The Hand of Grethia: A Space Opera

by Guy Antibes

  “That was Ichar, the Alchantian High Priest. We need to capture those Murgrontian curs alive!” said Obsomil in a whisper, half to himself and half to Jan. “Knock them out,” Jan looked at Obsomil, then grasping his order, raised his ion disruptor and shot. Horses and riders crumpled to the ground. Jan looked at his blaster. not many more pulses and it would be just another pretty piece of metal.

  Obsomil ran past Jan to the fallen figures and removed them from underneath the horses. They dragged the limp figures against the wall of the farmhouse. Obsomil walked over, scratching his beard in wonderment. “I can’t believe the enormity of the plot. My brother’s secret police have taken over my land? Bloodin imprisoned?” Obsomil shook his head, speechless for a moment. “We suspected Alchant was in league with the Murgrontians and Lord Wilton, but I didn’t realize they are plotting to take over Actobal and everywhere else. I am not pleased.”

  Obsomil examined the Murgrontians. He paused in reflection as he fondled the garments. “What if you and I changed places with these two?” He looked appraisingly at Jan. “With a few changes of course. Let’s see what messages they bring, then we will dispatch them”

  Jan looked at Obsomil then at the men. He couldn’t kill them. He went to their horses and pulled the saddles off. He found money and more clothing in their saddlebags. The silvery gray Murgrontian style of clothing was sufficiently flowing to fit the two men. There were no instructions or letters of introduction.

  The horses began to stir. The effects of the stun were wearing off of the beasts and would soon be wearing off of the two men. Obsomil tied the men up with rope from the stable.

  “Your Majesty,” Jan said. “We haven’t talked to them yet. There could be further information like a password or a secret contact. Remember Ichar said something about contacts in the castle.” Jan did not want the blood of these men on his hands. “Then we can send them away to some remote place using the portal. At least they will have a chance.”

  “You do not have the hatred I do for the Murgrontians. If they capture a hapless merchant ship, they give no quarter. Before we developed our powered ship, Murgrontians constantly destroyed our ships. The seamen were killed or enslaved on their shark ships. My own father was slaughtered aboard a ship at sea in a fight with the Murgrontians. He had gone to make peace at Ilyant, their capital. The Murgrontians killed every single soul on the vessel before they even reached port. We can give them the choice to give us the information and a clean death or no information and a slow one.”

  Obsomil went to the well and drew a bucket of water. “At least we have the means of hastening their awakening.” He flung the water on the two men, now dressed only in their undergarments. They sputtered, struggling in their bonds and became muddy in the process.

  “What are you two up to?” Obsomil lightly said with interest showing in his features. “You were riding out of that stable over there and this priest, who looked like he wasn’t from Actobal by the way, shot a blue beam from a ring he had and you two went down like a ton of bricks. My friend and I were taking shelter in the barn. We are from the south and distrust men who ride out of deserted barns in the middle of the night. Why didn’t the priest just kill you?” Obsomil said.

  The two men looked at Obsomil with blank expressions. The information was taking its time to get through to them. “Ichar!” one of them spat. “That probably means the message to Defting is just a fake. Hey, give us back our clothes, we’re freezing!” The man was still a bit disoriented.

  ”Tell me more about Lord Defting,” Obsomil said. “I have a score to settle with him although he doesn’t know me. If you can tell me how you were going to meet him, my friend and I will be prepared for whatever happens. We will take your risk.”

  The Murgrontians exchanged glances and then shrugged. “It looks like we might have been walking into a trap. There is a tavern on the grand square, the Blue Noose. A servant of Defting will be there to collect us. You just have to wear our gray cloaks. After that, we were to speak with the King in an audience that Lord Defting was supposed to have arranged. Now who knows if Ichar told us the truth?”

  With that King Obsomil had heard enough drew his sword and killed them both. Jan looked aghast at what he had seen. “Dig a hole out in the fields. Our play-acting is over with them and about to begin with Defting.” A grim look was on his face when he walked away towards the horses.

