The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction: Keith Laumer

by Keith Laumer

  “Who are you?” asked Gope, his eyes fixed on mine. “You speak Old Vallonian, you rake up the forbidden knowledge, and challenge the very Powers.…” He got to his feet. “I could have you immured, Drgon. I could hand you to the Greymen, for a fate I shudder to name.” He turned and walked the length of the room restlessly, then turned back to me and stopped.

  “Matters stand ill with this fair world,” he said. “Legend tells us that once men lived as the High Gods on Vallon. There was a mighty Owner, Rthr of all Vallon. It is whispered that he will come again—”

  “Your legends are all true. You can take my word for that! But that doesn’t mean some supernatural sugar daddy is going to come along and bail you out. And don’t get the idea I think I’m the fabled answer to prayers. All I mean is that once upon a time Vallon was a good place to live and it could be again. Right now, it’s like a land under an enchantment—and you sleeping beauties need waking up. Your cities and roads and ships are still here, intact. But nobody knows how to run them and you’re all afraid to try. Who scared you off? Who started the rumors? What broke down the memory recording system? Why can’t we all go to Okk-Hamiloth and use the Archives to give everybody back what he’s lost—”

  “These are dread words,” said Gope.

  “There must be somebody behind it. Or there was once. Who is he?”

  Gope thought. “There is one man pre-eminent among us: the Great Owner, Owner of Owners: Ommodurad by name. Where he dwells I know not. This is a secret possessed only by his intimates.”

  “What does he look like? How do I get to see him?”

  Gope shook his head. “I have seen him but once, closely cowled. He is a tall man, and silent. ’Tis said—” Gope lowered his voice, “—by his black arts he possesses all his lives. An aura of dread hangs about him—”

  “Never mind that jazz,” I said. “He’s a man, like other men. Stick a knife between his ribs and you put an end to him, aura and all.”

  “I do not like this talk of death. Let the doer of evil deeds be immured; it is sufficient.”

  “First let’s find him. How can I get close to him?”

  “There are those Owners who are his confidants,” said Gope, “his trusted agents. It is through them that we small Owners learn of his will.”

  “Can we enlist one of them?”

  “Never. They are bound to him by ties of darkness, spells and incantations.”

  “I’m a fast man with a pair of loaded dice myself. It’s all done with mirrors. Let’s stick to the point, noble Gope. How can I work into a spot with one of these big shots?”

  “Nothing easier. A Driver and Piper of such skills as your own can claim what place he chooses.”

  “How about bodyguarding? Suppose I could take a heavy named Torbu; would that set me in better with a new Owner?”

  “Such is no place for a man of your abilities, good Drgon,” Gope exclaimed. “True, ’tis a place most close to an Owner, but there is much danger in it. The challenge to a bodyguard involves the most bloody hand-to-hand combat, second only to the rigors of a challenge to an Owner himself.”

  “What’s that?” I snapped. “Challenge an Owner?”

  “Be calm, good Drgon,” said Gope, staring at me incredulously. “No common man with his wits about him will challenge an Owner.”

  “But I could if I wanted to?”

  “In sooth…if you have tired of life—of all your lives; ’tis as good a way to end them as another. But you must know, good Drgon: an Owner is a warrior trained in the skills of battle. None less than another such may hope to prevail.”

  I smacked my fist into my palm. “I should have thought of this sooner! The cooks cook for their places, the pipers pipe…and the best man wins. It figures that the Owners would use the same system. But what’s the procedure, noble Gope? How do you get your chance to prove who can own the best?”

  “It is a contest with naked steel. It is the measure and glory of an Owner that he alone stands ready to prove his quality against the peril of death itself.” Gope drew himself up with pride.

  “What about the bodyguards?” I asked. “They fight—”

  “With their hands, good Drgon. And they lack skill with those. A death such as you described tonight—that is a rare and sorry accident.”

  “It showed up this whole grubby farce in its true colors. A civilization like that of Vallon—reduced to this.”

  “Still, it is sweet to live—by whatever rules—”

  “I don’t believe that…and neither do you. What Owner can I challenge? How do I go about it?”

