The Light That Never Was (27 page)

“Franff!” Harnasharn exclaimed. “Is Franff here? I haven’t had an opportunity to see him since he returned to Donov. I’d be pleased and honored to be present. What does a mesz fest consist of?”

“A very polite, excessively formal, overwhelmingly elaborate dinner. I’ve been promised every possible variety of mesz food, and mesz food is delicious. Unfortunately all of it is liquefied, but if you find that tiresome the meszs always prepare special non-liquid dishes when guests are present. Shall we make it a rev? Splendid!”

At Jorno’s private pier they found a red-bearded artist named Arnen Brance waiting for them. Jorno had sent for him at the request of Franff and the meszs, and Eritha learned to her amazement that Brance had personally planned and managed Franff’s escape from Sornor, and also that he’d been one of the artists who instructed the meszs. His familiarity with Harnasharn amazed her more. She had never heard any artist, not even those of stature, call Harnasharn by his first name, but Brance did.

She managed a few words with him in the boat, and when she told him that Neal Wargen had been disturbed because he hadn’t reported, he said indignantly, “There was nothing to report.”

The mesz village was still unfinished, but its focal point, a vast community rotunda, had been completed. The hundreds of meszs attending the fest were already at their places when Jorno’s party was ceremoniously escorted down a ramp to the place of honor, a circular table at the center of the room.

Looking about her, Eritha saw tier upon rising tier of meszs seated at long, curving tables. She was seeing them in person for the first time, and when she recovered somewhat from the shock of their almost-human grotesqueness, she found herself wondering whether the twilight produced by the room’s oddly subdued, indirect lighting was a gracious gesture on their part to spare their human guests the stark reality of their appearance.

Huge ceramic tureens in vivid and glowing patterns stood in formation along the tables. In front of each diner was a wide, shallow bowl. In addition the guest table was provided with an array of goblets and platters of small cakes.

“Each tureen will have a different combination of liquefied vegetables,” Jorno explained. “Try as many as you like and have as much as you like. The cakes are the same kind of food, they deliquefy it and compress the residue.” He smiled at Franff. “Everything is vegetable. The meszs eat no meat.”

Anna ladled liquid from the nearest tureen into Franff’s bowl, and he cautiously dropped a long tongue into it. “My teeth aren’t that bad,” he whispered. “They didn’t have to chew it for me.” Anna slapped him playfully and fed him one of the cakes.

The others began to fill their goblets. Eritha, pausing before she drank, looked up at the meszs. They ladled liquid into their bowls, leaned over them, and with their strangely shaped mouths seemed to soundlessly inhale the contents. In the dim light and with the rims of the bowls partially concealing their faces, she could not discover how they did it. Obviously no napkins were necessary when one entertained meszs—none of them got so much as a drop of liquid on his face.

The countess and Lilya were having a delightful time. They sampled the meszs’ liquid concoctions with all of the deliberation of a professional adde taster, comparing impressions with Jorno and mildly arguing the virtues of one blend over another. Their mesz attendants changed the tureens often and kept the platters of cakes filled, and Eritha agreed with Harnasharn, who was seated beside her, that everything was delicious. Privately she had written the evening off as one unending appetizer for the meal she intended to have the moment she got back to the resort.

She contented herself with listening to the others, with vicariously enjoying the enormous pleasure Franff was experiencing in this reunion with his friends Harnasharn and Brance, with watching the meszs and admiring the tasteful decor of their community building. The one sobering note was supplied by the six moons that swam the lofty, star-flecked dome—Mestillian moons. The building was a haunting monument to a lost world.

Suddenly, above the rolling murmur of a vast roomful of quiet conversations, a dull boom sounded. Jorno turned quickly and leaped to his feet. Eritha followed his gaze and saw a man standing in a distant entrance. At that instant he threw something and stepped back, and the massive door rolled shut.

There was a flash, a boom that rocked the building, a concussion that swept dozens of tureens from tables, a poof of acrid smoke that brought tears to the eyes and left the nostrils stinging. Something slapped against the table, and Eritha looked down upon a cluster of bleeding mesz fingers.

