The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid

by L. Sprague De Camp

  “What is?” said Fredro behind him.

  Without bothering to explain, Fallon pocketed the key and trotted down the stairs. At such desperate moments he was at his best; as they reached the bottom there was a loud bang as something struck the door from the other side.

  Fallon, calling upon his recollection of his tour of the crypt the previous night with Sainian, picked his way through the complex toward the tunnel entrance. Twice he went astray, but found his way again after scurrying about the passages like a rat in a psychologist’s maze.

  Behind him Fallon heard a scurry of feet on the stair and a clatter of weapons. Evidently the door had been opened.

  At last he sighted the guard in front of the tunnel door. The Krishnan hoisted his halberd warily. Fallon kept right on, waving his arms and crying, “Run for your life! There’s a fire in the explosives room, and we shall all be blown to bits!”

  Fallon had to repeat before the guard got the idea. Then the fellow’s eyes goggled with horror; he dropped his halberd with a clatter and turned to unlock the door behind him.

  The bolt had snicked back and the door was opening when Fallon, who had picked up the halberd, swung it so that the flat of the axhead smote the guard on the helmet, with a crashing bong. The man went down under the blow, half-stunned, and Fallon and Fredro slipped through the door.

  Fallon started to shut the door, then realized that, first, the guard’s body was lying in it; and second that if he did, the tunnel would be in total darkness. He could either leave it ajar, or drag the guard’s body out of the way, take one of the lamps down from its bracket on the wall of the crypt, and close the door behind him.

  The clatter of approaching footsteps convinced him that he would not have time to carry out this maneuver. So he took the key, leaving the door open, and turned into the tunnel, saying, “Now run!”

  The two Earthmen gathered up the skirts of their robes and ran along the rough rock floor, sometimes stumbling on an irregularity. They ran, the light from the door behind them diminishing with distance.

  “Be caref—” Fallon started to speak, but ran headlong into another door in the darkness. He bumped his nose and cracked a kneecap.

  Cursing in several languages, he felt around until he found the handle. When the door did not yield to mere pulling and pushing, he located the keyhole by feel and tried his two keys. One of them worked; the bolt on the far side slid back.

  Noises from the other end of the tunnel indicated that their pursuers had found the felled guard.

  “Hurry up, please!” whimpered Fredro between pants.

  Fallon opened the door. They entered a room that was almost dark, but feebly lit by gleams of daylight that came down a stairwell. The walls were covered with shelves on which were untidily stacked vast numbers of books—Krishnan books with wooden covers and a long strip of paper folded zigzag between them. Fallon thought that he recognized them as the standard prayer books of the cult of Yesht, but he had no time to investigate. The tunnel was echoing to the tramp of many running feet.

  The Earthmen bounded up the stair, finding themselves on the ground floor of the Chapel of Yesht. Fallon, moving silently now, holding his scabbard through his robe lest it clank, neither saw nor heard any sign of life.

  They went down a hallway, past rooms with rows of chairs set up in them, and presently found themselves in the vestibule just inside the front doors. The doors were bolted from inside, and Fallon slid back the bolt and opened one door.

  A light rain slanted across the wet cobblestones and sprinkled Fallon’s face. Few pedestrians were about. Fallon whispered, “Come on! We’ll slip out and around the corner to leave these robes. Then when the guards get here we shall be walking toward them.”

  Fallon slunk out the door and flitted down the stone steps and around the corner of the building, into the narrow space between the chapel and the adjoining house. Here an ornamental shrub screened them from the street. They slipped off their robes, rolled them into small bundles, tied them up with their belt cords, and tossed them into the top of the shrub where they were above eye level and so might be overlooked. Then they walked quickly out to the street, turned, and were strolling past the front of the chapel when the door flew open again and a gaggle of guards and priests boiled out and clattered down the steps, peering into the rain, pointing, and shouting at one another.

  Fallon, one fist on his hip and the other hand on his hilt, surveyed the pursuers with a lordly air as they came down the steps toward him. He gave them a little bow and a speech in his most grandiloquent Krishnan style, “Hail, good my sirs. May I venture to offer assistance in the worthy search upon which you appear to be so assiduously engaged?”

