The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (26 page)

             
As the man and the adze swung his awkward weapon, Vakar slammed his shield into his face. The adze clanked against the thin bronze, and Vakar made a low deep thrust with his sword under both shields. The blade ripped into the man's belly, and he screamed and fell backwards in a tangle of his own guts.

             
Vakar started for the other, the one with the club, but a stone thrown by Fual flew past his head and struck the man in the chest. The man turned and bounded down the slope that he had just climbed. At the bottom he took ofi in a great leap that landed him on the back of his pony, and seconds later he streaked out of sight up the gorge to southward.

             
While the sound of his hooves still drummed in his ears, the Lorskan turned towards the remaining izzuni. The creature had not moved, and did not move even when Vakar climbed over the landslide and faced it. The single eye looked calmly out of its chest as Vakar approached.

             
"Can you hear me?" said Vakar to the thing in his rudimentary Belemian. Nothing happened.

             
"Let go that bridle."
Still no action.

             
"Well then, don't!" cried Vakar, and drove his bloody sword into the creature's chest.

             
The body swayed and collapsed. Vakar snatched at the bridle and caught the horse before it had time to shy away. He tethered it and went back to the rock-slide.

             
Three of his horses were dead and the remaining one had a broken leg. Vakar cut its throat and then chased the remaining horse, the one belonging to the officer he had killed, until he had backed it up against the rock slide and caught its reins. With both animals secured he went back to the slide. A few of the projecting members of the izzuneg still twitched, but none seemed dangerous. The corpses of the whole men, he noted, were well-dressed in turbans and knee-length tunics of fine wool with elaborate girdles of woven leather set with semi-precious stones. They also had golden rings in their ears and on their fingers (which Fual promptly took) and were evidently men of substance by the standards of these mountains.

             
Vakar and Fual sweated for an hour moving the rocks that had half buried their horses so that they could get at their belongings. With his sword Vakar cut a haunch off one of the dead horses for food, and by main force they pulled and pushed the live horse at the north end of the slide over the rocks to the south end. Fual said:

             
"My lord, aren't you going to give up this mad enterprise
now?"

             
"And have Kuros
taunt
me for cowardice? Never! Get on your nag and we'll go on to Niowat."

             
Vakar did not like his new mount, for it was smaller and, being unused to him and his style of riding, skittish and recalcitrant.

             
"All the same," grumbled Fual, "there's a word for a man who attacks a hostile kingdom single-handed, and it isn't 'brave'."

             
Vakar grinned. Though tired, he was proud of having
come through one more trial. He said:

             
"That's all right; some of the greatest heroes have been
mad too. As in
The Madness of Vrir:

"Foaming with fury
             
             
he hurled the hatchet

At his helpless helpmeet,
             
whose brains bespattered

The wattled walls;
             
             
a dreadful
deed .
„."

             
Fual shuddered but said no more.

-

             
Next day a man rode out of the mountains ahead of them and held up an empty hand in a gesture of peace. Vakar let him approach but kept his hand near his hilt. The man spoke a little Tritonian and Vakar a few words of Belemian, so that with effort enough they managed to make themselves mutually understood. The man said:

             
"I am Lord Shagarnin, and I have been sent by King Awoqqas to welcome you to our land and guide you to Niowat."

             
"That is kind of Awoqqas," said Vakar. "Were those his servants who gave us such a boisterous reception yesterday?"

             
"Yes, but that was an error. The gods had warned Awoqqas that a certain Vakar Lorska was approaching from Tritonia, and that the interests of gods and men required that he be destroyed. You are not he, are you?"

             
"No, I am Thiegos of Sederado," said Vakar, giving the first name that popped into his head.

             
"That is what the king thought when report was brought to him of what a mighty magician you are, for the gods had specifically described Vakar as an ordinary man of no
fearsome powers. So when the lone survivor of this unfortunate attack told how you flew straight up in the air on bat's wings and hurled a mountain upon your attackers by your spells, he thought there must be some mistake. He hopes you will pardon his fault and accept his hospitality."

             
"I shall be glad to do so," said Vakar.

             
He understood what had happened: The surviving officer had galloped back to Niowat and, to avoid blame for the disaster, had told a highly colored tale of the battle. Vakar was not sure that Shagarnin or the king would be taken in by his denial of his identity; this looked like an effort to lure him to destruction. Having failed to kill him by brute force they would now try guile. His previous narrow escapes had made Vakar suspicious almost to the point of mania. He said:

             
"This is the most remarkable land I have seen in my travels. For example, the day before yesterday we were also attacked, but by savages with heads."

