The Best of E E 'Doc' Smith

by E E 'Doc' Smith

  "Chamberlain Schillan-Captain Sciro," the king went on briskly. "Haul me this carrion to the river and dump it in-put men to cleaning this place--tis not seemly so."

  The designated officers began to bawl orders, and Tedric turned to the girl, who was still just about as close to him as she could get; awe, wonder, and relieved shock still plain on her expressive face.

  "One thing, Lady Rhoann, I understand not. You seem to know me; act as though I were old, tried friend. 'Tis vast honor, but how? You of course I know; have known and honored since you were a child; but me, a commoner, you know not. Nor, if you did, couldst know who it was neath all this iron?"

  "Art wrong, Lord Tedric-nay, not 'Lord' Tedric; henceforth you and I are Tedric and Rhoann merely-I have known you long and well; would recognize you anywhere. The few of the old, true blood stand out head and shoulders above the throng, and you stand out, even among them. Who else could it have been? Who else bath the strength of arm and soul, the inner and the outer courage? No coward I, Tedric, nor ever called so, but on that altar my very bones turned jelly. I could not have swung weapon against Sarpedion. I trembled yet at the bare thought of what you did; I know not how you could have done it."

  "You feared the god" Lady Rhoann, as do so many. I hated him."

  "'Tis not enough of explanation. And 'Rhoann' merely" Tedric, remember?"

  "Rhoann ... Thanks, my lady. 'Tis an honor more real than your father's patent of nobility ... but 'tis not fitting. I feel as much a commoner. ..."

  "Commoner? Bah! I ignored that word once, Tedric, but not twice. You are, and deservedly, the Highest of the High. My father the king has known for long what you are; he should have ennobled you long since. Thank Sarp . . thank all the gods he had the wit to put it off no longer! 'Tis blood that tells, not empty titles. The Throne can make and un-make nobility at will, but no power whatever can make true-bloods out of mongrels, nor create real manhood where none exists!"

  Tedric did not know what to say in answer to that passionate outburst, so he changed the subject; effectively, if not deftly. "In speaking of the Marches to your father the king, you mentioned the Sages. What said they?"

  "At another time, perhaps." Lady Rhoann was fast recovering her wonted cool poise. "'Tis far too long to go into while I stand here half naked, filthy, and stinking. Let us on with the business in hand; which, for me, is a hot bath and clean clothing."

  Rhoann strolled away as unconcernedly as though she were wearing full court regalia, and Tedric turned to the king.

  "Thinkest the Lady Trycie is nearby, sire?"

  "If I know the jade at all, she is," Phagon snorted. "And not only near. She's seen everything and heard everything; knows more about everything than either of us, or both of us together. Why? Thinkst she'd make a good priestess?"

  "The best. Much more so, methinks, than the Lady Rhoann. Younger. More ... umm ... more priestess-like, say?"

  "Perhaps." Phagon was very evidently skeptical, but looked around the temple, anyway. "Trycie!" he yelled. "Yes, father?" a soft voice answered-right behind them!

  The king's second daughter was very like his first in size and shape, but her eyes were a cerulean blue and her hair, as long and as thick as Rhoann's own, had the color of ripe wheat.

  "Aye, daughter. Wouldst like to be Priestess of Llosir?"

  "Oh, yes!" she squealed; but sobered quickly. "On second thought ... perhaps not ... no. If so be it sacrifice is done I intend to marry, some day, and have six or eight children. But ... perhaps ... could I take it now, and resign later, think you?"

  "'Twould not be necessary, sire and Lady Trycie," Tedric put in, while Phagon was still thinking the matter over. "Llosir is not at all like Sarpedion. Llosir wants abundance and fertility and happiness, not poverty and sterility and misery. Llosir's priestess marries as she pleases and has as many children as she wants."

  "Your priestess I, then, sirs! I go to have cloth-of-gold robes made at once!" The last words came floating back over her shoulder as Trycie raced away.

  "Lord Tedric, sir." Unobserved, Sciro bad been waiting for a chance to speak to his superior officer.

  "Yes, captain?"