  A guard panted at him: “Saw—saw ye two men in the dress of priests of Yesht come out of yon portal even now?”

  Fallon turned to Fredro with raised eyebrows. “Did we see anything like that?”

  Fredro spread his hands and shrugged. Fallon said, “Though it grieves me so to confess, sir, neither my companion nor I noticed anything of the sort. But we’ve only just now arrived here—the fugitives might have left the building earlier.”

  “Well then . . .” began the Krishnan, but then another Krishnan who had bustled up during the colloquy said, “Hold, Yugach! Be not so ready to take the word of every passing stranger—especially inhuman alien creatures such as these. How know we they’re not those for whom we seek?”

  The other Krishnans, attracted by the argument, began crowding around with bared weapons. Fallon’s heart sank into his soft-leather Krishnan boots. Fredro’s mouth opened and closed in silence, like that of a fish in stale water.

  “Who be ye, Earthmen?” said the first Krishnan.

  “I’m Antané bad-Faln, of the Juru—”

  The second Krishnan interrupted: “Iyá! A thousand pardons, my masters—nay, a million, for not having known you. I was in the House of Justice when ye testified against the robber Shavé and his accomplice, the same which died of the wound ye so courageously dealt in apprehending him. Nay, Yugach, I’m wrong. This Antané’s one of our staunchest trees of law and order. But come, sir, pray help us to search!”

  The guard turned to shout directions to his fellows. For a quarter-hour, Fallon and Fredro helped to hunt for themselves. At length, when the search appeared hopeless, the two Earthmen strolled off.

  When they were out of earshot of the chapel, where the baffled searchers had gathered on the steps in a gesticulating knot, Fredro asked, “Is all over? I can go back to hotel now?”

  “Absolutely. But when you write a report for that magazine of yours, don’t mention me. And tell Percy Mjipa your story, saying we saw no trace of his missing Earthmen.”

  “I understand. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Fallon, for your help. A friend in need saves nine. Thank you, and good-bye!”

  Fredro wrung Fallon’s hand in both of his and looked around for a khizun to hail.

  “You’ll have to take a bus,” said Fallon. “It’s just like Earth. The minute a drop of rain falls, all the cabs disappear.”

  He left Fredro and walked westward with the idea of going directly to Tashin’s Inn to report to Qais, before events swept his news into obsolescence. He was getting wetter by the minute and regretted the fine new rain cloak lying by the front door of the Safq—he could almost see it from where he was. But he was not so foolhardy as to try to recover it now.

  By the time he got to the Square of Qarar, however, he was limping from the knock that he had given his knee in the tunnel, and so wet and miserable that he decided to go home, get a drink, and change his clothes before proceeding farther. He had an old winter over-tunic there, which he could use to keep dry thereafter, and this would mean only a slight detour.

  As he plodded through the rain, head down, the sound of a drum caused him to look around. Down Asadá Street marched a column of civic guards with pikes on their shoulders, the drummer beating time at their head. From the two white bands on each sleeve of their jackets, Fa
llon recognized them as belonging to the Gabanj Company. His own Juru Company looked scarecrows by comparison.

  A few pedestrians lined the sides of the street to watch the column go past. Fallon asked a couple what the parade portended, but nobody could give him a plausible answer. When the militiamen had gone, Fallon trudged on homeward. He was just opening his door when a voice said, “Master Antané!”

  It was Cisasa, the Osirian guardsman, with his antique helmet precariously held to the top of his reptilian head by the chin strap and a Krishnan sword hanging awkwardly from a baldric over his shoulder, if he could be said to have a shoulder.

  He went on in his weirdly accented Balhibouu, “Fetch your kear at once and come with me to the armory. The Churu Company is ortered out!”

  “Why? Is the war on?”

  “I know not—I do but pass on the orters.”

  Oh, Bákh! thought Fallon. Why did this have to happen at this particular moment? He said, “Very well, Cisasa. Run along and I’ll be with you soon.”

