by John Dalmas
Just before the bells had interrupted, old Viravvo had recalled from his youth, some five decades earlier, a story from Djez Gorrbul of such a ship landing there, with strange men whose speech no one understood. They had harmed no one or any thing, had presented gifts and received gifts in return, then departed westward, never to be seen again. Their visit had been brief, the exchanges and impacts minor. Communication had been by simple gestures with simple content, and the whole affair had soon been forgotten.
After a long minute the bells stopped, leaving heads still ringing and hearing momentarily dimmed. The secretary drew back curtains, respread shutters and opened doors. Welcome yellow sunlight poured in. When the man was seated again, the amirr spoke.
"So. Seemingly such strangers will be entering our harbor, and on the same day as the serpents." He looked at his privy counselor. "Allbarin, could this be an omen?"
"I believe 'a beginning' comes closer than 'an omen,' " Allbarin answered.
"Perhaps," said a minister, "it has come from Djez Gorrbul, intending ill for us."
"Doubtful," said a third. "Gameliiu is an avaricious king but not a bold one. Certainly he has no ship of his own like that."
"If it's as large as it's said to be," put in another, "it could be full of hidden soldiers, intending to catch the city in Festival and the Fortress open."
The amirr turned to the guard captain in charge of the shift—Eltrienn Cadriio, a centurion in rank. Cadriio wore working uniform, legs bare and muscular between greaves and kilt, his bronze breastplate polished, the plume on his helmet fresh and bright. "Centurion," said the amirr, "how long ago was it that you left Haipoor l'Djezzer?"
"Four weeks, Your Lordship, and—two days."
"And you smelled no hint of war or other action against us, or of any such ship landing on their coast?"
"Correct, Your Eminence. The palace guard there hears and repeats many rumors. It would be astonishing if such plans or events went unremarked. My major problem as a spy was not acquiring information but sorting the true from the false. Their attention is currently on Djez Seechul and their disputed territory on the upper Vaski River."
The amirr turned to his privy counselor. "And Hrum has not whispered anything to you of their intentions?"
The counselor shook his head. "Nothing, Your Eminence."
"Well then." His gaze moved to an older man, robed but also helmeted. "General," he said, "the ship will surely enter our harbor. Why else would it be approaching? See that you have troops ready and visible, but not prominent and certainly not threatening. Commodore, have your flotilla manned, oars in place. Let the marines be ashore, at hand but out of sight, ready to board instantly should the trumpet signal." He looked around. "Allbarin has not divined an attack, and Eltrienn has not overheard of one, so we will not stand truculent. But neither will we ignore common caution.
"Does anyone have anything to add? Comments? Questions? Allbarin?"
The privy counselor nodded. "Your Eminence, from its course, if the vessel lands here—when the vessel lands here—a scanner should be gotten aboard it. Perhaps in the guise of a shipbuilder wishing to examine its construction."
"Of course." The amirr scanned the ministers. "Anything else? No? Then you may go, all but Trenno and Allbarin. I have things for you two to do." As in afterthought, he turned to his son, who stood behind him to his left. "Tirros, you stay too. I expect the foreigners will send a person of rank ashore, and I'll want you by me then. The experience may be valuable to you."
* * *
On the headland, some six hundred feet above the water, a crowd of half a thousand sat or stood in clusters, watching the great, tall ship as it neared the harbor's mouth. The grass beneath them was tawny dry, and the ground puffed underfoot wherever anyone walked. Yet the crowd was so intent on the vessel that few paid any attention at all to the rain-bringing serpents sporting in the harbor.
From time unremembered, the sea serpents had arrived at the summer solstice to give birth to their young. It was about the time when the tropical current, in its annual northward shift, filled the onshore airflow with warmth and moisture, destabilizing it. And the summer rains began.
One of the people watching was a man with dark stubble on his skull, and a thin beard streaked white. In general, the distant descendants of the droids had little facial hair, too little for an attractive beard. Thus in Hrumma, beards were exceedingly rare, and in general, reserved for sages or any who was called a sage. Those near the man kept glancing at him, as if hoping he'd speak, for when Panni Vempravvo said something, beyond a minimum of transactional communication, it could easily be valuable.
He spoke infrequently though, in public, and seldom went far from his cave. Just now he sat on the drought-crisped bunchgrass with his legs folded under him, his eyes calm and steady on the ship.
It had approached rapidly, without even a patch of sail, and seemed scarcely to slow as it entered the half-mile-wide Firth of Theed. A thin, mile-long streamer of black smoke trailed from a tall object near the stern, seemingly a kind of slender chimney, jutting up from a deckhouse. It was as if some great stove lay within, for some unfathomable purpose.
"Perhaps the ship is a giant crematorium," someone said.
"What purpose could there be in bringing a giant crematorium here?" asked another. Faces turned sober at the question. Someone suggested that Hrum, in his aspect of death-bringer, could be driving the ship; it could be coming to harvest the people of Theedalit. A third began to argue that the people of Theedalit and all of Hrumma followed the Way of Hrum better than any other people. A fourth interrupted to insist that it was exactly the self-righteous that deserved it most.