  Jan went to the barn in shock. Obsomil brutally reminded him that no longer lived on Impollon IV. He had pled to save the lives of the men, but Obsomil would not be denied their deaths. He had to take a few deep breaths to collect his emotions before he removed the machine, dug a deep hole and took the remains and buried them. As Jan returned the machine to the barn, Obsomil had rinsed the porch of its blood and began adjusting the saddles on the two horses.

  “I grant I don’t know the mores of this world, King Obsomil, but were those deaths really necessary?” Jan said. “I can’t help thinking that you need to make friends out of your enemies if you are serious about uniting Grethia!”

  Obsomil glared at Jan. “What you don’t realize is that here you sometimes get killed by your ‘friends,’ not to mention your relatives. Killing them now only saved us the trouble of ending their lives later. If they knew who we were, I would have expected nothing different from them.”

  The comment shocked Jan. He had to remember his Space Quest training that emphasized the reality of new worlds. He had to link this situation to the sabotage of his ship and, even though he didn’t like it, Jan had to painfully accept Obsomil’s point of view.

  As the dawn began lighten the sky over the plains, the men rode back to Actobal in silence. Jan didn’t feel like talking. The traffic had picked up as they came closer to the city. The travelers consisted of farmers and merchants bringing goods into the city early in the day. Obsomil purchased a wagon of dry goods from a merchant before they entered. Jan hitched his horse to the wagon and drove with King Obsomil bringing up the rear, mounted on the other Murgrontian horse. Thus the two entered the city of Actobal as men of commerce instead of Murgrontian emissaries or fugitives from the land of Diltrant.

  “Which way to the market square?” Jan asked a vendor of sausages just outside the city gates. “We haven’t sold here before.”

  “You just follow this road and it ends in the town square. Go to the end and register in the green and red building. They will assign you a stall for tomorrow’s market. For a copper tarn, I will provide you with the names of the three best merchant inns” the sausage seller said.

  Obsomil leaned over his horse and glared at the man. “If you throw in sausages for myself and my driver, I will pay you your tarn.” Obsomil flipped a copper coin to the man. While the two were munching on their meat, they heard the list of inns.

  “We have some options. I have a preference, but which choice is yours?” Obsomil said.

  Jan figured that the king expected to test his judgment. “The first inn, the Inn of Five Merchants is a serviceable place, decent food, clean beds and many merchants stay there. New merchants in town would get good contacts there. It is just off the square. The second, the Plowshare Inn is of lesser quality, it’s clean but cheaper and more locals favor that inn. The third one is the local Travelers Inn open to anyone. It is more expensive, but exclusively for out of town visitors such as us or for two Murgrontians on a mission.”

  “And which is your preference and why?”

  “With the wagon, we could ostensibly go to the merchant’s inn. The merchant contacts would be good, but we would learn more about business in other towns rather than Actobal. The Travelers Inn affords the greatest comfort, but most likely crawling with nosy officials evaluating new arrivals to Actobal. They’d be in the pay to all of those in power. The Plowshare caters to locals, who will be more concerned with the local politics and could give us an idea of how the people felt about our grand escape. We will get more useful information there.”

  “My thinking exactly. And
we will go there ostensibly because it is cheaper, and make that fact known. Good thinking, Jan.” Obsomil complimented Jan unexpectedly.

  Jan looked at the King, slightly bewildered. “It was my job not to miss much. I miss plenty of things in a strange land, but thanks for your confidence,” Jan said with a grimace. “Let’s get to the Plowshare, and then see some of the city just as if we were here for the first time. In actuality, except for some very brief, exciting moments, I am.” Jan tried to smile as they rode on, but the king’s execution of the Murgrontians still bothered him.

  The square of the city was larger than Jan remembered during their rather dramatic flight out of the local Grethian Temple. The upheaval from their miraculous escape from the city had long since settled down. They meandered through the paths created by market stalls. The square itself was about a kilometer on each side. When the city was built, it looked like the founders built the square first, since it was very flat compared to the rest of the city that crept up the slight rise to the palace.

