The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (25 page)

Creyn rode forward alone, rising above the saddle to his full height so that his scarlet and white robes streamed back in the breeze rushing from the widening aperture. He cried out three words in an exotic tongue, simultaneously transmitting a complex mental image that the torc-wearing humans and Elizabeth were unable to decipher.

Two squads of human soldiers with crested helmets stood at attention on either side of the open entrance. The engraved plates and scales of their ceremonial bronze armor gleamed like gold in the light of countless flaming lamps. Beyond the gate, lining the otherwise deserted street for almost an entire block on both sides, were the ramas. Each small ape wore a metal collar and a blue and gold tabard. Each held a wand of some glassy material tipped with a blue or an amber light.

Creyn and his retinue passed between the ranks of ramapithecines, and the little animals turned and pattered alongside the chalikos, escorting the riders through the streets of the sleeping town. At one plaza, where the waters of a large fountain splashed onto floating lanterns, Captal Zdenek saluted Creyn and rode off toward a dim barracks with the soldiers Billy and Seung Kyu, their night's work at an end. The timefarers gaped at the houses, dark except for the myriad twinkling oil lamps along every roof gutter, garden wall, and balustrade. Exile architecture in the human quarter was a melange of mortared stonework, half-timbering, and quasi-biblical mudplaster, with thick walls for coolness, I'lled roofs, vine-hung loggias deep in shadow, and small patios planted with palms, laurels, and aromatic cinnamon trees.

"Munchkin Tudor," Bryan decided. Humanity had retained its sense of humor in spite of the six-million-year banishment. They saw no people at all; but here and there other child-sized ramas, wearing tabards of differing colors, went about mysterious errands, pushing tittle covered carts. Once, in an oddly reassuring incident, an unmistakable Siamese cat streaked across the main avenue and disappeared into the open window of a house.

The chaliko riders neared a complex of larger buildings close to the river. These were constructed of a material resembling white marble and set off from the rest of the town by an ornamental wall breached at intervals by wide stairways. The parapet at the top was decorated with planter-urns spilling flowers. In place of the homely town lamps of ceramic or metal fretwork, torcheres like great silver candlesticks lit the precincts of the Tanu. The dwellings were hung with chains of faceted glass lanterns, their blue and green and amber making an eerie contrast to the friendly warmth of the oil lamps on the streets of the outer town. There were a few familiar touches: waterlilies in I'lled pools, climbing yellow roses supported on delicate trellises of marble filigree, a nightingale, wakened by the sound of their passage, that uttered a few sleepy notes.

They passed into a courtyard hemmed by ornate frosty buildings. Here a large door was suddenly flung open and golden radiance streamed forth, catching them by surprise. As the ramas stood solemnly by, human servitors came rushing out to take the bridles of the chalikos, unlock the ankle chains of the prisoners, and help them to dismount.

Then came the Tanu, twenty or thirty of them, laughing and calling out greetings to Creyn in the exotic tongue and chattering in animated exuberance over the time-travelers in musical Standard English. The Tanu wore thin flowing gowns and robes of vivid tropical colors, together with fantastic jewelry, wide yoke-collars all gemmed and enameled, with brocaded and jeweled ribbons dangling front and rear. The women had wired headdresses all hung with gemstones. Here and there among the lofty exotics were a few smaller human figures, just as gaudily dressed, but wearing silver torcs instead of the Tanu gold. Bryan studied these privileged humans with interest. They seemed to be socially integrated with the taller ruling race and just as anxious to make the acquaintance of the overawed prisoners.

Among the arrivals, only Aiken was completely at ease. With his pocketed suit flashing like liquid metal, he fairly hopped about the courtyard, making mocking obeisance to the laughing Tanu ladies, most of whom were nearly a third taller than he was. Bryan stood apart from the others and watched. The Tanu nobles were solicitous of the comfort of the prisoners, joking over the incongruity of the situation, somehow managing to make the newly met exiles feel wanted and welcome. Bryan had no doubt that mental speech was flying about as fervidly as the vocal sort. He wondered what kind of psychic stimulant might be operating at the lower levels of consciousness to make even sullen Raimo and the aloof Elizabeth slowly unbend and join in the conviviality. "We don't want you to feel left out, Bryan." The anthropologist turned and saw a slender exotic male garbed in a simple blue robe smiling at him. He had a handsome but sunken-eyed visage, lined about the mouth as Creyn's was. Bryan wondered whether this might be a sign of extreme age among these inhumanly youthful-looking people. The man's hair was of the palest ivory and he wore a narrow coronet of a material resembling blue glass.

