Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Hold, Ujjain,” Jarl commanded, freezing Ujjain in his place with a pale glance.

  Ujjain’s hand trembled as he moved it away from the hilt of his knife. As much as he wanted to gut this insolent lizard man, he knew Jarl’s word was law. And he also knew how willing Jarl’s guards would be to lay open the dark interloper from Citadel Bhalwaphadasas. The distrust and animosity of his pale companions in this crusade to free Touvalasis from the hands of the Shaivan Mourdants hovered like a constant specter.

  “Despite the long memories—or guilt—of the First Landers and their desire to regain this realm, you will see none other than Ujjain fighting at my side,” Jarl said. “They prefer to enclose themselves within fortress walls, pray to gods that look like demons and lament the state of the world. If these lands were not also sacred to us who fight under the banner of Jovah, there would be no crusades, no pilgrimages and no way for merchants such as yourself to get rich trading with both sides.”

  “My Lord Jarl,” Banor murmured, “you wrong me, though not grievously.”

  Jarl uttered a short laugh and motioned for everyone to sit at the tables scattered about the tent. Ujjain sat alone at a table between Banor, also alone, and Jarl, who of course remained at the high dais. The priests, advisors, commanders and scholars clustered protectively together; the soldiers and guards stood at their posts, watching everyone.

  “When I was here two years ago,” Jarl began, “you came to me with nothing but a rumor. Do you still hold no more than a whisper, or does your return mean more?”

  “Much more, my lord,” Banor replied. “In the sun-cycles that have elapsed since your campaigns here, I have traveled extensively in the hinterland of Touvalasis, among primitive tribes of Mourdants who…”

  “Please Banor, come to the point quickly,” Jarl said. “Have you found it?”

  “Yes, Lord Jarl, I know…” He glanced nervously toward Ujjain, then back to Jarl. “I have found the Ship of the First Landers.”

  Ujjain leaped to his feet, upsetting the small table. He stared at the Mourdant trader with the expression a man might reserve for a scorpion found in a nursery. But he made no move for his weapons, so the guards held their places.

  Jarl’s attention was focused solely upon Banor. His voice no more than a hoarse whisper, he asked: “Can you take us there?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Banor answered. “It is a long and dangerous journey, but it is possible.”

  “Sacrilege,” Ujjian breathed. “It is the Unattainable for which all must toil. The Ship is That Which is Lost, of which we can only hope to possess a True Fragment.”

  “Don’t let your faith desert you now, my friend,” Jarl cried, coming to his feet. “The Ship is real.” He looked to the trader. “Tell me of it, Banor.”

  “It is a huge house of metal, vine-hung and of great antiquity,” Banor replied. “There was writing resembling that of the First Landers’ native tongue, but I could comprehend none of it. The valley in which it rests is the home of primitive and savage Mourdant tribes, untouched by alien religions and ignorant of the compassion of One Eye. They have come to regard the Ship as a most holy thing and will fight to keep you from gaining possession of it. The Ship appeared to be whole, not in ruins, but there was no way to enter that I could see.”

  “It cannot be the Ship!” Ujjain protested. “It must be a temple of some sort raised back in the Dawntime. We have fragments of the True Ship.”

  “Those are just pieces of found metal,” Jarl snapped. “Or maybe they are pieces of our own starcraft, which we know was destroyed while orbiting Jambhudiva.” He sat down with a satisfied sigh. “Long have we sought the Ship we knew must have survived, the sole reason for these wars. We can only pray to Jovah that the engines and warp-coils are intact.” He leveled a pale forefinger at Banor. “You shall guide us there.”

  Banor looked around the tent, at the hungry, desperate eyes of the mammals, at Ujjain’s eyes clouded with hate. It was not a journey he had planned on making again, but he was a trader, and well knew the value of his own life. He nodded.

  “We leave at first light,” Jarl announced. “Ujjain, you shall be numbered with the party.” Jarl lifted a jewel-crusted goblet. “A toast to the attainment of our dreams.”

  Someone pressed a plain goblet into Ujjain’s hand, and he lifted it to his lips. The wine was bitter.

