Above and behind the piled flame of Nela’s hair a voice spoke out of nothingness: “My Fire Globe, Jaron! Mine!”
Jaron started, his eyes wary. This Queen Nela was famous for having some wizardry always on tap about her—why be amazed at anything? Yet if that were true, why did she have a need of such an alliance as she had formed with the evil Ennu? And if it were not true, then the Gods were watching this scene and that should then be the voice of Cyre, for the globe was hers.
NELA STARED at Jaron’s odd change of expression curiously; it seemed she had not heard the voice!
Then Nela spoke more softly, almost pleadingly. “Jaron, I need your courage, I want to go to the Temple of the Blue Men. The Globe is prisoned there, and only there can it be regained. I will tell you what I know. No large party could even pierce into the wilderness so far without being attacked by too great numbers of the Blue warriors. But together, we might repair this evil mischance . . .”
Jaron jeered: “Take me to death some otherwhere, now that your men have failed to kill me! Use me to lead you to your ally, Ennu, whom I have only your word is not still your man? I do not like the smell of the thoughts behind your words, Nela.”
Even as Nela’s face hardened with swift anger, above her head a slow flickering began. Quickly the very air dissolved into a doorway into somewhere not of this world. In the doorway was a loveliness made up of moon-motes, of ivory, of frozen music and solidified laughter—of all desires distilled into the one desire above man’s reach. Jaron sighed softly as a man in a dream.
“Do as the Queen commands, Jaron. It is my will, also, working through her. I need the Fire Globe more than you can understand. It is a part of my power, a necessary limb of my immortal body. Go, and retrieve the Globe, and earn my gratitude. You will not go alone, Jaron.”
“I will do your will,” Jaron murmured, and the flickering swept into faint far-off dying shimmerings. The vision became again the dull stones of the wall behind the throne,
“Must you fall asleep when I’m talking to you?” Nela’s words came to him dimly. He shook his head. He realized suddenly she had been talking to him all the time. Evidently she had not even sensed the presence that had been to him far more vivid than natural life.
“I saw a strange vision, for an instant. There, above your head. It . . . well, it persuaded me. I will do as you wish.”
“Oh, that’s better, Jaron. You see, just you and I can better avoid the war-parties of the Blue Men. There is no other way but stealth left to me.”
“You! To the Blue Temple? Nela, don’t you realize the danger? What they will do to you if they catch you? Bad enough for a man, but for a woman . . .”
“Fah! You men think always that women fear dangers that men are not afraid to face. Why should my heart be any less sturdy than your own? Besides, I want to make sure you succeed. I will die if you don’t get back the Globe. It is better to die trying than to sit here in the palace and wait for what I know Ennu will do to us all. It is a command, anyway! How dare you to argue?”
“There isn’t much use arguing with a Queen, at that. Bad enough to try to make an ordinary woman mind reason. They will always have their way if they can get it.”
So having the last word, Jaron turned. The Queen smiled slightly as he went out.
* * *
NELA JOINED Jaron at the stables. In the green leather riding kilt slashed in fringes to the thigh, the hooded green forest jacket draping her wide graceful shoulders—to veil her bright hair when needed—with the sparkle of adventure brightning her eyes and redding her luscious cheeks, she quite took Jaron’s breath away.
She had brought forest clothes and weapons for Jaron. Food in saddle bags aplenty, and even coats of light chain mail to wear beneath their surcoats. There was a laughing offer to help Jaron change from his smelly prison garb of grey woolen, but he declined, retiring into a stall out of sight of her mocking eyes.
Jaron emerged from his stall more formidable of appearance than he had gone in. A long sword of Harn’s best steel strapped to his back, the hilt projecting above his left shoulder where the right hand could seize and strike downward in one motion. At his waist a longish poniard. The fringed deerskin jacket and tightish breeches quite failed to really fit Jaron’s great limbs, and the steel of his shirt showed at waist and wrist in the dim light of the stable. As he bent to lace the thongs of his boots the jacket gave in the shoulder seam. Nela laughed:
“It was the very biggest size I could find!”
