“Ridek makes a fine heir for your dynasty.” Lady Si Ziris Qaya smiled over at Lady Mmir. “A brave and heroic boy, like mighty krugga himself. You must be proud of him.”
Any answer was forestalled by the return of the chamber-lain bearing a dusty clay jug of Dronu, the sweet, black Salarvyani wine that the Baron favored. With him was Lord Fu Shi’i.
Ridek had no love for this man. He had been his father’s friend since long before Aid went south to take service under the Tsolyani Emperor, people said, but no one knew what bound them together. Lord Fu Shi’i was small, taciturn, and as slender and unbending as a staff of Sscr-wood. He affected a loose, foreign-cut tunic of deep red F/rva-cloth, tall leather boots, and a circlet of silver about his cap of cropped, dead-black hair. He came from no city and no clan that Ridek had ever heard. Gossip had it that he hailed from the savage lands of the far northeast, beyond Mudallu, beyond Nuru'un, perhaps even beyond the Plains of Glass, where the world ended. No one knew. Whenever Ridek questioned his father about Lord Fu Shi’i he had received no more than a growl in reply. His mother, too, only shrugged her slender shoulders and spoke of something else. That Lord Fu Shi’i did more than give his father counsel was well known, however: if anyone could call up demons, it was this strange, tight, sallow-faced man.
Lord Fu Shi’i sketched a bow to the ladies, but his words were for the Baron. “My Lord, there is a matter—” Ridek saw his eyes glitter as they shifted to Aluja. “Ah. It is good that you are here, Mihalli.”
“Speak.” The Baron Aid looked as though he desired nothing weightier tonight than a goblet of wine.
“My Lord—” His gaze flicked over the two women.
“Oh, come over here, then.” Aid put the two children down and drew Lord Fu Shi’i after himself into the shadowed depths of the hall. They came to a stop very near Ridek’s hiding place.
“The amulet, Lord. The one you had me give the Lady Deq Dimani when she left Ke’er to lead her Gurek of Vridu ...” “Well?”
“Its mate, Lord.” He held up something small; Ridek could not see what it was. “The spark within it has shifted. Suddenly. Tonight.”
Ridek had no idea what he meant, but he pricked up his ears at the name of the Lady Deq Dimani. No one who had seen her would forget her: the matriarch and absolute ruler of the Isle of Vridu that lay just off the Yan Koryani coast in the Northern Sea. She was a devotee of the Lord of Sacrifice, who was an Aspect of one of their own deities, Lord Vimuhla. Lady Deq Dimani moved as Ridek imagined the Master of Flame Himself must move: fiercely, smoothly, vibrantly, alight with internal fires of her own. The scullions whispered that the Lady Deq Dimani was another of his father’s casual conquests, and there had been talk for a time that she might replace Lady Si Ziris Qaya in the Baron’s heart—and perhaps Lady Mmir and even Lady Yilrana as well. Ridek himself had had disturbing dreams of her, though she was almost as old as his mother.
“Well?” the Baron was saying. “She was supposed to return to our lines at Mar. Just as soon as—”
“The spark did not just move across the face of the amulet, Lord. It jumped. She did not march back to Mar.”
“A Nexus Point? A doorway into one of the Planes Beyond?”
“She has not left this Plane.”
“Cha! Say what you mean.”
“Some form of rapid transport. A thing of the Ancients is my guess: the tubeway entrance they found at Fortress Ninu’ur. An aircar. Something else. ...”
The Baron pondered. Ridek could hear the bristly sound as he ran his fingers through his beard.
“We cannot have her absent when Ssa Chna Qayel attacks the Tsolyani reinforcement column. Her legion and that of her younger brother are crucial there, and the puppy won’t move without his sister!” The scratching sound came again. “Can you trace her with that thing, then?”
“No, Lord. Not exactly. The spark did not jump far across the face of the amulet, but there is no way to tell which direction she took.”
Ridek essayed a look around the embossed rim of the shield. He was rewarded by a glimpse of a flat, round waferlike object of black stone in Lord Fu Shi’i’s hand. Even from where he lay hidden he could see a tiny spark of amber flame glowing brightly in the center of the thing.
“We cannot await reports—no time to send somebody to Fortress Ninu’ur to ask after the Lady’s health! Ohe, man! The timing of our assault is vital.”