No one screamed; no one even spoke. The humans leaped to their. feet and then stood in stunned immobility. The meszs acted with calm resignation—except for those who remained to assist the wounded and dying, they were quietly filing toward numerous exits that opened magically beneath their feet as they pushed the tiers aside. A mesz was plucking at Eritha’s sleeve and motioning her to follow him.

The distant door rolled open again. Arnen Brance saw it first, and he hurled his way up the tiers of tables. As he ran he shouted something, and then, still in full stride, he caught what was thrown and flung himself through the closing door and into the night. Eritha saw the flash but no sign of Brance.

“This way!” Jorno called.

A moment later they were moving along a dimly lit tunnel, and the only sound was the click of Franff’s hoofs. The tunnel branched in several directions; Jorno, after calling to them to follow the meszs, turned off and vanished around a corner. He rejoined them almost at once, announcing that he’d sent for help, and took the lead. At intervals they passed heavy metal doors, and they began to hear them being slammed behind them. Finally the tunnel floor pointed upward, and they emerged in the waterside warehouse.

From the direction of the village came blasts that made the flimsy building shudder. Leaping flames cast remote, flickering shadows. Jorno hurried them the length of the pier to where their boat was tied. Then he halted and swore bitterly.

“What are we waiting for?” Harnasharn demanded.

“There was supposed to be someone waiting here to take you back.” Jorno hesitated, looking about him. “I can’t leave the meszs now, I simply can’t, and none of them will want to leave while their brothers are being murdered. I don’t suppose you—no, it would be too risky.”

The countess and Lilya were looking longingly at the boat, which heaved gently at its mooring. Harnasharn, fretfully peering down at it, muttered that he had never operated a boat.

“Help is on the way,” Jorno said. “You can wait in the tunnel until it gets here. You’ll be safe there.”

They turned back.

From the direction of the village a shout rang out, and footsteps pounded toward them. Franff, standing beside Eritha with drooping head, suddenly tensed as they began to clang on the pier. Eritha heard him hoarsely cough a word, “Brothers,” and he bounded forward.

But he had no microphone, no amplifier to carry his message, and the first man he met raised a weapon and slugged at him viciously. Franff toppled into the water.

Anna moaned and hurried to help him, but Jorno was ahead of her. Snarling invectives, he swung a killing blow with his fist, but it never landed. The weapon crashed onto his head, and he crumpled to the pier.

The man turned toward Anna.

Eritha leaped between them. In the shallow pier lights she had begun to recognize faces. “What do you think you’re doing, Benj Darwill?” she called. “Striking a poor defenseless beast—bully right to the end, aren’t you?” The weapon raised again. Eritha kicked his shin viciously. “You try that on me,” she snapped, “and I’ll claw your eyes out. You, Cal Rown. I hope you’re proud of yourself, throwing explosives at the meszs. It takes a really brave man to attack something that won’t fight back. Get out of here, all of you.”

She gave Darwill’s face a resounding slap, and the men turned and fled precipitately. Eritha and Anna leaped from the pier and stood waist-deep in water trying to help Franff, but he was quite dead.

So was Jaward Jorno.

The meszs came, then, and helped them to pull Franff’s body onto the pier, and the sobbing Anna flung herself onto him.

The explosions continued; the fires had spread, and the village became a caldron of swirling, crackling flames. In the melange of terrifying sounds they did not hear the boats approaching until the first swung alongside the pier. A man climbed out and confronted Eritha.

“Where’s Mr. Jorno?”

She pointed to his body.

Confusion surged about them while boats tied up and men clambered out brandishing weapons. Then someone shouted an order, and they moved toward the shore; and each one, as he passed Jorno’s body, faltered momentarily and bowed his head. A moment later they were moving up the slope toward the village.

One of the pilots called, “I’ll take you people back.” The meszs carried Franff’s body to the boat, and then Jorno’s, and Eritha handed a pale countess over the side and helped her to a seat. They pushed off, leaving behind them a ghoulish pattern of blood-red flames.

“Who were those men?” Harnasharn asked.

“Men from Zrilund Town,” Eritha said. She was not frightened—at no time had she been frightened—but she had to struggle to master her overwhelming anger.

“Artists?” Harnasharn asked.

