Yngve, AR - Darc Ages

by Darc Ages (lit)

  Darc took one step forward; he saw Dohan back off, in spite of his armor and weapons. He tried to establish eye contact with the nervous young knight, but the half-blinding light from his lamp made it difficult.

  "Okay. Dohan, have you ever heard of a cure called 'inoculation' ? I have discovered an inoculation which makes it safe to touch a Leper without getting the Plague."

  Dohan's memories of biology and medicine studies were dim, and his knowledge was limited by the social taboos against forbidden knowledge. He shook his head; his fighter's instincts sensed something.

  "You are not telling me the whole truth, Darc! I can hear it in your voice! What are you hiding?" Embarrassingly enough, Dohan stuttered.

  Darc gestured to emphasize the sincerity of his reply: "Please trust me this one more time, Dohan! You know these things can be difficult to understand. I cannot explain everything right now, under these circumstances. I don't understand all of it myself yet. But of this much I am cartain: Shara and I were given an inoculation, and even if the Lepers touched us we are not sick with the Plague! Do you realize what it could mean? It is the beginning of a cure to end the Plague."

  Dohan's head felt suddenly light, as if his brains were pouring out through his ears. He was very tired and confused, and longed to sleep.

  The last few days, everything he had taken for granted had turned topsy-turvy on him. He had met witchdoctors, broken the law, opposed his father, and fought turncoat robots. And now this - the fundamental fear of every city-dweller's psyche, about to be defeated.

  Azuch Fache's words returned from a deep abyss in Dohan's memory, and once more he thought of the prophecy. In Dohan's strained mind, Darc might be a man-god, but even such men were part human and could be unreliable.

  He made a weary request: "Darc... I have long suspected you to be the reincarnated Singing King in disguise. So do many others: my mother, my sister, my friends... If you are him, then I would gladly believe all that you say. Could you just give me a sign... something that proves, beyond all doubt, that you are him?"

  Darc sighed, and kicked a pebble. This deification mania was definitely getting at his patience.

  " Damn it, Dohan! It's not that simple! I cannot claim to be him! Stop being so stubbornly... use your brain! No, don't touch any of us yet. First, we've got to create an inoculation for you. Then you can see for yourself. And we must get back to Mechao's island as soon as possible. I need his help to find a permanent cure. Are you listening? Can you see how much is at stake here?"

  Dohan had dozed off for a moment, but started awake where he stood. Darc saw this, and realized that it was an advantage. He said, with sympathy: "You must be dead tired, Dohan. Go back to the ship. Lock yourself in, and sleep on it. It is safe to do it. I swear the Lepers will not go near the Sunray. Right?"

  Dohan realized his physical reserves were empty. He gave up.

  "Right," the young nobleman said.

  He staggered back to the parked aircraft, managed to get himself inside, locked and sealed the port, and collapsed on a bunk. His helmet clanged to the floor, but Dohan never noticed - he was practically unconscious. Darc turned back to Shara and Claw, and told them the crisis was over.

  They went back to their quarters and a good night's sleep - after Claw had ordered his tribe to keep off the Sunray by penalty of death.

  The demise of Double-Mouth was not easily forgotten. And it doubled the villagers' resolve not to squander Darc's great promise of redemption.

  Chapter 33

  The moment Dohan woke up, he remembered the incredible situation of the night before. He panicked, rushed up from his uncomfortable sleeping position - and his muscles protested with pain.

  He looked out through the portholes and front windshields of the ship, and saw the plateau and the canyon before him, bathing in sharp sunlight. The cockpit was quite warm, which meant that he had allowed the craft to stand out in the open during the entire morning. Completely undefended!

  Dohan scrambled for the startup controls, then managed to calm himself. If the Lepers truly had wanted to kill him, the craft would have been destroyed while he slept. Darc had been truthful, and Dohan had mistrusted him again. It was a most dishonorable behavior.

  While he ate some of his rations, Dohan brooded over what to say to Darc next. Would Darc help him get his beloved Meijji now?

