The king was facing his governors now, moving his eyes to meet with all of those that sat at his council table. His voice dropped to a lower, deeper register now: “And if the Gods lay the responsibility for the tragedy of Bari-Bar on us of Upper Dorraine, then I will step down from the throne, and the dynasty created by our Founder King will end. I will take my wife and my daughter and we will leave. You will not see any of us again. With the throne empty, the peoples of both Dorraines can then select, through a vote of majority, who will govern in my place. For despite all this talk of being free men, none of us is ever totally free from duties, and responsibilities, even a king. It may surprise you to learn that my working hours are much longer than those of the miners who work underground. I live in lavish surroundings, yes, but there is a price to pay for luxury. My daughter is not nearly as free as your daughters. She does not have one dialect to learn, she has twenty. She has no freedom at all to do as she would like, but she accepts who she is, and prepares herself for the day when she may reign, just as I did. I am not seeking your pity by telling you this, but your understanding. For I have to admit now, there is a joy in being useful, in doing your job well, and I have believed until recently that I have been a fair and unbiased ruler.”
Now the king thoroughly shocked the bakarets sitting so quietly respectful.
“And if the Gods in their righteous decisions place the fault for the demise of Bari-Bar with those of Lower Dorraine, still I will abdicate the throne of Far-Awndra.” The men at the table gasped…why should he do that?
“If there is a human fault, a guilt on either side, then I, as the leader and the ruler of both sides, assume the full guilt. I alone will be punished and judged guilty—there will be no cause for dispute, or war. Only if the Gods state the destruction of Bari-Bar cannot be laid to one side or the other will I or my descendants continue to rule—and then, only at your request.”
Ras-Far sat down. Silence dominated the table while the bakarets stared at him in disbelief, and some with shame. They had never been so impressed with the majesty of their ruler as they were at this very moment.
Then in a sudden burst, like fast-rushing waters breaking through a dam, everyone began to talk at once, excitedly. They were awed with the improbabilities of the quest to talk to the Gods—yet so intrigued! Deep in the hearts of every man in the room, and in every soul in both Dorraines, was the longing to know for a certainty if actually Gods did exist on that far Green Mountain—and if they did not—what then?
“Is it possible, do you think? Could our sons live to reach the Mountain? It’s damn hot on that desert, the sands whirling about all the time! Still, with thought, we could devise a way. It would be a challenge.” Ras-Far leaned back in his chair. He knew they were ingenious men who preferred a challenge above all else. He saw Ron Ka looking at him with a strange, admiring smile. He leaned closer to the king and said in a low voice, “My congratulations. I underestimated you Ras-Far. I thought I had you cornered, and my chance to sit on your throne was in the near future. Yet you divert us with our one weakness: a challenge to do the impossible.”
“You may still have your chance to sit where I am, Ron Ka,” the king said in return, faintly smiling. “And if that time ever comes, may you enjoy every minute of the long, long days, while I take my family off to some remote place and laze about, reading books that I don’t have time to open now.”
“And you would hate every moment of those idle, useless days,” smiled Ran Ka. “I am not deceived; I have a certain amount of power myself—and by the Gods, it’s damned enjoyable, despite the hard work.”
The king leaned closer to Ron Ka, so that no one sitting close could overhear: “I don’t expect to lose my throne, for as you said, power has its own reward. Time alone will tell us whether you or I will occupy this chair in the future.”
2
Sharita’s Decision
All through the remainder of that day, and on through the night, the debate within the palace council room lasted. By the time the first sun glowed above the horizon, it had been decided: They would risk the lives of twenty men, and this was better by far than to endanger the lives of all with a war to decide who was guilty of destroying Bari-Bar.
The twenty bakarets stumbled wearily to their beds, guests of the king, and fell down upon those beds, to reach without dreams the bone-exhaustion unconsciousness known so well on old El Sod-a-Por.
