The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales

by L. Sprague De Camp

  "Let's go quickly," said Vakar, and led the way to the paddock, where lay another clump of dead izzuneg.

  An outburst of yells from the mob below caused Fual to look back: "They've seen us, sir! They're coming this way!"

  "Well, help me catch these damned animals!" snarled Vakar.

  Presently they had rounded up three of the least skittish, bridled them (the Belemians rode bareback) and lashed their load to one. The screams of the approaching mob grew louder.

  "Our only chance is to go through them at full speed," said Vakar. "Ready?"

  He slapped his horse's rump with the flat of his sword, and the animal started as if bitten and bounded out of the paddock. The commoners were swarming all around the entrance to the palace; some were pushing into the tunnels while a group of others was coming towards the paddock. The yells redoubled in volume. A stone struck Vakar's shield with a clank and another glanced off his helmet.

  The horse tried to leap over the side of the path, but Vakar hauled it back with brutal jerk, knowing that if they tried to gallop down the steep hillside they would surely be unhorsed. He forced the animal right at the screeching savages, who tumbled out of the way as he leaned forward, howling like a demon himself and cutting right and left. He looked one of them in the face: a face covered with dirt and matted hair, out of which a pair of bloodshot eyes glared insanely. He struck at it and felt the blade bite into the skull; felt his horse stumble on the body and jerked the reins to bring the beast's head up ...

  They pounded across the echoing bridge and down the main street of Niowat, skimming through the scattered crowds, and then they were out of town. Behind them the yells of the commoners died away, and the flames of the burning houses vanished around the bends in the road.

  -

  Vakar said to Fual: "I've never been for pampering the commoners, but neither is there any sense to oppressing them to madness. Cutting off all then heads forsooth! No wonder they wished to flay Awoqqas and his nobles. The only sad thing is that they will in their stupid fury have destroyed all the amenities of civilized life in Belem, so that there will remain nothing but wretched savages, unable to rise from their own filth ..."

  They were riding towards Lake Kokutos, the chief body of water in Gamphasantia, having retraced part of their route from Tritonia to Belem and then turned off westward at Lake Tashorin, skirting around the northern end of the Tamenruft. The tropical midsummer sun glared down cruelly upon them from a cloudless sky.

  Fual said: "Let's hope these next people won't be even worse company. The strange nations have been getting worse and worse ever since we left Phaiaxia. Ah, that was a fine land! Are you sure about these Gamphasantians? They're said to *be unfriendly to strangers."

  "I'm not worried. I met one in Sederado who seemed decent enough even if he did try to murder me, and if I can warn them of the attack by the Gwedulians I should earn their gratitude."

  Fual shuddered. "If the Gwedulians haven't got there before us. Why not go straight home, sir? We have that lump of star-metal ..."

  "Because I'm minded to have this lump made into rings and things, and the smiths of Tartaros are the only men who can do it. Are you thinking of that promise of freedom I made you?"

  "Y-yes, sir," said Fual, mopping his forehead.

  "Don't worry; I keep my word ... These Gamphasants keep good-looking fields, don't they?"

  They had left the sands of the Tamenruft behind them and were cutting into the meadowlands of Gamphasantia. Vakar sweated in the August heat, though he had stripped down to mantle and loincloth. In the middle distance a tall naked brown man hoed his patch with a stone-bladed hoe. Ahead a hamlet of mud huts took form out of the haze.

  "Hé!" cried Vakar.

  As they entered the hamlet, people rushed out of the huts and surrounded the three ponies in a jabbering mass. All were tall and slender with curly black hair and narrow aquiline features, and all were nude and burnt nearly black by the sun. Dogs ran barking around the edges of the crowd.

  "Stand back!" shouted Vakar, drawing his sword. He repeated the warning in all the languages he knew. "Get away from those animals!"

  When they paid no attention he whacked one with the flat to clear a path. With an outburst of yells the mass closed in. Before he could strike again, Vakar felt himself seized in a dozen places and ignominiously hauled from his horse. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fual being likewise dismounted. He gritted his teeth in rage; what a fool he was!

  The Gamphasants hauled Vakar to his feet and wrenched the sword out of his hand, but did not strike him. A wrinkled leathery-looking man with a white beard and a melon-like potbelly stepped in front of Vakar and spoke to him.

  Vakar shook his head. "I don't understand."

  The oldster repeated his inquiry in other languages and finally in broken Hesperian:

  "Who are you?"

  "Vakar of Lorsk."

  "Where is Lorsk?"

  Vakar tried to explain, but gave up with a vague gesture towards the northwest. "You come with us."

  The old man gestured, and a couple of younger ones slipped a noose over Vakar's head and another over that of Fual. These nooses formed part of a single rawhide rope whose ends were held by several husky Gamphasants. Under the old man's direction these now started along the road towards Tokalet, dragging the travellers with them. Others led the horses. Vakar, masking his fury, asked the old man why they were being so treated.