  His mind had finally settled on the question of his friend's identity: Darc was not quite the reincarnated King, but as close to it as a human could possibly become. Azuch Fache, high-priestess Inu and the others were wrong: Darc could not be defined by the established norms of society. Above all, one could not claim that Darc was an impostor; he was always truly himself.

  Strange, Dohan reflected, how Darc seemed so virtuous and honorable, though he spoke in a low tongue and mingled effortlessly with outcasts and commoners. Darc's "Sir" title was a mere formality and meant nothing even to him - all that counted to Darc was his actions and his wisdom. Or perhaps this was a sign of extreme virtue, a model behavior? Should the nobility rethink its standards of excellence?

  Dohan was beginning to question the foundations of his entire upbringing. He looked out the windshield, and spotted a couple of figures approaching from the plateau's edge. Cloaked Lepers, carrying the flag with their dreaded symbol. And among them came Darc and the woman Shara, wearing wide straw hats.

  The warrior from Castilia swallowed; his legs felt weak. In broad daylight, would he finally see a Leper's hideous countenance?

  Darc walked up to a distance of fifteen meters from the gleaming aircraft, and stopped. He waved at the cockpit, then walked around to the rear port. The port opened, but the ramp did not come down.

  They saw each other, and smiled.

  "Dohan? Stay where you are! Everything's okay! I can't touch you, until the new inoculation is finished. You'll have to wait at least a few hours more. And then you must inject it yourself - then wait a few days, before it is safe for any of us to touch you.

  "I hope you have enough food and water! There is a well nearby, where you can get fresh water - but you must boil it first, as a precaution."

  Dohan accepted the news, and replied: "I have another problem, Darc. If I leave the craft in this hot sun for too long, the fuel will start to expand. There is a risk of explosive leaks. I need to cover the craft with something cold - a wet canvas will do, but - as you said, I have not taken that 'inoculation' yet. Could the... Lepers aid us?"

  The Lepers' language was a bit too different from Dohan's nobleman tongue; Darc had to explain the request to Claw. It took the villagers but an hour to arrange for a huge mass of carpets and blankets to be carried up to the plateau, then knotted together.

  With some ropes and a handful of men, the result was then draped over the bulk of the Sunray and soaked with water. Dohan noted with a sigh of relief, that the temperature inside began to sink.

  With that problem solved, Dohan asked for a little privacy. He was left alone, and could get to work checking the engines of the Sunray. The air intakes and exhaust pipes had adjustable valves - Dohan controlled that they were safely shut, so that no sand was allowed to get in and ruin the jet tubes.

  He observed flocks of strange long-necked birds, circling in the sky above. For some reason, the sight of the birds made him uneasy.

  Darc worked outdoors with extracting a double-acting vaccine from the antibodies of immune Lepers, assisted by Shara. He noticed, and recognized, the circling birds in the sky: buzzards, an American variant of vultures.

  And he thought defiantly: I cheated you again!

  His work proved to be easier than he had expected. By now, Darc had named the two components of pseudo-leprosy: Plague Virus A, which spread by touch and caused superficial deformities, such as the lumps on Claw's head. And Plague Virus B, as yet undetected, which was genetically passed on from parent to child.

  Darc also spent a portion of the day examining samples from the Leper tribe. He discovered - much to his relief - that most
of the tribespeople were already immune to Plague Virus A.

  By the looks of things, the strength and numbers of Virus A must have been diminishing in the tribe long before Darc arrived - a case of natural immunity developing over the centuries. But a couple of newcomers like Shara, Darc - or Dohan - who had never been exposed to either virus, would be extremely vulnerable to the Plague... unless the vaccine was used.

  It dawned on him, that as long as the fortified cities kept isolating themselves from the Plague-carrying Lepers, the city-dwellers would always remain vulnerable to the disease. The whole social setup was a self-perpetuating vicious circle, which kept the Plague alive and dangerous.

  How was Darc to change this - for he once again saw that change was long overdue - during his lifetime?

