The Door in Crow Wood

by Rob Summers

Chapter 38 And the People of the East Shall Be Saved

  “I can’t go home now,” Clay said to his sister. “I’m in the middle of a terrific mess, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “So tell me about it,” she said peacefully. “We’ll solve it; then we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Excuse me,” Prince Michael said, “but Clay, we don’t understand the language you and the lady are using. I gather this is your sister the Princess?”

  Clay changed to Kreenspam. “Yes, Michael.”

  Michael bowed. “My lady.”

  Jatto and Nashpa also bowed, though the Mangar was somewhat slow. Simone reached out and stroked one of his whiskery jowls.

  “Whats’a matter, feline face? Disappointed I’m the real thing?”

  At this moment, Zeeba thundered from a distance, “Come now, Your Feebleness! I summon you!”

  Clay looked around at the others. “Uh-oh, here we go.”

  He started to move to the door, but Simone put her hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Going out to talk with Zeeba again.”

  Simone laughed. “Why?”

  “Because she called. You heard.”

  “So what? Make her wait.”

  “Simone, this girl’s about two hundred feet tall.”

  “That’s why you’ve got to make her wait,” Simone said firmly. “Now sit down.”

  His friends watched baffled as Simone led him to a chair.

  “She wants permission to waste Solomon’s army, Simone. All I want to do is get out of this crazy world and back to the land of high tech. I want to go to college. But—”

  “Shh, I know, I get the picture. We’ll handle it, but I need some royal clothes.” She looked to Michael. “Do you have anything in a ladies’ line?”

  He smiled. “I’m sorry, Princess.”

  “Well, outfit me as a soldier, then. I’m used to that. And you, feline face, hustle out to the waiting room and call in my two Vult friends. They’ve been working on a plan to handle the Dragons.”

  Zeeba had called, but the mouse of an Emperor had not answered. She pretended to be enjoying a casual stretch and avoided the eyes of the other Dragons. This was tricky. She could not call again, could not make herself look ridiculous. On the other hand, if she carried out her threat to eat the human dead, she would earn the undying hatred of the Broken Realmers and gain a gruesome reputation among Sarrs as well.

  She could not believe that this downy faced boy had the fortitude to call her bluff. Had he perhaps collapsed from fright? Such reactions to her presence were not uncommon. Or did it perhaps have something to do with the rather astonishing arrival of an army of Vults? Zeeba was old enough to remember the days before the Vultlag when the Vults had proved both clever and unpredictable.

  Being naturally cautious, she decided to wait. Soon some human messenger would tell her that the Emperor was ill. Yes. Then she would again demand his blessing on her new, northern campaign against Solomon, but would add that Clay’s concurrence must be in writing. With such a scroll in her claw, the elder Dragons of the Pons could not arraign her for what happened afterward. The East would be hers.

  But what was taking him so long?

  At last the messenger came in the form of a Vult. Zeeba watched the nasty, little thing sail in and almost land near her feet. What he actually did was drop a rolled parchment on the snow, give his wings a lazy flap, and scud back to the army camp.

  Zeeba was enraged. She flicked the scroll across the snow to the smallest of her servants. “Do they think I’ll be treated so? You take their insult, Gonebbil. Burn it or read it, as you wish. I’m very close to destroying their little tent town!”

  She rolled on her side and dug idly in the earth with a claw, while Gonebbil opened the parchment and held it before one of his eyes. The other Dragons watched him closely, knowing as Zeeba did that he was unable to read silently; and though he kept his voice low, they were able to hear most of the following:

  To Zeeba, Daughter of Nero, Chief of the Dragons of Dragonland

  From Princess Simone Quintus Pausanius, Lady of Lucilla, Sister and High Counselor to the Emperor

  In light of the repeated insults which you have inflicted on the person of your Emperor, you are hereby and until further notice denied the Royal Presence. However, because of the great love with which the Emperor mercifully showers the Dragons of the Fold; and because certain urgent matters require consultation; he allows us, his royal sister, to meet with you so as to instruct you concerning his wishes. We await you at our pavilion on the southern edge of the Emperor’s camp.

  Sealed this day, third of December, 4295 N.R., the year of the Emperor’s Return.

  Zeeba sneaked a look at the camp and saw a newly erected pavilion standing out far to the south of the other tents.

  “Remain here,” she said to the others. “I believe I’ll investigate the humans’ camp.”

