The Honorable Barbarian

by L. Sprague De Camp

  "That's right, blame me for your clumsiness!" She paused, then said in a less petulant tone: "Why not ask the dollmaker's wife? Methinks she made the dress in the first place."

  Kerin grunted. "A fine fool I should look, trailing back across half the city to ask her to repair my botchery! I'll try the wife of our present host."

  Kerin went and found the innkeeper's wife. With another rush of embarrassment, he explained his errand. "This poppet for my little niece, now, has wings like unto an insect."

  The innkeeper's wife examined the garment; Kerin was sure she was hiding a laugh. "'Tis a quarter-hour's work, an I guess not amiss. 'Twill cost you thrippence, Master Kerin."

  "Agreed," he said.

  Back in his room, he held out the dress for Belinka's inspection. She took it and flitted about, so that the bit of fabric fluttered this way and that. When she turned on her full visibility, she wore the dress with her wings protruding through the slits. "What thinkst?"

  "Enchanting, my dear; though I admit I liked you the way you were. But you cannot wear the garment outside our room."

  "And why not, sirrah? I can be invisible."

  "Aye, but the sight of the dress fluttering about in midair, without occupant, were quite as arresting as your delectable form."

  "Then take your damned dress!" she flung it at Kerin. "You Prime Planers make us work our arses off as familiar spirits, but you never let us have any fun!"

  Kerin sighed. "Sorry, Belinka. And now the time for sailing nears, so we'd best be on our way."

  II

  The Ship Dragonet

  As the sun sank redly towards the serried roofs and sparkling towers of Vindium, Kerin neared the Dragonet's pier. A baldric over one shoulder supported his sword, while a strap on the other took the weight of the duffel bag on his back. As Kerin climbed the gangplank, Captain Huvraka said:

  "Aha, Master Kerin, you are coming in good time. I am showing you your cabin. . . . But what is this?"

  Belinka, glowing bluely and visible even in daylight, was flying circles round Huvraka's head, tinkling: "Oh, Captain, what a beautiful headdress! I must find somebody who can make me its ilk!"

  "This your familiar spirit is?" asked Huvraka.

  "Well, ah, yes it is," said Kerin. "She's quite harmless." Unless provoked, he silently added.

  "You are thinking to bring it along on voyage?"

  "Aye; she'll be no trouble."

  "That may be; but then I am asking five marks more, for her passage."

  "What!" cried Kerin. "That's an outrage! We had a firm agreement—"

  "Ah, yes; but the agreement is not including other life forms. I am charging you same if you are a cat or dog aboard bringing."

  "But she won't eat any of your food—"

  "That is no matter. I am sticking to consistent policy. Pay or find another ship."

  "Curse it, I will!" said Kerin. Defiantly he strode back down the plank. In his ear Belinka chirped:

  "I am glad you won't sail on that ship, Master Kerin."

  "Why?"

  "There is a feel of evil about it."

  "What sort of evil?" Kerin walked back towards the base of the pier.

  "I cannot tell; 'tis a feeling I have, as of some evil supernatural presence. We sprites are sensitive."

  Kerin drew a deep breath. "Then there's nothing for it but to hunt up the harbor master again. Let's hope he have not closed his office. . . . Oh, oh!"

  He stopped. Coming upon the pier were three large, stout men with cudgels, and a smaller fourth man. Although the sun had dipped below the roofs of Vindium City, the sky was still bright above. By its light Kerin recognized Garic and his companions. The remaining man, a slight, gray-bearded oldster, wore a black robe to his ankles and a pointed skullcap.

  "Well, fry my guts!" roared Garic. "Here's our little would-be wizard now! Give him the treatment, Frozo!"

  The older man stepped forward, pointed a wand at Kerin, and shouted. With a whiplike crack, a jagged streak of blue luminescence shot from the wand towards Kerin. Even as Kerin winced, the streak ended in midair, a foot from his face, throwing a shower of sparks.

  Again the words of power; again the crack and the flash; again the sparks. The small man said: "He is protected by a counterspell, like that which I put on you. I cannot pierce it."

  "Well then," rumbled Garic, "we must needs use simpler means. Come on, boys!"

  The trio started for Kerin, cudgels aloft. Kerin seized his sword but found it still affixed to its scabbard by peace strings. By the time he untied or cut them, the men would be upon him with clubs. He ran back along the pier, the duffel bag bouncing against his back.

