The Avengers of Carrig (18 page)

“Look! See who it is that rides beneath the parradile! It’s Saikmar son of Corrie, that I swear!”

In amazed silence they watched the parradile come sliding down the air toward the tower. And the rider was Saikmar. No mistaking that long-boned figure, that sharp face now half-concealed behind a manly beard, that regal
bearing so reminiscent of his father. The parradile brought itself up short, hovering with gentle slaps of its pinions so that Saikmar swung close enough to call to them.

“Have you declared the king-hunt due?” he cried. They had not expected such a question. It was a moment before Sir Gurton could find an answer. He went forward, shouting that they had not.

“Do not do so, then!” Saikmar said. “We of Carrig shall nevermore kill the king-parradile. Henceforward we are friends and allies of his kind! Has not this noble creature borne me back to dethrone the usurper? Sound the signal for revolt!”

And, as though his words were the trigger, the Smoking Hills blew up.

It was established afterward that not a single citizen of Carrig was killed in the eruptions. Almost all the peasants from the nearby farms had gone into the city for the king-hunt; those unlucky ones chosen by lot to stay behind and keep guard against wild animals fled directly they felt the ground begin to shudder, and suffered little worse than sprained ankles and burns from flying cinders. As to the workers in the mines, Belfeor’s overseers had resigned themselves to letting them too go down into the city, knowing they would mutiny if the privilege were denied. They, however, remained to make ready a new shipment of radioactives.

They were all killed.

Langenschmidt’s agents, by showing a quick and alert understanding of their work—but not so quick as to arouse suspicion—had got themselves appointed crew-bosses so as to work with only occasional supervision by Belfeor’s
men. This gave them their opportunity to filch sufficient partly refined uranium to build a small fission-bomb—extremely makeshift, but adequate. They secreted it in an old parradile lair where the heat of the rock indicated that a vein of lava ran close to the surface, down-slope from a particularly active crater. Before leaving for the city with the rest of the workers, they fused the thing and fervently hoped that it would function. Probably there had never been such a weird bomb in history; it was of the primitive missile-and-target type, and what slammed the two components together was crude black powder made of native sulfur, powdered charcoal, and potassium nitrate from parradile dung.

It worked extremely well.

Much of the blast, naturally, was wasted; it shot loose stones out of the mouth of the cave like grapeshot from a cannon. But enough was contained to split wide open the vein of lava penned behind the rock wall. The sullenly bubbling volcano sprang enormous leaks around the sides of its crater and streams of molten rock began to pour down the hillside.

Within a short while, the heat of the escaping lava had made the neighboring rocks plastic. The tremendous weight of the lava in adjacent craters bowed the softened rock, deformed it like clay, created a passage for more and still more lava.

The earth began to shake.

North of Carrig the snows were still melting and the rivers and streams were swollen. A hundred thousand tons of rock slid down into the course of one such river, blocking its normal channel and making it overflow into the honeycomb passages of a stratum of pumice underlying the cone of one of the biggest of all the volcanoes. Gas had bubbled through the rocks here while they were cooling. The water was able to spill downward for three hundred feet before it encountered a layer at red heat and exploded into steam.

The Smoking Hills shrugged like a giant awakened, and the whole world shook.

After Saikmar had shouted to them, the nobles of Clan Parradile who were gathered on the parapet of the tower
needed no second bidding. Sir Gurton wrenched Ambrus’ sword free from Belfeor’s head, chopped unskillfully through the neck of the corpse, set the bloody token on his ceremonial staff as a standard of revolt, and hastened to the great hall of audience where the clansmen were already assembled.

There was a howl of triumph as he marched stately on to the dais and showed that the usurper was dead. Moments later, the men and women who had gathered so gloomily were pouring back down the steep path to the city with cries of joy.

Twenty of the young men who might have been contenders in the king-hunt stormed through Belfeor’s apartments, routing out the half-dozen of his followers who skulked there and in most cases taking them completely by surprise. Two valiant youths were burned down by an energy gun, but the killer was cut across the face with a sword and instants later had been knocked helpless to the floor.

Chanting an ancient song of victory, the little group then lashed their captives’ hands behind their backs and hobbled their ankles to stop them running away. Like harnessed graats, they drove them in the wake of those who had gone to rouse the populace.