             
"That is unfortunate," said Shagarnin, eyes opening in something like fear. "It must have been some of our commoners. The disorderly beasts attack the better sort of people whenever they catch one or two alone, so that it is unsafe to travel away from Niowat without an escort. We shall have to send a detachment to wipe out this band."

             
"Why do your commoners attack you?"

             
"Because the fools do not wish King Awoqqas to make izzuneg of them.
As if such filth had rights!"
Shagarnin spat.

             
"Does he plan to make your whole commonality into these—izzuneg?" asked Vakar, keeping the astonishment out of his voice.

             
"Yes; it is his great plan. For our king is the world's greatest magician and has learned that izzuneg make ideal subjects: docile, tireless, fearless, orderly, with no subversive thoughts of their own. He has even found it possible to breed them, though the chldren have heads like normal folk. Come back in a few years and you shall see an ideal kingdom: The
ullimen,
that is to say us, ruling a completely headless subject population, and everybody orderly and happy."

             
"It is an astounding idea," said Vakar.

             
"I am glad you think so. Meanwhile we have trouble rounding up our subjects for decapitation. As if heads did the rabble any good! And since the making of an izzuni requires a mighty spell, this great design cannot be accomplished all at once. Our poor king labors day and night, so that we who love him fear for his health."

             
Vakar nodded sympathetically. "The
rabble never know
what is good for them, do they? I think I understand, however, why that mob attacked us."

             
"I am glad. But, Lord Thiegos, what is your purpose here?"

             
"I travel for pleasure."

             
Shagarnin looked at Vakar curiously. "I cannot imagine travelling for pleasure; but perhaps in your country things are different."

             
Vakar shrugged. "I understand Awoqqas owns a fallen star?"

             
"The Tahakh.
Yes, he does, but you will have to ask him about it."

             
As they neared Niowat, Vakar saw more of the round stone huts, but few people. Those whom he did see darted into huts or behind rocks with the speed of a lizard fleeing into a crack in the wall. Once he saw a little group of filthy faces peering around a hut with an expression of such concentrated hatred as to make him shudder. As they rode higher up the road they passed substantial stone houses which Vakar took for those of the aristocracy.

             
"Here is the palace," said Shagarnin.

             
Vakar did not at first see what the Belemian meant. Then he observed a hole in the side of a craggy hill that dominated Niowat. A bridge of logs with a straw paving crossed a deep ditch in front of this opening,
Several
izzuneg stood about the entrance with spears.

             
As the party trotted over the bridge, the hooves of the horses sounded like muffled drums. They dismounted, and an izzuni led the horses away. Shagarnin parleyed with a whole man inside the entrance to the tunnel,
then
said: "Come."

             
He led them through a maze of tunnels. Vakar whistled: If the palace was a rabbit-warren of holes dug out of the inside of the hill, Awoqqas had spared no trouble to make it a handsome warren. The walls were plastered and painted with geometrical patterns outlined with nails of gold and silver; no representations of living beings as in Ogugia and Phaiaxia. Every few feet a yellow oil-flame danced on top of a great copper torch
è
re. Vakar passed an izzuni lugging a copper kettle along the corridor and pouring oil into the lamps as he went. Vakar tried to remember the turns and cross-tunnels, but soon gave up, saying in Lorskan to Fual:

             
"I hope we shan't have to leave in a hurry, because we should never get out without a guide."

             
After much winding and waiting and passing of passwords and pushing through massive doors ornamented with gold and precious stones, Shagarnin led them into a room where several izzuneg stood guard. The nobleman said:

             
"Take off your weapons and hand them to this izzuni."

             
As this was a standard regulation for visitors to royalty, Vakar complied. Another izzuni opened a door on the far side and Shagarnin said:

             
"The king!
Prostrate yourselves in adoration."

             
Coming from Lorsk with its free-and-easy manners, Vakar did not like prostrating himself for any mortal and would have even been choosy about which gods he so honored. However, not wishing to become an izzuni over a matter of protocol he did as he was bid until a squeaky voice said:

             
"Rise.
Shagarnin, show our visitor's slave to the chamber they will occupy, so that he shall prepare it for his master. You—what did you say your name was?"

             
"Thiegos of Sederado," replied Vakar.

             
"Fiegos, remain where you are and be quiet, for I am about to perform a divination."

             
Vakar looked around. The man speaking to him sat on a throne cut in the stone of the side of the chamber, six steps above the floor-level. He wore many-colored robes of that shimmery stuff called silk, which Kurtevan had also worn, and which Vakar had been told came from the land of Sericana beyond the sunrise. Awoqqas was a slim yellow-skinned balding man with deep lines in his careworn face— commonplace-looking enough except for his size. He was, Vakar judged, less than five feet tall.