  Two imposing edifices graced the square. Obsomil and Jan looked at the Grethian temple’s massive structure. The two great doors that lead into the temple were now closed. With the entrance fully opened, he could see how they easily flew out into the square. The builders dressed the temple with white stone from the ground floor up six stories or so to the dome that dominated the top of the blocky structure.

  The locals built the other structures on the square with more modest dimensions out of a reddish brown stone. The second largest building likewise rose five or six stories, but had a much smaller footprint. Flags flew from the ends of its eaves. Jan’s Space Quest training made it easy to identify it as a bureaucratic center or guildhall. The other buildings of the square were not as imposing and displayed various stages of age. Some were old and somewhat timeworn where others were rather new looking. None of the others were over four stories tall.

  As they approached the large reddish brown building, Jan noticed decorative woodwork painted green and red, a popular color combination on the square. They drove up to the hall.

  A tall thin officious-looking man of middle years wearing a formal coat and a red and green ribbon on his peaked hat accosted them as they pulled up at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the building. “Registering for the market tomorrow?” he asked diffidently. “I am the market master for tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” Jan replied. “What must we do to register?”

  “Twenty copper tarns for a permit and I assign the stall, or forty copper tarns and you can pick your stall.” The man looked at Jan and squinted then lifted up his eyebrows and waved a rolled up document.

  A little graft right out in front of the hall, Jan mused. He looked back at Obsomil. Seeing a dark cloud over the king’s visage, Jan quickly climbed out of the wagon and pulled forty tarns from the purse he had taken from a Murgrontian. “Let’s find a good spot.” He motioned to Obsomil to join him to look at a map of the stalls. He saw a decent spot and decided to do a little bargaining. “Thirty tarns for this stall, sir.” Jan pointed to a corner spot that should get decent enough traffic. “It is not on the major thoroughfare. Better than twenty tarns, but this isn’t a forty tarn stall.”

  “I’ll take thirty eight for that stall,” the man eyed Jan.

  The haggling began. Fifteen minutes later, Jan had parted with thirty-three tarns and received the stall permit. “Let’s find the inn. I’m suddenly real tired,” Jan said wryly.

  The Plowshare had a placard on its front wall that said it was one of the original buildings on the square. It stood three stories high and about fifty meters wide with a plaster and timber framed exterior. Some time ago, someone had tinted the plaster green and painted all of the timbers brown. Carvings of an agricultural theme had been worked into the lower bands of wood, but that was long ago and the inn looked like it had seen better days. The two travelers drove through the archway and entered the large stable yard in the center court of the inn. The Plowshare was much deeper than the frontage might indicate. Stable boys ran up to them to take care of the cart. Despite the inn’s condition, the stables seemed to hum with activity. Jan and Obsomil entered into the inn up steps leading into a dark interior after making sure their goods were secure.

  A broad counter faced the door. To the right, stairs led up to the rooms. To the left, the counter curved into the common room that included dining room and a tavern. Obsomil strode up to the counter. Jan rushed past him and engaged the clerk for room and board for five days.

  Obsomil accosted Jan as they strode into the common room. “Why didn’t you let me arrange our stay?”

  “You are too much the king to make the arrangements. Besides, it dawned on me that we need to be circumspect. I asked him first about the market. It ends in four days followed by a festival. After that, we should be on our way. If we only took rooms for a night or two it would cause unnecessary suspicion. I told him we wanted to be close to the square on our first visit.”

  With a slight scowl on his face King Obsomil relented, “You did the right thing. I would have asked for one night only, thinking tomorrow night we would be staying in Mulloy’s palace.” Obsomil rubbed his chin. “Let’s get something to eat, and then determine what might happen tomorrow.”

  After a silent meal, listening to the conversations around them, the two men rose from their table and went to their room. The lodging itself was not particularly large, but had two pallets with straw-stuffed mattresses and some coverings, a chest at the foot of each bed and two chairs sitting on either side of a small round table. The window was made of some kind of heavily waxed paper, but stood open looking out onto the stable at the center of the inn. The two men each took a chair at to the table to discuss their plans.

