Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (27 page)

Once outside the gatehouse, they all felt better, but the path that they took down the hill did not lead back to the encampment. Instead they found themselves entering what was obviously another enclosure, much more extensive than the first. Tangled vegetation covered fallen house-posts, and a series of overgrown hedges marked out paddocks for animals, and plots where a few sparse stalks of native wheat still grew.

“This one only seems deserted,” Lanath said, “like somebody’s about to come back. But at the same time—it’s like it was never really lived in.”

“Perhaps they
were
temporary dwellings,” Elara suggested. “The guide said people came here for a festival . . .”

“They should have stayed away, if they wanted to live,” said Li’ija in an odd voice. Elara turned and saw her standing very still, staring at something in her hand.

“You found an arrowhead!” exclaimed Karagon. “Say, I didn’t know you were a sensitive. What else do you pick up from it?”

“Blood,” the girl said, “and hate. Cattle. A raid . . . men running . . . walls of flames . . .”

“These house-posts do look—charred,” said Galara uneasily.

“And that,” Cleta pointed out, “is not an old wood-pile. Those are bones.”

Elara put her arms around Li’ija and gently turned the chela’s hand so that the bit of flint fell to the ground. The Alkonan girl shuddered and relaxed against her with a sigh.

“Are you all right?”

“I will be.” Li’ija shivered again. “That was strange.” She straightened, moving a little away from Elara. “I remembered my father telling me that there was a place near Belsairath that used to be a famous mine for flint, and I thought about the road we’ve been on, and that arrowhead—it was like it appeared out of the ground, winking at me. So I picked it up, and it just—”

“It was calling you. There are a lot of spirits here.” Lanath looked around uneasily. “Their skulls were not buried. No one made the offerings. They’re still waiting.”

Everyone had moved closer together. The setting sun crowned the trees with fire, and bars of bloody light slanted across the ground, making wavering lines in the dim air.

“Yes,” said Cleta, unexpectedly, “even I can feel that. Ugh! I hate this kind of thing. Let’s get out of here!” she exclaimed, taking Li’ija by the hand.

By the time everyone had made it out of the enclosure, the first stars were beginning to appear. Li’ija seemed to recover quickly, but Cleta and Lanath continued to mutter about spirits. Everyone else seemed to expect Elara to know what to do. Grounding their energies might not be the best remedy—it was from the earth, after all, that the trouble came.
Caratra’s other face,
she thought, and shuddered again.

The obvious solution was to get completely off the hill, but that proved to be more difficult than expected. Though the sky was fairly clear, there was no moon. Beneath the trees it was darker still, while every possible path turned and twisted as if trying to lead them astray. In the end, all they could do was to force their way downward through thorny shrubs and tangled saplings until they smelled wood smoke and heard Tjalan’s servants chattering as they cooked the evening meal.

Most of the explorers stumbled the rest of the way down into the camp as fast as they were able, but Lanath tarried, and after a moment, Elara climbed back up to rejoin him. “Come along,” she said softly. “It’s over.”

“No. We have not escaped . . .” Lanath whispered. “The one in the barrow on the hill. She is very old, the Mother of all her tribe. And she doesn’t want anyone here . . .”

And no wonder,
thought Elara,
after the way we went blundering about among the bones!
She gave Lanath a gentle push toward the campfire. “It’s going to be all right,” she said again. When he had gone, she turned back toward the woods, lifting her hands in salutation.

“Grandmother, our apologies. We mean only good to you and your people, honor to the dead and the living alike. Let me set out an offering for you in the forest, and in the morning we will depart from here. This one night I ask for your protection. Send us no evil dreams!”

 

Throughout the following day the acolytes and chelas remained unusually close together, but walked mostly in silence. The next day, the travelers turned to the east once more. Micail found himself oddly reluctant to head in that direction, for that night in the camp beneath the barrow-crowned hill, Micail had dreamed of Tiriki as she might have become if she had reached this chilly land. For the first time in a year he had awakened smiling. So clear had the image been that he almost seemed to see her still, crowned with hawthorn bloom, framed by lush green hills . . .

