The Brave Free Men (7 page)

At Pelmonte water of the river Fahalusra, diverted by flumes, provided power for six huge lumber mills. Logs floating down the Fahalusra from the forests were cleaned, trimmed, ripped into planks by saws of sintered ironweb. In seasoning yards the lumber dried in clamps-, underwent surfacing, impregnation with oils, stains, and special ointments, then was either loaded aboard barges or cut to patterns for distant assembly. Etzwane had visited Pelmonte twice before as a Pink-Black-Az
ure-Deep Greener; he well remembered the redolence of raw sap, resin, varnish, and smoke which permeated the air. The canton Superintendent gave Etzwane an earnest welcome.

The Roguskhoi were well known in North Whearn; for years the lumbermen had kept a watch along the Fahalusra, turning back dozens of minor incursions, using crossbows and pikes, which in the forests were weapons more advantageous than the thrown scimitar of the Roguskhoi.

Recently the Roguskhoi had been attacking by night and in larger bands; the Whears had been driven back beyond the Fahalusra, to their great disturbance. Nowhere in Shant had Etzwane found so much zeal. The women had been sent south; the militia drilled daily. "Take this message to the Anome!" declared the Superintendent. "Tell him to send weapons! Our pikes and crossbows are futile in the open country; we need energy darts, flashing lights, death-horns, and dire contrivances. If the Anome in his power and genius, will provide our weapons, we will, use them!"

Etzwane could find no words. The Anome, insofar as the office had meaning, was himself a man with neither power or genius. What to say to these brave people? They should not be deceived; they deserved the truth. He said: "There are no weapons. At Garwiy the best technists of Shant are hard at work. They must be designed, tested, produced. The Anome can only do all he can."

The Superintendent, a tall harsh-faced man, cried out: "Why so rude? He has known of the
Roguskhoi for many years; why is he not ready with the means to protect us?"

"For years the Anome hoped for peace," said Etzwane. "He negotiated, he thought to contain. The Roguskhoi of course have no ears for persuasion."

"This again is no subtle or refined deduction; anyone could have seen it from the first. Now we must fight and we have none of the tools; The Anome, whatever his reasons—softness, indecisiveness, fear—has betrayed us. I say this; you may report my words; the Anome can take my head, nevertheless it is the simple wicked truth."

Etzwane gave a curt nod. "Your candor does you credit. I will tell you a secret. The Anome who so diligently hoped for peace is Anome no longer. Another man has assumed the burden and now must do everything at once. Your remarks are precisely to the point."

"I am overjoyed to hear this!" declared the Superintendent. "But in the meantime what shall we do? We have men and skill and the energy of outrage. We cannot throw ourselves away; we want to give our best; what shall we do?"

"If your crossbows kill Roguskhoi, build bigger crossbows, with greater range," said Etzwane. He remembered the Roguskhoi encampment high in the Hwan. "Build gliders: one-, two-, and six-man carriers; train flyers. Send to Haghead and Azume; demand their best gliders. Take these apart and use the pieces for patterns. For fabric and film send to Hinthe, Marestiy, Purple Stone; require their

best in the name of the Anome. For cordage obtain the finest from Cathriy and Frill. In Ferriy the iron workers must set out new tanks; even though they lose their secrets, they must train new men. . . . Call on the resources of all Shant in the name of Anome."

From Pelmonte the
Iridixn
floated at speed to Luthe; from Luthe into Bleke a passenger barge towed the
Iridixn
down the Alfeis River against the sea wind. From Bleke back into Luthe the
Iridixn
drove ahead of a long-keeled coracle, which followed the river Alfeis as a dolly followed the slot. From Luthe to Eye of the East in Esterland, whence Etzwane took sailing packet to Morning-shore and Ilwiy, this last canton actually in the territory assigned to Aun Sharah. Etzwane, however, thought to inspect conditions so that he might have a gauge by which to check Aun Sharah's care and accuracy.

