Queen of the Panther World

by Berkeley Lingston

  * * *

  They whistled up the dead woman’s paavan for me and with the bird still perched on Luria’s shoulder we started on the way back. Once more we moved through the valley of the mists but this time the terror was gone. Again we came to the tortuous path along the shoulder of the steep mountain side. And this time, like with all dangers circumvented, it seemed not quite so frightening. I even found myself whistling as the sleek, sure-footed panthers trotted along. We passed a twisted tree I remembered was not far from where we’d come off the main trail. And in a very short while we were on the broad trail leading back to Gayno.

  At ease, now, I noticed things which had escaped me before. To our right some hundred yards, a wide river followed a winding path and now and then I could see the swirling muddy waters. To our left the grass grew thick and rank, sometimes higher than a paavan’s shoulder. I remembered how the women rose from the midst of grass like this and thought what an excellent ambush it would make. We were running on what I called, a path. I called it that for want of another name. Really it was a flattened area among the other grasses.

  Soon we came to the short bit of parkland which once traversed, would lead us to the wider path back to Gayno. The path wound among the trees for perhaps a mile. Then we saw open reaches and shortly the trees thinned and we were racing in the open again. A soft wind ruffled my hair, the air was not too warm and the sun held a brightness which unlike ours did not irritate. For the first time in this strange land I felt peace. But not for long.

  THERE must have been a thousand of them. They descended on us like flies. Luria was the first to see them. Some sixth sense warned her of their proximity, for suddenly she drew Mokar up sharp, raised a hand on high as a signal to halt, and as the ambush rose about us, shouted a warning. But it was of no avail.

  We had been running with some five yards between each rider. There was no chance to get to Luria. I found myself surrounded by dozens of Loko’s men. I glimpsed Captain Mita up ahead close to Luria. Then hands were reaching for my bridle. I had no chance to get my sticker out but my fists weren’t tied down. I must have knocked ten of them silly before someone thought to use the hilt of a sword on my noggin. I saw more stars than the heavens held, and in a twinkling the darkness of unconsciousness.

  I was being joted like a monkey on a stick. My head rocked from side to side like someone was using it for a metronome. I had been strapped to what was undoubtedly the worst smelling man in all Pola. His stench was unbearable. I peered through bleared eyes at a long line of warriors strung out ahead of us. I managed to turn my head and saw that the line behind us was almost as long.

  There was someone ahead swearing a blue streak. I couldn’t make the words out but it didn’t take long for me to recognize the voice. Good old Groana! He was telling them a thing or two. A lot of good it was doing, I thought. This time we wouldn’t get off so easy. What was more, Loko had Luria now. I began to wonder what he wanted of her.

  We came to a fork in the road which had widened, and took the right turning. After a while we came to a broad meadowland. Tents had been set up in well-laid sections like streets or, suddenly I knew what, a military encampment. To our right as we entered, was a stockade where I saw a huge number of the strange beasts they used. Sentries were posted every few yards. Their discipline was excellent. The warriors deployed to their respective areas, leaving some ten to guard us as we followed Captain Mita, the giant who had slapped me around, and Loko. We drew up before the most pretentious of the tents. This proved to be Loko’s personal quarters.

  They had to cut me loose from the guy I was with and whoever did the cutting didn’t give a hang whether or not he got some skin with it. In fact he laughed heartily as I yelped more than once when the sticker drew blood. But the moment I was on my feet all merriment ceased. The point of the man’s sword tickled my spine all the way into the shady confines of the tent.

  The appointments were simple, a couple of easy chairs of good design, with cushions for seats; several benches of plain wood, and a dozen low hassocks scattered about served for seats. The back wall of the tent was guarded by five men and a like number of women-warriors. They stood stiffly at attention, spears held firmly in one hand while the other was at their hip in readiness to grab at the sword if needed.

  Loko and the big guy found seats side by side at the far end of the tent. Loko grunted tiredly and said:

  “My years are too many for these strenuous doings. Ye have given me a merry chase. Perhaps it was well that ye escaped the pit. For surely we would not have found our quarry so easily. And better, the prize she carried. Ho, guard, bring the holy bird to me . . .”

