The Golden Torc

by Julian May

  "Perhaps it is appropriate that you contribute your priceless heritage to our racial evolution at this point. The Thagdal believes this, as do Eadone Sciencemaster, Aluteyn the Lord Creator, Sebi-Gomnol, and a number of others among our Great Ones. But you and your genes for operant metafunction might just as easily be a potential lethal factor—as the Host of Nontusvel perceives you. What is to be done? I am at a loss to know how to proceed."

  Slowly, Elizabeth rotated the diamond ring on her finger. "Some other would-be manipulators of humans have known the feeling."

  10

  ISOLATED from the mainland on its long peninsula as the Tanu capital was, its citizens were restricted in their ability to engage in Hunts. Long before humans came to the Many-Colored Land, all Firvulag had been exterminated or driven from Aven; citizens hankering for blood sport had either to travel to the Iberian mainland or content themselves with the organized events that took place in Muriah's huge open-air arena or at the Plain of Sports, a great green field northwest of the city that was laid out with grand- and petit-prix racecourses. In addition to the thrice-weekly contests, there was held midway in each month, excepting those of the Grand Combat and the flanking Truce, a much larger Sport Meeting that attracted contestants and spectators from all parts of southern Europe.

  It was at the September Sport Meeting that Aiken Drum and his man-at-arms Stein Oleson were ordered to demonstrate their newly acquired martial skills. If the two of them passed muster in the arena, they would be allowed to participate in the Delbaeth Quest—which was now scheduled to be conducted by the King himself. After frantic maneuvering on the part of the Queen and her Host, it was decided that not only Aiken but also Nodonn Battlemaster, Lord of Goriah, would pursue the elusive monster under Thagdal's designated agency. All of the noble sports fans who could manage to get away would accompany the expedition to Spain to watch the fun.

  Opening odds on Aiken to take the Shape of Fire were 300 to 1.

  A nasty driving rain swept over Aven on Meeting Night. A team of PK stalwarts led by Nodonn's twin brothers Fian Skybreaker and Kuhal Earthshaker mobilized efforts to deflect the downpour from the stadium by means of psychic energies. It was expected that the Battlemaster himself would arrive at the capital in time to witness the testing of the Candidate Aiken and his Viking henchman.

  In the royal box awaiting the parade of contestants, Queen Nontusvel glanced up at a crooked discharge of natural lightning that flashed above the transparent roof generated by the psychokinetics.

  "Such unusual weather for this time of year. I hope Nodonn and dear Rosmar won't be delayed." She turned to Eadone Sciencemaster who sat beside her, austere in unadorned silver. "Gomnol theorizes that our Flying Hunts may be disrupting the ozone layer and changing the climate."

  "Twaddle," said Eadone, secure in her position as Dean of Guilds and eldest child of the King. "It's nothing but a freak storm. Perhaps the remnant of some tropical cyclone from the South Atlantic that managed to cross the Gibraltar Isthmus."

  "Let's hope so, August Daughter," boomed Thagdal. "If this rain settles in to stay, it'll mean poor sport for our Delbaeth Quest. The old Shape of Fire might just stay home in his cave with his pipe and slippers if the crops at the plantations get all soggy and nonflammable. We'll have a devil of a time tracking him if he stays underground."

  "Here's Bryan!" exclaimed the Queen. She now spoke in Standard English, a courtesy followed by all of the Tanu Great Ones in the presence of the torcless anthropologist. "And Greggy, and the Craftsmaster, too! Quite drenched, poor things. Aluteyn, darling! Couldn't your PK cope?"

  "I'm a creator, Awful Lady, not an umbrella merchant," grumped the stout old Craftsmaster. "What's wrong with a little rain, anyhow? We Tanu ought to stiffen up and shake our silly water phobia. Whoever drowned in the rain?"

  Bryan bowed to the royal couple. "It wasn't at all bad until we were forced to make a run from our carriage to the arena entrance. There are so many people here tonight that the ramas holding canopies over the new arrivals kept tangling up with one another."

  Someone giggled, a sound approximating that of a strangling bantam chicken. A human male in a golden torc, wearing a clawhammer cutaway in the colors of the Creator Guild, stumbled moistly toward the King and Queen, spattering the other occupants of the royal box as he waved his arms in greeting. His marmoset face was full of blithe innocence; he seemed to be about sixty years old.