This news of the decision made by their leaders raced throughout all of El Dorraine. Ask the Gods such a question? Who but a descendant of the Founder King would dare such a presumption? How improbable to think a journey like that could be made at all! Those twenty young men would die—and their deaths could be added to those already dead.
Still, the thought was exciting. To know, at last, so many things!
Their king was not a fool; if he thought Gods really existed…maybe they really did. And everyone had heard of the superior wisdom of that old, old man, Es-Trall, though no one had ever seen him except the king. There were some that thought Es-Trall didn’t exist at all, that he was only a figment contrived to suit the king’s use, so he could hesitate indecisively and use conferences with Es-Strall as an excuse.
Dray-Gon said as much to the princess when he met her by accident in one of the palace corridors. “How dare you imply that my father is a liar!” Sharita flared. “Why you are as impossible as your father! I have seen that old man from my apartment terrace. We wave to each other. He has a long, long white beard that almost touches the floor, and sometimes I believe he spies on me through his telescope, so I am grateful my bathing pool is on the other side of the pinnacle.”
“Oh…that is interesting to find out,” Dray-Gon teased, “is there a pinnacle from which one may spy on your bathing pool?”
Sharita glared at him, her eyes snapping with sparks. “No! And why don’t you and your father go back to where you came from? It seems every time I put foot outside of my rooms, I bump into you. Have you nothing better to do than loiter about the halls?”
Mockingly Dray-Gon leaned against a wall, his arm stretched out to the opposite wall, blocking Sharita’s passage, unless she retreated, and she wasn’t one to do that. “You could ask me into your apartment, and introduce me to your pets, and then I would have something better to do than flirt with the pretty servant girls who wait on you.”
“Flirt with them all you want, I don’t care!” Sharita said coldly, then struck down his restricting arm with a strong blow that surprised Dray-Gon. Swiftly she gained a lift-shaft, and from there she flashed him her own mocking smile. “You see, Dray-Gon, I am not as easily trapped as you think.” With that, she disappeared through the floor that opened automatically.
Frustrated in all his attempts to catch the princess alone, Dray-Gon left the palace where he and his father were houseguests, and he wandered out onto the streets of the capital city. There was a buzz of excitement out there, a busy hum of activity. The wine taverns were crowded with people discussing the new trail the king had set them upon. “Why this is the most challenging thing that has happened to us in years!” he overheard someone say. Another commented, “But it would be a sad thing to lose twenty of our best young men, and I don’t possibly see how they can survive.”
Dray-Gon knew that all the best and inventive minds were seeking the best ways to see that those young men survived. He himself attended the meetings, at the king’s request. “I have been watching and evaluating you, Dray-Gon, and I think you yourself may come up with some useful ideas. Have you not spent a great deal of your time on the wildlands?”
Yes, he had. Life inside the city domes grew too dull for him, and he enjoyed the thrill of not knowing what to expect when he was outside the cities, where the winds could blow suddenly frigid, or burning hot, and there were wild creatures with teeth and claws to add to the thrill of adventure. Why once he had even come across a wild puhlet, so big and so fierce he couldn’t believe that animal had once been domesticated enough to play with ba
bies.
As he sat there in the tavern, sipping wine with friends, he saw come into the tavern a beautiful girl with long red hair, and he stared at her long and thoughtfully before he rose to his feet and made his way to her table, where she sat alone. “Have we met before?” he asked, seating himself at her table without waiting for an invitation.
“We met at a palace ball,” she said to him, flirting with her dark purple eyes.
“Oh no, we couldn’t have. I would recall meeting someone like you.”
“You were very absorbed with the princess. You didn’t look my way,” and then she giggled in a girlish way. “I wasn’t a guest, not grand enough to be invited. I am only one of the girls who wait on the tables.”