  She took twenty steps and paused to consider. The tale of anything she did or said here would be carried quickly throughout the Fold by Lusettas and Vults. She had no means to stop them. So she had better be careful. Also, Zeeba had already received reports of this Simone who had once styled herself Empress. The Princess was said to be fearless and bad tempered. Be that as it may, she was certainly beloved by every Sarr and most humans. Now she appeared to have stiffened her brother’s backbone.

  Still, Zeeba was not much disheartened. A little belated obsequy, if strictly necessary, would soon erase the memory of her insulting behavior of the early morning. As for her war plans, well, what could this Princess do to stop her? This army must have the Dragons’ help or swiftly be crushed by Solomon. And if the Dragons received Clay’s permission to fight Solomon at all here in the north, then they would fight the Easterners to extermination. Her elders had forbidden her these lands. But now she had come, had demonstrated her power on little Igthuz, and had virtually received the Lila-me’s overriding license to open the new front. Soon Solomon’s defenses would be stretched to the breaking point.

  The decisive point was that Clay must make alliance with her or lose everything. With this thought, she strode forward confidently.

  She came to the pavilion, and found before it a very warlike Princess indeed. Tall for a human female, this Simone was outfitted like a general, sword and all, and the crest of her helmet all of purple feathers. Around her stood a retinue of Vults, Silbs, Mangars, Lusettas, and humans.

  “What do you want?” Zeeba said, looking contemptuously downward.

  A Vult called out, “The Princess is not addressed unceremoniously. Mind your manners in the royal presence and perform the prescribed obeisance”

  Zeeba had no idea what this signified, but did not intend to lower herself to ask.

  “He means you should bow,” explained another Vult.

  Zeeba did not twitch an eyelid. “I shall not,” she replied. “This army’s feeble challenge to the Anatolians will soon be over; that is, unless you have my help. Why should I bow before a Princess who will so soon be forgotten? I can wait, Simone, till you are more desperate and less stiff. Solomon is coming.”

  The Princess spoke to her retainers without looking at Zeeba. “Apparently, the Dragon wishes for even more of her insulting behavior to be recorded by our historians, but I won’t oblige her with further opportunity. I can’t dismiss her, since until she bows she can’t be considered as being in my presence. But I can ignore her. Captain Bremset, please inform the Dragon that, if I decide to give her another chance to speak with me, it will be her only chance before the Emperor and I depart for the Old World.”

  Simone moved toward the tent door while Bremset began to explain to Zeeba what she had plainly heard.

  Zeeba was alarmed. “Princess! I bow to you.”

  She did so, and those below—except for Simone—all cringed as if a building had nearly fallen on them and then mi
raculously righted itself.

  “Very good,” said Simone. “Now what are you doing here, Zeeba? You know perfectly well that, by the ancient ruling of a Great Council of the Narvans, you Dragons are never to return to the continent. Furthermore, you’ve burned a human village, taking lives. What’s your answer?”

  “Your grave necessity is my justification—if I needed any,” said Zeeba. “When Solomon comes—”

  At some slight signal from the Princess, several trumpeters sounded their instruments. Zeeba paused annoyed.

  “When Solomon comes, my brother and I won’t be here,” Simone said. “And let our reason be recorded. For four months we’ve tested the Fold, and we’ve found it lacking. In our own world, in the realm called Indiana, we found more honor, more repose, and—especially as regards Dragons—more respect.”

  Zeeba noted that several in Simone’s retinue were taking down her words.

  “For this reason alone,” Simone went on, “because we find our subjects here to be low and ungrateful, we are returning to Indiana. And though you don’t deserve it, at least one of us may someday return to give you all a second chance.”

  She waited while the quill pens scratched down her words. “But as for you, Zeeba pin Nero, you have a lot to make up for. You might begin a long road of return to our favor by patrolling this coast and preventing any reprisals by Solomon against the Broken Realm. For that purpose and that purpose only, you may set foot on land and only on the soil of the Realm, not Anatolia. This is the Emperor’s wish. Do you accept this service?”

  Zeeba felt checkmated. The threat to the Realm was the very thing that had seemed to guarantee her plans’ fruition. A promise to protect the place, while not touching Anatolia, was simply defeat. On the other hand, her reputation was on the verge of ruin. When her elders learned that her actions had had a great part in driving the Lila-mes from the Fold, they would—what would they do? A sentence of death was not impossible; perpetual banishment beyond the Lonely Strait likely. But a quick agreement with the Emperor’s demands might lessen her elders’ wrath.

  Smoke suddenly exhaled in two clouds from Zeeba’s nostrils. “I accept this service,” she said to Simone, “believing it will make full atonement.”

