The Lantern of God

by John Dalmas

  * * *

  That night Brokols lay on his pallet staring through the darkness at the crossbeams. They'd occupied their minds for more than a week with the production of gunpowder. Now they'd made it, and presumably the manufacture of grenades would be no problem. Amaadio was familiar with what presumably were fulminates, and had three of them in mind to test for fuse caps. Time fuses seemed unfeasible; they had to get into production too soon. They'd have to settle for impact grenades, and hope that they came up with a fuse which wasn't too touchy. Amaadio felt that the putative silver fulminate—silver something anyway—would serve.

  But of what avail were grenades to them, really? They could kill and demoralize Gorballis with them. It was even conceivable that with them they could save Hrumma from Gorrbian conquest. But the real threat wasn't Gorrbian. When the imperial army controlled Djez Gorrbul, grenades wouldn't help, and the belief that some god would intervene was wishful thinking of the worst sort.

  He turned onto his side, jaw clamped. The Hrummeans were right about one thing though. It was better to tough it out and fight with what you had, than to lie down and wait.

  Forty-Two

  After breakfast the next morning, Reeno sent Juliassa riding off to Theedalit, with Torissia and Jonkka of course, carrying a request for a squad of soldiers to come to Hidden Haven the next day. Then Reeno, Amaadio, and Brokols sat down together, reviewing and redrawing their flowcharts and lists for producing grenades in quantity, including tests of impact fuses and of ceramics and fragmentation designs.

  Finally they apportioned the list of tasks among themselves.

  The morning was gone before they knew it, and Juliassa was back by midafternoon. The soldiers would leave Theedalit next morning, to arrive by midday.

  The afternoon was spent preparing to leave, repacking Amaadio's laboratory gear and most of their personal effects. In the time that remained, they went over the flowcharts and lists again, searching for oversights or anything that might need changing. Then they all went swimming before supper.

  After supper, Brokols and Juliassa walked back to the beach with Jonkka and Torissia. Sleekit was there, and K'sthuump, and Juliassa talked with them again, but only briefly. Brokols wondered what she'd told them that sent them off early, but he didn't ask. He had other things on his mind.

  Juliassa turned to her bodyguard. "Jonkka," she said, "Elver and I are going up the beach a little way, to talk privately. You can watch us from here."

  Jonkka nodded. "Yes, namirrna, as long as it's light enough that I can see you."

  She turned and fixed her aunt with her eyes. "Torissia, you stay here too."

  "But Juliassa . . ."

  "You can watch us from here. What harm do you think it can do to talk?"

  She didn't wait for a reply, but took Brokols' arm and led him up the beach about two hundred feet. There they sat down on one of the overturned skiffs, facing west and a sunset banded rose, dusty gold, and deep purple. "Something's troubling you," she said. Her voice had lost the peremptory tone she'd used on Torissia, had become concerned. "I hope you'll tell me what it is."

  "Namirrna, I'd rather not. It—you might find it discouraging. And I'd rather not depress you."

  Taking his left hand between hers, she looked at him. "Maybe I can help," she said, and smiled. "Especially if you call me Juliassa instead of namirrna."

  He returned her gaze for a moment, then shrugged. "We can make grenades now," he said, "but I don't see how they can save Hrumma. I don't see how anything can." He stopped, to see what effect his words had had on her. Her expression was sober but not disquieted, so he went on, telling her of his thoughts the night before.

  "It's more than that though," he added. "I have no country. In Almeon they'd think of me as a traitor, and they'd be right. I'm not sure just how it came about, but that's what I've become. I suppose because, from here, I could see more clearly how my people live. The government and—and the beliefs and oppressions . . . in my heart I'm no longer an Almite, and better to be a traitor to my country than to myself. Perhaps I never truly was an Almite.

  "I'm not a Hrummean either, of course, but I think I could come to be one. I really do."

  Once more he paused. "And when the emperor takes over Hrumma," he said slowly, "my life won't be worth a copper."

  She still held his hand; now she squeezed it. "I can help," she said, then got up. "But first, help me with the boat."

  "The boat?"

  "Pull it into the water. I'll bring both paddles. We can go to another beach. Jonkka's getting ready to call us in or come to us, and we still have a lot to talk about."

  He stared at her, his stomach knotted now. Her gaze was steady. "Please," she said. "And when you move, you must be fast."

  Bending, he turned the boat over, then grabbed its bow and pulled it quickly, strongly into knee-deep water, feeling it float, handling it past him. She was there with the paddles and clambered in, to move crouching to the bow as he scrambled over the stern. Jonkka would be running up the beach now, Brokols thought, must be almost there, ready to plunge in after them. He didn't take time to look. Juliassa was already digging with her paddle as he snatched the other from the bottom. The water shoaled off sharply, and they moved quickly out of reach.

  A hundred feet out, Brokols, panting, turned and looked back, feeling unpleasantly like an adolescent prankster. Jonkka and Torissia had run to the other boat and found no paddle; they were standing there watching the fugitives.

