The Super Barbarians (15 page)

Surprised that the interview had been so short, I turned to obey. As I put my hand out to open the door, Pwill called me back.

“Remember this!” he said. “If I find you have been lying-no, but no matter.”

I watched him struggle with himself, in the same pitiful way that a man given a posthypnotic command will struggle to find a sensible reason for committing the absurd act he cannot avoid. Once more he told me to go; once more he called me back.

“Shaw! If they say—at the Acre—if they say my son is not there, I will send for you to go into the Acre and find him.”

He was a broken man. I bowed, and this time I did go out.

But when Pwill had gone and was safely on the road to the city, four brawny soldiers came in search of me to take me to Llaq, and I knew that she was not going to be so easily
deluded. I was marched to her luxurious apartments in the east wing of the seraglio, full of quiet maidservants and little shrill-voiced dwarfs who climbed on the curtains and swung there, screaming like monkeys.

The soldiers placed me in front of the high cushioned divan where Llaq held court, and she fixed me with burning eyes. She had been weeping.

“You slimy creeping animal, she said chokingly. “You two-faced subtle cheat, you schemer and poisoner—what have you done to my son?”

“I have done nothing to your Over-ladyships son,” I said as coldly as I could. “I have learned today that his false friend Forrel—”

She cut me short. “I am not to be fooled by such empty stories!” she snapped. “Did Forrel go into the Acre to buy coffee? Did he? Or did you? Coffee is of Earth and you are of Earth and you are here and you have been often to the Acre. Soldier! Hit him!”

I sensed rather than saw which fist of which of my guards was coming up clubbed behind my head. I rode with the blow so that it scarcely hurt.

“Careful!” I said to the man who had done it. “Remember what became of Dwerri!”

Llaq snarled at me. “What Earthly poison you used on the former whipmaster I do not know and do not care. I’m not impressed by your evil trickery, your drugs and potions and the rest. What have you done to my son?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It is my guess that when the traitor Forrel ran out of his secret hoard of coffee your Over-ladyship’s son went down to the Acre in search of more. Unless Forrel told him where he obtained his supply, he will have been met with a refusal. Your Over-ladyship cannot have
forgotten that I spent much time and money in the Acre insuring that no one reputable would provide coffee for your son/’

She was beginning to doubt. I piled on top of what I had already said the same half-truth I had already told Pwill—about Forrel coming to me yesterday and being turned away empty-handed.

“We will see,” she said at last. “Soldiers, take him and confine him to his quarters until Himself returns from the town. And further! Take my order to the duty officer of the guard and tell him to mobilize four companies with heavy weapons. If we have to, we shall take the houses of the Acre apart, stone by stone, to find my son!”

I was taken back to the morning reception chamber after Pwill returned, and was brought into the presence of something I had never expected to see on Qallavarra—a public argument between Pwill and Llaq. It was something the servants and soldiers present did not like; they shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, wishing they could go out of the room but unwilling to do so without an order.

Listening to the vicious insults being hurled, I pieced together what had happened. Pwill had been to see Olafsson, and the judge had refused to state one way or the other whether his son was in the Acre. Llaq would have commanded her men to hang Olafsson up by his ears until he did answer; Pwill had not done so, but had come home, and that was what Llaq was so angry about.

“Are we to let these defeated worms give us orders?” she screeched. “Are we to let them drug and poison the heir of a great house? That sore has festered long enough in the city—we must turn it out to find my son!”

Pwill shook his head heavily.

“What has become of us?” Llaq wailed. “You will not move a finger to avenge your heir! It was an Earthly drug bought of Earthly criminals that laid him low. How are men going to speak of the honor of this house if you will not avenge the filthy deed? You have said only ‘no’ to my importuning—if you had the seed of manhood in you, you’d have called up the four companies I have already alerted and marched straight to the Acre to demand satisfaction! Have you a single reason not to do so?”

I knew he had not. He only had the warning against it which Shavarri had planted in his mind while he was under the influence of credulin.

