“His ancestor was the governor of M’zull, in charge of the whole planet. His lands were part of what became Nayash’s.”
“I thought you had ties to the land,” said Kusac. “Rezzik, who visited you a few days ago, said no one could look after the land better than you. That doesn’t happen unless you have ties to it.”
“You had no business telling him, Larashi. Now he’ll be thinking that I believe I have claim on the land,” said Shazzuk tiredly. He looked up at Kusac. “I want no troubles here, your Lordship, or whoever you are. I just want to get on with farming the land, that’s all. I do a good job, you said so yourself, so just leave me to do it.”
Cheelar entered with Mahzi, who instantly burst into tears and fell onto her aunt’s shoulder crying.
“The soldiers found me, Aunty Larashi,” she sobbed. “I was running down to the river with my cousins from the next village to meet N’abui and they caught me, took me to the City. The soldiers killed them, just killed them when they tried to protect me! The Lord says they had me in the harem and the Emperor gave me to him as a wife! I can’t marry him, N’abui and I promised ourselves to each other!”
“You see the problem,” said Kusac, finally sitting down next to Shazzuk. “I don’t want to marry her, but the Emperor has given her to me to take as my wife.”
“Why would you bring her to us? Why would you care about a village female?” Shazzuk asked.
“Because she matters, you all matter.” He sighed. “Look, your wife is right, I’m not Nayash, The real Nayash is dead, and I took his place. No one knows any different except you now. I brought her here because we have to find a way round this. I suggested a mock wedding, but she’d have none of it. I don’t know what to do and hoped you could talk some sense into her.”
“Why are you pretending to be Nayash?” demanded Larashi. “It’s not to get his wealth, nor for revenge, at least not against him.” She studied his face carefully, then nodded. “You are the Zsadhi because you’ve come to save us from the tyrant that sits on the throne now, just as you did so long ago.”
“Message coming in, my Lord,” said Cheelar, putting his comm unit to his ear. “Let me take this outside where the reception’s better.”
“Go,” said Kusac. “Look, we have to sort out what to do with this youngster before anything else.”
“Let me take her to her mother,” said Larashi. “She will do what we tell her to do; she needs have no say in this.” With that, she left the room, taking the weeping youngster with her.
“Females, always a crisis,” said Shazzuk. “So you do have the tattoo, then. Legend has it so had the Zsadhi. He tattooed it onto himself while he was in the desert, to honor the sword the goddess gave him to fight Tashraka with. Did it just appear?”
“It appears and disappears,” he said reluctantly, reaching up to feel through his shirt for it. He could still feel the raised edges of the scarring. “What’s this chapel you have?”
“When the Fall came, there was an exhibition on M’zull of the Zsadhi’s belongings and other things associated with the legend. The actual sword of Zsadhi was here, on M’zull, when the Fall happened. My ancestor had a duplicate sword made so that when he escaped the City Palace, he took the real sword and left the replica behind. He headed up here to this village to sit out the war and had the chapel built and the sword placed in it for safety.”
“Why would he do that? He was the ruler of this world. Why would he not fight to keep it?”
“He had no chance of winning, and he valued life above glory is the way it was told to me by my Da when I was a child.”
Cheelar came back in looking puzzled. “There’s been another Zsadhi incident,” he said. “Seems that one of the main breweries has been blown up, destroying it completely. As it blew, it scattered Zsadhi leaflets everywhere.”
Kusac sat upright. “What?”
Cheelar nodded. “Seems the Zsadhi struck again, my Lord.”
Kusac stared hard at Shazzuk who shrugged. “I was here all last night, and all today, my Lord.”
The door opened and Larashi returned. “So you heard the news. About time they did something to fight back!”
“Only the mountain tribes could do that,” said Kusac quietly. “Because only you are casteless, descended from a mixture of all the castes in the centuries after the Fall. Does the Emperor realize this? He knows your females are like those on Ch’almuth where the whole planet is a mix of all castes, but has he realized you males are, too?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Shazzuk. “We’re worker caste, all of us, just our females are a little more outspoken.”
Kusac stood up. “Like hell you are. Take me to this chapel,” he said. “I want to see it.”
“It’s at the rear of the village,” said Shazzuk.
“Take me.” If it meant having to be their Zsadhi to get them working for him, dammit he’d do it! Right now, it seemed as if there was an underground movement among the only free people on M’zull—the mountain folk. Unless he got these folk on his side, working with him and his people, there was a good chance that it would all fall apart as these amateurs got themselves caught. On the other hand, they could give him an insight into the M’zullian psyche he’d never otherwise get.
* * *
Carved into the living rock at the back of the village, the chapel doorway was flanked by two life-sized statues of the long dead Emperor Q’emgo’h, last Emperor of the unified Valtegan worlds. Inside, a semicircle of seats faced the back wall where bas-reliefs of the story of the Zsadhi’s life had been carved out and painted in now somewhat faded colors. It could be a brother chapel to the one they’d used on Ch’almuth. Beside the central figure of the Zsadhi was a real metal sword inlaid into the living rock. Like the one in the chapel on Ch’almuth, and the one Vartra had brought to him there, it was double edged with gold quillons, and the pommel was set with a multicolored faceted gem.
