The Hand of Zei

by L. Sprague DeCamp

  As Barnevelt sat foolishly in the shallow water, the Shambor receded rapidly, the sailors jeering: "Fare thee well, Captain!"

  "May the demons give you pleasant dreams!" And Zanzir, loudest of all: "We thank you for the fine ship, Captain. We'll make our fortunes in't!"

  There was no use swimming after the Shambor, which backed out into open water, hoisted sail, and swung round to head off northeast, close-hauled. Soon she was out of sight, leaving Barnevelt, Zei, and Chask on the doubtful shores of the island of Fossanderan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Barnevelt said, "I should have run that young squirt through the first time he gave us a piece of his lip."

  He wondered, now, what would happen to the Shambor in her new rig, which he had intended to change back to the old before reaching Damovang to avoid trouble with the Vi-agens over the introduction of an invention to Krishna.

  "Nor should we have both come ashore at once," said Chask. "That last blunder was of my doing."

  "Instead of apportioning blame," said Zei, "were't not more profitable to plan our next course?"

  Chask said, "The princess is a fount of wisdom. The sooner we're off this accursed isle the sooner shall we be home. By the gods' own luck we have this axe and that length of anchor rope. I propose, Captain, that we build a raft, utilizing trunks of trees and the rope to bind them. Then shall we paddle to the western mainland and thence proceed to the Shaf-Malayer road, which runs not far west of here."

  "Two logs is all we have rope for," said Barnevelt. "We'll have to straddle 'em as if we were riding an aya."

  Chask found a likely tree and felled it. He was still trimming the glossy branches away when a hideous clamor arose from the woods around.

  A swarm of creatures rushed out of concealment and gal-loped towards the three. They were of about human size and shape, but with tails, heads faintly resembling those of Earthly baboons, and hair in lieu of clothes. They carried stone-age clubs and spears.

  "Run!" screeched Chask.

  The three ran to the mouth of the stream and turned westward along the shore. The shore here took the form of a crescent-shaped beach, ending in a rocky promontory. Barne-velt and Zei, being taller than Chask, drew ahead of the boatswain as they raced along this beach, the beast-men howling behind. Barnevelt heard them gaining.

  A sudden break in the noise behind made Barnevelt snatch a look to the rear. What he saw filled him with horror. Chask had stubbed his toe on a stone and fallen. Before he could get up again, the beast-men had reached him and were working him over. Barnevelt checked his stride and reached for his sword before realizing that Chask must be already dead under the shower of blows and thrusts, and for him to go back would be to throw his life away to no purpose.

  He ran on. At the promontory, he and Zei leaped from rock to rock until they found before them another short stretch of beach.

  "Ao, Zei!" he said. "In here!"

  At the beginning of this curve of beach, the waves had undermined the bank beneath a big old tree, whose roots now dangled barely from the overhang and whose trunk leaned seaward at an ominous angle. One good storm would send the whole tree crashing into the sea, but meanwhile the space beneath it formed a small cave.

  The fugitives burrowed in among the rootlets, bringing showers of dislodged dirt down on their heads and disturbing many-legged creeping things. One of the latter got inside Barnevelt's jacket and squirmed about while Barnevelt swatted frantically.. In its death throes it bit a crumb of flesh out of his chest, making him suck his breath in sharply in lieu of yelling.

  When they were as far back as they could push, they found that they could no longer see the beach for the curtain of roots that hung down from the roof of their refuge like the baleen from the palate of a whale.

  Well, thought Bamevelt, if I can't see out, they cant see in. How about footprints? Between the wet sand and the bank of which the tree formed a part there was a strip, not much over a meter wide, of soft dry sand, and they could hope that this would not betray them. They crouched in their hole, rationing breaths in an effort to be quieter than utter silence.

  The noise attending the butchery of Chask died down. Bare feet trotted by, slap-slap, over the wet sand. Beast-men called to one another in their own tongue. For all Barnevelt knew, they were organizing an attack on the cave. Any minute now, he expected to have to start thrusting at the bestial heads as the creatures came crawling into their refuge. He could put up quite a scrap…

  Then all sound died away, save the swoosh of the surf and the sigh of the wind. Nevertheless, the fugitives continued to crouch for hours.