  "We must wait now for a few hours," he told Shara, "and then we will know if the cure is ready for use." He let go of the work and approached her. "Do you understand why I must change your world? Partly, because it constantly tries to kill me with its old laws and ways... and partly because I see good people suffer from those laws and ways."

  Shara answered, sounding bitter: "Of course I understand it. It's been that way my entire life. I've been hounded, flogged, and spat upon by city people ever since I was a little girl."

  Her deep resentments, so long dormant, suddenly surfaced.

  With ferocious intensity, she hugged him and said in his ear: "If you raised an army, smashed the nobility, and all the fat merchants saw the Lepers come and burn down their rich homes, I would be the first to celebrate! Would you do that - start an uprising?"

  Darc pulled away her arms, then appeared to change his mind, embraced and kissed her.

  And he shook his head.

  "No, not even for you. I am a vain and selfish man, true. And I've grown quite fond of you. But I won't do that."

  She held on to him, urging with soft-spoken intensity: "But you could become a leader, a king! I saw you capture the hearts of a hundred bloodthirsty Lepers! If you want to stop this persecution of us, then you're forced to seize power!"

  Darc rubbed his scalp against her face, then looked up and grinned haplessly at the clear blue sky.

  "Power!" he said, squinting. "What is it good for? You know... once, when I was a little boy, I wanted power over others. I dreamed of being stronger than everyone else, the way boys do. One day, I dressed up as a little king in front of the mirror. I puffed up myself, feeling all-powerful. And just then, my mother came into the room and saw me, with my little paper crown and my little cape - a curtain for a cape. And she smiled at me - just smiled. I felt so stupid. My face went red. But my mother lifted me up in her arms and kissed me, and then I knew she loved me anyway.

  "Ever since that time, I can always see the little puffed-up boy in every leader. And I have always known, that it's a hundred times better to be free than to have power over others. Power should be spread thin, not be held by one man. That's what I'm going to do in this world."

  Shara looked away. She tried to release herself from Darc's arms - but he caught her, puzzled by her sudden bad mood.

  "Oh, go on with your great work," Shara muttered. "Go ahead and play the great redeemer. You're wasting your talents away."

  Darc would have none of it. He shook her violently.

  "Look at me, Shara!" he barked. "In my time, when two people were in love, they were truthful to each other. What's on your mind? Damn! I'm from another time - you can tell me everything!"

  She winced, but she told him; the words poured out from between her full red lips.

  "You're a merchant's son, Darc. It's in your face. You must have grown up in a wealthy home - you never had to fight for your food. What do you know about hard times? You know nothing! Nothing!

  "I should've been well off too - but the city people wouldn't let me! They branded our family unclean, threw rocks after us in the street. My father was beaten almost to death and left a cripple, to waste away before our eyes. My mother had to sell her body to support us. And then she died too, and I was orphaned. I ran away. I was alone, but I wouldn't go off into a corner and die - I knew my worth.

  "My parents taught me that we had been had denied our lawful right to be equal citizens. They left me no choice but to become a criminal, a mistress of rich men. All because people discovered that we -"

  She began to shake with hateful grief, bereft of tears - as if she had run out of those long ago. Darc wanted to help, if only he could understand. He fixed her eyes with his.

  "Why was your family persecuted? Couldn't the law help you - the cities have laws and courts, don't they?"

  Shara's eyes glittered with fury, as she spat out her most shameful secret: "We believed in Kristos! We were heathens!"

  Darc gaped foolishly, then took Shara's dark head in his hands, burying it in the hollow of his neck. He was holding in his arms a link to his own time, a persecuted remnant of a vanished culture. It was a poignant moment, even to a skeptic like him.

  "I'm sorry, Shara. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. In my time - in my time I was raised in the same faith."

  She looked up at him with her wide black eyes, eyes that were so skillfully trained to catch men's attention.

  "You did? You believe in the Sacrament? That the bread and wine of the Mass turn into the body of Kristos?"

