by Gray Prince
Returning to the front he stood contemplating the seven-tiered façade. A treasure, he thought, to amaze the world, and worlds beyond, and the entire Gaean Reach! He approached and studied the detail. The stylistic conventions were almost incomprehensible; the organization of the various segments could not at once be grasped. It seemed that erjins battled morphotes, each group almost unrecognizable for its grotesque accoutrements; erjins flew through the air in vehicles like none seen across the Gaean Reach; erjins stood triumphant above corpses of what seemed to be men. An insight came to Elvo; he turned in excitement to Gerd Jemasze: “This must be a memorial, or an historical record! In the passages are detail; the exterior niches are like a table of contents.”
“As good a guess as any.”
Kurgech had gone off to cast for tracks; he now returned and indicated a ravine choked with blue jinkos, with a dozen pink parasol trees tilting crazily above. “Up on the brink we discovered Uther Madduc’s tracks. They led down yonder gulch. Poliamides brought him here, then took him up the valley.”
Elvo pondered the seven-tiered shrine of rose quartz and gold. He asked: “Is this Uther Madduc’s wonderful joke? Why should he laugh at this?”
“There is more to see,” said Jemasze. “Let’s go on up the valley.”
“Caution,” said Kurgech. “Uther Madduc returned much faster than he went.”
For a quarter-mile the track led beside the river, then into a copse of solemn black-gums which choked the valley floor.
Kurgech led the way, step by silent step. Methuen hung directly above; pink glimmer from ahead seeped through the forest, where the shadows were velvety black.
The path left the forest. Standing in concealment, the four men looked out at the compound from which erjins were sent forth to servitude.
Elvo’s first emotion was deflation. Had he come so far, endured so much only to look at a few nondescript stone buildings around a dusty compound? He could sense that neither Jemasze nor Kurgech intended to make any closer investigation, and Moffamides displayed anxiety tantamount to sheer funk.
Moffamides tugged at Jemasze’s arm. “Let us go at once. We stand here in peril of our lives!”
“Strange! You gave us no such previous warning.”
“Why should I?” Moffamides spoke in spiteful desperation. “The erjin intended to take you to Tanglin Falls. By now you would be far away and gone.”
“There’s little to see,” said Jemasze. “Where is the danger?”
“It is not for you to ask.”
“Then we will wait and see for ourselves.”
Into the compound came a dozen erjins, to stand in a desultory group. Four men in priestly white gowns emerged from one of the stone buildings; from another came two more erjins and another man, also dressed as a priest. Without warning, Moffamides lunged forward from the forest and ran yelling toward the compound. Jemasze cursed under his breath and snatched out his gun; he aimed, then made an exasperated sound and held his fire. Elvo, watching in horror, felt a surge of gratitude toward Jemasze: unjust to kill the miserable Moffamides, who owed them no loyalty.
“We’d better leave,” said Jemasze, “and quick. We’ll go up the gulch where Madduc came down; that should be the shortest route back to the wagon.”
They ran through the forest, along the trail beside the cultivation. They forded the river and made for the wooded ravine opposite the shrine.
From the forest burst a group of erjins. They saw the three men and veered in pursuit. Jemasze fired his handgun; one of the erjins, pierced by a needle of dexax, collapsed in a broken heap; the others fell flat and brought forth long Wind-runner guns. Jemasze, Kurgech and Elvo scrambled for the shelter of the trees at the mouth of the gully, and the pellets passed harmlessly by.
Jemasze aimed the gun carefully and killed another erjin, but behind came a dozen more, and Elvo cried out in frustration: “Run! It’s our only chance! Run!”
Jemasze and Kurgech ignored him. Elvo looked frantically around the landscape, hoping for some miraculous succor. The sun had passed to the side; pink light suffused the gorge, and the seven-tiered shrine gave back an eery beauty. Even in his terror Elvo wondered who had built it. Erjins, undoubtedly. How long ago? Under what circumstances?