“That’s not his sword,” came a voice from the shadows. An elderly female stepped forward, wrapped in a thin shawl against the slight chill inside the chapel. “That’s a copy they made two weeks ago when the original went missing.”
The room was getting darker, and the voices seemed to be coming from some great distance as he fell to one knee in front of the sword. Reaching out, he touched it. It slid smoothly out of its bed in the wall, the grip fitting his hand as if it had been made for him.
“The sword of the Zsadhi,” he said, looking at the glowing weapon. Just beyond it, he could see the sword was still in the wall. He frowned, confused because he could feel this one in his hand. He grasped it with his other hand, desperate to be sure he wasn’t imagining it, but it was there, it was real—for now. He could feel himself beginning to fade in and out as his tether on reality began to slip and he started morphing into his Sholan self. The pain was so intense that he cried out and, letting go the sword, fell to the ground unconscious.
Raised angry voices all shouting at each other were the first sign that he was coming round.
“Be quiet, all of you!” shouted Larashi just as a bucket of cold water hit him full in the face and chest.
Coughing and spluttering, he sat up, soaked to the skin. “What the hell was that for?” he demanded as a towel was thrown at him. He grabbed for it and began drying himself off.
“Give me your wet shirt and jacket. Whoever—whatever you are,” demanded the female sternly, holding out her hand. “It will dry in minutes out in the sun.”
Reluctantly, Kusac shucked himself out of both, handing them to Rhassa, who gave them to one of the other females to take it outside to dry. Shivering, he began toweling himself off.
Larashi tugged the towel away from him when he was finished and said, “Now tell me that he isn’t the Zsadhi! You can all see he’s the exact image of him, down to that tattoo, and we saw him black-skinned and with the sword,
the real sword, not that copy.”
Kusac groaned and put his head in his hands as he realized nearly the whole village was gathered in the chapel, all looking at him as he sat half naked in front of the carving of the Zsadhi. He must have morphed partially at least if they had seen him as black-skinned. Had it been enough for them to realize he really was alien? He reached out mentally and found that only the original three in the chapel had indeed seen him briefly morph into his Sholan form, then back to his Valtegan one.
“Go back to your fields or homes,” said Shazzuk. “Don’t discuss this with anyone outside our clan. You don’t want to go against the will of the Gods on this!”
Gradually, the chapel emptied until only the priestess, Shazzuk and his wife, and Cheelar were left.
“I blew it, didn’t I?” he asked Cheelar quietly in Sholan.
“I don’t know that you did. They seemed very impressed. Hell, I was impressed and I saw you do it on Ch’almuth! You didn’t go full-on Sholan, though, just turned dark-skinned with some fur.”
“You might not have done the raid on the brewery, but you know who did!” Kusac said to Shazzuk.
“And you’re some kind of alien with black fur that can also be like one of us. How do you do that?” asked Shazzuk.
“Ask your Zsadhi, or La’shol, because they did this to me; I didn’t! All I wanted was to stay home with my wife and children, and now look at me! Playing an avatar for an alien species millions of miles from home.”
“Why are you here pretending to be Lord Nayash?” demanded Shazzuk.
“Same reason your rebels are acting against this Emperor—you know how corrupt he and his regime are.”
“Why would you care?”
“Because once he’s done with conquering your other three worlds, he’s coming after us,” snapped Kusac.
“You were part of the old Empire?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Kusac said, getting to his feet and moving over to sit on one of the benches. “We have a lot we need to talk about. There can’t be two Zsadhi groups causing a ruckus in the city unless they are working closely together. If we don’t cooperate, one lot will get the other caught. Quite honestly, we’re in a better position to do real damage than you are, and we’re professional soldiers. Your people aren’t.”
“Where are you from?” asked Larashi. “Not from M’zull because they’re all caste bred down in the lowlands and wouldn’t even condescend to talk nicely to us.”
“K’oish’ik,” said Kusac “Your K’hedduk took it for a few weeks, but we drove him off. He sent a punishment fleet against us and only twelve ships returned. We destroyed thirty-five.”
“Really?” asked Shazzuk, smiling. “He suffered that large a defeat?”
Kusac nodded. “He did. Now will you help us topple K’hedduk?”
“I can only speak for us, but yes, we’ll help. I’m convinced that no matter what species you are, you are the Zsadhi of our legends. It was another village that did the raid on the brewery though, not us.”
“What about Mahzi?” asked Larashi. “You say you were given her to be your wife, yet you don’t want to marry her.”
“I can’t, I’m already married. As I said, I suggested a sham marriage to her, but she refused. She wants to marry this N’abui.”
“He’s a young man in this clan, but their promises mean nothing. They are too young to be making them.”
“What if they got married here, today, in a village ceremony? Then, if the Emperor demands I marry her at Court, it will be a sham marriage because we’ll both have a real husband and wife. That’s really the only solution I can see.”
“It would keep the child quiet, knowing she has N’abui to come home to when this is all over,” said Rhassa. “And it’s a simple solution. Both can honestly say that she got married today. You can say you had a village wedding to the Emperor.”
