Several colorfully painted carts and wagons were standing in the open space in the center of the village. Baggage animals were being unloaded, and others led into the communal corral to feed. Crelth recognized the caravan of Xeldro, the merchant, which had left Aranos the previous day. His orders were to be suspicious of merchants. They too easily made spies.Their free and wandering way of life was not a good model for the people. And they lied to the tax collectors.
There was a crowd gathered, and some kind of commotion going on, in front of the house of the Headman, whom Crelth remembered from a previous expedition, though he was unable to recall his name. Figures ran ahead, warning of the approach of the soldiers, so that by the time Crelth drew up at the house, the Headman, several other village elders who had evidently been with him, along with Xeldro and his companions, were standing, waiting. There was another group too, who belonged neither with villagers nor traders. Seven children in strange dress. Otherwordly dress.... Although one, in pale green, was taller than the others, practically a grown maid, Crelth saw on looking more closely. They all had strangely clear, otherworldly faces.
And standing with them were two enormous warriors covered every inch in armor. “Footprints ... large ... a giant's,” Udarth had said by the river. Could there be any doubt that these were the silver ones of whom the King had spoken?
The Headman came to the front and bowed obsequiously. “Whatever pleases those who come in the King's name is our command, if it is within our ability to provide."
Crelth tested the children and the maid by fixing them with his sternest look. Not an eye among them dropped or averted. They continued to regard him with candor and curiosity, conceding nothing either to his rank or the armed might arrayed before them. Inwardly he was unnerved. It could only mean that their confidence in their two protectors was absolute. He felt his stature on trial in the eyes of the men behind him.
“Explain your association with these strangers, who hide themselves in forests unannounced and call down beasts of death upon the land,” he demanded, looking back at the Headman.
The Headman spread his hands helplessly. “Association? We have ourselves beheld them for the first time but a half the fall of an hour's glass since."
“'Tis true,” the elder next to him affirmed.
“Nearer a quarter of a glass,” another said.
Xeldro, the trader, came forward and stood with them. With him was a youth, curly-haired, with a bright, intense look about him—sure sign of a troublemaker. Full of fanciful ideas about throwing off the duties conferred by birth, no doubt, and no knowledge of life. His chin could barely support the pretense of a beard.
“They arrived here with us,” Xeldro said. “We came upon them on the road, tired, footsore, and without sustenance. ‘Twas less than a league hence."
“Ah! And this meeting with spies and enemies, you would have us believe was mere coincidence?” Crelth challenged.
Xeldro showed his palms. “Where are these enemies of whom you speak? Canst not see these are but children?"
The youth stepped in front of him. “Travelers lost, sire. Royal heirs from distant, wondrous lands. ‘Tis no beast of death that lies by the Ther river, but a mighty swan that was sent to guide them."
So they knew more than they were telling, Crelth thought to himself. And their story was not consistent. If they had met these beings who posed as children on the road, how were they aware where the beast that had descended lay? The road was never in sight of that bend of the Ther river. Crelth signaled over his shoulder with a slight motion of his head to Narzin, who moved up alongside him. “Let us see how able these two champions are,” he murmured. “Circle quietly about while I divert with words, then see if thou canst take one in sudden attack.” Narzin returned a faint nod and fell back from Crelth's view. It was the only way to find out, Crelth reflected. And he, sure as Hades, wasn't going to risk it.
“A swan, sent to guide them where?” he asked the youth.
“That was the next thing I hoped to find out,” the youth replied. “Perhaps, royal visitors to the King himself. Emissaries from rulers of other realms."
“What, on foot, lost, without carriages, baggage train, or servants? What manner of royalty travels thus?” Crelth directed his gaze at one of the two warriors, the one adorned in blue and silver. “Have you nothing to say on behalf of your charges?"
The warrior answered, “We outlanders. Simpler, if it pleases."
“They are unfamiliar with all the tongues of which I have knowledge,” Xeldro said.