  “Your parton, sir, but that I’m forpitten to do; I’m to escort you in person.”

  Fallon had hoped to slip away to continue his visit to Qais; but evidently Kordaq had foreseen that some of his guardsmen might try to make themselves scarce at mobilization, and had taken measures to forestall such absences. It was no use running away from Cisasa, who could outrun any Terran ever born.

  Fallon’s aversion to being called up was due, not to cowardice—he did not mind a good battle—but to fear that he would never, then, be able to collect from Qais.

  He said wearily. “Come on in while I get my gear.”

  “Pray hasten, goot my sir, for I’ve three more to fetch after I’ve deliffered you. Have you no red jacket?”

  “No, and I haven’t had time to get one,” said Fallon, rummaging for his field boots. “Will you have a drink before we go?”

  “No thank you. Duty first! I am wiltly excited. Are you not excited too?”

  “Positively palpitating,” grumbled Fallon.

  ###

  The armory was crowded with the entire Juru Company, or at least all of those that had arrived; latecomers were being brought in every minute. Kordaq sat with his spectacles on at his desk, in front of which stood a line of guardsmen waiting to beg off from active service.

  Kordaq heard each one out and decided quickly, usually against the plea for exemption. Those whose excuses he found frivolous he sent away with a stinging tirade on the cowardice of this generation compared to the heroic Balhibouu ancestors. Those who claimed to be sick were given a quick examination by Qouran, the neighborhood physician, whose method seemed to be to count eyes, hands, and feet.

  Fallon went over to where about two hundred of the new muskets were stacked against the wall. Other guardsmen were crowding around them, handling them and speculating as to how these things were to be used. He was turning one of the firearms over and sighting along the barrel—it had sights, he was glad to observe—when Kordaq’s voice roared through the armory:

  “Attention! Put those guns down and get back against the other wall, all of you, whilst in a few words I convey to you that which I must say.”

  Fallon, knowing the Krishnan habit of never using one word where ten would serve, braced himself for a long speech.

  Kordaq continued, “As most of you know, the armies of barbarous Qaath have now swept across the sacred bourne of fair Balhib and are advancing upon Zanid. The holy duty therefore falls to us to smite them sore and hurl them back to regions whence they came. And here before you are the means, whereof I’ve hinted heretofore. These are true and veritable guns, such the mighty Terrans use, devised and fabricated here in Zanid secretly.

  “If you wonder why the Juru Company, of all in Zanid the most irregulous, should be among the few chosen to bear this new weapon—for there are enough for three companies only—I’ll tell you straight. Firstly ’tis known that our pike-drill’s abominable and our archery worse, whereas those of some other companies of the Guards are almost up to the standards of the Regulars. ’Twere ill-advised, then, to deprive the army of such puissance as the pikes and bolts of these others provide. Secondly, the fact that this company includes beings from other planets—where such fearsome lethal toys are commonplace—makes us all the more adaptable. Thus these foreigners—I speak particularly of Earthmen and Osirians—can serve as a ready-made force of instructors in the use of guns.

  “Did time permit, ’twould advantageous be to spend a number of days in practice—but the emergency o’errides our wishes. We must therefore march out at once and snatch such practice as we can enroute to the field of blood. Mark me well, though: there shall be no casual shooting without specific orders, for the quantity of bullets and explosive is limited. Do I catch any guard banging away unauthorized at stump and stone, I’ll truss him and use him for a target at official exercise.

  “Now for the manner whereby these things are used. Harsun, set up that bag of sand ’gainst yonder wall. Now attend me closely, heroes, whilst I strive in my inarticulate way to make these operations as clear as desert air.”

  Kordaq picked up a musket and proceeded to explain how it was loaded and fired. It transpired that, in the absence of any trigger mechanism, the musketeers were expected to discharge their pieces by touching to the firing-pans lighted cigars held in their teeth. Fallon had a prevision of some bloody noses before they learned to master the recoil of the guns.

  One of the guardsmen said, “Well, meseems we get free smokes, at least.”

  Kordaq frowned at such levity and, having loaded his piece and lighted his cigar, aimed at the sandbag set up against the far wall and touched off his charge.