  "Foreigners no live in Gamphasantia," was the reply.

  "You mean you will kill us?"

  "Oh, no! Gamphasants good people; no take life. But you no live."

  "But how—"

  "Is other ways," chuckled the patriarch.

  Vakar wondered if that meant that they would toss Fual and himself into a cell to die of starvation, thereby achieving their end without personally slaying their guests. He tried to tell the old man about the Gwedulians, but the latter either had never heard of the desert raiders or did not care about them. They walked all day until Vakar's feet were sore, spent the night in another mud-hut village, and the next day set out with another escort. Thus they were passed from village to village until they came to Tokalet.

  Tokalet, on the marge of sparkling Lake Kokutos, was a sprawling unwalled town, essentially a mud-hut village on a larger scale. Vakar shambled down a broad street in his noose, eyeing blank walls of sun-baked brick. Few of the folk were abroad in the heat of the day, and those few looked stolidly at the prisoners.

  Vakar was dragged into some sort of official building. He listened uncomprehendingly to a colloquy between the leader of his present escort and a man who sat on a stool in a room, and then was stripped and shoved into a cell with a massive wooden door, closed by a large bolt on the outside. The door slammed shut, the bolt shot home, and they were left in semidarkness.

  The door had a small opening at eye-level with wooden bars; a similar opening served as a window on the opposite side of the cell.

  "Well, sir, now you have got us in a fix!" said Fual. "If you'd only—"

  "Shut up!" snapped Vakar, cocking a fist.

  But then he relaxed. Their energy had better be put to uses other than fighting each other, and he had resolved not to hit Fual any more over petty irritations. He prowled around, scratching at the soft bricks with his thumb-nails and wondering how long it would take to claw one's way through the wall. The window gave a restricted view across' the main street of Tokalet. All that could be seen was another mud-brick wall opposite, and occasionally the head of a passing pedestrian. (The Gamphasants seemed neither to ride nor to use chariots, and Vakar had seen no metal among them.) The window also revealed that the wall was at least two feet thick.

  At the other opening, that through the door, Vakar started back with a grunt of surprise. Another cell stood opposite this one, and through the grille in its door a fearful face looked into Vakar's. It was huge, ape-like, and subhuman, and at the same time vaguely familiar.

  "Ha!" said Vakar. "Look at tha
t!"

  Fual got up from where he crouched and looked, raising himself on tiptoe. He said:

  "My lord, I think that's the ape-man we saw in Sederado, or another just like him."

  Vakar called: "Nji!"

  A low roar answered.

  "Nji!" he said again, then in Hesperian: "Do you understand me?"

  Another roar, and the thump of huge fists against the door. Vakar tried various languages, but nothing worked, and he finally gave up.

  -

  Vakar Zhu had seen enough nudity in his life not to be impressed by it, but he still found the sight of the nation's highest court meeting in that state incongruous. It was the morning after his arrival in Tokalet.

  His interpreter said in Hesperian: "You are accused of being a foreigner. What have you to say to that?"

  "Of course I am a foreigner! How can I help where I was born?"

  "You may not be able to help where you were born," said the judge through the interpreter, "but you can help coming to Gamphasantia, where it is illegal for outlanders to trespass."

  "Why is that?"

  "The Gamphasants are a virtuous people, and fear that commerce with barbarian nations would corrupt our purity."

  "But I did not know about your silly law!"

  "Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You could have inquired among the neighboring nations before you so rashly invaded our forbidden land. We will therefore stipulate you are a foreigner. Next, you are accused of carrying weapons in Gamphasantia. What do you say?"

  "Of course I carried a sword! All travellers are permitted to in civilized countries."

  "Not in Gamphasantia, which is the only truly civilized country. As no Gamphasant ever takes life, there is no reason why anybody should go armed, save when a farmer in an outlying region is allowed a spear to drive off lions. We agree, then, that you are guilty of carrying this murderous implement I have here before me. Next, you are accused of wearing clothes. What say you?"

  Vakar tugged at his hair. "Do not tell me that too is illegal! Why can you not let folk do as they please?"

  "If such a shocking anarchistic suggestion were followed we could never maintain our standard of ethics. Clothes are worn for three reasons: warmth, vanity, and false modesty. Gamphasantia is warm enough to make them unnecessary, and vanity is such an obvious sin that we need not discuss it. As for the third motive, found in some barbarous nations, the gods made the human body pure and holy in all its parts, and it is therefore an insult to them to cover any part as if it were shameful. We will therefore agree that you have worn clothes. But we are just people. If you object to this trial or the conduct thereof, speak before sentence is passed."

  Vakar cried: "I do indeed have something to say! I could have skirted your country, but chose to enter it instead to warn you of a deadly danger."

  "What is that?"

  "Do you know of the Gwedulians?"

  "A barbarous tribe, I believe, who live far to the east around Lake Lynxama. What about them?"