  "' Tis the men ... the cleaning ... They ... We, I mean ..." Sciro of Old Lomarr would not pass the buck. "The bodies-the priests, you know, and so on-were easy enough; and we did manage to handle most of the pieces of the .god. But the ... the heart, and so on, you know ... we know not where you want them taken ... and besides, we fear ... wilt stand by and ward, Lord Tedric, while I pick them up?"

  "'Tis my business, Captain Sciro; mine alone. I crave pardon for not attending to it sooner. Hast a bag?"

  "Yea." The highly relieved officer held out a duffle-bag of fine, soft leather.

  Tedric took it, strode across to the place where Sarpedion's image had stood, and-not without a few qualms of his own, now that the frenzy of battle had evaporated picked up Sarpedion's heart, liver, and brain and deposited them, neither too carefully not too carelessly, in the sack. Then, swinging the burden up over his shoulder "I go to fetch the others," he explained to his king. "Then we hold sacrifice to end all human sacrifice."

  "Hold, Tedric!" Phagon ordered. "One thing-or two or three, methinks. 'Tis not seemly to conduct a thing so; lacking order and organization and plan. Where dost propose to hold such an affair? Not in your ironworks, surely?"

  "Certainly not, sire." Tedric halted, almost in midstride. Be hadn't got around yet to thinking about the operation as a whole, but he began to do so then. "And certainly not on this temple or Sarpedion's own. Lord Llosir is clean: all our temples are foul in every stone and timber ..." He paused. Then, suddenly: "I have it, sire-the amphitheater!"

  "The amphitheater? 'Tis well. 'Tis of little enough use, and a shrine will not interfere with what little use it has."

  "Wilt give orders to build ... ?"

  "The Lord of the Marches issues his own orders. Hola, Schillan, to me!" the monarch shouted, and the Chamberlain of the Realm came on the run. "Lord Tedric speaks with my voice."

  "I hear, sire. Lord Tedric, I listen."

  "Have built, at speed, midway along the front of the amphitheater, on the very edge of the cliff, a table of clean, new-quarried stone; ten feet square and three feet high. On it mount Lord Llosir so firmly that he will stand upright forever against whatever may come of wind or storm."

  The chamberlain hurried away. So did Tedric, with his bag of spoils. First to his shop, where his armor was removed and where he scratched himself vigorously and delightfully as it came off. Thence to the Temple of Sarpedion, where he collected the other, somewhat-lesser hallowed trio of the Great One's vital organs. Then, and belatedly, to home and to bed.

  A little later, while the new-made Lord of the Marches was sleeping soundly, the king's messengers rode furiously abroad, spreading the word that ten days hence, at the fourth period after noon, in Lompoar's Amphitheater, Great Sarpedion would be sacrificed to Llosir, Lomarr's new and Ultra-powerful god.

  The city of Lompoar, Lomarr's capital, lying on the south bank of the Lotar some fifty miles inland from the delta, nestled against the rugged breast of the Coast Range. Just outside the town's limit and some hundreds of feet above its principal streets there was a gigantic half-bowl, carved out of the solid rock by an eddy of some bye-gone age.

  This was the Amphitheater, and on the very lip of the stupendous cliff descending vertically to the river so far below, Llosir stood proudly on his platform of smooth, clean granite.

  "'Tis not enough like a god, methinks." King Phagon, dressed now in cloth-of-gold, eyed the gleaming copper statue very dubiously. "'Tis too much like a man, by far."

  "'Tis exactly as I saw him, sire"" Tedric replied, firmly. Nor was he, consciously, lying: by this time he believed the lie himself. "Llosir is a man-god, remember, not a beast god, and 'tis better so. But the time I set is here. With your permission, sire, I begin."

  Both men looked around the great bowl. Near by, but not too near, stood the priestes
s and half a dozen white-clad fifteen-year-old girls; one of whom carried a beaten-gold pitcher full of perfumed oil, another a flaring open lamp wrought of the same material. Slightly to one side were Rhoann-looking, if the truth must be told, as though she did not particularly enjoy her present position on the sidelines-her mother the queen, the rest of the royal family, and ranks of courtiers. And finally, much farther back, at a very respectful distance from their strange new god, arranged in dozens of more or less concentric, roughly hemispherical rows, stood everybody who had had time to get there. More were arriving constantly, of course, but the flood had become a trickle; the narrow way, worming upward from the city along the cliffs stark side, was almost bare of traffic.

