by Джеффри Лорд
Of the metals, iron was fairly common, and the Kaireens and their servants had some skill in working it. Copper, on the other hand, was so rare that only the highest in the land could afford to wear a few disks of it as jewelry. The copper in King Embor's great royal necklace was worth more than half a dozen large rich villages with all their people, beasts, and land.
On the other hand, the people of Draad had a good many skills and resources that helped make up for their lack of metals. There were the emeralds, which poured out of rich mines in the southern part of the great valley. There was also the threebo tree. This bamboolike plant had round jointed stalks that could be cut into tough spear shafts, axe handles, and eight-foot quarterstaffs that were called threebos after the tree itself.
Blade made a notable impression on the warriors of King Embor's guard by defeating half a dozen of them in quick succession in bouts with the threebo. Then King Embor challenged him. He could have defeated the king as well, but managed to avoid doing so without being detected at it. King Embor would probably not object to being defeated by his new son-in-law. But the king had too many enemies who might draw the wrong conclusions from such a defeat.
There were also leaves, resins, and barks that the people of Draad had learned to use with great skill. They also had a surprisingly advanced medical science, which Blade saw in action one day.
The royal party was marching on a wide path along the shore of a lake. It was a gray, damp morning with the lake's surface as smooth as glass. Suddenly a woman burst out of the bushes toward the lake, waving her arms and screaming.
«Lord, oh lord king, send a Kaireen! Send one, send! My son, my son, a black stalker has him! A Kaireen, for the love of the gods!»
The royal party scurried into action. King Embor summoned six warriors of his guard. The High Kaireen climbed out of his litter, summoned his assistants, and lined up with the warriors. A chance to practice his medical skills seemed to have taken twenty years off his age.
«May I go with them, Lord?» said Blade.
«Certainly,» said Embor. «The arts of our Kaireens are no secret.»
Blade fell in with the rescue party and marched off with it as the woman led it down toward the lake shorn. As they marched, the woman calmed down enough to give a more coherent explanation of what had happened. Apparently the black stalker-some sort of large carnivorous animal-hadn't actually carried off her son. But it had mangled his leg rather gruesomely.
They found the boy soon enough. He was lying on the grass beside a log but near the shore of the lake. His right leg seemed to have been hacked from thigh to ankle with razor-sharp axes. He was unconscious and deathly pale, but still breathing regularly.
The High Kaireen took one look, then turned to his assistants. «The leg must come off.» The mother whimpered and sank to her knees beside her son. «Forgive me, little mother, but there is no choice if your son is to live. The leg will never hold him up again. Instead it will fester and burn, and in the end finish what the black stalker began.» The woman turned blank eyes on the old man, then nodded slowly.
The assistants went rapidly to work. One of them drew out a saw, with iron teeth set in a wooden bar. The other drew out a stained pad of cloth and a leather bottle. He removed a wooden stopper from the bottle and poured several ounces of the liquid on the cloth. Finally he gripped the boy's hair with one hand and clamped the soaked cloth over his nose and mouth with the other.
The boy mewled and writhed. The High Kaireen had to hold his shoulders before he would stay still. Even then it was a long time before his breathing became regular as he slipped down into unconsciousness.
Once the anesthetic took effect, the assistants event swiftly to work. Both seemed to be competent surgeons. In a matter of minutes they had the mangled leg off and the stump bound up and bandaged. They seemed to have some hints of antiseptic principles-they were careful to keep their hands clean, and did not let the wound or the bandages touch the ground.
Blade had a host of questions he wanted to ask about medicine in Draad, and particularly the anesthetic liquid. It occurred to him, however, that showing too much curiosity could arouse suspicions and make him enemies. He kept quiet while the High Kaireen carefully explained to the woman how to take care of her son, and how another trained man would be sent from the nearest village in a few days. The woman kept nodding without saying anything. Blade hoped she understood at least half of the excellent advice she was getting. The High Kaireen obviously knew a good deal more about medicine than Blade would have expected from even the most learned man among such a primitive people.
They were on the way back to join the rest of the party before the High Kaireen felt like speaking. «Prince Blade,» he said. «You watched with interest my people at work. There are Kaireens in your land of England?»
«Yes, quite a few.»
«Are they wiser than I?»
Blade sensed that the old man was asking to be praised, although he did not seem like the sort to appreciate really gross flattery.
«Some are,» said Blade. «A great many are not.» That was both flattering and accurate. The High Kaireen seemed to be a man able to use all of his intelligence for any purpose that interested him. That made him a wise man by any standards of any dimension.
The High Kaireen smiled graciously. «Thank you. I do not imagine, then, that our skills have many surprises for you.»
This was an admirable opening. Blade shrugged. «Not many. But the liquid you poured on the cloth-the one that made the boy sleep-that interests me. I-«
«That?» The High Kaireen sighed wearily. «The sleeping water from the peza leaves? It is a strange jest of the gods.»
«How is this? It saved that boy much pain.»
«Yes, it is better to have it than not to have it at all. But it is not all that good. It is made by boiling peza leaves in water from mountain springs, then letting the liquid settle. When it has settled one takes the part close to the bottom, and that is the sleeping water. It is not strong enough, for as you saw even a small weak boy took a long time to fall asleep. Yet if one uses too much, it is very easy for the sleep to turn into death.»