  “It won’t,” Simone said. “It’s a beginning.”

  Zeeba choked down the insult. “Since that’s agreed,” she said, “let’s now discuss your course, Princess. You and the Emperor will not return at once to the Old World when you consider—the wealth and—the—”

  Simone had turned her back on the Dragon and walked back into her tent.

  “You are dismissed,” said one of the Vults.

  “But I have counsel for the Princess!”

  “You are not one of her counselors. You are in disfavor. You are dismissed.”

  The trumpets blared again, and the Vult too disappeared into the pavilion, followed by all the others. With her great tail lashing back and forth, Zeeba considered how easy it would be to tear the roof from the tent, how easy it would be to burn it.... But at last she went back to her servants.

  Clay had been listening and watching from just inside the pavilion. “Simone, that was great! You really cleaned her clock; you Simonized her.”

  Simone removed her gilded helmet with its high crest. “This thing pinches the side of my head. Any reason why we can’t go now, brother? My Vults are getting cold.”

  “Well, you’re not forgetting about Tsawb?” Clay said.

  At this moment the old Silb Sipnur arrived at last, pacing into the pavilion with his traveling cloak still stained with sea salt.

  Bowing hastily to the Emperor and Princess, he said, “Tsawb, Your Eminence? I know that name. What of him?”

  “The Lusettas say he’s on his way here and burning mad. He’s never gotten over Simone and me passing through his Door.”

  “But since we’re going home, that should be no problem,” Simone said. “We can have the Vults drop us off to speak to Tsawb on the way.”

  “Are you crazy?” Clay said. “Go to meet him?”

  “Sure. Look, I’ve been able to deal with him since we last saw each other—well, part of the time. Besides, if we don’t settle matters with him, he’s liable to tear into some innocent bystanders.”

  “Yes,” said Sipnur, “I agree. You should see him, for not to do so would be disrespectful. He’s unfathomably ancient, so they say—a Doorkeeper before even the Sarrs came to the Fold. I think a certain obeisance—”

  “Now that’s just the kind of attitude I won’t put up with,” said Simone, stepping in front of Sipnur. “Since when do Lila-mes toady up to a doorkeeper? The way I figure it, he was put where he is in order to usher us”—she nodded to Clay—”in and out of the Fold; and unfortunately, it’s gone to his head.”

  Sipnur sputtered and his tongue flickered in and out. “My dear Princess, you speak of mysteries beyond your comprehension.”

  “Really? You know about these things? Well, tell me about someone called a Guardian. Tsawb told me that he used to be answerable to this Guardian.”

  “Merely an ancient name,” Sipnur muttered. “Some say he was seen in the Fold in Lila’s day.”

  “Well, get in touch with him, we need him. No, seriously, the way Tsawb talked, this Guardian guy is still around somewhere.”

  “There’s nothing I can do, Princess. Perhaps if you ask Tsawb himself....”

  “I already tried.” She turned away. “Bremset, Vuzbal! Can we get another fishing net for Clay?”

  Bremset hobbled forward, his tiny eyes blinking. “Yes, Simone, we found one spread on the rocks not far from the burned village. But Princess, Vuzbal and I request a word with you and the Emperor. Privately, please.”

  As the four met in an inner room of the pavilion, Clay was miserably aware that he had not slept the night before. Yesterday, it had been first the battle, then the situating of the prisoners and casualties, his escape from the burning village, and the long hours of watching it burn. This morning, Vults, and Dragons, and the threat of Tsawb. Now he was listening to a creature from his dearest nightmare explain to him why he should not go home. Oh, right.

  “When the Princess asked us to find a way to control the Dragons,” Vuzbal said, “we invented the stratagem of claiming you to be so offended that you’d leave the Fold and go back to the Old World. But Your Eminence—Princess—” he waved a long, hideous claw, “—kee! We didn’t mean for you to actually do it. Let the Dragons think so, by all means, but we Vults will carry you to our secret caves in the mountains.”

  “Yes,” added Bremset, “you’ll be perfectly safe; and from there, Emperor, you can plan your campaign to unseat Solomon. With many thousands of us Vults at your command, that shouldn’t be difficult. We can descend on Colonia from the air, by night, and at a time when Solomon’s armies are away defending his borders.”

  Clay could appreciate this. Yes, it would be easy, better than having an army of paratroopers. Then, with the Lila-me on the throne, Zeeba would never again dare to threaten the East. Even the southern war would have to come to an end. In death, Raspberry would have achieved what she wanted.