From Ilwiy Etzwane returned to Eye of the East, again by ship. The gap in the balloon-way between Ilwiy and Eye of the East was one of several which must be closed as soon as possible! Likewise the long-planned link between Brassei in Elphine and Maschein in Maseach. The distance in each case was not great—perhaps two hundred miles—yet the balloon-way route between, in each case, extended more than sixteen hundred miles. Another loop might well be extended from Brassei west to Pagane, then through Irreale to Ferghaz at the far north of Gitanesq, then southeast through Fenesq
to Garwiy. The isolated cantons Haviosq, Fordume, and Parthe had small need for balloon-way service now, true, but what of the future?

From Eye of the East the
Iridixn
drove back to Pelmonte, then swung out along the Great Southern Line, through those wild cantons fronting on the Salt Bog. In each canton Etzwane found a different situation, a different point of view. In Dithibel the women, who owned and managed all shops, refused to leave the mountain areas, out of the certain knowledge that the men would loot their stocks. At the town Houvannah Etzwane, hoarse with rage, cried: "Do you then encourage rape? Have you no sense of perspective?"

"A rape is soon; a loss of goods is long," stated the Matriarch. "Never fear, we have pungent remedies against either nuisance." But she craftily refused to spell out the remedies, merely hinting that "bad ones will rue the day. The thieves, for instance, will find themselves without fingers!"

In Burazhesq Etzwane encountered a pacifist sect, the Aglustids, whose members wore only garments fashioned from their own hair, which they argued to be natural, organic, and deleterious to no other living organism. The Aglustids celebrated vitality in its every aspect and would eat no animal flesh, no vegetable seed or kernel, no nut, and fruit only when the seed might be planted and afforded a chance to exist. The Aglustids argued that the Roguskhoi, more fecund than man, produced more life and were hence to be preferred. They called for passive resistance to "the Anome's war." "If the

Anome wants war, let the Anome fight," was their slogan, and wearing their garments of matted hair they paraded through the streets of Manfred, chanting and wailing.

Etzwane was at a loss as to how to deal with them. To temporize went against the grain of his temperament. Still, in what direction should he act? To take the heads of so many tattered wretches was an intolerable idea; on the other hand, why should they be allowed to indulge themselves in recalcitrance while better men suffered for the common good?

In the end Etzwane threw up his hands in disgust and went his way into Shker, where he encountered a condition once more new and distinct, though with haunting echoes of the situation in Burazhesq. The Shker were diabolists, worshiping a pantheon of demons known as
golse.
They espoused an intricate and saturnine cosmology, whose precepts were based on a syllogism, thus:

Wickedness prevails throughout Durdane. The
golse
are evidently more powerful than

their beneficent adversaries. Therefore it becomes the part of simple

logic to appease and glorify the
golse.

The Roguskhoi were held to be avatars of the
golse
and creatures to be revered. Arriving at the town Banily Etzwane learned that none of the Anome's orders had been heeded, much less acted upon. The Vay of Shker said with doleful fatalism: "The Anome may well take our heads; still we cannot range ourselves against creatures so sublime in their evil. Our women go willingly to them; we offer food and wine to their appetites; we make no resistance to their magnificent horror."

"This must stop," declared Etzwane.

"Never! It is the law of our lives! Must we jeopardize our future simply for your irrational whims?"

Once more Etzwane shook his head in bafflement and went on into Canton Glaiy; a region somewhat primitive, inhabited by a backward folk. They offered him no problems; the regions near the Hwan were uninhabited save for a few feudal clans, who knew nothing of the Anome's instructions. Their relationship with the Roguskhoi was not unequal; whenever possible they waylaid and killed single Roguskhoi, in order to obtain the precious metal in bludgeon and scimitar.

At the principal town, Orgala, Etzwane taxed the three High Judges with their failure to commission a militia; the Judges merely laughed. "Any time you wish a band of able men for your purposes, give us two hour's notice. Until you can provide weapons and definite orders, why should we inconvenience ourselves? The emergency may pass."