“From much more distant lands,” the youth insisted.
“You have a name?” Crelth asked the warrior. Then again, “You? ... Name?"
“Name Kort."
“From where?"
“I regret."
“Place?"
“Explain ‘place,’ if it pleases."
The spear flew in from the side and struck the warrior below his right ear, emerging on the far side to lodge grotesquely through the neck like a spit skewering a piece of meat above a fire. Screams and shouts of alarm broke out, and villagers scattered. Hoofs pounded as Narzin closed, swinging an axe and catching the warrior solidly in the side. The warrior fell, twisting so that one end of the spear struck the ground; he hung for a moment, then collapsed, his body bending double, almost cleaved in two. Narzin wheeled to face the other, while soldiers fanned out to encircle him with spears and bows. But the gray-coated warrior remained immobile, seemingly paralyzed. The child-impersonators too appeared to have lost the use of their faculties, and just stood, their faces frozen in shock. The village elders shrank back in consternation. Xeldro was shaking his head, looking dazed.
So ... perhaps it had all been bluff after all. Crelth dismounted, unsheathing his sword. The youth broke through between the flanks of the horses and ran at him, his arms high in protest. “No! They are only children! You can't—” Crelth checked him with his fist and sent him reeling with a blow to the head from his sword hilt. Then he stepped over the prostrate warrior and hacked off his head. The maid in green came forward as if in a trance and gazed down between hands pressed in horror to the side of her face, seemingly incapable of making any sound. Crelth grabbed her arm roughly and shoved her toward other soldiers who had dismounted.
“Bring carts from the village and take all of them,” he commanded. “The child-demons, the trader and his accomplices who consort with them, and the warrior who stands silent. All shall answer before the King personally in Aranos."
He looked down again at the slain warrior. The mail and corselets beneath the armor were the strangest he had ever seen. Curiously, there was no blood.
7
“Maybe they don't go through a simple progression of forms from smaller to larger,” Biologist said. “It could be that as they evolve, the number of limbs gets less. See how the smallest forms have eight, six, and in some cases many more legs and other appendages. But the quadrupeds are all larger. I propose they go through a quadruped sequence from small to large that reaches the size of the forms that draw the wheeled constructions, and then recapitulate the process when they become bipeds."
“You mean they reduce in size again to go through the flying phase, and then grow once more to become bio-people?” Thinker queried.
“Yes. Something like that."
“So why didn't Taya and the others go through those phases too?” Skeptic asked.
“We grew them under different conditions,” Biochemist said.
“Nobody's shown me how altering the conditions affects anything,” Skeptic retorted.
“I still think they're different paths that radiate out in different directions from similar starting points,” Thinker said.
“Why should the same speck of jelly turn into things that are so totally different?” Kort asked.
“Different director molecules,” Biochemist offered.
“Taya and the others had different sets of director molecules too, but they all have the same body form,
” Scientist pointed out.
“Maybe there are other molecules that are different in ways we don't know about,” Thinker thought.
“Show me some,” Skeptic challenged.
“Perhaps Supermind just wills them to grow differently,” Mystic mused.
Suddenly, Coordinator overrode all interactions with a general message flagged highest priority. “Emergency condition on surface. Azurean has deactivated Kort's body by means of total destruction. Action not deducible rationally from any accepted premises. Immediate analysis, please. Explanation and recommendations requested.” The sequence recorded through Scientist's imagers was replayed.
Reactions poured in from the network:
“Deliberate destruction?"
“He meant it?"
“The implements used seem devised for such a purpose."
“Fear and excitability registering from other Azureans."
“No computable long-term benefit."
“Leave the probe shadowing and bring the lander back up to Merkon,” Coordinator instructed Engineer. “We need to get more bodies down there. Scientist, continue local observation."
“Will do,” Scientist confirmed.
“Allocating a backup body to be finished as a replacement for Kort's,” Scheduler advised.
