by Джеффри Лорд
Rikard rose. «It grows late.» He reached out and clasped Blade firmly by one hand and the other shoulder. «It is time for sleep. Anyara will show you to your chamber, then leave you. Krimon, there will be a chamber in this house for you also.» Rikard strode out, the neuter following him. Blade rose and followed the woman.
Blade’s chamber was low and even more cramped than King Rikard’s meeting hall. Smoke from the grease-soaked taper that was the only light hung in the air. The floor was covered with hide mattresses filled with straw and a spectacular array of furs. On the wall hung a magnificently jeweled set of armor and weapons, obviously from old Urcit.
Blade shook his head. It was going to take some getting used to, this mixture of crude living conditions, relics of one civilization, and hopes for another one. Here in Tharn it was hard not to live in three worlds at once.
The leather curtain swung aside and a young woman entered. She too was a mixture. She wore baggy trousers and a shapeless tunic of leather, and her feet were bare. But she was freshly scrubbed, and her dark hair flowed clean and glossy down her back.
The Pethcine blood in her showed in the olive complexion, the black hair, the slight tilt to her eyes. But she had a massive, almost jutting nose, plump round cheeks tanned from many hours in the sun and the wind, and an even rounder bosom and hips that showed through her baggy garments. Around her hips was a rawhide belt, and from it hung a sheathed dagger. She moved with a sturdy grace, her stride long and free, her pose showing no sign of submission or fear.
She stopped as she saw Blade.
«So you are Mazda.» Her voice was low and respectful, but she did not sound at all awestruck at being in Mazda’s presence.
«I am Mazda,» said Blade.
«Do you find me fit and pleasing for coi, Mazda?» Again her voice was respectful, but not submissive. She looked at Blade as she spoke, as if defying him to say that she was not fit and pleasing.
«I think you are both fit and pleasing,» said Blade. She certainly seemed to be. Blade had been longer than he liked without a woman, but he hadn’t lowered his standards. He never did, unless there was a sword pointed at his throat or some equally persuasive argument in favor of bedding a woman he would normally have ignored.
Blade rose, went over to the woman, and took her in his arms. She was taller than he had realized, at least five feet six. After a moment’s hesitation her own arms went around him, and her hands began stroking the small of his back.
«What is your name?»
«Chara,» she said softly. «My father was-«Blade bent down and kissed her before she could finish. For a moment her lips were taut under his, then flowered open, warm, wet, and clinging. Her arms tightened around him. He reached down and grasped her tightly by the hips, pulling her hard against him. He was erect now, and her eyes flickered open as she felt his maleness-Mazda’s maleness-thrusting up against her.
«It is-I must-«she murmured, gently disentangling herself from him. She unbuckled her belt and let it slide to the floor. Then swiftly she reached down and drew her tunic over her head. She wore nothing under it. Her skin had a coppery glint to it in the faint lamplight, and her full breasts swayed gently as she moved. Her nipples were large and dark, and Blade could see that they had already sprouted into hard little points. He reached out and stroked those points with thumb and forefinger. Chara swallowed hard several times and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
Her fingers fumbled at the cords of her trousers. Eagerness was pushing her on, desire was distracting her and making her clumsy. Finally she snapped the last cord and hastily shoved her trousers down her hips. They wadded around her ankles; she stepped free and kicked them aside. Naked, open, her breath coming fast, she came toward Blade.
She knelt before him, highlights chasing each other up and down her broad straight back as it curved down. She unknotted Blade’s loincloth and threw it aside. Then her head swooped down on his manhood like a falcon on its prey. Warm, wet lips closed around him, swallowed him up, began to slide up and down on him.
Blade gasped, arching his back, knotted his jaw and throat muscles. Chara was no expert at this, but she was enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm was doing everything that skill could have done.
He reached down and locked his hands in her hair, then raised her head. Those maddening lips slid up and away, and Chars raised half-glazed eyes to stare at him.
«Enough,» he said firmly. He let go of her hair and raised her to a standing position. She pressed against him. He could feel the triangle of fine, straight hair between her thighs already damp and rapidly getting damper.
He curled an arm around her, cupping one breast and stroking the nipple, then led her toward his sleeping couch. She seemed almost too eager to take him into herself to be willing to walk that far.
Eventually he lowered her onto the furs. Her body arched as she lay down, her eyes closed, and her hips thrust up and out toward him. He did not have far to go to slide into her.
She was warm and wet and ready, so ready that her body twisted and writhed almost at once. Blade let the spasm pass, then continued his own thrusts. He drove in faster, drove in deeper, locked his hands around her to pull himself all the way into her.
Again she bucked and thrashed and heaved back and forth, tightening her legs about his hips in a bone-cracking hold as ecstasy tore through her. Blade felt himself on the edge, kept on thrusting, felt himself reaching the edge, arched his body forward until his lips were brushing Chara’s nipples. He went over the edge. Now it was his turn to heave and thrash and gasp as he poured himself, poured the seed of Mazda, into the woman who was so ready and willing to receive it.