Dray-Gon leaned closer to peer at her in the dim light. She seemed familiar somehow, yet he couldn’t place her, and he wasn’t one to overlook a very beautiful girl. “There is a carnival in town tonight…come with me, for it is not much fun to go by oneself…”
“But you are a bakaret’s son…I am only a serving girl,” she said shyly, lowering her eyes. “And someone has told me you are in love with the Princess Sharita.”
She had an odd dialect that puzzled Dray-Gon; he had never heard one exactly the same. “The princess is as cold as ice, though she is exceptionally beautiful. And arrogant too, unbelievably so. Why there are times when I would like to turn her over my knee and paddle her bottom in the way her father should have years ago. Now tell me your name, because you will go with me to the carnival, won’t you?”
Her name she gave him in a small, meek voice. “Ray-Mon,” she almost whispered, “and what you just said, about spanking the princess, you could be thrown in jail for that.”
“Are you going to tell?”
She shook her head, and then smiled beguilingly before she put out her hand. “Yes, I will go with you. I have never been to a carnival, believe it or not. I hear they have very strange-looking creatures there. And I have never ridden on one of those rides that spin round and round. In fact, I have never done anything much that was very exciting.”
Dray-Gon laughed happily, clasping her offered hand in his. “All right. We’ll make up for lost time, and do everything tonight—and that princess can sit in her damned apartment alone and wave to an old, old man with a long white beard.”
“Serves her right for being a princess,” Ray-Mon agreed, smiling as she rose to her feet, still holding onto his hand. Together, she and Dray-Gon set out for the carnival grounds.
While Dray-Gon spent his money on childish, playful things and gave Ray-Mon the time of her life, all about them was talk about the journey to see and talk to the Gods. It seemed the greatest issue was who would go—just which young men would form the delegation?
During the next few days, this proved not to be a difficult problem for a sometimes practical, reasoning populace to decide. Since the twenty bakarets had agreed to the king’s risky proposition in the first place, let it be their best and strongest sons that made the perilous journey to visit the Gods of Green Mountain!
Many grumbled on hearing this. The city of Far-Awndra was by far the largest and most powerful area in either of the Dorraines, and who would represent them? It was an easy thing for the king to risk the lives of other men’s sons, seeking a solution for his problem. He had the most to win or lose, yet the king risked nothing of himself! The swell of their mutterings grew into a tidal wave, and they went in great force to the crystal palace, and demanded entrance, and an audience with the king!
Ras-Far was eating breakfast when he heard the commotion out in his gardens. He went to a window and looked out to see his best flowers trampled underfoot, as if they were a cushion for walking. “Look at that,” he said to his wife and daughter, “they are crushing our most beautiful blossoms without regard. I think I might as well go out on the balcony, before they storm inside the palace and crush underfoot what they find here.”
He went out on the balcony and gazed down on the rowdy, milling crowd that shouted his name. He only stood there, with his arms crossed, waiting for silence. It wasn’t long in coming as the quality of his presence, and his regal bearing, quickly stilled their restless movements and quieted their voices, and those standing in the flower beds hurriedly stepped back onto the paths. All faces tilted upward to stare at the king, momentarily speechless. An old woman, bent and brushed the crushed flowers until they stood upright again. “There, there,” she soothed. “You are all right. It only hurt for a little while.”
Now that they were quiet and attentive, the king spoke in a voice he saved for tense situations, a voice that boomed like a great bell. “You have called out in loud angry voices for your king. Now that I am here, speak out, and state your reasons for coming and trampling down my best flowers.”
No one could speak. They could only stare up at him, overwhelmed and overawed, for there was in all the Founder’s descendants a strangeness, a compelling something that was different from any others—and despite the unwillingness of some to be impressed, they were.
Only one small child was unafraid. He called out in his high treble voice: “They are angry because all of the provinces of El Dorraine have a bakaret’s son to represent them before the Gods. Yet the great city of Far-Awndra has no one to represent them, and we are by far more powerful than all the cities of other provinces put together.”
