Above that perch on which the bird-people were seated was a tight canopy of leaves, so thick and layered it would have taken an army of strong warriors many days to hack their way through it; actually, I’m not even sure they could do it in years.
They brought us in and held us close to the floor in our nets. We could see through the gaps in the netting. Besides the bird-people on the limbs above, the throne room was packed with others, some of them warriors, many of them nobles, and some citizens. We were the spectacle, and all of the bird-people had been summoned to witness whatever ceremony was at hand. I assumed it would not be a parade in our honor.
On a dais was a throne and on the throne was a large winged man who looked as if an ancient human being, fat of body, thin of legs, with a head like a warped melon, had been mated to a condor and a buzzard, all of him swathed over with warts and scars and age. A golden cloak draped his shoulders, and except for half the talisman on a chain around his neck, he wore nothing else. His eyes were dark and the color of old, dried pinesap. This, of course, was King Canrad.
Tordo stood near the throne, one hand on its back support. There were guards on either side of King Canrad and Tordo. The room was full of warriors as well.
Canrad nodded at Tordo. Tordo stepped to the center of the dais, removed his half of the talisman from his neck, and lifted it up with both hands. Sunlight coming through an open gap behind the king glittered across the talisman like sunlight on a trout’s back.
“What say you?” said the king.
The crowed cheered. It sounded like the sort of cheers we Buffalo Soldiers used to give the lieutenant when he rode by on horseback. A white man who led us like we couldn’t lead ourselves, as if our color tainted our intelligence. It was a cheer, but it came from the mouth, not the soul.
The king said, “The old order is here. Gar-don, son of the former king, who was not worthy and shall not be named is also here. He will see how a true king shows his power.”
“It is you who is not worthy,” Gar-don called out from his netted position on the floor.
“Strike him,” said the king. One of the warriors stepped forward and brought the staff of his spear sharply across Gar-don’s back. Gar-don grunted.
“We also have among us the daughter of King Ran of the Sheldan,” said the king. “A rather inferior race in my opinion. Add a black man-thing that I can not define, nor can anyone else, and we have three enemies of the throne. The gods will welcome their deaths. They will be the first to die by the power of the talisman. I will call up all the demons of the trees, and they will render these worthless creatures into wet rags.”
“I know your law,” Jerrel said, pushing herself to her knees under the net. “I ask my right to challenge you, or your second. If I win, our lives will be spared.”
“I am too old to be challenged,” said the king. “I have no intention of sullying myself with a duel. Nor will I sully one of my men. Why should I? You have the right by our law to make a challenge, and I, as king, have the right to refuse. I refuse. Be silent.”
King Canrad leaned forward on his throne. I could almost hear his bones creak. His wings trembled slightly. He looked like a gargoyle rocking on its ledge. He said to Tordo, “Bring me the power.”
Tordo hesitated, then moved toward him. King Canrad held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
Tordo held his half of the talisman forward with his left hand, and as the King reached to take it, Tordo sprang forward, snatched at the talisman around the king’s neck, yanked it loose of its chain.
Links of chain clattered on the floor as Tordo slammed the two pieces of the talisman together with a loud click. He lifted it above his head with a smile. He yelled out a series of words, an incantation. I understood the words, but not their jumbled purpose.
And then the spell was finished, and …
… Well, nothing. It was as quiet in the throne room as a mouse in house slippers. From somewhere in the crowd there was a cough, as if someone had a mouthful of feathers, which considering who was in the room, could have actually been the case.
Tordo’s gleeful expression died slowly. He said a word that didn’t translate, but I had an idea what it meant. He turned slowly and looked over his shoulder. He had gone from a potential wizard of the trees to a fool with two connected pieces of jewelry.
The guards hustled up from the bottom of the dais, their spears raised, ready to stick Tordo.
“No,” said the king. “Give me the talisman first.”
One of the warriors tugged it from Tordo’s hands, removed his sword as well, gave the talisman to the king. The king held it in his hands. He looked at it the way a fisherman might look at his catch, realizing it had appeared much larger underwater. “It is useless. It is a lie.” He lifted his eyes to Tordo. “I will make your death a long one.”