“If they’d been artists, I’d have done more than slap a face,” Eritha said grimly.

“Arnen Brance—do you suppose—”

“As far as I could see, he had it in his hand when it exploded.”

More men were waiting at the mainland pier, and they helped them from the boat and carefully laid out Franff’s and Jorno’s bodies before they embarked. A short time later Jorno’s chauffeur arrived. There was no room for Franff’s body in the limousine, and they had to coax the still-sobbing Anna away. The chauffeur promised to bring it to them later.

At the rotunda the resort’s doctor was waiting for them. He gave sedatives to the countess, Lilya, and Anna, and ordered them to bed. Then he approached Eritha.

“None for me,” she told him. “I still have things to do.”

“Are you sure? You look somewhat overwrought.”

“I’m not overwrought. I’m
mad!
”

Harnasharn said, “Where can I place a call to the Metro?”

“For millionaires, Jorno did things in style,” Eritha told him. “The rotunda has its own communications center, but I’m first.”

With her grandfather, Neal Wargen, and Superintendent of Police Demron listening, she described the situation tersely.

“From Zrilund Town?” Wargen asked. “You must be mistaken. They couldn’t have planned such a massive attack without Rearm Hylat finding out about it, and he would have told me.”

“I recognized at least six, and I know four of them by name.”

“Casualties?”

“We didn’t stay to count them. Several meszs were blown up in front of us. Likewise your man Brance. Franff and Jam a died from blows on the head. That was just the beginning. The explosions were continuing when we left, and the fires were tremendous. They must have poured flammables all over the place. The building exteriors are of stone, but obviously the interiors aren’t. Jorno’s men were well armed, and there may be a war going on there right now with the meszs in the middle of it.”

Wargen said, “Bron?”

“I’ve already issued orders,” Demron said. “I’ll fly in every available man.”

“Are you people all right?” Wargen asked.

“The doctor put the countess and Lilya and Anna to bed. We’re all right, except that I’m as angry as I’ve ever been in my life.”

“We’ll get there as soon as we can.”

Eritha turned the communications center over to Lester Harnasharn. By that time Jorno’s servants had arrived with Franff’s body, and with their help she laid him out in an unused bedroom and smoothed the wonderfully soft, glowing fur.

Then she dismissed them, and after they left she sat beside Franff’s body and wept.

Gerald Gwyll, aroused from his bed by an urgent call from Harnasharn, made a frantic dash to Port Metro and at dawn was searching the Nor Harbor quays for his chartered boat. He had an uneventful trip to Zrilund across a smooth sea, and the pilot tied up at the disused ferry pier.

Gwyll hurried up the steps and set out at a run through the deserted streets. He passed the oval, turned onto the Street of Artisans, and finally reached the court where Arnen Brance’s house stood. There he panted to a halt. The door was unlocked—no one ever locked a door in Zrilund Town—and one glance told him that the house’s interior had not been disturbed.

He turned aside and followed a path around the house and through a sagging gate. There he halted again, and with a cry of horror.

The enclosure Brance had built was smashed, the stones tossed about haphazardly. The mud it had contained was scattered and completely dried up. In a momentary frenzy Gwyll pawed and kicked at it, and then he turned slowly and walked back to the ferry pier.

An appalling reek of devastation hung over the fire-blackened mesz village. The buildings were rubble-choked shells, their stone walls split and crumbled by the heat, and the shrubs and young trees were charred.

But the most unnerving thing about the village was its silence. There were meszs everywhere, seated motionless amid the ashes or on the seared grass in attitudes of repose and meditation.

Neal Wargen supposed that they were mourning their dead.

“No,” Eritha Korak said. “They’re mourning our dead—Brance, and Franff, and especially Jaward Jorno. First Jorno rescued them from Mestil, and now he’s given his life for them.”

“How many meszs were killed?”

“Only fourteen. Twenty-one were seriously injured. Minor injuries were too numerous to count. Even so it’s unbelievable, but we have to remember that they’ve been through this before. Just because they won’t fight back doesn’t mean that they’re fools. They built fireproof, explosion-proof shelters under all of the dwellings, and they lived in them. It’s a habit they acquired on Mestil. The village wasn’t a place to live, it was a monument to their past.”