  Barnevelt whispered, "Just like 'em to be waiting out there to greet us!"

  When the dimming of the light at last showed that afternoon was well advanced, Barnevelt murmured, "You stay here. I'm going out to scout."

  "Take care!"

  "You're durn tootin' I'll be careful. If I don't come back by tomorrow morning, try to swim for the mainland."

  He pushed his way out, centimeter by centimeter, like some timid mollusk emerging from its shell. However, he could neither see nor hear any trace of his enemies.

  The tide, which when they had sought refuge was almost lapping the mouth of the cave, had now receded many meters. Barnevelt skulked back to the place where Chask had fallen. The sand was roiled and stained with brown Krishnan blood running down to the water in a broad band, but no bodies were in sight.

  Barnevelt followed the teeming humanoid footprints back to the mouth of the little stream. A few meters up the stream, where lay the trunk the boatswain had felled, he came upon the ax that Chask had been using, lying in the stream bed with the water rippling over it. He picked it up.

  Barnevelt pushed upstream looking for spoor of the beast-men. He found broken bushes and blood from their burden, but the mold of the forest floor did not take footprints with any clarity, and soon the trail died out. Too bad, he thought, that he was not a trained jungle wallah.

  While he cast about in perplexity, a sound came to his ears: a rhythmic booming, too sharp and high for a drum of the conventional type, too resonant for mere banging on a log. At first it seemed to come from all directions. After a while of turning his head this way and that like a radar antenna, he thought he fixed its direction and struck off uphill to the southeast.

  An hour later he knew he was nearing the source of the sound. He drew his sword, to have it handy and so as not to let it clank in its scabbard. Creeping stealthily over the curve of a rounded saddleback he looked down upon the scene of activity that he was stalking.

  On a level space, cleared of trees, the beast-men were dancing around a fire while one of their number pounded on a drum made of a hollowed log. Or rather, Barnevelt saw what he had supposed to be beast-men, but which now turned out to be ordinary tailed Krishnans, Krishnanthropus koloftus, like those of the Koloft Swamp and the island of Za. They had been wearing carved animal masks when they made their attack and had now removed these and hung them on stubs* of branches around the clearing. And, whereas the tailed men of Za were semi-civilized and those of Koloft had at least been subdued by the authorities of Mikardand, the present examples of the species were carrying on their aboriginal traditions with full savage vim.

  Across the fire, Barnevelt was distressed though not much surprised to see parts of his late boatswain hung on lines to sizzle. Barnevelt swallowed the lump in his throat and started back.

  Back at the hiding place, Barnevelt said, "I found him all right. They're eating him."

  "How dreadful!" said Zei. "And he such a worthy wight! What a bestial and abhorrent custom!"

  "Too bad, but actually it's no different from what you do in Qirib."

  "Not at all! How can you utter such blasphemous sophistry? Whereas the one's solemn ceremony, the holy powers above to gratify, the other's but the swinish satisfaction of the alimentary appetite."

  "Well, that's how some people look at it. But let's not argue—let's get out of here. It's pretty far to swim,
and we don't want to leave our clothes and/ weapons behind…"

  "So why not finish the raft our slaughtered friend and deputy began?"

  "Because the sound of the axe would fetch 'em running." He sniffed the breeze. "The wind's backed to the northwest, and we're on the northwest shore of the island. The woods look dry, and my lighter should be working."

  "You mean to set the weald ablaze, to distract the tailed ones from our enterprise?"

  "Matter of fact I'll set the damndest forest fire you ever saw. Bear a hand, gal."

  For the next hour they prowled the shore, pilling sticks and dead shrubs where they would do the most good, until they had a line a hoda long running along the shore, bending inland at the mouth of the stream to afford room to finish the raft.

