The Return of Kavin

by David Mason

  It will be necessary to find weapons, Gann thought. And helpers. Then… to destroy that other, first of all. He stood up, drawing the tattered cloth about him; he was aware of cold, and of the pain of that which lay within him, not healed, but controlled. Aware, but strangely uncaring.

  I am Gann, he thought, again. Yet I am not… complete. I seem to possess all the knowledge I had, but I am not as I was. Perhaps the priest was right. That other possesses something that is rightfully mine, something that is myself. I must take it back.

  Then he thought, If that unknown being told me the truth, I shall live… forever. Time. Time to rebuild, here in this primitive world, all that was.

  That journal. It recorded the fall of the great state, too; how it all happened. As soon as I was out of the way, Gann thought, they betrayed all, everything we fought to make. Small men, weak, fearful and hungry for power, tore down the greatness, used the weapons against each other. Till nothing was left but that desert that the priest predicted. Strange, Gann thought. I should feel hate for those fools… though they are dead long ago. Yet, I feel nothing.

  He turned, and re-entered the gigantic building.

  Hours later, he found the entrance to the store rooms, deep under the foundations; and there, in the darkness, he moved slowly and purposefully, seeking and finding. He did not sleep much; and whenever he did, he entered the dim world of dream-visions, where the voice of Ess instructed him. Outside, the sun rose and set many times, but how many Gann did not know or care.

  The other was named Kavin, Gann knew. He knew that the other lived, somewhere in this world; and a strange, drawing instinct told Gann that the other was at this moment somewhere in the easterly direction, but moving west and north. It was as though a compass needle turned, measuring the other’s progress day by day, deep within Gann’s mind.

  But the other was far, and Gann knew that he would need a means of transport to reach him. He remembered the swift machines of his own world and time, arrowing through the sky; with one of those he could have reached the other in a day. And with the weapons of his world he would not need to know exactly where that other lay hidden. He could burn half a city… but those weapons were not available to him, nor those ships of the air.

  No, Gann thought. This was a world of the past to him; and even such tools and weapons as he might find here, in the ruin, would be primitive enough.

  The small hairy men who lived among the mountains, north of the valley, avoided the place out of a generations-old fear. An ancient tale spoke darkly of what had once happened there, but the tale also said that the terrors were slain. Therefore, a few of the braver tribesmen sometimes came close, following their shaggy herds of elami; there was better grazing in the pass that led to the Black Valley. But there was fear, too; ghosts dwelt there, it was said.

  Yet, Mang Eelap and his herders dared to move always a little closer to the valley every season. Once, Mang Eelap had actually descended to the valley floor, and had returned, bearing strange and marvelous loot. And no evil spirits had pursued him; his herds were not stricken with disease, and his wives bore healthy sons.

  The grazing had been poor this year, too; and Mang Eelap determined not to let his herd starve while the grass grew so well in that pass above the strange skeletal towers.

  So, on a certain morning, the little woolly, humped elami moved slowly down the valley, following the grass; and behind them, mounted on other elami, the men and women of Eelap’s little tribe followed. This time they camped almost within the shadows of the skeletal tower; within clear sight of the squat, enormous ruin in the valley, at which they looked with fearful eyes.

  It was noon; cooking fires burned in the camp, and Mang Eelap himself, and two of his sons, sat their elami, watching the herd. A woman, coming out of the skin tent behind them, glanced toward the ruins and abruptly screamed. Mang swung about in his saddle and stared.

  A demon had emerged from the House of the Death and stood, gazing silently at the camp.

  Mang Eelap knew a demon, though he had not actually seen one before. This one was tall, and made of metal that shone like copper in the sun. It carried a short metal spear, and it had no face, only a smooth dark surface of something that shone.

  Then, one of the sons of Mang cried out, and kicked his heels into the woolly sides of his elami; the little beast sprang forward, charging, as the son of Mang fitted an arrow and fired it at the demon.

  The demon did not move; the arrow cracked against the metal, and fell broken. But the son of Mang was almost upon him, a second arrow on the string. The demon lifted its staff and pointed. There was a flash of light, more brilliant than the sun; and then there was no man, nor mount. Only a blackened spot on the earth marked the place where both had been.