Panni Vempravvo's mouth opened and laughter pealed forth, a startling bell-like sound. Those who'd been arguing fell uncomfortably silent, reminded that argument had nothing to do with truth.
Near an edge of the crowd, standing instead of sitting, was another with a beard. His hair was blond, his thin beard curly and unabashedly red, his face unlined. He was surrounded by a small group of followers, country people by their traveling garb, all looking to have come a long way. Their faces bore smears of mud, a product of road dust and the wiping of sweat.
Occasionally a would-be sage, a "country sage," arose in the hinterland, and usually, city folk paid them only the respect of tolerance unless they proved themselves. Which happened seldom, especially away from the sea, for the sea was where Hrum's principal attention resided. In this one's entourage, though, were two who wore master's robes, which surely commended his claim.
Now, looking at no one, his eyes on the ship as it steamed up the firth, he spoke as if to himself, though his voice was loud and clear. The sentences were spaced apart, as if stating separate cognitions.
"The foreign vessel is no crematorium."
Faces turned to the country sage.
"Fire drives the ship, fire contained within an iron belly, and men cast charcoal into it."
Fire drives the ship? It seemed unlikely. And what kind of ship would be driven by fire?
"It has come from a land far west over the ocean, a land of which we've never heard."
A few faces looked openly dubious at this. The general view was that the ocean went on unbroken till it had gone full circle and met their own, opposite, eastern coast. Some of his listeners found questions rising, but they kept their peace for now. One did not interrupt a sage, or someone who might be a sage.
More than a few eyes had sought Panni Vempravvo, to see how he was receiving all this. Panni was watching the country sage, and his wide mouth smiled through the scant and drooping white-streaked mustache.
"The ship will leave an ambassador at the city," the country sage went on, "an ambassador from a great and distant king. And the great king intends ill for Hrumma."
Faces showed concern now, and alarm, and for the first time some showed clear rejection. No one wanted to believe this; historically kings had meant trouble. Hrumma had had kings itself, a long time
ago, and after a period of turbulence, had discontinued the office. Also, for a few generations, more than a millenium past—an era storied for its oppressions—she'd been ruled by a series of foreign kings, of Djez Gorrbul.
"The ship will leave gifts, as well as an ambassador," the country sage continued. "And trouble will follow it here.
"And a bad sign will accompany its arrival."
Eyes went to the ship again, as if looking for the bad sign.
"Look!" someone shouted, pointing. Beneath the water, shadowy shapes showed suddenly, speeding seaward through the harbor mouth—long necks, oval bodies, tapering tails—perhaps two dozen of them. The sea serpents were leaving the firth!
There was no outcry, no jabbering, only momentary silence. Then Panni Vempravvo chuckled, nodding. The country sage turned his quiet, serious eyes to Panni without smiling, then bowed. Panni unwound his long thin legs, rising, and left with his followers. After a minute, the country sage and his people also left, in the tracks of the elder.
Three
Seven hundred miles east-northeast of Theedalit, a more prosaic ship had docked, a lumber schooner. Ashore, in an office of a small residence, the sunlight through the door cut off, and Sallvis Venettsio looked up from the manifest the ship's mate had given him two minutes earlier. There'd been no sound of boots on the wooden porch, and now he saw why: It was a moccasined barbarian that stood looking in at him, one he didn't like but had to put up with.
"What brings you down the river, Bloody Sword?" Venettsio asked.
The broad, strong-framed warrior stepped inside and across to Venettsio's table, eyes and mouth hard, hostile. Two other warriors followed him. "Factor, another boat has come from your country. My brother demands to know what word your father has sent about teaching men to make steel."
"The news won't please Killed Many. My father sends word that he will send more swords and tools for your people, but he will not sell them the secret of making steel."
A large sun-darkened fist slammed down on the factor's table, making the mate jump. The factor, on the other hand, didn't blink. "Your father cheats us," the warrior snarled. "He knows we need swords, and would force us to buy from him!"
The factor did not get up. "Bloody Sword," he said calmly, "my father cheats no one. He takes rock from deep in the earth, which requires much labor, turns it into steel, which takes more. He makes swords for your tribe—more work—and sends them to you on a trip of many days across often stormy water. And trades them to you for trees which we cut down and take away without effort of your people. And charcoal made from trees, which we also make without effort of yours."
The warrior scowled. "Your father cheats us," he repeated. "We do not need to give you anything, or have anything to do with your womanly race. My brother demands to know how steel is made!"
The factor leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly. "Bloody Sword, you are a man of ugly words. I will be glad to speak with your brother, but I will no longer speak with you."
Their eyes locked, blue on blue. Then abruptly the warrior's sword was in his hand, pointed at the factor's chest. "You will speak with whoever my brother chooses to send, or you will speak no more. And my brother has sent me!"
The factor's arms were folded across his stomach. Very carefully, very deliberately he answered: "Bloody Sword, leave this dwelling and do not come back. Tell your brother to send some . . ."
