Chieftain of Andor

by Andrew J Offutt

“Yes,” Cleve said. “But you know why I proposed the trade. We are debt-free.”

  “Thank you, Cleve of Earth.”

  “As you said, Barke, we are bonded together. And let us make an agreement: We are friends. True, we may not see each other again after today. But if we do, we shall forget the code of debt.”

  Barke gazed into his eyes. “Agreed,” he said. “We are brothers.”

  “Then you will be his companion in slavery,” a voice said, and the two men turned to find behind them a party of nine or ten helmeted, armored men. All faced them with drawn scimitars — all except the four who stood with arrows nocked to bowstrings. Their points were aimed at Cleve.

  19 - The Slave of Sharne

  The menacing band of men was uniformed. Each wore a blue-lacquered helmet bound with a scarf of very dark blue. Their tunics were also blue, and their greaves; a shade but a little deeper than that of the Earthly sky. They wore broad, thick belts with enormous buckles, and a baldric whose equally huge buckle was centered on their chests. Strap armor protected their genitals, below a jerkin of black leather that looked capable of turning most sword thrusts. There was a device on the chest, above the heart: shield-shaped, it was a very pale blue field emblazoned with a black sailing ship pierced with a huge curved sword.

  Cleve’s voice was very quiet: “Are these men of Sharne?”

  “Yes,” Barke muttered.

  “Shall I kill them?”

  “What?” Barke’s voice was incredulous.

  “You forget my little box of stone,” Cleve said. The Oridorn sidsorn lay beneath his hand, on the rock beside him.

  “No … I cannot tell you what to do,” Barke said. “They will enslave you. Surely I can get out of it.”

  Cleve nodded and lifted his hands slowly toward the xenophobic warriors of Sharne, palms out. “Then I give them the gift of life,” he said.

  The leader of the Sharnese stared.

  “Whaaat? What’s that you say, barbarian?”

  “Have you ever heard of Doralan Andrah?” Cleve countered.

  “Of course not. And it is I who questions, barbarian.”

  “I am not a barbarian. But to answer a question so charmingly put: I told Barke that I give you all the gift of life.”

  The man stared at him, his bushy beard writhing as he chewed his lip — or perhaps ground his teeth. “Good of you. I am always proud to be spared by a man at whose belly are pointed four of my archers’ arrows.”

  Barke rose to his feet. “Captain, I am Barke, first mate of Bluerover. This man is Cleve of Earth. He saved me from the Orimors, who slew my six companions and took me captive — to eat me, I suppose.”

  “Unfortunate. You will be allowed to contact your captain, Citizen Barke. But as to your savior … you know the law of Sharne.”

  “I know it. And I also know he did not speak lightly. He is a sorcerer. He slew an Orimor without a weapon, and without touching him. Look — here are Cleve’s clothes.”

  The Sharnese captain glanced at the Orimor pelts, then at Cleve. He was frowning, but there was a grudging respect in his eyes. “How did you slay the Orimor?”

  “Orimors,” Cleve corrected. “Plural. But I cannot explain — I would have to show you. Which of your men shall I choose?”

  The Sharnese soldiery looked at one another and at their captain.

  “Let me feather his belly, Captain,” one of the archers said. “I think I can do it before he slays me by his magical powers!”

  Cleve glanced down. He had risen to his feet, and the source of his sorcery lay on the rock at his feet. But he said, “I have no desire to kill so valiant an archer, Captain. I beg you, deter him from his ridiculous experiment. He will be sinking down dead before his shaft leaves the string, and Daron will not consider this death in battle, surely.”

  “They do not loose shafts until they’re told,” the captain said, and Cleve noticed he was no longer called “barbarian.”

  “What is your business in Sharne, Cleve of — where did Barke say?”

  “Earth,” Cleve said. “And although I dislike telling you my business, I will tell you this: I seek a lady named Lahri. Perhaps you know her.”

  “A lady — ” The captain definitely blanched. “I know of her,” he said, and he swung his sword down to his left hip, covering the device on his chest with his other hand — the ward sign against sorcery.

  Barke was looking strangely at Cleve. Cleve glanced at him, grinned.