  * * *

  “Drink this, sir,” Bryll said, offering the dark human a rough wooden cup filled with tylyka. “You have lost much bodily fluids; this will give you strength.”

  Ujjain sipped from the cup pressed against his lips. The liquid coursed down his throat like fire.

  Ujjain tried to sit, but the effort was too much. “Where are we? What happened? Who are you?”

  “Near a village called Hollaton Grove,” Bryll answered. “My father and I found you by the road. My name is Bryll. I have cared for you. You were nearly dead.”

  Ujjain half closed his eyes and settled back with a sigh. “Why would a Tholotant help a human? The Second Landers persecute you, and we did the same in our time. Others finding me would have let me die.”

  “That is what I told my daughter to do, human,” a gruff voice declared. Ujjain shifted his gaze and saw an elderly Tholotant squatting beside an enclosed wagon. “Humans are nothing but trouble, and you shall be no different. You are a hunted man.”

  “My father Ibrham is old and set in his ways,” Bryll said gently. “He has seen much suffering and injustice, all of which he has tried to keep from me, and he at times forgets that One Eye put us here to help others. If I had let you die, I would have had a hand in your murder.”

  “I am already dead,” Ujjain said with a bitter laugh that left him choking for breath. “I died in a faraway jungle valley and am nothing but a ghost.”

  “Then Lord Jarl’s warriors seek a ghost,” Ibrham spat. “We have already been stopped and questioned once. Daughter, this ghost will be the death of us.”

  Bryll ignored her father and pressed the cup of tylyka to her charge’s lips. “Rest, Ujjain, and gather your strength.”

  Ujjain licked his lips when the cup was taken away and gazed up at the golden-skinned Tholotant, even more radiant in the light of the dancing flames. Her eyes captured the lights and seemed to be filled with stars. Pale fabrics surrounded her lithe form like an iridescent nimbus.

  “You know who I am, don’t you?” Ujjain raised a trembling hand and touched his left temple. “I have heard watchfire-stories about how Tholotant healers can get inside a man’s head…walk about in his dreams.”

  She took his hand and, kneeling beside him, pressed her forehead to his brow. She winced at the shadows playing across his mind. His eyes fluttered closed.

  “Sleep, dear Ujjain,” she murmured, only loud enough for her own ears to hear.

  * * *

  Ujjain and Banor, in the lead, hacked their way through the choking vegetation, slowly making headway through the thick highland jungle. Lord jarl, resplendent in a uniform of silver, onyx and precious plastic, followed immediately behind, trailed by warriors, servants and scholars. Until this day, Jarl had worn the plain armor of a field commander; Banor had informed him they were near the site of the Ship, and plain garb became suddenly inadequate. At the beginning of their trek inland, they had skirmished with contingents of Shaivan Mourdants, but those had been quickly left behind. For weeks they had encountered no one, but they felt themselves keenly watched, a fact which Banor confirmed.

  “Many of the Mourdants this far inland have never seen humans,” he said. “You are like creatures out of legends to them. They are curious, but I do not think they will attack us unless provoked.”

  “If they do approach us, I’ll use the trade trinkets,” Jarl said. “If that fails, we’ll see how stone and savagery fare against metal and discipline. I’ll wager that…”

  “Great Vishnu!” Ujjain exclaimed.

  They had abruptly broken from the mass of the highland jungle into a clearing at
the edge of an escarpment. The valley below stretched away to other escarpments rising sheer. In the center of the valley rose a sprawling metallic shape, wreathed about with vines, the base obscured by encroaching underbrush. Only the larger of Jambhudiva’s two suns was in the sky, low to the horizon, and the shadow of the Ship was cast along the length of the valley.

  “The road home,” Jarl murmured. He strode past Ujjain, to the edge of the escarpment. “I claim the Ship of the First Landers in the name of Jovah the Most High!” He turned back to his soldiers and scholars. “Make camp here and scour the jungle for vines with which to make rope. In the morning we will climb down and inspect the Ship.”

  Later, while warriors, servants and scholars alike wove rope around the campfire, Ujjain sat alone on a rock at the edge of the escarpment, staring into the night-shrouded valley. The Ship, hidden by folds of darkness, was invisible, and Ujjain had to accept its continued existence on faith alone, as he always had, but his faith now seemed a tenuous and fleeting thing.

