The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (29 page)

             
Fual said: "Let's hope these next people won't be even worse company. The strange nations have been getting worse and worse ever since we left Phaiaxia. Ah, that was a fine land! Are you sure about these Gamphasantians? They're said to *be unfriendly to strangers."

             
"I'm not worried. I met one in Sederado who seemed decent enough even if he did try to murder me, and if I can warn them of the attack by the Gwedulians I should earn their gratitude."

             
Fual shuddered.
"If the Gwedulians haven't got there before us.
Why not go straight home, sir? We have that lump of star-metal
...
"

             
"Because I'm minded to have this lump made into rings and things, and the smiths of Tartaros are the only men
who
can do it. A
r
e you thinking of that promise of freedom
I
made you?"

             
"Y-yes, sir," said Fual, mopping his forehead.

             
"Don't worry; I keep my word
...
These Gamphasants keep good-looking fields, don't they?"

             
They had left the sands of the Tamenruft behind them and were cutting into the meadowlands of Gamphasantia. Vakar sweated in the August heat, though he had stripped down to mantle and loincloth. In the middle distance a tall naked brown man hoed his patch with a stone-bladed hoe. Ahead a hamlet of mud huts took form out of the haze.

             
"H
é!
"
cried Vakar.

             
As they entered the hamlet, people rushed out of the huts and surrounded the three ponies in a jabbering mass. All were tall and slender with curly black hair and narrow aquiline features,
and all were nude and burnt nearly black by the sun. Dogs ran barking around the edges of the crowd.

             
"Stand back!" shouted Vakar, drawing his sword. He repeated the warning in all the languages he knew. "Get away from those animals!"

             
When they paid no attention he whacked one with the flat to clear a path. With an outburst of yells the mass closed in. Before he could strike again, Vakar felt himself seized in a dozen places and ignominiously hauled from his horse. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fual being likewise dismounted. He gritted his teeth in rage; what a fool he was!

             
The Gamphasants hauled Vakar to his feet and wrenched the sword out of his hand, but did not strike him. A wrinkled leathery-looking man with a white beard and a melon-like potbelly stepped in front of Vakar and spoke to him.

             
Vakar shook his head. "I don't understand."

             
The oldster repeated his inquiry in other languages and finally in broken Hesperian:

             
"Who are you?
"

             
"
Vakar of Lorsk.
"

             
"
Where is Lorsk?"

             
Vakar tried to explain, but gave up with a vague gesture towards the northwest. "You come with us."

             
The old man gestured, and a couple of younger ones slipped a noose over Vakar's head and another over that of Fual. These nooses formed part of a single rawhide rope whose ends were held by several husky Gamphasants. Under the old man's direction these now started along the road towards Tokalet, dragging the travellers with them. Others led the horses. Vakar, masking his fury, asked the old man why they were being so treated.

             
"Foreigners no live in Gamphasantia," was the reply.

             
"You mean you will kill us?"

             
"Oh, no!
Gamphasants good people; no take life.
But you no live.
"

             
"
But how—"

             
"Is other ways," chuckled the patriarch.

             
Vakar wondered if that meant that they would toss Fual and himself into a cell to die of starvation, thereby achieving their end without personally slaying their guests. He tried to tell the
old man about the Gwedulians, but the latter either had never heard of the desert raiders or did not care about them. They walked all day until Vakar's feet were sore, spent the night in another mud-hut village, and the next day set out with another escort. Thus they were passed from village to village until they came to Tokalet.

             
Tokalet, on the marge of sparkling Lake Kokutos, was a sprawling unwalled town, essentially a mud-hut village on a larger scale. Vakar shambled down a broad street in his noose, eyeing blank walls of sun-baked brick. Few of the folk were abroad in the heat of the day, and those few looked stolidly at the prisoners.

             
Vakar was dragged into some sort of official building. He listened uncomprehendingly to a colloquy between the leader of his present escort and a man who sat on a stool in a room, and then was stripped and shoved into a cell with a massive wooden door, closed by a large bolt on the outside. The door slammed shut, the bolt shot home, and they were left in semidarkness.

             
The door had a small opening at eye-level with wooden bars; a similar opening served as a window on the opposite side of the cell.