  When that task was done, Barnevelt started at the east end of his line of bonfires and lit the first with his lighter. When it blazed up, he and Zei each thrust into it a torch of faggots and ran down the line, igniting blaze after blaze.

  By the time they finished, the whole slope extending inland was a roaring hell, the fire leaping from tree to tree.

  Barnevelt, his face red from the heat, sweated over his raft. There was not much more to be done: to cut two logs from the felled trunk, shove these into the water, and tie them together with the piece of anchor rope. Then he felled a sapling and trimmed the soft wood of the trunk down to a couple of crude paddles—too narrow in the blade to be efficient, but not even the long Krishnan day provided time for a better job.

  "Off we go!" he shouted over the roar of the fire, and drove the axe blade into one of the logs to secure it. Zei straddled the logs forward. With their footgear hung around their necks, they paddled out from shore, the heat of the blazing hillsides beating with blistering force upon their backs. All of Fos-sanderan seemed to be red with fire or black with smoke.

  The thick stems of the paddles were awkward; Barnevelt wondered if bare hands wouldn't have done as well. Every swell swirled up to their waists as they angled out from shore. When they were far enough to start west for the mainland, the swe.lls made their craft roll precariously; every second Barnevelt expected the raft to roll clear over and dunk them.

  Meter by meter they struggled westward as the sun sank. The first stars were out when they came to the western channel of the Strait of Palindos. This was just as well, Barnevelt thought, because the stranded galley was all too visible from where they crossed the channel.

  The galley sat with lanterns hung about her. The low tide had left her hull exposed down to the curve of the bilge, and the settling of her weight upon her keel had made her heel over at an undignified angle. Beyond her, a dark-red shape in the twilight where the fires of Fossanderan shone upon her, lay the galley's consort. Hawsers stretched in graceful catenary curves between the two ships;, the banked oars of both rested quietly upon the water.

  Peacefully, Barnevelt and his companion paddled across the channel. When all three moons arose, now more widely spaced than they had been the previous night, the travelers grounded gently on the sand spit projecting from the mainland towards the blazing island.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Three days later, in the early afternoon, Barnevelt and Zei came out of the forest of Rakh beside the Shaf-Malayer road. Both were gaunt, dirty, worn-looking, and shabby. Zei carried a spear, which Barnevelt had made by lashing the hilt of his dagger to a pole. After they had been treed by a yeki, Barnevelt had made the spear in case they met another one. But, having assembled the weapon, they had no occasion to use it.

  Barnevelt sighed. "I suppose we ought to start hiking north, but let's sit here a while and hope to catch a ride."

  He tossed his axe on the ground and sat down heavily with his back to a tree. Zei dropped down beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. He said, "Let's see the rest of those berries."

  She handed over her seaman's cap, which she had been using as a bag. Barnevelt started fishing out berries, feeding them alternately to her and to himself.

  He looked hard at one and threw it away, saying, "That's the kind that gave us a bellyache. Can't you just imagine the meals we'll have when we get to town?"

  "Aye, verily! A fine roast unha, with tabids on the side, and a tunest in its mouth. The platter swimming in betune sauce."

  "And a bunch of those yellow what-d'you-call-'ems for dessert, and a big mug of falat wine…" ,

  "Not the falat of Mishdakh, which is thin stuff, but that of Hojur, especially that of the year of the yeki…"

  "Don't talk to me about yekis! I've seen all I want of them. We'll also have a loaf of badr, to sop up what's left…"

  She raised her head. "What a blade! Here you sit, with a most royal maiden all but lying in your arms, and all you think upon's your beastly stomach!"

  "Just as well for you."

  "How mean you?"

  "There's no guardian of virtue like starvation. If I had my strength you wouldn't be a maiden long."

  "Braggart! Your thoughts would still center upon aliment. Oh, I saw the repasts you consumed aboard the Shambor and knew your nation's gluttonous reputation were but a pallid phantom of the fact."

  "It's a cold country," he said.

  "But you're not cold now!"

  "And at least we eat normal wholesome food, and not our husbands."