A desire to relax struck Blade all over. His head sagged down to pillow itself between Chara’s full breasts. He lay there for a moment, until he realized that his weight must be flattening the woman under him into the furs. Slowly he rolled off, and lay on his back beside her.
A moment later her eyes flickered open, and she sighed long and deeply. «Mazda,» she murmured. «I have taken into me the seed of Mazda.» For the first time there was a note of awe in her voice.
It passed quickly. She raised herself on one elbow and looked Blade up and down. «You are not as large as the tales I heard as a child made you out to be.»
«No doubt.» Blade laughed. «I imagine that I grew a bit every time my adventures were retold, until people began to think of me as ten feet tall.»
Chara nodded. «You did. When the lot fell on me to be the first one to come to your bed, I was frightened for a moment. You were a god in my mind, but also a monster. Then I realized that you could not have been a monster, for I had seen Zulekia, your Beloved, and she was as other women are. If she had not suffered, then I would not.»
«I don’t think you suffered at all, Chara,» said Blade. «And neither did I.»
«No,» she said, smiling and resting her head on his chest. «No,» she repeated, sleepily, her eyes flickering several times and finally falling shut. «No,» she murmured, as her breathing grew regular and gentle.
After a while Blade reached down and pulled the furs over both of them. Then he too drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 14
Several days and several women later, Blade appeared before the Council of the People. It took time for King Rikard to summon the members of the council from far and wide across Tharn.
King Rikard also had to call out a good part of the army to guard the King’s House from people who wanted to see and hear and touch Mazda. The people accepted being shut out. But few of them went home. Every house in the New City was crammed to the roof, while an improvised city of tents and lean-tos sprang up outside the walls to shelter those who could not be accommodated inside.
Anyara threw up her hands in disgust at the spectacle. «The herds will go untended and unmilked, the weeds unpulled, the babies unbathed, and the roofs unpatched all over Tharn as people wait for Mazda to perform miracles.»
«They’re going to have to wait a long time,» said Bl
ade. «As I have said-I must learn more, and then teach the people. Even then we may not know enough to fight the Looters.»
«We know this,» said the king. «It is still good that you have returned to Tharn.»
«It will be far better when people get used to your being among us and get back to work,» said Anyara, with a sour expression on her face.
«Anyara keeps her mind on the plain, ordinary things,» said the king with a smile.
«On the essential things, you mean,» the woman corrected him.
«True. And Tharn owes you much for that.»
Eventually the council gathered and Blade went before it. He spoke briefly of what he had done and where he had been since he left Tharn. Then he went on to describe his experiences since his return.
This took him longer than he had intended. Chara had not been in awe of him, but the councilors certainly were. Most of them were old enough to remember his first appearance. The thought of what he might do this time apparently had their minds reeling. About every third sentence someone would interrupt Blade to intone, «Mazda has spoken,» or «It is the will of Mazda.»
This went on and on and on. Finally King Rikard rose to his feet and thundered, «Yes, Mazda has spoken! But have any of you listened to him, or heard as much as a single word he has said? This is a meeting of the Council of the People that may have to decide the fate of Tharn, not a chorus to sing songs in praise of my father! There will be other times and other places for that if you and he both wish it. In the meantime, silence, and let Mazda speak!»
After that Blade finished speaking in a silence where a hiccup would have sounded like an explosion.
«So we must do three things. We must find out more about the Looter machines, and their strengths and weaknesses. For that we must use the machine I captured, until its power is gone.
«Then we must train the best fighters of the people how to attack the Looter machines-and live to do it again and again. We must train many of them, and quickly, for the Looters are strong and they are on the march.
«Then I will lead forth the trained fighters against the machines of the Looters, and destroy them.»
He had half-expected applause, but instead met dead silence. Everyone seemed to be looking from him to his son and back again. Finally the king spoke.
«Mazda-father. Is-do you-must you lead our fighters against the Looters?»
«I will not send any fighter of the people where I am not willing to go myself,» said Blade quietly. «That is not my way-not Mazda’s way.» Time to put that awe to some use!
King Rikard bowed his head. This time it was he who intoned
«Mazda has spoken.»
The first thing to do was find out if the purple ray could be harmless to human beings, and if so, under what conditions. Anyara volunteered to play guinea pig for this test before Blade could say a word.
As Anyara herself explained it to King Rikard:
«I am old. I have borne my share of children to the people. I have done all the work I had to do. If I die, the people will have lost little. If I live, we will have gained useful knowledge. If one as old as I survives the ray, then the younger and stronger fighters that Mazda will lead forth should be even safer.»
As reluctant as he was to risk Anyara, King Rikard had to admit her logic.
So one morning Blade, his son, and an odd assortment of others marched out of the city. There was Anyara, Krimon, assorted other neuters to watch what happened, and a dozen or so experienced fighters to keep away spectators. It was a warm morning, with a gentle breeze from the west.
The machine was sitting on the grass where Blade had parked it after moving it out of the city. It was now covered with hides and dyed cloths, so that from a distance it looked like a large tent.
