With trilaudid rerouting the electrical impulses of his brain, Ophir could survey the softly featureless landscape of his memories with joy. Even the knowledge that in his waking state he would be irritable to the point of paranoia, that his memory would be paralyzed, that his blindness would force him to rely on the prosthetic eye he wore--all this gave him drug-pleasure. For it assured him that he would turn to sleep again--the sleep of trilaudid.
Dihanna, he thought dreamily, and his pleasure-sharpened mind recreated her. He touched her glossy ebony skin, felt the tight, wiry texture of her flame-colored hair. She seemed to be saying: “You see, I did join you after all, Ophir.” And: “I was wrong, wrong to oppose pleasure and happiness and love--” Some ancient flicker of reality sparked in his brain, and for just an instant he knew that he was with a false Dihanna, that she would never have spoken so about drug-happiness. But almost instantly, the trilaudid in his bloodstream blunted the single synapse, and Dihanna became once again the soft, acquiescent creature his addiction had made her.
His uncle, the Galacton, said: “You are the heir, Ophir. You cannot--” The mere suggestion of the word “cannot” triggered the drug reaction again, and the Galacton smiled down at his favorite nephew from the Great Star Throne and said, “Yes, of course, yes--whatever gives you pleasure, my young lion--”
The images darkened, faded. The computer had detected visitors at the tunnel mouth and, knowing they sought the Warlock, was waking him. Lord Ophir fought to keep to his drug-dream, but the computer was immune to the ethic of trilaudid: “Whatever gives you pleasure, do.” It turned his robe cold and he awoke. Bitterness overwhelmed him. Once again he could not remember his own name. His brain seemed to have ceased to function. He felt half-alive as the infusion of the drug slowed, a million tiny needles withdrawing from his withered flesh.
He opened his electronic eye. On the telescreen above his sleep-tank the computer had projected the scene in the moraine.
The villagers of Trama were there in force. Torches burned, though the last light had not yet faded from the sky. They were chanting dark verses from that mess of superstition they called The Warls.
The computer said, “Go. It is good for you to see other humans.”
The Warlock snarled, “Humans? Savages. Beasts.”
The computer made no distinctions. It was concerned only with the well-being of its patient, and it had been told, aeons ago, that without contact with others of his kind, man, the social animal, withers and dies.
“It is bad therapy for a patient to refuse visitors when he is able to see them,” the recorded voice said.
“Why do they bother me?” the Warlock asked, rising unwillingly from the tank.
The question was recognized as rhetorical and not answered.
“Why me!” This time an answer was wanted. But the hospital computer’s billion software packages did not include anything pertinent to skin-wearing savages in the hospital valley. Instead, like any doctor, it said, “It will do you good to see them.”
The Warlock’s eyes, dark with trilaudid blindness, jerked and trembled. “Who am I?” he burst out hopelessly.
This information the computer did have, but it was considered poor therapy to present trilaudid addicts with contradictions. The computer, again like any doctor, lied for the patient’s good. “I am not programmed to answer that. When the doctor comes, he will decide what must be done. “
“The doctor is never coming!” the old man screamed. “No one is coming--ever!”
“You have visitors,” the computer said primly. And then, with maddening electronic smugness, repeated, “It is bad therapy for a patient to refuse visitors when he is able to--”
The Warlock fled from the room.
In the deepening dusk, Shevil Lar led the villagers in the litany, the chant from the Warls.
“From the rage of the star-raiders,
Save us!”
The torch-lit faces, raised in supplication to the blank and empty tunnel mouth, swayed in the flame-brightness. The response came like a rumble on the wind from the mountains.
“Salve!”
“From the fire in the sky,
Protect us!”
“Salve dominus!”
The language was the ancient tongue, a slurred and corrupted thing filled with the clicks and elisions of the Old Anglic of the Empire and mingled with words and phrases borrowed from languages still more ancient, their origins lost in the mists of the Dawn Age.
“O Warlock, filled with wisdom,
Protect us!”
“Salve, rey de la noche!”