While they were so engaged, and all eyes were on them, I lifted an edge of the net, crawled out from under it and seized one of the bird-men. I drew his sword from its sheath and shoved him back. I sprang toward the dais. A warrior stepped in front of me, but I jabbed quickly and the sharp blade went through his eye and down he went.
With my newfound abilities renewed, I leaped easily to the dais and put my sword to the king’s throat.
The guards on either side of the throne started toward me.
I said to the king, “Give the order to free the lady and Gar-don, or I will run this through your throat.”
The king’s body shook. “Free them,” he said.
The net was lifted. The warriors around them parted. I noticed there was a rearranging of soldiers, some shifted out of one group and into another. It was a good sign. They were showing their division.
I said, “Those who wish the king well, fear the point of my sword. Those who wish him ill, perhaps you would enjoy my sword thrust. We shall see which is more popular.”
There was a slight murmur.
By this time Jerrel and Gar-don had joined me on the dais. They stood near me and the king. Jerrel picked up the pike of the guard I had killed. Tordo hadn’t moved; he feared to move.
Gar-don said, “I am your king. I am the son of the true king, who was the son of a king, and the king before that. Today the talisman failed Canrad and Tordo. The spirits within it do not wish their will to succeed. They do not wish their powers used for something so pointless as killing and destruction and war. It is peace they want. It is peace they have allowed. And I suggest we obey their will and continue on that path, lest they turn on us and destroy us all.”
Someone said, “Gar-don, our king.”
A moment later this was repeated, then someone else said the same, and voices rose up from the crowd and filled the room, and the voices came not from the mouths of the frightened but from the souls of true believers.
There were a few who for a moment seemed unwilling to make the change to Gar-don, but they were vastly outnumbered, and those who tried to defend Canrad were quickly dispatched in a wave of bloody anger. If there was a lesson to be learned from Gar-don’s remarks about the talisman, they hadn’t actually learned it, which meant the bird-people were as human as the wingless. They were not ready to accept that the talisman was nothing more than an ancient myth.
Gar-don took the talisman, held it up as Tordo had done. He was still weak and struggled to hold it aloft. But his spirit was strong. He spoke so loudly his words could be heard at the back of the room and up into the leafy canopy.
“The power of the talisman will remain unused. Half of it will go back with Princess Jerrel, back to her city and her king, where it will continue to remain powerless, and our peace will continue.”
“What of him,” said a bird-woman, stepping forward to point a long finger at Tordo.
Gar-don turned his head to Tordo, studied him. He was about to speak when Jerrel beat him to it. “Gar-don, King of the Varnin,” she said, “I ask you to sanction my right to combat with Tordo. He has stolen from my family. He has insulted my family. And I desire to ins
ult him with the edge of my blade.”
“And if you lose?” said Gar-don.
“I won’t,” Jerrel said. “But if I do, let him go. Banish him.”
“Don’t do this,” I said. “Let me take your place.”
“I am as good a warrior as any other, my love.”
“Very well,” said Gar-don. “But before that …”
He turned to the former King Canrad.
“I banish you. As of now, you will rise and you will go away, and you will never come back.”
The old man rose, and in that moment, seeing how weak he was, I almost felt sorry for him. Then a blade came out from under his cloak and he stabbed at Gar-don. I caught Canrad’s arm just in time, twisted. It snapped easily. He screeched and dropped the dagger. I let him go.
Gar-don leaned forward and looked into Canrad’s eyes. “I see emptiness.”
Gar-don weakly picked up the dagger Canrad had dropped. He seemed strong all of a sudden. “It will not matter what I do, Canrad, you are dead already.” With that, he jammed the blade into the former king’s chest. The old man collapsed in a cloaked wad, and immediately a pool of blood flowed around him.
“Give Tordo a sword,” Gar-don said, turning back to the situation at hand. “Death is your loss, Tordo. Banishment is your victory.”
Jerrel dropped the pike and was given a sword.
Tordo was given a sword. All of the disappointment of the moment, every foul thing he was, bubbled up and spewed out of him. He attacked with a yell. He bounced forward on the balls of his feet, attempting to stick Jerrel. Jerrel glided back as if walking on air.
Everyone on the dais moved wide of their blades as they battled back and forth, the throne sometimes coming between them. Once Jerrel slipped in Canrad’s blood, and in spite of this being a private duel, I almost leaped to her aid, but Gar-don touched me on the arm.
“It is not done,” he said.
Tordo put one boot on Canrad’s lifeless neck and used it as a kind of support to lift him up and give him more of a downward thrust. But Jerrel slipped the lunge.
Tordo sprang off Canrad’s lifeless neck and made a beautiful thrust for her face. I let out a gasp of air. It was right on target.
At the last moment Jerrel dropped under his thrust, which lifted the hair on her head slightly, and drove her weapon up and into his belly. He held his position, as if waiting for his form to be admired, then made a noise like an old dog with a chicken bone in its throat and fell flat on his face. Blood poured out of him and flowed into the puddle of gore that had fanned out from beneath Canrad.
Jerrel studied the corpse of Tordo for a moment. She took a deep breath, said, “I have drawn my kin’s own blood, but I have avenged Tordo’s treachery and honored my father.”
Gar-don stepped forward and surveyed the crowd. He lifted his chin slightly. The response to this was another cheer from the multitude, and this one was more than from the throat. It was from deep within the soul.
—–—
There were great celebrations, and we were part of it. It was pleasant and necessary to the new agreement between kingdoms, but I was glad when it ended and we were given back the mounts we had taken from the Galminions, sent on our way with supplies, fanfare, and of course Jerrel’s half of the talisman.
As we rode along the wide trail in the morning light, winding down from the great lair of the bird-people, I said, “Do you think Gar-don’s people believed what he said about the talisman?”
“Perhaps they did,” Jerrel said. “Perhaps some did. Perhaps none did. The only thing that matters is there was no great power when the two pieces were united. It’s just a legend.”
“Designed to prevent war between your people and theirs,” I said. “That seems like a legend worth believing. The halves of a great power divided so neither has a unique and overwhelming power over the other.”
“Devel would be amused,” she said.
We experienced a few adventures on our way to Jerrel’s kingdom, but they were minor, mostly involving brigands we dispatched with little effort, a few encounters with wild beasts. When we arrived in the land of Sheldan and Jerrel explained all that had happened to her father, I was afforded much curiosity, mostly due to the color of my skin.
I was thanked. I was rewarded with a fine sword and scabbard. I was given a prominent place at King Ran’s table, and it was there that Jerrel told him that we were to marry.
It was the first I had heard of it, but I was delighted with the idea.
That was some time ago. I am sitting now at a writing desk in a great room in this Sheldan castle made of clay and stone. It is dark except for a small candle. I am writing with a feather pen on yellow parchment. My wife, the beautiful warrior Jerrel, sleeps not far away in our great round bed.
Tonight, before I rose to write, I dreamed, as I have the last three nights. In the dream I was being pulled down a long bright tunnel, and finally into the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic, washing about in the icy waves like a cork. The great light of a ship moved my way, and in the shadows of that light were the bobbing heads of dying swimmers and the bouncing of the Titanic’s human-stuffed rafts. The screams of the desperate, the cries of the dying filled the air.
I have no idea what the dream means, or if it means anything, but each night that I experience it, it seems a little clearer. Tonight there was another part to it. I glimpsed the thing that brought me here, pulled me down and through that lit tunnel to Venus. I fear it wishes to take me back.
I finish this with no plans of its being read, and without complete understanding as to why I feel compelled to have written it. But written it is.
Now I will put my pen and parchment away, blow out the candle, lie gently down beside my love, hoping I will never be forced to leave her side, and that she and this world will be mine forever.
MIKE RESNICK
Mike Resnick is one of the bestselling authors in science fiction, and one of the most prolific. His many novels include Kirinyaga, Santiago, The Dark Lady, Stalking the Unicorn, Birthright: The Book of Man, Paradise, Ivory, Soothsayer, Oracle, Lucifer Jones, Purgatory, Inferno, A Miracle of Rare Design, The Widowmaker, The Soul Eater, A Hunger in the Soul, The Return of Santiago, Starship: Mercenary, Starship: Rebel, and Stalking the Vampire. His collections include Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?, An Alien Land, A Safari of the Mind, Hunting the Snark and Other Short Novels, and The Other Teddy Roosevelts. As editor, he’s produced Inside the Funhouse: 17 SF Stories About SF, Whatdunits, More Whatdunits, Shaggy B.E.M. Stories, New Voices in Science Fiction, This Is My Funniest, a long string of anthologies coedited with Martin H. Greenberg—Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Alternate Warriors, Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, Dinosaur Fantastic, By Any Other Fame, Alternate Outlaws, and Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, among others—as well as two anthologies coedited with Gardner Dozois, and Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian, edited with Janis Ian. He won the Hugo Award in 1989 for “Kirinyaga.” He won another Hugo Award in 1991 for another story in the Kirinyaga series, “The Manamouki,” and another Hugo and Nebula in 1995 for his novella “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.” His most recent books are a number of new collections, The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures, Win Some, Lose Some: The Hugo-Award Winning (and Nominated) Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Mike Resnick, and Masters of the Galaxy, and two new novels, The Doctor and the Rough Rider and The Doctor and the Dinosaurs. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Here a soldier of fortune sets off into the hostile Venusian jungle in company with a very unusual partner, in search of the most fabulous treasure on the planet—and finds much more than he bargained for.
The Godstone of Venus
MIKE RESNICK
“DOES IT EVER STOP RAINING?” ASKED SCORPIO, LOOKING OUT the window as the rain splashed into the ocean.
“They say it did once, for almost a whole week, about thirty years ago,” repli
ed the bartender, carrying a pair of purple concoctions over to Scorpio, handing one to him and drinking the other himself as he walked back to the bar.
Marcus Aurelius Scorpio was seated at a wooden table next to a large window. The tavern sat atop a huge rocky promontory, with a vast ocean surrounding three sides of it, and a crushed-rock path leading down to a dense jungle behind it.
“That was a rhetorical question,” replied Scorpio.
“Yeah, you don’t look drunk enough for it to be a serious one—yet,” replied the bartender. “Where’s your partner?”
Scorpio shrugged. “Beats me. He’ll be by later.”
“How’d you ever hook up with something like him?” asked the bartender. “Or is he an it?”
“Not unless one of his ladyfriends got mad at him since this morning,” replied Scorpio.
“You know, Venus has got a lot of races, some of ’em bright, some of ’em barely able to scratch without instructions, but your partner is the strangest of ’em all, or my name ain’t Lucius Aloisius McAnany.”
“When you get right down to it, your name isn’t Lucius anymore. Most of the locals can’t pronounce it, so it’s Luke.”
“But when I pay my taxes it’s Lucius.”
Scorpio looked amused. “When did you ever pay taxes?”
“Well, if I did,” said McAnany, “it’d be as Lucius.”
“I think I’ll go back to listening to the rain hit the windows,” said Scorpio. “It makes more sense.”
McAnany was about to reply when he was drowned out by the hooting of a huge golden fish that stuck its head out of the tank that rested on a shelf behind the bar.
“All right, all right!” he muttered, pouring the remainder of his drink into the tank. The fish swam right through the spreading purple liquid, hooted happily, and turned a trio of back somersaults.
“Look at that,” said McAnany disgustedly. “A goddamned alcoholic fish.” He pointed to a bright orange creature that hung upside down on the ceiling. “And what passes for a bat on this idiot world, and eats nothing but cigar butts. Damned lucky for him none of the Venusian races ever get lung cancer. Probably just their bartenders.” He paused, then slammed a fist down on the bar. “What the hell are a couple of Earthmen like us doing on this godforsaken world anyway?”
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