  "Aluteyn spun us an illusion of dryness!" this personage declaimed, executing a kind of curtsy that ended just short of his pitching over the rail into the arena. "But can illusion ever mimic truth? Especially when a canopy full of water tilts and—"

  "Oh, shut up, Greggy," said the Craftsmaster, looking tired. "It's been a long day, Great Ones," he told the King and Queen.

  "And did you take good care of Bryan? Show him all the wondrous secrets of your Guild?" The good Queen's solicitude warmed all three of the arrivals and dried their wet feet.

  "A most impressive tour," Bryan said. "The facilities for training artists and scientists reminded me of certain universities of my own era. And of course Lord Greg-Donnet conducted me around the research laboratories of his own Genetics Department—"

  "And wasn't it marvelous? Wasn't it?" The former Gregory Prentice Brown gave a small skip and clapped his hands. "I can't tell you what a joy it is chatting with a colleague who could fill me in on some of the latest developments of Milieu science! Do you realize, Majesties, that the percentage of operant metapsychics among last year's newborn humans in the Galactic Milieu has risen from two to four? I simply must replot my study of the latency coefficients! I had based my original prognosis on the assumption that the population was in equilibrium ... but Grenfell says it's not! The implications are enormous."

  "I'm sure they are, Greggy dear," said the Queen. "Do sit down and relax. Look—here come the clowns!"

  "Oh, goody!" Lord Greg-Donnet cried. "I hope the exploding one is here tonight." He plumped down onto a seat and appropriated a plateful of finger-bananas from the royal snack table, eating them skin and all.

  Eadone asked Bryan, "Is what Greggy says true?"

  "I should think so, Lady Sciencemaster."

  She frowned. "But for a replot, we'll need the computer."

  "But we have the computer," Bryan said. "Ogmol and I have been using it to store our data."

  With some stiffness, Aluteyn said, "The kid fixed it."

  "Tana's toenails!" exclaimed the delighted King. "Maybe I misjudged Aiken!"

  The Queen sat watching the cavorting entertainers with a fixed smile.

  "Aiken Drum has been busy about many things," the Craftsmaster continued in a voice heavy with irony. "He was able to show some of my people at the glass works how to restore the large annealing machine. He and Gomnol have been conferring on ways to improve the mental-assay device—which as you know has always been dismayingly fragile. And he has also introduced the vulgar nobility to kite fighting and three-dimensional chess. The new diversions have swept Muriah in the past two weeks."

  "H'm," mused the King. He did not look delighted any more.

  "Oh, the animals!" Greggy squealed. "Just look at that giganto-pithecine! Will he fight? Will he?"

  "Not to the death, darling," the Queen said. "We must save him for the Grand Combat. But there'll be elephants, and giant bear-dogs from the Catalonian Wilderness. And—look there, in that wagon. Another new monster! Isn't it dreadful? Like a cross between a sabertooth and a huge hyena!"

  "Hyainailouros," Eadone said. "Another specimen brought back by the African expedition. The last delayed shipment arrived today."

  Now there was a flourish of brass and tympani, punctuated by thunderclaps. The night's contestants paraded forth: first the lesser grays on foot, wearing different kinds of gladiatorial gear; then the higher-ranked grays, the silvers, and the human and Tanu gold-torcs in resplendent glass armor of many colors and styles. The chaliko steeds they rode were also armored and trapped richly, and many
of the animals had their coats dyed yellow or crimson or blue.

  The applause of the throng swelled almost to the pain threshold. Through the entrance and into the arena came two riders, side by side. One was a gigantic human male riding a coppery-red chaliko. His full armor was crystalline green studded with roundels and spikes of glittering topaz. The visor of the horned emerald helmet was up and Stein grinned at the shrieking fans and smote his shield with the flat of a huge vitredur axe. Beside the Viking rode a diminutive figure who seemed all plated in gold, astride a great black mount. As the ladies began to throw flowers he gave a bound and stood upright in his saddle, bearing aloft a lance from which floated a long purple pennon with a golden symbol on it.

  "A banner with a strange device," Bryan murmured. "Is that charge really a digitus impudicus?"

  "The Venerable Mayvar," said the Queen in a neutral tone, "allowed her Candidate to choose his own armorial bearings. Am I right in presuming that the hand-gesture motif represents a certain raffish defiance?"

  "Your Majesty is quite correct," said Bryan, keeping a straight face.