“Then we must march at dawn against the beasts in the Acre!” Llaq cried. “We must spit this crawling Earthman of ours on steel spikes and show what will become of his fellows if they defy us any longer!”

I knew she meant it. It was tune for me to speak up. I said in the boldest voice I could muster, “It was on the invitation of the Over-lady that I came to Qallavarra!”

She froze for an instant. Then she came across the room to stand in front of me, eyes full of hate. She said, “I will make you sorry for that word before you die.”

I said nothing. She rounded on her husband again.

“Well?” she demanded. “Shall your men march at dawn against the Acre? Or are the Vorra from now on forever to despise the name of this house?”

Pwill squared his shoulders. He said, “We will go through the Acre till we find my heir—and if we do not find him, we will leave not one of the Earthly grubs alive.”

That night I lay in darkness with a guard at my door and
another at the end of the corridor. I was almost certain to die tomorrow. Somehow I had mastered my fear; it seemed that death was just an event. Why I was now so calm I could not decide. But I was calm, enough to sleep.

Once again I was awakened, this time by a thud in the passageway outside. I came to myself all in one piece, ears cocked. After the thud, I heard a dragging sound, and then the noise of the key turning in the padlock which had been fixed on the orders of Llaq to insure against my getting out and overpowering the guards. It seemed that even she now had a great respect for my abilities.

The door opened as I watched, and the narrow beam of an Earthly flashlight showed in the gap. A dim, familiar voice spoke my name. I sat bolt upright on the night couch, striking a light for my bedside torch.

“Marijane!” I said in a disbelieving whisper.

The rising flame of the torch showed her very pale, and a little unsteady on her feet. She closed her eyes against the sudden fight, swaying. I hurried to help her, bringing her to a chair. A thick stench bad come into the room with her. Looking down, I saw that her pants were wet to the knees with thin mud.

She opened her eyes and gave a wan cynical smile.

“So that’s what you did with him,” she said. A shudder went through her thin body.

Instantly I understood. “You—came up through the sewer?” I said.

“Of course. We spied out the land last time we were up here. Is it Pwill Jr. there—all eaten away?”

I nodded. “You aren’t alone!” I said, to change the subject. “Is Ken with you?”

“Ken and Gustav.” She pulled herself to her feet as though
remembering where she was. “They got rid of the other guard—I wasn’t expecting this one. But he wasn’t expecting me, either. Is it going all right?”

“Pwill is marching on the Acre at dawn tomorrow with four companies of men and heavy weapons,” I answered. I wondered how I knew that that was what she wanted me to say.

“Good. The House of Shugurra will meet him on the road with six companies. Come on, we must get you out of here or your life won’t be worth a penny.”

She caught my hand. Over the prostrate body of the guard in the corridor I followed her towards my way of escape.

I
N THE CORRIDOR,
poised watching and listening for signs of interference, I found Marijane’s brother Ken and with him Gustav. To my surprise they each shook my hand warmly, grinning in the light of Marijane’s flashlamp. But they said nothing—merely beckoned me to the open cover of the manhole down which I had hidden Pwill Jr. and the interfering guard.

It was not until the cover had been lowered behind us and we stood in nightmarish darkness except for the thin beam of the flashlamp, listening to the scuttering of the rats, that Ken Lee said, “You’d have been done for if anyone opened that hatch, Gareth.”

I felt pleased at his using my first name. But I didn’t get the point of his remark, and said so.

“What happened? My guess is that you had to take a drink
to brace yourself—and then you threw up from the stink here.”

“More or less,” I confirmed. “But—I still don’t get you.”

“You can still, even now, smell the vomit,” Ken said. “Did the Vorra ever drink brandy? If someone had opened the hatch and found the body, and that too—a soldier who had served on Earth and recognized the smell—but skip that. Time’s wasting. Let’s go.”

We formed a line on the slippery walkway beside the sewer and followed the flashlamp into darkness. What Ken had just pointed out had not occurred to me. I was suddenly shaking with retroactive fear at the narrowness of my escape.