The king stood there looking down at the boy thoughtfully. “How is it, son, that you have a voice to speak, when all around you is silent? Tell me your name so that I may have it recorded and take note of you in the future. There is always need for a fearless man, and I don’t doubt that is what you will be.”
“I am Garron, the son of Brash, one of the dome builders,” replied the boy.
Behind the king, his secretary wrote down the name.
The mob was now ashamed of their timorous behavior, and they repeated the words of the boy. “Send a man to represent us,” cried a native of Far-Awndra. “We have a right to be represented there, when the others speak with the Gods.”
Ras-Far replied: “If I had a son to send, his name would already head the list. As you know, my only child is a daughter. If you insist that the city of Far-Awndra should send a man, then select a man of the people and let him travel with the others to the Mountain.”
A growl of disapproval sounded from the throats of those in the crowd who were from the lower borderlands. “No!” they cried out. “If Far-Awndra sends a man, then there will be ten from Lower Dorraine, and eleven from Upper Dorraine—and that imbalance we will not stand for!”
“And that is exactly why, in the first place, I did not choose to have Far-Awndra represented,” responded the king drily.
It was then that the Princess Sharita, who had stood inside the palace, quietly listening, stepped out on the balcony and stood beside her father. The crowd below gasped to see her. Many there had never beheld her, and they murmured, causing a ripple of compliments as she stood tall and slim, bright and glowing, with the sunlight haloing her pale hair.
“There is a way for Far-Awndra to be represented without sending a man,” Sharita said in a clear voice that carried to all. “Far-Awndra shall send a woman! As the daughter of the King of El Dorraine, Upper and Lower, I am the one to go!”
The people gathered together below the balcony were stunned. Then, in delighted acceptance, they roared their approval, tossing their hats into the air—even those from Lower Dorraine.
No one was more stunned than the king, unless it was Dray-Gon, who was a member of the crowd on the ground. Ras-Far turned to his daughter and said in a low voice, “No, Sharita, you cannot go! How dare you come out here and put me in this awkward position? I will not allow you to go—and I have to tell them that now. You have turned a bad situation into an impossible one—you are my only child! I cannot risk your life!”
On the ground, the people were still cheering as Sharita answered: “But Father, I want to go. And besides, they have already accepted my proposal, and see
how happy they are. And I am of royal blood too; once I have made a firm statement, can I back out?”
Ras-Far turned from her and stared down at the people dancing and cheering, full of delight to have the princess as their emissary. An overwhelming sadness washed over the king, so that he felt like weeping. Why had he not foreseen this eventuality? Why had not Es-Trall warned him? Already he had lost two daughters…and now a third was to endanger herself?
Ras-Far didn’t speak those thoughts; instead, he placed his arm over his daughter’s slight shoulders and nodded his approval. Sharita would go.
3
Dray-Gon Beseeches
Later on that same day, Dray-Gon stormed into the king’s rooms, demanding an audience. Politely he was refused. The king was busy. If he wanted to see him, he would have to place his name on a long waiting list, and perchance, in a week or so, he would gain an audience.
“By the Gods! I’ll see him today, and now!” Dray-Gon announced, and shoved the king’s secretary from his path. He stalked toward the king’s office. Two uniformed guards pointed their weapons directly at his heart. “Halt!” he was commanded, “or we’ll fire, and you will be paralyzed for several hours, and placed in a cell until you come to your senses.”
So swiftly did Dray-Gon move, he was but a blur. Both guards were left stunned and on the floor, as Dray-Gon threw open the king’s office door. The king glanced up from his work on the desk, startled to see Dray-Gon come in unannounced.
“Your guards are not very effective, your majesty,” said Dray-Gon. “I suggest that you let me give them some instructions on self-defense. We Lowers are, as you have accused often, of a physical nature, and could teach you Uppers a thing or two about the many ways of using one’s body as a weapon.”
Gods of Green Mountain Page 18