  “The culmination of all our hopes and dreams,” Jarl said from behind. “Did you ever think you would live to see it?”

  Ujjain did not answer. He stared into the darkness as the spiral wash of stars slowly rose into the black sky. Under the dim light, the Ship again became visible, pale as a ghost. He wanted to be left alone, but that was not something that could be said to Lord Jarl. The cyclopic god mounted the sky.

  “It pains me every time I hear that referred to as One Eye by some Mourdant or Tholotant,” Jarl said.

  This time, Ujjain turned slightly. His patron in this crusade had not moved, but now his gaze was directed upward. “We call it the Dark Place,” Ujjain replied. “It is thought to be the home of demons and evil, realm of the place called Earth.”

  “We at least agree on one thing, Ujjain,” Jarl said. “It is where we will find Earth, but it is not the province of darkness that your kind believes it to be. It is not One Eye nor the Dark Place. It is the Home Galaxy, from which we came as explorers.” He lifted his hands to the star-filled night. “That is our true heritage, not this speck of dust. Were it not for an accident two thousand years ago, my empire would be planets without number, not a plot of land. The stars are my birthright.” He gazed down at the spectral Ship. “At long last we will again tread the road homeward.”

  “You cannot be serious,” Ujjain gasped. Until that moment, he had viewed Jarl’s apparent possession of the Ship as nothing more than a way of intimidating the devout First Landers.

  “I am quite serious, Ujjain,” Jarl replied, “My scholars will use our sacred books to wrest every secret from the guts of that craft, and when they have, we shall leave Jambhudiva to the likes of you. We shall return to the stars.”

  “The darkness shall consume you,” Ujjain protested. “The Demons of Space shall destroy your brain, the Hand of Vishnu shall destroy you. You shall be overtaken by the gigantic doom my ancestors fled in the Beginning.”

  “Spare me the children’s stories,” Jarl snapped. “I have never been a devout follower of my own religion—witness that there are no priests with us—but compared to your beliefs of the avatars of Vishnu, of atmans, ashramas and kharma, the bishops and prattling priests almost begin to make sense. Everyone, many of my race included, has become so caught up in the myth of the Ship that the reality of the starship has been forgotten.” He gestured into the star-lit darkness. “That is not some holy icon to be broken up into amulets. It is a manmade mechanical device for traveling between stars, between galaxies. All my life, I have dreamed of returning to the stars and there are many like me—Second Lander lords who have preserved the ancient technical manuals in our churches and archives. We will solve the mysteries of the Ship and then we will leave. Think of it, Ujjain, Jambhudiva will be yours again to rule absolutely as you did before our coming, not that your kind did much except raise cities of stone and give legends flesh. We do not belong here. We never did.” He gazed upward, into the galactic mass. “The road home, which we have always secretly and devoutly sought, has been found.”

  “Blasphemy,” Ujjain whispered into the silence.

  “Go home, Ujjain,” Jarl said softly. “Take my gratitude and the treasure we looted from the Mourdant cities, and return to your fortress. Go back to your woman. Wait for the world to change.” He started back to the encampment, then turned. “This is no longer a place for you, First Lander.”

  Ujjain stood and turned. “You are correct, my lord. I shall leave you in the morning, as you suggest.”

  Jarl returned to the camp. He set the guard watch, then lay on his bedroll, his back to the embers of the fire. He saw Ujjain still at the edge of the escarpment, silhouetted against the galaxy and the sheering hull of the Ship. He felt no small measure of sadness and sympathy for the First Lander who had served him so faithfully in this campaign in the holy lands of Touvalasis. But the world was going to change, and there was nothing that could be done to stop that. Eventually, Jarl fell into a troubled, dreamless sleep.

  Jarl opened his eyes and instinctively shielded them against the glare. Even as he struggled free of his bedroll, he realized this was not the dawn stinging his eyes. The brightness increased to an unendurable intensity and Jarl turned away from its source. A great wind swept across them, and a roar like the roar of all the world’s beasts sounded in Jarl’s ears. Light and sound faded quickly after that, and the silence and darkness surged back. Almost silent; almost dark.

