The traveler said nothing, but nodded, as if to ask the magician to continue.
“And you, my friend the traveler, how do you pay your way through these backward reaches?”
“Somehow, I find a way. Usually I perform services.” He shifted his weight and stepped to the left a pace. The rustlings continued, though more quietly and slowly.
“Services? Well, I would suppose that a traveler such as you would have some skills that they would not have.”
“I manage. Better some places than others.”
While the sounds from the underbrush had stopped, the traveler was aware that the individuals who had created them were alert, quite alert. Either the pair in hiding had no energy weapons, or deigned to use them on a lone traveler.
He stepped toward the heavy man, stopping less than a meter away.
“Will you introduce me to your friends?” He gestured toward the underbrush.
“Alas, you have seen through my sleight of hand.” A small projectile pistol appeared in the left hand of the leather-clad man. He gestured with his right hand, and from the shoulder-high brush rose two youngsters, both in leathers stain-darkened in blotches to create a camouflage effect.
“May I see your pack, if you please? And gently, please. If you would put it—“
Like a spring wound nearly to the breaking point, the traveler uncoiled, his hands blurring from his waist, and his body moving sideways at the same speed.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Three silver flashes creased the heavy riverside air, and the traveler crouched beside the body of the walrus man, the projectile pistol in his own hand.
He stood.
The two youngsters looked down, open-mouthed, at the heavy weight knives buried in their shoulders, knives that had struck with enough impact to force them to drop the long knives they had carried.
The traveler nodded at the two.
“Come here. Leave the knives on the ground.”
As they edged toward him, he studied the pair, still listening for the telltale sounds that would indicate reinforcements.
He realized that the one on the left, as they converged from their spread positions, was a young woman, and that they were related, probably brother and sister. Their eyes differed from earth-norm, not like the hawk-searching of the devilkids, but more catlike, with a reflected luminescence that suggested night vision.
“Sit down.”
He pointed to a spot for each. Then he tucked the gun into his waistband, and eased the pack off, ready to drop it and disable either or both if necessary.
He pulled out what he needed and set the pack on the ground, out of the way.
“Speak Panglais?”
“Yes.” That from the woman, scarcely more than a girl.
He nodded at the other youth.
“Yes.”
“I’ll take the knife out and treat the wound. If either of you moves, I’ll kill the other.”
He smiled at the confusion his remark caused, knowing instinctively that each would want to protect the other.
He started with the young man, not out of reverse chivalry, but because he couldn’t count on the brother’s good sense if he began with the woman.
The knife came out simply enough, since it wasn’t barbed. The weight and design were for initial shock value and reusability, not for cruelty.
Next, he sprinkled some bioagent into the wound and covered it with gel.
“That’s it. Muscle tear is pretty bad. Should start healing immediately. Won’t have any infection if you don’t mess with the gel. Don’t touch it.”
The youth twitched when he pulled the knife from the sister, but said nothing as he treated her wound as well.
Then he retrieved the third knife from the body of the dead man, cleaning all three quickly and replacing them in the sheaths hidden in his belt.
Standing and stepping back, he surveyed both siblings.
Dressed identically, with black hair, cut roughly at shoulder length, pointed jaws, cat-green eyes, smooth chins, and virtually no body hair, he guessed. The man’s features were marginally heavier than the woman’s, and his legs, under the loose leather trousers, indicated thicker muscles.
“What should I do with you?”
“Don’t turn your back,” suggested the man.
“Do you really think you could move faster than I can? Heard you all the way down the hill. Remember, you had your knives in hand. I did not. Also, I chose not to kill you. Could have.”
“You sleep,” observed the girl, ignoring the implications of his statement.
“Bad assumption.” He paused. “What about your defunct friend?”
“No friend.”
“Pardon. Former employer.”
“We had no choice.”
“Oh? And you talk about surprising me?” The traveler raked them with his eyes. “What do they call you here? Devilkids? Nightspawn? Devilspawn? Fire-eyes?”
The two looked at each other from their cross-legged positions on the dusty flat where the three paths joined, then back to the slender blond and curly-haired man, seeing for the first time his own hawk-yellow eyes.
Their glances dropped away from the intensity of his gaze as he pinned first the man, then the woman.
“Here?” she asked. “There are others?”
“There are always others.”
“Will you take us to them?”
“Not now. My path does not lie in that direction. Might call me a pilgrim. The heights.” He pointed up the river toward the unseen mountains that lay over the hills and beyond the horizon, beyond the seemingly endless young forest through which the deadly river flowed.
Both shivered.
Finally, the woman spoke. “The trees disappear in the distant hills. No one lives there now. Not with the cold and the poisons.”
“I know. But that is where I travel. There and beyond.”
Silence stretched between the three.
The traveler pointed. “Stay here until you cannot see me. Then do what you will. But do not try to surprise me again. I know your step.”
