The Hostage of Zir (11 page)

“Please, sir, one thing more. Who’s this Shosti, whereof I hear? Is she on your side or the other?”

Barré gave a short, barking laugh.
“Ao!
The self-styled Priestess of Ultimate Verity holds a mountain stronghold northwest of here, clept Senarzé, whence she sends forth her influence maleficent. Whether ’tis in form of magical spells or merely fanatical followers, I wot not; but she gives me trouble enough for six. ’Tis she alone who blocks my holy purpose, the unity of Zir to forge, so that we shall stand united against all vile outsiders. I’ll show you straight.”

Barré opened a chest and took out a rolled-up map. He partly unrolled it. Then he looked sharply at Reith, rolled the parchment up again, and put it back in the chest.

“On second thoughts,” he said, “I’d better not, I ween. One good look at yonder chart, and a clever earthman like you would have the picture of the lands and roads imprinted on his brain. ’Twere useful to you if you slipped away from us.

“To return to the drabby of Senarzé and her sect, I need a new religion, like unto hers, the support of my folk to solidify. That astrological cultus of Gozashtand pleases me not; all mathematics, without power to stir the emotions. From what I’ve heard, the Church of the Lords of Light sounds fitting for my purpose, but none of its missionaries has come to Dur. Doubtless they’ve been frightened off by the lies of Tashian and Eqrar, who make me out a bloody-handed barbarian instead of self-sacrificing patriot.”

Reith said: “If I could arrange to fetch such a missionary hither, were it not a fair trade for your present captives?”

Barré chuckled. “Fertile in expedients, are you not? But nay; that were asking me to trade my sword for a spoon. Both have their utility, but that makes them not equal in value. Moreover, much as I should like this missionary whereof you speak, I’ll not let you go wandering abroad on your promise to enlist one. Did you offer a certain means of bringing the accursed Witch within my governance, now, that were different.”

“Might one say that Shosti stands in the same relation to you that you do to Tashian?”

“Fointsaq,
no! ’Tis a different affair entirely. That’s unkind of you, Master Reese, after I’ve striven to entreat you and yours as sweetly as our mountain poverty and the exigencies of the case permit. You have my leave to go.”

###

Reith left Barré still sputtering his indignation. Out in the light of Roqir again, he walked, deep in thought. A good look at that map would have been useful.

Reith wondered at his chances of getting into Barré’s tent and sneaking a look at the map in the chieftain’s absence. But no, that seemed unlikely. There were always at least a couple of Ziruma guarding the tent; Barré was not slack in running his army. Reith’s own maps were back in Gha’id, and anyway none showed Zir in enough detail.

Reith wandered past the place where Valerie Mulroy continued her language lesson with Captain Najjim. They paid Reith no heed. Valerie was looking at the Krishnan with an expression Reith recognized; he was not surprised to hear her say: “. . . in the midnights.”

“At midnight, you mean,” said Najjim. “ ’Twill do most excellently. I have the guard tonight. I’ll meet you on the south side of camp, having sent the other sentries to the other sides. Agreed?”

Reith, still thinking, passed out of earshot. He had no definite idea of where the camp was, other than that it lay somewhere west of Gha’id and the railroad construction site. They were near the top of a large hill or small mountain, but the surrounding forest hemmed in the vista.

“Hey, Fearless!” shouted Maurice Considine, who was acting as catcher. “Come and take a turn at bat.”

Reith had not swung a bat at a ball in years, but he joined the game. Considine said: “We use those two stumps and that old dead tree as bases.”

Reith struck out and endured the others’ gibes at his clumsiness. On his next turn, however, he hit a homer. When he got back to the home plate, he murmured to Considine: “Maurice! Pretend to quarrel with me and chase me up that tree.”

“What? Why?”

“Never mind why! Just do it.”

Considine puzzled briefly, then fell into the spirit of Reith’s proposal. He shouted: “Hey, that’s not fair! Fearless didn’t touch the second stump!”

“I did, too!” cried Reith.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“You’re damned right! I lacked that stump as plain as anything. I’d have broken a toe if I’d kicked it any harder.”

“I don’t let any skinny, red-haired son of a bitch call me a liar! You take that back, or I’ll push your teeth down your throat!”

Aimé Jussac came puffing up. “Boys! Boys! Do not quarrel in the face of the enemy!”

Reith and Considine each made a couple of wild swings, missing the other by half a meter. Then Reith ran to the dead tree, with Considine behind him, and swarmed up into the branches. Considine climbed after him. The two Krishnans guarding the prisoners looked on, showing amusement at the antics of off-worlders.

