But Shana was waiting and so were the others, and outside the hovel stood fully half of the half-hundred folk of the valley. They expected wisdom and a plan to keep them safe from the warmen the eagles had seen. Shevil frowned and drew a deep breath. What they actually wanted was for him to cut the throat of a prime weyr and lead them all up the moraine to seek the sorcerer who lived inside the deadly mountain, that was really what they wanted. The folk had become querulous and dependent on the Warlock, who had appeared three seasons back from within the belly of the mountain. They had lost their self-dependence, expecting always to be protected by the blind spirit-man’s magic.
But that was exactly the point and the danger, Shevil argued with himself. The eagles had seen a Navigator with Vara’s warmen, and that meant that the ways of the folk were known, somehow, to the grim priests of the Inquisition. To turn to the Warlock in this extremity would be to damn the settlement and all who lived in it forever. The Navigator would know and the warmen would erect a burning stake in the meadow. Shevil imagined his daughters screaming in the fire and shivered. In truth it was Shana he saw in his mind’s eye, for she had always been his favorite child. Gytha, Marya, and Arietee were dull girls, very much creatures of the valley. But Shana was like dark quicksilver, and his love.
Behind him, Quarlo the miller, cleared his throat and said tentatively, “Time is passing, Shevil. We listened to you three seasons ago and held back Lord Ulm’s weyr-tribute. Now that his warmen have come, you must tell us what you intend for us to do.”
The resentment, though hidden, was discernible in his voice.
It was true, Shevil thought, that he had counseled the folk to keep their weyr. He had heard from a traveler that Ulm was at war across the Narrow Sea and that year the winter had been bitter, so that the folk of Trama might have died of hunger had the tribute been sent. And then the second year and the third? Shevil asked himself. Well, once the old patterns had been broken, once Ulm’s rights had been denied, it seemed easier to withhold the tribute for another year, and then another. And there had been the appearance of the Warlock--yes, one had to consider that, too. To excuse himself and his counsel of rebellion, Shevil had declared that the appearance of the mad old spirit from the mountain had been an omen of approval from the Star--
Lies, all lies, Shevil thought bitterly. Not the Star, but Sin and Cyb had sent the Warlock, and he, Shevil Lar, had known it in his heart from the beginning. Now the folk waited for him to save them from the results of his sinful folly.
“You are certain the eagles saw a priest, Shana?”
The girl answered with averted eyes as was proper when addressing the elders, even though the hetman was her father. “Yes, Shevil. A priest and, I think, one of the tiny men. I can’t be sure of that. The eagles do not know them. But I think I felt one near.”
A Vulk, Shevil thought. Worse and worse. Long ago, in his young manhood, when he had dreamed of being a mercenary soldier, he had traveled to one of the outposts of the Lord Ulm’s warband. His journey had been a failure because the soldiers had laughed at him and beaten him with their sheathed swords, making sport of the peasant who wished to carry iron weapons. But he had seen a Vulk: eyeless, noseless, hideous to view--a creature with terrible mental powers, far more potent and dark than those of any mutation. The soldiers had told him that the Vulk could touch minds across thousands of kilometers of ocean and mountain, that he could turn humans to stone with an incantation, that he ate the hearts of children and drank women’s blood. All that and much more, as the Protocols explained, were gifts to the Vulkish people from their masters the Adversaries, Sin and Cyb.
“Are you certain about this thing, Shana?” he asked. “A Navigator would not travel with a Vulk.”
“I have heard of them being together,” Tamil Hind interjected. “The priests have spells that can enslave the creatures. Sometimes they break free and then the Navigator is damned, but I have heard of this thing Shana’s eagles saw.”
“The eagles did not see a Vulk,” Shana said rudely. She did not like Tamil devouring her with his eyes, seeking her favor by telling tales like this one. “I sensed something strange. It could have been one of them, that is all.” She turned her eyes, so silvery gray they reminded Shevil of Shevaughn’s, on her father. “Tell us what we must do, Shevil. The Navigator will burn us.”
The others broke out in angry murmurs of agreement. They muttered of the Warlock, as Shevil knew they would.
