And no wonder, Jory thought. Although from being an outcast to becoming an outlaw might not be a great step, still, it was certainly a major decision; one which she could hardly take when the former status was still so new and fresh to her. How great an altercation in her life this day had made! In the morning she had been a warrior, a member of the leading class or caste, liege woman to someone of obviously great importance. At noon she had set out with the other warriors of her outpost station to punish the strangers who had, the report said, attacked two awk-boys and kidnaped one of them. The afternoon was but little advanced when she found herself a prisoner, and her Sword … “dead.” Now she was, in terms of her own people, nothing and no one. To go back was impossible, to go forward — unlikely, at best. What then? Sideways? And, if so, in what direction and to what end?
She laid her head on her arms and looked long into the embers. Her hair was all fire, and its gold tints, which had been so plain in the sunlight, were now subdued.
Rond’s thoughts were different, direct. “Do you know of a dark oil which seeps from the rocks or the ground?” he asked. She shook her head, curtly. He repeated his question to Little Joe, whose gesture of denial was mixed with sleep and wonder. “Or of any place with fires burning from the earth? With bad air coming from the earth, bad enough to cause death?”
Neither of them knew of such things.
Then Rond asked them who would know? Who, in all their country, was likely to know of such things? Were there not those who studied old records, knew old accounts of strange things and unusual natural phenomena?
She sighed. “I studied war,” she said. “I know nothing of these matters.”
Little Joe’s head nodded, then flew up. His eyes flew open. “Madame, the Great Father would know! At his court all such things are studied, are they not?”
She gave a shrug. But Rond, bent on finding some clue, however slight, to sources of fuel, wouldn’t let it rest. Jory wondered why he himself didn’t share, somehow, the same undeviating interest. Why was the question of returning not constantly, incessantly, in his own mind? This barbarous world, certainly, held nothing for him. Perhaps his very ability to consider the matter as the Captain did was numbed; perhaps he was still in some measure suffering from the same sort of shock the woman was. After all, wasn’t there even a resemblance? Weren’t they all outcasts? He began to consider and reconsider his attitudes toward his career, toward the Guild: his life, in other words — for he had no more family — since his father’s death. Nor had any of the many liaisons he had formed on the many worlds which had been briefly, intermittently, “home”, proven permanent. What had kept him, really, from throwing in his lot with the mutineers? Loyalty to the Guild? Hardly likely. That loyalty had burned hottest before he had entered the Third Academy, had not long survived the attitude of skepticism he had at first been shocked to find so prevalent there.
No … more likely it had simply been revulsion at the organized disorder of the uprising…. Aysil Stone’s drunkenness, the hard-core animality of Bosun Blaise Darnley, the slow and brutal murder of Tarkington, the witless glee of the mutinous crew at the prospect of forever after living lives of ease in the Cluster on the proceeds of the sale of Persephone. These things, balanced against the still unvexed and infinite calm of Captain Rond, had made his choice automatic. So much so that he hadn’t even thought of it as a choice — until now.
If he had thought, in those few, frantic minutes when they were all rushed into the pettyboat much as other victims of mutiny, thousands of years earlier, had been rushed into longboats or made to — what was the expression? — “walk the plank” — if he had given one or two consecutive seconds’ thought to his future, it would have been of a cramped but otherwise unremarkable voyage to the Spotting Station in sector C-2, a wait to be picked up by the Second Guild’s relief ship, and — after some unavoidable lapse of time — a return to duty, and to business as before. He hadn’t counted on the deviousness of the Captain’s mind, sound and logical though the conclusions of that devious mind might in this case be. Now he found himself in a place so archaic that it had not even figured in romance for thousands of years: an outlaw’s cave! Captor of some savage female, captive of her savage world, listening to the babblings, now, of a runaway herdboy….
Boy?
Something, something, was at the back of his mind, something at the tip of his tongue. If he could only concentrate (he hadn’t realized the extent of his fatigue), only bring it up.