  At the Dragonet's berth, Kerin found a pair of loinclothed sailors preparing to haul in the gangboard and others standing by to cast off the mooring lines. He panted up the plank.

  "Well," said Captain Huvraka, "you are changing your mind?"

  "Aye," panted Kerin. "I thought that. . . ." He paused for breath.

  Huvraka and the mate unhurriedly stepped to the inboard end of the plank, each with a slender, curving sword in a bronzen fist. Huvraka shouted: "Keep off, you! I am not letting you on board!"

  He added a command in Mulvani. The sailors cast off the hawsers and dashed back up the plank, which the deckhands hauled aboard and stowed. The Dragonet drifted away from the pier. Ashore, Garic and his comrades shouted:

  "Coward! Eunuch! Come back and fight! Horse turd!" Getting back his breath, Kerin asked: "How didst come to be armed so timely?"

  Huvraka replied: "We are seeing fireworks on pier, with you and that hedge wizard. So, thinking we might have use for them, I am telling Mota to fetch our tulwars. Now, about your fare—"

  "I'll pay as soon as I get this thing off," grunted Kerin, wrestling with his bag. "Fifty-one marks, right?"

  "Ah, no, good sir. Since you are evidently dangerous cargo, pursued by enemies, I must be asking five marks more for the risk. That makes fifty-six."

  "What? That's a swindle! We had an agreement—"

  Huvraka shrugged. "If you are not liking, I am putting you back on pier.''

  Kerin sighed; circumstances conspired against him. As he fumbled with his purse, Huvraka said: "You should not be sad, young sir. Look, since you are only passenger, will you do me the honor of messing in my cabin tonight?"

  Kerin frowned in puzzlement, then said: "Oh, you mean to eat dinner with you?"

  "Yea, sir. That is what I am meaning."

  "Thankee; I shall be glad to."

  When Kerin had stowed his gear in one of the Dragonet's two passenger cabins and emerged from his compartment in the deckhouse, he found the ship well away from shore. Eight sailors heaved on four sweeps to row the Dragonet out into the harbor. Others shinnied monkeylike along the yards, which lay in crutches rising from the deck, to untie the brails that retained the sails. Captain Huvraka shouted in Mulvani; sailors heaved on cranks, and the yards arose by little jerks. Other crewmen manned the sheets to give the yards the desired slant.

  With popping sounds, the crimson-and-white-striped sails ballooned before the gentle westerly breeze, and the ship heeled slightly and picked up speed. The men at the sweeps shipped their oversized oars and stowed them. Other ships, anchored in the bay, drifted past: undecked Shvenish single-masters like magnified canoes; local coasters and fishermen, rigged like the Dragonet on a smaller scale; beamy deep-sea square-riggers; and long, low, lethal galleys of war.

  As they reached open water, the Dragonet began to pitch and roll with a corkscrew motion. Kerin had been warned of seasickness and apprehensively awaited its manifestations.

  Activity on the fantail drew his attention. A knee-high apparatus of copper struts had been set up, and behind it a brown-skinned woman sat cross-legged. She was plump, past her youth, and clad in foreign fashion. She wore a length of fabric, wound round and round her middle to make a short skirt, leaving her upper torso bare. Her smooth, flattish face suggested the Far East.

  The apparatus inclu
ded a bowl of water a span across, suspended from the apex of the tripod. Beneath it, a smaller dish hung by slender chains. In this dish, a little fire gave out ruby, golden, and emerald smokes, which the sea breeze snatched away. Edging closer, Kerin saw that the bowl was two-thirds full of water. The bowl and the dish beneath it pendulated as the vessel rocked.

  As Kerin watched, the woman placed on the bowl a short straw with one end painted crimson. Captain Huvraka also watched. Trying his rudimentary Mulvani, Kerin pointed, saying:

  "What is that?"

  "Shh!" hissed the captain. "Magic."

  The woman chanted in a tongue unknown to Kerin. As she sang, the floating straw rotated slowly until the scarlet end pointed to port. After it had wobbled about this direction and finally settled down, Huvraka shouted to the sailor at the tiller. Kerin caught the Mulvani word for "right-hand," and the Dragonet swung to starboard.