“There is a way.” Lord Fu Shi’i paused. “Aluja.”
The Baron gave a great, gusty sigh. “La, the Mihalli may be a master of Nexus Points and the Planes Beyond, but can he—she, it, damn it—home in on that telltale of yours?” “We can ask. We have to ask, Sire.”
Ridek heard the creak of leather, restless pacing, his father’s angry breathing. He made himself into a small ball behind the shield.
Time passed. Then Lord Fu Shi’i’s short, quick footsteps came rustling back. “Aluja says it is possible, though it has not been done before.”
“Call him over. Have him focus his Nexus Point upon the spark. If Deq Dimani needs help, she shall have it—and if not, then Aluja can return her where she is needed. The woman exasperates me! She insisted upon dealing with this Flamesong thing herself—whatever it is!”
“You know her well, Sire. It is a thing of importance to her. Flamesong relates to her faith, to some archaic tenet or mystery of her Lord of Sacrifice.”
“Sire,” Aluja’s lilting voice said from close by, “do you and Lord Fu Shi’i go and converse with your women. Let me. have the amulet, and I shall manage.”
There was silence. Then Ridek heard his father’s laughter from across the long chamber, Mmir’s merry reply, a soft comment from the Lorun woman. A goblet rang against the lip of a wine-jug.
Ridek peered out again. Just in front of him, no more than two paces away, a glimmering circle of muzzy gray light hung in the air, well nigh invisible in the shadows. Of Aluja there was no sign.
An idea dawned upon him. Here was another exit from the Pavilion of the Eternally Valiant, a way to avoid his father’s wrath! He would go with Aluja! The Mihalli could return him later—indeed, could set him down anywhere he chose, in his own bedchamber where he could deny ever being near this wretched place! The rendezvous with Hris suddenly appeared much more possible again.
He dared not stop to consider the plan; the Nexus Point might vanish at any moment. He slipped out from behind his shield, took a tentative step.
Lady Si Ziris Qaya was looking straight at him over the Baron’s brawny shoulder. He froze.
He realized, then, that she would not betray him. Her eyes narrowed, and she peered in his direction; then she bent over the table, pointed at some document there, and murmured a question in her dark, accented voice. His father rumbled a reply. Lady Mmir sat with her face half turned away from him, playing with Sihan and the other children.
He took another step, felt the tingling of Other-Planar power. He put a foot into the shimmering blankness within the shadow-gray oval.
The last thing he heard was Sihan’s voice, quite clearly, like a gloomy, chiming, temple-gong. “If you are going to flog Ridek, Father, may I watch?”
Then there was darkness' indeed.
4
Let me put these two pretty Hmelu-lambs to the knife, Sire,” Horusel growled. He stood with his feet apart, beak-headed axe still hooked about the throat of the woman called Belket Ele Faiz. His sun-bronzed features were yellow-gray in the pallid light that had come on automatically within glass circles in the vehicle’s ceiling.
“No. They are needed. First to get that Pygmy-beast out of the storage compartment, then to instruct us in the use of this egg-thing. You kill nothing until I order it!” He had to take control, otherwise Horusel would surely snatch it from him. This was no ordinary military situation.
He looked past the Tirrikamu to the others in the crowded cabin. Chosun stood poised, sword in hand, against the rear bulkhead, while three crossbowmen—Trinesh recognized Arjasu, Balar, and
Mejjai—crouched amidst the rotted chair-frames, their quarrels trained on the hatch behind which the Pygmy-beast still lurked. They belonged to Chosun’s Semeti. moderates, praise to the Lord of Flame! Saina was helping
Dineva bind the wrists of the Yan Koryani officer’s maid with a strip slashed from the girl’s skirt. Jalugan huddled on the floor, a red-drenched rag held to his cheek. Of all of them, Chekkuru hiVriddi appeared the least anxious: he hovered around now behind Trinesh, inspecting the closed door of the machine with open-mouthed fascination.
“My maid here knows nothing. And I’ll tell you the same,” the woman named Belket Ele Faiz snapped. “Treat us as prisoners of war—for now.”
“You do not deserve that courtesy! You broke the word you gave when you surrendered to us.”