Jemasze and Kurgech fired again and again at the erjins, who retreated into the forest. “They’ll be climbing up from the valley and shooting down on us,” said Jemasze. “We’ve got to reach the top first!”
Up the gully they climbed, hearts pounding in their chests, lungs aching for air. The sky began to open out; the rim of the tableland hung close above. From below came desultory shots, striking and exploding much too close for comfort; glancing back, Elvo saw erjins running easily after them up the trail.
They gained the rim of the tableland to stand sobbing for breath. Elvo dropped to his hands and knees, breath rasping in his throat, only to hear Jemasze’s remark: “There they come. Let’s get going!”
Elvo staggered to his feet and saw a dozen erjins at the edge of the plateau a quarter-mile to the north. Jemasze took a moment to scan the landscape. Due east, beyond a succession of descending ridges, slopes and gullies, the land-yawl awaited them. If they attempted to flee in this direction they would present targets to the long rifles of the erjins and soon be killed. A hundred yards south rose a broken pyramid of rotten gneiss: a natural redoubt which offered at least temporary protection. The three men scrambled up the loose scree to the top, finding an almost flat area fifty feet in diameter. Jemasze and Kurgech immediately threw themselves flat and crawling to the edge began to shoot at the erjins on the plateau below. Elvo crouched low and, bringing forth his own weapon, aimed it but could not bring himself to fire. Who was right and who was wrong? The men had come as interlopers; did they have the right to punish those whose rights they had invaded?
Jemasze noted Elvo’s indecision. “What’s wrong with your gun?”
“Nothing. Just futility. That’s all that’s wrong. We’re trapped up here; we can’t escape. What’s one dead erjin more or less?”
“If thirty erjins attack and we kill thirty, then we go free,” explained Jemasze. “If we only kill twenty-five, then we are, as you point out, trapped.”
“We can’t hope to kill all thirty,” Elvo muttered.
“I hope to do so.”
“Suppose there are more than thirty?”
“I’m not interested in hypotheses,” said Jemasze. “I merely want to survive.” Meanwhile he aimed and fired his gun to such good effect that the erjins retreated.
Kurgech made a survey to the south. “We’re surrounded.”
Elvo went to sit on a ledge of rock. The sun, halfway down the western sky, threw his shadow across the barren surface. No water, thought Elvo. In three or four days they would be dead. He sat torpid, elbows on knees, head hanging low. Jemasze and Kurgech muttered together for a period, then Kurgech went off to sit where he could overlook the eastern horizon. Elvo looked at him in wonder: the eastern side of the crag was the least vulnerable to assault…He took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together. He was about to die but he’d face the unpleasant process as gracefully as possible. He rose to his feet and walked across the flat. At the sound of his footsteps, Jemasze turned his head. His face became instantly harsh. “Get down, you fool!”
A pellet sang through the air. Elvo jerked to a cruel enormous blow. He fell to the ground and lay staring up at the sky.
Chapter 11
At Morningswake the days passed, one much like the next. Schaine and Kelse examined the casual and often enigmatic records left by Uther Madduc and instituted a new system to facilitate management of the domain.
Each morning the two conferred over breakfast, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in a state of contention. Schaine was forced to admit that, despite her natural affection for Kelse, she often did not like him very much. Kelse had become crabbed, rigid and humorless, for reasons beyond her understanding. Certainly Kelse had suffered greatly; still
his loss of arm and leg inconvenienced him little. In his place, she would never allow herself to brood! Another thought occurred to her. Perhaps Kelse loved someone who had rejected him because of his handicap.
The idea fascinated her. Who could it be?
Social life back and forth across the domains was gay; there were house parties, balls, fiestas, ‘karoos’: these latter pale imitations of the Uldra carnivals of lust, gluttony and psychological catharsis. Kelse agreed that he seldom attended such functions, so when from Ellora Domain arrived an invitation to an all-day picnic in the wonderful Ellora Garden, Schaine accepted for both herself and Kelse.