  “I place myself in your custody, Captain,” Cleve said. “I am happy to enter Sharne with so fine an escort. There is my sword.” He nodded to the scabbard he had not buckled on after doffing his furry garb. Bending easily, he picked up the sidsorn and slipped it into its pouch on his right hip. He picked up, too, the Oridorn pelts. “They are still yours,” he muttered to Barke.

  Barke drew his sword with his left hand and tossed it at the captain’s feet. “Under protest,” he said, “and with challenge implied.”

  “Oh come, Bluerover Barke! I am but doing my duty as an officer of His Majesty.”

  But Barke had turned his back to fall in beside Cleve. They made their way with as much dignity as possible down the slope. Their confused captors followed with somewhat less dignity.

  “Do you give your parole not to ensorcel, Cleve of Earth?”

  Cleve paused at the gateway into the slave pen and turned to face his captor. “No,” he said. “I will give it but temporarily, until I see how I am treated and how long I am allowed to remain here. Oh — and until I see how soon Lahri arrives.”

  “But — ”

  Cleve walked into the pen, full of milling people of both sexes. “You needn’t face her, Captain,” he called back. “Merely send for her. See whom your courier fears more — you or her!” And Cleve continued walking, into the mass of bodies. The gate slammed behind him.

  A citizen suspected of treason, Barke had been taken elsewhere. Cleve had been registered, listened to himself talked about a couple of times, stood aloof during the incredulous stares, and gone precisely where bidden, always as if he were leading or being escorted, rather than being taken. At his hip swung the little pouch bearing the most deadly weapon ever admitted into the color-splashed city of Sharne.

  “You just came in,” a pretty girl said; her skin was nearer the color of his own. While of the same race, the Sharnese were in general a little darker than he; he was from the north. Somewhere.

  “I did. How long have you been here?”

  “Three days,” she said. “We will all be out tomorrow — tomorrow is market day in Sharne, and we shall be sold. You are a Northman?”

  “Uh — well, as opposed to Sharne, yes. I am Cleve of Earth.”

  “Earth? I do not know it. I am from Rivshar. You do not look like a slave.” Her brown eyes were huge; her rounded face was framed by a mass of wavy brown hair.

  “Neither do you. How many of us here were slaves, a week ago or yesterday or last month?”

  She bit her lip. “I was,” she said. “I was born a slave. But I offended my mistress, and I am being sold. You are a warrior, and not a slave, and you do not look unkind. Will you do something for me?”

  Cleve smiled. “As much as a slave can do, Rivshar.”

  She smiled. “I am from Rivshar. My name is Sovane. Would you stay by me tonight? Some of these men — ” She shuddered. “When the sun goes down, this is a pen of animals. I was twice attacked and taken last night.” Tears were suddenly as diamonds on her cheek. “Tomorrow I shall be sold — perhaps to more of the same, but perhaps to someone kind, perhaps to a woman. But — if I could sleep in peace tonight … without … without … ” Again she shuddered.

  He laid a hand on her bare shoulder; she wore a short, loose shift without sleeves. It was torn and dirty, and he thought it strange that it seemed of good cloth, and there was a border about the torn neck he’d have sworn was cloth-of-gold. “Tonight you will sleep in peace, Sovane. If I am still here.”

  She sighed and pushed
her shoulder up against his hand. “I shall be forever indebted,” she said, then her face clouded. “If you are still here?”

  Cleve shrugged. “I seem to be the first male sorcerer ever seen in Sharne.”

  “A sorcerer!” She drew back, her dark eyes wide.

  “Sh — Let’s not cause a furor among our fellow slaves,” he told her.

  “But — why did you allow them to take you? Why are you in here? Fly away, or something.”

  “If I do, Sovane, I will try to take you with me. But — I cannot, not yet. I have given my parole. We will see.” He looked about.

  The enormous pen was filled with men and women of all ages; indeed, some were only children. A few were with a parent or parents, others were alone; frightened, abandoned animals waiting to be sold into servitude in the city whose king called himself ruler of the world. They were clothed in shifts, in tunics, in breechclouts, and many were not clothed at all. Some had been here for six days; some a few hours. There was a weekly auction, so that only those who were not bought spent more than six days here.