She sneered at him. “Not so! I swore to employ neither spells nor swords. 1 kept that oath. What the Nyenu did involved neither—nor did he act upon my command.”
“Cha! Deception! I should hand you over to Horusel!” “Do so. Rape us—kill us; then suffer what will be woven in your Skeins once we arrive in Yan Kor. Treat us well, and you will be held for ransom—or for honorable sacrifice, as you choose.”
“For now you are our captives. We will speak of Yan Kor and sacrifices when the time comes. We Tsolyani have no love for your passive ‘Way of Nchel,’ and we may decide to fight on until we are all slain—”
“HereksaV’ Dineva interrupted. She had finished tying the girl and was starting on the older woman, gingerly avoiding Horusel’s axe. “Chosun says he’s ready to go in after the Pygmy-thing, Sire. With Arjasu’s shield it should be no trick to push right in, dodge its dagger, and force it against a wall where Mejjai and Balar can kill it.”
“There is no need of that,” the Yan Koryani woman said. “Wait.” She called out in her own language, and after a moment the creature appeared in the hatchway. His curious dagger skittered across the deck to stop at Trinesh’s feet.
“He surrenders to you,” she said. “We call him Thu’n— ‘the Old One’—since none can pronounce his real name. He is a scholar of the Nyenu—the Pygmy Folk.” She spoke to
him soothingly in Yan Koryani. “I have told him that this shame will not last, that these cords will soon circle your wrists instead of mine and my maid’s.”
“That remains to be seen,” Trinesh said. Things did appear very bleak. “Can you understand me, Nyenu—ah, Thu’n? You, girl? You must do as we say. Or else.”
The maid nodded, and the Nyenu—damn it, that was the Yan Koryani word; Trinesh’s people named them Nininyal— answered carefully, “I speak some Tsolyani.” Its accent was horrible: whistling, mangled, and warbling, almost as though it spoke with two tongues instead of one. But it was intelligible.
“Then obey. We will not bind you. —Oh. cut the two women free as well—what harm can they do?” Horusel glared, but Trinesh stared him down. “Cha, man, half a Semetl of Tsolyani soldiers and unable to overmatch one noble lady, her maid, and a little beast?” From the corner of his eye he saw Chosun emerging from the rear storage compartment. “Anything?”
“A bag full of clothes, some documents, a purse of Yan Koryani gold—some of our Tsolyani Kaitars there too.” He chortled. “Looks like our money’s good even in the Baron’s realm.”
“Saina, look at the damned documents, will you?”
She pored over them, one by one. Then she shook her head. “All in cipher, Hereksa." The Lady Belket Ele Faiz curled her full lower lip in another sneer. Trinesh ignored her. Let her think him weak! He had no immediate need for the information.
Time passed, unguessable in the shadowless cabin. Chekkuru hiVriddi gave a soft cry from behind him. Trinesh turned, around—and gasped. The priest had done something: there had been a click and a hissing sound like liquid squirted from a wineskin.
Now there was a window in the wall of the cabin opposite the door!
Everyone babbled at once. Trinesh found himself looking squarely at a man seated on the other side of the window. The man was dead—and had been so for a very long time. The lace was a skull, the flesh mummified, the lips withered away from the bared teeth, the eyes no more than dusty sockets. The tatters of what once had been a tunic hung from yellowed collarbones.
Chekkuru shrieked something about undead servitors of mighty Sarku, the Lord of Worms, banged a fist upon the row of black studs below the window, and jerked his robe up to cover his eyes. At any other time the resulting vista of his hairy thighs would have been ludicrous.
The scene wavered, blinked, and became different: a great city beside a storm-dark sea, red tiled roofs lit by a dying, bloated sun, a maze of crumbling walls, broken-toothed towers, shattered rooms open to a sky piled high with lowering clouds . . .
It was Chosun, as unimaginative and stolid as Thenu Thendraya Peak itself, who poked a stubby finger at another of the little studs. Again the window changed: a room appeared, its furnishings of the same archaic, alien style as those in their cabin, a high table covered with glistening metallic sheets, like documents of some sort but all filmy and coated with a greenish patina. There were unidentifiable objects clustered beside them. Before anyone Could speak, a slender, silvery fish swam across the picture: it flipped its feathery tail, and the metal sheets rippled and shifted in the wake of its passing.
