Gods of Green Mountain (26 page)

Dray-Gon appeared thoroughly shocked. "Has that been threatened?"

"I have heard rumors that the outlaws on the wildlands have talked of doing this. It seems, living out there, those men have gone as savage as any animal, and I would not like to see my daughter in their hands."

"Nor would I!" Dray-Gon stated with grim vehemence. But he could see, as he followed the king, that the princess was very well protected, not only with triple numbers of the guards that protected the king, but with secret doors and panels that would open only when the king inserted his crested royal ring into a small opening. And though he tried to remember the way, it was so twisting and complicated, he became confused and displaced.

At length they came to the high pinnacle of her terraced apartment, to find Sharita feeding the small birds she kept in golden cages, while other small pets followed her about playfully pawing at the flowing fabric of her gown.

She spun about, startled to have her father come so quietly into her apartment...and with Dray-Gon in tow! "Father," she scolded, "when you bring a visitor, you should have yourself announced! Look at me, I am not dressed appropriately to receive guests!"

"You look beautiful, as always," said the king lightly, watching Dray-Gon as his eyes scanned over the princess's brief attire. She was wearing a very short brief gown underneath a long flowing robe of some thin transparent material, and her remarkable shimmering hair was loose and cascading down her back, and her feet were bare. "Dray-Gon wished to talk to you in private, and you are much less formidable in your private rooms, without those pompous clothes on, and that crown upon your head. As for myself, I have always found a barefooted girl very appealing." In fact, she was dressed exactly as he had hoped.

Immediately, Sharita found slippers and put them upon her feet, and looked up to say stiffly, "Good light to you, Dray-Gon, son of Ron Ka."

"I am flattered that you still remember my name, princess."

"You needn't be. My recall is of that strange type that cannot help itself, it remembers everything, trivial or not."

"You are honest, princess, if not very tactful...and I expected better of you."

"And you, Dray-Gon, have certainly grown more proficient with replies--are the delights of our city making you a bit more sophisticated?"

The king interrupted the two, who seemed to have forgotten his presence: "It seems I am not needed here. I concede the battle to you, Dray-Gon. When you are ready to leave, I will inform one of the guards on the outside to lead you back to your suite." Ras-Far turned about and left the room, a smile playing on his face for the first time in many days.

"Whatever does he mean," Sharita asked when her father was out of hearing, "that he concedes the battle to you?"

"Why, that is how we converse, isn't it, princess? We don't talk, we wage war! The last time we met, you almost broke my arm. Who taught you to do that?"

She made a gesture toward a delicate white-and-gold chair, and curled up on another across from him. "Lately we have not run into each other in the corridors--have you found more entertaining ways to keep yourself busy than searching for my rooms?"

"So, you have missed me," he said mockingly, and pleased.

"I have been informed that you are seeing a servant girl very often. Not that I care, but this palace abounds with gossip. Nothing goes unobserved or speculated upon. And no, I have not missed you, why should I?"

"No reason at all why you should miss me, or why I should miss you. I am seeing a servant girl. She is exceptionally beautiful, almost as pretty as you are, and much friendlier."

"Aren't you embarrassed to be seen with a person below your station?"

"No. She is so lovely, and so warm, I don't care what she is. I grow tired of stiff, cold women who hold you off at arm's length. With her I can relax and put down my guard."

Sharita frowned and pulled the folds of her robe together to conceal her long, beautifully shaped legs. "I suppose you are falling in love with her."

"I haven't come here to discuss with you my romantic life," said Dray-Gon impatiently. He turned his head, discerningly looking over her rooms, one joining the other. Exquisitely beautiful rooms, with every lavish comfort and convenience. "You are going to miss all of this, Sharita, when you set forth on a journey from which you may not return."

She flung her hands wide, lightly dismissing her style of living. "I won't miss this at all! I have lived here for eight plus ten years, and I have looked every day to the Green Mountain. Now I have my opportunity at last to see it up close, and to learn for a certainty what it means...and losing a few comforts is not going to prevent me from going!"

He looked at her pityingly...with some wistfulness. "Sharita, don't you know we will never reach there? I have talked to the other men going with me and we have all agreed our chances are very, very slim. Nevertheless we will all make a sincere effort. No one has ever survived but a few days on Bay Sol."

"Far-Awn did!" she threw back quickly.

"Yes, he had the luck of the Gods with him, and the puhlets to guide him to the star-flowers--and even so, he was there but two days. It will take us two hundred days, or maybe more, to reach that mountain!" Dray-Gon leaned forward, intently pleading with his eyes. "Don't go, Sharita. Let someone else take your place. You will be nothing but a burden to us. There are outlaws hiding in the wildlands. If they know you are with our caravan, they could well raid our party, and try to steal you away. With you in their hands, they could force your father to concede to any demand!"

She laughed at him, getting up and dancing out onto a terrace, where she kicked off her blue slippers and twirled about before she threw herself down on a long blue couch. Dray-Gon followed and stood beside the couch, staring down at her, wishing he could shake some sense into her beautiful head. She surprised him by reaching out to catch his hand, drawing him down to the couch. "Ah, Dray-Gon," she began softly, in a way in which she had never spoken to him before, "you have no faith, while I do. My father and Es-Trall say it is possible to reach the Mountain, and I believe them. The outlaws may attack, but I have twenty of our strongest and bravest young men to defend me, and our weapons are much superior to their contrived bows and arrows. We will reach that mountain, and we will talk to the Gods! I know we will, and what's more, we'll live to reach home again."