Still, what else was there? Half a hundred herdsmen and women could not defend themselves against the-Lord Ulm’s warmen. Damnation had fallen upon them with the coming of the Warlock. But death as rebels was more real, and it was coming upon them from the southern ridge of the valley, probably with the rise of the sun. “Very well,” the hetman said, “we will go to the mountain”--he paused and swallowed the bitter taste of fear--”and there we will seek the protection of Sin and Cyb.” He said over his shoulder to Tamil, “Snare a fat weyr for sacrifice,” then he turned to the other elders. Their dull, stupid faces made him ache with anger. Was the world always like this, he wondered? Had there ever been a life without fear? Had there ever been, in fact, a Golden Age --and if so, would there ever be again?
Heavily, he said, “Perhaps the flesh of the weyr will please the Warlock, but I must tell you that I do not believe he cares for such things. If he is a true son of Sin and Cyb, his price for saving us may be much greater.”
He raised his daughter to her feet and spoke to the folk who crowded about his open doorway. “Go and make ready. A member of each family must climb the moraine with the elders.” He stroked Shana’s dark hair and said, “Dress in your best, daughter, and cover yourself. The Warlock must not think us savages.” And he thought of a line from The Warls: “From the wrath of the warmen, who will deliver us?” Who, indeed, he wondered bitterly.
On the ridge, where the soldiers bivouacked, the cooking fires burned low. Glamiss prowled the outposts studying the sky for further attacks from the eagles of Trama. But the birds seemed to have vanished from the sky and now, as evening drew near, a thin skin of high clouds began to cover the sun and the wind turned bitterly cold as it blew across the ice-fields and snowy peaks of the northern mountains.
At the picket line he stopped to inspect Blue Star’s injuries once again. The mare was still nervous and angry and she showed her teeth at his approach, scratching at the hard ground with her deadly claws.
“Fight,” she said. “Fight the flying things, Glamiss.”
“Soon,” the Vykan said.
Blue Star shook her head savagely and snorted. Idly, Glamiss stroked the soft, dark, furred skin of her muzzle. The mares would suffer if there was a freeze in the night. They were a hardy breed, accustomed to the grassy plains of Rhada where they were born, but they were lowland animals, bred for thousands of years on sea-level tundras. On Rhada, only the polar islands ever froze; the continents had a cold but even climate.
For a time Glamiss pondered the peculiar similarities and strange differences of the animal forms he knew. The horses of Rhada, like Blue Star, Sea Wind, and the others of this troop, were light-boned, swift beasts. Their eyes were pale blue--the color of turquoise--with slit pupils. Like many other of the life-forms with which the warman was familiar, they were rudimentarily telepathic (according to Emeric, bred to it so that they would obey their warrior without bit or bridle in battle) and possessed of a simple language. Yet on Vegan worlds, horses were much larger, less intelligent, and heavily armored with chitinous plates like those of insects, or armored lizards. How had this come about, Glamiss wondered. The legends said that the men of the Golden Age, expanding into the galaxy from mythic Earth, had taken with them the life-essence of many Earth animals, and from this source had bred the beasts to suit their strange needs on alien planets. Perhaps it was so, though how the thing was done was beyond imagining. For a thoughtful moment he tried to imagine the men of the Empire boarding the great starships laden with their sinful packets of life. Ha
d there been an Order of Navigators then? Priests believed it, or said they did. But Glamiss did not. No, in those days there could have been no priesthood and the piloting of starships must have been done by ordinary men. The young warman tried to imagine what Earth must have been like (if it existed at all, that is)--a world of gold and silver avenues and jeweled buildings circling a diamond sun situated in the exact center of the galaxy, 333,333 kilometers to the Rim of the Great Sky in all directions. The orderliness of such a society seemed utopian to Glamiss and quite unreal. But the idea of so many millions of people living and working together in amity and safety was strangely moving. Even if it never was, actually, that way--it should have been, he thought.
Nav Emeric, his robe hitched up to show his mail-clad legs, appeared from the direction of the bivouac. He had stripped off his weapons and unlaced the throat of his iron-chain shirt, and he carried a cup of hot bouillon and a strip of broiled meat.
