by John Dalmas
As Eltrienn and Brokols strolled along the beach toward the stream, they could see Juliassa sitting in it, head and neck above the water. And shoulders; as they got nearer, Brokols could clearly see her shoulders. With no sign of clothing on them. He'd noticed the sellsu, too, its head, neck, and upper back showing sleek and dark. The girl and the sea mammal were making noises back and forth, noises that didn't sound much alike.
Juliassa, glimpsing her visitors from the corner of an eye, turned and waved.
"Eltrienn!" she called. "It's you!"
"Juliassa! I've brought a visitor! An interesting one."
She looked at the sellsu and briefly exchanged words with it, then stood and waded toward them. Brokols was both aghast and relieved. Here was a princess, in a sense of the word, standing bare-breasted to greet a stranger, but she did have a garment on—short loose breeches that covered her clingingly from just below the navel to the mid thighs.
And she was lovely! Utterly lovely! Tanned despite reddish-blond hair. Startling green eyes. And young, not yet fully matured, with pointed breasts the size of pinkfruit. In Hrumma the breasts of mature women, even as young as Lerrlia, seemed generally more the size of sugar fruit or larger.
But she was simply—lovely!
Juliassa stood looking quizzically at him, and so did Eltrienn. Brokols realized then that Eltrienn had been talking, had introduced them, and that he himself hadn't said a thing in return. "I—it's a pleasure. I'm afraid you're quite the loveliest young lady I've ever seen."
He could hardly believe he'd said that! His face turned hot; he was sure it must be crimson. Perhaps purple. "In my country," he explained, "we're not used to seeing ladies without clothing. I'm sorry if I stared."
For a moment he felt wild-eyed then, horrified that his traitor mouth could have babbled what it had.
"Oh," Juliassa said, and her smile melted him. "Well then . . ." she walked out onto the sand, picked up the shift she'd laid there, and slipped it over her head. Brokols was awed by her poise, her face, her dimples.
Suddenly, the smile was gone, replaced by a frown. "You came on the great ship," she said.
"That's right. I did."
"And you killed two sea serpents." The words were accusatory. There was nothing sweet about the way her eyes pierced him.
Brokols shook his head, dismayed. "Not I! The captain ordered it, and some marines did the . . . how did you know?"
"Sleekit told me." She gestured at the sellsu. "Some sullsi saw it happen—not him but others—and it's known far and wide among the children of the waves. Don't you know that sea serpents are the Children of Hrum? And His Messengers? That they harm no one? And saved Hrum's daughter? Even the Djezians wouldn't kill a sea serpent!"
Brokols realized that Eltrienn too was staring at him, his expression startled, concerned.
"I know that now," Brokols said. "I've learned a lot since I've been in your land. In our waters, there are no serpents, and to our captain, they looked simply like dangerous creatures that might snatch a sailor overboard. They were swimming right alongside us, their heads higher than our rails. And their teeth are quite fearsome, you know. We had no idea . . ."
Her severity lightened, though her expression still was serious, and briefly she exchanged sentences with the sellsu. Then she gave her attention to Brokols again.
"I told Sleekit what you said. He wasn't very impressed. I didn't actually suppose that you killed them yourself, but what one's countrymen do, one's fellows, tends to reflect on one's self. Shall we go to the house? I'm ready for some shade."
They started back. "Your speech and the sellsu's don't sound much alike," Eltrienn observed.
"True. I do the best I can though. I started out repeating him, of course, so he knew what I was trying to say, and got used to the way I copy his sounds. I've even talked to other sullsi a couple of times, when they came up to the weir. After they got over their surprise, they understood me too. And I them, of course." She chuckled. "Sullsi laugh, you know; they couldn't help themselves a time or two, listening to me savage their language."
Back at the villa, she paused to rinse her feet in a garden fountain, then excused herself to clean her hair and put on other clothes. Eltrienn and Brokols sat on a shaded patio to talk.
"So your marines killed two serpents." The centurion's tone, though not indignant, was serious, as at some enormity.
"Not in malice," Brokols answered quietly. "They were so near, near enough to snatch one of us in an instant."
"They never would have," Eltrienn said, then added thoughtfully, "I can see why someone might be frightened though, who didn't know them. I remember the first time I ever went boating on the firth while they were there. One swam not ten feet off our side and raised its head to look us over. I was intimidated; I admit it.
"But a Child of Hrum! Only his daughter was closer to him. We're just his foster children, and apparently your people are not even that." He looked intently at Brokols. "I don't know whether Hrum can forgive you."
"I don't know either," Brokols answered, "but it was done without intention to offend." I won't worry about it though, he added silently to himself, as long as you don't mention it to anyone when we get back to Theedalit. For though Hrum might be myth and superstition, Hrummean belief in him was obviously very real.
Sixteen
Juliassa walked to the weir carrying a pail of rockfish and a filet of raw gleebor chuck. The western sky was dark purple hemmed with dusky gold, while overhead stars gleamed between tall dissipating cumuli. The tide had peaked and was ebbing again. She could make out Sleekit's dark form, somewhat seal-like, somewhat dolphin-like, different from either, waiting by the stream's edge below the weir. He'd been fishing in the sea; his body had left a trail on the wet sand.