Were there places, then, where people breathed water instead of air? Trinesh did not think so. Certain epics did sing of ancient cities sunk deep beneath the oceans of Tekumel, however.
“The view-portrayers still operate, my Lady,” the Nininyal observed dryly. “You pressed the destination button that Qurtui line Tio had selected?”
Trinesh heard the hiss of her indrawn breath. “I—I pressed nothing. It was the Tsolyani—he backed into the console ...”
The creature stared at her. Its beak opened and closed like a K uni-bird's.
“Alas, my Lady, then we may not be returning to Yan Kor,” Thu’n said slowly. He touched the bulkhead with his three-fingered hand, and they all felt the soft humming of the egg-thing, the sensation of smooth, silent motion. “Whither we go and where we arrive are now in the hands of the Gods.”
A long minute passed before they understood. The Yan Koryani woman herself said, “Surely you can tell us . . .” The Nininyal dug a paw into one huge, gray-furred ear. He began to reply in the woman’s tongue, but a threatening gesture from Trinesh made him shift over into Tsolyani.
“Not without Qurtul’s skills. These were the personal vehicles of those before the Time of Darkness, and later of the lords of the Latter Times. Each can be given ten destinations—the buttons there on the box in front. They may be changed as the owner desires. A few scholars know how to do this—Qurtul was such a one—but so much has been lost. Without the names, numbers, or whatever the Ancients employed, of new objectives, a traveler cannot instruct the machine to take him thither. Even Qurtul did not possess such a list of destinations, nor, to my knowledge, does anyone else. —And even if one were found, no modern sage could read it. The languages of the Ancients are as forgotten as their sciences.”
“And how did your Qurtul know which button returned you to Yan Kor?” Chekkuru hiVriddi put in.
“1 think that he recognized a few of the ancient names by the shapes of their letters. Else he was as ignorant as you!” “Then push another stud! Any one!” Trinesh cried. “I have no wish to visit that place where fish swim in what passes for air!”
“Who knows if we do indeed travel thither? The view-portrayers display not only the destinations of the car but also other places: a means of communication, more primitive than our sorcerers’ telepathy, mayhap, but usable by any simpleton who can twist a knob.”
“Once we arrive, can we see what lies outside without opening the door?”
“Yes, if you know which picture is which. You might be gazing at a scene a thousand Tsan away.”
“What of returning?” Saina asked. “Can we not press the slud that takes us back to Fortress Ninu’ur?”
Thu’n pondered. “Which button did your officer push?” lie scratched amidst the gray-brown fur of his belly. “Moreover, Qurtul declared certain destinations to be perilous. The ‘Enemies of Man,’ the Ssu and the Hliiss, occupy various of the travel-stations; some are underwater or open upon sea-bottom ooze that is under vast pressure from above. Still other routes are blocked, and their warnings have failed over the millennia. We now travel at a speed we cannot imagine, and should we come to a rock-fall and not be turned back by the automatic, signaling devices . . . ” He slapped one homy paw into the other.
The noise it made had a flat and final ring to it.
More time passed. Trinesh forbade anyone to touch any of the studs, particularly Thu’n. He mistrusted the Nininyal. The Pygmy Folk of Yan Kor had a reputation that included greed and treachery as well as scholarship.
It was Chekkuru hiVriddi who broke the silence. “Here-ksa. ...”
Trinesh turned, a sharp comment about the irrelevancy of the gods to their present plight ready to his tongue, but all the man said was, “The—the motion has stopped, Hereksa. Wherever we are, we have arrived.”
All was still.
Trinesh stammered, “You—Nininyal—work the view-portrayers. Show us what lies without.”
Thu’n went to touch the studs below the glass square above the forward console and each of the three along the side wall as well. The one in front and two of the others flickered and displayed pictures. The fourth remained dark.
The rear device showed a landscape. Tekumel’s two moons, reddish Kashi and green Gayel, cast weird double shadows upon mountains, tumbled boulders, and humped, desolate hills. Ravines and rocky gorges crisscrossed an empty plain close by. In the distance a tiny line of glittering blue lights danced across the landscape. The machine emitted a soughing sound, the keening of a despairing and mournful wind.
M A R Barker - [Tekumel- The Empire of the Petal Throne 01] Page 6