  "Begin, Lord Tedric," said the king.

  Tedric bent over, heaved the heavy iron pan containing the offerings up onto the platform, and turned. "The oil, Priestess Lady Trycie, and the flame."

  The acolyte handed the pitcher to Trycie, who handed it to Tedric, who poured its contents over the twin hearts, twin livers, and twin brains. Then the lamp; and as the yard-high flames leaped upward the armored pseudo-priest stepped backward and raised his eyes boldly to the impassive face of the image of his god. Then he spoke not softly, but in parade-ground tones audible to everyone present.

  "Take, Lord Llosir, all the strength and all the power and all the force that Sarpedion ever had. Use them, we beg, for good and not for ill."

  He picked up the blazing pan and strode toward the lip of the precipice; high-mounting, smokey flames curling backward around his armored figure. "And now, in token of Sarpedion's utter and complete extinction, I consign these, the last vestiges of his being, to the rushing depths of oblivion." He hurled the pan and its fiercely flaming contents out over the terrific brink.

  This act, according to Tedric's plan, was to end the program-but it didn't. Long before the fiery mass struck water his attention was seized by a long, low-pitched, moaning gasp from a multitude of throats; a sound the like of which he had never before even imagined.

  He whirled-and saw, shimmering in a cage-like structure of shimmering bars, a form of seeming flesh so exactly like the copper image in every detail of shape that it might well have come from the same mould!

  "Lord Llosir-in the flesh!" Tedric exclaimed, and went to one knee.

  So did the king and his family, and a few of the bravest of the courtiers. Most of the latter, however, and the girl acolytes and the thronging thousands of spectators, threw themselves flat on the hard ground. They threw themselves flat, but they did not look away or close their eyes or cover their faces with their hands. On the contrary, each one stared with all the power of his optic nerves.

  The god's mouth opened, his lips moved; and, although no one could hear any sound, everyone felt words resounding throughout the deepest recesses of his being.

  "I have taken all the strength, all the power, all the force, all of everything that made Sarpedion what he was," the god began. In part his pseudo-voice was the resonant clang of a brazen bell; in part the diapason harmonies of an impossibly vast organ. "I will use them for good, not ill. I am glad, Tedric, that you did not defile my bearth-for this is a hearth, remember, and in no sense an altar-in making this, the first and the only sacrifice ever to be made to me. You, Trycie, are the first of my priestesses?"

  The girl, shaking visibly, gulped three times before she could speak. "Yea, my-my-my Lord Llosir," she managed finally. "Th-that is-if-if I please you, Lord, Sir."

  "You please me, Trycie of Lomarr. Nor will your duties be onerous; being only to see to it that your maidens keep my hearth clean and my statue bright."

  "To you, my Lord-Llo-Llosir, sir, all thanks. Wilt keep ..." Trycie raised her downcast eyes and stopped short in mid-sentence; her mouth dropping ludicrously open and her eyes becoming two round O's of astonishment. The air above the yawning abyss was as empty as it had ever been; the flesh-and-blood god had disappeared as instantaneously as he had come!

  Tedric's heavy voice silenced the murmured wave of excitement sweeping the bowl.

  "That is all!" he bellowed. "I did not expect the Lord Llosir to appear in the flesh at this time; I know not when or ever he will deign to appear to us again. But I know whether or not he ever so deigns, or when, you all know now that our great Lord Llosir lives. Is not so?"

  "'Tis so! Long live Lord Llosir!" Tumultuous yelling filled the amphitheater.

  "'Tis well. In leaving this holy place all will file between me and the shrine. First our king, then the Lady Priestess Trycie and her maids, then the Family, then the Court, then the rest. All men as they pass will raise sword-arms in salute, all women will bow heads. Will be naught of offerings or of tribute or of fractions; Lord Llosir is a god, not a huckstering, thieving, murdering trickster. King Phagon, sire, wilt lead?"

  Unhelmed now, Tedric stood rigidly at attention before the image of his god. The king did not march straight past him, but stopped short. Taking off his ornate headpiece and lifting his right arm high, he said:

  "To you, Lord Llosir, my sincere thanks for what hast done for me, for my family, and for my nation. While 'tis not seemly that Lomarr's king should beg, I ask that you abandon us not."

