“You—you. ...”
“No, I’m not Yan Koryani. My mother was a whore in Jakalla in Tsolyanu, and who my fart-eating father was I neither know nor care. A slaver bought me for two copper Qirgals, and I worked in the mines in Fasiltum till I was nineteen. Then I was sold to an owner who tried to make a batch of us slaves into a private army. He armed us with crossbows and trained us so well that we slew his overseers, stole his sister-kissing treasury, and ran off into the mountains of Kilalammu. From there it’s a longer story than I’ve time to tell. But here I am, Okkuru son of nobody, with no lineage and no clan, yet still First Translator of the Governor of the Realm!” He paused to bow again. “Now it’s your turn. Say something, may the gods fry your balls for eggs! Tell me who you are and what you’re doing here so that I can pass it on to the Gaichun's old crone and her beloved hair-teated sister!” He turned and made a flourishing, jingling obeisance before the two matrons upon the white pathway.
“1—I am Ridek—” It no longer seemed like a good idea to say that he was the son of the Baron of Yan Kor. There were such things as hostages, ransom. . . .
“Ridek who?”
He temporized. This vulgar slave probably knew nothing of Yan Koryani lineages. “Ridek Chna Aid. I am a—a traveler. I came here by accident—by sorcery ... I mean no
harm.”
The man named Okkuru tilted his head back, and Ridek realized that he could see out from beneath his mask. “A child! A traveler? A story I wouldn’t believe if Lord Hnalla, Master of the Gods, came down and whispered it in my ear while buggering my arse!”
“If—if we could only sit down. I’m tired—hungry.” It was becoming too much.
“Wait. Let me make up a charming tale for the old biddy.” The translator spoke at length, arms waving and chain harness tinkling.
One of the chamberlains put forth a hand, and a soldier strode forward. The translator said something else, and the man stopped, hand upon his sword-hilt, to look back at the old woman questioningly.
“I told them you were a sorcerer, a prince in your own country,” the translator muttered. “Act like it.”
“But—”
The elder of the two women raised a beringed finger. The slave boy who had first met Ridek advanced toward him upon the black walkway, bowed, and indicated the gold-flecked white stone of the next lowest path.
“Only the Gaichun, the High Governor, is allowed up where you are,” the translator declared. “The old harridan forgives you. Now come down to her level. She’ll allow you that until things get clearer.”
Ridek obeyed, his legs so rubbery that he feared he would collapse. The two fingers’ breadths of distance between the blue and the white walkways seemed like three man-heights.
“Now kowtow politely. That’s it! The boy, Soruhi, will take you to a robing room, then on for some food. You’ve got to be properly costumed in order to eat here, and nobody dines in front of anybody but slaves—too much danger of defiling your precious status! Your betters would be insulted if you sat down with them, and you yourself ought to be scandalized at the thought of feeding with anybody lower! Understand me?”
“Yes— But—” One urgent question still loomed large in Ridek’s reeling, exhausted mind. “Where am I?”
“As Lady Dlamelish loves fuzzy-arsed virgins! You don’t knowT' A muffled guffaw emerged from beneath the golden helmet; the translator bent his head back, tilted the mask up, and blinked at him in amazement. “Why, boy, this here is Mihallu!”
Ridek was dizzy, fatigued beyond measure. “Mihallu? Where the Mihalli live?”
“Mihalli? Who—? The ancient race? Not so, lad! These folk are human, the descendants of the Engsvanyali conquerors who slew the last of those magic-mucking monsters! A Mihalli in Mihallu?” The man’s laughter echoed within his mask-helmet, and the courtiers behind him twittered and snickered. “Not unless it’s dead, skinned, and spread for a carpet! There’s a ten-thousand-year-old order from the Priestkings of Ganga to slay any Mihalli on sight!”
Afterward Ridek had no recollection of reaching the little white and gold room the old woman—the Gaichun's Lady— provided, the bath given him by a squad of chattering servants, the ceremonies of dressing, the formalities of eating behind a lacquered wooden screen, the questions, and the final rituals of getting into bed.