“… and so King Takanahan said, ‘My duties are too heavy for me, and it is too hard for men to rule — ‘ ” Little Joe was talking, had been doing so for some time, in a singsong tone which probably indicated the rote-recitation of old legend. “And so the Dame, Dame Boharra, said to the King, ‘Great Father, retire to the Temple of the Clouds and give your days over to study and your nights to meditation, and I will keep your castles for you and I will rule in your name.’ And King Takanahan said, ‘Be it so.’ And after that he was no longer called Ban, but O-Ban, which means ‘Once King’. And his descendants still keep their court in the Temple, and Sept Sartissa, of which our Dame Hanna is head, keeps the O-Ban’s castles and rules in his name, the Great Father’s name, the name of King Mukanahan. And he is so holy and secluded that he is almost never seen and he and all his court do nothing but learn of old things and wise things and answer prayer.”
The sole remaining twig in the fire gave a sudden snap and a shower of sparks; then it, too, subsided into the embers.
Rond yawned, politely. “Very interesting,” he said. “Mr. First, I think we are all too weary to trust to live sentries tonight. Set the guard-wires, see that the fire is extinguished. Good night.”
He took from his emergency kit the tiny packet which unfolded into his warmcloak. Jory started to his feet, stopped suddenly and said, “Sir — ”
Rond looked at him. He turned to the woman, who had neither moved nor spoken. “ ‘Giants.’ You called us giants.”
Her head did not move, but out of the thickening darkness her voice said, “Warlocks, then … Great Men, if you prefer….”
“But why ‘giants?’ We are no taller than you.”
For a moment she stayed as she was, huddled and silent. Her face still invisible, her voice seemed to come from faraway. “ ‘Than me?’ I am a woman. At first I thought that you must be women, too. By your warlockry you made us of one speech, so I came to know that you were men. Men — warriors? Nowhere in all the Great North Land is there a thing like that. So I saw that you must be of the Great Men, who used to be among us in times past time — the giants. Compared to you, I am no more than one of our own men, compared to me.”
He seemed on the very verge of full understanding, but the implications seemed impossible. Still, he had to find out. Only Rond, before he could, had made the connection.
Rond said, “Little Joe — Rahan, as you call him — is a man, then, and not a child?”
“As he told you, when you called him ‘child’ …”
“Curious,” murmured Rond. “Infinitely curious. One has observed such a disparity of size based on sex, and there is nothing at all new in the fact, although it is more commonly the male who is, in such cases, so much the larger. Still, that the female should be twice his size is not altogether unknown. But I have never before seen — I have never before even heard of — such a circumstance in any human or human-like race. No wonder you call us ‘giants,’ Good night,”
• • •
Jory set the guard-wires, returned to find Little Joe brushing the fire into one pile, covering it with sand. Then, the last trace and glimmer of light extinguished, the small man lay down in the warmth where the ashes had been. In a moment his even breath was joined to the other sleepers’. Jory stood still, without moving.
At last she said, quietly, “Do you not sleep, Warlock?”
“Narra — ”
“Narra is dead. It was you who killed her. It was you who fired the smoking brand which ca
used me to drop my sword?”
“Yes, Narra.”
“Narra is dead.”
“O-Narra, then …”
She caught her breath. “Yes … I cannot be Litha again, anymore than I can be a maid again. I will be O-Narra, as Ban Takanahan became O-Ban.”
He knelt beside her. “The night is cold, the fire is also dead,” he whispered. “My cloak is both wide and warm.”
He felt her cold fingers on his face. “This afternoon I thought your knife intended my throat,” she murmured. “I wished it so. Now … I do not know … I do not know why … I no longer wish it so. I do not know anything anymore — except that I am cold. And not from the night alone.”
Jory spread his cloak. And in the darkness he found her hands, and led her to it.
four
RAHAN-JOE HAD THE FIRE GOING AGAIN WHEN JORY awoke, though at first he did not see him. At first he looked only for the eyes of O-Narra, whose own eyes, wide and green, were looking into his when he awoke. They smiled at each other, she lightly brushed his lips with her finger-tips, and he returned the gesture.
The other men had begun to stir, to wash at the trickle of water which came over the stone lip of a spring at the rear of the cave, and then — as Jory rose and helped O-Narra to her feet — he heard Rond say, “What are you doing now, my man?”