"Hail, Sleekit," she said. Her approximation of sullsit was practiced but inevitably crude. "How was the fishing?"
"For this season on an open coast, not too bad." He made the low, throaty, warbling sound she'd come to recognize as a sullsit chuckle. "I might have tried harder, but I knew you'd bring supper." He voiced an approximation of the Hrummean word for evening meal; among themselves, the sullsi didn't name their meals, eating when appetite and opportunity coincided.
Juliassa squatted down and dumped the rockfish on the damp sand beside the stream. Sleekit preferred fish to the chuck; eating red meat, he said, was closer to cannibalism than he preferred, though he accepted it cheerfully enough as a supplement.
With his long, rather human-like hands he rinsed the sand from a rockfish, then tucked it headfirst into his mouth, bit it in two, and swallowed it without chewing.
"What did you think of the big-ship man?" she asked curiously.
"Don't know enough to judge him as self-being. But know big-ship men killed two of the long ones without good cause. No warning, just . . ." he coughed sharply, a resonant sound, a second-hand imitation of a cannon shot. "Two dead. Lord of Ocean cannot be happy at that."
He rinsed and swallowed another rockfish, then another. Juliassa, squatting, watched without comment. She'd liked the foreigner, Elver. He was different, polite, and interesting looking. No, he was interesting, period, and handsome in a way. Especially his eyes! If his clothing looked peculiar, it was not uncomely, and he wore it well. They'd talked for a bit in the garden before supper, while Eltrienn and Zeenia, in the sitting room, caught each other up on their lives. Elver had seemed intelligent, thoughtful, and an odd mixture of ignorant and informed.
"What you think about?" Sleekit asked.
"The big-ship man."
The sullsi nodded, then rinsed and ate the last rockfish before speaking again. "Tonight I go from here," he said. "I am strong enough now, and my pack has stayed close by, waiting. They wish to go elsewhere where the fishing is better, and I would not delay them longer."
The heavy body heaved nearer then. The hand that reached and touched her shoulder was pebbly-rough, harsh textured, and smelled of fish. The sullsit eyes glinted obsidian
, reflecting the lustrous jewel of Little Firtollio. "You saved me from death," he went on. "Of having to be born and grow up again, or maybe—" he chuckled. "Maybe from being hatched as a clam." His voice softened. "No one cares to die, I think, no sellsu. To lose identity. While there is hope of pleasure, the life one has is dear.
"Also, you became my friend, even learned to speak with me, a strange thing told of only in an old story. Now you have given us a new story to tell. I will tell it always with love, and it will be repeated far and wide as long as there are sullsi, for we travel far with the seasons."
His voice softened further. "I will always remember you."
Hot tears blurred Juliassa's eyes, and she began to sob, softly at first. Then emotion overwhelmed her, and crying hard, she hugged the thick round body. Sleekit said no word. Nor did she; she wasn't able to. And when she'd straightened, quieting somewhat, he silently turned and humped his way into the stream below the weir. For a moment his head was visible, moving down the current to the sea. Then he dived and was gone, but it seemed to her that he'd turned to look at her one last time before disappearing.
That brought another flood of tears, but briefer this time. Then, wet-eyed and distracted, she picked up her pail and the sandy filet and started for the house.
* * *
Soon after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, Brokols had walked down to sit on the bench beneath a sprawling, wind-molded evergreen and watch the western sky, vivid at first, its play of colors changing from minute to minute, losing intensity but not, for a time, beauty.
There'd still been considerable light when he'd seen the sellsu waddle from the gentle sea, then flop its way to the weir no more than eighty feet from where he sat. It hadn't noticed him though, apparently, motionless as he was, at least it showed no sign, and after a moment Brokols' attention had returned to the sunset.
The color display had dwindled nearly to nothing, and Brokols had been about to leave, when Juliassa walked by toward the stream, following along the tide's edge. It still was not yet fully night, and he stayed to watch and listen. Their words meant nothing to him, but as they went on, their tone changed, and it seemed to him he was witnessing a farewell. He saw the sellsu touch the girl, which startled Brokols and for a moment alarmed him. He did not recognize the first few sobs; the hiss of even this gentle surf obscured them. But he heard when she began to cry harder, and her grief wrung his heart.
Then the sellsu returned to the sea, and after a minute Brokols saw Juliassa start back along the beach, angling toward the landscaped grounds. He held still, scarcely breathing, not wanting her to see him, to know her grief had been witnessed. But this time her path took her closer. She was fifteen feet away when she noticed him and stopped.
"I'd been watching the sunset when you came by," he said quietly. "I grieve with you in your loss." It wasn't strictly true. What he'd felt was not loss, but heartfelt compassion for her own.
For a long moment she stood without moving or speaking, pale in her chemise. Then she stepped quickly to him, knelt and hugged him for just a second, kissing his cheek, and hurried away, all without speaking.