But as they moved toward the rising sun, that awareness of Tiriki began to fade.
What do you expect? It was just a dream,
he told himself sternly.

They camped that night at the edge of the hills. Before them lay a new countryside whose gentle undulations flattened into a broad plain that rolled away to a misty horizon. The countryside here seemed more thickly settled than any they had yet seen, but the same hedge and ditch system defined the fields where new wheat stood thick and green. Beyond that lay more open pastures where little brown sheep or wide-horned cattle grazed. The round farmhouses were much larger than the ones they had seen near the coast and were roofed with straw thatch instead of grassy turves.

“This is Azan—the Bull pen—where King Khattar rules!” Heshoth proclaimed. Clearly the trader was proud of his ruler. “At the noon meal we will stop, and you may put on festival clothing to honor him.”

Tjalan caught Micail’s eye with an amused smile, but plainly he found the counsel good. “We begin,” the prince murmured, “by impressing this native chieftain, but soon, I think, he will honor
us
the more.”

“Do you know anything of this king?” Micail asked, just as softly.

“From what Heshoth has said, Khattar is lord over the many chieftains whose holdings ring this plain. They war with one another over grazing rights, then gather at a central shrine for their great festivals—over which the king presides. They say that he carried off and married the woman who is now high priestess for all the people of the Bull. His reputation as a warrior was apparently great enough to discourage retribution.” He shrugged. “But Heshoth tells me that it’s not his wife but his sister who is called queen. Her name is Khayan-e-Durr, and her son will be his heir. It’s all rather complex and primitive, and as I say, I don’t fully understand it. But you know what they say, when in Khem, walk sideways.”

“How will he receive us, do you think?” Micail cast a quizzical look at his old friend. “As allies, or as a threat to his supremacy?”

“Ah, well, that will depend on how we handle this embassy,” Tjalan answered with a laugh. “I hope you brought your best bracelets.”

 

They came to Azan-Ylir, the home and stronghold of the high king, at the time when the cookfires had been lit and the savor of roast meat was beginning to scent the air. The village was set on a rise above willow-clad banks where the river Aman flowed gently down from the north. The afternoon sunlight shone sweetly through the new leaves. Heshoth’s ferocious bodyguard, Greha, had disappeared during the noon rest, so Micail was not surprised to find that they were expected.

Greha was waiting, with a line of warriors dressed as he was, in tanned leathers and furs, and armed with bronze weapons. They stood in two groups on each side of gateposts made out of gigantic tree trunks that towered above the logs of the palisade, twice the height of a man. As the Atlanteans marched through the gate, the guards fell in behind them.

Are they threat or protection?
Micail wondered. And then, remembering his conversation with Tjalan,
Which are we?

The village consisted of a collection of roundhouses whose conical roofs were thatched with straw, interspersed with storage structures and pens for valued livestock. But a single central building dominated—a great roundhouse whose roof was built in two sections, the inner cone lifted on pillars above the outer ring so that smoke could filter out beneath it. Inside, light filtering down from above added to the illumination of the central fire.

The hall was filled with people, but in that first moment, Micail saw only the man who lounged on a high seat placed between the tallest posts and closest to the fire. He was as broad as a barrel, but the shape of his shoulders suggested that most of his girth was muscle as well. His neck needed to be strong as well to support his headdress, crowned by the horns of a bull. But the man’s grey eyes were clear and intelligent.

As the newcomers came to a halt before the hearth, the king said something in the guttural tongue of the tribes.

“Khattar, son of Sayet, heir of heroes, Great Bull of Azan, and King of Kings, bids you welcome to his hall—” translated Heshoth.

Tjalan was murmuring a polite thanks, introducing himself and his company to the trader, who translated it in turn. It was a courteous way to let the rest of them know what was being said. Tjalan had been studying the native language since his first voyage to this land, several years before.
I have wasted my time,
Micail realized.
I ought to have spent the past year learning the native ways as well.
But what he did know of native manners suggested that it would not be until much later that they would get down to discussion of the Atlanteans’ purpose here.

