“You have said it. For whatever reason, he did not give up the Gold. His life is forfeit if he is caught.” She laughed, deep in her throat. “Bow to your Prince, Hereksa; then execute him as a felon condemned by the highest tribunal of your land!”
She extended one hand, palm up, to Tse’e, daring him to gainsay her.
Tse’e shook his straggling locks. He looked as though he would again plead ignorance or deny her altogether. Then he sighed and said, “She is right, soldier. I am as she
says.”
“But the Kolumejalim—T’ Chosun puzzled.
“I did not renounce the Gold—for reasons which are mine alone to know—-but chose instead to flee. AM that is an epic no bard will ever sing, but I will admit that in the beginning I planned to return at the head of an army—certain factions would have assisted me—-but Mursun Dlekkumine perished. Some say he died of Zu’ur, the vicious drug supplied by the Hluss. Thereafter Hirkane became Emperor all too swiftly—a good and efficient Emperor, which was something I had never anticipated. He knew, of course, that I had not renounced the Gold, and I was compelled to seek refuge first in one northern city-state, then in another, until his agents had winkled me out of almost every sanctuary. It was during that time that I visited Vridu. Later the Baron Aid unified the north, and the only remaining refuge was that in which you found me: wretched Na Ngore in the Desert of Sighs. Oh,
escape to still more distant lands was possible, of course— beyond Salarvya to the Nyemesel Isles, or to the forests of Tane that lie west of Mu’ugalavya and the Plain of Towers— but I hoped to return to my homeland. 1 am still a Tsolyani, no matter what tongue I speak or what garb I wear. ...” Chekkuru would have interrupted, but Chosun gave him such a glare that he desisted.
“Hear the rest of it, priest,” the old man said. “There were times when 1 wanted to surrender—to die. But the Weaver had spun the threads of my Skein of too stout a stuff. When at last I found Na Ngore, I discovered that I had become more severe than any Tsolyani judge: it was I who condemned myself: not to death but to life. I refused the condemned man the final thrust that gives eternal peace. I lived, yes, but it was a life more arduous than any prison, a mindless round of hunting, eating, sleeping, and growing old as a barely tolerated ‘guest’ of the Folk. Never did they accept me as one of them, nor did 1 desire that. My dreams were always of Tsolyanu and of Avanthar.” He faltered. “I—I would die at home; yet that is denied me except upon the impaling stake as a traitor to the Empire. There are some things a man cannot endure—not the pain of execution, I swear to you, but the ignobility, the shame. Can you understand that, HereksaT'
He stopped. Then he said, “That steel sword you carry was mine, a memento of the days before 1 came to Na Ngore, when I still yearned for armies and power and a triumphal return to Avanthar. Among the Folk I had no need of it. Now I ask you this favor, Hereksa: as a servant of the Imperium, as a Tsolyani—as one whom 1 have aided—put its blade to my throat and end this Skein! Do this thing, Hereksa, and an Imperial Prince is in your debt. ...”
“Slay the traitor!” Chekkuru snarled then, and Horusel echoed his words.
That decided it for Trinesh, of course. “No. Listen. Tse’e, or Prince Nalukkan, or however you—” he broke off to search his memory; he had learned the thirty-odd Tsolyani pronouns for “you” in the temple school, but he had never before needed the one reserved for an Imperial Prince! He gave up and went back to the simple, honorific Tusmidali. “Ah— you, however you would be known, you have aided us, and we are grateful. Yet I cannot grant your wish, nor shall I allow any of these others to do so. We still need your skills and your knowledge of the Desert of Sighs. Let us not speak now of treason and dying and executions and laws! It is my turn to implore you—”
Chekkuru trembled with anger. His hands opened and closed spasmodically, as though they gripped the old man’s throat.
The Lady Deq Dimani shook her long, raven hair back from her face. “I think that there is another, special reason that your priest here would see this ‘Tse’e’—-this Prince Nalukkan—(Jead, Hereksa. Have you heard of the revolt of the Vriddi clan in 2,340? So? Chekkuru hiVriddi may not recall an Imperial Prince named Nalukkan, but every Vriddi knows the name of the commander, the young Dritlan, who was sent to put down that rebellion, to level Fasiltum, their ‘City of the Chiming Skulls,’ into the dust, and to see their leader, the Lady Elara hiVriddi, and her followers cast into the Emperor’s dungeons or given the ‘High Ride’ upon the impalers’ stakes. The officer entrusted with those pleasant duties was named Nalukkan, though few may now recall that his clan-name was Tlakotani.”
Chekkuru screeched and launched himself upon the man who called himself Tse’e.
Trinesh did not think. He brought the hilt of his sword down upon the back of the priest’s shaven skull with a satisfying thump. Horusel’s iron-hard fingers clawed at his shoulders; then other hands, feet, and fists pummeled, clutched, and battered against his armor, until he found himself buried
beneath a press of bodies on the smooth, gray deck. He had no idea whom he struck or why. Boots and bare feet shuffled around his head, and he heard yells, grunts—a milling, struggling, cursing chaos. Somebody kicked him, painfully, in the thigh. Then one of the view-portrayers shattered, and shards of glass rained down over them all.
Hands plucked the weight from Trinesh’s chest. He lay upon his back, the little cabin lights wheeling giddily above him. Another body was removed from his legs. He heard further blows, shouting. Chosun’s florid features swam before his eyes, and he was roughly hauled erect.
Chekkuru hiVriddi lay doubled up on the blood-smeared floor. The priest was neither dead nor unconscious, for he moaned and put cautious fingers back to explore a gash in his scalp. Trinesh looked for Horusel and saw him pinioned beneath Mejjai, Balar, and Saina; it took the three of them to hold him. Dineva must have supported Horusel and the priest, for Jalugan and Arjasu stood watchfully before her. The Lady Deq Dimani had apparently been involved as well; she was bruised and disheveled, her tunic tom. Tse’e and the girl huddled against the cabin walls. Only Thu’n was missing; the little Nininyal had probably dived into the rear storage compartment once more.
Tse’e—Prince Nalukkan hiTlakotani—pointed a trembling finger at Lady Deq Dimani. “Why?” he cried. “Why have you undone me so? What harm did 1 do you that you parade my shame before these people?”
The woman’s cheeks were flushed, and she panted for breath. “And why not? Did my mother fail to tell you when you came crawling to us for sanctuary? Were you asleep when your tutors chanted the glories of your ancestors? Did you never hear tell of the Legion of the Searing Flame? No? One of your own Tsolyani Legions! A thousand years ago that Legion suffered disgrace—through no fault of its troops— and the Flame-accursed Emperor Metlunel II, whom you
Tsolyani stupidly honor as ‘the Builder,’ drove it into exile— near eight thousand loyal soldiers, their families, their clansmen—! Did no bard sing to you of their sufferings, their wanderings in the northlands: how they lived among the Lorun and the Yan Koryani, how they were hunted by the dreaded Shunned Ones, how they—”
“But what connection-—?” Trinesh got out.
Her eyes flashed at him. ‘ ‘Cha, another poor scholar! Have you never considered the naming of my Isle of Vridu? Of the River Vri eastward of it, on the mainland amid the forests?” She touched one finger to her throat. “We, most mighty Prince, are Vriddi too! We are descended from the exiles of the Legion of the Searing Flame, the kinsmen of those you massacred in Fasiltum, the cousins of the ‘rebels’ your soldiers slew. Do not your annals brag of ‘rows of impaling stakes as numberless as the pillars of high-vaunting Avanthar’?”
Saina said slowly, “May be as may be, Lady. But the Vriddi of Fasiltum are loyal citizens now—mostly, anyway. Who can keep a hatred alive for so long? And, for the sake of the living, WHY?”
“What can you know of tradition, woman—you, who are probably desce
nded from some lowly clan whose greatest glory is its claim to have swept latrines for a thousand years? Cha! We Vriddi remember a glorious past that stretches back before Engsvan hla Ganga and the First Imperium of the Bednalljan kings to the Dragon Warriors of ancient N’liiss! Millennia! Aeons! An age is like a second to us! You may forget, but we do not! As for ‘loyal citizens,’ do you Tsolyani not say, ‘Once the Zrne is slain, the Hmelu graze in peace’?”
She wheeled back to face Trinesh, the dark curtain of her tresses swirling out about her cheekbones. “Just now I swore to commit no violence, Tsolyani. Release me from that oath. Give me leave, and I carry out the sentence this craven butcher’s brother—your Seal Emperor—passed upon him!”