Oh, but she was one stubborn, hardheaded, beguiling woman. He could almost believe her, she seemed so certain. "Sharita, how can you speak so positively? How can you possibly be so certain? When I think about it, I see nothing ahead but impossible obstacles to overcome, and I don't want you to die in the attempt."

Sharita looked at him strangely, her violet, almost blue eyes shadowing. "I don't know why I believe, yet I do." She rose from the sofa and strolled to the farthest end of the long terrace, where she could see best the mountain that was pale blue-green in the distance. Rounded at the top, behind the jagged peaks of the Scarlet Mountains, it seemed from her vantage point perhaps a million miles away...as distant almost as a star. She felt Dray-Gon's presence as he came to stand at her side, placing his hand on her balustrade next to hers. "We may never stand here together, like this again," he said in a wistful voice, wishing they had a different kind of future ahead.

Her eyes met his. "Would it matter? You have your servant girl, who is warm, where I am cold. She will probably yield to all your persuasions, and you will have no need of me."

He glared at her, anger darkening his eyes. Then he seized her in his arms and brutally kissed her. "There," he said, throwing her down on the blue couch, "it seems you don't want tenderness. You want to fight, and be taken ruthlessly. Maybe when the outlaws attack, we'll just throw you to them, and say good riddance while we ride off on our way without the nuisance of some damned silly princess who has always gotten her own way in everything! Good-bye, Sharita, I'm off to see my servant girl! She is a thousand times sweeter than you are!"

The triple moons, rotating about each other as they encircled the planet, had made the journey one hundred plus two and twenty days, before the caravan of twenty plus one was ready for the long trip across the dry plains of Bay Sol. During that time, every person, young or old, of both Dorraines had helped to plan and prepare for that long and dangerous quest into the unknown.

There were no differences now between the two halves of the whole. United in cause, they stood behind the unprecedented journey. In unison they shared the concern for the safety of the twenty sons of the Upper and Lower bakarets and for the princess. Though never, really, did they quite believe that elusive, remote, and beautiful princess, accustomed to all the luxuries the crystal palace provided, would actually follow through and keep her promise. She would turn coward at the end, and cling to the safety of her high tower, protected by guards. She wouldn't have the nerve to face the wilderness and all the discomforts, and even the pain it might provide. Nor did they for one minute think the king would not find a way to free the princess of her obligation, and keep her safe at his side. They knew what she was to him--his single remaining link to the future, and to eternity, for the laws forbade that even a king could reproduce himself more than three times, so crowded were the domed cities already.

Nor could they, in some ways, condemn the king for wanting to keep his only child safe. They would do the same. At the last moment the princess would be sick, unable to travel, or she would stumble and break a leg, some grand excuse, something sure to eliminate her. Some met in the wine taverns and placed wagers: the odds were one hundred to one.

The last evening before that fateful departure to conquer the impossible, and to face the Gods with a question, Dray-Gon met in secret with the lovely servant girl Ray-Mon. Through the darkness she came running to him in one of the isolated, most private of the palace gardens, where they embraced and kissed, and she clung to him with tears in her eyes.

"Please let no harm come to you, Dray-Gon," she whispered, tattooing kisses all over his face. "But even if you survive, and I pray you do, you will come back to me a different man."

"No, I will be the same," he said gently, stroking her silky red hair. But Ray-Mon shook her head, denying this. "No, you are bound to change. You will ride off with the princess, the kind of woman meant for a man of your station, and you will forget me."

"Don't say that. I will never forget you, Ray-Mon!" Dray-Gon vowed. "You are all the soft and sweet feminine things that the princess doesn't know the least thing about. I fear she is just meant for taking, not for giving." His eyes grew bitter as he thought of the princess. "Besides, I have nineteen others who are competing for her favors. She cares nothing at all for me."

"Then she is a fool!" declared Ray-Mon, and flung her arms around his neck, pressing on his lips a long, passionate kiss. When the kiss was over, they both stood looking at each other, in a kind of double shock. She was the first to recover, and slipped on the smallest finger of his left hand a silver ring with a small blue stone. "This is for good luck," she whispered, her purple eyes swimming with tears. "Wear it until we meet again."

It was then that Dray-Gon draped over Ray-Mon's head a silver chain with a large heart-shaped pendant, centered with a very valuable blue diamond. "This is for
your
good luck," he said before he kissed her again. "Wear it forever, so that it will always remind you of me, and the sweet times we have enjoyed together."

The morning came too soon. The gaily decorated horshets were mounted, and the puhlet flock was herded, and the twenty young men and the single girl rode out through the shimmering gates of Far-Awndra. Cheering behind them were the voices of thousands upon thousands of people. The princess had not retreated! She was actually going!

The twenty young men were all dressed in smoke blue, with trimmings of the purple plum of night, and edgings of gold for the day. The Princess Sharita wore a uniform too, like those of the twenty young men, with a few alterations to fit her more abundant curves. Only her uniform was pure white, with blue piping and gold buttons, and a cap to match. Her magnificent hair flowed down her back in rippling waves. She turned and waved back to the cheering crowd, smiling at them with more gracious and genuine warmth than any had suspected she had. Now they were sorry to have misjudged her, and sorry she was riding away into the wildlands, into Bay Sol, risking her life, so that they might never see her again, or have the chance to know and love her. Many in the crowd began to cry, for her, for every one of those brave young men.