Higher and higher went Fergus Reith, until he reached the canopy level of the surrounding forest. As the intervening foliage fell away, he found himself looking across the lower peaks and ridges to snow-capped Mount Kehar. There was no mistaking that looming mass. The smaller but sharper peak rose south of it, on the edge of the sea and connected with the mountain by a saddle-shaped ridge.

“Come down at once, you!” shouted a Krishnan voice.

Reith looked down to see Captain Najjim standing below.

“Go on down, Maurice,” said Reith.

When Considine was out of the way, Reith took a last look at the landscape, trying to memorize every bump and hollow. Then he descended. Considine was trying to explain in his few words of Durou that he and Reith had been just horsing around. The phrase came out in Durou as “making ayas,” which left Najjim baffled.

“He means, ‘we did but jest’,” said Reith. “We are friends in spite of all.”

“You
Ertsuma
must be stark mad,” said Captain Najjim. “Do such japeries no more!”

“Aye, gallant captain,” said Reith. To Considine he added: “Maurice, don’t you know that
aya
has an irregular plural?”

Considine waited until Najjim had stalked off, then he asked: “What’s this all about, Fearless?”

“I wanted a look at the country round about, just in case; and I needed an excuse to climb that tree.”

“Oh? I see! You’re thinking of es—”

“Sh! Don’t say the word. Don’t discuss it, either. Some blabbermouth would let the cat out of the bag. If I disappear, it won’t be just to save my own skin, but because I think it’s the best way to spring the rest of you.”

“Well look, why can’t you take me and John, too? We’re younger and huskier than the others. We could—”

“No; this is best done alone. Besides, you two are needed here.”

###

That night, Reith shared his tent with Aimé Jussac. At bedtime, he confided his intention of escaping to the Frenchman.

“Ah!
Magnifique!”
said Jussac. ‘If I were not so old and fat, I would essay something like that.”

“Someone,” Reith continued, “will have to be left in command. I think you’re the man. You seem to have your head screwed on tighter than most.”

“You do me honor, my friend. But, if I may offer a suggestion, I shall tell them merely that you have nominated me for the post, or made me provisional leader until I can hold an election. A leader who is freely elected will command the loyalty of the others better than one who is merely appointed.”

“Okay, any way you like. Didn’t I hear you talking Durou to one of the Krishnans?”

Jussac shrugged. “I have picked up a smattering. I already speak six languages, so one more has presented no great difficulty.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll go to sleep and snore good and loud—”

Jussac blew out the lamp. From the dark came sounds of his composing himself to sleep. Reith crouched at the front of the tent, peering through the crack between the flaps. Outside, beyond his range of vision, sentries paced and exchanged passwords. Karrim, the largest of the three satellites, flooded the camp site with silvery light, thrice as strong as that of the Terran moon. Something howled in the distance.

After a long wait, faint sound and motion alerted Reith. A shadowy form, which he recognized as that of Valerie Mulroy, drifted past his tent. At first he thought she was on her way to the latrine. Then she went off to southward to her rendezvous.

Reith picked up the sack of biscuits that he had, with Considine’s help, purloined at supper. He stole out and, crouching, moved south on Valerie’s trail, keeping her barely in sight.

A quarter-hour later, he had reached the woods south of the camp. The polychrome of the Krishnan foliage had faded in the moonlight to a uniform silver.

Confident that no sentries would be here except Najjim, whose mind would be on other matters, Reith entered the forest. He felt each step before putting his foot down, lest he make a dry twig snap.

Faint sounds came from his right. He heard a giggle and words in Valerie’s voice, and then Najjim’s deeper tones.

Reith detoured to the left to be sure of missing the amorous pair. Straining his eyes, he picked out motion to his right. Splotched with moonlight, something long and dark lay on the ground among the tree trunks. The form humped itself up in the middle, sank down again, and continued rhythmically rising and falling.

Reith tightened his lips to suppress a chuckle. Knowing Valerie’s capacities, he suspected that she would wear down even the lusty captain. In any case, she would give him a memorable ride.

Keeping Karrim on his right, Reith felt his way through the trees. Away from the camp, the underbrush thinned so that he could move more easily. He tried to remember the topography between the camp and Mount Kehar, as he had seen it from the tree . . .