  The parade now ranged in a great circle all around the arena. The Marshal of Sport and the Lord of Swords entered last of all, together with their attendants and the corps of referees. When these functionaries came to the great fenced stairway in front of the royal box, they made their duty to Thagdal and Nontusvel and led both contestants and spectators in a loud salute.

  Thagdal's mind and voice bellowed: "Let the games begin!"

  The audience settled down while the principal fighters and animals retired to sideline areas. Preliminary events and circus acts began to warm things up. The King asked Bryan, "How does your survey go, Worthy Doctor?"

  "I've gathered a considerable body of data, as Lord Ogmol has doubtless reported."

  The King nodded. "Oggy's fighting tonight, but he tells me you've been running him all over town—and into the countryside."

  "It's important to include agriculture, especially since it has become your policy to delegate operation of the plantations entirely to humans. I was surprised to find so many torcless workers employed in nonmenial positions. It's interesting that most of them seem productive and happy."

  "Were you surprised to discover that, Bryan?" inquired the Queen. She took a napkin and dipped it into a goblet of white wine, then wiped mashed fruit pulp from Lord Greg-Donnet's face. The Genetics Master smiled adoringly at her.

  "The apparent assimilation is significant. I understand that malcontents are relatively few—at least in the Aven area. Will I be allowed to compare these data with similar surveys of other metropolitan regions—say, Goriah and Finiah?"

  "Unfortunately," the King said, "there will not be time. We will require your completed analysis before the Grand Combat. You must make do with the material you're able to gather here—even if it does tend to be loaded with positive factors."

  "We gather the crème de la crème of humanity for Muriah," said Greggy, looking smug. "Hardly anybody runs away down here. Not even the women. I mean—where could they go?"

  "Kersic, mostly," said Eadone. She applauded an exhibition of roping and hog-tying of elk-sized antelope, performed by cowboys in orange lamé. To Bryan, she explained, "That's an island east of here. In your future world it has split into Corsica and Sardinia."

  "And the—outlaws live there?"

  "A few," the King said, waving a dismissive hand. "Gangs of sickly bandits preying on each other. Every few years we mount a Hunt and clean them out. Not much sport, though."

  "Look! Look! The hoe-tuskers!" The Genetics Master, and most of the rest of the crowd, jumped up and down and screamed. Handlers with long goads brought on six colossal proboscideans with down-curving tusks. The largest stood nearly four meters high at the shoulder. Tanu knights afoot, armed only with vitredur lances bearing large banners, performed an exotic corrida with the animals. One luckless fighter botched a pase and was trampled. The rainbow blaze of his unbroken armor dulled abruptly, as though a switch had been thrown.

  Greg-Donnet tittered. "Snapped his neck. Well—there's one for Dionket's baggie-bin!"

  The Queen told the appalled Bryan, "He will be restored, dear boy, never fear. We're a very tough race, you know. But that poor fellow will be sidelined for the Grand Combat while he heals within the Skin. He's lost great prestige by being so clumsy."

  The deinotheria and the surviving knights retired to applause.

  "None of the animals are to be killed?" Bryan asked.

  "There will be only two battles to the death tonight," said the Queen. "Ah. That's the end of that. And now..."

  An elaborate blast of brasses sounded. The Marshal of Sport came to the steps in front of the royal box and Aluteyn translated his announcement for Bryan.

  "Be pleased, Awful Majesties, to accept the homage of the Novice-at-Arms Stein Oleson, loyal servant of the Candidate Aiken Drum!"

  Stein cantered out on his chaliko, rode up to the steps, lowered his long-hafted glass axe, and saluted by touching his gray torc. The cheers were loud but tentative. When the King arose and made a gesture, the crowd fell silent.

  Stein turned his mount to face the chosen antagonist. Animal handlers on the other side of the arena opened a stout gate on the wheeled cage that held the hyainailouros.

  The beast seemed to flow across the pocked and stained expanse of sand. It had the snakey neck and relatively small head of a polar bear. Its body, however, bulked at least twice as large as that of the unborn ursid. The hyainailouros might have weighed a ton or more; it moved with speed and agility, flattening its large rounded ears against its head and heading directly for Stein in a kind of galloping slither. The animal's mouth hung wide open, displaying a pair of oversized upper canines that were longer than Stein's mailed hand.

  "Oooh!" shrilled Lord Greg-Donnet.