They found that a horde of enraged citizens was already flooding through the streets toward the market square, shouting from one to another the fantastic news—that Saikmar son of Corrie had returned on the wings of a parradile to liberate the city. Most of those who heard did not believe, until they came into the market place and saw that Saikmar was indeed there, standing on a tall dais hastily improvised from bits of merchants’ stalls, with the parradile beside him like a resting angel.

Others than the young men who had scoured the fortress had come upon Belfeor’s followers, and they had not been so gentle. Forcing their way through the crowd they came with bleeding corpses, cheered by their fellow citizens, until they could hurl them at Saikmar’s feet like tribute brought to a god. Twenty or more bodies sprawled at last in a heap.

Saikmar was yelling encouragement and approval, his eyes bright under his wild tangled hair, but nothing could
be heard over the ceaseless applause of the crowd. At the back of the square, perched comfortably on the roof of a small wooden porch, Langenschmidt watched the celebrations. Well, it had come off, and it looked very much as though it would have done so even without his interference. What a master-stroke by this young man, to tame a parradile and come back to the city on its wings! That alone was enough to brand him a miracle-worker in the eyes of the common folk.

And Belfeor according to rumor was dead—yes, there was the proof: Sir Gurton showing his head to the people on the end of a staff, handing the staff to Saikmar now with its grisly ornament leaking bits of brain …

Langenschmidt closed his eyes reflexively. The parradile had extended its long neck and snuffed at the blood on the staff; in the next second he expected it to gulp the head down, and he had no wish to watch that happen.

Instead, however, the parradile turned away to give Saikmar a hopeful nudge. Understanding the gesture at once, the young man laughed, handed the staff back to Sir Gurton, and yelled something to the people on the ground. From the wreckage of the market-stalls they began to pass him vegetables, hunks of salted meat, dried fish on long strings of seaweed, and balls of the sticky sugary plant-sap which served in Carrig for a sweetner. Taking these offerings, Saikmar fed them to the parradile with his own hands.

Langenschmidt had expected renewed cheering at the sight. Far from it: there was a sudden hush, reverent and incredulous. Of course—a tame parradile was unprecedented, and the natives must regard this as supernatural.

Taking advantage of the near-silence, Saikmar began to shout again as he went on dropping food in the parradile’s blood-red maw.

“Belfeor the usurper drove the parradiles out of the Smoking Hills, which was blasphemy! He cheated the rightful rulers out of Carrig, which was wickedness! Together I and this parradile returned to claim our rights, and each has helped the other to success.

“I therefore decree that men shall never again go forth to kill the parradile!”

There was a stir of dismay from conservative-minded
listeners, but sensing that Saikmar had not finished, others in the audience silenced their objections.

“Does a man kill his most loyal friends?” Saikmar cried. “We have customarily gone out to slay the king so that his nobility and grandeur might pass to the successful challenger. Did that nobility come to Belfeor? It did not! He was base, and not all the parradiles in the world could have infected
him
with nobility!”

Chorused agreement from the crowd was cut short by grumbling from the Smoking Hills, and people looked about them apprehensively. Langenschmidt snatched a quick glance to see that the escape route he had mapped for himself was still open.

“In the northern sanctuary where I found asylum, this parradile sought shelter under the same roof! This is a sign, for me and for Carrig. The Smoking Hills are erupting now to show the anger of the gods—the parradiles will lack for homes until the ground has cooled. I say let us give them homes in our city that they helped us to win back! Let men and parradiles befriend each other!”

Something huge and glowing shot across the sky, and a sound followed like a giant clapping his hands. Saikmar took no notice, but the parradile paused in its feeding and cocked its head. The air was growing sulfurous.

Langenschmidt prepared to climb down from his perch. He had no wish to be caught in a stampede if there was a major earthquake and the crowd panicked, especially since it was growing dark.

“In future,” Saikmar shouted, “the spring festival shall be held not to kill the king but to show him our friendship, and the gliders and the parradiles shall fly together among the Smoking Hills for a week on end, with great rejoicing!”

At the promise that there would still be festivals, the crowd brightened, and someone began to call blessings on Saikmar’s head. In the midst of this, the earthquake Langenschmidt bad been anticipating shook the city very gently, and the porch on which he sat tilted under his weight with a cracking noise. He jumped to the ground and hurried away. It would be safer to be on the other side of the river, well clear of the town, if anything more serious happened.