  "Well... to be honest, I don't really believe in that anymore. When my ancestors came to England from Italy a long time ago, they changed their name from Archimboldo to Archibald , to avoid the prejudice against their people. And though we did not forget the old faith, it was not... rigidly practised, and soon enough we changed our ways."

  "Have you... converted to the Goddess?"

  She turned fearful; he soothed her.

  "No, no! I believe... that every human has the right to be free." He smiled sadly, and held up her round chin to his face. "You haven't understood a word I've said, have you?"

  "I guess not. What do you mean, 'free'? Does it include the right to a fair trial in court, or not having to work without pay?"

  "More, much more. The right to believe in anything you want, to do or say anything you want - as long as it doesn't hurt anyone!"

  His creed, so unlike anything Shara had ever heard before, opened a door in her mind. It went blank for a minute. Darc waited patiently, hoping at least she, of all people, would get it right.

  And then in a flash, Darc made sense to her. All his words, his actions made sense - in the light of his faith, this worship of freedom. Now she began to cry for real. But it was happy tears, and she laughed. It was a wonderful, tittering sound - her voice released. Shara felt a great relief, and then she knew why.

  She wasn't afraid of him anymore.

  A great passion was set free in her mind. She kissed him on the mouth, and all over his face, and his response was no less warm than hers. They ignored the eyes of Lepers in the distance, until Darc felt his desire surge. Could he wait until the night? Could she?

  He asked her.

  "No," she replied with a knowing smile. Then they both laughed.

  They hastily gathered together the equipment and carried it into Claw's house. It was a hot noon, but the shadow of the cliff was cool. This, however, could not possibly cool them off. As soon as they were safely in their room, Darc tossed Shara onto the hard bed and flung himself upon her. She welcomed him with a joyful laugh.

  Meanwhile, up on the plateau, Dohan took a siesta under the shadow of the ship's metal belly. He dreamed of Meijji again.

  In bed with Shara, Darc felt like a young man again. Shara felt truly alive for the first time in many years, and she rewarded Darc for it with all her passion. They lost track of time, making love for longer than they thought possible.

  Yet when they ceased, breathless and red-faced, they found that less than four hours had passed. Not a word had been uttered between them during those four hours. There were many things they wanted to tell each other, promises they longed to make but feared to break in days to come.

>   Both were aware of the odds stacked against their survival, and the differences that might never be bridged. As Darc raised his ruffled head from Shara's chest to speak, she shook her head and put her fingers to his lips.

  "Save that precious voice for the Lepers, honey. You don't have to say anything."

  Darc took a moment to steady his breath, then he couldn't help himself.

  "I was about to say..." he said, and flashed a mischievous grin, "Going for older men is one thing, but isn't this going nine centuries too far?"

  She beat his chest in mock reproach, then began to laugh so hard she couldn't lie still. He laughed with her as they embraced again.

  Chapter 34

  The sun sank beyond the distant vertical mountains, and Dohan ceased his fencing exercise - not so much out of exhaustion as boredom. Then again, this pause for rest and leisure was precisely what he needed.

  And finally, Darc returned... carrying the promised vaccine, the final test of their mutual trust.

  The tall white-haired man tried to relax and not give any impression of doubt, as he walked up to his waiting friend. But since the world is a place where absolute certainty does not exist, he felt doubt - in himself. If the vaccine was a failure, and Dohan caught the Plague...

  During this brief walk across the plateau, Darc went over in his mind everything he had discovered in the last few days, checking for any missing details, any clue that could prove him wrong. Of course there were missing details, which only Mechao could help him unveil. And without Dohan, Darc wouldn't get back to Kap Verita in the first place. So he had to begin by taking this chance.

  "Darc!" Dohan greeted him out loud. "This is the first time I see you with a beard. Have you looked yourself in a mirror of late?"

  Darc laughed in reply, grateful for the opportunity to talk nonsense at this critical moment. He was tanned, a little grimy with desert dust, and his chin was thick with snow-white stubble.

  "Naah... I guess I look like death warmed over. You haven't shaved yourself, huh?"