Shevil raised his torch and made the Dark Sign, the Star with Four Points, the Cross of Night, that summoned warlocks and propitiated both Sin and Cyb. The tunnel mouth remained empty and Shevil was filled with a hopeless despair. The Warlock was capricious, and he, Shevil, had warned the folk that he might not come.
The bearded faces of the men in the first circle were unreadable in the torch light. But the women who stood behind them were afraid and their faces showed it. It was the women who had been most willing to accept the gifts of Sin and Cyb from the creature who lived under the glacier: the mill, the new ways to heal the sick, even the training of Shana’s gift to curb the marauding eagles. The women were afraid of the priest-Navigator who Shana said rode with the warmen of the Lord Ulm, but they were even more frightened at the thought that the Warlock might now choose simply to forget the folk of Trama valley.
Shevil said, “Bring the weyr.”
The men carried the struggling animal spread-eagled. Its soft dark eyes were fearful. It knew it was meeting its death, Shevil realized. But what good would it do? The fly-blown carcass of the last sacrifice to the Warlock of the mountain still lay where they had left it on their last meeting here. The rotting smell of it tainted the cold evening wind.
“Shana.”
Shevil’s daughter carried the knife. It was an ancient weapon, intricately carved and damascened with scenes of strange battle on its bright blade. The pommel had been worked in soft yellow metal into the flaming Star and Spaceship of the Old People. It had been brought by the folk to the valley in time past, during one of the migrations from the plains. Shevil’s great-great-grandfather was said to have found it in the night-glowing ruins of some ancient battlefield, a place where the Suns fell. It was said among the people that the old man, the first Shevil Lar, had sickened and died after his blasphemous invasion of that blasted place. His hair had turned gray and fallen away in patches, and he had weakened and had known no peace, so great was the taboo. And finally, he had died and none could save him. There was no one even to try, for he had been shaman in those days, the healer of the sick folk, and if he could not save himself, then no man could.
But the folk had kept the knife-that-burns and the next generation of Lars had been a short one, for the knife carried with it a strong taboo and curse from Sin and Cyb. The Adversaries always exacted a blood-price.
Even now, it was unwise to hold the knife too long, lest the touch of the god-metal raise blisters on the skin. Only Shana, who was strange in other ways as well, could carry the knife.
With his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, Shevil followed the men and the weyr up the path they had worn in the rubble of the moraine to the tunnel-mouth. In the torchlight, Shevil could make out the symbols cut into the god-metal rim of the open doorway. They were the glyphs of the Empire, spiky and evilly shaped. They formed a legend Shevil could neither read nor understand: Cryonic Storage D. And below the large symbol, a rank of smaller ones, like soldiers following a warleader, Shevil thought. Emergency Access, Radiation Shelter. Ugly shapes, like nothing seen in nature, and consequently the work, beyond a doubt, of Sin and Cyb.
Shevil guided Shana carefully, feeling the tension in her young flesh under his hands. It was Shana who knew the Warlock best, for she had spent many hours with him at the machines, actually within the mountain. But even she was afraid, and Shevil wondered, did she fear the sin
the folk had committed or was her fear like that of the other women, a dread of facing the warmen without the Warlock’s magic?
Shana the Dark, the hetman thought. Shana the witch. My daughter. We are an accursed family among an accursed folk. When that first Shevil went to the place where a Sun fell, he divided our blood from salvation. Long ago, he thought, the folk should have driven us out to freeze on the glacier--
“Father-”
“Don’t speak, Shana. It is not fitting.”
The girl followed the men with the struggling, bleating weyr up the path through the smooth rocks and pebbles of the moraine. Shevil Lar noted that young Tamil was one of the men. He frowned, knowing the fellow must have bribed one of the elders more senior than he to let him take the burden to the top of the path. One more thing improperly done, Shevil Lar thought grimly. The younger generation was without respect for anything. Tamil shall not have Shana for wife, Shevil decided. And then he suppressed an impulse to smile bitterly, for this was surely no time to think of such things. If the Warlock did not appear, by tomorrow’s sunset the folk might be charred flesh at the burning stakes. The Order of Navigators was without mercy on sinners who dealt with the powers of Sin and Cyb.