"Permit me to welcome you. I am your host, Bormol, like yourself a student of culture. How eagerly we have awaited the arrival of another trained analyst! The last anthropologist who came to us arrived nearly thirty years ago and he was unfortunately in frail health. And we need your insight so urgently! We have so much to learn about the interaction of our two races if this Exile society is to flourish to our mutual advantage. The science of your Galactic Milieu can teach us the things we must know in order to survive. Come, we have good food and drink waiting for you and your friends inside. Share with us some of your first impressions of our Many-Colored Land. Give us your initial reactions!"

Bryan managed a rueful laugh. "You flatter me, Lord Bormol. And overwhelm me- I'm damned if I can make head or tail of your world as yet. After all, I've only just arrived. And excuse me, but I'm so tired out after this bloody shocking day that I'm ready to drop in my tracks."

"Forgive me. I'd completely forgotten you're without a torc. The mental refreshment that our people have been lavishing over your companions hasn't affected you. If you wish, we can..."

"No, thank you!"

Creyn came up and smiled ironically at the anthropologist's sudden alarm. "Bryan would prefer to do his work without the consolations of the torc... in fact, he has made this a condition of cooperation."

"You don't have to coerce me," Bryan said tesI'lly.

"Don't misunderstand!" Bormol appeared pained. He gestured at the gaudy throng, now leading the other prisoners inside with every evidence of good fellowship. "Are your friends being coerced? The torc isn't a symbol of bondage but of union "

Bryan felt a surge of anger and dreadful weariness erupt in him. His voice remained calm. "I know you mean well. But there are many of us humans, one might say most of us in my world of the future, most of the normal members of humanity, who would rather die than submit to your torc. In spite of all its consolations. Now you must excuse me. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not up to any learned discussions right now I'd like to go to bed."

Bormol bowed his head. One of the human servants came running up with Bryan's pack. "We will meet again in the capital. I hope you will have modified your harsh opinion of us by then, Bryan . . . This is Joe-Don, who will take you to a retiring room at once. Rest well."

Bormol and Creyn glided away. Almost everyone else had already left the courtyard, "Right this way, sir," Joe-Don said, his breezy aplomb equal to that of a bell-man in one of the Old World's posher hostelries. "We've got a nice room ready for you. But too bad you'll miss the party."

They went off into corridors decorated in brae and gold and white. Bryan caught a glimpse of the unconscious Stein being borne away on a litter by four more human attendants.

"If there's a doctor in the house, Joe-Don, that man could use looking after. The poor chap got clobbered both physically and mentally."

"Don't worry, sir. Lady Damone, Bormol's missus, an even better medic than Creyn. We get a lot of whacked out specimens passing through here, the time-portal being the shock that it is. But most of the casualties get fixed up pretty good. This Tanu bunch don't have anything like the tank regeneration equipment we grew up with, but they slop on through pretty good regardless. They're mighty tough them-selves and they can heal most injuries and diseases with the help of the torcs. Lady Damone'll give your pal a good vein-feed and see to his scattered marbles. Another day, he'll be as good as new. Quite a pile of muscle, isn't he? They must have him tapped for the Grand Combat"

"And what," Bryan asked quietly, "might that be?"

Joe-Don blinked, then grinned. "Kind of sports event they have a couple of months from now, and around the end of October. Traditional with these folks. They're great ones for traditions... Well, here's your room, sir."

He threw open the door to an airy chamber that had white draperies billowing in front of a large window. A vertical string of sapphire lanterns hung beside a cool-looking bed. More conventional oil lamps cast a pool of yellow radiance on a table where a simple supper had been laid out.

Joe-Don said, "If you need anything, just pull this ring beside the bed and we'll come running. I don't suppose you'll require any consoling companionship? No? Well, sweet dreams anyhow."

He whisked out and closed the door firmly behind him. Bryan didn't bother to test the lock. He gave a great sigh and began unbuttoning his shirt. Somehow, although he had not been aware of moving upward, he had come to the topmost floor of the Tanu mansion. The view from his window over looked much of the town and gave him a distant glimpse of the city gate. Roniah lay silent and glittering, an earthbound constellation, reminding him of a Christmas display he had seen long ago on one of the more extravagant Hispanic-heritage worlds.