             
"Well, sir, now you have got us in a fix!" said Fual. "If you'd only—"

             
"Shut up!" snapped Vakar, cocking a fist.

             
But then he relaxed. Their energy had better be put to uses other than fighting each other, and he had resolved not to hit Fual any more over petty irritations. He prowled around, scratching at the soft bricks with his thumb-nails and wondering how long it would take to claw one's way through the wall. The window gave a restricted view across' the main street of Tokalet. All that could be seen was another mud-brick wall opposite, and occasionally the head of a passing pedestrian. (The Gamphasants seemed neither to ride nor to use chariots, and Vakar had seen no metal among them.) The window also revealed that the wall was at least two feet thick.

             
At the other opening, that through the door, Vakar started back with a grunt of surprise. Another cell stood opposite this one, and through the grille in its door a fearful face looked into Vakar's. It was huge, ape-like, and subhuman, and at the same time vaguely familiar.

             
"Ha!" said Vakar. "Look at that!"

             
Fual got up from where he crouched and looked, raising himself on tiptoe. He said:

             
"My lord, I think that's the ape-man we saw in Sederado, or another just like him."

             
Vakar called: "Nji!"

             
A low roar answered.

             
"Nji!" he said again, then in Hesperian: "Do you understand me?"

             
Another
roar,
and the thump of huge fists against the door. Vakar tried various languages, but nothing worked, and he finally gave up.

-

             
Vakar Zhu had seen enough nudity in his life not to be impressed by it, but he still found the sight of the nation's highest court meeting in that state incongruous. It was the morning after his arrival in Tokalet.

             
His interpreter said in Hesperian: "You are accused of being a foreigner. What have you to say to that?"

             
"Of course I am a foreigner! How can I help where I was born?"

             
"You may not be able to help where you were born," said the judge through the interpreter, "but you can help coming to Gamphasantia, where it is illegal for out
l
anders to trespass."

             
"Why is that?"

             
"The Gamphasants are a virtuous people, and fear that commerce with barbarian nations would corrupt our purity."

             
"But I did not know about your silly law!"

             
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You could have inquired among the neighboring nations before you so rashly invaded our forbidden land. We will therefore stipulate you are a foreigner. Next, you are accused of carrying weapons in Gamphasantia. What do you say?"

             
"Of course I carried a sword! All travellers are permitted to in civilized countries."

             
"Not in Gamphasantia,
which is the only truly
c
ivilized country.
As no Gamphasant ever takes life, there is no reason why anybody should go armed, save when a farmer in an outlying region is allowed a spear to drive off lions. We agree, then, that you are guilty of carrying this murderous implement I have here before me. Next, you are accused of wearing clothes. What say you?"

             
Vakar tugged at his hair. "Do not tell me that too
is
illegal! Why can you not let folk do as they please?"

             
"If such a shocking anarchistic suggestion were followed we could never maintain our standard of ethics. Clothes are worn for three reasons: warmth, vanity, and false modesty. Gamphasantia is warm enough to make them unnecessary, and vanity is such an obvious sin that we need not discuss it. As for the third motive, found in some barbarous nations, the gods made the human body pure and holy in all its parts, and it is therefore an insult to them to cover any
part as if it were shameful. We will therefore agree that you have worn clothes. But we are just people. If you object to this trial or the conduct thereof, speak before sentence is passed."

             
Vakar cried: "I do indeed have something to say! I could have skirted your country, but chose to enter it instead to warn you of a deadly danger."

             
"What is that?"

             
"Do you know of the Gwedulians?"

             
"A barbarous tribe, I believe, who live far to the east around Lake Lynxama. What about them?"

             
"A great army of Gwedulians is nearing Gamphasantia across the Tamenruft on camels, to assail and plunder you."

             
"How do you know this?"

             
Vakar told of his
séance
in the throne room of King Awoqqas. The judge pulled his scanty beard and said:

             
"It might or might not be true, but it makes lit
tl
e difference."

             
"Little difference!
The difference between life and death!"

             
"No; you do not understand us. We deem it unethical to oppose aggression by force; why, we might cause the death of one of these Gwedulians! If they come, we shall show them there is nothing worth stealing—no gold or jewels or fine raiment or such gewgaws—except food which they might have for the asking. Then we shall courteously ask them to leave, confident that, faced by our greatness of soul, they will do so."