Then a hairy hand was clapped over his mouth from behind, while other hands seized the limbs. The hand over his mouth was withdrawn, but, when he filled his lungs to yell, a gag was stuffed into his mouth.

In a few minutes, he was hog-tied and slung by wrists and ankles from a carrying pole. His captors, as nearly as he could make out in the uncertain light, were tailed Krishnans of the land he had seen employed as slaves. Their main independent settlement near Novorecife was in the Koloft Swamp, and in most of the Varasto languages they were called Koloftuma.

The Koloftuma set briskly out. The pole whence Reith dangled was carried on the shoulders of two, while several others trotted ahead and behind.

If Reith had found his ride on aya-back, from Mount Kehar to Barré’s camp uncomfortable, it was the height of comfort compared to this torture. But his captors trotted tirelessly on, paying no heed to his grunts, groans, and gurgles.

IX

THE GOLDEN SKULL

Eons of pain later, Fergus Reith was borne to a clearing. There others, some with lanterns, waited. Since Karrim had set, Reith could not tell much about these others. From size and sound, he guessed them to be ordinary tailless Krishnans.

The tailed Krishnans talked with the new group, but the dialect passed Reith’s understanding. The Koloftuma lowered Reith, cut his bonds, and ungagged him. Others helped him to his feet and supported him while life returned to his tortured limbs.

When he could stand unaided, Reith was amazed when, at a signal, the Krishnans around him knelt down. One said in Durou: “Hail, Your serene Divinity!”

“Who, me?” said Reith. Some Krishnans were leading ayas into the clearing.

“Aye, Your Divinity. We have come to take you to our mistress, the divine Protectress. Be so good as to mount and ride with us. Pray, essay not to flee, for the Koloftuma can track you with ease.”

“If I be so divine,” said Reith, “why are you using force with me?”

“All shall be made clear, when we shall have brought you to Her Rectitude. Kindly mount this beast.”

Reith considered a break for liberty but decided against it. In his present state, they could catch him before he had gone three steps. Wincing, he climbed into the saddle. A Krishnan on another mount held Reith’s reins, braided into the aya’s mustache.

Although Reith had had scant experience with horses, he wished that he had one now instead of this horned, six-legged monstrosity. The saddle was mounted over the middle pair of legs, so that the shock of each footfall was transmitted directly to the rider. Not even the heavily padded Krishnan saddle did much to cushion the jar.

###

Roqir was rising in scarlet and vermilion glory when the cavalcade wound up a steep-sided vale between rocky cliffs and barren hills. The slope became steeper. Reith sighted a cluster of structures atop a crag, standing almost isolated from the surrounding mountains but joined to the nearest by a narrow saddle.

The trail wound up to this ridge, between a vertical cliff on one side and a sheer drop of hundreds of meters on the other. Reith shut his eyes as they ambled past the worst places, hoping that his mount’s six legs would provide the needed margin of safety.

As they neared the stronghold of the Witch of Zir, the yellow sun flashed from the gilding on the central tower of the main structure. Rainbow-hued prismatic beams shot from a large, faceted glass ornament surmounting this tower. This building, thought Reith, must be the temple.

Lower buildings of mortared gray fieldstone surrounded the temple, their lower parts hidden behind a massive wall. The dark wall and low buildings contrasted with the marble like cream color of the tower. The impression was of provincial crudity surrounding a center of barbaric magnificence.

“Behold Senarzé, the spiritual center of this mundane world!” said the leader of the Ziruma.

They trotted out upon the narrow ridge that joined the stronghold to the neighboring heights. As they neared the place, a drawbridge came down with a rattle of chains and a thump. Reith saw that the rock had been dug away beneath the drawbridge, forming a ditch across the ridge. Hence, when the drawbridge was up, the stronghold was impregnable unless the attackers could scale the surrounding cliffs. This would be a mountaineering feat, involving the use of ropes and pitons, even if nobody were dropping things upon the climber.

They clattered over the drawbridge, beneath the portcullis, and through massive gates of squared timbers with bronze fittings. Inside, the Krishnans drew up and dismounted in a small square, surrounded by houses of three and four stories.

Other Krishnans, many in armor, awaited them. The armor, like that of the other Varasto nations, had a Moorish look, having many small plates connected by stretches of chain mail. Behind them, winches clattered and chains jangled as the drawbridge was raised again.

Reith’s captors bowed and spoke to a hooded figure, shorter than the others, whom Reith took from the cut of its cloak to be a Krishnan female.

“Pray dismount, divine sir!” said the captor who had spoken to Reith before.