 

There was another interchange, and Heshoth motioned the men in the group to benches set before trestle tables on the southern side of the hall. Only then did Micail realize that, except for Tjalan’s faithful shadow Antar, their military escort had been kept outside.

The Atlantean women were gently escorted to a separate section in the east, near a sort of lesser throne, where a woman draped in a shawl sewn with small bits of gold sat facing the king. Now that he had leisure to look about, Micail saw a golden lozenge sewn to the front of the king’s sleeveless tunic and bracelets of gold that flashed on his arms. A few of the native men who sat at the other benches also wore gold or bronze, but mostly their ornaments were of jet or finely worked antler or bone. Micail understood then why Tjalan had insisted that he have a new set of royal dragon bracelets and headband made for him in Belsairath. It was still not as grand as his own regalia, of course, but that had perished with Ahtarrath . . .

More compliments were exchanged, and great slabs and joints of smoking beef and mutton were brought in, arranged on beds of boiled grain on wooden trays. There was drink as well, a yeasty brew with a hint of honey, served in finely made pottery beakers. King Khattar, he noticed, drank from a beaker made of gold.

The king’s bards sang of his victories in battle, and a leather-robed man called Droshrad, whom Micail recognized as some kind of priest, boasted of how the gods had given Khattar power.

By the time darkness had fallen, Micail was beginning to suspect the king’s plan was to stupefy them with food and drink. Their situation did not seem certain enough to allow him to comfortably take more than a few polite sips of the brew, but the demands of courtesy required him to eat more meat than he was accustomed to tasting in a month. Tjalan, however, was in fine form, joking with Heshoth and commiserating with the king on difficulties with crops or neighbors, just the kind of conversation that had bored Micail to madness in Ahtarrath, and which he found no more interesting in translation . . . But the ordeal did at last seem to draw to an end. Singly and in groups, the feasters took leave of the court.

The king and queen themselves, however, remained in their places with a few attendants around them. The shaman Droshrad and his fellows stayed behind as well. Micail caught Ardral’s eye and found the old man observing the situation with his usual sardonic smile.

“Yes, of course we have the manpower to build barrows for our honored chieftains,” Heshoth translated the king’s most recent words, “but in the old days many tribes came together to make greater monuments. To build a new one with mighty stones would surely prove my power!”

“There were many such monuments in my country,” answered Tjalan, “and they have uses that you have never dreamed . . .”

“Maybe so”—the king grinned back—“but your laborers lie under the sea, and with them, your power.”

“No, my lord, the men who have the magic to raise the stones for you are here . . .” Tjalan spoke very softly, holding Khattar’s gaze with his own.

Micail came to full attention, eyeing his cousin narrowly. They had discussed asking this king for permission to investigate the site identified by their calculations, and then perhaps to build there. What game was Tjalan playing?

“The men of my race have many powers,” the prince continued, “but as you have said, our people are, at the moment, few. Yours are many, and if we work together, you will become—greater. The People of the Bull will rule this land forever.”

Khattar pulled at his beard, eyes narrowing, as the shaman whispered in his ear. Micail watched them, and realized how hard he had been gripping his beaker only when he let go and saw the corded pattern imprinted upon his hand.

“What advantage for you is in this offer?” Khattar asked at last.

Tjalan gazed back at him with grave sincerity. When he and Micail were boys playing at the game of Feathers, that look usually meant that the Alkonan was about to make some decisive, or possibly deceptive, move.

“The Sea Kingdoms are no more. We need a place where our arts can flourish. We need a homeland . . .”

“Droshrad can call spirits and compel the hearts of men,” Khattar said obliquely, “but only the sweat of men can move stone.”

“Or their song . . .” Tjalan said softly. He turned toward Ardral and Micail. “To move large things requires a full stand of singers, but the great among our priests can work alone. Will you show them, my friends, what the power of Atlantis can do?”