All he knew was that Aluja would surely die if he so much as hinted at the Mihalli’s presence here in this warped madhouse of a country.
13
Streaks of mist-gray dawn smudged the horizon by the time the line of waving torches reached the base of the citadel and surged around its western bastions, presumably toward some entrance in the buildings beyond the outer courtyard. It was hard to discern who and how many had come up from the city, but Trinesh guessed about a hundred. They were apparently all humans, although Gayel’s last greenish moonlight hid everything but their cloaks, the glint of helmets, and the sheen of spears.
Whoever their accidental flare had attracted came well prepared.
Trinesh and his comrades inspected their possessions once more. Every item was in place, including the “Eye” Trinesh had confiscated from the Lady Deq Dimani. They could only conclude that Balar must have found another of the Ancients’ deadly instruments and kept it hidden for himself. He had paid for his avarice.
There was one last decision to make, the most important of all: should they leave at once in the tubeway car or stay and face the force climbing up from the city? Chekkuru and Horusel urged departure, but the others were willing to see who would arrive. Tse’e and Trinesh argued that they could always fight a delaying action and retreat into the tubeway car if matters became difficult, but the Lady Deq Dimani expressed doubts about thier chances once the strangers reached them. This only made Trinesh all the mOre adamant.
To their left the spires and cupolas of the tubeway car portico first became pale blue and then as dainty pink as a confection of Dmi-sugar in the dawn-light. The city still slumbered in deep shadow in the valley to the north. If the gate in the lizard-court was indeed the only way into their area, the rising sun would be full in the eyes of anyone coming through it or shooting from atop the parapet above it. Their defensive situation was as good as they—and the Weaver of Skeins—could devise.
What of fhe lizards? Whoever crossed the outer courtyard must first deal with its ugly denizens. There might be a concealed tunnel into their section from the buildings beyond the lizard-court, and Trinesh set Tse’e and the Lady Jai to watch within. The rest he posted upon the rooftop. Arjasu and Mejjai had their crossbows, but Balar’s was gone. Two crossbowmen, with perhaps fifteen quarrels apiece, could not stop a hundred foemen for long, but it was the best they could do. The Lady Deq Dimani suggested using their boot-laces as slings—rounded pebbles were plentiful upon the roof—but those advancing up from the city gleamed with metal armor, and sling-stones would likely be as effective as thrown sandals.
They made their dispositions and waited.
At last the sun struggled up through the dawn mists to reflect blinding, ruddy glitter from a solid phalanx of blades, helmets, and shields arrayed along the parapet across the lizard-court. A poor chance of victory!
It was time to decide: fight, flight, or parley. Trinesh took
a final hurried poll and opted for the last—to be followed speedily by the second if need be.
Someone shouted from across the way: a high, authoritative male voice.
“Hereksa,” Chekkuru muttered. “He speaks Engsvanyali!”
“The armor!” the Lady Deq Dimani exclaimed. “Like the harnesses of the Priestkings’ soldiers in the murals!”
It was true: the many little bosses, spikes, and knobs protruding from the pauldrons, the chaised wasp-waisted breastplates, the visored and crested helmets, ail resembled the book-paintings in the library of Trinesh’s clanhouse as closely as though copied by a master armorer.
“We have not traveled through the Planes of Time,” said Chekkuru nervously. �
�We saw no Nexus Point doorways— those I would recognize.” Thu’n nodded agreement.
“Can you answer him?” Trinesh asked the priest.
Chekkuru blinked. He poked his shining bald skull a hand’s breadth above the parapet and struggled with the ancient language. He might know his litanies by rote, but as an Engsvanyali conversationalist he left much to be desired.
“Ohe!” the voice called again. “Do you speak Tsolyani? Yan Koryani? Salarvyani?” Whoever their hosts were, at least they could converse!
The weapons across the way included crossbows. Trinesh abandoned any hope of armed resistance and clambered up to lean on the gritty coping.
“We are Tsolyani, most of us,” he yelled back. “Who are you?”