Jaron did not look at the smiling Queen. “Best to get out of the city before the moon rises, Nela. There are always watchers from the forest slopes, that would send word of our departure far ahead of us with signals. We must avoid that if we can.”
Nela pulled the dark hood over her bright hair, and swung into the saddle easily as a man. Astride and settling herself, she turned to watch Jaron mount. The hostler threw the stable gate wide, and they trotted out into the night.
At the little used north gate of the city wall, Nela shoved a great ring beneath the startled eyes of the guard. Jaron recognized it as the king’s own. The guard unbarred the gate without question, while within the gate house the others hardly looked up from their cards.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Sir and Lady. There is danger beyond these walls for all who serve Cyre and the rulers of Dorn.” The guard squinted up at them, obviously not recognizing them and knowing that he should. Neither of them made answer. Nela lashed her mount’s flank once with her crop, and the mare leaped ten feet, then settled into a steady ground eating lope. Jaron, a bit too heavy for his big gelding, had continually to urge him on to keep up.
Northward and northward, on the left the great dim disk of the blue moon, with its satellite a bright orange medallion pinned upon the blue round breast of it. Jaron pulled into the shadows, halted, waited while the Queen turned and came back to his side.
“The moon has risen, Nela. We can’t ride this trail openly. There are bound to be watchers set to warn the Blue warrior camps. ’Twere best to strike out northeast, directly over the hills, a longer route. But there is little chance of stumbling upon the hunting camps at night in the hills. They bed always along the streams. During the day we can lie up—and during the night we press on. It may take three nights to reach the temple, but it is the only safe way.”
SOMETHING wide and grey silently swooped, sudden and stark from the shadows. Its target was Nela’s bright head where she had thrown back the hood to talk with Jaron. His hand flashing as swiftly as the grey wings, Jaron tugged out the dagger at his waist and thrust even as the talons spread to seize the red-gold head that had attracted his night-seeing eyes. The thing screamed, the great wings beat about their heads blindingly, blood gushed over Jaron’s wrist.
Nela gave a little scream as the great hooked beaks clashed together within an inch of her nose and Jaron flung the weight aside. It lay and flopped in a circle on the ground at their horses’ dancing feet.
“Best to leave that hood over your hair. Even the blood-owls cannot bear the sight of it, Nela.” Jaron said. “It must remind them of foxes tails, perhaps. Or this particular great owl has a feud with a certain fox and sees in all red hair his mortal enemy. I am sorry you were dabbled with the blood . . .”
“Thank you, Captain Jaron.” Nela murmured in a small and shaken voice, pulling the hood again over her hair and white forehead.
Jaron thrilled a little, not so much to hear her gratitude. It was to hear again the name of respect, Captain Jaron. It was the first time anyone had spoken the title since Kalar’s death. The King’s dying curse lifted a little of its weight from his mind.
“This is forest, now, Nela. I will pick a way through the thickets. Follow closely and don’t fall behind. It is so easy to become lost. Once on the hill slopes, there will be hunting trails. Remember, our lives now depend wholly on our alertness and our stealth. Make no unnecessary noise.”
But first Jaron dismounted and wrapped the hors
es’ feet. Then they rode off the wide trail of forest mould and needles of pine and shredded bark and began to thread their way between the great thickets of tan-berry and hyrm and narg trees.
Underfoot little furry shapes streaked in fright. The winged lizzards buzzed their wide mouths in hisses at being disturbed, the white curved shapes of the fungi pipes crumpled silently beneath the horses’ feet.
An eerie chill chased along Jaron’s spine, the forest at night was mystery of weird imaginings, the shadows each might be some monstrous life of the wilds too great to conquer with any sword.
They rode on through the dappling dim shadows and light of the rising moon, cut into intricate lacery of witched beauty by the myriad leaves.
“HAVE YOU ever fought with the Blue warriors?” asked Nela, after a silent hour of shadows and dim sudden fears and great columnar trunks among the thickets. After an hour in which she had strained every nerve to keep from screaming. The forest at night was a very different place from the sunlit safety it was in the hunting parties among which she had before entered the wilds.