Yet somehow I’d faced the virtual certainty of being spiked to death on steel barbs earlier, and I’d been so undisturbed I’d managed to fall asleep normally.

How come?

And then I understood.

“Is it safe to talk?” I whispered.

“Wait till we’re a little further on,” Marijane answered equally softly. I did so, but it was hard. My mind was churning.

We came to the point at which the walkway ended, and we had to get down into the stream itself. We came out of a tunnel under a dark, clouded sky, moving with absolute silence. We followed a twisting pathway across fields where nothing moved except ourselves, We came to the edge of the highway through an unmended gap in a cattle fence.

Someone was waiting in the shadow of a shrubby bush, and rose like a ghost in front of us.

“Ken?” he said under his breath.

“George,” Ken answered. “We got him away safely. Let’s roll as quickly as we can. Where’s the car?”

I could barely see George. He was blacker than the night itself. In fact, when there was a muttered introduction and I heard him whisper something about good work on my part, I had difficulty seeing the dark hand he put out to shake mine. No wonder he had been able to hide on the edge of the highway in safety.

“Car?” I said, remembering.

There was a chuckle from all my companions. George answered for them all.

“Courtesy of the police department in the city,” he said. “Though they don’t know it yet. She’s down the road a piece, between a couple of clumps of tubers. Nobody came by to see her.”

We climbed into the car, our muddy feet and legs unpleasantly sticky and cold, and sank back into the deep upholstery. From somewhere about him George produced something I hadn’t ever expected to see on Qallavarra—a pack of Earthly cigarettes.

“Have one of these to celebrate,” he suggested.

The others refused, never having got the habit presumably, but I took one. I knew in a confused way that I deserved the treat. But I still wasn’t sure what I’d done.

I said, as George took the car humming on to the highway, “When was I—uh—instructed?”

“In Olafsson’s office, of course,” Marijane answered, as naturally as though she’d been expecting the question. “We all owe you an apology, by the way. We didn’t know about you. Judge Olafsson explained the situation to us—because Ken had got so angry he was talking too much—and to keep the news from spreading further than necessary they ordered us to take care of your escape when it fell due. Judge Olafsson said he thought you must have had to take oblivon just
before leaving Earth. Do you know if that’s what happened?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “I got my memory back just the other day. The same day I last saw you, in fact.”

“The judge said it was like a miracle when you were brought to his office the first time,” Ken said. “Everyone had given up hope of you being any use ever again—you’d been in the House of Pwill for seven solid months and never tried to get in touch with anyone in the Acre. But when you did arrive he felt he dared not miss the chance to make some use of you. So he had Sessions organize a special emergency briefing for you. Did you notice nothing at all?”

“I remember feeling slightly dizzy for a moment,” I said. I also remembered I had taken a dislike to Sessions, the man with the hard eyes. I apologized to him mentally. To have given me all the instructions which had led up to my recent work in the House of Pwill and left no conscious memory with me at all—that was really impressive technique. “That was the second time I called?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head wonderingly. Glancing at the roadway ahead, I saw that we were already approaching the outskirts of the city. George reached up to the roof of the car and turned a little switch there. He saw me looking at him and grinned.

“Sign up there says POLICE,” he said. “It’s insurance. If I have to, I can sound a siren too, that sounds like a banshee in torment.”

“Something else that’s been puzzling me,” I went on after a pause. I turned to Marijane and Ken. “I take it that Cosra was the other half of the scheme, over in the House of Shugurra? Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Marijane answered. “As I understand it,
the whole climax of the affair has always been what will now take place tomorrow morning—that’s to say, a fierce and bloody new civil war between the great houses. In the old days, as you probably know, the great houses sometimes attempted to seize cities of free people and add them to their domains. This kind of rivalry ceased when the Vorra got their spaceships—”

I made a note to mention the extraordinary episode in the shaman’s house, but let her continue.

“But some of the bitterest wars were fought when two or three small houses allied against an arrogant rival who had tried to swallow up a city which was nominally independent. It was clear that the Acre might now be made to seem such a prize that the same situation could occur again.”