  “No way,” Simone said firmly. “Clay, I told Zeeba we’re going home, and so we will.”

  “Sure,” Clay said, “but Zeeba’s not worth—”

  “I don’t want to lie to anyone! I don’t care if she is a nasty, moldy old reptile. I don’t even care if she never finds out about the lie.”

  “We aren’t counseling you to deceive her,” said Bremset. “This is just a change of policy on your part, due to a miscommunication with some of your counselors. Let it be blamed on me, since I didn’t make it clear to you that I meant it as a subterfuge only. You spoke the truth, not knowing that my full counsel was for you to remain in the Fold.”

  “But I did know,” said Simone. She turned to Clay. “What’s he saying?”

  Cl
ay had followed this. “That if we don’t go home, you haven’t lied because you were just confused.”

  “I am confused.” Simone’s cheeks flushed. “Anyway, Mom sent me to bring you back.”

  “But the Fold needs you,” said Vuzbal. He looked to Clay. “Your Eminence, it’s your decision. You shouldn’t allow what your sister said to bind you. Remain in the Fold, and within months you’ll reign in the East. Then if you wish to visit the Queen Mother, you can do so after the threat of war has been erased.”

  Clay looked at Simone. “Why don’t you say anything?”

  Simone looked at him oddly and seemed to back away a step. “Because...” She spread her hands dismissively. “Because you’re the Emperor, drat it. Anyway, you know how I feel. And I promised Mom. To be fair, I didn’t tell her how long I’d be in getting you back.”

  Clay became even more subdued than usual. Simone seemed to be saying two things at once: come home—but you are the Emperor. If even she was deferring to him, it made this wretched Emperorship too lonely.

  “I’ll decide in a minute,” he said. “I’m going for a walk by myself.”

  When he had left them, Vuzbal whispered to Bremset, “Yeep, Captain! What is it with these Old Worlders and their ‘go for a walk’? Are they unable to think standing still?”

  Clay went out under the morning sky, which had become partly blue, and walked away from the camp over the snow. When he had put himself a quarter mile to the south, he turned and looked back. The Vults were to his left, the camp before him, and a small refugee camp for the Igthuzians to his right. The Dragons had either departed or, more likely, withdrawn down to the village ruins and out of sight.

  Now he had a decision to make that would affect all of them and, in fact, the whole Fold. He remembered the words of the red haired man in the map room in Agnesia: ‘Don’t trust all counsel. Do what’s right down there in Meschor, regardless of what anyone advises you.’ That sounded good, but what was right? Save the Fold with a lie? Of course, the lie to Zeeba might never be discovered, and he himself had not spoken it. If he stayed, he might establish peace in weeks or months, and then return to Indiana with no need to ever return to the Fold. He would satisfy Raspberry’s ghost and lay her to rest. Nothing more to do.

  As he pondered, he observed signs in the camp that word of his imminent departure was spreading. The soldiers began to form a crowd on the side nearest him, watching him, but no one came any closer. Apparently, the order had been given to leave him alone.

  “Save the Fold, tell a lie. Tell a lie, save the Fold,” he muttered to himself. “What would Raspberry tell me to do? She was supposed to have been here with us, advising us. It’s amazing Simone and I have done as well as we have, considering how young and dumb we are. Anyway, I’m too sleepy for this. But just one more big decision, that’s all I have to make today.”

  A lone figure was approaching him over the snow. Old Sipnur drew near and bowed. “I’ve disobeyed orders, Your Eminence. May I have your pardon?”

  Clay said it was all right.

  “Thank you. Have you come to a decision? No? I believe I have wisdom for you. If you deceive Zeeba and it comes to be known, your reputation, which until now remains spotless, will be sadly harmed. This morning, every Sarr and half the humans in the Fold love your name. Tomorrow? If the lie becomes known—and how could it not?—then tomorrow their opinion will be divided. You are judged by a higher standard than are others.”

  Clay had been staring at the ground, but now he looked up suddenly and suspiciously. “Is that why Raspberry taught Simone and me to be so scrupulous in morals? Just because it’s practical, I mean? Because she knew we’d need it to carry off this Emperor thing?” He backed away from Sipnur. “Because if that’s what it was, then to Siskir with her! She just wanted us to play a part, to be what the people were expecting. Yeah, maybe it was no different from teaching us the languages—just down and dirty practical.”