Another and stronger shock followed as he was running up the paved road toward the bridge. No one else was in sight. Even the customs officers, he guessed, would have left their posts and gone to join their fellow-citizens in the square.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the watchtower on top of the fortress had been jarred by the second quake. A crack had appeared in its circular parapet and it had shed a few of its stones. There was going to be a hell of a mess in Carrig, especially if any of the timber houses collapsed and caught fire, but by this time practically everyone who could walk must be in or around the market, and that was close enough for the river to offer a refuge in emergency. He hoped that none of his agents had been caught up in the throng; he’d been too busy most of the day to keep in touch.

Still, the eruptions had had to be fairly violent. Their purpose was not merely to convince the people of Carrig that the gods were angry; there was the even more important aim of wrecking Belfeor’s off-world mining equipment beyond repair.

Pausing by the customs house for a last lingering look at the city, he was astonished to hear a girl’s voice softly speak his name—his real name, not the name he had been going under in Carrig. He whirled, and from the shadow of a doorway stepped a figure he recognized instantly. Tired, dirty, disheveled, hair tousled and feet bare, but with eyes as bright as stars, it was Maddalena Santos.

It took him a long moment to react, but when he did he was so overcome he threw his arms around her.

“Maddalena!” he exclaimed. “What in the galaxy are
you
doing here?”

“I came by parradile,” she said, and grinned broadly. “I presume it worked, or else you wouldn’t be leaving before the fun’s over.”

“Worked?” Langenschmidt repeated blankly.

“Yes! Did Saikmar’s arrival not start a revolt against Belfeor, as we hoped it would?”

Langenschmidt looked her over incredulously. He said, “Was it
your
idea to tame the parradile, then?”

“Oh, we didn’t have to tame it not in the ordinary sense. Parradiles are probably the most intelligent nonhuman
creatures we’ve ever run across, if this one’s a fair example—intelligent enough to distinguish between individual human beings and tell which are friends and which are not. But … yes, it was my idea to have Saikmar ride back to Carrig on the sacred animal and dethrone the usurper.
Did it work?”

“If I’d only known you were alive and hatching a plot like that …” Langenschmidt sighed. “The trouble and inconvenience I could have saved myself! Yes, of course it worked! I saw Belfeor’s head on a pole myself, just a few minutes ago, and—Never mind, that can wait till later. The last thing I want right now is to be trapped by another earthquake. Let’s get across this bridge in case it falls down!”

“We’ve got the full picture now,” Commandant Brzeska said. “Shimazi was the last of the agents to get away from Carrig, and he reached Dayomar with a southbound caravan yesterday. We’ve had a report from him over Slee’s communicator. He says the eruptions succeeded completely in their objective—all the mine shafts were collapsed, all the mining equipment worth mentioning was melted down by the lava, and the Smoking Hills have obligingly covered the remains with several feet of ash and pumice. The course of a small river has been changed, and about five or six hundred villagers have been made homeless, but it turns out that the only people killed were Belfeor’s technicians who were working on the site at the time.”

“What about the other things they imported?” Langenschmidt said. “They must have had maybe a hundred energy guns, for example.”

“That was one of the things Shimazi took care of,” Brzeska shrugged. “He planted a few hints in receptive
ears to the effect that anything belonging to Belfeor’s henchmen must necessarily be contaminated with evil, so Saikmar issued a decree ordering the collection of all their gear and had it dropped into a volcanic crater.”

Langenschmidt gave a satisfied grunt and crossed his legs. “I suppose the city suffered pretty badly, didn’t it? When I pulled out, even that big solid watchtower on the fortress looked a trifle shaky.”

“Yes, I’m afraid there was a lot of fire-damage. Of course, they must be used to that since they build so much in timber. Fortunately, though, it’s local summer, and even though there are about eight thousand people having to camp out on the edge of town, they have plenty of graat-hide tents, and Shimazi says they’re going to build huts to carry them through the winter and expect to have the city more or less back to normal by a year from next fall.”

“Is all this Saikmar’s doing?” Maddalena inquired from the chair next to Langenschmidt’s.