  My fourth son was always something of a fool, Mang reflected. He stared at the immobile demon for a moment longer; then he raised himself in his saddle and cried out in a loud voice, offering the demon worship.

  The demon did not speak. But when Mang finally came, very cautiously, closer, the demon did not strike him. He merely stood as Mang laid gifts of meat and milk at his feet.

  Here are the helpers and slaves I require, Gann thought. I have few charges for the weapon; it is well that they do not need another demonstration. They are, of course, savages. It would be impossible to train them adequately… but they are human, and their bodies are all I require, not their minds. Also, they possess transport animals. Now, at last, I may go… to the other.

  EIGHT

  Her name was Golden Turtle, and Hugon, leaning over a forward rail to watch the sea against her bows, thought there was good reason for the name. She was a round-bellied, wide-beamed ship, and slow as troll’s blood, too. The Turtle was very old, older than her most ancient crewman, who was a graybeard; her heavy timbers were split here and there, and her bilge reeked ominously of dry rot.

  She had been at the coasting trade, up and down the world for a long time, bearing dried fish one way and half-tanned hides another, and the ghosts of such cargo hung about her blackened hold. She plowed forward now, under patched brown sails, rolling with the sedate, yet slightly lascivious pace of an old madam. To port, the coastal hills showed as a gray mist on the horizon.

  Kavin stood there, in the waist, leaning on the bulwark and staring eastward. His sea cloak muffled him, except for the curious silver-gray hair, and his eyes were intent on the distance.

  Zamor was aft, on the quarterdeck with one of the seamen; Hugon heard the big man’s booming laugh come faintly from there. Thuramon, in the tiny cabin, was probably still poring over the strange books, of which he had brought quite a few along.

  Hugon moved quietly down the ladder, and came to Kavin’s side. He leaned on the bulwark beside the other and watched him, covertly.

  “What’s yonder, that you look so hard?” Hugon asked, at last.

  “Eh?” Kavin glanced at him, startled. “Oh. There. Nothing, now. An empty place, where Dorada was, once. Deserted land, and ghosts.” He shrugged, drawing the cloak closer.

  Hugon was silent, knowing that there was nothing to be said.

  I could indulge in a black mood or two myself, he thought, remembering Gwynna. What devil took me by the codpiece and prompted me to fits of honorable conduct about that fine, smooth wench? Gone she is, and the chances of getting my hands around her as slim now as… as our chances of ever getting to Mazain at all, he thought grimly.

  Thuramon had paid enough gold for their passage to weigh the value of the Turtle itself. No ships were clearing for Mazain any longer, not since word came from the west of the sea’s being full of warships and pirates… and not much difference between the two, as far as any merchant was concerned. Gwynna might not have reached the Imperial City herself, for that matter, Hugon thought.

  And if she had… well, she’d be a lady of wealth and position, again, and would she notice a vagabond like himself? Lucky enough if she keeps her promise to aid us… or at least doesn’t betray us. Though he th
ought she feared Thuramon’s wizardry too much for that.

  Hugon doubted very much that they would ever be able to enter the city in any disguise at all, and he doubted even more that they would be able to steal any Egg of Fire from the Treasury, thief’s tools or not. In general, Hugon viewed the future darkly at this moment. He walked along the swaying deck and found his lute; sat down on a capstan, and proceeded to play a bawdy ballad for the delectation of several members of the crew.

  Even the captain, a leathery ancient named Garph, emerged from the after cabin to listen appreciatively as Hugon continued to chronicle the adventures of the yellow-haired girl who knew every word except “no.”

  “… then came a lad from the northern isle,

  And a harpooner was he,

  And the yellow-haired girl gave him a smile,

  And asked his harpoon to see…”

  At which point Hugon was rudely interrupted.

  “Sail ho!” the man at the foretop bellowed. “Three sail, and bearing close on the starboard quarter!”

  And a moment or two later, the lookout added, with a slight quaver, “Ships of war they are, cap’n!”