«You have no way of making it stronger?»
«The gods have given us no such knowledge, Blade, not in all the years we have been using the sleeping water. I suppose they will never give it to us. Perhaps they wish us to endure pain, to remind us that we are weak after all.»
«Perhaps,» said Blade. His mind was no longer entirely on his conversation with the High Kaireen. Instead, part of it was drawing conclusions from what the old man said and leaping on ahead to exciting guesses.
The anesthetic was too weak and too unreliable. That was not surprising, considering the crude methods used in making it. Suppose one developed a way of distilling the sleeping water, so that it was five, six, ten times as powerful?
Yes, but distillation involved metal tubing, large quantities of it. There wasn't enough copper in all of Draad to make a single good still. Nor was there the skill in iron working needed to make usable pipes out of iron.
True enough, all of it. But threebo stalks are hollow, and the wood is strong, tough, and waterproof. Seal the joints with resins and leaves, and you might have exactly what you need for a still. It would be a weird-looking setup, all the tubing probably zigzagging instead of coiled. But it might work. If it worked, Draad's sick and wounded would have cause to bless the name of Prince Blade for a long time to come.
Blade smiled at the thought. Then his mind took another leap ahead, and abruptly his face straightened out. Suppose you could make the sleeping water even stronger than you needed for an anesthetic? Then you'd have something usable as a weapon. Spray a good dose of it on a man, and he'd go down.
A man-or a stolof. A man might be fast enough on his feet to evade the spray. But a stolof? They were deadly, true, but they were not that fast on their eight feet. Attacked by brave men spraying powerful sleeping water, what would happen to them? They might be knocked out
. Certainly they would be far too slow to fight, to kill, to hurl their deadly ribbons with such accuracy.
Blade swallowed. For a moment he felt almost dizzy at the possibilities opening up in front of him. He felt as though he was slightly drunk and standing on top of a high cliff in the darkness, with a strong cold wind blowing around him.
The sensation faded, and Blade began to think clearly again. There were a hundred questions he'd have to answer before he could say if his idea made sense or not. How did stolofs breathe? How well could the joints of threebos be sealed? What with? And so on.
Well, he would just have to go about finding out the answers. In the meantime he would keep his mouth shut. He did not want to arouse vain hopes in those who would be his friends. He also did not want to arouse jealousy and all the things that might follow from jealousy in those people who could easily become his enemies.
Neena came out to greet him as he approached the main party. «Blade, you look-strange. As though something very important had happened to you.»
«I do?» He shook his head. «I did not know. I suppose it is just being happy that we have saved the boy. That is all that has happened, and isn't that enough?» Even Neena would have to remain ignorant for the time being.
«I suppose so,» she said, and took his arm.
Chapter 17
Draad had no real capital city. Instead there was a cluster of a dozen or so large villages that King Embor ruled directly. Their hunters and warriors provided his guard, and their crops and animals supplied his table. Embor himself lived in a log-walled compound hardly larger than that of one of the principal clan chiefs.
Blade was just as happy not to have to live in the middle of a vast palace, with a swarming horde of courtiers and servants to watch everything he did and hear everything he said. He wanted to push his inquiries forward without anyone watching him or eavesdropping on him. In King Embor's home, he could move about freely and quietly, seeing what he wanted to see, asking questions wherever he wanted to, with no one paying any attention.
He had plenty of time to himself. He had high rank and honor, as a warrior, a foreign prince, and above all as Princess Neena's betrothed. But he had no specific duties, or at least none to anyone except Neena. She demanded a vigorous performance of those duties. Yet no matter how demanding she was, she could not take up all of Blade's time. He quickly learned more about turning threebos and sleeping water into weapons. The more he learned, the more optimistic he became.
He finally reached the point of asking to meet with King Embor and the High Kaireen. He also asked Neena to attend the meeting. In fact, he wouldn't have dared not to ask her, even if, he hadn't respected her judgment as highly as he did.
Blade sometimes thought it was rather a pity that Neena was from Dimension X, rather than Home Dimension. She seemed to have the perfect balance of physical and mental development needed to make a field agent, one good enough to travel among the dimensions. It was frustrating to know that she could never be tested and trained into what she might so easily become!
The four people met in King Embor's most private chamber, locked away in the innermost part of the great sprawling house. The room was dark except for a pair of flickering candles. The air was close and heavy with the scents of wood, resin, wax, and dry rot.
Blade began with a plain, unadorned statement.
«I have been looking for a way to destroy the stolofs of the army of Trawn. I think I have found that way. Now I need your help to be sure.»
That certainly got their attention. All three of them stared at him as if he had just turned into a stolof himself. Then King Embor cleared his throat and nodded.
«Go on, Prince Blade. Tell us more.»
Blade did so. He ran over all that he'd guessed and all that he'd learned for certain, about stolofs, sleeping water, threebos, distillation, and everything else that was part of his plan. He had a number of drawings, made with charcoal on bleached parchment. One showed the distillation apparatus. Another showed how four men could attack and slay a stolof. Two would have swords or spears, two would have containers of the distilled sleeping water. King Embor and Neena were particularly interested in that second drawing.