“But, father,” Shana whispered agitatedly, “Shevil--”
“Hush, girl.”
His daughter shook her head angrily. “I must tell you, Shevil. One of the eagles has attacked the warmen on the ridge. A rogue bird, father. But the attack will lead the tiny man directly to me. He will know I have the mind-touch.” Shevil’s heart felt heavy in his chest. It seemed, after all, that God in the Star had not forgotten the folk of Trama. He watched from the Great Sky, just as the Navigators said, and made his terrible judgments. He knew that Sin and Cyb had taken root in the valley. And no matter how much the Adversaries might wish to remain hidden in these mountains, they had not been able to prevent the rogue bird’s attack which would warn the priest-Navigator on the ridge that all was not what it seemed to be in the valley of Trama. The stakes and the fire seemed very close to Shevil Lar and the folk at this moment, and he shuddered, knowing that they were now totally committed to the Warlock and at the mercy of his Cybish capriciousness. “Salve rey de la noche,” he murmured, “appear to us or we are truly lost.”
At the low step of god-metal before the dark tunnel mouth the men stopped and lifted the weyr, head down and still struggling, for the folk to see. The chanting began again, this time with more urgency.
“The starships come and the warbands gather,
Save us, Dark Fathers!
What have we done to suffer fire and sword?
Save us, wise Warlocks!
From across the Sky the star kings send us death!
Strike them, Night Fathers!”
“The knife, daughter,” Shevil Lar said.
The cold metal seemed to burn on his palm. He faced the blank tunnel mouth and said simply, “We offer you what we have, Dark Father.”
With a single movement, he cut the weyr’s throat and in the flickering torchlight black blood gushed from the wound, splashing like oil on the metal step. Shevil felt the warmth of it on his sandaled feet and suppressed a shudder.
The men threw the still quivering carcass to the ground and waited. The chanting broke into rumbling and then subsided into a kind of silence as the folk continued to wait. In the stillness, Shevil Lar could hear the wind sighing through the feathery trees in the lower valley and the distant ripple of sound from the flowing river. Night sounds, and the soft communal breathing of the folk, silenced by the sight and smell of blood running like a freshet through the rocks down the moraine.
But the Warlock did not appear.
For the space of a hundred heartbeats, the tribe waited. But the tunnel mouth remained dark and empty.
Below, the women began to wail with despair and the men muttered.
A voice called out. “It was not enough. “
Shevil felt the beginnings of a cold, very personal dread. The traditional sacrifice to the Adversaries was animal blood. But it had not always been so. In the darkest age of the Dark Time, Sin and Cyb had required richer drink and all the folks knew it, as did Shevil Lar.
“It was not enough!” the same voice came again. And this time there were others acquiescing, urging. Shevil shivered and thought: Little wonder the Suns fell. Men and women are abominations....
“The Warlock demands more, Shevil!”
Shevil stood frozen, knowing now what the folk demanded of him. Had it always been so in the past, he wondered? Was the price of hetmanship so high? There were legends, some so ancient they were legends in the Golden Age, of leaders made to sacrifice of their own blood to propitiate the wind or the soil or the sky. Shevil’s mother had told him the timeless tale of Great Agamemnon, a warleader whose fleet of starships would not rise from the sea, held there by Sin and Cyb, until he gave them to drink of his daughter Iphigenia’s blood. Shevil shuddered, remembering how that Star King was struck down by the Star in the person of an adulterous wife. ... He closed his eyes and wished with all his heart that he could pray to the Star now, that he had not damned himself by his devil-worship, that he could take Shana by the hand and run from this place.
He heard a woman’s voice screaming from below. “Tamil! The Warlock wants her blood! Take her, Tamil!” The voice was Arietee’s, Shevil thought with dismay. He held Shana’s shoulders in a viselike grip, remembering his silver-eyed Shevaughn, who had warned him that the folk hated what was strange and would turn on him if he refused to believe it.