  “Give up this course, good Drgon—”

  “Where’s the nearest buddy of the Big Owner?”

  Gope threw up his hands. “Here, at Bar-Ponderone. Owner Qohey. But—”

  “And how do I call his bluff?”

  Gope put a hand on my shoulder. “It is no bluff, good Drgon. It is long now since last Owner Qohey stood to his blade to protect his place, but you may be sure he has lost none of his skill. Thus it was he won his way to Bar-Ponderone, while lesser knights, such as myself, contented themselves with meaner fiefs.”

  “I’m not bluffing either, noble Gope,” I said, stretching a point. “I was no harness-maker in the Good Time.”

  “It is your death—”

  “Tell me how I offer the challenge…or I’ll twist his nose in the main banqueting salon tomorrow night.”

  Gope sat down heavily, raised his hand, and let them fall. “If I tell you not, another will. But I will not soon find another Piper of your worth.”

  CHAPTER XV

  Gaudy hangings of purple cut the light of the sun to a rich gloom in the enormous, high-vaulted Audience Hall. A rustling murmur was audible in the room as uneasy courtiers and supplicants fidgeted, waiting for the appearance of the Owner.

  It had been two months since Gope had explained to me how a formal challenge to an Owner was conducted, and, as he pointed out, this was the only kind of challenge that would help. If I waylaid the man and cut him down, even in a fair fight, his bodyguards would repay the favor before I could establish the claim that I was their legitimate new boss.

  I had spent three hours every day in the armory at Rath-Gallion, trading buffets with Gope and a couple of the bodyguards. The thirty-pound slab of edged steel had felt right at home in my hand that first day—for about a minute. I had the borrowed knowledge to give me all the technique I needed, but the muscle power for putting the knowledge into practice was another matter. After five minutes I was slumped against the wall, gulping air, while Gope whistled his sticker around my head and talked.

  “You laid on like no piper, good Drgon. Yet have you much to learn in the matter of endurance.”

  —And he was at me again. I spent the afternoon back-pedaling and making wild two-handed swings and finally fell down—pooped. I couldn’t have moved if Gope had had at me with a hot poker.

  Gope and the others laughed til they cried, then hauled me away to my room and let me sleep. They rolled me out the next morning to go at it again.

  As Gope said, there was no time to waste…and after two months of it I felt ready for anything. Gope had warned me that Owner Qohey was a big fellow, but that didn’t bother me. The bigger they came, the bigger the target.…

  There was a murmur in a different key in the Audience Hall and tall gilt doors opened at the far side of the room. A couple of liveried flunkies scampered into view, then a seven-foot man-eater stalked into the hall, made his way to the dais, turned to face the crowd.…

  He was enormous: his neck was as thick as my thigh, his features chipped out of granite, the grey variety. He threw back his brilliant purple cloak from his shoulders and reached out an arm like an oak root for the ceremonial sword one of the flunkies was struggling with. He took the sword with its sheath, sat down, and stood it between his feet, his ar
ms folded on top.

  “Who has a grievance?” he spoke. The voice reverberated like the old Wurlitzer at the Rialto back home.

  This was my cue. There he was, just asking for it. All I had to do was speak up. Owner Qohey would gladly oblige me. The fact that next to him Primo Carnera would look dainty shouldn’t slow me down.

  I cleared my throat with a thin squeak, and edged forward, not very far.

  “I have one little item—” I started.

  Nobody was listening. Up front a big fellow in a black toga was pushing through the crowd. Everybody turned to stare at him: there was a craning of necks. The crowd drew back from the dais, leaving an opening. The man in black stepped into the clear, flung back the flapping garment from his right arm, and whipped out a long polished length of razor-edged iron. It was beginning to look like somebody had beaten me to the punch.

  The newcomer stood there in front of Qohey with the naked blade making all the threat that was needed. Qohey stared at him for a long moment, then stood, gestured to a flunky. The flunky turned, cleared his throat.