When she was gone, he remained seated awhile, still feeling the press of a young breast against his shoulder, the wetness of her tears on his temple.
And it seemed to him that no man before could ever have been so totally and suddenly in love as he was with this girl. This stranger. This descendant of pleasure droids.
Seventeen
Thunder still rumbled farther up the Theed Valley, but in the city the sun had reappeared, and steam rose from the pavement as Brokols folded back the top of the shay. Shutters were being thrown open; merchants or their employees were emerging to sweep puddled water off concrete sidewalks into the broad main street; cheery voices called back and forth.
Brokols found himself glad to be back. He was sure that no other sizeable town anywhere was so bright and friendly.
The street they were on, Central Avenue, opened onto Hrumma Square between the Fortress and the Theed River. As the shay rolled into the large open rectangle, Brokols and Eltrienn could see a crowd gathering—perhaps regathering after the rain—in front of the stone speaker's platform at one end. There were six or eight hundred of them, Brokols estimated, tiny compared to the throngs that turned out for the imperial government.
"Let's stop and hear what it's about," he said.
Eltrienn nodded, and when they were close enough, reined in the team. After a moment, they saw two men climb the steps to the platform, one fat, wearing an expensive, intensely white robe, the other lean, his robe unbleached. Brokols recognized the lean one as Vessto, Eltrienn's brother.
That's when it occurred to him that this was not a gathering by decree. In Hrumma, it would be legal to gather outside the seat of government to listen to anyone, perhaps even without approval. Somehow, illogically, a breath of fear touched him.
"People of Theedalit!" the fat one shouted, "I give you the sage, the Trumpet of Hrum! May you listen closely." And having said it, stepped back, leaving Vessto Cadriio standing alone. Vessto waited a long moment. When he began, his voice had power and reach without seeming loud, in fact while seeming quiet.
"People of Hrumma. Your nation is threatened. The very worship of Hrum is threatened. A distant land across the sea, called Almeon, has sent an ambassador to us, and one to each of the Djezes. In friendship, so they say. To establish commerce between us, so they say."
Vessto glanced at the shay then, just for a moment, not long enough to turn the crowd's heads toward them, then returned his gaze to the Hrummeans who stood listening. Brokols' whole body, his whole being, had tensed when Vessto began his speech, had frozen when the eyes touched him. When they moved on, it was release.
Vessto continued. "But talk of trade is subterfuge. Talk of friendship is lies. Almeon's king over kings, who calls himself emperor, intends to rule us. He plans war against us."
Vessto paused, scanning his listeners. "But how can he conquer us from 8,000 miles away?" Again he paused, as if waiting for one of them to tell him, then went on. "You have all heard of the great ship he sent here. Which brought his ambassador. Some of you saw it, and heard the great thunder of its weapons when they shot forth fire. He is preparing 200 such ships. Two hundred! And each of the 200 will come here full of soldiers, with weapons far more powerful than any we have against them."
Again he paused. And it seemed to Brokols that escape was impossible. He sat within thirty feet of the crowd's edge. In a moment the holy man would look at him again, point him out, tell them to turn around and see the enemy. And he'd be torn to pieces.
If only Eltrienn would start up again, drive casually away without drawing attention. But that was impossible. To start away now would draw attention, and there he was in the shay with the top back, wearing clothes that proclaimed him enemy.
"Hrum is testing us," Vessto went on. "Testing all of us. As he has tested our nation before. But this will be the hardest test of all. Although Hrum has the power to deliver us from any fleet, any army, any weapons, it is up to us to save ourselves. And we must save ourselves without transgressing the laws of Hrum! If we do this—if we act with all our strength to save ourselves, as if there could be no help—then he will help us. He will thresh the enemy, and scatter the chaff like dust in the wind."
Vessto raised his arms now, and his voice swelled. "All we must do is do all that we can, within the strictures of Hrum's words, and we are ensured victory. But to stint will be to lose."
He lowered arms and voice then. "Tell others of this. I will speak here again, two days from now as the sun sets, and at high noon on the next Freeday, for those who would hear me for themselves."
With that he turned and left the platform, and the crowd seemed to relax. The fat man stepped forward as another man, wearing a leather apron, climbed the steps. The fat man too glanced at the shay, but said and did nothing to call attention to it.
"There are people here," he said, "who
were on the headland when the enemy ship approached the firth. They heard the Trumpet of Hrum prophesy that the serpents would leave when the ship entered. Though such a thing had never happened before. And . . . but here. Here's someone who was there. Let him tell you himself what he saw. What they all saw!"
He stepped back, turning the crowd over to the aproned man, the witness to Vessto's accurate foretelling. Eltrienn chucked to the kaabors, and they moved briskly off toward the north gate.
"That was the most frightening thing I ever experienced," Brokols murmured as they left the crowd behind. It was as if he'd said it to himself. "I was petrified."
Eltrienn's brows lifted. "Why?"
"Well . . . I'm the ambassador. Of the emperor that Vessto called the enemy. I was afraid Vessto or the heavyset man would point us out and the crowd would attack us."