Blade found it hard to keep his eyes from straying to the eastern horizon, half-expecting a dozen Looter machines to come racing across the plain in search of their vanished companion. Were the Looters so careless or so rich in machines that they didn’t care what happened to this one? That was hard to believe. They had certainly done their best to destroy it before it fled out of range.
They-or their other machines. Blade shook his head. He wondered more and more if the Looters had come themselves, whoever they were. Or had they just sent their machines? If just the machines were roaming about in Tharn, that could explain why there had been no pursuit. The programming of the machines’ computers could be too rigid to permit that.
Blade climbed into the machine and punched the screen controls and power switch. The screens flickered into life. The machine still had power, hopefully enough for all it still had to do. Fortunately it would not be taking any more long trips.
Anyara appeared on the forward screen, striding vigorously out across the plain. She was pulling off her tunic as she walked. The plan called for her to start the test naked. Then bit by bit she would add gear-all of it once living-until she was either dead or fully-equipped for war. Which would come first?
Anyara stopped fifty yards away and stripped off her trousers. She raised her arms in signal to Blade, the sunlight gleaming on her bare body. It was a body that still had a good deal of its former grace and beauty, in spite of childbearing and hard living.
Anyara signaled more vigorously. She was obviously getting impatient. Blade sighted in the ray, then hesitated for a moment. Logic told him that Anyara would be standing there, proud and impatient, after the purple ray struck her. Instinct kept telling him that she would be lying stiff and dead on the plain. With her would lie most of Tharn’s hopes for fighting off the Looters.
Delaying matters made no sense at all. Blade leaned forward, pressing the firing button as he did so.
Flash! Purple fire lanced out across the plain, and the glare surrounded Blade. A line of purple darted from the raytube to Anyara, enveloped her-and left her standing as though it had been no more than a puff of wind.
Through the open hatch, Blade could hear the cheers.
Someone threw Anyara a leather belt with a leather pouch attached to it. She put it on, and Blade fired again. Once again she stood tall and proud, her graying hair streaming out behind her.
Tools now-hammers and wedges, made of bone and wood and teksin. Anyara put them on, and was still standing after another dose of the ray.
Leather boots, leather bottles, leather trousers, a leather tunic. Then teksin-a teksin helmet, teksin armor, teksin knives. Anyara piled on piece after piece, the purple ray leaped out at her time after time, and each time she stood unharmed and waving defiance to the Looters’ purple death.
By the time the test was over, Anyara was staggering. But this was from the weight of the equipment she was carrying, not from the effects of the ray. When Blade finally cut off the power in the machine, the last thing he saw on the screen was Anyara beginning to strip down again.
She was down to trousers and helmet by the time Blade climbed out of the machine and stood on the grass. He was grinning from ear to ear and felt like cheering. His guess had been right! He had discovered the key to making the fighters of the people immune to the Looters’ deadliest weapon.
Anyara dashed up to Blade, grabbed him by the shoulders, kissed him wildly, danced about him like a young girl. On either side he could hear the neuters and the fighters cheering again, louder and longer than ever before.
Gently Blade pulled himself free from Anyara’s embraces and turned to face the others. They were crowding toward him, joy and worship shining from their faces.
Blade raised his hands for silence.
«We have learned the first part of what we must know to fight the Looters. We have learned how to keep their machines from destroying us. Now we must learn more how to destroy them!»
«It shall be done, Mazda,» said Krimon. «This day and for all the days to come until our victory, all the people stand behind Mazda. We will go where he sends us, do as he bids us, speak or be silent as he wishes us.»
Blade nodded, but he was not so happy now. To
come to a people who saw you as all but a god meant you had no problem being accepted or obeyed.
But you did have a problem of living up to what they expected of you.
Chapter 15
A month of hard work followed.
Blade began to train ninety picked fighters in his methods for attacking Looter machines. Much of the training was guesswork, and would be guesswork until it was tested in combat. This bothered Blade.
It didn’t bother the people. They would follow wherever Mazda led, sure that Mazda could and would lead them only to victory.
Blade wished he could be that confident. Pretending that he was soon became one of the hardest parts of his job.
None of it was easy. Day in and day out, he spent twelve and fourteen hours a day in grinding training. He ended each day sweat-soaked, dry-throated, dust-covered, all his muscles aching. But then he would have to face a council meeting, and finally take a woman determined to have Mazda’s seed in her.
That normally would have been a very pleasant part of his duties. But now more often than not a woman was the last thing Blade wanted to face at the end of the day.
Fortunately Blade had the capacity of at least three ordinary men when it came to sex. Otherwise there would have been a good many disappointed women among the people, and rumors running about that Mazda was not all that a man should be!
The machine’s power lasted nearly a month. By the time it became immobile, it had given up nearly all the secrets Blade felt he needed to know. Meanwhile the building of teksin weapons and armor, research into explosives, and a dozen other projects went forward at top speed.
A week after that Blade rode east with an expedition fifty strong. Besides himself there was Anyara and eight fighting teams of six. The other forty trained fighters stayed behind, to start the training of more of their comrades. «In time a thousand or more of the people will know how to fight the machines of the Looters. In every town and village, on every farm, in each band of herdsmen, there will be some. Against such numbers the Looters cannot win.»