Reith stifled a groan as he swung down. He staggered, caught the saddle, and steadied himself.

“Turn,” said the cloaked woman.

Reith did a double about-face. The woman spoke to the commander of the party. Reith thought she said: “It is indeed he!” in the Ziro dialect. She gave another order.

“Pray come with me, Your Divinity,” said the commander.

Four other Krishnans closed in about Reith, who could not see any reason for these precautions. Now that the drawbridge was up, there was no way out of the stronghold.

The procession marched up the steps of the temple, the gleaming façade of which was ornamented with patterns of semi-precious stones. Reliefs of gods and goddesses in stiffly dignified attitudes stared down. A few early-rising Senarzeva, going about their business, glanced curiously at Reith and his escort.

Inside the huge bronze doors, Reith was led through halls and passages to a group of secluded chambers. When they halted in a large bed-sitting room lit by two golden candelabra, the leader of the escort said: “Pray be seated, divine sir! Take your ease! All shall be done for your comfort.”

Reith sat. Turning in his chair, he asked: “Why am I here? What wants Shosti of me?”

“I beg that Your Divinity have patience,” said the leader. “All shall be explained.”

All but the leader and one other Zira departed. These two stood before the door by which they had entered, watching Reith.

Another door opened. In came a squad of young females in gauzy draperies. They knelt before Reith and bowed to the floor. They chattered girlishly at him, but only one spoke standard Durou. One said: “Suffer us to minister to Your Divinity, my lord!”

The next thing Reith knew, they were unbuttoning his clothing.

“Hey!” said Reith. “What—”

“Your serene Divinity will wish his bath, will he not?” said the Durou-speaker. “Pray, how works this thing?” She was struggling with a zipper.

“If you will tell me why I am here and what you plan to do with me, I will show you.”

They went off into shrieking giggles. “Pray excuse us, Your Divinity. That is for our Protectress alone to tell you.”

Reith sighed and gave up. Before his capture by Barré, he had begun to think of himself as a man of action, a master of his own and others’ fates. Ever since then he had been reduced, step by step, to impotence. Physically and emotionally exhausted, he felt like a bug tossed on a chip on the sea of life. Although he still worried about his tourists, there was nothing he could do for them at the moment.

He helped the girl with the zipper. Docilely, he let them strip him and lead him into a bathroom.

The bronze tub, thought Reith, was big enough to bathe a bishtar. He got into it by a step-ladder. The girls discarded their gauze and set about washing him. The Durou-speaker produced a flat cake of brown substance, wet it, rubbed it with a washrag, and applied the rag to Keith’s back. Good God, he thought, this looks like real soap!

“What is your name?” he asked the girl.

“Beizi.”

“What is that stuff, O Beizi?”

“Oh, my lord, this is a piece of magical essence, which one of the first of you creatures from outer space brought with him. It has been in the Protectress’ family for generations. ’Tis used only on special occasions, lest it all be dissolved away. Our Protectress sees fit to honor Your Divinity by the use of this stuff, called
savunit
or something.”

Reith recognized the Portuguese word for soap,
sabonête.
He was fairly inured to Krishnan bath customs. Nevertheless, the presence of these attendants, unmistakably female despite their alienness, put ideas in his head of which he would not, in his present fatigue, have thought himself capable. One bent over to scrub him, her breast gently rubbing back and forth against his shoulder. He crouched down to hide the physical evidence of his thoughts.

By mentally running over the irregular verbs of Durou, Reith at last persuaded the manifestation to subside. When he stood up to be dried, there was a burst of chatter among the girls. Beizi explained: “You
Ertsuma
have such a funny shape, all dangly. It must expose you to injury . . .”

“Never mind my shape,” said Reith. “Just fetch my clothes, if you please.”

“Oh, but my lord, you must not wear those dirty, ragged old things again! You shall be arrayed as befits your divinity.”

“What have you done with my old clothes?”

“N-nought, Your Divinity. If you are fain to keep them in memory of your journey hither, we will mend and wash them.”

They took Reith back to the bedroom. While one girl sewed a rent in Reith’s shirt, the others clad him in an outfit as glittering as that of any old-time oriental potentate. The outer garments were cloth-of-gold trousers, tunic, and turban. A jeweled bangle was affixed to the front of the turban. Over the tunic, Reith wore a scarlet sash studded with emeralds.

Very pretty, Reith thought as he surveyed himself in the mirror. He would have preferred his own plain garb; where in hell were any pockets? He tried to explain about pockets but found he could not speak the needed words.