  Sipnur waved an assenting foreclaw. “Yes, that would be it. Such standards, such as perfect truthfulness, are not those of the good soldier, the effective politician, or the diplomat. I’m old and full of wisdom, yet I lie judiciously when it’s good for my State and for the Fold. Razabera herself, I’m sure, could not pretend to hold to the rules she taught you. So my objection is not to diplomatic deception, which is merely part of the game, but to its being used so clumsily as to be obvious. Therefore, return to the Old World, Your Eminence, pausing only to treat with Tsawb.”

  Clay felt sick. Most of his memories of Raspberry were six years past, but he recalled no hint of such cynicism. Why, she had taught that a goal is only as pure as the means used to reach it! He could remember that now: the three of them in the cemetery, the Fijata perched on a headstone, teaching them.

  Clay had been making friends with a neighbor boy that summer, and the boy had suggested that the two of them make a raid on another neighbor’s garden. Money was always tight in the Gareth household, so Clay asked Raspberry if he should steal the produce and tell his mother it had been given to him. Susan Tanner needed all the help she could get.

  “Whatever your goal, children,” the Fijata said, “don’t let yourself achieve it along with the slightest cheating, or pretext, or lawlessness. Or if you do, do you think you’ll remain the same person? No, you’ll be a person you can’t respect. But to every pure goal Ulrumman has assigned means equally pure.”

  Simone had attacked this, trying to bully Raspberry into a corner, but the Fijata had stood firm.

  “If some great good seems to be lost forever because you don’t bend a bit in your morals, be sure it isn’t so. If I could save your New York City from a cataclysm by committing a small crime, I wouldn’t do it.”

  “But what would people say about you afterward?” Simone had asked.

  “Let them say what they please.”

  Clay looked up. “We can go back now, Sipnur.”

  “You’ve reached your decision?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what is it, Your Eminence?”

  “I’m going to do the right thing.”

  “And what is right?” Sipnur said apprehensively as he walked at Clay’s side.

  Clay looked at him and laughed. “You really don’t know, do you? But how could you know if, to you, deception is just another tool in your box?”

  The army of the Broken Realm took the news well, for they knew Clay’s departure would go a long way toward insuring their own safety, and their desire for war had greatly cooled in face of the reality of it. Clay instructed Michael to release the Anatolian prisoners unharmed, giving them back what was left of their food supplies. They would march south, the Broken Realmers north; and the Mangars would ride west. The Lusettas known as the Lighters would accompany Clay, Simone, and the Vults. As for his return to the Fold, Clay promised nothing. If he were very much needed, he felt he would have to return, but that was tomorrow’s worry.

  All their friends, Sarr and human, now presented them with gifts of jewelry and gold. Clay thanked everyone and with Simone walked out to where the Vults awaited them. She was again in her Indiana clothing and he in royal traveling garb. Two great fishing nets were spread on the snow, and in the center of each was a thick roll of blankets. Simone had already told him how this worked.

  “This outfit’s got no landing gear,” he observed to her.

  “Don’t worry, weasel. On the way here, they always set me down gently.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’ll be OK. Just so I can sleep, I don’t much care. Um. Here comes old Sipnur again. I wonder what it is this time.”

  Sipnur jogged out to them holding something brilliant in his claw—a golden statuette. “Your Eminence and Princess Simone, I—that is, do you still intend to see Tsawb?”

  Clay was not so sure, but Simone answered, “Yes, we do, sir. Why?”

  “Simply that it still seems best to me, also.
Before you go, I want to add to your other parting gifts something made by us Silbs with gold from our own mines. It’s an unworthy offering, but accept it out of your own graciousness.”

  Clay took the statuette. Tall and slender, it was a Lusetta with wings stretched up high. The eyes were dark jewels.

  “Thanks, it’s beautiful.”

  “Ulrumman speed you.” Sipnur bowed and retreated.

  Simone showed Clay how to wrap himself up securely and warmly, and then went to her own net and did the same. And though Clay tried to be excited, he found this part of his adventures to be somewhat tame compared to his many narrow escapes. After all, friends were carrying them, and Simone had gotten here safely by the same method. Shortly after he was lifted from the ground, he was dozing.

  In the days that followed, each time the Vults set them down, Simone and Clay entertained one another with their accounts of what had happened to them during their months of separation. More important than anything else was their discovery that each had become united to Ulrumman; Simone under the summer stars of the Ebrull Semu, and Clay under the autumn clouds of the northern plain.

  “Which makes us doubly brother and sister,” Simone said. She made a face. “I suppose it also means we’ll have to be nicer to each other.”