Trinesh found himself praying that they would reach their destination—any destination—that something would occur to interrupt the hatred now boiling up so virulently among them. Nothing of the sort happened. He drew a ragged breath and tried to run his fingers through his hair, but his nails scraped the flanges of his helmet instead; he had forgotten he had it on.
Damn the woman! Damn them all!
“No!” he shouted. “No! There will be no killing. Not this—this Prince, not Horusel, not Chekkuru hiVriddi, not you, Lady. No one! We swore, and ! hold you to your oaths! The only execution will be that of the one who breaks that word. Upon that you have my oath! I still command here.” He raised the Prince’s sword. “Is there any who disputes me? It is better that we fight now,—my skill against that of any would-be mutineer! If enough of you disagree, slay me and squabble over the spoils! Then, I think, you will all be dead by the time this car reaches its destination! Now we need each other more than we need Missum, the Lord of Death!”
For a moment the balance swung this way and that. Then Chosun stepped over to Trinesh. His three crossbowmen followed, as did Saina and Jalugan. Dineva wavered but came to stand beside Saina. Horusel snorted in disgust, but some of the fury had gone out of him, and he held up his hands in grudging agreement. Prince Nalukkan nodded to Trinesh. Only Chekkuru and the two Yan Koryani women remained.
“You do have my word,” the Lady Deq Dimani admitted. “That is a thing I do not break. Come, Jai.” She murmured to the girl in Yan Koryani and called out to the Nininyal. “You, too, Thu’n. All is done here—for now.” She lowered her curved sword.
Chekkuru hiVriddi still nursed the bloody lump upon the back of his loaf-shaped skull, his expression cold and unreadable. “Think, Hereksa," he said with finality. “You hold the temporal power, but there are others greater by far. What you do may not please your God.”
No one debated him. Yet peace seemed more useful at this juncture than strife, whatever the tenets of the Flame Lord might preach.
8
Their second journey in the egg-vehicle was longer than the first. No one wanted to revive the deadly tensions of the past hours, and they thus limited all conversation by mutual consent to the simplest amenities. They rested, ate, and rested again. There was no water, however, which was Worrisome, particularly if they emerged in some still more remote area of the Desert of Sighs.
Trinesh appraised his little force covertly from the shadow of his helmet’s beaked visor. Chosun he could count on; Horusel, too, was a sensible man and a skilled fighter, if one got past his fanaticism and his obvious little plays for power. Dineva was equally good, with Saina not far behind. The three crossbowmen, fellow travelers only because of the whim of the Weaver of Skeins, appeared shaky but still in reasonably good spirits. Balar was young and brash, a burly, roughly handsome rogue from the mountains near Hekellu in the far northeastern comer of the Empire. He fancied himself a mighty lover, and even now he lounged beside the Lady Jai
Chasa Vedlan, gallant words no doubt spilling from his tongue like honey from a spoon. Too bad he was not as good at soldiering! He’d have made Tirrikamu if he had spent as much time with his crossbow as he did with his doxies, his drinking, and his gambling. The Lady Jai ignored him as completely as she had Trinesh. Stocky Mejjai was utterly average: the barracksroom jokers were wont to say that even the Goddess Dlamelish Herself could spend an aeon alone with Mejjai and never remember his face. Arjasu, on the other hand, was the best trooper of the lot. A ten-year veteran, he was tough, hard, and experienced at everything from mountain skirmishing to siege warfare. If it came to a fight, Arjasu would be the man to have at one’s back. Jalugan, now, might pose a problem: for all his bravery, he was very young. More, the slash Thu’n had given him must be growing painful, and there was no telling whether the boy would harden like Chlen-hide in a tanner’s chemical bath, or whether he would crumble under the stress.
Chekkuru hiVriddi sat whispering with Thu’n. That would have to be stopped; the priest had already shown his willingness to aid the Lady Deq Dimani against Tse’e—Prince Nalukkan hiTlakotani—and Trinesh dared tolerate no further confidences. The Lady herself sat crosslegged, her back against the rear wall of the cabin, ostensibly dozing as a good soldier does when there is nothing to do. Tse’e squatted as far from her as he could get, beside Chosun near the forward console.
They were all both relieved and apprehensive when the car finally sighed to a halt. Trinesh permitted Thu’n to twist the knobs beneath those view-portrayers which still functioned— the one broken in their recent scuffle was that which had not worked anyway—but only blackness was visible without. One of the controls produced a hum, amid which a repetitive chiming, clanking note boomed forth like the knelling of a bronze gong. Thu’n fussed with the knob; the hum disappeared and the ringing was reduced to no more than the tinkle of dripping water.
“A lightless burrow beneath the earth?” the Lady Deq Dimani said. “Not a good place for us, not without lamps or spells of illumination.”
Trinesh silently agreed. He pressed the fourth destination stud.
There was no way of calculating the length of their travel. Trinesh tried to count his pulse-beats but lost track when Jalugan interrupted to ask a question. His stomach told him that he was already hungry, but its complaints were not significantly louder when the motion of their vehicle ceased once more.
The glass squares revealed yet another cavern. A strange strip of flickering yellow light ran along the ceiling and glittered from rows of dully shining vehicles much like their own. Horusel would have opened the door for a quick look, but the others urged caution. It was well that they did so: a great machine rolled restlessly to and fro in the shadows there, a thing of wheels and coils and metal spars and winking red eyes.
“A Ru'unV' The Lady Deq Dimani breathed. “The automatons of the Ancients.”
“Yet like none described in the epics,” Chekkuru exclaimed. He had been morose and silent since their quarrel, but now he seemed sufficiently interested in new mysteries even to forget the lump Trinesh had raised on his skull.
“This, too, is no place for the living,” Trinesh remarked to no one in particular. “I press the fifth stud.”
The car sped off again.
This journey took still longer. It ended with a red light flashing upon the panel to the right of the destination buttons. An authoritative voice squawked words in an unknown language.
“Lord Vimuhla speaks,” Chekkuru opined gravely. “That red light is the color of His Supernal Flame!”
The forward view-portrayer revealed a tunnel which ended in a jumble of dark shapes. The two side-viewers showed smooth, curving walls of a blue-black substance. All of the light seemed to come from some source atop their own vehicle. The voice repeated its message with greater insistence.
“Press another button, Hereksa,” the priest said. “We stand outside the gates of the Flame Lord's sacred paradise beneath the earth!”
“If so, then this is your chance to enter, thus avoiding the need to die on this Plane before taking up residence here!” Saina said. The others laughed at Chekkuru’s discomfiture, and even the Lady Jai smiled.
“More likely a collapsed passage beyond,” Thu’n declared. “If you want to give thanks, the
n offer it to your ancestors who created such excellent alarms and restraints!” He himself pressed the sixth stud before Trinesh could intervene.
The air in the little cabin grew thick and foul. Trinesh thought to detect a smell of burning, but he could see no fire. This doubtless reinforced Chekkuru’s identification of their last stop, but previously nothing had penetrated their car from outside. It worried him.
“Food, Sire?” the crossbowman Balar asked. With a flourish, he proffered a squat cylinder of silvery metal, the flat top of which he had ripped off with a knife to expose a thick, brown paste inside.
“Where did you get this?”
“From one of the little compartments in the wall.” Balar pointed.
Trinesh inserted a finger, tasted, and spat. “Fa! Either it is poisoned by age or else it is no food at all!” The stuff had a ghastly oily flavor, worse than any nostrum brewed by the apothecaries. “Did you eat of this concoction?”
“Not I, Sire. Not much, anyhow. But—ah . . .”
“Go into the storage compartment!” Trinesh bellowed. “Quickly! Thrust your finger down your throat and vomit it back out again—all of you who ate it!” His own mouth burned. He fumbled in the pouches of the nearest desert-cloak for something with which to kill the taste and came up with a strip of dried meat. Even the flesh of “one who serves” was preferable! If this were indeed edible, then the “food of the Ancients” was less appetizing than the venomous purplish vegetation folk named “the Food of the Ssu”!
The substance was too thin and watery to be grease such as the carter clans used on the axles of their lumbering wains. It might be fuel for their car—smiths, jewelers, and other craftsmen employed various arcane substances to fire their furnaces— but he had seen no orifices through which the machine could be “fed,” nor was he fool enough to poke about in the compartment Chosun had discovered under the deck. La, for all they knew, the Ancients might have greased their beards with it, as the N’liiss tribes did theirs with //me/w-butter!
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