  “And what,” Cleve asked, “if they are not bought on the second trip to the block?”

  Sovane shivered. “That depends upon their age or health,” she said, “though most of those not sold are old or ill or crippled. They are either sent to the mines, or … killed.”

  “Which is worse?” he asked thoughtfully, and she shook her head.

  “I am not sure.”

  “Sovane … your shift has got itself dirty and torn here, but — it isn’t the material one expects to find on slaves. Where were you yesterday?”

  She looked at the ground; dust, beneath their feet. “In the palace. I have been a slave there since my birth. I was sixteen when I was given to Selka on her eighteenth birthday, last year.”

  “Selka?”

  She looked up at him, unbelieving. “You don’t know? Earth is a far land! Shaman Selka is daughter of Sharnan Vreen and Shaman Kelas, his queen. Selka is Princess of Sharne.”

  “And intensely cruel and spoiled, and you’re here because of some trifling incident.”

  Her big brown eyes looked up into his. She shook her head with a wistful smile. “She is a fine lady, my mist — my former mistress. And my crime was serious enough — the queen found me with Prince Reven. I did not want to be there — how does one refuse to tarry with the prince-heir of Sharne? At any rate, Queen Kelas screeched and slapped both of us, and he fled. Then she ordered me brought here at once. Princess Selka does not even know where I am. Nor does the prince.”

  “Her mother wouldn’t tell her?”

  Again she gave him the incredulous look from her pretty little face. “Know, Cleve of Earth, what I am sure many of the people of Sharne know: It is Queen Kelas who holds the supreme power, because King Vreen is scared of her — she is a Starpowered One he brought here from Syrhane. She in her turn hates him, I think, and her daughter, too, for Princess Selka should have inherited her powers but did not. Too, Selka is a lady, and kind, as I said. The queen loves only herself — and her son, who at least looks like her. She will do something terrible to the king someday, and rule even more firmly than she does now, through Prince Reven. She has her lovers, Her Majesty has, but poor Reven must not. She is saving him for a Starpowered One.” Sovane looked sad.

  “Somewhat confusing,” Cleve admitted, “but not too unfamiliar a situation. You haven’t of course heard of Catherine the Great … Well, what have we now? Is that man motioning to me?”

  “Oh! he is! And that’s her carriage!”

  “Kelas?”

  “No! Karikal Lahri, Witch of Karikal!”

  “Good!” Cleve grasped her little hand, grinning. “Come along, Sovane of Rivshar.”

  “No — please!” She hung back, straining to free her arm, clutching and pulling at his wrist with her other hand.

  “Stop that, Sovane. I will not leave here without you — unless you’d rather stay. I think there’s at least one who’d rather you did — that big fellow over there, the one with the off-eye who needs a haircut. He’s been watching us ever since I came in.”

  She took one look at the naked man he indicated and shrank against him. The off-eyed man grinned, leering. “Oh, no, no … he is one of the two who … ”

  “So I thought. Come along.”

  Nearly pulling his unwilling little friend, who was uncertain which to fear most — Lahri of Karikal or her ravisher of the night before — Cleve strode to the fence surrounding the slave pen. Drawn up beside it was a sedan chair of unrelieved black, carried by four equally black men of heroic physique and shorn heads. As they approached, Cleve saw that the men’s skins had been stained; they were of his own race. It occurred to him that he did not know if there were black men on Andor or not. He did know there were white; Oridorna and Orisana represented the only truly white races he was ever likely to see.

  Beside the slavemaster stood a tall, thin man in a black robe. His head was bald; his eyes blue and cold as a polar sea.

  “Are you Cleve of Earth?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you a sorcerer?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Do not answer me thus. I asked if you are a sorcerer. Are you the man who slays without touching and without weapons — notably Orimors?”

  Cleve nodded. “That,” he said, “I am.”

  The tall, thin man turned to the slavemaster. “This man,” he said, “is purchased by the Witch of Karikal. Send us your bill.”

  “Wait,” Cleve said. He half-turned, bringing forth the girl trying to hide behind him. “Sovane of Rivshar comes with me.”