The picnic was a most delightful affair. Two hundred guests roamed the fifty-acre park which the Lilliet family had now maintained for two hundred years, each generation augmenting and improving the work of those before. Schaine enjoyed herself immensely and meanwhile kept an interested eye upon Kelse. As she had expected he made no attempt to mingle with younger folk—after all, he was only two years her senior—but kept to the company of those land-barons present.
Schaine renewed many old acquaintances and learned that, as she suspected, Kelse was considered shy and abrupt by the girls.
Schaine sought Kelse out and said, “You’ve just had some dazzling compliments. I probably shouldn’t explain, because you might become vain.”
“Small chance of that,” grumbled Kelse, which Schaine took as an invitation to proceed.
“I’ve been talking to Zia Forres; she considers you most attractive, but she’s afraid to talk to you for fear you might destroy her.”
“I’m not all that irascible; and certainly not vain. Zia Forres can talk to me anytime she likes.”
“You don’t seem elevated by the compliment.”
Kelse gave her a sickly grin. “It startles me.”
“Well then—look pleasantly startled at least, not as if someone had dropped a rock on your foot.”
“Which foot?”
“On your head then.”
“To be quite honest my mind is on other things. There’s been news from Olanje. The Redemptionists have finally persuaded the Mull to issue a definitive mandate—directed against us, naturally.”
Schaine began to feel despondent. If only these discouraging problems would go away, or at least be forgotten, just for today! In a resigned voice she asked: “What kind of mandate?”
“The land-barons are ordered to meet with a council of tribal hetmen. We must abandon all pretense to legal title; said title must be affirmed to reside with the tribes traditionally resident on the domains. We retain the manors and ten acres surrounding, and at the pleasure and discretion of the tribal councils, may apply for leaseholds not to exceed terms of ten years on other lands, and not to exceed one thousand acres per domain.”
Schaine said flippantly, “It could be worse. They could sequester title to the houses as well.”
“They’ve sequestered nothing as yet. A manifesto is words. We hold the land and we’ll continue to hold it.”
“That’s not realistic, Kelse.”
“It seems realistic to me. We’ve declared ourselves a political entity independent of the Mull; they no longer exert authority over us—if ever they did.”
“Realism is this: Szintarre has a population of millions. The political entity you speak of has a population of a few thousand. The Mull exerts much more power. We’ve got to obey.”
“Don’t equate power with population,” said Kelse. “Especially urban population. But there’s no immediate worry—not from our side at least. We won’t kill any Redemptionists unless they come here to kill us. I hope they think better of it.”
Schaine turned away, furiously angry with Kelse and in the mood to do something wild and outrageous. She restrained herself and went to visit with her old friends, but the day had lost its zest.
Returning to Morningswake, Kelse and Schaine were surprised to find six Ao elders encamped on the lawn in front of the house, in a manner which Schaine thought portentous and somber. Kelse muttered, “Now what’s the emergency?”
Schaine said: “They’ve also had the news from Olanje. They’re here to get your signature on the lease.”
“Not likely.” Kelse nonetheless hesitated before he went to investigate. “You’d better wait in the house—just in case.” And so Schaine, standing in the grand front parlor, watched through the window as Kelse crossed the lawn to where the Aos waited.
Kelse returned to the house faster than he had departed. Schaine ran out into the hall to meet him. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got to take the Standard north. Zagwitz has had a message from Kurgech. A mind-message, needless to say, the substance of which is trouble.”
Schaine’s heart went up in her throat. “Do they know how, or why, or where?”
“I’m not sure what they know. They want me to take them up into the Volwodes.”
“What about Gerd and Elvo?”
“They’ve nothing to say.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. There’s danger. I’ll keep in touch with you by radio.”
At midnight the sky-car returned, with Kurgech, Gerd Jemasze, and Elvo Glissam barely conscious on an improvised stretcher. Kelse had already administered an all-purpose disinfectant and pain-suppressant from the sky-car’s emergency kit. Gerd and Kurgech carried the stretcher into the sick-bay where Cosmo Brasbane the domain medic removed Elvo’s clothes and gave him further medical attention.
