The Lost King (12 page)

The small green planet
might have continued to circle its unassuming sun forever ignorant of
the troubles and turmoil of the worlds beyond. But Oha-Lau was
doomed, and its doom came out of the stars as legend foretold.

Doom fell, literally,
on Oha-Lau in the form of a spaceplane—a small fighter, to be
exact—that crash-landed among the thick foliage near one of the
principle villages. The natives were accustomed to spaceplanes
landing on their planet, but not to one smashing into the trees,
cutting a wide swath of destruction through the vegetation. In vain
they waited for something or someone to come out of the wounded bird,
but it sat still and silent.

No one dared approach
it. The natives had all seen these strange birds shoot flame from
their tails and roar into, the night sky, and everyone feared this
might do the same without warning. But, finally, curiosity got the
better of them. The crippled bird appeared to be near death; it was
making the most pathetic beeping sound, and some of the young
warriors approached it, spears ready.

The bird was, indeed,
dead (or it was after a spear jab killed the object that was
beeping). Its pilot was not, however. She was unconscious, suffering
from severe dehydration and starvation—a victim of space
narcosis, though the natives did not know this. The computer system
had saved her life, guiding the craft on controls she had set when
she realized she was losing her grip on consciousness.

There was one person in
the tribe who cautioned against helping this stranger from the stars,
one wise and cynical being who reminded them of the legend and
protested taking the woman into their midst. But the gentle people
ignored the old man and brought their doom upon themselves.

The warriors lifted the
pilot from the spaceplane and carried her to the hut of the tribal
healer. He had no idea what was the matter with the young woman, but
thought the symptoms appeared similar to those experienced by his
people who lost their way in the jungle and were later found,
half-crazed and wandering. He treated the young pilot accordingly
with herbs and potions and soothing music and—either because of
his medicine or in spite of it—the pilot made a complete and
rapid recovery.

And thus was the
beginning of the end. The natives did not notice, when they buried
the bird, the black carbon streaks down the sides of the spaceplane.
They saw the wrecked deflector shields but had no idea what they
meant. They could not know, in their innocence, that their guest had
been involved in some terrible conflict and had barely escaped with
her life. They could not know that she was going to bring that
conflict to them.

If the young pilot had
foreseen the grief and destruction she would inadvertently bring down
upon the innocent people she would grow to love, she would have fled
to an even more remote part of the galaxy. But her spaceplane was at
the bottom of a bog. She herself was wounded in mind and body.
Oha-Lau was a sanctuary of peace and beauty, kindness, compassion,
smiles, and laughter. She had almost forgotten such things existed.
So she stayed on Oha-Lau and let it heal—so she supposed—the
deep gash in her soul.

The natives, usually so
eager to be rid of visitors, made an exception in the case of the
young pilot. She did not ask stupid questions about virgins. She
didn't want to know where to find moonrith. She lived among them, yet
apart. She learned their language, respected their ways, and,
unconsciously, began to exert her influence upon them.

They didn't know why,
except that she had, as the old man said, ancient eyes. Certainly the
eyes of the twenty-four-year-old woman had seen more grief and
suffering and horror than most see in a lifetime. But behind the
shadow of pain and sorrow was a wisdom and power that came from
centuries of genetic research. She had been born and bred to shape
men and events, and she could no more deny this part of her nature
than she could deny the sea-gray eyes that came from her barbarian
father or the pale, sea-foam color hair that was the gift of her
unhappy mother.

The downed pilot began
her quiet rule by solving small problems and settling minor disputes.
Impressed with her skill and tact, the elders sought her out for
advice, particularly on the handling of other-world guests. She had
as great a reluctance to encourage these unwelcome visitors to
Oha-Lau as did the natives. Her regal presence caused even the most
arrogant smuggler to regard her with awe and, without quite knowing
how, within a few years, the downed pilot had become the beloved
ruler of the people of Oha-Lau.