Blade ran through his entire presentation without getting any questions from the other three. He wasn't sure if they understood him perfectly, didn't understand him at all, or were too surprised to say anything either way. When he'd finished, he looked at King Embor. Their eyes met and slowly, like a man waking from sleep, King Embor nodded.
«You have thought deeply and spoken wisely, Prince Blade. Are the warriors of England also trained as Kaireens?»
«We are given some of their learning, as are your warriors here in Draad. But I would not presume to claim for myself the high rank of Kaireen. No, I am just a man who has traveled far and remembered much of what he has seen in those travels.»
«You have not seen stolofs, though?»
«Not until I came to Gleor, and I am just as happy about that. I do not much care for those beasts!»
Neena laughed. «Every warrior of Draad could say the same. But few have the courage to admit that they are not as brave as they want women to think!» Her eyes caressed Blade.
«In any case,» Blade went on, «I have seen many other large and savage beasts. I have also seen some of them made weak and slow moving by breathing sleeping water. I am sure that a weak or slow moving stolof could not last for a moment against the warriors of Draad.»
«I hope you are right,» said Embor.
The High Kaireen nodded. «I hope we shall have a chance to discover if Prince Blade is right,» he said gently. «It will take a great deal of work. Much of it Prince Blade will do, but much also must be done by other men. For example, you will need a great quantity of peza leaves, will you not?»
«I shall,» said Blade. «Many basketfuls will be needed while I am learning. Then many more while I am making the strong sleeping water. I will also need much help when I begin making large amounts of the water.»
«This is certain,» said King Embor. «Well, any part of my house is yours to use, and the labor of any man or woman in it is yours to command.»
«I have other thought, on this matter,» said the High Kaireen. «With your permission?» looking at the king. Embor nodded.
«Very well. The peza tree grows throughout Draad, but it is truly abundant only in the Mountains of Hoga. To bring the quantities of leaves Blade will need to the royal house from the mountains will take many men many days. They will not be able to do other work, in the forests or the fields or the shops. The leaves themselves will not be fresh, and we do not know what this may do to Blade's sleeping water. Also, if many men are carrying baskets of peza leaves from the Mountains of Hoga to the royal house, people will see them doing this. They will wonder why this is happening, and they will ask questions. Sooner or later they will learn what is going on. Do we wish this?»
King Embor shook his head.
«We do not wish very many people to know what Prince Blade is doing. There are few of our people so wicked that they would steal the secret and sell it to Trawn-«
«That's nice to say, father,» put in Neena. «But I don't believe it. I don't think you do either.»
«Keep your silence for the moment, daughter,» said Embor, with a weary smile. «The gods give you better luck in keeping this girl silent than I have had, Prince Blade.»
Neena stuck out her tongue at Blade, and he grinned at her. «I doubt if the gods will have much to say on the matter,» he said. «Neena is as she is, and not much likely to change.»
«You see, father,» said Neena. «The gods have sent me a wise husband.»
«I hope so,» said King Embor. «As I was saying, a few of Draad will sell the secret in Trawn. But I can see many stealing it and then claiming that they have discovered it. That will give them much honor, and take away honor from you, Prince Blade.»
«Jealous men are dangerous enemies, that is true,» said Blade. «What does the High Kaireen
propose?»
«There is a house high in the Mountains of Hoga, a strong house with a strong wall around it. It is used by Kaireens and others who wish to spend some time apart from the world, meditating and writing. Around the house peza trees grow so thickly that their fallen leaves cover the ground to the depth of a tall man's knees. If we were to send to that house several assistants, and all the things Blade may ask for, it might be a good place for him to work. He and all that he does will be far away from prying eyes and ears.»
«He will also be close to the mountains, where those of Trawn may raid,» said Embor.
«You forget the mountain clans,» said Neena. «They can send warriors and hunters to stand guard around the house. Those guards will keep their eyes and ears to themselves and their mouths shut. They are better servants than most of the lowland clans, father.»
«Neena, pray cease to tell me my business,» said Embor wearily. He gave the impression of having been over this same ground with his daughter many times before. Blade found it hard to keep from smiling.
«The High Kaireen's proposal seems wise to me,» said Blade. «We must not let ambitious men or traitors get hold of the secret of the new sleeping water. The first that those of Trawn learn of it must be the day we strike down their stolofs by the hundred!»
«To hundreds of dead stolofs!» Neena raised her beer cup in a toast, and the other three all drank with her.
As Blade and Neena walked back to their private chambers, Neena took Blade's arm firmly. Her grip was so tight that her nails dug into his flesh.
«Do you run off into the Mountains of Hoga to run away from me, or perhaps to some mountain woman?»
She was grinning, but Blade was not entirely sure that she was joking. Fortunately he had an honest answer ready for her.
«I seek no other woman than you, Neena. I need none, and do not see how I could.»
«Good. As long as it is that way, you and I shall live in peace. Otherwise I will be angry.» Blade did not feel like asking what she might do to him if she did become angry.