Both dropped their heads, though they still watched him. The traveler knew they would wait until his steps had taken him clear and out of sight.
While he had time, perhaps forever, he did not like delays on his road to nowhere.
With that, he shouldered his pack. With quick strides he was close to fifty meters up the river path before the pair looked at each other.
Shortly, the two were lost over the hill and behind the gray haze that had dropped onto the region.
He wondered what their names were, or if they had any, and whether they would follow.
He began to whistle another of the newer double-toned songs he had composed as he crossed the continent. The older ones he tried not to remember too often.
After a time and a number of songs, he looked back over his shoulder, down the winding stretch of trail, for it now had narrowed so greatly it could scarcely be called a path, toward the two figures who marched as effortlessly as he himself.
He shook his head.
“Damned fools.”
But he stopped and waited, and as the light began to dim, they approached the scrawny tree under which he sat. Both walked slowly now, showing open hands, palms up as they neared him.
Finally they stopped.
He stood.
“Yes?”
“I am Tomaz. My sister is Charletta.”
“You may call me Gregor. Close as anything these days. Now that the pleasantries are over, what do you want?”
“We would like to travel with you. Or until you find others. Others like us.” The woman’s voice was light, with an odd huskiness he found appealing.
Careful there, he told himself.
“How do you know I’m not an evil magician?”
“You are not.”
“If you say so.”
He spread his hands, palms up.
“Onward, then. For a place to sleep.”
/> “There are caves farther up,” offered Tomaz.
“Best offer so far. Lay on, McTomaz.”
“McTomaz?”
“Let’s go.”
He shook his head.
Always trying the singles game, and always someone seemed to come along and join up. Not that it didn’t work out, but never quite as he had imagined.
No, never quite as he had imagined.
LI
“FROM THE VIEWPOINT of those of us in Stenden, Commander, under the Imperial presence, things have been all downhill since the days of the Commodores Gerswin and H’Lieu.”
Nodding solemnly in response to the Stenden official, the overweight man in the dress uniform cleared his throat.
The skies were clear, but with the thirty-kay winds from the east, the commander had tucked his dress visor under his left arm. Regulations forbade it, but regulations were not what they had been. His balding forehead gleamed in the afternoon light. He cleared his throat again before speaking.
“The Empire understands your concerns, Ser Mayor. In turn, I am sure you understand the fiscal pressures, especially with the increasing commitments facing the Service, and the reduced maintenance requirements of the current Fleet . . .”
“We understand, Commander. Believe me, we understand. Fewer ships need fewer repairs, and Standora is far out on the Arm. That is why we made our proposal.” The Stenden official’s voice was even, his crisp dress shirt as formal as his diction.
“Ah, yes . . . about the proposal . . . the proposal . . . you understand that the Empire has always attempted to live up to its commitments . . .”
“That was certainly true of Commodore Gerswin.”
“Ah, yes, Commodore Gerswin. Quite a . . . really larger than life . . . that is . . . I understand he was rather impressive . . . according to . . .” replied the I.S.S. Commander.
“I am not always certain that Stenden Panglais is the same language as Imperial Panglais,” observed the Stenden mayor. “Commodore Gerswin observed all the protocols. He made Standora Base a most highly regarded repair and refit facility; and he won the respect of his peers in the Imperial Service and the admiration and respect of the people of Stenden. His example has become, for better or worse, a local legend.”
“Quite. Much larger than life, but times change, Ser Mayor, and with these changes we all must change.”
“Regrettably,” answered the mayor. “And what about the proposal?”
“The Empire has considered your generous offer to maintain the facility and to offer services and preferred treatment to Imperial vessels. Quite a generous offer, I might add. Unfortunately, the base now represents quite an investment in resources . . .”
“The base or the refurbished ships in the museum? Those that have not been recalled to duty?”
“As I indicated, Ser Mayor, the times do change.”
“You may certainly have the ships, all of them, since they were Imperial ships before the Empire declared them scrap and sold them to the museum. And the museum has always operated under Imperial charter.
“While Stenden would have preferred to retain the ships here, we would still like to maintain the base itself, and we would still provide preferred maintenance for Imperial vessels.”
“The majority of the basic facilities could not be moved, we all know, Ser Mayor, and the Empire would certainly be remiss in not opting for the best possible use of the facilities. Stenden has certainly made an offer which should be considered, although, as I indicated earlier, the times have changed.”
“I take it that means you want the ships and the few remaining fusactors.”
The commander’s eyes darted toward the aging plastarmac under his polished shoes, then to a point beyond the mayor’s shoulder. Finally, after clearing his throat, he spoke. “You have a solid grasp of the situation, Ser Mayor.”
“Fine. We’ll take the base over, and you take the remaining museum ships and fusactors. You have such an agreement, I trust?”
The commander nodded without meeting the mayor’s eyes.
LII
TIRED, THE MAN limped along the ancient pavement toward the wall surrounding the settlement. Behind him a pair of youngsters trudged. All three moved so slowly that their feet raised scarcely any of the fine and dry dust that kept drifting back across the pavement.
To the west, to the right of the trio, the sun peered through the haze and dust with an orange light strong enough only to cast eastward-leaning shadows barely darker than the dust itself.
On both sides of the dirt road stretched fields filled with stunted plants and weeds, sprinkled occasionally with patches of purpled grass.
The man shook his head and stopped, rubbing his forehead.
The wall was nearly a hundred meters away, but the pair of guards at the gate had shouldered their shields and stood, waiting.
“Shields,” he muttered, tossing the black cloak back over his shoulders and straightening.
“These the people the forest people fear, you think?” he asked the girl.
She shrugged.
The boy said nothing.
The man glanced over his shoulder at the distant mountains behind them before confronting the sentries. Then he, in turn, shrugged, and walked toward the wall and its sentries, the tiredness seemingly gone from his step.
As he approached, he could see that the wall was constructed more like a stone fence than a true wall. While the stones were fitted together roughly and rose to nearly three meters, the construction included chunks of crumbling and ancient concrete, smooth blocks of odd-sized ferrocrete, bricks, and assorted stones cut ages before for differing purposes.
“Halt!”
“Of course.”
“Your business in Gondolan?”
“Travelers passing through. To have a good meal and some rest.”
“How do you propose to pay?”
The young man and woman exchanged glances, their expressions puzzled. So far, everywhere the man had stopped, he had been welcome. Greeted and fed for the knowledge and information he brought. And he had often repaired devices or offered suggestions to solve problems.
Travelers were few indeed, and to be welcomed in a marginally hospitable land.
“What do you suggest?”
The guards now exchanged glances, as if unsure how to answer. Finally, the taller one, dark-haired and dark-skinned, with a full beard, looked back at the traveler, staring at the slender man in a black cloak who traveled with two who seemed scarcely out of childhood.
“Weapons. Service to the king.”
The traveler laid down his wooden staff and spread his hands.
“Weapons? You have weapons, not a poor traveler such as myself. All I can offer is knowledge. Some information the king might find of value.”
“He knows what he needs to know,” offered the shorter and stockier sentry, spitting into the dust.
The traveler reclaimed his staff.
“Then I can offer little, and we must travel around your wall.”
Once more the youth and girl exchanged glances, as did the two guards.
“Then you may not pass.”
The traveler shrugged. “What would you have us do?”
“You’re young enough. Serve in the guard; so could the boy. As for her”—leered the tall dark guard—“there’s always a place for young women.” He reached toward the girl, awkwardly, spear in his hand.
The staff in the traveler’s hands blurred.
Crack!
Crack!
Both soldiers lay on the fringe of cobbled-together pavement that reached but a few meters outside the closed gate. The blond man dragged one body, then the other, into the guard shack.
He pounded on the gate.
“Gerlio?”
The traveler pounded again.
“All right!” the gruff voice exclaimed, and the gate swung ajar, pushed by a single wide-bellied man, wearing the same leather uniform as the two dead guards. His shield and spear
leaned against the town wall, and a sheathed sword hung from his soiled leather belt.
His unruly brown hair was streaked with gray, and his mouth gaped soundlessly as the traveler slipped inside the gate before he could remove his hands from the rachet wheel.
Crump!
This time the traveler’s hands struck, and the third guard dropped, merely unconscious.
The blond man motioned to the two outside the gate, and as they entered, he used the wheel to close the gate behind them.
Then he walked toward the central square, hood back over his head and cloak down around him like a robe, staff in hand, trailed by the two youngsters.
The girl glanced down at the uneven pavement, then behind herself, but the boy jerked her arm, as if to remind her not to look back.
As the blond-haired man passed one, then two rough-sod inns, the boy’s face screwed up in puzzlement.
While several women peered from glassless and half-shuttered windows at the trio, the few men and children in the dusty streets looked away.
At the central square, little more than an open space with a handful of peddlers’ tents surrounding a statue dragged from some forgotten city, another functionary in dirty leather confronted the three.
“Your passes, travelers. Your passes!”
“Passes?”
“Who let you in? You’re supposed to have passes.”
“No one let us in. The town gate was open.”
“Open?”
“Yes, open. How else would we have gotten in?”
“Open? Open, you say?”
“That’s what I said. Open. How else would a poor traveler and two children enter a walled town?”
“This is not a walled town. This is Gondolan, home of King Kernute.”
“Which way to the palace?”
“That way,” answered the constable. “But you don’t have passes.”
“You’ll be able to find us, I am sure, should you need to.”
With that, the traveler swept past the man and headed down the slightly wider alley that passed for a street toward the only three-story building in the town, and one of the few not built of either dried sod or crumbling local brick.
A wall two and a half meters high surrounded the royal residence, and four guards stood at the open gates.
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