  There was a great deal of purposeful noise and running. The Turtle was not a ship meant for war; but she was not meant for a rapid escape, either. However, Captain Garph intended to put as many sea miles as he could between himself and those three ominous sails, without any curiosity at all about their nation or their intentions. More patched canvas went up, until the Turtle’s masts carried every rag they could bear; the round-bellied ship swung about, to run directly before the wind, northward.

  Within two hours, the three sails were nearer; they lay now south and west of the Turtle, and whatever they were, they had most obviously turned in pursuit.

  Kavin was already on the quarterdeck, as Zamor and Hugon came up, armed and ready. The prince leaned on a long straight sword, and wore a plain steel corselet and cap borrowed from the ship’s small armory; the others had also borrowed armor.

  Zamor had found an enormous ancient boarding axe, a monstrous thing with crescent blades mounted on a four-foot shaft; he swung it, testing its balance, and grinned broadly as he did so.

  “I’ll have a chance to spill a little more Mazainian blood, it may be,” he granted.

  “Always assuming those folk yonder are Mazainian,” Hugon said. He wore a sword, too, but he had found a big crossbow as well, and was hastily smearing its channel with a lump of grease.

  “That’s a Mazainian galley, man,” Zamor said, peering hard. “See that canted mast? Coming on fine, too; should be on us before dark, that one that’s so far ahead of the other two.”

  “If we keep off till dark,” Captain Garph said, anxiously, “might be we can lose him, grant there’s no moonlight.” He glanced down at the waist where his motley crew were gathering, muttering and staring. “By the Nine, I can’t fight a war vessel.”

  “I doubt we’ve strength to fight an angry rowboat,” Hugon said, surveying the crew. “I’ve been wondering, these past few days, Captain Garph, seeing the crew you’ve got… is it a floating home for ancient sailors, this Golden Turtle? There’s a gaffer there, calls himself mess boy, must be old enough to be my father, and he’s the youngest of the crew.”

  Thuramon appeared, now; he stood and watched, his eyes keen under their thick white eyebrows. He seemed quite calm.

  “We shall escape, I think,” he said.

  “Could you essay a bit of sorcery, lord wizard?” Hugon asked.

  “If necessary,” Thuramon said. “But… for reasons I know best… it would be unwise. I do not wish to call attention to our party. Attention that might be caused by… excessive use of certain forces.”

  Kavin looked at Hugon, and now he smiled, hard-mouthed.

  “Have no fear, cousin,” he said. “There are the three of us, armed men. We can make a fine ending of it, if we need to.”

  “I’d prefer not to make an ending, if possible,” Hugon said, grinning. He twanged the crossbow string. “Not my ending, at any rate. I’ve several fine poems not yet written.”

  The dragonet, Fraak, had been asleep in the ship’s galley, under the stone hearth; his favorite spot, warm and dry, where occasional goodies came his way as well. But now he came soaring across the deck to land on the rail, with an excited trill.

  “Bad men!” he cried, and blew a tongue of fire. “Bad men, there! Put me in a wire cage, again!”

  “Not if they don’t catch us, Fraak,” Hugon said. “If they do, we’re for a cage ourselves, but they’ll never feed us as well as they will you, pretty one.”

  “Don’t LIKE cages!” Fraak said, firmly.

  Now the war galley was clearly visible, a white bone of foam under its sharp prow, the tiny figures of men on its foredeck. The sun was on the horizon; it would be dark in half an hour, but the galley was gaining steadily.

  “Aaah, HO!” The cry was faint, but audible, over the gray water. “Heave to, there!”

  Garph stared aft, toward the galley, then up at the straining sails, clenching his fists nervously.

  “We’ll never…” he began, in a low voice.

  Then a loud snap was heard from the galley. An arc of blue smoke appeared; a clay firepot struck the sea a few yards behind the Turtle, and burst with an oily flame.

  “Why, the devils mean to burn us!” Garph said in a shocked voice.

  “Meaning they aren’t out to merely seize cargoes, it seems,” Kavin said grimly. “We might have better luck if they’d been only pirates, instead of lawful men of war.”