The man across the courtyard was portly, middle-aged, and pompous by the sound of him. His entire head was covered by a mask-helmet made in the semblance of some fanciful beast-monster: a complex headdress of gold-chased silver, the eye-sockets picked out with red gems. Tall Kheshchal-plumes trailed down behind to spill over scarlet vestments like those of a priest, distinctly clerical though unfamiliar. Another stood shading his eyes beside him: an armored soldier who looked as though he had stepped out of an Engsvanyali tomb-relief!
“I,” said the red-robe, “am Chunatl Dikkuna, High Priest of Lord Karakan in this Province of Mihallu. And this,” he indicated the officer, “is Lord Tekkuren Chaishyani, First General of the Seekers of Indelible Victory, the Thirty-Fifth Legion of the Empire of the Priestkings of Engsvan hla Ganga.”
“As Lord Vimuhla burns bright!” Chekkuru gasped. “Hereksa, the histories say that the Thirty-Fifth Legion marched off to conquer the east in the reign of Bashdis Mssa VII, ‘the Dispenser of Bounties’! They never came back. These people have been dead for ten thousand years! Either these are the Planes of the Departed, or else we have traveled back in time, Nexus portal or not!”
“Make no defense!” cried the priest of Karakan. “You have intruded into the First Palace, the House of Ancestors, the Many-Chambered Sanctuary of the Gaichun, who is Governor and master of this land! Show no enmity, and you suffer no harm. We come now to take you forth from there.”
They could only stand and watch as the soldiers—Engsvanyali or whatever they were—opened the gate in the opposite wall, threw down handfuls of a brownish powder that sent the lizard-things scurrying away, and advanced to the base of their own building. Efficient, black-kilted serfs trotted across with picks and mattocks to smash down the wall blocking the doorway. Then troops armed with antique halberds and cumbersome, clattering winch-crossbows came to surround them. Finally the splendid personage identified as General Tekkuren Chaishyani followed to pipe orders in some twittering language that was neither Engsvanyali nor any tongue they had ever heard.
No one touched them. A lesser officer gingerly gathered up the tools and instruments heaped beside their tubeway car. More workmen pried up a square of pavement in front of the car’s hatch to reveal three glass squares, one blue, one yellow, and one red. Another dignitary peered into the car, then slammed the door shut and stamped upon the red plaque.
The car sighed and descended into its tunnel to disappear from sight.
Their captors inspected Trinesh’s ragged party closely but did not disarm them. Instead, they formed ranks and escorted them out through the lizard-court, now sparkling with amber crystals that crunched underfoot and gave off a harsh, acrid smell; then into the labyrinthine buildings they had seen from their courtyard roof; on through barely glimpsed, empty halls and chambers, and out once more beneath a portcullis of verdigris-coated bronze; down a grassy roadway of time-hollowed granite blocks; and across the plain to the river. This they crossed in a splashing mob. The soldiers gestured for them to keep to a path marked by poles in the center of the ford. There were probably deeps on either side, judging by the flotilla of coracles and lateen-sailed small-craft that hovered nearby to watch, Trinesh had a brief view of dusty fields where children ran shouting after lumbering Chlen-beasts; clumps of overspreading, leafy Gapul-trees around mud-brick huts so old they seemed to have sprouted out of the earth itself; then more fields, larger houses, standing crops of red-leaved Dna-grain, and occasional awestruck farm folk.
Thus they came to the city.
It was more of a small town, once walled, a humped, untidy mountain of dawn-blue domes and rooftops in the shadowed valley. The ramparts were in disrepair, many of the merlons fallen away, and the gate itself was propped open permanently with a balk of timber. A single soldier leaned over the battlements to yawn and scratch himself as they entered. Within, the streets smelled of charcoal smoke, food, and spices; women squatted before their doorways to grind Dna-grain; and children scattered before them, screaming and laughing like little brown Kuni-birds in flight.
It was so much like Tsolyanu! The faces of his comrades told him they felt the same.
Somewhere behind the jumbled tenements a Tunkul-gong boomed to summon the devotees of some god or goddess to the morning rituals. Trinesh almost expected to look up and see Tumissa’s prowlike fortress frowning westward toward Mu’ugalavya from atop its mighty crag.