The thicker growths of the lowlands had ceased now, the forest was more open. The canopy of ancient forest giants overhead made all dim as Zur’s pit of Nihil. But Jaron had a strong sense of direction, and as he reined back beside the Queen’s mount, noted that the star Aldeb still hung straight ahead as it should.
“Small bands of them I have met in the wild. Not great enough numbers to make them formidable. On a hunting trip, I once ran onto a dozen, when I was alone. I killed one with my boar spear, another with a sword, and got an arrow in my leg before we parted company.”
Nela nodded, “They are seven footers, when full grown. They can run faster than a horse, for short distances. I have had contact with them, my father had occasion to parley with the main horde several times. How did you come to leave your islands of Korl? And could you please keep on omitting the Queen business while we are out here, two against the world? It does not seem that I am a Queen here.”
“I will tell you how I came to leave my home, if you tell me why you selected me alone out of an army of men nigh as good—to accompany you? Why did you take me out of a cell and honor me with the sole custody of your safety? Why, I might take you away to Korl, for all you know.”
The Queen gave a low laugh. Her eyes, huge and mysterious seeming in the dimness, contained each a dancing spot of witch-light as she leaned, looking closer at his face.
“You entertain me! How else could I have you to myself, to see what there is in you when no one is about? How else might a woman test her own heart than on such a perilous trip into the unknown—where a man’s metal is tested against all nature? Think you I intend to mate any fancy popinjay my eyes are attracted toward?”
Jaron was silent for a long time, searching her face, neither bold nor mocking now. Wise with woman-wisdom, only faintly smiling, she was like an ivory bust silhouetted by darkness—shaped to hold and to express only the infinite mystery of woman.
“Thank you, Nela. When you have decided, will you be as frank in telling me?”
“I may, and I may not. How did you happen to leave your home? Not of your own will, I’ll wager,”
“I had two older brothers, in Korl. Younger sons of rulers have a traditionally hard time of it. Especially when they begin to get bigger and stronger than the older brothers. I left before my brothers’ fear of my ambitions grew great enough to overcome their love. That was quite a time ago, I was only a stripling in years—but large enough to pass for a full-grown man. I have served as a soldier in numerous lands since.”
Jaron stopped, but Nela shook her head at him. “Go on” she urged, touching her horse so that they sat now knee to knee.
A CERTAIN incident touching his mind, made Jaron laugh. “The last place, the King was a great connoiseur of women. One of his many concubines took a fancy to me, and we were come upon together in the gardens by the King himself.”
Nela did not laugh. “You escaped, before he could have you flayed, I see.”
“I made it over the wall of the garden just ahead of a crossbow bolt. I stole a horse, managed to keep ahead of pursuit more by luck than by cunning. I made my way to Dorn, I had heard of the generosity of Kalar. He took a liking to me. The rest you know, Nela.”
“What you have left out seems would make fancy reading, in some naughty romance. Soldier of fortune, ladies’ man, run-a-gate dodger—’Tis a picture might contain most villainies between the pages. Still, you have an honest face, if it is a little too hard of eye to belong to any good subject. ’Twill soon be morning light, my Captain.”
The mists were layering, rising from the ground, the night-black shadow pattern was all running together into uniform greyness. They rode again forward, the legs of their mounts disappearing as though they rode winged horses upon cloud surfaces. The shapes of the ancient trees about them became tree-spirits, draped in long streamers of slow-rising mist.
“Mist-land, where the grey Queen of the dead waits to seize men’s souls” murmured Nela.
They topped the breast of a long hill, beyond which a valley swept in two long descending banks along a river of mist, flowing toward some cloud-sea beyond sight.
As they reined up to take in the miraculously lovely scene of half-trees, projecting as if floating upon a cloud surface, of the far-off pointed mounds afloat—cut off from earth, each an island of being to itself—Jaron suddenly reined his horse about and sent it back toward the hill top just now passed. After him cantered Nela, her face questioning.