“Father--?” Shana said.
Shevil Lar shook his head sharply. “Pay them no mind, daughter. It’s madness.”
“Tamil! Shana!”
Others below were taking up the cry, calling for deeper sacrifice from their hetman. “Give him Shana!”
Quarlo the miller and Tamil stared at one another uneasily, then at Shevil Lar and his daughter.
Shevil raised the knife-that-burns and said, “Don’t even think it. Stay where you are.”
“But, Shevil,” the miller said reasonably, “if the Warlock does not come, we are dead men. All of us.”
Tamil looked at Shana and licked his lips. Shevil could see the strange conflict on his face.
“If you take a step toward her, I swear I’ll kill you both,” Shevil said.
From below the cries rose up, fearful, lustful, furious at this check. “Shana! Let it be Shana!”
Quarlo leaned. Shevil glanced quickly from him back to Tamil. The young man had decided. The decision was on his face, in his eyes. He moved, and Shevil swung Shana behind him and crouched, knife held sword-fashion, low, pointed at Tamil’s belly. The others backed away, all but Quarlo, who had his own knife bared.
The miller began to circle, to take Shevil from the flank, but the moraine was narrow here and the light uncertain. Shevil felt the fury building in him. These would take his daughter from him, spill her blood in sacrifice--and for what? He bared his teeth and howled with rage and despair.
Tamil lunged, but his foot slipped in the blood of the weyr and Shevil’s point raked across his chest making a shallow cut. Tamil screamed with pain and fright.
Shevil heard the sharp intake of breath from the folk below, and the sudden silence.
Shana shielded her eyes and dropped to her knees, “The Warlock, father! The Warlock!”
Shevil raised his eyes to the tunnel mouth which was now suddenly and miraculously a blaze of light. The Warlock stood there, his terrible eyes staring, his mouth open and red in his grizzled beard. The silver cloak he wore seemed to shimmer and rustle with his anger.
His voice, amplified by the gown that sensed his every need, reverberated and crashed down the mountainside.
“Animals! Savages! What are you doing now! How dare you come to this place with your swine’s battles! Filth! Blood-lovers! God curse you--put up your weapons!”
The burning eye lowered its view to take in the slaughtered weyr and the Warlock’s fram
e seemed to shiver and tremble with fury. “Take that thing away from me! Take it away at once!” He turned and would have retreated into the tunnel once again, but Shevil leaped onto the god-metal step and, dragging Shana with him, threw himself at the Warlock’s feet.
“They wanted me to sacrifice my daughter, Dark Prince! They said the weyr was not enough!”
The Warlock stopped in midstride and stood for a moment, as though transfixed. His wizened face was a mask of horror and disgust. Then his expression softened slightly as he murmured, ”Dihanna? Is it you, Dihanna?” Shevil Lar rose to his feet and pressed himself and Shana against the strangely smooth wall of the tunnel. His heart was fluttering and pounding like a living thing. Quarlo and the bleeding Tamil were following the others in a mad rush down the moraine.
Shana stood very still while the muttering, humming eye examined her. She shivered as she saw how it seemed to grow, like a second, smaller head from the Warlock’s shoulder.
“No,” the Lord Ophir said more calmly. “You are not Dihanna. You are the bird girl from the village.”
“Yes, sire,” Shana whispered.
“They wanted to sacrifice you? Cut your throat?” An expression of fastidious disbelief suffused the old face. “To me?”
Shevil would have spoken, but the Warlock silenced him with a gesture.
“Yes, Dark Prince,” Shana said.
“Unbelievable,” the Warlock said. “Are you savages, then? Have you sunk to human sacrifice?” He shook his head and murmured to himself in an unknown language.
Shevil, who could not forget that he was hetman of Trama, said, “They are frightened, Lord. The warmen of Ulm have come.”
“Good,” the Warlock said sharply. “Let them do their duty. Are they less savages than you?” His tone conveyed an impregnable superiority. It was in such a voice, Shevil thought, that a man might address a crawling insect--a lower form of life.
The Warlock of Rhada Page 5