  Jarl crawled to the edge of the escarpment. Below, the entire valley was aflame. Sparks and smoke soared into the night. The Home Galaxy was obscured, then lost to sight completely.

  Little remained of the Ship. Where it had stood were jagged spires of metal. Jarl struggled to his feet. He looked down and saw the remains of a vine-rope secured to a rocky outcropping.

  Jarl threw his head back and roared his rage and frustration to the gods, to all of them.

  A warrior rushed forward. “There is no sign of the First Lander or the Mourdant. Shall we…”

  Lord Jarl pulled his dagger from his belt. He cut the rope from the outcropping and watched it spiral out of sight. He turned away from the ruins of the Ship.

  “Strike camp!” He commanded. “We’re returning to the coast immediately.”

  Wary of attack in the smoke-clotted darkness, the men returned the way they had come. Their retreat was observed by many eyes, but they were not molested. They returned to the lands they had wrested from the Mourdants in battle, but did not linger. They boarded their ships and made the long journey home. Lord Jarl left the crusade to win the sacred lands of Touvalasis in the hands of those lords who still believed there was a reason to fight.

  * * *

  “You are not strong enough Ujjain,” Bryll protested, trying to keep him from rising.

  “Let him go, Daughter,” Ibrham advised. “He is a human, and there is no speaking sense to him. The sooner we are rid of him, the better. Without him, perhaps we will live to see another day.”

  “Your father is right, Bryll,” Ujjain said. “Thank you for what you have done. You have given me another chance.”

  “Another chance to kill yourself,” Bryll said. “If you move around too much, you might open the wound, it might become infected again. I cannot be sure I got out all the infection. Besides, there are soldiers everywhere. Just before dawn, I heard some on the road. If you stay with us, we might be able to help you escape from these lands.”

  “I’m not escaping,” Ujjain replied, struggling to his feet. He was unsteady for a moment, then held firm. “I am returning to Citadel Bhalwaphadasas. Mathura will not be expecting to see me. I will kill my cousin for the way he has dishonored me.”

  “You would die for something as unsubstantial as honor?” Bryll demanded. “If so, then you are a fool.”

  “Honor is everything,” Ujjain replied. He touched his left temple and raised an eyebrow. “How can you not understand the importance on honor? You walked about in my mind, among my thoughts and
memories. You must know what honor and duty mean to me. You, of all people, must understand that what I did, I did because of those two words.”

  Bryll gazed steadfastly into Ujjain’s dark eyes. “I know what you did in Touvalasis, and I know why.”

  Ujjain averted his eyes from her hard gaze. He saw his armor near the wagon, abandoned her, and started donning it. After adjusting the fit of the battle-mask he again turned toward Bryll.

  “Do not go,” Bryll urged.

  “I do not have any choice,” Ujjain said.

  “You see, Daughter, you saved him so he could kill himself,” Ibrham said. “You might as well have left him by the road leaking his own blood.”

  Bryll turned away from both her father and the First Lander. She felt strong hands on her shoulders turning her about. She looked up at Ujjain. Behind the harsh lines of the battle-mask, his eyes were soft and warm.

  “Do not do this,” Bryll said. “Stay with us.” She paused and her voice sand to a whisper. “Stay with me.”

  “It cannot be, little one,” Ujjain said. “I must fight for my honor. After dying in Touvalasis, I have naught but honor.” Ujjain squeezed her shoulders, then turned and vanished into the woods. As she watched him go, she could not help herself, could not stop drops of turquoise moisture from forming in her eyes.

  Ibrham looked up from his task of burying the embers of the fire. “Tears, Daughter? Tears for a human?”

  She let the tears slide down her golden cheeks. “Someone must weep for him.”

  “Well, we are done with him,” Ibrham said. “Now we can proceed without fear and see what kind of life we can make for ourselves in this land. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Even under the full light of Jambhudiva’s emerald and sapphire suns, Citadel Bhalwaphadasas seemed shadow-infested and shrouded in darkness. Ujjain had lived almost all his life there, as had hundreds of generations of first Landers before him, but not it seemed a place of mystery and danger, haunted by strangers with familiar faces.