“Mostly. He and his Clan Twywit, which seems to include several extremely able men, had the situation under control when Shimazi left. It was his idea to requisition all the available hides to make tents for the homeless, and he organized emergency food and water supplies very quickly. I think he’ll do a good job; certainly he’s started out well.”

“What happened to Belfeor’s gang?” Langenschmidt asked. “I saw a few of them being whipped into the marketplace, roped together and hobbled, but at least twenty of them were killed outright and dragged to the square as corpses.”

“The survivors were—uh—disposed of in the same way as the energy guns.” Brzeska had to swallow hard. “They were taken up in gliders and dropped down a volcano. Shimazi saw two of them being executed like that. It’s a traditional punishment, I believe, for people who profane the temple or the images of the gods.”

Langenschmidt nodded confirmation. “Maybe I’ve been infected with barbaric notions, but I can’t feel sorry for the bastards—they more than earned their fate by the way they slave-drove the workers in the mines. What have you told the government of Cyclops, by the way?”

“That a number of their citizens, not all of whom have yet been identified, conspired in or connived at the shooting down of a Patrol cruiser. That shut them up very effectively. No matter what opinions they hold about keeping the ZRP’s isolated, they can’t excuse the mass murder of your crew. When they asked whether the criminals were going to be handed over for punishment by their own planetary authorities, we answered that it was impossible because having landed illegally on Fourteen they infringed local custom and were dealt with summarily by the natives. I actually said they were all dropped down volcanoes; we believed that this was the best way of discouraging anyone else from trying a repeat performance. There’s no telling how many people on Cyclops Meard may have tried to interest in exploiting Fourteen’s mineral deposits before he contacted Belfeor, so if we give the impression that the natives took care of Belfeor’s gang unaided we’ll be erring on the side of caution.”

“Did Shimazi say anything about the parradile?” Maddalena inquired. “I got very fond of that animal, you know.”

“Oh, yes! Much to the dismay of the head of Clan Parradile, who wanted to treat the beast as some kind of sacred relic, it’s become the beloved pet of the whole population. It’s been waddling around the city being fed and patted by all and sundry, and some of the more adventurous children had persuaded it to give them short flights over the countryside. Their parents are terrified, but they’ve all come back safely so far.”

“Splendid!” Maddalena said. “I’m quite convinced, by the way, that if parradiles are raised from birth in human company they’re going to display more and more evidence of high intelligence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wound up talking.”

She hesitated. “Uh—excuse me asking this, commandant, but can I take it that your next report on me will be a bit more favorable?”

“You can. In fact, I’ve already arranged to have you confirmed in your lieutenancy because of what you did on Fourteen. It was an excellent job in extremely difficult circumstances.”

“Congratulations,” Langenschmidt said dryly. Maddalena flushed.

“It seems clear,” Brzeska went on, “that your natural aptitude is not for administrative work at base. I’d like to recommend you for a planetary agent’s post if you’re interested. Your tour will be twenty years minimum, of course, so think it over and let me know in a week or two.”

Maddalena bit her lip. “Would I be allowed to volunteer as the new agent in Carrig?” she suggested.

“You would
not.”
Brzeska was firm. “The reason’s simple: although I concede that everything you did was necessary under the circumstances, you did cause a hell of a lot of disruption at both the sanctuary and Carrig. We daren’t send you back among the same people. You’ve made too much of an impact cm too many of them. The ideal agent is someone who hears everything and affects nothing. You should realize that—I’m surprised you asked the question when you knew what the answer had to be.”

She shrugged. “Overdramatizing again, I guess,” she admitted. “I was wondering what it would be like to be Lady Melisma.”

“Saikmar’s consort?” Brzeska gave a chuckle. “He must have made quite an impression on you, then—as much as you did on him. Did you know that after the earthquakes he sent out forty heralds to hunt for you?”

“Well I did—uh—break our date, of course. He was expecting to find me where the parradile put us down after flying from the sanctuary. You’d never believe how strong those beasts are! It carried us two hundred miles nonstop on the longest leg of the trip, the first one … Oh well! Poor Saikmar!”

“I shouldn’t worry,” Brzeska said with a glint of humor. “If I know these primitive cultures, you’ve almost certainly been immortalized in an interminable ballad by now. Everybody is much happier that way, believe me.”