  Huvraka grinned through his sable bush. "Now you see magic, Master Kerin. Janji is calling on her bir—you are saying her familiar spirit—to make straw point north. We go southeast by east. She my navigator is. Member of Salimorese Navigators' Guild." He glanced at the fading yellow-green afterglow in the western sky. "Time for dinner is. You are coming now."

  Seated on a cushion on the floor of the captain's cabin, Kerin strove to cross his legs as did Captain Huvraka and Navigator Janji. Used to chairs, he found this posture difficult but hid his discomfort as best he could.

  A brown, barefoot man in a skirt came in with pitcher and bowl, and towels beneath his arm. He poured water over his diners' hands, caught it in the bowl, and handed round the towels. Then he glided out, to return with three metal cups and a bottle, whence he poured a drink for each. Gathering up the towels, he slithered out again. Huvraka raised his cup.

  "To success of quest, Master Kerin, whatever it be."

  "Thanks," said Kerin. The liquor was smooth but stronger than any wine. "Captain, from what my brother told me, I thought Mulvanians drank nought alcoholic. At the palace in Trimandilam, they gave him only fruit juice."

  Huvraka wagged a finger. "Ah, you are hearing tales of the strict Mulvani sects. We sailors are not so—so—what is your word? Straitlaced. Since we are belonging to one of lowest castes, what have we to lose by a little fun, like drinking tari? Drink up!"

  Three drinks later, Navigator Janji asked: "Master Kerin, you are telling us what this quest of yours is."

  His tongue loosened by liquor, Kerin talked: "I'm on my way to Kuromon to learn the secret of their clock escapement."

  "What is?" said both Mulvanians at once. Huvraka added: "Some device for opening locks, so you are escaping from prison?"

  "Nay, nay. An escapement regulates the speed of a clock, so it shall show noon at the same time as the sun every day. My brothers and I make and sell clocks as Evor's Sons. My brother Jorian has made inventions in clocks, but he has not attained a perfect escapement. . . ."

  Kerin rattled on until dinner arrived. Then, as eating halted his spate of speech, he heard a tinkly little voice in his ear: "Master Kerin, you have let your tongue run away with you! Be more careful!"

  Suddenly conscious of his imprudence, Kerin sat silently eating until Janji asked: "Are you doing aught with methods of navigation?"

  "Why, no. I've never been on a ship before, and your spell is the first time I've seen such a thing. I've heard the Shvenites have a kind of crystal. . . . Why dost ask?"

  "Oh, I am curious, being in that trade. How are you liking our food?''

  "Excellent!" he said. Although he was not enthusiastic about this vegetarian repast, he remembered Jorian's drilling him in seizing every opportunity to flatter his hosts.

  As the days drifted past, Kerin settled into his shipboard routine. He rose, ate, exercised, watched the sailors at their tasks, learned something of how the Dragonet worked, practiced his Mulvani, learned a little Salimorese from Janji, and went to bed again. On the second day out, Belinka told him:

  "He-he, Master Kerin, that brown woman is more to Captain Huvraka than just his navigator!"

  "You mean . . ."

  "Indeed I do. She enters his cabin of nights. Her bir regards it as a joke, since the captain hath two wives at home in Akkander. He says—"

  "Who says?"

  "The bir, the familiar. He says they be frightfully jealous, though not of each other. But if they find out about Janji, they will make the captain's life not worth living. But my instincts tell me to beware of Janji! All Salimorese navigators are witches, saith the bir."

  Kerin shrugged. "Huvraka's domestic arrangements concern me not."

  Belinka tinkled on: "The bir considers it strange that in most of Novaria, none may marry more than one mate. That, he saith, means that where the numbers of men and women differ, some are left mateless."

  "He may have the right of it," said Kerin.

  Kerin enjoyed a day ashore at Janareth, amid the motley, polyglot crowds. As he returned to the Dragonet, he saw that a stranger of about his own size and shape was speaking with Captain Huvraka on the afterdeck. As Kerin approached, the new man turned. The newcomer was of nearly Kerin's age, clad in a red-and-yellow turban, a white many-buttoned jacket, slim-legged crimson trousers, and turned-up shoes. As Kerin took a closer look, he was surprised to see that the other young man, save that his hair, beard, and skin were darker, looked much like Kerin himself.