  "Jonkka," Juliassa called softly, "we'll be all right. Sleekit and K'sthuump will protect us if there's any need. And Elver has his shortsword."

  Jonkka didn't call anything back, nor did Torissia. Juliassa began to paddle again, slowly, and Brokols followed, feeling guilty, as if they'd committed a betrayal on her bodyguard if not her chaperone. He also felt water on his knees; its seams may have swelled more or less shut, but the skiff was hardly watertight.

  "Do you feel bad about running away from them?" Juliassa asked.

  "It seems—treacherous. For me."

  "I understand. But to me—A namirrna has more restrictions on her than almost anyone. I learned a long time ago to take things in my own hands." They continued to paddle slowly toward the opening to the sea. "That's how I got to come and help you make gunpowder." She used the Almaeic word for gunpowder, the only one available.

  "What do you mean, that's how you got to help?"

  She continued paddling, talking without looking back. "In Hrumma, there are arbiters for family disputes. It's somewhat embarrassing for a family to turn to one; they're a last resort. When I told my father I wanted to come out here to work for Reeno and you, he said no. Then I made promises of how hard I'd work, and what I'd do when I got home in return for permission, and he still said no. So—I took him to an arbiter."

  Brokols stared at her back, amazed at her tenacity of purpose and almost aghast at her audacity.

  "If the arbiter found against me," she went on, "I'd have been in real trouble. He'd have assigned me heavy amends; I'd probably have spent the rest of the summer on my knees, scrubbing floors at the Fortress.

  "But he didn't. He questioned us, and finally ruled that I could, that father's denial had been arbitrary and without a reasonable basis. I have both a chaperone and a bodyguard. You and Reeno are both nobles, and Reeno has an outstanding record in government service. And your decency is better known than almost anyone's in Hrumma, if you're as open to adepts as father admitted."

  Her rundown didn't make Brokols feel much better. He wondered what kind of decency report he'd get after this.

  "The conditions were that I'd have to get a good work report from Reeno," she continued. "And that if I didn't, I'd have to work double shifts in the palace kitchen every day for ten weeks, and lose all rights to arbitration until my majority."

  She smiled back over her shoulder. "They don't want people turning to an arbiter for everything that comes up. They make it risky."

  Brokols was impressed.
"And how long is it till your majority?"

  "Until I'm eighteen or married, whichever comes first. But I knew I'd get a good work report."

  He said nothing more then, and she didn't either. They were passing through the opening into the sea. The great jutting rock outside it protected them from the seas even here, but he could hear the surf both to left and right, and wondered where this wild namirrna had it in mind to go. The water in the skiff wasn't more than an inch or so deep, but the craft didn't seem fit for rough treatment.

  "Steer left," she said, "and we'll beach it."

  He did, and they pulled it farther up from the water than seemed necessary to him, then turned it over between two big rocks. Turning, he looked at the sky. All but the last faint wash of twilight had left the western horizon. Overhead, stars shone sharp and distant against deep black, the brightest of them by far no star at all, but Little Firtollio, the lesser moon, a tiny demidisk of silver-white.

  Somewhere out there his ancestors had been born. And hers, in a manner of speaking. It made no difference though. This was the world they'd been born on, grown up on.

  She took his hand again and they sat down crosslegged on the sand. "You talked about when the emperor conquers Hrumma. Suppose he does. What could you do? Is there any place you could go then?"

  He hadn't thought of that. "Well . . . I couldn't pretend to be Hrummean. I don't sound Hrummean, and except for my size I don't look Hrummean."

  "So what else could you do?"

  "I—could die fighting. That will probably happen before the war is over."

  "All right. What else could you do?"

  "Huh! Well, I suppose I could go to the east coast and try taking a small boat to the barbarian lands. And see if I could learn to be a barbarian."

  "And take me with you," she said. "What else could you do?"

  "That's about all I can think of."

  They sat without saying anything more for half a minute. Then Juliassa got up, still holding his hand so that he got up too. "I want to show you something," she said. "It's just over here a little way."

  They walked south on the beach some fifty yards, then she led him back through an old rockfall. And there, opening toward the ocean, was a wide cave mouth. Its front had been partly walled with loose stones, leaving a wide door, and they went to it. Looking in, he could see little except that it wasn't very deep.

  "I came out in a skiff by myself, yesterday morning," Juliassa said, "and found it. It looks like a place lovers might have built. And I came again last night after everyone had gone to bed. I needed to be alone."

  No wonder, he thought, that Jonkka could look so exasperated sometimes. Especially with Tirros running loose.

  She took both of Brokols' arms with her hands and stood close in front of him. "I'm going to marry you, you know," she said, then leaned against him and kissed him on the mouth. He felt her firm breasts pressing his chest, and suddenly it was difficult to breathe. She pulled his arms around her waist, looked into his eyes and kissed him again.