  “The place of Bar-Ponderone has been claimed!” he recited in a shrill voice. “Let the issue be joined!” He skittered out of the way and Qohey rose, threw aside his purple cloak and cowl, and stepped down. I pushed forward to get a better look.

  The challenger in black tossed his loose garment aside, stood facing Qohey in a skin-tight jerkin and hose; heavy moccasins of soft leather were laced up the calf. He was magnificently muscled but Qohey towered over him like a tree, with a build that would have taken the Mr. Muscle Beach title any time he cared to try for it.

  I didn’t know whether to be glad or sad that the initiative had been taken out from under me. If the man in black won, I wondered would I then be able to step in in turn and take him on? He was a lot smaller than Qohey but there was always the chance.…

  Qohey unsheathed his fancy iron and whirled it like it was a lady’s putter. I felt sorry for the smaller man, who was just standing, watching him. He really didn’t have a chance.

  I had got through to the fore rank by now. The challenger turned and I saw his face. I stopped dead, while fire bells clanged in my head.

  The man in black was Foster.

  * * * *

  In dead silence Qohey and Foster squared off, touched their sword points to the floor in some kind of salute…and Qohey’s slicer whipped up in a vicious cut. Foster leaned aside, just far enough, then countered with a flick that made Qohey jump back. I let out a long breath and tried swallowing. Foster was like a terrier up against a bull, but it didn’t seem to bother him—only me. I had come light years to find him, just in time to see him get his head lopped off.

  Qohey’s blade flashed, cutting at Foster’s head. Foster hardly moved. Almost effortlessly, it seemed, he interposed his heavy weapon between the attacking steel and himself. Clash, clang! Qohey hacked and chopped…and Foster played with him. Then Foster’s arm flashed out and there was blood on Qohey’s wrist. A gasp went up from the crowd. Now Foster took a step forward, struck…and faltered! In an instant Qohey was on him and the two men were locked, chest to chest. For a moment Foster held, then Qohey’s weight told, and Foster reeled back. He tried to bring up the sword, seemed to struggle, then Qohey lashed out again. Foster twisted, took the blow awkwardly just above the hand guard, stumbled…and fell.

  Qohey leaped to him, raised the sword—

  I hauled mine half way out of its sheath and pushed forward.

  “Let the man be put away from my sight,” rumbled Qohey. He lowered his immense sword, turned, pushed aside a flunky who had bustled up with a wad of bandages. As he strode from the room a swarm of bodyguards fanned out between the crowd and Foster. I could see him clumsily struggling to rise, then I was shoved back, still craning for a glimpse. There was something wrong here; Foster had acted like a man suddenly half-paralyzed. Had Qohey doped him in some way?

  The cordon stopped pushing, turned their backs to the crowd. I tugged at the arm of the man beside me.

  “Did you see anything strange there?” I started.

  He pulled free. “Strange? Yea, the mercy of our Lord Qohey! Instead of meting out death on the spot, our Owner was generous—”

  “I mean about the fight.” I grabbed his arm again to keep him from moving off.

  “That the impudent rascal would dare to claim the place of Owner at Bar-Ponderone: there’s wonder enough for any man,” he snapped. “Unhand me, fellow!”

  I unhanded him and tried to collect my wits. What now? I tapped a bodyguard on the shoulder. He whirled, club in hand.

  “What’s to be the fate of the man?” I asked.

  “Like the Boss said: they’re gonna immure the bum for his pains.”

  “You mean wall him up?”

  “Yeah. Just a peep hole to pass chow in every day…so’s he don’t starve, see?” The bodyguard chuckled.

  “How long—?”

  “He’ll last; don’t worry. After the Change, Owner Qohey’s got a newman—”

  “Shut up,” another bruiser said.

  The crowd was slowly thinning. The bodyguards were relaxing, standing in pairs, talking. Two servants moved about where the fight had taken place, making mystical motions in the air above the floor. I edged forward, watching them. They seemed to be plucking imaginary flowers. Strange.…

  I moved even farther forward to take a closer look, then saw a tiny glint.… A servant hurried across, made gestures. I pushed him aside, groped…and my fingers encountered a delicate filament of wire. I pulled it in, swept up more. The servants had stopped and stood watching me, muttering. The whole area of the combat was covered with the invisible wires, looping up in coils two feet high.