  Following the obligatory etiquette of the arena, Stein came at a gallop to meet the creature, swerving aside at the last second to whack it on the rump, en passant, with the flat of his glass axe. It whirled, giving a kind of hissing hoot, and slashed with one clawed forefoot, then the other. Stein returned to count more coups, attacking and retreating, smacking the animal on flanks, back, neck—even gently tapping its flat skull. The hyainailouros spun about in a frenzy, trying to disembowel the chaliko or catch the tormenting rider in its gnashing jaws. The spectators greeted each coup with a roar of approbation. Finally, when the sabertoothed beast was beginning to reel with vertigo and frustration, scattered voices among the fans started to shout: "A kill! A kill!"

  Stein spurred his mount and galloped in a tight circle around the swaying creature, which had risen to its hind legs. It uttered a series of short, high-pitched bleats, like demon laughter.

  Thagdal stood up once more and gestured.

  "A kill!" howled the crowd in unison.

  And then there was silence, except for the thud of the chaliko's clawed feet as Stein guided it away from the hyainailouros, and the rasping exhalations of the winded prey waiting for its enemy to return. Stein dismounted. At the end of his axe was a stout lanyard; the advancing Viking began to swing the weapon by this cord, whirling it around and around his horned head. He approached the now rampant brute with every facet of his armor aglitter and the rotating vitredur blade all but invisible. Then he sprang, his body's trajectory timed to coincide with the swaying of the sabertoothed prey, and scythed its head off.

  The spectators erupted in a mental and vocal tumult, shouting, clapping, and stamping. Thagdal opened a wicket in the front of the box and descended the stairway that led into the arena. Down below, the Marshal's attendants threw wide the gate in the protective fence so that Stein could approach the sovereign. The Viking took off his emerald helmet and clumped forward.

  And then the crowd gasped. From the other side of the stadium came thundering a black steed bearing a small rider armored in gold-lustred glass. Just as Stein paused in front of the King, Aiken Drum reined up in a sliding halt scarcely a meter behind
his "servant," grinning like the personification of Jack O'Lantern.

  "And he did it all himself!" the jester said. "No assists from mighty Me!"

  The Marshal of Sport had been obliged to act fast with his PK to keep the great dust cloud Aiken had generated from enveloping the disconcerted King. Now the official stepped forward and declaimed: "Pray silence for the accolade of His Awful Majesty!"

  "Yeah," said Stein, giving Aiken a look. "You'll get your chance."

  Thagdal produced a large chained medallion embossed with the heraldic male face. He raised it. As the crowd cried, "Slonshal!" he hung it around Stein's neck.

  "Accept this our accolade, and be forever our faithful man-at-arms."

  The people cheered, and Queen Nontusvel sent down a napkin threaded through a magnificent ruby thumb ring (Stein didn't mind at all that it was a little messy with banana), and the Tanu ladies exuded concupiscence, and very guarded hostility emanated from the Tanu gentlemen, and a hostler brought Stein's chaliko to him, and he rode away. Aiken followed after, broadcasting, "That's my boy!" on a highly amplified farspeech mode.

  When Thagdal returned to the box there was a distinct atmosphere of jovian pique.

  "Now, Thaggy," soothed the Queen.

  "Didn't you love it?" Greggy squealed.

  A great crack of thunder rang out. "My sentiments exactly," growled the High King of the Many-Colored Land. "You will all excuse me. I am going for a royal leak."

  "He doesn't really care for humans, you know." Lord Greg-Donnet's cheery infant face was illuminated by momentary sanity. "No more than you do, my Queen, and all your Host. The King endures humanity as a necessary evil. But you would rather the time-gate had never opened."

  "Shame on you, Greggy," said Nontusvel. "Some of my best friends are human. You mustn't talk like that, naughty boy. What will Bryan think? Here—have a nice hard-boiled egg."

  The Genetics Master took the proffered silver dish and stared into it, apparently puzzled. "Eggs? Eggs? But they, dearest Lady, are the matter of contention! A quarter of a million of them tucked within her human ovaries! So generous, so wasteful, so providential of Mother Nature to stuff every human female with such a superabundance of ova!" He peered sideways at Bryan, took up an egg and dipped it into a jar of Grey Poupon mustard before taking a meditative bite. "Do you know, Dr. Grenfell, that in the Pliocene, dear Mother Nature's name is Tana?...Or Te, if you're of the Firvulag persuasion."