  "A great army of Gwedulians is nearing Gamphasantia across the Tamenruft on camels, to assail and plunder you."

  "How do you know this?"

  Vakar told of his séance in the throne room of King Awoqqas. The judge pulled his scanty beard and said:

  "It might or might not be true, but it makes little difference."

  "Little difference! The difference between life and death!"

  "No; you do not understand us. We deem it unethical to oppose aggression by force; why, we might cause the death of one of these Gwedulians! If they come, we shall show them there is nothing worth stealing—no gold or jewels or fine raiment or such gewgaws—except food which they might have for the asking. Then we shall courteously ask them to leave, confident that, faced by our greatness of soul, they will do so."

  "Oh, is that so? Judge, the usual wont of such robbers is to kill first and discuss ethics afterwards. If you do not—"

  "The gods will take care of us. Once previously raiders came out of the eastern deserts, and before they reached our land a sandstorm overwhelmed them and killed the lot. Another time an army of Gorgons marched up the Kokuton River to attack us, and a plague smote them in the marshes so only a few fled back to the Gorgades. However, we cannot continue this interesting discussion because I have other cases to judge. I find you guilty and sentence you both to be placed in the arena this afternoon with the ape-man Nji, and then that will happen which will happen. Take them away."

  "Ha!" shouted Vakar. "You speak so virtuously of never taking life, but if you shove me into a pit with that monster it is the same thing—"

  The attendants dragged Vakar, still shouting, out of the courtroom and back to his cell.

  -

  XV. – THE ARENA OF TOKALET

  "Hells!" growled Vakar as the big bolt slammed home again. "This time it looks as though they had us."

  Fual said: "Oh, my lord, say not that, or I shall die of despair even before the ape rends us! You've gotten us out of worse fixes ..."

  "That was mostly luck, and any man who presses his luck too far will at last run out of it." Vakar kicked the wall, hurting his toes. "Ow! If this were a civilized country the door would have a bronze lock to which you might steal the key, but I have no idea of what to do about that great stupid bolt."

  They settled down to a despondent wait, but before they had sat staring for long Vakar heard the bolt drawn back. In came a young Gamphasant.

  "Master Vakar!" said this one in Hesperian. "Do you not know me? Abeggu the son of Mishegdi, in Sederado?"

  "I am glad to see you," said Vakar. "I did not know you without your clothes. What brings you here?"

  "Hearing two foreigners were to be tried today I came to watch and recognized you. I tried to catch your eye, but you were otherwise occupied."

  "You find us in a sad state indeed, friend Abeggu. What is your tale? How goes it with you?"

  "Far from well."

  "How so?" asked Vakar.

  "My travels unsettled many of the ideas with which I started out, and when I returned home I imprudently went around telling people how much better things were done abroad. As any such talk is frightful heresy to a Gamphasant, I was ostracized, and for months nobody would have anything to do with me. If my family had not let me have access to their food-stores I should have starved. Now, though folk are beginning to ease up, they still look down upon me as one corrupted by foreign notions. But what brings you to this doom?"

  Vakar outlined his travels since leaving Sederado, adding: "What happened in Sederado after Thiegos's body was found?"

  "I do not know, for like you I went into hiding and fled at the first chance after my wound healed."

  A rumble came from the cell across the corridor. Vakar said: "That thing across the way looks like the giant servant of Qasigan, that wizard who tried to kill Porfia and me—"

  "It is indeed Nji! Not many days ago Qasigan and his ape-man came to Gamphasantia in a chariot. They were not stopped when they first appeared, as you were, because they raced through the villages and because the peasants were afraid of the chariot, most of them never having seen a wheeled vehicle. However, as they entered Tokalet their way was blocked by an ox-drawn sledge and the people seized them. The ape-man slew three with his club before they threw a net over him. It was intended to expose them in the arena to the attentions of a lion we kept for the purpose, but the next day there was a great hole in the wall of this cell and the wizard was gone, no doubt with the aid of his magic. You can see where the wall has been closed up with new bricks.

  "When the ape-man was thrust into the arena, he wrenched the door out of its sockets and broke the lion's back with it. Then it was decided that as Nji was more beast than man, it would be more just to keep him as the national executioner in place of the Hon he had slain,"

  Vakar said: "Why do you kill people in this unusual manner? For such a peaceful people it seems like a bloodthirsty amusement, watching men eaten by lions."

  "It is no am
usement! We are required to attend as a salutary moral lesson. Since our principles forbid us to kill undesirables ourselves, our only alternative is to let a beast do it."

  "Quibbling!" said Vakar. "If you force a man into a pit with a lion you are as responsible for his death as if you had sworded him personally."

  "True. We Gamphasants, being an honest folk, admit it, but what can we do? Our ethical standards must be maintained at all costs, or at least so think most of my people."

  "What happened to Qasigan's other servant, the one with the ears?"

  "I visited Qasigan in his cell—did I understand you to say he had tried to kill you and the queen?"