The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (23 page)

Affirm Elizapuffinbeth.

She burst out laughing and Bryan and the other humans looked at her in blank astonishment.

"Somebody," Aiken remarked, "has been whispering behind our minds. Are you going to let us in on the joke, lovie?"

"The joke's on me, Aiken." Elizabeth turned to Creyn. "We'll have a truce. For now."

The exotic man inclined his head. 'Then permit me to change the subject. We are approaching the bottomlands of the river, where we'll have our night's rest in the city of Roniah. Tomorrow we shall resume our journey in a more agreeable fashion, by boat. We should arrive in the capital city of Muriah in less than five days, if the winds are right."

"Sailboats on a turbulent river like the Rhône?" Bryan said, aghast. "Or, is it calmer here in the Pliocene?"

"You'll have to judge that for yourself, of course. However, our boats are quite different from those you may have been accustomed to. We Tanu are not fond of water travel But with the coming of humanity, safe and efficient boats were designed and river commerce became extensive. We now use boats not only for passenger travel but also to ship vital commodities from the north, especially from Finiah and from Goriah in the area you call Brittany, to the southern regions where the climate is more to our taste."

"I've brought a sailboat with me," the anthropologist said. "Will I be permitted to use it? I'd like to visit your Finiah and Goriah."

"As you'll see, upstream travel is generally not feasible. We rely on caravans for that, using either chalikos or larger beasts of burden called hellads, a species of short-necked giraffe. In the course of your researches you will doubtless make visits to several of our population centers."

"Without a torc on him?" Raimo interjected. "You'd trust him?"

Creyn laughed. "We have something he wants. "Bryan flinched; but he knew better than to rise to the bait. He only said, "These vital commodities you ship. I suppose they include mostly foodstuffs?"

'To some extent. But this Many-Colored Land is literally overflowing with meat and drink for the taking."

"Minerals then. Gold and silver. Copper and tin. Iron."

"Not iron. It is unnecessary in our rather simple techno-economy. The Tanu worlds have traditionally relied on varieties of unbreakable glass in those applications where humanity uI'llized iron. It is interesting that in recent years you, too, have come to appreciate this versaI'lle material."

"Vitredur, yes. Still, your righting men seem to prefer the traditional bronze in their armor and weapons."

Creyn laughed quietly. "In the earliest days of the time-portal it was considered wise to restrict human warriors in that way. Now, when the restriction has become obsolete, humans continue to cling to the metal. We permit a bronze technology to flourish among your people where it does not conflict with our own needs. We Tanu are a tolerant race. We were self-sufficient before humans began to arrive and we are by no means dependent upon humanity for slave labor..."

Elizabeth's thought loomed large: OTHER THAN REPRODUCTIVE ENSLAVEMENT.

"...since the tedious and difficult work such as mining and agriculture and comfort maintenance is undertaken by ramas in all but the most isolated settlements."

"These ramas," Aiken broke in. "How come there weren't any back at the castle to do the dirty work? "

"They have a certain psychic fragility and require a tranquil environment if they are to function with minimal supervision. At Castle Gateway there is inevitable stress..."

Raimo gave a derisive grunt.

Bryan asked, "How are the creatures controlled?"

"They wear a much simplified modification of the gray torc. But you must not press me to explain these matters now. Please wait unI'll later, in Muriah."

They rode into an area where the trees were not so thickly clustered, among giant crags at the base of a sparsely forested ridge. Up where the crest met the starry sky was a glow of colored light." Is that the town up there?" Sukey inquired.

"Can't be," Raimo said contemptuously. "Look at the thing move!"

They reined in their chalikos and watched the glow resolve into a thin skein of luminescence that twisted in and out of the distant silhouettes of the trees at considerable speed. The light was a blend of many hues, basically golden but with knots that flared blue, green, red, and even purple in a panoply of sparkling commotion, wild and urgent.

"Ah!" Creyn said. "The Hunt If they come this way you'll see a fine sight."

"It looks like a giant rainbow glowworm racing up there," Sukey breathed. "How lovely!"

"The Tanu at play?" Bryan asked.

Sukey uttered a disappointed cry. "Oh, they've gone over the ridge. What a shame! Tell us what the Hunt is, Lord Creyn."