  No wonder Foster had stumbled, had trouble raising his sword. He had been netted, encased in a mesh of incredibly fine tough wire…and in the dim light even the crowd twenty feet away hadn’t seen it. Owner Qohey was a good man with the chopper but he didn’t rely on that alone to hold onto his job.

  I put my hand on my sword hilt, chewed my lower lip. I had found Foster…but it wouldn’t do me—or Vallon—much good. He was on his way to the dungeons, to be walled up until the next Change. And it would be three months before I could legally make another try for Qohey’s place. After seeing him in action I was glad I hadn’t tried today. He wouldn’t have needed any net to handle me.

  I would have to spend the next three months working on my swordplay, and hope Foster could hold out. Maybe I could sneak a message—

  A heavy blow on the back sent me spinning. Four bodyguards moved to ring me in, clubs in hand. They were strangers to me, but across the room I saw Torbu looming, looking my way.…

  “I saw him; he started to pull that fancy sword,” said one of the guards.

  “He was asking me questions—”

  “Unbuckle it and drop it,” another ordered me. “Don’t try anything!”

  “What’s this all about?” I said. “I have a right to wear a Ceremonial Sword at an Audience—”

  “Move in, boys!” The four men stepped toward me, the clubs came up. I warded off a smashing blow with my left arm, took a blinding crack across the face, felt myself going down—another blow, and another: killing ones.…

  Then I was aware of being dragged, endlessly, of voices barking sharp questions, of pain.… After a long time it was dark, and silent, and I slept.

  * * * *

  I groaned and the sound was dead, muffled. I put out a hand and touched stone on my right. My left elbow touched stone. I made an instinctive move to sit up and smacked my head against more stone. My new room was confining. Gingerly I felt my face…and winced at the touch. The bridge of my nose felt different: it was lower than it used to be, in spite of the swelling. I lay back and traced the pattern of pain. There was the nose—smashed flat—with secondary aches around the eyes. They’d be beautiful s
hiners, if I could see them. Now the left arm: it was curled close to my side and when I moved it I saw why: it wasn’t broken, but the shoulder wasn’t right, and there was a deep bruise above the elbow. My knees and shin, as far as I could reach, were caked with dried blood. That figured: I remembered being dragged.

  I tried deep-breathing; my chest seemed to be okay. My hands worked. My teeth were in place. Maybe I wasn’t as sick as I felt.

  But where the hell was I? The floor was hard, cold. I needed a big soft bed and a little soft nurse and a hot meal and a cold drink.…

  Foster! I cracked my head again and flopped back, groaned some more. It still sounded pretty dead.

  I swallowed, licked my lips, felt a nice split that ran well into the bristles. I had attended the Audience clean-shaven. Quite a few hours must have passed since then. They had taken Foster away to immure him, somebody said. Then the guards had tapped me, worked me over.…

  Immured! I got a third crack on the head. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. I was walled up, sealed away from the light, buried under the foundations of the giant towers of Bar-Ponderone. I felt their crushing weight.…

  I forced myself to relax, breathe deep. Being immured wasn’t the same as being buried alive—not exactly. This was the method these latter-day Vallonians had figured out to end a man’s life effectively…without ending all his lives. They figured to keep me neatly packaged here until my next Change, thus acquiring another healthy newman for the kitchen or the stables. They didn’t know the only Change that would happen to me was death.

  They’d have to feed me; that meant a hole. I ran my fingers along the rough stone, found an eight-inch square opening on the left wall, just under the ceiling. I reached through it, felt nothing but the solidness of its thick sides. How thick the wall was I had no way of determining.

  I was feeling dizzy. I lay back and tried to think.…

  * * * *

  I was awake again. There had been a sound. I moved, and felt something hit my chest.

  I groped for it; it was a small loaf of hard bread. I heard the sound again and a second object thumped against me.