“Restarting lander drives now,” Engineer reported. “The six Azureans who remained in its vicinity are departing in haste."
8
Azure turned, and Vaxis sank lower. The strange, overhead sky changed from white and blue to gray and orange. Taya sat with the others in the cart, shivering despite the coarse blanket pulled around her shoulders. Azurean robot-people, part flesh and part metal, sitting on their four-legged carriers, rode on either side. Scientist was walking behind, attached by a strange ropelike garment he'd been given, secured around his neck. The Azureans had also tied his hands for some reason. He had complied without questioning or objecting. There was no point in getting another mec-body broken up. And Scientist was the only link that Taya and the others had to Merkon.
Several hours had gone by since their leaving Village. Taya hadn't recovered from her bemusement at what had happened. She was still grappling with the notion of damaging a person deliberately. No such concept had ever existed in Merkon. Oh, now and again the children might disagree over something and squabble or fight for a while; but those were invariably short-lived affairs not aimed at willful injury—apart, maybe, from a few slaps and pinches that never amounted to anything serious. Kort had been functionally destroyed. If it had been just some kind of gesture directed at a body that wasn't really Kort, Taya could have accepted it more easily. But the violence inflicted on Samir had been almost as malicious, gashing his head so that blood poured down over his clothes, and knocking him senseless. Never had Taya felt so exposed, threatened by unknown dangers from every direction. She thought of Merkon somewhere high above, and longed to be warm and secure again inside its enclosing walls. She would never come down to a planet again, she resolved. Planets were awful places.
And yet, there was something about the thought of going back to Merkon and not seeing Samir again that she found strangely disturbing. Even in those few hours, something about his smile, the way his eyes laughed—even the fact that he seemed practically the same age as her—had created a feeling in her that she had never experienced before, as if an emptiness would exist now if it were taken away. The Azureans had thrown him in the same cart as her and the children—the older hair-face and those who had been with him were distributed among the others. She looked down at Samir, his head resting on her knee. She had cleaned his wound as best she could with a cloth wetted from the water jug they had been given, and tied a covering over it. He had gripped her hand in a way she'd found oddly gratifying—not at all like her feelings when she held the children's hands to lead them, or to comfort them when they felt discouraged over something—and talked to her, though most of what he'd said she hadn't understood. Now he was sleeping again, and still she clung to his hand.
As the light grew less, they stopped by another corridor of flowing water—or maybe a different part of the same one they had left the lander by; Taya had lost all sense of direction. The four-legs pulling the carts were unhitched and tied along with the carriers to ropes that let them move over a limited area. To Taya's amazement, they began eating the green carpet that formed the floor. She remembered the yellow ovaloids that Scientist had said he believed grew. So were the green carpets that covered huge areas of Azure also food that somehow grew? The idea of food growing—in the kind of way bio-life did—was completely new.
The Azureans cut down pieces of antennas—which turned out to be not metal but formed of the same hard-packed grainy material that the carts were made from—collected them into piles, and to the children's astonishment set fire to them. They produced strange foods which they mixed and heated, then handed around in bowls. Some tastes were peculiar but interesting, others awful. Textures were varied: thick, porous wafers that softened when dipped in dark soupy mixtures; strips of crunchy fibers; pieces of stringy substance, with hard white parts that had to be thrown aside. Eltry enjoyed it the most. Marcala and Jasem were sick.
The sky turned black, and stars returned. The sight made Taya think again of the empty void, safe and familiar; of walls and floors that were built in straight lines; of light and warmth; of the machines. The Azureans directed her and the children back up into the carts to sleep. Before letting them settle down, they put metal anklets on them, with links to a chain attached to the cart. The intention seemed to be to prevent them from leaving. The anklets were uncomfortable and pointless. Where was there to leave for?