“I am praying, Father … to King Mukanahan, the Great Father, the Holy King. This is our custom, morning by morning.”
He had scraped sand together in a little mound; then, going to a niche in the wall of the cave, came back with three small, chipped saucers, set them on the mound, knelt before it. In a low, clear voice, he prayed that all be well with the Great North Land and its Great Ladies … a pause … and with the Great Men newly come among the people … and that he, Rahan, to whom the new Great Men had given the name “Little Joe,” might know neither sorrow nor sighing … and that he be given a good wife, and become the father of many daughters….
From each of two of the saucers he took a pinch of some gray-white matter and sprinkled it on the fire. It flared, briefly. Then he took a dark powder from the third dish, sprinkled it on the fire as well, and its strong scent came smoking up to fill the air.
In a low voice, Mars was saying, “Well, everyone to his own religion, and my religion is not to have any.”
Rond smiled faintly and reached for his pectoral, probably to wave-in with Crammer, back at the pettyboat. Then, hand still on the cord, he said, “Salt and incense … incense and salt … ancient, ancient symbols, almost wherever one goes. Curious …” His hand moved, stopped again. “Now, why, Rahan-Joe, have you two plates of salt?”
The small man concluded his prayer, and, about to return his humble sancta to their niche, held them out to the Captain instead.
“Because, Father, they are two sorts of salt, both gifts of the first Ban, King Lakanahan, in the times before the times past time. One is the salt of the sea, the other the bitter salt of the desert. The salt of the sea preserves food, and adds a savor to it, as well. And the salt of the desert” — Rond nodded; he had not really wanted much to know, plucked again at his pectoral communicator; but Rahan-Joe flowed on — “has the virtue that it cures bad water and makes it well again.”
Once more Jory Cane saw the hand of Captain Marrus Rond loosen its hold. His head came slowly up, slowly around. He reached out his both hands, palms up. Something in his expression made Jory shiver slightly. Rahan-Joe placed the saucers in Rond’s hands. Rond looked at both. Then, slowly, he raised his hands and bent his head. He touched his tongue to one container. “Salt,” he said. “Common salt.” Then he tasted the stuff in the other. “Mr. First,” he said. His voice was low, stifled. Then it rose, high, triumphant. “Mr. First! Do you know what this is? Do you know what this is?” He let the salt-saucer drop, unheeded, thrust the other toward Jory.
“We need no petroleum now!” he cried. “We have our exotic! Of course — I might have known — ‘cures bad water!’ Yes! It cures more than that! It’s borax! Do you hear, you men? Borax!”
Then his face became as calm as it was a moment ago. “Given but a little time and the equipment in the pettyboat, we can — with a reasonable amount of borax — make boron sufficient to get us out and off of here. We have our fuel, men — we have our fuel!”
They did not give three cheers for borax and the Guild of the Third Academy. Storm said, “Well, I joined for adventure.” Levvis said, “Well, I’ll miss this place, kind of.” Lockharn observed that he’d have to give the pettyboat’s c.e. system “a good going over. It just about made it, this last trip, overcrowded as we were.” Mars quoted the resigned summing-up of the long-voyageman — “ ‘Oh, well … another day, another double-twenty …’ Even if we don’t draw special pay, we’ll get to be somewhere we can spend what we do draw … I guess.”
And Duston was more practical. “Where is this desert at, Captain?” he asked.
But Rond, at long last, had his pectoral in his hand, and was waving-in. “Persephone calling Persephone pettyboat,” he said, as he always did — as if he, himself, was the ship, discarnate; as if there were anyone else broadcasting on all of Planet Valentine. Crammer made the ritual response and Rond, scarcely waiting for him to be through, said, “Coxswain Crammer, we’ve located a source of boron for solid fuel. Give the stillery a good going-over — we’ll make alcohol if we have to boil every tree on the island! Then we’ll head for the borax deposits. Over, out.” Abruptly letting the pectoral drop, he said, “Let’s go, then. We’ll eat our dense rations as we move. Lead on, Mr. First.”
Jory, scarcely cognizant of his gesture, had taken O-Narra by the arm and was at the mouth of the cave when he stopped. After only a second or two, he asked, “Which way am I to lead, sir?”