With a thrust that seemed to take even Bloody Sword by surprise, the thirty-inch blade darted at the factor, stabbing him through the base of the throat. Blood spurted as the factor crashed over backward in his chair. The mate screamed. For just a moment, Bloody Sword stared chagrined at his weapon, as if it had played him false. Then he snapped a brief order to the two warriors with him, and turning, they left. The mate stared bulge-eyed after them, till after a long half minute he left too, hurrying to find the deputy factor.
Four
Sea lokkras wheeled and swooped on pointed wings, their high-pitched piping seeming too thin for so large a bird. A different species than at home, thought Elver Brokols. White instead of gray, and larger. He was expecting the differences to be bigger, eight thousand miles from home.
He stood at the rail a little aft of the bow, a place where he supposed he'd be out of the way. Glembro Dixen stood a pace or two aft of him. The ship's engine had stopped, its vibration stilled, and they continued on momentum, slowing gradually.
Both men gazed up the firth toward the town that climbed the sloping valley at its head. A sizeable town, but Brokols didn't think of it as a city, never imagined it to be much the largest in Hrumma. A town. In Almeon, Larvis Royal, Larvis Harbor, and numerous others were many times larger, with buildings much taller, far more massive, decorated with statuary, elaborate filigree, gold plate. This town, whatever its name was, looked nothing like any of them.
But to Elver Brokols it was very beautiful. It seemed to him he'd like it here.
He looked around him. Dixen, and those seamen who were not actively engaged in some duty of the moment, were also gazing at it, some impressed, some simply curious. Kryger too was on deck to watch, as if already taking new life, here where the water was smooth. His expression was calculating.
The captain broke Brokols' mood. "Look lively, you loafers!" Steamer shouted. "Look lively!" Crewmen who'd been standing, gazing, quickly found something to do, needful or not, For a moment Brokols felt a pang of guilt at his own inaction, then resentment at having felt guilty, and turned his gaze once more toward the town ahead.
The taller buildings—here they no doubt thought of them as towers—were unlike any he'd seen before. Several, the tallest, were simply spires, slender and graceful and invariably white, none reaching even a hundred feet. Mostly, though, the taller buildings were somewhat steplike, the ground story larger, the second stepped back at one end or both to make a terrace, and subsequent stories each smaller than the one below, terraced at both ends or all the way around. And every terrace seemed a garden. The walls were mostly white—a vivid white with flashes of color. At many places among the buildings, and frequent on their terraces, were the barbered crowns of trees, glossy green in the late morning sun.
Overarching it all was a high blue vault of sky accented by puffs of white.
Then Brokols realized he'd overlooked the most impressive building of them all, at the foot of town to one side of the wharves. Not tall but massive. Water lapped the lower courses of its wall. Being whitewashed like the other buildings, it failed at first to register as a fortress. A belltower stood well above its north wall, sunlight flashing bronze off polished bells.
Even recognized, its white walls strong and massive, it seemed somehow unfortresslike, intensifying a sense of unreality and heightened awareness that Brokols felt. At points upon its walls bright awnings clustered, as if to shield loungers from the glare. Irregularly among them, small trees stood brightly verdant—umbrella-like, columnar, or pyramidal. And doubtless there were flowerbeds, Brokols thought.
At the corners though, erasing any doubt, were overhanging turrets. Their slots were undoubtedly for archery instead of guns, for half a century ago the droids seemed not to have explosives. While here and there, sharing the wall with trees and awnings, stood machines for hurling blocks of stone. And even these war machines were painted white, sky blue, or gold.
The deck began to vibrate hard beneath Brokols' feet; the engineer had reversed the engine to stop the ship.
Kryger's voice spoke almost at Brokols' shoulder, taking him unawares. "Primitive," Kryger said, and seemed to find satisfaction in the word. "Windmills. Not a smokestack anywhere."
Brokols nodded. From a pocket, Kryger drew a globe fruit, dried and wrinkled now, popped it into his mouth, chewed for a minute, then expelled the pit into the water. Brokols wondered how much capacity Kryger's stomach might have after weeks of little but broth.
They dropped anchor five hundred yards from the long low wharf, chain rumbling out the hawse pipe. A crowd had gat
hered along the waterfront, several hundred at least, brightly dressed as if for the occasion, and innumerable others watched from roofs. A floating dock extended out from the wharf, apparently for small boats, with steps to the wharf top. It was clear of people, and at its head, uniformed police or soldiers kept a small area free of onlookers.
It was time. Brokols straightened.
Beside him Kryger chuckled, a sound that surprised Brokols, for one of the things that irritated Kryger, and more than just Kryger, was Brokols' occasional laughter. The younger man looked around to see what might have brought even this low-keyed laughter from Kryger. The crew of the forward swivel gun was cranking its muzzle somewhat skyward; one man held its lanyard. Brokols stared. Stedmer shouted sharply, and both fore and aft guns roared together. Flame shot from their bores—flame, smoke, carbonized particles of powder—but no projectiles. They had fired blank. Explosion rolled across the water, met the steep slopes that walled it, and rolled back with booming, overlapping echoes.