“Smoke-columns!” grunted Jaron, “Dozens of them, see!” Jaron pointed to where the wavering blue-grey of fire smoke ascended in many spiraling turns from out the now pure-white mist.
“Must be a camp in the hollow beneath the mist. Lucky for us I noticed in time.”
THEY MADE camp for the day deep in a thicket of thorn-apple. Nela felt safe for the first time as she noted the jagged blue leaves and long brown thorns reached as far as eye could see. Nothing could come at them except by the narrow path they had picked their way along. There was a spring and tiny stream, and Jaron hobbled the horses, unrolled the blankets. Then he sat down, to watch Nela quizzically.
“Shouldn’t we eat, woman-who-wants-to-test-me?”
Nela flushed. Her hands, quick enough with a dagger or playing card or a harps strings, had never yet had to turn to the preparation of food for anyone.
She stood, eyeing Jaron’s head of tawny locks, noting for the first time the three fine lines of scar tissue along his neck where three times he had parried some enemy’s sword almost too late.
Jaron squinted one eye back at her. She put both hands on her hips, undecided whether to queen it out and order him to break open the food packs or to go ahead and behave as if she were an ordinary woman, serving her loved one. Finally she shrugged, sank to her knees on the leaf mould, began to unbuckle the food packs from the saddles where Jaron had thrown them.
Jaron leaned back, crossed his hands behind his head, idly watching a great blue-and-gold dragonfly hovering in the thorn leaves overhead. As it lifted and arrowed away, he murmured to himself, loud enough for her to hear.
“I might like to know if a woman was not too proud to get a meal for a man, too, you know.”
“Is that all you require in a wife, Captain?” asked Nela.
Jaron watched her clumsily unwrapping the dried meats, haggling the bread into pieces with an apparently dull knife, cutting a melon into uneven halves.
“I always had a weakness for red hair, of course. But there are other things more important than that a woman’s hair be on fire. There must also be a certain witch-fire in the heart, showing in the eyes. A certain steadfastness, too, so that one knows that when one’s back is turned she’s not making eyes at every mustache that goes by.”
“Do go on, Captain, you sound so very stolid. Ordinary, one might say.”
“But still interesting, you must admit. The woman I love must carry strange lightning in h
er hands, for me alone. The mere flash of the skin of her under-arm must strike into me with the power of Omnu’s own light. There must be always a mystery in her one-sided smiling at me, so that I may always wonder whether she is thinking good or ill of me, or only taking me for just another purblind ape her fancy chanced to light upon.”
Nela flushed, soft pulsing rose mantling her smooth cheek. Jaron went on, dreamily regarding the sky.
“When she wears a man’s hunting clothes, that kind with the fringe slashed to the thigh, so that her legs are quite evidently two in number and well shaped—why the sight of those legs must be to me as if a Goddess had opened her mysterious heart to me, so that I shiver with awe of the beauty that goes with her every motion.”
“And are mine so, to you?” Nela’s hands shook unaccountably, as she pointed to the food, taking up a piece of bread and meat and filling her mouth.
“She must also serve her Lord and Master with her own white hands,” went on Jaron, unmoving, still gazing at the spot where the dragonfly had paused.
FUSHING still more deeply, Nela picked up the bread and meat, laying her own down unthinkingly in the dirt of the forest floor. She put the food in his hands, and Jaron began to munch away.
His eyes fell to hers. She saw with her hands crossed in her lap. Her eyes went away from his own, centering on her own idle hands in her lap like an embarassed child. Now and again she would dart a glance at his mane of bronze hair, curling in windswept waves about his wide brow—a brow strangely high and white above the tanned face.
Or two sets of eyes would meet, and hers falter, falling to his hands resting there on his knees, clasping the food. She noted the numerous scars on his knuckles criss-crossing. How very many times swords and daggers had scraped past the hilt-guards and nearly maimed him, by the looks of those hands.
“Ever been to sea, Nela?” asked Jaron suddenly, breaking the pleasant silence that lay between them like something close and palpable as flesh.
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 8