Clasping on his kit, Rond said, “Why, toward the ship, of course. Coastward. Hadn’t I made that clear?” He came up behind Jory. “Why?”
For answer Jory handed him his one-piece farseer. With a faintly annoyed noise, Rond clapped it to his eyes. His breath hissed. He handed it back, slowly shook his head. The stone-paved road they had so swiftly fled across the day before, a road now littered with the military debris of the flight of the armored host — this road was revealed to be no short-length local bypath, but the main coastal highway itself. It ran roughly a northeast/southeast axis, by no means visible at every point even at this elevation. It rode along the ridges and curved over the crests of the hills, vanishing from time to time into the hollows and the valleys. For one great length it passed in one great and shallow curve along a plain and then transversely through a walled city.
And, wherever they looked, the grey stone of the road itself was obscured, was almost covered, with the lines of tiny figures — scarlet and black, black and scarlet — which moved continuously like lines of ants: northeast to southeast and into the city, southeast to northeast and into the city, through one great gate. Within the walls, the city seemed to boil with them. They filled the streets, they filled the enclosures, they poured into the large buildings and they poured out of them. Eventually, with ceaseless endeavour, they marched out of another great gate on the opposite side of the city — the gate which faced those few as they stood, seeing but unseen, silent upon a distant mountain peak.
Scarlet, black, scarlet and black, the armored figures issued from this great gate and fanned out across the plain. It was a funnel reversed. Black, scarlet, black and scarlet, the army seemed to fill the plain. It had reached the foothills. At any moment Jory expected to see them come leaping, hear them come howling, over the lower summits. But all was silent, save for his own troubled breathing, and that of the others — for they had all by now observed the scene through their own farseers.
O-Narra touched his hand. He handed the glass to her. She gave a faint cry. “Dame Hanna has raised the septs,” she said. “She must have sent out couriers as soon as she got word. This has not been done before, not in my time, not for a hundred years … more, perhaps.”
/> She told him what must be going on in City Sartissa — the great gongs would be sounding without cessation. All common work would be stopped, all shops closed. Weapons and ammunition would be issued, rations and other supplies, pack-trains assembled, to follow the troops. And, corps by corps, sept by sept, every group of warriors to the high command posts would receive their orders. Every group of warriors, sept by sept and corps by corps, would report to the temples to receive their oaths.
“What oaths?” Jory demanded.
“That they will suffer their swords to be buried and their bodies to be burned, if they return without their prisoners or their prisoners’ heads.”
Rond said something, but so softly that it was clear he spoke to himself alone.
Lockharn spoke, musingly, almost pleadingly. “And yet, you know, it’s such a beautiful day. And the scenery … everything all that sweet green with the touch of blue to it. I don’t mean any of those folks the least harm in the world, all’s I wanted to do was finish my tour, pension out, and buy that farm. I never figured on mutiny or on war … This is a real pity.”
Storm said, “Well, the real estate don’t interest me, Locky, to be frank. I joined for adventure.”
“You got it,” said Levvis.
Rond spun on his heel. “Woman — Where is the desert where the borax — the salt — comes from? In which direction does it lie?”
She thought a moment, then her arm made an arc. “To the southeast, beyond the Hills of Night, which lie beyond the Dales of Lan, is the Desert of Bitter Salt. How far? I do not know for sure, but at least a ten-days’ journey.”
Rond sucked in his lower lip, passed a thin hand over his thin, grey hair. “If Crammer can distill enough liquid fuel by himself … He could bring the pettyboat to us, in the desert. Ten days …”
O-Narra said, “As to how far into the desert one must go to find the Lakes of Bitter Salt — again, I do not know. Though I have heard, in a tale brought by a warrior who had heard it at the Holy Court during an annual Recognizance there (for every manner of legend and relation and old daddy’s tale is to be heard there — mind! I speak not of Great Father Mukanahan himself, the saint, the god — but, fact is fact, and a male court is bound to be feeble and decadent, amusing itself with fables and follies) … I lose my train of thought. For a moment I fancied myself mustering again, annointing Sword-Narra and touching her to the altar — ”
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