  Bang!

  The armory’s rafters rang with the explosion. The kick of the musket staggered the captain, and from the muzzle bloomed a vast cloud of black, choking smoke. A hole appeared in the sandbag. Fallon, coughing with the rest, reflected that while the asphalt-sugar-niter mixture exploded, it might work better as smoke-screen material than as a propellant for ordnance.

  The Krishnans in the company jumped violently. Several screamed with fright. Some shouted that they would be afraid to handle any such Dupulan’s device as that. Others clamored for the good old pike and crossbow, which all understood. Kordaq quieted the hubbub and continued, emphasizing the importance of keeping one’s explosive dry and one’s barrel clean and oiled.

  “Now,” he said, “have you any queries?”

  They had. The Thothians objected that they were too small to handle such heavy weapons, while the Osirians pointed out that tobacco smoke threw them into a paroxysm of coughing, wherefore they never used the weed. Both arguments were allowed after much discussion, and it was decided that these species should retain their bills. After all, Kordaq told them, the company would need a few billmen to protect it, “lest for all our lightnings and thunders the roynish foe win to hand play.”

  There remained the lone Isidian to dispose of—for while its elephantine trunk was efficient enough to catching thieves on the streets of Zanid, the creature was not quite up to manipulating a muzzle-loading arquebus. Fallon suggested making the Isidian the standard bearer. Accepted. The rain had ceased, and Roqir was breaking through the overcast, when the Juru Company marched out of the armory, with Captain Kordaq, the drummer, and the Isidian flag-bearer at their head, muskets and bills on their shoulders, and mailshirts clinking.

  XVIII

  The Balhibouu army lay at Chos, a crossroads in western Balhib. Fallon, having the guard, walked slowly around the perimeter of the area assigned to the Civic Guard of Zanid, a musket on his shoulder. The Guard had the extreme northerly position in the encampment. Another regiment occupied the adjacent area, and another beyond that, and so on.

  Krishnan military organization was much simpler than Terran, without the elaborate hierarchy of officers or the sharp distinction between officers and non-commissioned officers. Fallon was a squad leader. Above him was Savaich, the tavernkeeper; as seni
or squad leader of the section, he had limited powers over the whole section. Over Savaich was Captain Kordaq (the title of rank could be as well translated as “Major” or even “Lieutenant Colonel”) who commanded the Juru Company.

  Above Kordaq was Lord Chindor who commanded the whole Guard; and above Chindor nobody but Minister Chabarian, who commanded the entire army. The army was theoretically organized in tens—ten-man squads, ten-squad sections or platoons, and so on. In practice, however, the numbers were seldom those of this theoretical desideratum. Thus the Juru Company, with a paper strength of a thousand plus, actually mustered less than two hundred on the battlefield, and it was about an average company. Staff work and supply and medical arrangements were of the simplest.

  So far, Fallon and his squad had been adequately, if monotonously, fed. Fallon had not seen a map of the region in which they were travelling; but that mattered little because, as far as one could see in all directions, there was nothing but the gently rolling prairie with its waving cover of plants, something like Terran grasses in appearance, though biologically more like long-stemmed mosses.

  From over the horizon a thin pencil of black smoke slanted up into the turquoise sky, where Ghuur’s raiders had burned a village. Such cavalry raids had struck deep into Balhib already. But the Qaathians could not take the walled cities with cavalry alone nor could they build siege engines on the spot, in a land where the only trees were grown from seeds imported and planted and kept alive by frequent watering.

  All this Fallon either knew from rumors that he had picked up or surmised from his previous military experience. Now to his ears came the creak of supply wagons, the animal noises of cavalry mounts, the hammering of smiths repairing things, the shrill cries of a tribe of the Gypsylike Gavehona who had attached themselves to the army as camp followers, the popping of muskets, as Kordaq doled out the day’s sparing allowance of target powder and shot. In the six days since they had left Zanid, the Juru Company had acquired a nodding acquaintance with their new weapons. Most of them could now hit a man-sized target at twenty paces.