  Then Trycie and her girls. "We engage, Lord Sir," the Lady Priestess said, at a whispered word from Tedric, "to keep your hearth scrupulously clean;.your statue shining bright."

  Then the queen, followed by the Lady Rhoann-who, although she bowed her head merely enough, was shooting envious glances at her sister, so far ahead and so evidently the cynosure of so many eyes.

  The rest of the Family-the Court-the thronging spectators-and, last of all, Tedric himself. Helmet tucked under left arm, he raised his brawny right arm high, executed a stiff "left face," and marched proudly at the rear of the long procession.

  And as the people made their way down the steep and rugged path" as they debouched through the city of Lompoar, as they traversed the highways and byways back to the towns and townlets and farms from which they had come, it was very evident that Llosir had established himself as no other god had ever been established throughout the long history of that world.

  Great Llosir had appeared in person. Everyone there had seen him with his own eyes. Everyone there had heard his voice; a voice of a quality impossible for any mortal being, human or otherwise, to produce; a voice heard, not with the ears, which would have been ordinary enough, but by virtue of some hitherto completely unknown and still completely unknowable inner sense or ability evocable only by the god. Everyone there had heard-sensed-him address the Lord Armsmaster and the Lady Priestess by name.

  Other gods had appeared personally in the past ... or had they, really? Nobody had ever seen any of them except their own priests ... the priests who performed the sacrifices and who fattened on the fractions ... Llosir, now, wanted neither sacrifices nor fractions; and, powerful although he was, had appeared to and had spoken to everyone alike, of however high or low degree, throughout the whole huge amphitheater.

  Everyone! Not to the priestess only; not only to those of the Old Blood; not only to citizens or natives of Lomarr, but to everyone-down to mercenaries, chance visitors and such!

  Long live Lord Llosir, our new and plenipotent god!

  King Phagon and Tedric were standing at a table in the throne-room of the palace-castle, studying a map. It was crudely drawn and sketchy, this map, and full of blank areas and gross errors; but this was not an age of fine cartography.

  "Tark, first, is still my thought, sire," Tedric insisted, stubbornly. " 'Tis closer, our lines shorter, a victory there would hearten all our people. Too, 'twould be unexpected. Lomarr has never attacked Tark, whereas your royal sire and his sire before him each tried to loose Sarlon's grip and, in failing, but increased the already heavy payments of tribute. Too, in case of something short of victory, hast only the one pass and the Great Gorge of the Lotar to hold 'gainst reprisal. 'Tis true such course would leave the Marches unheld, but no more so than they have been for four years or
more."

  "Nay. Think, man!" Phagon snorted, testily. "'Twould fail. Four parts of our army are of Tark-thinkst not their first act would be to turn against us and make common cause with their brethren? Too, we lack strength, they outnumber us two to one. Nay. Sarlon first. Then, perhaps, Tark; but not before then."

  "But Sarlon outnumbers us too, sire, especially if you count those barbarbarian devils of the Devossian steppes. Since Taggad of Sarlon lets them cross his lands to raid the Marches-for a fraction of the loot, no doubt-'tis certain they'll help him against us. Also, sire, your father and your grandfather both died under Sarlonian axes."

  "True, but neither of them was a strategist. I am; I have studied this matter for many years. They did the obvious; I shall not. Nor shall Sarlon pay tribute merely; Sarlon must and shall become a province of my kingdom!"

  So argument raged, until Phagon got up onto his royal high horse and declared it his royal will that the thing was to be done his way and no other. Whereupon, of course, Tedric submitted with the best grace he could muster and set about the task of helping get the army ready to roll toward the Marches, some three and a half hundreds of miles to the north.

  Tedric fumed. Tedric fretted. Tedric swore sulphurously in Lomarrian, Tarkian, Sarlonian, Devossian, and all the other languages he knew. All his noise and fury were, however, of very little avail in speeding up what was an intrinsically slow process.

  Between times of cursing and urging and driving, Tedric was wont to prowl the castle and its environs. So doing, one day, he came upon King Phagon and the Lady Rhoann practicing at archery. Lifting his arm in salute to his sovereign and bowing his head politely to the lady, he made to pass on.