“Have you eaten? Here.” He offered the rations to Glamiss, who took them silently.
“I have been thinking of what you said, Glamiss,” the priest said in a low voice. “What, exactly, do you think we will find down there?” He indicated the valley, in shadow now.
“I don’t know,” Glamiss replied. “But there is something there. Things we have never seen before, perhaps. I can’t explain it. It is as though we’ve stumbled on something I need to know--something I must have before--” He broke off suddenly and the Navigator studied his somber face intently.
“There is a strangeness in you, Glamiss Warleader,” Emeric said. “I felt it from the first day we met. You are different from other men of our time.”
Glamiss raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say ‘from other men of our time’?”
“A feeling, no more. Vulk Asa senses it, too. We’ve spoken of it together.”
“You have discussed me with the Vulk?”
The Navigator smiled wryly. “Terrible, is it not? But there it is. It might be blasphemous to say so, but it is almost as though you have been chosen for something. Have you never wondered at how men follow you so willingly? Don’t you think it strange that a man of your humble birth should come so far as you have?”
“The thought has occurred to me,” Glamiss said in a dry tone.
“Forgive me, my friend. But you asked me. Why, you come from a tribe that isn’t even allowed to bear arms, isn’t that so?”
“It is,” Glamiss said. “My people are herdsmen. Like those.“ He turned his eyes on the darkening valley.
“Yet now you are the most honored warleader in Ulm’s warband. Has it never come to you that perhaps there is the hand of God in the Star in this?”
Glamiss grinned ruefully. “I thought you would give the credit to the Adversaries.”
“I’m not joking, Glamiss,” the Navigator said soberly. “You must be a chosen one. Though chosen for what, I cannot say.”
Glamiss narrowed his eyes against the fading light and thought of his recurring dream. He said quietly, “In the night, sometimes, I see myself standing on an island between two rivers, Nav Emeric. In my hands are a flail and dagger. On my back a feathered cloak. And on my head a circlet of gold--” Emeric turned pale, but did not speak.
Glamiss, unaware, went on in that strange, still voice. “There are starships in my dream, a sky filled with them. And behind me a warband--but a greater warband than I have ever seen--an army with strange banners.” He smiled slowly and turned to look at his friend. “What do you make of that, friend priest?”
The Navigator was silent for what seemed a long time. He knew, without knowing why he knew it, that he must speak with great care and precision, for he was certain that the spirit of the Star was nearby.
“Glamiss,” he said evenly, “what do you know of Nyor?”
“The Queen City of the Stars? What everyone knows. That it does not exist. That it probably never existed. It is like Earth, a legend--no more. Or perhaps, less romantically, it was simply the capital of the lost Empire.”
“Nyor exists, Glamiss Warleader. Nyor has always existed,” the Navigator said. “I have spoken with starship Navigators who have been there. It is far off across the Great Sky, and it lies in ruins now. But it once stood on an island between two rivers, Glamiss. The island is called Manhat, and the Galactons ruled from that place. They ruled for five thousand years, Glamiss, and their symbols were the flail, the dagger, and the feathered cape.”
Glamiss stared at the priest with cold eyes; his face seemed suddenly to have been cut from stone. “Don’t joke with me, priest. We are friends, but don’t joke with me about this thing. It is not a matter to use lightly.”
“As the Star is my witness, I speak the truth,” the Rhadan said.
“How does it happen I have never heard of it?”
“It is Navigators’ knowledge--not for the unconsecrated man.”
“And yet you tell it to me?”
The Navigator nodded slowly. “In violation of my vows, Glamiss. May the Star forgive me, but there are times when a priest is also a man. I told you I believe you are a chosen one. Perhaps it has been given to me to recognize you for what you will become. I know no reason I should be given such grace--I’m not a very good priest. I’m too proud by half, and far too worldly. I’ll never be a saint. But I know what I know. I can feel it, here, inside my guts. One day, you will wear the feathered cape, Glamiss. It will probably take your lifetime--and mine. But the time is right for a great conqueror. There’s been too long a night, my friend. And I believe you are the man. So I violate my vows. I should feel shame, perhaps, but I feel none.” He turned away and stood on the edge of the ridge, looking not down into the valley of Trama, but up at the sky where the light was slowly going, and where the sparse stars of the Vykan night would soon shine feebly through the thin clouds. “That is why I will serve you, Glamiss Warleader--down there in the valley tomorrow, or across the Great Sky when that time comes.”