Yet this was not Tumissa, nor was it Tsolyanu. These people wore black kilts and did their long hair in elaborate loops and braids fastened with copper pins. When they spoke it was not Tsolyani but some singing, musical tongue, full of unfamiliar vowels and glottal -catches. Their skin was more sallow, a brownish-yellow instead of the coppery gold of the Empire, and their faces were narrow and triangular, with long, thin noses and pointed chins, rather than the high cheekbones and broad foreheads of Trinesh’s own clansmen.
More sightseers joined their procession at every step. Most were men, but there were women too, all attired alike in short, black kilts with little distinction between the sexes. The children grew from a mob into a pushing, chattering horde.
Visitors, then, were an uncommon occurrence here.
One other difference struck Thu’n so strongly that he trotted up beside Trinesh to mention it. Unlike Tsolyanu or any other of the Five Empires, the crowd contained not a single nonhuman of any species, nor did any of the throng approach within ten paces of the little Nininyal. Amid all the noise and confusion Trinesh tried to think of some place on Tekumel where no nonhumans dwelt. Nothing came to mind. Wherever humanity lived, there were the allied races as well: the little Hlaka fliers, the pouched and baggy-looking Pachi Lei, the Pe Choi who resembled tall insectoid statues of white and black chitin, the reptilian Shen, the gruff and bumbling Ahoggya—squat cylinders with four arms and four spraddled legs and four pairs of eyes, one pair on each side;—and a half dozen others.
No, this was not a familiar place at all.
The sprawling market square they had seen from the citadel was bright with tents, panniers of unknown fruits and vegetables, and bolts of cloth. The streets were paved with slabs of white quartz and black basalt, the buildings were higher and better kept, and the occasional trees were obviously maintained for both beauty and shade. Their procession (now more a full-fledged parade) halted in milling confusion before one of the four palaces Horusel and Saina had thought to be Mu’ugalavyani. Trinesh had an impression of domes, spires, buttresses, cornices, and inward-leaning walls slanting up to tiled and gabled roofs. Then they were hurried up a broad staircase into cool, incense-fragrant dimness. Gold gleamed here and there within a cavernous vestibule, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw more of the geometric carvings, squat upside-down columns, pierced screens of polished red wood, ornate furniture, and tapestries woven in muted tones of indigo, maroon, and amber.
There was something odd about the floor of the hall: it was divided into a bewildering maze of raised daises, platforms, and delicate walkways of several hues. Little foot-bridges led over differently colored areas to connect with their own shade again on the other side. It resembled one of the bureaucratic office-chambers in Tumissa, where the status of each scribe and official was defined by the level of the dais upon which he or she sat. The f
east-chambers of the great Tsolyani clans were similar, the highest station being reserved for a gilded replica of the Seal of the Imperium, the symbol of the omnipresent Emperor, with places for lesser guests set upon descending tiers of daises, like broad steps, that continued down to the floor where the common folk ate. The Tsolyani view of cosmic order demanded this physical yet abstract display of the hierarchies of society. Jnnesh thus comprehended the arrangement at once, although the use of colors was strange. These raised pathways did not end at the doors of the chamber, however, as their Tsolyani counterparts did, but mean-
dered on out into every hallway and corridor as far as he could see.
Chunatl Dikkuna, the priest of Lord Karakan, emerged from the throng to scrutinize them. He said. “You will walk only upon the black areas until the High General assigns you your positions.” The officer thus mentioned stood farther back; his small, pinched, soft-looking face wore a pained expression beneath the spiny crest and towering plumes of his antique helmet. That headdress must weigh as much as a I small child!
Both the Lady Deq Dimani and Horusel would have spoken, but Trinesh forestalled them. “I am a soldier of the Tsolyani army,” he said, “a Hereksa.”
“A general? A captain?” The priest eyed him with interest.
Trinesh was not close to being either. He phrased his reply carefully. “Sire, I am a military commander. Our rankings I presumably differ from yours.”
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