  Then she was unbuckling his sword belt, unbuttoning his shirt, and he found his own treacherous hands beginning to undress her. When they were naked, she stepped back and they looked at each other in the starlight.

  "I love you, Elver," she said simply, and he wondered if it was true or if she only thought it was.

  She led him into the cave, to a pile of beach grass there, with a robe thrown over it. The grass was fresh; it smelled like new hay, not at all like some that had lain there for three years. And the robe, he was sure, was hers. She'd set it all up, set him up, he realized. She was sixteen, and she'd set him up.

  Her hands began to caress him, and his own followed her lead. He was glad to have been set up. Honestly earnestly glad.

  He wasn't too engrossed to feel a moment's gratitude to Lerrlia, either. And to Tirros! Except for them, and the brief intensive training they'd provided, he'd give Juliassa little pleasure for her efforts, little return on her love this night, if love it truly was.

  Forty-Three

  Great Liilia was nearly full, and about midnight shone into the cave, wakening them. Considerably later they got back to the inlet's beach where the other skiff lay. The moonlight showed Jonkka asleep there, a brawny forearm shielding his eyes from the moon. Their skiff scraped the sand and Jonkka rolled instantly and silently to his feet, his sword somehow in his hand. It startled Brokols without frightening him, and he made a mental note to be careful if he ever had to waken the man.

  They said nothing to Jonkka nor he to them. The man waited stolidly while they drew the skiff up beside the other, and Brokols' covert glance showed no sign of anger or even sullenness on the bodyguard's face. They walked back to the hamlet together without a word and went separately to bed. Their work here was done. They could sleep late if they wanted to.

  * * *

  Late that morning a squad of mounted infantry arrived to watch the hamlet for them while they were gone. Nothing was to be disturbed and the soldiers were to stay out of the workshop.

  Frimattos and Torissia had already led the kaabors down from pasture and they'd been variously saddled or harnessed. Now they hitched the teams to the wagons they were taking back with them, and on spring seats or in the saddle, rode up the draw to the road at the top.

  The day's shower had come early, sparing them and wetting the soldiers instead. The weather was typically humid but less hot than some, and a breeze kept it pleasant. Brokols and Juliassa rode a bit ahead of the others, Brokols remembering the night and wondering what Juliassa was thinking about. He'd worried, as they'd paddled back, that there might be an irreparable breach between Juliassa on the one hand and Jonkka and Torissia on the other. But as far as he could see this morning, the only effect was that Torissia avoided her niece's eyes.

  "I'm relieved," he murmured to Juliassa, "that Jonkka isn't mad at you. Or Torissia either."

  Juliassa giggled. "She can't be. She woke up when I came in last night and asked if it was me. I told her yes, and she said 'oh,' as if she was disappointed.

  "So I put one and one together, her disappointment and the fact that Jonkka wasn't angry at us, and questioned her. Finally she confessed. After we got away, they'd stood on the beach side by side, watching us paddle down the inlet, and she was thinking about what we were probably going to do. Then she realized they were holding hands. Next, Jonkka's arm was around her shoulders and her arm was around his waist. Before long they were undressed." Juliassa giggled. "And after that . . .. She says she's in love with him.

  "Actually I'm surprised. Mama's family—Torissia's—are nobles, and have been for a long time, even though they're a minor family. And Jonkka never seemed the type to seduce a noblewoman." Juliassa dimpled. "Especially on duty!"

  "Maybe he was doing his duty," Brokols said. "Although enjoying it, I'm sure."

  She looked questioningly at him.

  "Maybe he was still protecting you." He chuckled. "I don't suppose Torissia will tell on us now, will she?"

  Juliassa's eyes widened, then she laughed. "Never. Nor I on her."

  Brokols rode along thoughtfully. "Will she feel bad that they can't marry?"

  She looked surprised. "Oh, they can marry."

  "They can? But—but wouldn't she lose her nobility then? Be outcast from her family?"

  "Oh no. She'd lose her inheritance, and their children would be commoners. What would probably happen though is that her family, after they'd looked into his record and gotten to know him, would adopt Jonkka as an honor-nephew. With what's called untenured adoption; they could reject him later for cause. If he abused her, for example. That way any children they had would be noble and she'd still have her inheritance.

  "And quite probably they'd appoint him in some supervisory capacity on their estate or in their stone quarry."

  Brokols nudged his kaabor closer to hers, reached and took her hand.

  "How do I go about marrying you?" he asked.

  She smiled and once more his h
eart melted. "First you ask me. Then, together, we ask my father. After that . . ." Her face turned from sweetly girlish to determined. "After that—we'll see whether any more will be necessary.

  "This evening you'll have supper with us; I'll arrange it with my mother. We can ask them then."

  Brokols wasn't as nervous at the prospect as he might have expected. Not after last night. He'd fight the amirr for her if he had to. Although clearly, Juliassa was the fighter.