  WE WERE standing in a close group, Hank, Luria, her guard and myself. The bird was still perched on Luria’s shoulder. We had been stripped of weapons. As the guard stepped to Luria’s side Hank took a single step forward and knocked the character right on his seat.

  “Atta boy. Hit ’im one for me,” the Groana shouted raucously. “Kick ’im in the slats.”

  Loko’s voice was low, seemingly without anger, yet I felt a shiver:

  “Ye have used force before. Shall we be compelled to answer in the same?”

  “No!” Luria’s answer was a clarion call. “Enough of force. For hundreds of years Pola has known nothing else. You decry the use of it yet never feel any compunctions about using it when it avails you best. By my father’s name I swear the bird will avail you nought. There are other means of freeing Pola from your tyranny.”

  I wanted to cheer. For the first time I felt an admiration based on valid reasons, for Luria. She was all right.

  The big guy up there with Loko thought so too. He let out a wordless bellow and rose to his feet.

  “By the Groana Bird!” he shouted. “Loko. Your word. I want that woman, hear me?”

  “Over my dead body!” came the answer from my side. It was good old Hank. Good old Hank and his good old big yap. Wasn’t he ever going to learn to keep it closed? He got the only reply the other character could have given.

  “I shall be only too glad to arrange that,” the big guy said.

  “Enough, Wost!” Loko broke in. “Brawls are for those in their cups. Save it for then. Now then. Enough of this. Bring the bird up here.”

  This time no one raised either fist or voice when two of the guards stepped out and took the bird from Luria’s shoulder. The one who was carrying the bird carried it gingerly and when he got to Loko handed it to the old man with fingers that shook palpably. There was the strangest look of triumph on Loko’s face as he got the bird.

  “Now,” and this time his voice was raised in ecstasy, “now I shall rule. By the sign of the Holy Groana Bird. By the sign of his feathers, by the sign of his wisdom and by the sign of my possession . . .”

  “Aah, nuts,” said the parrot unexpectedly.

  “Holy Bird,” Loko said in tones of awe, as though the goofy parrot had said something beyond his comprehension, “say more in your infinite wisdom.”

  “Is this character square?” the bird asked. “Why don’t he get the score straight? Boy, oh boy! How did this oldy get dealt in?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you can arrange his getting dealt out?”

  “That’s allroony with me, allreeti, allreeti,” Groana Gaillard said.

  LOKO kept shifting his glance from the bird to me and back again as we carried on. His fingers tapped nervously together in constant motion and his brow showed irritable corrugations in his effort to understand.

  “What does he say?” Loko asked me in petulant tones.

  “Ingimsay an ongsay,” Hank shot at me from the side of his mouth.

  “The Holy Bird says,” I began as portenticusly as I could, “that he is weary and needs rest.”

  “But of course,” Loko made haste to fall in to the suggestion. “May he forgive an old man’s stupidity. Many, many years have passed in his incarceration. May the memory of the man who enslaved him become dust in our mouths, a stench in our no
strils.”

  “Gadzooks!” Groana Pistole said. “The varlet needs a cup to wander in. ’Pon my soul! An’ by my Lud Harry, with whom I spent many a roistering night, get him one and fill it with the dregs of the grape so that Merry England shall have peace this day.”

  “Peace? Peace?” Loko said. “He desires peace?”

  “Aah! Shut up!” the bird said and bent and nipped Loko on the lobe of the nearest ear.

  “He means quiet,” I said. “And if I am allowed a word . . .?”

  Loko held one hand to his wounded ear and said:

  “Say on . . .”

  I decided that formality was the note to strike. Loko liked it well:

  “The Holy Bird has some small affection for the girl. Since it is obvious she cannot escape, perhaps it were best that he stay with her.”

  “No! I do not trust her. Further, she is, as are the rest of you, my prisoners. I have as yet not decided the disposition I intend of ye.”