“You’d have to stay for some of the night at least,” said Shazzuk. “We can’t send her back with you a virgin. We’ve all heard the horror tales of the Court and our Mountain females. She must be well and truly wedded and bedded before you leave.”
“Agreed. It would be safer. As for helping us, what we need right now are people to be my personal staff. Have you any who can pass as soldiers?”
“Only three, from our village guards. I’ll speak to the other leaders under the guise of the wedding tonight.”
“Wait. We need to tell them as little as possible. Then, if they get caught, they can’t give us all away.”
“You mean cells,” said Shazzuk. “We’ve got that set up, don’t worry.”
“We’ll take suggestions from your folk on what raids to do. We need ones to cause the most aggravation to the administration of the City and to K’hedduk himself. Undermine his authority, make the Court and ruling classes dissatisfied with him. When we decide on a mission, the best people to do it will carry it out, be it your teams or mine, or even a combination of both. Agreed?”
“Sounds sensible to me. Some places we can infiltrate better than you can, but we can’t get to the Court or the officers. Larashi, tell Mahzi what’s been decided, and Rhassa, go get everyone into the mood for a wedding. Make sure they think it is the Lord that she’s getting married to. I’ll speak to N’abui myself.”
* * *
The village wedding ceremony was very simple. Vows were exchanged while holding a pottery bottle filled with holy water from the chapel’s font. Once the promises had been made, the couple threw the bottle to the ground where it broke, spilling the water. Then salt and grain were exchanged between them so they’d never know thirst or hunger, and they were pronounced married. All this happened in the chapel with only the immediate family present so they were able to keep up the pretense of Mahzi marrying Lord Nayash, yet enable her to marry her sweetheart N’abui.
In the small hours of the morning, a very tired Mahzi, bundled in a blanket and carrying a bag of her belongings, was brought back to the village Leader’s house. There she said a tearful good-bye to her parents and left with Kusac, Cheelar, and three of the guards from the village.
Before they left, Shazzuk thrust a book into Kusac’s hands. “I know what you are,” he said. “You’re a Sholan. Your kind are mentioned in this old book of my father’s. It’s a copy of an even older one. I never believed him and his tales of aliens, but it seems he was right.”
Kusac flicked through the pages, stopping at the one with a drawing of a Sholan. “That’s us,” he said, handing the book back to him. “Good night, Shazzuk.”
CHAPTER 5
SHAIDAN and the others had thoroughly enjoyed their first unarmed combat lesson from Jerenn and M’Nar that afternoon. Even the warm-up exercises had proved challenging, but they’d all managed to keep up and to perform the various kicks and punching movements with a good degree of accuracy.
After the lesson, they all piled down to the pool for a hot shower, followed by a relaxing swim. They were allowed to get out when they wanted as they were escorted back to the nursery by the staff from the main floor’s security office next door to the pool.
The other cubs had all left, but Shaidan was still soaking in the bubble pool while M’Nar and Jerenn were having a last swim before getting out. He was idly thinking about the problem Unity had that morning, trying to track down how its routines had been subverted. Before he realized it, he was in communication with it again through the small web in the wall behind the pool.
Thanks to you, I was able to start tracking down what had been done to me, came Unity’s thought.
Oh, that’s great news. You haven’t yet found it, though?
No, but I am very close.
I was thinking about how they did the morphing into Kuvaa. My Papa can morph into a Valtegan, and apparently I almost did the first time I saw him change.
You mustn’t try that, Shaidan, it could be very dange
rous. Your Father uses the power of his mind to do that, you haven’t got his years of experience. You could get stuck as a Valtegan, or worse still, as something half and half.
Shaidan shuddered. I won’t try it. Is Kuvaa there now?
Yes, she is working on one of my terminals.
Can she see or hear me?
Not at this time. It depends what she’s doing. You’re safe for now.
Are you tied in to all the computing and comms devices?
Yes. They cannot function without me.
Then if someone invented a device that let them morph into Kuvaa, or at least change their appearance to look like her, they would have to design it on you, right?
There was a small silence. Yes.
Then why not look for someone designing something like that on the days just before the first time Kuvaa was duplicated.
I should have thought of that myself. You have a good mind, Hunter cub!
Hunter cub?
We call you Hunters because that is what you are—Hunters. You are helping me hunt down the truth. Hunting in all its forms is one of the great gifts of your people.
That’s a fine thought.
“Shaidan, time to go,” said M’Nar. “Wake up, youngling! Dinner is in half an hour, just time to get showered and dried and back to the nursery.”
“Maybe we tired him out, M’Nar,” teased Jerenn. “We’ll have to make the next session easier for him.”
“I’m fine. Just resting my eyelids, they’ve been open all day!” he said, pulling his legs down to the bottom of the step he could reach and pushing off to get to the other side. There M’Nar lifted him out and onto the sandy beach.
“Race you to the showers!” Jerenn said as he ran splashing into the water.
* * *
After dinner, Shaidan headed for M’Nar and Jerenn’s room. The door was wide open and he could see the two Brothers sitting inside on their beds. Jerenn was sharpening his knives, and M’Nar was busy stripping down his pistol and cleaning it.
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