The exotic man's face was grave in the starlight. "One of the great traditions of our people. You'll see it again, many times. I'll let you discover for yourselves what it is."

"And if we're good," Aiken put in impudently, "do we get to join in?"

"Possibly," Creyn replied. "It is not to every human's taste, nor even to every Tanu's. But you... yes, I think perhaps the Hunt would appeal to your particular sporting instinct, Aiken Drum."

And for an instant, the healer's emotional tone was plain for Elizabeth to read: disgust, mingled with an age-old sense of despair.

CHAPTER NINE

Richard saw flames.

They were moving toward him or he was moving toward them and they were vivid orange and resin-smoky, rising tall into a wavering queue in the nearly windless dark. He saw that it was a pile of burning brush the size of a small hut, crackling and hissing but throwing no sparks, seeming to draw abreast of him, pass him by and recede, disappearing at last behind a grove of black trees that had crept up unseen in the night but now stood backlighted by the bonfire's glow.

It hurt his neck to look back. He let his head loll forward. There was something bulky in front of him that had long hair and moved rhythmically. It was very strange! He himself was rocking, firmly supported in some kind of seat that held him upright. His legs were thrust forward at an angle, the calves resting on unseen supports, feet braced against wide treads. His arms, clad in the familiar sleeves of a master spacer's coverall, rested in his lap.

A funny kind of starship, he mused, with a hairy control console. And the environmental must be on the fritz because the temperature was nearly thirty and there was dust in the air and a peculiar smell.

Trees? And a bonfire? He looked around and saw stars, not the proper colored stars you see in deep space, but little twinkling specks. Far away, in the black below the starry bowl, was another small exclamation point of fire.

"Richard? Are you awake? Would you like some water?"

Well! Would you look at who was flying the right-hand seat of this crate? None other than the old bone hunter! Would have thought he was too creaky to qualify. But then you don't need much finesse to fly on the ground . . .

"Richard, if I pass you the canteen, can you hold on to it?"

Smells of animals, pungent vegetation, leather. Sounds of creaking harness, brisk clumping feet, huffing exhalations, something yipping in the distance, and the voice of the persistent old man beside him.

"Don't want water," said Richard.

"Amerie said you'd need it when you woke up. You're dehydrated. Come on, son."

He took a closer look at Claude there in the darkness. The old man's figure was illuminated by starlight; he was astride a huge horse-like creature that was loping easily along. Damnedest thing! He was riding one, too! There were the reins draped over the pommel of a saddle right in front of him below the hairy control console, neck, of the critter. And it was trotting straight and level without any guidance at all.

Richard tried to pull his feet up and discovered that his ankles were fastened somehow to the stirrups. And he wasn't wearing his seaboots, and someone had exchanged his opera costume for the spacer's coverall with the four stripes on the sleeves that he had stuffed into the bottom of his pack, and he had an imperial grand champion hangover.

"Claude," he groaned. "You got any booze?"

"You can't have any, boy. Not unI'll the drug Amerie shot into you wears off. Here. Take the water."

Richard had to lean far out to grasp the canteen and the starry sky lurched. If his ankles had not been fastened, he would have fallen from the saddle.

"Jesus, I been chewed up and spit out, Claude. Where the hell are we? And what's this thing I'm riding?"

"We're about four hours out from the castle, riding due north and parallel to the Saone River. As near as I can judge, you're riding a nice large specimen of Chalicotherium gold-fussi, which the locals call a chaliko, not a calico. The beasts travel a pretty fair clip here on the plateau, maybe fifteen or sixteen kloms an hour. But we lost time fording creeks around a little swamp, so I guess we might be thirty kloms above Lyon. If there was a Lyon."

Richard cursed. "Bound where, for God's sake?"

"Some Pliocene metropolis called Finiah. From what they told us, it's on the Proto-Rbine about in the position of Freiburg. We get there in six days."

Richard drank some of the water and discovered he was very thirsty. He could remember nothing beyond the welcoming smile on Epone's face as he followed her into the dazzling inner chamber of the castle. He tried to marshal his wits, but all he could rake up were tattered dreams in which his brother and sister seemed to urge him to get up or he'd be late for school. And the penalty for that would be cruising the gray limbo forever and ever, searching for a lost planet where Epone would be waiting.

