt mental force in your combat with Phobosuchus—only bodily strength, bravery, and natural cunning. Violate our precepts and the massed scorn of this noble company will annihilate you."

  A low-pitched sound swept over the crowd. Conflicting farspoken sentiments eddied around the little figure in the golden armor: some hostile, some mocking or fearful, but others...

  I'll be damned, Aiken thought. I think most of them want me to win!

  Nodonn's admonitions having ended, the King signaled that the contest should begin. With one hand Aiken raised his pennoned lance, saluting first the royal box and then the mob of spectators. With the other hand, as he spurred his chaliko around to face the center of the arena, he repeated to the Battlemaster the finger gesture depicted on his banner.

  There was a great cheer. A heavily barred doorway beside the animal pens swung wide, revealing a dark cavelike opening. Nodonn cried out in simultaneous vocal and mental command:

  "Phobosuchus, come forth!"

  A dragon raced into the arena, then stopped in the middle of the field to gape its jaws and give a hiss like an erupting fumarole.

  The spectators responded with screams of awe and frenzied applause for the novelty, the like of which had never before been seen in the arena of Muriah. Phobosuchus was a monstrous crocodilian. Its skull measured two meters in length and the teeth in the bluish-gray mouth were the size of large bananas. At rest, and watching the approach of Aiken's black charger with a sardonic catlike eye, Phobosuchus squatted on the sand with bowed legs; the body was at least fifteen meters long, the dorsal surface armored with ridged bony scutes. The whimsy of the Battlemaster had augmented the natural pale-green-and-black banded pattern of the beast with painted designs of his own heraldic colors, rose-red and gold.

  Infuriated by the mob's screeching, the bright lights, and the painful mental goad that Nodonn's coercive faculty had just administered, Phobosuchus sought whom it might devour. It lashed its serrated tail, releasing a noxious blast of musk from its cloacal glands. Then it hoisted its huge body high off the ground and started running toward the most likely target at a brisk gallop.

  The pioneer "Scottish" planet of Dalriada where Aiken Drum had been nurtured had no native crocodilians, nor had the ecology engineers deemed that particular reptile order a suitable addition to the local biota. And so Aiken really hadn't the foggiest notion of the type of creature that was charging toward him. He decided that it had to be a dragon. A dragon that could run like a racehorse and was thoroughly pissed. Game etiquette decreed that he meet the oncoming monster with bold resolution. He took a firm grip on his lance and thumped spurred heels upon his mount's wide shoulders...

  ...and quite forgot to hold onto its mind.

  The black chaliko gave a ringing scream of fear and threw him. It fled for its life to the opposite end of the arena while the young man in the golden glass armor scrambled to his feet, snatched up his lance, and took to his heels with Phobosuchus in pleased pursuit.

  After a silent beat of stunned horror, the spectators began a hilarious riot of cheering. The heavens added to the noise with a fanfaronade of thunder, which inspired the crocodile to bellow in response. It did this with its mouth closed, chasing Aiken up one side of the arena and down the other while clowns, referees, animal handlers, manure shovelers, Tanu knights in spiky jeweled armor, and dignified officials tumbled over one another and leaped or levitated into the front-row seats, trying to escape the racing monster.

  As he approached the stairway to the royal box, where Nodonn, Tagan, and the other high-ranking observers stood like a collection of huge carved-gemstone chessmen, Aiken suddenly changed course. He streaked in a flat curve for the center of the arena with Phobosuchus two or three meters behind and beginning to get a trifle winded. Aiken thrust the butt of his lance ahead of him, sank it deeply into the sand, and went hand over hand up it in a fluid pole vault that sent him arcing through the air like a golden missile. He landed a monster's length to one side of Phobosuchus. The creature hesitated, then shied at the lance and its banner, which still quivered, embedded in the earth.

  Phobosuchus halted, belly to the ground. It swung its awesome gape toward the golden manikin dancing around its flank. Aiken dashed toward the rear end of the great crocodile before it could shift its bulk and finally attained its blind spot. Skipping lightly as an autumn leaf, he ran along the knobbed and enameled expanse of the animal's back, keeping his balance like a logrolling champ while the reptile writhed and spun in an effort to discover what this peculiar prey was up to now.

  Abruptly, the crocodilian froze. The crowd drew a collective breath. Aiken flung himself prone onto the gaudy cobbled hide and clung to a pair of scutes with a death-grip. Phobosuchus exploded into a fit of bucking and twisting, furious to dislodge the human pest that adhered to its back. Its jaws clashed with a noise of rending timbers; it bounced and squirmed and flung its three-ton body about with the agility of a basilisk, trying in vain to claw Aiken off with the black scimitars that tipped its feet. The reptile's tail churned up clouds of dust that momentarily hid both dragon and golden sticktight; but when the beast finally paused to rest, Aiken was still in position, lying on his armored stomach between two lines of scutes just aft of the front legs.

  Phobosuchus lowered itself to its belly again and hissed exasperation. As the mouth, approximately as long as Aiken's body, closed, the trickster suddenly sprang to his feet and dashed up the neck, between the eyes, and down the length of the prostrate skull to leap off the tip of the snout. The monster watched in a kind of stunned fascination as Aiken sprinted for his lance and wrenched it out of the ground. He came running back to retrace his madcap route up the reptile's head and onto its shoulders, purple banner streaming raggedly above his dusty golden helm.

  "A kill! A kill!" trumpeted the crowd.

  Phobosuchus bellowed in despair. The jaws opened and the huge skull tilted above Aiken like the span of a nightmare drawbridge. Lance at the ready, the little man looked into the dragon's upside-down eyes. Aiken's farsense showed him the structure of the skull beneath the thick, ornamented hide—the two parietal openings behind the eyesockets.

  Aiken chose the right fenestra, plunged his lance in, and immediately leapt from the creature's back and retreated to a safe distance. Once again Phobosuchus erupted into a paroxysm of thrashing, and this lasted for some time because dragons do not die easily. Bu
t at last the great body lay jerking in the dust and Aiken plucked the shattered lance with its ruined pennon from the bleeding brain. He walked very slowly to the royal stairway.

  There was King Thagdal waiting for him. And the Queen, smiling, and off at one side the Battlemaster, aloof and glorious. And there was also a tall stooped figure in a plum-colored robe who cleaned his dusty armor with a gesture of her hand and gave him a fresh ensign, violet plumes, and a cloak like the spangled purple-black of the twilight sky to wear as he stood before the King.

  Three times the Marshal had to cry: "Pray silence for the accolade of His Awful Majesty!" At last, the spectators were still.

  The Lord of Swords stepped to the side of the sovereign and held out a scabbard, from which Thagdal drew an amethystine sword. Holding the blade in one hand and the golden hilt in the other, the King poised the weapon in front of the face of the shining youth.

  "We tender to you this our accolade, and bid you be forever our faithful knight. What name do you choose for your initiation into the noble battle-company of the Tanu?"

  Mayvar's mental voice pervaded the arena with its muted tone.

  He may not choose his name. I will choose his name at the acceptable time. But that time is not now.

  The royal mouth tightened and static stirred the blond tendrils of the King's beard. "I defer to my Venerable Sister, your Patron and Lady. You will retain your human name until that time which she ... foresees comes to pass. Receive this sword then, Lord Aiken Drum, and bear it in my service on the Delbaeth Quest."

  Grinning, the golliwog accepted the vitredur blade. The Lord of Swords fastened the scabbard and its baldric and the crowd cried, "Slonshal!"