Etzwane could not dispute the logic of the remarks. "Very well," he said. "See that when the time comes you are able to perform as promised. . . . Whereas Camp Three, the balloon-way's work agency?"

The Judges looked at him curiously. "What will you do at Camp Three?"

"I have certain orders from the Anome."

The Judges looked at each other and shrugged. "Camp Three is twenty-five miles south, along the Salt Bog Road. You plan to use your fine balloon?"

"Naturally; why should I walk?"

"No reason, but you must hire a tow of pacers; there is no slot."

An hour later Etzwane and Casallo in the
Iridixn
set forth to the south. The balloon guys were attached to the ends of a long pole, which counteracted the buoyancy of the balloon. One end of the pole was attached to the backs of two pacers; the other end was supported by a pair of light wheels, with a seat on which the driver rode. The pacers set off down the road at a fast trot, with Casallo adjusting the aspect of the balloon to produce as little strain as possible. The ride was noticeably different from the movement of a balloon on the wind, a rhythmic impulse being communicated up the guys to the balloon.

The motion and a growing tension—or perhaps he felt guilt? By dint of no great effort he might have come sooner to Camp Three—put Etzwane into a dour, dyspeptic mood. The airy Casallo, with no concerns other than the abatement of boredom, brought forth his khitan; assured of his own musicianship and Etzwane's envious admiration, he attempted a mazurka of the classical repertory which Etzwane knew in a dozen variations. Casallo played the tune woodenly and almost accurately, but on one of the modulations he consistently used an incorrect chord, which presently exasperated Etzwane to a state where he cried out in protest: "No, no, no! If you must pound that instrument, at least use the correct chords I"

Casallo raised his eyebrows in easy amusement. "My friend, you are hearing the Sunflower Blaze; it is traditionally rendered thus and so; I fear you have no ear for music."

"In rough outline, the tune is recognizable, though many times I have heard it played correctly."

Casallo languidly extended the khitan. "Be so good as to instruct me, to my vast gratitude."

Etzwane snatched the instrument, tuned the thumb-string,
^[7]
which was a pinprick sharp, played the passage correctly, with perhaps unnecessary brilliance. Then, working through a second modulation, he played an inversion of the melody in a new mode; then modulating again, he performed an excited staccato improvisation upon the original strain, more or less in accordance with his mood. He struck a double-handed coda with offbeats on the scratch-box and handed the khitan back to the crestfallen Casallo. "So goes the tune, with an embellishment or two."

Casallo looked from Etzwane to the khitan, which he now somberly hung on a peg, and set about oiling his winches. Etzwane went to stand by the observation window.

The countryside had become wild, almost hostile: patches of white and black rainforest stood like islands on a sea of saw grass. As they traveled south the jungles grew darker and denser, the saw grass showed patches of rot, and presently gave way to banks of blue-white fleshmolt. Ahead gleamed the Brunai River; the road swung somewhat away and to the west, up and across a volcanic flow of rotten gray rocks, then detoured a vast field of overgrown ruins: the city Matrice, besieged and destroyed by the Palasedrans two thousand years before, now inhabited by the huge, blue-black ahulphs of South Glaiy, who conducted their lives in a half-comic, half-horrifying travesty of human urbanity. The ruins of Matrice overlooked a peneplain of a thousand ponds and marshes; here grew the tallest osiers of Shant, in clumps thirty and forty feet tall. The workers of Camp Three cut, peeled, cured, and bundled the withe, barged it down the Brunai to Port Palas, whence coastal schooners conveyed it to the balloon factories of Purple Fan.

Far ahead appeared a dark blot, which through the binoculars became Camp Three. Within a twenty-foot high stockade Etzwane discerned a central compound, a line of work sheds, a long two-story dormitory. To the left stood a complex of small cottages and administration offices.