Gods of Green Mountain (25 page)

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 babies.

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.

Dray-Gon Beseeches

L
ater 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."

Ras-Far waved his hand, dismissing the two red-faced guards that came up behind Dray-Gon. "If it was that easy for you to get in, then I will take you up on your offer--except I suspect my guards held back out of respect for your father's office." The king put aside his official documents and gave Ron Ka's son his full attention, speaking with a hint of laughter in his eyes. "It has been reported to me that you ceaselessly prowl the palace halls, seeking to find the way to my daughter's apartment--and you have not succeeded in defeating her guards."

Dray-Gon's face flooded with embarrassed color before he spoke quickly. "That is why I am here. Your majesty, you cannot permit your daughter to travel with us to the Mountain! She is but a girl! She will never survive that trip, as delicate and frail as she is, and spoiled and pampered as well! Only the favors of the Gods will see any one of us through and back to Dorraine again!"

The king studied the agitated young man very observantly, seeing more than Dray-Gon knew. "I have said almost exactly the same words to her myself, and she refuses to listen. She is determined to go, and frail or not, she has the will of ten men like you or I."

"Then she is just being obstinate and stubborn! She can't go! Twenty young men with only one girl. Can you imagine all the trouble she will cause? Why every one of us will be fighting each other to win her favor!"

Ras-Far smiled. "I don't think fisticuffs will win Sharita's favor, and since you are so concerned about her safety, I could put you in charge of her defense."

"And what would those ten men from Upper El Dorriane think of having me, a Lower, named protector of their princess? I don't want her to go under any circumstances. Let me see her, sire, let me try to convince her to stay here and wait."

Why not? Ras-Far thought, narrowing his eyes and studying Dray-Gon thoughtfully. Getting to his feet, he gestured to Dray-Don to follow, and he led the way through the complicated maze of palace corridors that were planned to be a puzzle to anyone not familiar with the palace. "I am trusting you, Dray-Gon, not to reveal the route to my daughter's rooms to any of my enemies, as they would have her kidnapped, and so force me to yield to their demands."