After a while, he asked, "What happened to me? "

"We aren't sure," Claude temporized. "You know, don't you, that there were exotics in the castle?"

"I remember a tall woman," Richard muttered. "I think she did something to me."

"Whatever it was, you were out for hours. Amerie got you semiconscious so that you'd be able to move out with the rest of us in the caravan. We thought you'd prefer that to being left behind alone."

"Christ, yes." Richard took slow swallows of water, leaned back, and watched the sky for a long time. There were a hell of a lot of stars, and pearly streaks of luminescent cloud toward the zenith. As the caravan began descending a long downhill slope, he could see that he and the old man were near the tail end of a long double file of riders. Now that his eyes worked properly again, he discerned other dark shapes coursing along both sides of the column with awkward humping strides.

"What the devil are those out there?"

"Amphicyons riding herd on us. We have a guard of five soldiers, too, but they hardly ever bother to check up. There are two bringing up the rear and three in front with the Exalted Lady."

"The who?"

"Epone herself. She comes from Finiah. These exotics, they're called Tanu, by the way, seem to have widely scattered settlements, each with a central urban area and satellite supporting plantations. My guess is that humans function as slaves or serfs, with some exceptional types enjoying special privileges. Evidently the Tanu cities take turns collecting a week's worth of time-travelers at Castle Gateway, minus the specials who get siphoned off to the capital and the unlucky ones who are killed trying to escape."

"We aren't special, I take it."

"Just part of the grunt-pack. Amerie and Felice are in the caravan, too. But the four other Greenies were sifted out and sent south to the big time. Group Green seems to have been unusual in having so many taken. There were only two other people sent to the capital from the rest of the week's contingent."

As they rode along, the old man told Richard as much as he could about the day's events and the presumed fate of Aiken, Elizabeth, Bryan, and Stein. He also summarized Waldemar's little speech and reluctantly told of the future in store for the women of the party.

The ex-spacer ventured a few questions, then fell silent. Too bad about the nun going to an exotic harem. She'd been decent to him. On the other hand, that stuck-up Ice Queen of an Elizabeth needed a good stoking. And Felice, that sly little bitch. Richard had offered her a harmless little suggestion back at the auberge and she'd sent him up like a holiday firework. Damn teasing little snatch! He hoped the exotics had peckers like baseball bats. It would serve her right. Might even make a real woman out of her.

The caravan moved steadily down the incline, heading a little east of north now and coming closer to the river. The beacon fire was their landmark. Claude had told him that similar fires were spaced about two kloms apart all the way from the castle. A scouting party must be riding in advance of the caravan along the track, torching the waiting piles of brush if all was well.

"I think I see a building down there," Claude said. "Maybe it's the place where we stop for a break."

Richard sure as hell hoped so. He had drunk too much water.

From the head of the column came the silvery notes of a horn sounding a three-toned call. This was echoed distantly. After a few minutes had passed, a dozen or so tiny pinpricks of fire emerged from the vicinity of the downslope bonfire and approached the caravan in a sinuous line: riders carrying torches, coming to escort them.

By the time that the groups converged, Claude and Richard could see that the last beacon fire burned outside of a walled enclosure resembling an ancient American plains fort. It stood on a bluff above a tree-crowded watercourse that must drain into the Sadne. The caravan halted momentarily, and Lady Epone and Waldemar went forward to greet the escort party. In the torchlight, Richard unconcernedly admired the stately Tanu woman, who was riding a white chalicothere of exceptional size and wearing a dark-blue hooded cloak that floated behind her.

After a moment's conference, two of the soldiers from the fort rode off to one side and in some manner called in the pack of amphicyons. The bear-dogs were led away on a side path while the rest of the escort fell in beside the caravan for the last part of the journey. A gate in the palisade opened and they rode inside, two by two. Then, in what was to become a familiar procedure, the prisoners had their mounts tethered to posts in front of double troughs of feed and water. At the left of each chaliko was a dismounting block. After the soldiers unlocked their chains, the muscle-sore travelers descended and gathered in an untidy group while Waldemar addressed them once again.