He rose from his chair. “Let me know what you decide about that on-planet agent’s job, won’t you?” he added, offering his hand.

“I expect I’ll take it,” she answered.

“And you, Gus? You’re going to retire, aren’t you?”

Langenschmidt shook his head. “I changed my mind,” he
said. “What in hell would I do with myself for another seventy years?” He checked and glanced at Maddalena. “Something wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong.” She sounded bewildered. “I was just surprised to realize that I know now why people can say things like that. I must have changed a hell of a lot.”

She shrugged and went out. Langenschmidt paused a moment before following her. He said under his breath, “Pavel, when I get a new beat, make sure that kid’s on it, will you? I think she’s going to make history, and I’d like to be around to watch her.”

Cautiously, because the stonework had become shaky in the great eruptions, Saikmar scrambled up the narrow stairs to the parapet of the watchtower. The masons had done makeshift repairs, but the moment he discovered what they were up to he had sent them off to build barracks for the homeless; that was far more urgent. The tower was all right provided it wasn’t apt to fall down on people’s heads.

Emerging from the head of the narrow stairway, he picked his way to the edge. Shading his eyes, he stared out across the city and toward the hills, straining to see if there was anything large and flapping over there.

No sign.

He slammed fist into palm angrily. What could have become of that parradile? No one had seen it for days! Alarming suspicions raced through his mind—possibly some idiot, knowing how trusting it had become, had fed it unwholesome food, so that now it lay sick somewhere, perhaps even dead … If anyone had indeed done that Saikmar promised himself, that person would be very, very sorry.

Abruptly his depression lifted and he let out a delighted cry.
There
it was, coming over the horizon—and by all the gods, not one parradile only, but a whole gaggle of the things, four, five, eight, eleven of them! What had he been worrying about? Wasn’t it to be expected that the parradile might grow lonely and go hunting others of its kind?

Now, of course, this meant they would have to give the creatures names and teach them to answer to them. But a name for his rescuer, and Carrig’s, suggested itself at
once. That parradile was going to be called Sloin!

Chuckling with relief, he waited as the huge graceful flock approached circling the tower suspiciously, and their leader, the newly baptized Sloin, came to perch on the parapet and wave proudly at his companions with one wing. Saikmar patted the big-mouthed head affectionately. Then he tried to entice the others down too, but they were too frightened.

Sloin seemed to shrug. He took off with a blast of air that almost knocked Saikmar sprawling, and out of the hovering group he sorted a handsome young female, obviously his mate. Prodding and grunting at her, he compelled her to come close enough for Saikmar to pat her head also, but could not persuade her to settle on the tower.

“Oh, well!” he seemed to say at last, and with a final nod toward Saikmar he led his subjects swooping down to be fed in the market square.

Saikmar watched them go with envy in his heart. The new king-parradile had found subjects for him now, and a fine consort besides, and doubtless in a little while the parradiles would be again as numerous as before Belfeor ordered their slaughter. Whereas he…

“Oh, Melisma!” he groaned aloud to the air. There was no trace of her anywhere, the woman he had hoped to make his bride and equal ruler of this great city! It was small consolation to reflect that just as she had appeared mysteriously in the parradile’s lair far to the north, so she had gone mysteriously when the parradile returned her to the south. Could she have been real? She had given him many delicious proofs of her femininity, but that didn’t mean she was not in fact the creation of a friendly god …

An idea came to him. Though Melisma had gone, she need not be forgotten. Not if he had anything to do with it.

He hurried back down the stairs of the tower. When he came back into the regent’s apartments, he sent the first servant he saw on an urgent errand, and sat waiting impatiently for it to be completed.

Only a few minutes had passed when the harper came in and gave a low sweeping bow. “What does it please Saikmar that I should sing?” he inquired.

“I don’t want you to sing. Not yet. I want you to make a new ballad. It will be called
The Ballad of Lady Melisma,
and these are the events that must be included. They are strange and wonderful, and the song must be couched in strange and wonderful language to suit the subject. Do you understand?”

The harper seated himself on his red velvet stool. “I hear and obey,” he said. “I will do my best.”

“It must begin with the arrival of Belfeor,” Saikmar said, leaning his sharp chin on his hand. “When he usurped power the gods were angry, and so this is what they planned …”