“Hand me my pants and jacket,” he said.

When this was done, he demonstrated the pockets. “I need them to carry my little things—wallet, knife, comb, pen, and so on.”

“How quaint!” said Beizi, giggling. “Here, you tuck those things into your girdle.”

“I still want these—these little bags in my clothes. Can you girls make them?”

“We will try. Your Divinity’s slightest wish is law—provided of course that you attempt not to leave Senarzé. Now my lord must be hungry.”

“Famished, young lady; also sleepy.”

An hour later, Fergus Reith, full of the best breakfast he had eaten on Krishna, was sound asleep in the bed furnished by Shosti, Protectress of the Temple of Ultimate Verity at Senarzé.

###

When Reith awoke, the direction of a ruddy sunbeam through a narrow window told him that Roqir neared the horizon. In came the same squad of attendants. Beizi said: “We have been peeping in on you for an hour, my lord. Permit us to clothe Your Divinity and lead you to our Protectress.”

Reith felt his bristly chin. “I must—ah—how say you?—cut face hair first?”

“Oh? I have heard that male
Ertsuma
grow hair all over their faces, but I have never seen one close. Suffer me to look, my lord.”

She touched Reith’s chin and jerked her finger back with a yelp. “It prickles! How do you this cutting?”

“I’ll show you. Fetch a basin of warm water and some of that
savunit.”

They watched him, squealing with delight, as he scraped his face with the small razor in his pocket case. Although beards had again been in fashion when Reith left the earth, he and his male tourists were clean-shaven in deference to the prejudices of the nearly beardless Krishnans.

When he was again arrayed in splendor, Reith was led through rooms and halls to a chamber where a Krishnan woman sat, in gauzy garments of cobalt blue, like those of the attendants, but with a jeweled tiara on her greenish-black hair. She rose and bowed.

“I am Shosti, Your Divinity,” she said. “Do I understand that your mortal name is Reese?”

“That is close enough,” said Reith. “Now, madam, kindly tell me why you have kidnapped me and what this divinity stuff is all about.”

“You shall hear in due course, my lord. Pray sit.”

Now that he had a better look at the Witch of Zir, Reith took her to be a good deal older than her handmaidens. She was fairly good-looking, as Krishnans went, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was hard to tell Krishnans’ ages, since their flattish, oriental-looking faces did not wrinkle much.

Moreover, the life spans of the two species differed. That of Krishnans was intermediate between that of a normal, unmedicated earthman and that of an earthman who regularly took longevity pills. Reith and his tourists were well-supplied with these medicaments.

“Will you soon be boun for another repast, my lord?” said Shosti.

“Aye, my lady. But if you will explain—”

“In good time, I pray. Fetch some kvad, Beizi, and tell the cook to lay on dinner.”

When the liquor had been brought, she said: “I am told, my lord, that before taking the first drink, earthmen raise their glasses and say ‘To your health!’ to each other. Be that true?”

“Aye, madam. Nearly all our languages have a phrase for it:
à votre santé, à sua saúde,
and so on.”

“Then, to your health, Your serene Divinity!” She performed the gesture awkwardly.

Reith took a sip. “Now, madam—”

“I am coming to that. Know you the prophecies of Gámand the Unshorn?”

“I fear not.”

“Gámand lived around the end of the Kalwm Empire. His prophecies were indicted by his acolytes, but during the Dark Age, many sheets were lost and the rest became jumbled. Hence we must needs interpret them in the light of events. When something strange takes place, we look in the prophecies of Gámand and say, why, here the event is plainly foretold! But, what with the archaism of the language and the confusion of the order of the texts, we could not anticipate the event in time to forestall it.

“Now, prophecy number one hundred and forty-three says that a god shall appear in an unearthly form, with hair of flame. Upon the mistress of the spire he shall beget an heroic demigod, who shall free the people of the world from unjust, oppressive rulers and launch an era of peace, joy, and prosperity.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“Your Divinity does but jest for surely your all-knowing mind can see that the god with flaming hair is yourself.”

“Who, me?”

“Aye, divine sir. And the pinchfist is that grasping niggard Tashian. The mistress of the spire is my humble self; for the spire is plainly this peak of Senarzé, whereon the Temple of Ultimate Verity stands. What chance, think you, that these things would fit the prophecy by mere happenstance?”

Reith gulped. “You mean you expect me to—ah—beget this demigod? Here and now?”