Kurgech started to leave the house; Gerd called him back. “Where are you going?”
Kurgech said soberly: “This is Morningswake Manor and the traditions of your people are strong.”
Gerd said, “You and I have been through too much together; if it weren’t for you we’d all be dead. What’s good enough for me is good enough for you.”
Schaine, looking at Gerd Jemasze, felt an almost overwhelming suffusion of warmth; she wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry. Of course, of course! She loved Gerd Jemasze! Through prejudice and incomprehension she had not allowed herself to recognize the fact. Gerd Jemasze was a man of the Alouan; she was Schaine Madduc of Morningswake. Elvo Glissam? No.
Kelse said gruffly, and perhaps only Schaine apprehended the nearly imperceptible reluctance: “Gerd is quite right; formality can’t apply to situations like this.”
Kurgech shook his head and half-smiling, took a step backward. “The expedition is over; conditions are once more as before. Our lives go differently, and this is as it should be.”
Schaine ran forward. “Kurgech, don’t be so solemn and fateful; I want you to stay with us. I’m sure you’re hungry and I’m having a meal laid out.”
Kurgech went to the door. “Thank you, Lady Schaine, but you are Outker, I am Uldra. Tonight I will be more comfortable with my own people.” He departed.
In the morning Elvo Glissam, his shoulder bandaged and his left arm in a sling, limped down to the breakfast table to find the others there before him, and all talking. Everyone felt at the same time emotionally flat but superficially stimulated and almost euphoric, so that all kinds of remarks and opinions came forth that might not have been broached under different circumstances.
The talk went quickly and lightly, glancing on many subjects. In a weak but marveling voice, like a man describing a nightmare, Elvo Glissam recounted his version of the events of the past two weeks which provided Schaine and Kelse a more particularized and personal account than that which they had gleaned from Gerd Jemasze.
Schaine asked in bewilderment: “But where is the ‘wonderful joke’? I haven’t heard anything even remotely funny.”
“Father had an odd sense of humor,” said Kelse, “if any.”
“He must have had a sense of humor,” declared Elvo. “From all I’ve heard of him he was a remarkable man.”
“Well then,” Schaine challenged him, “where is the great joke?”
“It’s too subtle for me.”
Glancing sidewise at Gerd Jemasze, Schaine t
hought to detect a half-smile. “Gerd! You know!”
“Only a guess.”
“Tell me! Please!”
“Let me think about it; I don’t know whether it’s a joke or a tragedy.”
“Tell us! Let us all judge!”
Gerd Jemasze started to speak but hesitated too long, and Elvo, almost intoxicated from relief of tension, spoke first. “Joke or no joke, the shrine is a remarkable discovery. Morningswake will soon be a name as familiar as Gomaz and Sadhara! There’ll be guided tours flying out from Olanje!”
“We could put up a hotel and make a fortune,” Schaine suggested.
“What would we do with a fortune?” growled Kelse. “We have all the money we need.”
“If we’re allowed to keep Morningswake.”
“Bah. Who’s to stop us? Don’t say the Mull.”
“The Mull.”
“Once again—bah.”
“I’ll take the fortune. We need another big saloon,” said Schaine. “Remember, the Sturdevant is wrecked. I say, let’s buy another Sturdevant.”
Kelse threw up his hands. “How will we pay for it? Do you know how much a sound saloon car costs?”
“What’s money? We’ll run our own guided tours out to this wonderful exhibit. And don’t forget: the hotel!”
Elvo asked: “Is that valley the Palga or the Retent or what?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Gerd Jemasze. “The gorge runs west and south out of the Volwodes. That’s Ao country and Morningswake domain.”
“No problem then,” declared Elvo. “You own a magnificent historical monument, and you have every right to build a hotel!”
“Not so fast,” said Kelse. “The Mull and the Redemptionists say we own no more than the clothes on our back; who is right?”
“I agree the matter must be adjudicated,” said Elvo. “Still, Redemptionist though I am, I wish the best for my friends here at Morningswake.”