The Vykan grasped the Navigator’s shoulders and managed a half-smile. “We’re both mad, you know. It must be this place.”
Emeric shook his head somberly. “I know one other thing. There will come a time when I must again choose between you and my Order. The choice I make then may not be the choice I make tonight. But that will be many years from now--in Nyor.”
Vulk Asa huddled by one of the fires and turned his blind face toward the two figures conversing in the fading light. He heard one of the warmen laugh and speak to his battle-partner.
“Look at them up there, will you? Glamiss and the priest, settling the hash of the whole bloody world.”
The Vulk smiled inwardly. He had seen it all happen before in the course of his race’s group-life. Passive, directed by forces humans would not begin to understand for a million years, the Vulk had seen the wheel of history turn many times. We watch, Vulk Asa thought, and we wish you well. But we do not interfere.
And across the miles he felt the caressing touch of his sister-wife’s thought: Guide them gently and they will go far.
Chapter Six
Conditions will be so terrible that no man will be able to lead a decent life. Then will all the sorrows of the Apocalypse pour down upon mankind: Flood, Earthquake, Pestilence and Famine; neither shall the crops grow nor the fruits ripen; the wells will dry up and the waters will bear upon them blood and bitterness, so that the birds of the air, the beasts in the field and the fishes in the sea will all perish.
--From the Nürnburg Chronicle (AD 1493 Old Style)
Middle Dawn Age period
The cyclic repetitions of human history fill me with a sense of déjà vu. I am the mightiest of men--and the most frightened.
--Attributed to Rigell XXVIII,
last Galacton of the First Stellar Empire
In his drugged sleep of dreams, the old man who had been Ophir ben Rigell ibn Sol alt Messier, Nephew and Heir to the Great Throne, Lord of the Sky Isles and the Marches, Prince of Rhada and High Duke of Cygnus, Amir of Tau Ceti and King-Electo
r of the Empire, could both see and remember.
His robe, on orders from the hospital computer, administered his maintenance dose of trilaudid each time he slept. The regimen was an improvisation, for the hospital computer having waited in vain for centuries, for someone to tell it how to cure the old man’s addiction and drug-induced blindness could prescribe nothing better. Once the patient was taken from the cold Sleep, the withdrawal of the drug would kill him--and he was too old to be put back in the vaults. He could not again be wakened.
The effect of trilaudid was, in its early stages, a feeling of well-being and euphoria. The user became aware of intense pleasure in every physical and mental activity, and the unpleasant aspects of life were transmuted into sources of joy. The Lord Ophir had, long before coming to the vaults of the cold Sleep, passed through that stage. He had entered the final stages of addiction in which the trilaudid addict began to shut down his sensory extensions into the real world, the more fully to appreciate the delights to be enjoyed inwardly. The first faculty to go was generally sight, and so it had been in the case of Lord Ophir. He had been almost totally blind before the Lady Dihanna (at the Lord Rigell’s insistence) had prevailed upon Ophir to take the Sleep.
Cannily, he had known even as he boarded the Delos that night, millennia ago, that her real purpose had been to store him until some cure for his addiction (rather than merely his blindness, which was but a symptom) could be found.
In his alert dream, at his own choice, he relived those days. He remembered that trilaudid addiction had been widespread among the lords and nobles of the Empire. That “unimportant” civil conflict on the Rim had been, in fact, unimportant only to an aristocracy and a large upper-middle class removed from reality by trilaudid and its derivatives. The Inner Worlds had been gutted of purpose or discipline by their own popular, drug-oriented, and permissive culture. A few nobles--Dihanna had been one of them--had striven for a rebirth of discipline. Ophir considered this with dreamy pleasure: they had obviously failed. The Empire was no more.
The Warlock of Rhada Page 4