He wondered in a perfunctory fashion what kind of exotic cheer his companions were presently enjoying down at the Tanu party. No doubt he'd hear all about it tomorrow. Yawning, he folded the shirt... and felt the small bulk of the duro-film sheets tucked into the breast pocket. He took them out and there was her picture, glowing dimly with its own light.

Oh, Mercy.

Have they taken you and made you one of themselves, as they are trying to do with my friends? Thin sad woman with yearning sea-deep eyes and a smile that keeps me bound despite all reason! I have never heard you play your harp and sing; but my mind's ear creates you:

There is a lady sweet and kind Was never face so pleased my mind. I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her I'lll I die.

Her gestures, motions, and her smile, Her wit, her voice my heart beguiled, beguiled my heart, I know not why. And yet I love her I'lll I die.

A deep brazen note sounded, snatching him from his fatigue-drugged reverie. It was the great gong at the city gate. The portal swung open in response, seeming to admit the rising sun.

"Christ!" whispered Bryan. He watched transfixed as the Hunt came a-homing.

A rainbow poured down the main avenue of the town, taking the same route that their own party had followed not long before. Flaring and twisting, the creature of light resolved itself into a procession of splendidly mounted Tanu leaping about with the antic joy of a Novo Janeiro Mardi Gras parade. Both chalikos and riders glowed with an internal effulgence that continually shifted up and down the entire spectrum. The Hunt came closer and closer and eventually passed almost under Bryan's window. He saw that the participants, men and women alike, were arrayed in bizarre armor, apparently of gem-studded glass, adorned with spikes and knobs and other decorative excrescences that gave them the look of humanoid crustaceans fashioned out of diamonds. The chalikos were partially armored with the same material and wore shining gems on their foreheads. Both mounts and riders trailed brightly colored streamers of gossamer fabric that emitted sparks from the tapered ends.

The Hunt made a triumphant noise. The men struck their bejeweled shields with glowing glass swords to produce a musical clangor; some of the women sounded weirdly twisted glass horns with animal-head bells, and others chanted at the top of their powerful voices. Near the end of the parade were six riders glowing a uniform neon-red, evidently the heroes of this particular chase. They held tall lances, upon which were mounted the night's trophies.

Severed heads.

Four of the heads had belonged to monsters, a fanged and wattled horror gleaming black and wet, a repI'lle with ears like batwings and a fringe of tentacles at its cheeks that still twitched, a thing having branched golden antlers and the face of a bird of prey, a nightmare simian with pure white fur and still-blinking eyes the size of apples.

The other two heads were smaller. Bryan saw them quite clearly as the procession passed by. They had belonged to an ordinary little man and woman of late middle age.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was the unexpected re-creation of old pain that finally gave Amerie her insight.

The swollen ankles chained immobile to the high stirrups, the stretched muscles on the insides of her thighs, the horde of imps twanging toe spinal ganglia in the small of her back, the cramps in calves and knees, she remembered them . It had been just like this twenty-six years ago.

Her father had told the family that descending into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado on a mule would be a wonderful adventure, a trip through a cut-open layer cake of planetary history that they would all look back and savor after they'd gone out to far Multnomah. And it had started out fine. On the trail down, Amerie the child delighted in fingering the strata of colored rock that became older and older, unI'll at the bottom she had picked up a two-billion-year-old fragment of black glittering Vishnu schist and studied it with suitable awe.

But then had come the journey back up to the Canyon's rim. And pain. That endless trip, with aching legs that finally went into spasms as she subconsciously tried to help the mule on its upward climb. Her parents were experienced trail riders and knew how to sit the slope. Her little brothers with their wire-and-plass toughness were happy to let their mounts do the work. But she, the conscientious one, had known the dreadful job that the mule was doing and had unwittingly demanded to share it. Toward the end she was crippled and weeping, and the others had sympathized with poor little Annamaria, but of course it was better to keep on riding and get to the top so that it would be over, rather than stop on the trail and delay the whole party. And Dad had urged her to be his big brave girl, and Mom had smiled pityingly, and the two little brothers had looked superior. Back on the South Rim, Dad had taken her into his arms and carried her to their room and put her to bed. She had slept for eighteen hours, and the brothers teased her for missing out on the egg ride to the Painted Desert, and she had felt guilty. That had started it all.