  “Tomorrow morning, we can sell our goods and ply our customers for information. Tomorrow afternoon, if the information permits, we will see the King!” Obsomil turned to the window and looked out on the stable below, the thoughts racing through his head must not have been for sharing.

  “Only after we have tried to contact this Lord Defting,” Jan said. “We’ll need to bring some real information in order for the king to believe us.”

  The next day, the sun was just beginning to wash over the far end of the square. Jan and Obsomil had secured their stall and set up their wares. The day progressed and the two were surprised at how quickly their goods sold. Some time just after noon, there was nothing left for them to sell. Jan wondered if the prices they were selling the goods for were priced too low. They still had made half again as much as they had paid for the goods, including the cart.

  The time was right for the two to make their move. They pulled on the Murgrontian gray cloaks and went to the Blue Noose, which as it happened was close to the civic building. The two sat at an outdoor table to wait for someone to do something. They had a leisurely meal and were observing the market wind down as the sun set on the opposite end of the square. A man in a dark cloak approached the two gray men.

  “Be you men from a land far from Actobal?”

  Obsomil nodded. “Indeed.”

  “My lord, Defting, would be pleased to see you,” the man continued. “Please follow me.”

  Jan and Obsomil glanced at one another as they rose and followed the figure through the hub-bub of the closing of the day’s market. The next part of their adventure was about to begin.

  The three men crossed the square to the other side of the civic building and up a main thoroughfare leading to the palace. The houses became larger, the closer they moved towards the palace. Just before they reached the palace the guide turned to face a gate with a recessed guard station. The guard nodded at their escort and let them all through.

  Onward, they went through the back of the house, through the kitchen, the servants’ hallways and finally up a dark back stairway. Their escort knocked three times on a plain door and pushed on the door that opened into a large study. Three men sat by a small fire that burned in an enormous fireplace, much to
o large for the size of the room. The many bookcases were not used as shelves for books, but for displays of weapons, armor and other memorabilia. Jan looked back at their door, which was now hidden within a set of bookcases that filled the entire wall.

  From the looks of the three, one appeared to be an aristocrat, one a priest, and one a military man. Jan and Obsomil strode to face them as their guide withdrew through the regular entrance. “Since you took extra pains to make your presence in Actobal discreet, we likewise took pains to bring you somewhat surreptitiously into our midst. Forgive your view of the, ah, lesser aspects of my house.” The aristocrat smiled as he talked, but Jan wondered if the man had a sincere bone in his body. “My name is Lord Defting, this is our own High Priest, Fosdick, and General Tomson.” The men nodded and expectantly looked at Obsomil.

  “I am Dorthnot of Murgrontia, Lord of the Malcop Marches,” replied Obsomil. “My companion is Lancet Torpnip, son of Lord Mastoc Torpnip of Ilvant.” Jan could see Obsomil trying to keep from tripping over their assumed Murgrontian names.

  Defting smiled. “Good, good. Gentlemen, we are the core of a group of progressive patriots among the Actobal nobility, who wish to ally ourselves with the might of Murgrontia and Alchant. Your offer to provide a dedicated market for our goods seems, in the face, to be very generous. The official thinking in Actobal does not favor alliances so we can preserve the independence of our market economy. As you know, Actobal has never had a threat of any kind. The Gray Mountains and the Great Plain of Actobal have never attracted the interest of any of the coastal powers. A war fought on our land would only ruin its value as an agricultural state.”

  Then why all of this subterfuge, thought Jan? There must be more to the alliance than that.

  “Unofficially, we have to offer the alliance access to a yellow mineral that burns with the smell of rotten eggs. This is the same stuff that we believe the Diltrantians use to power their ships faster than the wind. We want to, uh, control the trade of the material. I have men working with it to create a motive device as we speak. Once we have developed competitive means to power your ships, Murgrontia, Alchant and Actobal could control all of Grethia. Diltrant becomes a non-entity. We three are prepared to make that happen.” Their hosts all bowed their head towards them.