  “ ’Tis a sorry day f’r the Irish, me lad,” Groana Fitzgerald said. “An’ sure an’ if it’s the last act of me life I’ll kiss the Blarney Stone on me hands and knees but let me have a chance at a shillalah . . .”

  “You see, Loko,” I said in triumph, “another word, a single syllable of denial to his desires, and he promises to call on the holy Blarney Stone. Believe me. Woe betide anyone accursed by the Stone.”

  Loko blanched to the color of wet ivory at the words. The only one of the three, Loko, Mita and Wost, who showed no alarm at the words, was Wost. But then he was probably too dull-witted to know fear.

  “But of course, of course the Holy Bird can stay with the girl,” Loko said quickly. “I was but thinking of its security.”

  “Is that schmoe kidding?” Groana Hope asked.

  “What does he say? What does he say?” Loko asked. He was like a kid before a mike without a quizmaster.

  “He says he’s tired and wants to rest,” I said.

  “Assuredly. Assuredly,” Loko said, shaking hands and head at the same time. “The time for sleep has come. Captain Mita. Escort the prisoners.”

  “Guests might be a better word,” I said, being brave all of a sudden.

  For the first time Loko showed anger. His eyes blazed for an instant, then hid themselves behind hooded lids. His voice held an icy edge when he said:

  “Prisoners . . . Do not try my patience . . .”

  I shrugged my shoulders in a gesture of bravery I certainly didn’t feel. I knew I was shaking, quivering in fear, yet somehow, I managed to say in quite normal tones:

  “Okay. Let it be like you say. Only let’s stop with all this talk. I said the bird was tired. Do we have to talk some more about that?”

  “Take them to their quarters,” Loko bit out.

  Captain Mita and his men played escort. It was just to another tent, one not too far from Loko’s. There was no question, however, that we were going to be prisoners. Mita posted enough guards around the tent to guard an army. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a huge square, and within that square another, these, backs to the others, and also shoulder to shoulder.

  This tent didn’t have the accommodations Loko’s had. It was not to be expected. But there were several cushions. Luria and her personal guard took those. I hid a smile. Here were a couple of dames who were doing their best to act like men yet used a woman’s perrogative immediately the chance presented itself. Hank and I found the ground hard but not too much so.

  Very soon after we made ourselves comfortable the feeling for sleep manifested itself. It was a strange thing, this feeling for sleep. There was no night or day on Pola since the sun shone all the time. And the business of sleep was as regulated an affair as though there had been passed a law about it. One’s eyes became heavy, one’s every muscle felt an odd relaxing and very soon afterward one simply relaxed somewhere and went to sleep.

  The strangest part of it all was that sleep was instantaneous all over Pola. It was not up to the individual as to when he slept. When one slept, all slept.

  A WAKENING, too, took place simultaneously. I yawned once or twice, arose and stretched and looked at the others. The parrot blinked its eyes, cocked its head and said:

  “Well, bless our little . . . Say! how’s about putting on the feed bag, kids?” Luria and the other woman looked to me. And I suddenly became aware that I had been relegated to the parrot’s interpreter. Not that Hank couldn’t understand, but I had assumed the position in Loko’s headquarters. I wasn’t too happy about it. But I wasn’t in any position to do anything about it now.

  “He just wants to eat,” I said sourly. “Something wrong in that?” the bird asked. “Or am I supposed to live on air?”

  “Aah, don’t get so fussy,” I said. “How did you manage in that cave?”

  “It was like this, short, dark and ugly,” the bird said. “Believe it or not, I was in a trance.”

  “So put yourself back in a trance again, and forget about feeding that ugly face of yours,” I said.

  I ducked just in time. Before the last word had left my lips, Luria leaped for me. She swung a little late. Hank got there before she could swing again. She was white-faced in anger.

  “I listened to him berate the Holy Bird yesterday and could barely contain my anger. I did so because he is your friend. But I can no longer contain my anger.”

  “Daughter . . . Daughter . . .”