The woman was content.
Her past, with its bitter memories, began to fade away for her as she
hoped desperately it would do for others. Everyone must believe her
to be dead. She tried to convince herself of that, although she knew
in her soul that this was impossible. One man, at least, was aware
that she lived. But if she was very, very careful, she might remain
hidden from him and be able to rest on this lovely, peaceful planet
forever. Like the natives, she avoided looking up into the stars at
night.

Doom did not fall
swiftly.

The woman had a gift of
vision—"longsight" the natives called it. She could
see in her mind a fearsome beast approaching camp and send the
warriors to kill it before it could harm anyone. She could see
unwelcome visitors approaching their planet as well, and these often
found an "honor guard" waiting for them upon their arrival.
What the natives did not know, of course, was the true power of the
woman or her gift. With it, she could see to the ends of the
universe. It could reveal, if she chose to use it, the events
transpiring in the galaxy. She did not choose to use her gift,
however, having made up her mind to shun the worlds above. But the
gift was not one she had complete control over, and sometimes the
visions came to her unbidden.

This happened the first
time seventeen years after she had arrived on the planet. One
evening, while walking with her attendants to her simple hut, she
frightened them all by crying out in anger and fear for no reason
whatsoever—no reason, at least, that they could see. She
covered her face with her hands, but she could not blot out the sight
that was transpiring before her mind's eye.

"Stavros!"
she cried through her tears, forced to watch as the dear friend and
companion of her childhood died in unspeakable agony.

And she knew, as he
died, that he had revealed the secret.

Doom was poised, ready
to fall.

Her people watched her
in concern after that. The woman was preoccupied, given to pacing the
smooth grassy stretches of the garden they had made for her.
Muttering strange names, her hands twisting together, she walked back
and forth, back and forth. Then she would begin to weep and, shaking
her head, run to her hut and hide like a child in the darkness.

Hide from what? Her
people grew terrified. Was there some dread beast in the jungle
coming to attack them? Something more awful than anything they had
ever previously encountered?

The woman tried to
reassure them. "It has nothing to do with you," she told
them.

But this time they were
more gifted with foresight than she.

Doom fell.

A heartbroken scream
shattered the tropical night—a scream of such fury and hatred,
such loss and grief, that the people, after a moment of frozen fear,
rushed to their ruler's hut in terror, expecting to find her
murdered, torn apart by some savage creature. Instead, they found the
woman, shaking with sobs, crouched on her knees beside her cot. Her
attendants sought to comfort her, but she would not be comforted.
Seventeen years of peace and beauty and safety had ended.

Her piercing cry had
awakened everyone in the village, filling those who heard it with
vague, unknown terror. But the woman's cry had gone far beyond the
village. It echoed beyond the green planet into the stars, carrying
its message of grief and anguish out into the galaxy. And so it was
that, even as the sword pierced her brother's body, his killer heard
that cry and knew, deep in his soul, who it was that mourned. Her
hatred and sorrow and pain touched him as nothing had touched him in
seventeen years. And he knew, if not where she was, how to find her.
The mind-link between these two, broken seventeen years ago, was
reforged.

The fate of Oha-Lau was
sealed. For the first time in the planet's history, one man now began
to actively search for it. And that made it only a matter of time
before his attention was drawn to the speck of green, sparkling like
a tiny jewel on the fingertips of the great galactic arm.

Maigrey sat
cross-legged on a rattan mat inside her hut. Her eyes were closed.
She leaned back wearily against the sturdy, living walls formed by
the mothering tree—so called because this tree, with its strong
trunk and sheltering branches, could be uprooted from its home,
replanted in new ground, take root again, and flourish. Plant many
mothering trees together, side by side, and the trunks would fuse,
forming walls, the leafy branches intertwining to create a roof so
thick that only minimal thatching was added to protect the dweller
from the heavy jungle rains.