Marcala and Cariette pressed against her under the covers and fell asleep instantly, totally exhausted. On Taya's other side, Samir lifted his blanket over her and pulled her close, sharing their warmth. Despite the rigors of the day, the unnaturalness of everything around, and everything that had happened, she felt a strange contentment from his nearness.
When Taya awoke, the sky was gray, with water falling out of it. It was a new “day.” After another meal, smaller this time, of more peculiar ingredients, the four-legs were attached to the carts again, and the journey resumed. They came to more open surroundings, covered increasingly densely by Azurean cabins made from cut-down antennas. Gradually, these gave way to larger constructions built from shaped mineral blocks, with flat slabs also covering the floor areas between. They were entering the “spread-out Merkon” closest to the landing site, that the probe had sent images of.
The procession passed through great doors in an immense wall, where more “soldiers” on four-legged carriers joined them. Inside, all around, the constructions were higher, more elaborate and more closely spaced, formed of huge slabs supported on columns, and rising in places as domes and pinnacles. Azureans by the hundred in colorful crowds thronged in the spaces between. This was a “city,” Samir said. Its name was Aranos. It was where he was from. He asked the name of the place that Taya was from. She answered, “Merkon.” Samir had never heard of it. Taya told him it was a city in the sky.
9
King Cyron felt relieved and more sure of himself now. The messenger had described nothing more menacing than a handful of disheveled children and two impotent knights, who had met up on the road with Xeldro and his rag-tag band of peddlers—whether by accident or design was not clear, but Cyron would find out. One of the knights had succumbed ignominiously, while the other was being led docilely in like a common peasant. Meanwhile, the flying creature that some claimed to have seen had deserted—if, indeed, it existed at all—and returned to realms that were no concern of men. In fact, Cyron found the news sufficiently reassuring to decide on a public display of his power and invulnerability as the most effective way of laying to rest speedily rumors that the seer, Serephelio, and his ilk, had been spreading.
Accordingly, Cyron gave instructions for the captives not to be taken directly to the prisons, but paraded through the city
to provide a spectacle for all. He, accompanied by his Chief Counsel, High Priest, and other officials of state, would meet them in the Square of Avenues, before Royal Guards and troops from Gallestari's army, recently returned in triumph from Halsabia. Serephelio would be brought from the dungeons to confront his prophecies there, before the people, to let them see for themselves the absurdity of what they had let themselves be persuaded could ever have constituted a threat to Majesty or State. And besides, Cyron himself was curious.
He certainly didn't see much evidence of power terrible enough to shatter the nation and bring in the dawn of a new Age, as his chariot and the carriages carrying the notables, flanked by their escorts, drew up in front of Gallestari's waiting ranks, where the prisoners had been arrayed. As the messenger had said, they were mere children—although Ishtelar had cautioned against the possibility of fiends taking the forms of children to deceive. But try as he might with his greatest efforts of imagination, Cyron was unable to ascribe the remotest hint of fiendishness to this motley collection. The crowd, now that their fears had been exposed as baseless, were keen to make light of it, as if to show that they hadn't really been misled. Their mood was buoyant, looking to be entertained. Very well, Cyron, thought. If they wanted a circus, he would give them one.
He climbed down from his chariot and advanced with a retinue of Guards and officers toward the captives. There were seven of them, including a girl somewhat older than the rest, yellow-haired and light-eyed—a witch if ever he'd seen one, prospective candidate for the stake on all their behalfs, Cyron noted mentally. They looked unkempt and dejected, with dirt-streaked faces, hair tousled, their clothes spattered with mud and still damp from the rain that had fallen that morning. The knight was formidable enough in appearance, sure enough, but stood unresisting, hands bound, guards holding him by two halters about his neck. Xeldro and his troupe stood alongside them, their heads bared and eyes downcast. A youth with a thin beard, his head bandaged, seemed unsure as to which of the two groups he belonged to. His glances betrayed an attachment to the yellow-haired witch. Two for the stake, Cyron thought to himself.
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