  "Ah, Master Kerin!" said Huvraka. "You are meeting your new shipmate, Master Rao. Like you, he is going to Kwatna and thence, gods willing, on to Kuromon. He is taking the other passenger cabin."

  "I am pleased to meet you," said Kerin in his meager Mulvanian, automatically extending a hand. Instead of clasping it, the other placed his palms together and bowed over his hands, saying:

  "I, too, am pleased. You are speaking my language, I see."

  "A few words only."

  "Like unto my knowledge of your Novarian tongue, eh? I shall see you anon, if the seasickness lets me stir from my cabin. Already my stomach gives signs of discomposition."

  Tide and wind dictated that Captain Huvraka should sail before that day's sunset. As the setting sun shot slanting scarlet rays from behind a bank of cloud, the Dragonet cleared the harbor and headed east across the darkling blue of the sea.

  When Kerin entered the captain's cabin, he found Rao already there. The steward came in with his water and towels. When this chore was over, the steward reappeared with four cups instead of three and another bottle. Rao looked doubtfully at his cup, saying:

  "I know not—it is against the rules of my master's sect. . . ."

  "Oh, come on!" cried Huvraka heartily. "So small a sin will never affect your lot in your next incarnation. Besides, an adventuresome youth like yourself needs worldly knowledge to make his way."

  Huvraka urged Rao some more; Kerin missed some of the speech, the language being still unfamiliar. But at last Rao held out his mug. He took a sip, coughed, and said:

  "Whew!"

  "Oft the first taste doth that," said the captain. "Try some more."

  At length Rao got his cupful down. Kerin asked: "And what, Master Rao, sends you all the way to fabled Kuromon?"

  Rao looked sly. "Aha, would I could tell you! It is a mission of utmost secrecy for my guru—my master."

  "And who is your master, pray?"

  "The mighty wizard and holy ascetic Ghulam. I am his chela, as he was once the chela of the great guru Ajendra. Surely you have heard of him, even in your backward land?"

  Kerin had a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue; but remembering Jorian's lectures on diplomacy, he forbore. Instead he said:

  "I fear the report of the great Doctor Ghulam has not reached my rustic village. Pray, tell me more about him."

  While the steward refilled the cups, Rao launched into a colorful tale of the mighty Ghulam's feats of controlling the winds, healing the sick, foretelling the future, and driving his foes to destruction by sending deadly demons against them. During this recital he drank two more cups o
f tari. At last Kerin said:

  "If this mission of yours be a matter of such import and stealth, I wonder your master sent you not forth with a bodyguard."

  "In his wisdom he decided that an escort would only draw attention; that the safest course were for me to go alone, slipping quietly along like any ordinary traveler." Rao winked. "Betwixt thee and me, methinks he begrudged the cost of hiring guards; he's a fearful pinchpenny."

  "Is it a mission to a Kuromonian colleague?"

  "Nay, Master Kerin; it is weightier than that. I am to deliver the precious document to His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Dzuchen of Kuromon, and furthermore to pick up that which Kuromon is sending in return to the King of Kings, the mighty Lajpat of Mulvan."

  "Good gods!" said Kerin. "I should think these rulers would have sent whole embassies, complete with ambassadors, secretaries, attendants, and soldiers."

  "Indeed, indeed, some might so think," said Rao, his speech becoming a little slurred. "But the mighty Ghulam told them his scheme was best; he had foreseen its success in the stars. Of course," he added looking owlish, "you know nought of these things. It is a matter of utmost secrecy; my lips are sealed."

  Kerin thought that either the wizard Ghulam or the King of Kings must be out of his mind, to entrust such a mission to one rattlebrained youth, whom a couple of drinks opened up as a fishmonger opens an oyster. But then he remembered how indiscreet he himself had been on his first night aboard. He said nothing of these thoughts, and the talk wandered off into other matters, such as the proper garb for the colder parts of the Kuromonian Empire. The steward brought dinner.

  The Dragonet had been rolling gently; but the motion increased. Halfway through his repast, Rao, looking paler than his usual nut-brown wont, clapped a hand to his mouth, scrambled up, and bolted out the door.

  "Use the lee rail!" Captain Huvraka shouted after him.

  Before retiring, Kerin looked in on his fellow passenger. He found the young Mulvani lying pale and wan in his bunk. When he asked Rao how he was feeling, the Mulvani groaned and replied: