The King

by John Norman

  "I trust," said Julian, "I am not disturbing their meditations, or devotions."

  "It is time for the seventh bell," said Brother Gregory. "I would not have brought you here so soon, otherwise."

  "Oh," said Julian.

  "Not all brothers are of this species, of course," said Brother Gregory.

  "I understand," said Julian.

  Brother Gregory himself, obviously, was not.

  "But our redemptor, our Lord Floon, blessed be his holy name, was of such a species."

  "A bipedalian salamandrine?" said Julian.

  "An ogg," said Brother Gregory.

  "It seems strange that your Karch would emanate, as I understand it, as an ogg," said Julian.

  "Why?" asked Brother Gregory.

  "You're right," said Julian, shrugging. "Why not?"

  "Perhaps you think he should have emanated as a man?"

  Julian shrugged.

  There had seemed a bit of testiness in Brother Gregory's speculation.

  Brother Gregory was an azure-pelted Vorite.

  "He can emanate in whatever form he pleases," said Julian.

  "True," said Brother Gregory.

  "I would speak with one who is called Brother Benjamin," said Julian, addressing himself to the occupants of the pool.

  There was, at that time, as though from far off, the sound of a bell, its sounds making their way oddly about the stairwells, and down, to the chamber, and doubtless to others, as well, here and there, in the depths and heights, and throughout the labyrinthine corridors and chambers of the festung. It could probably be heard far below, in the valley.

  "Turn about," said Brother Gregory, "for the brothers must robe themselves."

  Julian turned about.

  He heard sounds behind him, soft, of moving water, of bodies emerging from the pool, of dripping water, of the pat of feet on the stones.

  "I am Brother Benjamin," said a voice behind him.

  "I am Julian, of the Aurelianii, of the patricians, of the senatorial class, kin to the emperor, Aesilesius," said Julian, not turning about. "I have credentials to make that clear."

  "You are then Telnarian," said the voice.

  "Yes," said Julian.

  "He has come to inquire about 'Dog,' " said Brother Gregory.

  "I have waited years for one to come," said the voice behind Julian, "but I did not think it would be a Telnarian."

  "What then?" asked Julian.

  "I thought it would be an Otung, a Vandal," said the voice behind Julian.

  Brother Gregory shuddered.

  "Do you know the identity of the one you call 'Dog'?" asked Julian.

  "Yes," said the voice behind him.

  "Can you prove that identity?" asked Julian.

  "Yes," said the voice.

  "May I turn about?" asked Julian.

  "I would not," said Brother Gregory. "He is half-garbed, but the wounds are still fresh, of the penitential exercises."

  "It is a mark of vanity," added Brother Gregory, "to wear a stained habit."

  "Penitential exercises?" asked Julian.

  "The stone saws, beneath the surface of the pool," said Brother Gregory.

  "How can you prove his identity?" asked Julian.

  "I will show you," said the voice. "Proceed me, up the stairs."

  Brother Gregory, with his lamp, led the way, Julian following. Behind them came the brothers, each with his lamp, and, together, intoning a hymn to Floon.

  "Surely you will dine with us in the refectory, and stay the night," said Brother Gregory.

  "I would be soon gone," said Julian.

  "We get few visitors at the festung," said Brother Gregory. "You are the first stranger in two years."

  "I must decline," said Julian.

  "Some of the brothers, the weaker ones, I fear, amongst whom I number myself," said Brother Gregory, "will be eager to hear news of the outside world."

  "I am sorry," said Julian.

  "At night the trail is extremely dangerous, the activated defenses, set by automatic timers, at places, the dogs," said Brother Gregory. "It is unlikely you would reach the village alive."

  "Then," said Julian, "I am pleased to accept your gracious invitation."

  "Excellent," said Brother Gregory.

  Julian noted, as he climbed the stairs, and as he had earlier, in his descent, but had thought little of it, that they were darkly stained.

  Julian noted, on the climb, in a niche, illuminated by a votive light, a representation of Floon in the electric chair, or, perhaps better, fastened on the burning rack, the pain represented in the twisted-body, the expression of misery on the countenance. It made Julian sick. How different it was from the bright sunlight and blue skies of the pantheon of Orak.

  But it was here, in the festung of Sim Giadini, that there lay the secret to the identity of the peasant, or gladiator, or warrior, or chieftain, or captain, whom he knew as Otto, or Ottonius.

  "What is the proof?" he asked.

  "You will see," said the voice behind him.

  …CHAPTER 18…

  The location of the beast was not a matter of coincidence, not after the first moments.

  It was incredibly alert, every sense sharp and alive, like needles, tense with excitement.

  In its belly burned the cold rage of hunger.

  Such creatures did not hibernate, even in the month of Igon. It had survived eight winters on the plains of Barrionuevo.

  Little more than its eyes and nostrils could now be detected, had one known where to look and what to look for, it lying still, in the snow.

  The wind was blowing, softly, doing little more than stirring the snow at the summit of drifts.

  The odor of horses, and of Heruls, and men, was brought to the broad, dilating nostrils of the beast. These odors were as discernible, and unmistakable, to the beast as a sighting would have been to a more visually oriented form of life. The direction of the wind, contrariwise, predictably, would not carry its own scent to the horses.

  It moved in the direction from which the odors were wafted, its body low, little more than a wrinkle, or a shifting crest, stirred by the wind, of snow.

  It moved a little and stopped, and moved a little, again, and stopped, again.

  While it stopped there was almost no movement, save for the infrequent opening and closing of the eyes, large, and green, with their black, narrow, vertical pupils, better than two inches in height, and an occasional, small, agitated movement of the tail, white, whiplike, in the snow, betraying its excitement.

  Then, more than two hundred yards away, as it lay eager, and trembling, and silken and white, almost flat in the snow, almost invisible, white on white, little more than its eyes and nostrils showing, it saw dark shapes moving about, shapes which stood out, clearly, even to its vision, at this distance, from the background, from the snow, which shapes, clearly, were the sources of the maddeningly exhilarating, irresistible odors, odors such that, in the month of Igon, they might drive such a beast mad. The smallest of contented, purring sounds escaped its great throat. It waited until none of the shapes was turned its way, and then it moved forward again, a little closer.

  …CHAPTER 19…

  "They are trussed like the vardas they are," said one of the Heruls, stepping back.

  "How," asked Olar, "so tied, can we run at your stirrup, how, so tied, can we pull in the traces of the sledge?"

  "It would be difficult," said the leader of the Heruls, still mounted, as were four other Heruls. Two had dismounted to tie Olar and Varix.

  "I do not understand," said Varix.

  "Break up the sledge, for firewood," said the leader of the Heruls.

  "I do not understand," said Varix.

  "It is not your bait trap, nor is it ours," said the leader of the Heruls. "It will do for firewood."

  "You are cold?" asked Olar.

  "Do you think we are beasts, to eat raw meat?" asked the leader of the Heruls.

  "We have no kettles with us," said on
e of the Heruls who was dismounted.

  ''Do you think we would run such as you for the dogs?'' asked another, one who was mounted.

  "No!" cried Olar.

  "Why?" asked Varix.

  "You did not fight," said the leader of the Heruls.

  "I can remember when Vandals fought," said another.

  "You are mounted, we are on foot!" said Olar.

  "We are hungry," said one of the dismounted Heruls.

  "You will roast well," said the other.

  Olar and Varix, tied back to back, sitting in the snow, their ankles crossed and bound, struggled.

  "Break up the sledge," said the leader of the Heruls. He held his lance in his right hand, or, perhaps better, appendage. It was a multiply jointed, haired tentacle, now sheathed in a beaded, fringed, mittenlike fur sleeve. He had two such hands, or appendages, or tentacles, as did the others, an arrangement which tended to be common, given the selective advantages of paired, symmetrical structures. At the tip of each tentacle, recessed beneath a contractible callosity, there was a tiny anatomical feature, a small, caplike sensory organ. Its function has been likened to that of taste, and even to sight and smell, but these sensory modalities are available to the Heruls, and the Hageen, as, indeed, given their advantages, to millions of diverse species throughout the galaxies. To be sure, that two species have a sense of taste, or such, does not guarantee that their experiences are identical. Even in something as obvious as vision, it is not clear, for example, that the visual experiences of diverse species are identical, for example, with respect to what can be seen, and how it can be experienced. Similarly, it seems unlikely that the visual experiences of, say, insects and men are identical. And, too, the visual experiences of an organism which has eyes on the sides of its head may be rather different, in consciousness, than one which, say, has the eyes in the front of the head, permitting a binocular focus, and such. The visual experiences of a creature with eye stalks or seven eyes, placed at diverse places on the body, laterally, ventrally, dorsally, and such, may be different, as well. We shall not attempt to speculate on the specific nature of the sensory experience correlated with the small, protected, tentacular sensory organ of the Heruls. We ourselves have never had such an experience. To those who have had the experience, a verbal description would doubtless be superfluous. To those who have not had the experience a verbal description would doubtless be unilluminating, if not unintelligible. Figures of speech may or may not be helpful. There seems dispute on such a matter. For example, suppose that one lacked particular sensory modalities. Then, would it be helpful to say, really, for example, that the taste of an orange is like seeing the sun at midday, that the smell of wet grass is like the taste of wine, that the blare of a trumpet is like the heat of fire? But the function of the Herul organ, or one of its utilities, at least, is clearly recognition. It seems clear that, in some sense, it reads, or reacts to, on a cellular, or subcellular, level, with consequences in consciousness, the chemistry, if not the very hereditary coils, of an organism, in a very specific fashion. The organ, which is not vestigial, seems to antedate the development of other senses, such as sight and hearing, in the evolution of the Herul organism. It, or its predecessor, seems to have functioned in making determinations as to self-identity, and to what might be ingested and what not. It seems to have prevented, in the beginning, certain chemical macrocompounds from being self-destructive, for example, from predating on their own bodies, and to make determinations as to what might be absorbed profitably into their own systems and what not. To be sure, putting it in this fashion suggests a teleology. The compounds which, for example, were uninhibited in self-predation tended to perish, and those who found poisonous substances acceptable, or even attractive, for ingestion would be expected, too, statistically, over time, to fail to replicate their genes. Presumably the organ, too, as parthenogenesis came to be supplanted by sexual reproduction, was useful in identifying members of its own species, or type. Later, it doubtless functioned in mate identification, and recognition, for Herul conception, proceeding in stages, requires a considerable period. And later, too, as life forms developed, and tribalities became of selective advantage, it doubtless proved its value for group integrity and consolidation, much as might have a nest odor among certain social insects or a pack odor among social rodents. It may, too, have some sort of bonding effect among individuals. In any event, it is an interesting, and rare, organ, particularly among rational species. The butt of the lance, grasped in the right hand of the Herul, was sheathed in the right stirrup holster.

  One of the two dismounted Heruls, in response to the leader's injunction to break up the sledge, picked up the ax of Varix, which was in the snow.

  In a moment he was before the sledge.

  "Ota!" he said, an exclamation of surprise.

  "What is it?" called the leader of the Heruls.

  "There is something here," he said.

  "What?" called the leader.

  "A body," he said.

  "It is dead?" said the leader.

  "I think so," said the Herul.

  He gingerly pushed at the shape, lying within the ribs of the headless, half-eaten horse on the sledge.

  "Yes," said the Herul. "It does not move. It is dead."

  "There is a pelt on the sledge," said the leader of the Heruls, referring to the folded, mottled pelt toward the back of the sledge.

  "Doubtless it is that fellow's bait trap," said one of the mounted Heruls.

  "What is he?" asked the leader of the Heruls.

  "An Otung, I think," said the Herul.

  "Here?" asked the leader.

  "It seems so," said the Herul.

  The leader of the Heruls and he closest to him exchanged glances.

  Basungs would have been expected, in this vicinity, if they dared to cross the Lothar.

  "Proceed with your work," said the leader of the Heruls.

  The Herul at the sledge, putting the ax into the snow beside him, head down, the handle upright in the snow, broke to the side two, then three, of the ribs of the horse.

  He then reached within the remains of the rib cage to draw the body out of the cavity.

  In a moment the leader of the Heruls looked back toward the sledge.

  "Utinn?" he asked.

  The Herul stood by the sled, upright, waist deep in the snow, as it had drifted there, not moving.

  "Hurry!" said the leader.

  There was something odd about the attitude of the figure, as it stood.

  "The head, the head is wrong!" said the Herul nearest the leader.

  "Atlar!" said the leader.

  The other dismounted Herul was reluctant to approach.

  "Atlar!" snapped the leader.

  The second Herul waded through the snow to his fellow. He put his hands on him, and lowered him, half to the snow. He moved the head, and looked back at the leader. "The neck is broken," he said. "He is dead."

  "How can it be?" asked one of the Heruls.

  "Utinn is a shaman," said the Herul nearest the leader. "He has died to go to the land of spirits, and will come back, with knowledge, and secrets and medicine."

  "Utinn was not a shaman," said the leader of the Heruls, looking about, uneasily.

  "He will come back," said one of the Heruls.

  "One does not come back from broken necks," said another. "It is not like the coming back from the magic death, the sleep death, the trance."

  "It is done by spirits, in the pay of the men of Ifeng," said another Herul. Venitzia was known among the Heruls as Ifeng. Among several of the other tribes of the area it was known as Scharnhorst.

  "It is the magic of the brothers of the festung of Sim Giadini," said one of the Heruls.

  The brothers had not discouraged such beliefs among the Heruls.

  To be sure, it was unlikely the Heruls posed any great threat to the festung itself. They did pose, of course, a possible threat to festung villages.

  "Utinn did it to himself," said one of the H
eruls.

  "Then he is a shaman," said another.

  "He was not a shaman," said the leader.

  "How did it come about?" asked one of the Heruls.

  "I do not know," said another.

  "I am afraid," said the Herul nearest the leader.

  The leader of the Heruls looked about. The country was desolate. The snow was white, and calm.

  He then returned his attention to Atlar, the body of Utinn, and the sledge, half buried, half lost, half obscured, in the snow.

  "Atlar," called the leader of the Heruls, calmly, at the same time freeing the butt of his lance from the stirrup holster.

  "Yes?" rejoined the Herul addressed, releasing the head of Utinn, which, loosely, as though tied on with rope, dropped into the snow, near the body's left shoulder.

  "Step back," said the leader, quietly.

  The Herul moved back, wading backward in the snow.

  "Pick up the ax," said the leader, quietly.

  Atlar, uncertainly, not taking his eyes off the sledge, put out his right hand, as we shall have it, as is our practice, for the sake of ease, and simplicity, and grasped the ax.

  "Lift the ax," said the leader of the Heruls, patiently.

  Atlar lifted the ax, with two hands, the tentacles wrapped about the shaft, back, over his head, puzzled, and looked to the leader, astride his mount, a few yards away, in the snow.

  "Kill it! Kill it!" suddenly screamed the leader of the Heruls, gesturing toward the sledge, with its weights, with the point of the lance.

  But at that very moment with a cry of rage and power, a cry, perhaps, even of war, a mighty figure, more than half again the size of a common man, seemed to rise up from the surface of the sledge, unexpectedly, suddenly, like lightning, like a springing lion, seemed to rise up even from the body of the horse, stark, dried, cold ribs of the horse, brittle and dead in the cold, breaking, bones scattering in its emergence, like a striking snake, like a lion, springing through sticks and straw, seeming to rise up, like a hurricane, like a lion, snow flung to all sides, and Atlar, a yard of a great blade emergent from his back was lifted over the figure's head, impaled, the ax lost in the snow.