  We all looked to the parrot, who at Luria’s sudden move had hopped to the hassock for safety. He was using a new voice now. Low, deep, flexible, it was a caressing voice, yet not a weak one. It brought Luria up short. I heard her whisper, “Father.” Then the bird was talking again:

  “Have all my teachings been in vain? Is anger the only vessel of those which I had placed at your disposal, the one to be used? Anger blinds one’s senses, disturbs the delicate balance of reason, and as I once said, should only be used as a dart is used, for purposes of irritation.

  “Surely is your predicament great. Surely is the hand of the traitor, Loko, heavy on your shoulders. He seeks the enslavement of all Pola, yet in your womanly manner you seek quarrels. Bend all your energies to the frustration of his desires and ambitions. Use these two whom you have brought from another plane of time and space to your help. Waste not their uses in arguments. Once I taught you the eyes, ears, nostrils, and all other physical senses can be tamed and put to the purpose for which they were intended. How little understanding was given to my teachings . . .”

  “No, father!” Luria breathed sharply. “No . . .”

  “Perhaps. But had you been alert in all your being, surely you would have understood the badinage between this man and myself. Silence would have been my weapon had I been displeased. But I think altogether, that perhaps the true reason for your lack of understanding lies in your having forgotten something I once said in your hearing.

  “Daughter. Do you remember a day you walked into a council meeting? You sat at my feet and heard me tell them about the Holy Groana Bird. It was the first you heard of it. It was also the first they heard of it. I told them that in this bird was all the wisdom, past, present and future. Then, as you sat and watched I called for a slave to bring the bird forth. They marveled at the strange creature, for never had they seen one with such plumage. That very afternoon I spoke to you about transmigrations of bodies in space and time. You were old enough, wise enough and learned enough even then to add together the ingredients of the pot and come to the proper conclusion.

  “For why, you should have asked, has there never been another such bird found? And how is it possible that this bird alone, of all the feathered beings in the world, is possessed of so much wisdom? I thought you understood. I was wrong. However, that is in the past. The present is bleak indeed. Therefore let us speak of the future. Loko has naught but ill in his bosom for all of you. Death lies across the threshold. How shall we circumvent him?”

  LITTLE by little as the bird continued with his talk, we had drawn up close around him. We were
a very tight circle about the hassock on which he stood perched.

  “Daughter. Many years were spent in the teaching of the paavan I gave you. Mokar has the instincts of a wild animal. But he has been taught reason. Almost to the capacity of a human. He as well as the mounts of Loko’s minions, is in the stockade at the beginning of the encampment. Send a thought wave to him. Tell him to escape and bring the rescuers to us . . .”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Luria had her eyes closed. In a second she opened them and smiled. She shook her head as though she had followed her father’s instructions.

  “. . . Then let us wait as best we can the coming of Jimno and the others. For I think Loko has thought over the arguments of your friend and has decided it were best I were with him.”

  The bird must have been psychic. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the tent flaps were thrown back and Mita entered at the head of a squad of men. Without a word he marched up and swept his hand down and grabbed up the bird. The bird let out a frightened squawk but before he could utter another sound Mita drew a hood from his belt and threw it over the parrot’s head. In the meantime his squad stood guard with drawn swords over us. We had no chance to do anything about it.

  “Tell Loko,” Luria said as Mita was about to leave, “that it will do him no good. The Holy Bird has a will of its own . . .”

  Mita smiled craftily.

  “I do not doubt that,” he said softly. But it is only a bird. If none but Loko hears the pearls of wisdom from its lips who will deny them?”

  “I will,” Luria said stoutly.

  “A carcass has no voice or reason,” Mita said, grunted softly at the startled looks on our faces, and left.

  “Why, those dirty, dirty . . .” Hank snarled and became silent for fear that his words would offend their ears.

  But I was way ahead of them. So that was Loko’s game. I had to admire the old character’s shrewdness. All he had to do was slit the bird’s tongue. Then who was there to say that Loko hadn’t heard what he said he did? The bird wasn’t going to be able to talk for itself. And we wern’t going to be in any position, at least not until the dead can be resurrected, to be able to deny what Loko said.