Once Maigrey had loved
the thought of living within a living tree. It spoke to her of the
reverence and respect these people held for life. She was touched and
amused by the name—the mothering tree. Often, when she had
awakened in the night, tormented by some dreadful dream she could
never remember, she lay upon her bed, cowering in nameless fear, only
to hear the whispered lullaby of the leaves of the mothering tree.
Though she had never known her own mother, never heard her own
mother's voice, she thought she knew the words of that lullaby, words
that came only in fragments and could never be recalled, words spoken
in a language she only vaguely remembered. Comforted, she would fall
into sweet, dreamless sleep.

Dreamless sleep.
Maigrey squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the sun's bright glare
that shone through the open doorway and filtered down among the
leaves of the tree. Dreamless sleep.

"Heavenly Creator,
is this too much to ask?" she muttered, pressing her hands
against her burning forehead. "No!" She stared defiantly up
into the branches tangled above her head. "It is
not
too
much and I
will
have it." She glared at the inoffensive
leaves, which trembled in the jungle's slight breeze, yet seemed to
be trembling at her tone of bitter anger. "I know Your law! I
will argue my case before Your Heavenly Tribunal! 'See!' I will cry.
'See what You have made me endure! And I have borne it all—the
pain, the suffering— without complaint. I kept my vow. I did,'"
she repeated angrily. "'Did You keep Yours?' Ha!"

That vicious "Ha!"
startled an old man entering the hut. Cringing, he made as if to back
away, but Maigrey—seeing him—rose hastily to her feet.

"Please, Healer,
please come in. I am sorry if I offended you. I wasn't talking to
you. I . . . was talking ... to myself ..."

Nodding and shrugging,
the old man hobbled into the hut. He was a very old man, this ancient
healer. So old that the children of the companions of his youth were
now dying of old age.

"I am meant to see
the end," he used to say, and he always said it in the tone of
voice of one who is cursed.

Shuffling across the
dirt floor of the hut, he eyed Maigrey with a shrewd, eager gaze in
which there was a gleam of hope. The woman spread a fresh mat upon
the floor of her hut, knowing that the old man would appreciate the
gesture of respect. He did so, lowering himself onto the mat
awkwardly and slowly with a great show of infirmity. Maigrey knew
this bone-creaking
was
show—the day the tiger wandered
into the village the spry old man outran most of the young warriors.
But the shaking legs and snapping bones gained him many
advantages—the best place by the campfire, the choicest bits
from the dinner pots, nubile young women to aid his feeble steps.

Kneeling down on her
own mat facing him, Maigrey smiled at the old man nervously. "Have
you brought it today?"

The old man glowered at
her, as if wondering why she should ask such a fool question, though
he had been three days before without bringing it. Of course he had
brought it. He made a major production of fumbling at the knot of a
ragged scrip hanging from a rope tied around his shriveled middle.
Maigrey's hands twitched to snatch it from him, but she dared not
anger him and could only sit and wait in impatience that the old eyes
were quick to note.

He drew it forth slowly
and tossed it onto the mat between them. "I have brought what
you requested, Sea-Eyes," he said in a quavering voice that was
probably as phony as his creaking legs.

"Will it work as
they say?" Oddly she made no move to touch it now that it lay
within her reach.

"Yes, yes!"
The old man waved a gnarled hand at the pouch. "Boil the bark in
water until the green foam rises. Drink it, then—"

"Slowly? Swiftly?"
Maigrey stared at the pouch in fascination.

"Oh, slowly. The
taste is said to be quite exquisite and you might as well enjoy it
going down."

"And then?"

"You will begin to
feel very tired."

"No pain?"

"None. Lay
yourself down. It would be of help to your women," the old man
hinted, "if you were to dress yourself in the burial gown
beforehand."

"I understand,"
Maigrey said, swallowing a sudden wild burst of laughter that welled
up from her knotted stomach.

Reaching out with a
firm and steady hand, she lifted the pouch and opened it casually,
sniffing at the contents as if she were buying spices in the market.
The smell was pleasant, even enticing. The old man watched her
without expression.