  “I’d sooner meet pirates than honest men, myself,” Hugon said. “A man loses less, that road. Now, a few yards closer…” He had cranked the crossbow to its full tension, and laid a short iron quarrel in it. He balanced it carefully on the rail, kneeling to sight.

  “Now!” he said, and squeezed. There was a sharp twang and whizzing sound.

  Distantly, they heard a choked shriek, and Hugon grinned as he cranked the bow again.

  “Marvelous shooting, brother! Zamor cried, grinning. “There’s a man down, see there? Can you do that again?”

  “I’ll try…” Hugon said, kneeling once more. He squeezed again, and a moment later muttered a curse. “Damn them, they’re down behind the bulwarks.”

  “Well, one’s for us,” Kavin said. “Let them come closer, and we’ll take a few more.”

  Another firepot arched over, this time nearly aboard.

  “If they come closer, we’ll be baked like hens,” Hugon grunted. “They’ve no intention of boarding, the motherless…”

  Suddenly Fraak cried out, a sound that was not like any of his normal hunting cries; pure anger flamed in the sound. He sprang into the air, wings beating, and shot upward, in a wide circle, higher and higher; his body gleamed golden in the sun’s last level rays. Then he dived, in a long slant, toward the galley.

  On the galley’s deck there was distant shouting, and a black speck shot skyward toward the flying dragonet, an arrow. But he was much too fast as he swooped through the upper rigging, slanted upward, and turned to swoop again. The deepening twilight had turned the shape of the galley to a towering darkness behind the Golden Turtle; but now that darkness was suddenly broken by a yellow flower of light. There was fire in the galley’s topsail.

  A second bloom of fire appeared, on the rushing galley’s foredeck; Fraak had evidently dived upon the fire-pots that lay ready beside their catapult. The galley was turning, now, as men clawed down the flaming canvas and fought the fire; it slowed and fell behind into the dark.

  A moment later, Fraak sailed back down to the deck, singing a wild triumphal chord as he thudded onto the wood. He strutted, chortling, as men gathered around him, kneeling to scratch his scaly head and offer him delicious morsels from the galley. He flapped excitedly, his claws scarring the deck, and his golden eyes glowed. Fraak was a hero, and humility was not in his dragonish makeup; he loved the compliments he was hearing.

  In the midst of the
triumph, Captain Garph struck a discordant note.

  “Yon’s but one,” he said grimly, peering into the dark. “And she may rig new sail yet. Then, there’s the other two. And all three of them feeling damned wrathful at us, the way we’ve scorched ‘em. Best press on fast as we can, lads.”

  Far astern, a star flickered in the darkness, the light of the galley’s burning; but it was dimmer now.

  The wind was rising a little; the tubby ship rolled more heavily, and seemed to be sailing a little faster. Captain Garph took a log line, and made a calculation of speed, which appeared to cheer him slightly.

  “It’ll be a near thing, however,” he muttered, running the line through his hands as he coiled it. He came back toward the group who waited for him. “We’re running due north, ye know. There’s the Axe, rising ahead.” He pointed out the polar star.

  “North,” Kavin said, frowning, and glanced at Thuramon, who nodded.

  “No chance of turning westward to Quenda coast,” Thuramon said, questioningly. Garph shook his head.

  “Nay, Master Thuramon, we cannot risk it now,” he said. “There’ll be more of those damned galleys, closer we get to the southern province. That’s where all the fracas is, you know that.” He shrugged. “Not to mention, the ships the rebels will doubtless have about, who’ll be as glad to pluck us as any.”

  Thuramon glowered. “You were paid, man.”

  “You may have back your gold,” Garph said, with a look of inner agony at the thought, but a firm voice. “I will not have my men slain and my ship burned.” He stared at Thuramon, his jaw set. “Master, my men have sailed with me a long time. They’re… my men.”

  “Don’t press him, Thuramon,” Kavin said. “He’s in the right.”

  “We’ll be as far from our goal when we land as we were before,” Hugon grunted, sitting down on the rail with a disgusted expression. “Father to his men, isn’t he? Hah.”

  Fraak, returning from a foraging trip amidships, sailed to Hugon’s shoulder and sat, burping contentedly. Hugon stroked him absently; then glanced at the dragonet with a new look.