  "The kashyo's no feast, dolt, but a solemn ceremony…"

  "I've heard that before, and I still think it puts you on a level with the tailed men of Fossanderan."

  "Insolent carper!" she cried, and slapped him—gently, to show it was in fun.

  "And," he continued, "I don't see how your royal line perpetuates itself if every time the consort finds the queen looking at him he wonders if it's the love light in her eyes or whether she's picking out a nice chop. That sort of thing must be unmanning."

  "Perchance our men are less readily unmanned than those of your chill abode. A Qiribu on the verge of death retains his gallantry, whereas if you put a Nayme on berries and shellfish for three days…**

  "Four!"

  "Four days, he's blind insensible to aught but food."

  "Foof! You were imagining just as big a meal as I was."

  "I was not! The repast of your fancy overtopped mine as the Zogha overshadows Mount Sabushi."

  "How d'you expect to prove that?"

  "A princess royal has no need to put matters to proof. Her word alone is adequate."

  "Is that so? Then you'd better learn some new customs."

  "Such as that Earthly usage called 'kissing,' wherein you've schooled me Methinks I need more practice at this sport…"

  After a while, Barnevelt said, "I'm afraid I'm not so near starvation as I thought."

  "So? Seek not to violate the ancient customs of Qirib, or you shall learn the rough-and-tumble methods taught by our lanistae in the maiden warriors' palaestra… Are you perchance carrying a gvam stone in your pocket?"

  Barnevelt shifted his position. "No, I'm relying entirely on my native charm. Anyway, I doubt that such a stone really gives a man power over women, as the janru does in reverse. Sounds like wishful thnking."

  "Yet you abet this superstition by hunting the sea monster for its stones."

  "Who am I to upset age-old beliefs? I had enough trouble back in Nyamadze, as a result of trying to enlighten people about some plain and obvious facts. But speaking of your women warriors, I hope this experience has convinced you that manning an army with women—if you can man something with a woman—isn't practical."

  "And what's the cause of that?" she asked.

  "Because the men are bigger. If this were that planet where the females are ten times the size of the males, it would be different."

  " 'Twas most unfair of Varzai this disparity to establish."

  "Sure, if you must blame the gods."

  "If not the gods, then whom?"

  "That depends on what you believe about such matters."

  "Do you not take the gods seriously?"

  "No. I think things just ha
ppen."

  "No wonder the Kangandites sought for heresy to slay you!"

  "No wonder at all. But still, it's a wonder Qirib hasn't been swallowed up by some powerful neighbor, with that set-up."

  "Our queens have averted war by a diplomacy of marvelous subtlety, using our mineral wealth to play one foe against another."

  "Fine, but eventually some tough guy says, Tight or give up!' and that's all the choice you have."

  "Do you present me with these grim alternatives, O scoffing nihilist, fear not but that I'll fight."

  "Oh, no. I'd use that marvelous subtlety you were talking about to gain my ends. As for instance…"

  "Malapert!" she said when she could speak again. "Could you not remain at Ghulinde to play this gladsome game with me forever?"

  "Unh? That depends."

  "On what? Another, I command…**

  "If your mother abdicates, your consort mightn't like it."

  "He'd have nought to say. My word were law."

  "Still, it might be considered pretty familiar," he said.

  "Well then, could you not teach the wight? Or better yet, become my first consort yourself?"

  "Good gods, no! You don't think I want to end up on your sacrificial stove, do you?"

  She looked surprised and a little hurt. " 'Tis an honor many would envy you. Art afraid?"

  "Damn right! I like you fine, but not that much."

  "Oh! Plain blunt fellow, Nyamen."

  "Anyway I'm not eligible."

  "That could be arranged," she said.

  "And I thought your consorts were picked by lot."

  "That, too, were no obstacle insurmountable. All's not what it seems in the drawing of the sort."

  "So I've heard. But I still don't intend to spend a year as a lady's pup-eshun and then be killed. Can you imagine your hero Qarar doing such a thing?"

  "N-nay, but…"

  "It reminds me too much of a bug in my country called a mantis, of which the female eats the male during coiture."