  “Oh, my lord,” the slavemaster said. “That one! Why, she is a valuable prize, a virgin from — ”

  “He lies,” Cleve said. “There are no such in this pen. I am sure our slavemaster separates them out — for those who enter as maidens leave as women.” He glared at the slavemaster.

  The man blanched and opened his mouth to curse.

  “Silence,” the tall man in the black robe said, and the slavemaster’s mouth closed. Cleve was sure he’d have heard the click were it not for the noise of the slaves behind him. “You are bought, Cleve of Earth, but if you do not offer proof of your claim you will be on the block tomorrow. By what power do you dare tell me this girl comes with you?”

  “By the power of Louisville,” Cleve said. “By the powers of the star Sol, and America, and Washington-Adams-Jefferson-Madison-Monroe-Adams. By the power that slays Orimors from a distance, without weapons.”

  The tall, bald man stared at him. His thin mustache and beard twitched.

  A black curtain was drawn back on the palanquin behind him, by a slim hand wearing a black ring. “Zamph!” a female voice hissed from the sedan chair; nothing of her showed save her slender fingers. “Cease this wrangling chatter! Bring them both, before Starpowered Cleve sends you ahead to a life less easy than this one!”

  The tall, bald man stiffened. He nodded. “We buy them both,” he snapped. “Send us your bill, slavemaster, and be careful of it — you know the buyer! Now, open that gate and release them!”

  A few moments later, Cleve and the shrinking girl walked out of the slave pen of Sharne.

  20 - The Witch of Sharne

  She was neither tall nor short; neither so slender as Siraa of Orisana nor plump; neither a girl nor an old woman. She was a medium-built woman of medium height, classically featured in cold, handsome dignity rather than pretty or what is usually thought of as attractive. Her eyes were blue, pale blue, like thick ice on a winter’s day. They were set in a face so pale it abruptly, curiously reminded Cleve of those within White Mountain, after his day among the sun-bronzed people of Sharne. All the more pale by contrast with her hair; the hair all the more striking in its rich walnut coloration by contrast to her strangely fair skin. It was drawn up atop her head, twisted high and laced with pearls from the rich beds of Sharne’s shores. It grew down into a widow’s peak; in front of her ears it had been made t
o curl forward on her cheeks in loops that fell just short of closing. Her nose was straight and thin; aristocratic. The bones of her head, her austere face, were finely, sharply molded. Thick, dark brows grew in a straight line above her eyes; they were long, narrow eyes, well shuttered.

  She looked like anything but Robert Cleve’s concept of a witch. The term “sorceress” was better, he thought, in the language of Earth; it evoked images of this sort of attractive, tempting woman, rather than of crones in peaked caps with warts on chin and nose.

  “I am Lahri, Witch of Karikal, called Witch of Sharne. My brother Zamph brought you here. You are Cleve of Earth, who slays unarmed and from a distance, who exchanges words with invisible or vanishing comrades, who causes Orimor corpses to vanish, who rescued Bluerover Barke — while wearing a suit sewn of Orimor pelts.”

  “You know much more of me than I of you, Witch of Karikal. I thank you for being taken from that pen of poor destitutes … before I was forced to demonstrate my powers.”

  Lahri smiled. “And what are your powers, Cleve of Earth? Will you have wine?”

  “You have named my powers,” he told her, his eyes moving about the sumptuous apartment. Only when the witch had again intervened with her solemn word, had Cleve agreed to leave Sovane outside while he entered to this audience. “And yes, I will join you in wine.”

  “Show me,” she said. She raised and swung one arm as she snapped her fingers, the long, loose sleeve of her black gown flapping. It was banded and bordered with silver, the robe that fit her like wrinkle-free skin above its sash and to her svelte hips, falling broad and loose from there to the floor. At the hem, silver-lacquered toenails peeped from the ends of silver sandals.

  “Show you? Would you have me slay you, Witch of Karikal?”

  She smiled her thin-lipped smile. “You cannot kill me.”

  “Then I cannot show you,” he shrugged. He was very aware of being sweaty and underdressed, in this magnificent apartment of black and silver and scarlet — the deep carpet beneath his feet — and in the presence of his regally attired hostess.