by David Drake
The folk of Rakastava felt the same way about the newcomer. It was on the faces of all of them, children and woman and armed men, as they gazed at Dennis in his rags.
"Prince Dennis," said Gannon in a voice that lost its tremulousness after the first syllable. "Please come with me to our king, who even now prepares to receive you."
Gannon gestured. The children moved in a flutter of banners and loose clothing. They glanced back over their shoulders in quick nervousness toward the newcomers—then squealed and scattered forward when they saw that Chester moved also. The flautist took up her measured cadence and followed them.
Dennis waited for further direction. The King's Champion gestured again, this time with a touch of irritation in his eyes.
Dennis sheathed his sword. It rustled against the scabbard sides, then chimed as it shot home to the cross-guards.
"As you will," he said, striding on after the woman with the flute while Gannon and his fellows arranged themselves behind.
"Pride and arrogance are the ruin of their owner," Chester murmured.
Dennis, with the look of the King's Champion fresh in his memory, had no doubt at all for whom the robot meant that bit of wisdom.
CHAPTER 26
Dennis expected a cave. Instead, the interior of Rakastava was brighter than Emath Palace at midday. The air, while somehow lifeless, was fresh and moved in gentle currents even after the gate closed behind them.
The walls glowed. Light couldn't come through them, the way it did in Emath Palace, so it must be generated by the material itself. Maybe the air did the same...
The corridor down which the children led Dennis was high-ceilinged and lined with people. More spectators appeared at every moment from side halls or doorways that vanished again when they closed, just as the gate had done.
The citizens blinked at Dennis and gaped at the robot beside him, but their whispered excitement stilled when the newcomers passed close to them. Gannon was the only inhabitant of Rakastava who'd actually spoken to Dennis.
The youth matched his pace to that of the flautist. He'd have preferred to let his legs take the full stride he'd found so natural on the road through the jungle. For a while he tried to meet the eyes of the people looking at him, but they ducked away. That made him uncomfortable—he wasn't a freak, for goodness' sake!—and he let his sight rove along the walls instead.
The corridor's lines were softened by bands of color, primaries as well as pastels; but there was no visual art to give the passageway a human touch.
Nothing in Rakastava was human except the inhabitants.
The corridor opened into a chamber incomparably greater than anything Dennis had expected to find within a building. Even the mountainous bulk of Rakastava as he had first seen it, a slick, brown mass rising sheer from the jungle, seemed inadequate tho hold this—audience chamber, he supposed, because there were thrones and a carpeted path to them across the expanse of stony floor.
Trumpets sang, high and clear and echoing. Their well-blown notes sounded thin in the huge room.
Gannon strode past Dennis and Chester, marching toward the thrones with his head back and his armored chest thrust out. The woman with the flute had stepped to the side and vanished among the spectators.
There weren't as many people as Dennis had at first assumed. There were at least a score of corridors like the one he and Chester had followed, and all of them were spilling gaily-dressed people into the audience chamber now. But the room could hold twenty Emath Villages; and the crowd now assembling totaled less than Dennis had seen at the Founder's Day parades on any of the past five years.
In Emath, the crowds were alive—coarse, pushy; smelling of fish and spices and the sea—but alive and sure of their growing success. These folk of Rakastava were good-looking, almost without exception. They were dressed in clothes of a quality that in Emath only Hale and his family could afford—and they wore their garments with a stylishness that Dennis hadn't imagined existed before he saw it here.
But the flies glittering in circles about a corpse were brilliant to watch also; and if there was liveliness in the eyes of the folk Dennis saw around him, it was only that. Rakastava was great, but it was dead; and the people who inhabited the city spun in their courses over carrion.
The King's Champion quick-stepped toward the thrones. Dennis followed, lengthening his own stride instead of trying to match Gannon step for step. They reached the end of the carpet. Spectators were drifting along beside the newcomers, watching them avidly. There didn't seem to be much formality in the arrangements, despite the way the newcomers had been greeted.
Buzzing flies, Dennis thought again. Aloud though in a low voice he said the Chester, "I don't like this place at all. What's wrong with them?"
"Do not be in haste to quarrel with a powerful ruler," the robot quoted sharply. But a tentacle reached behind the youth and curled affectionately in his palm—his left palm, the hand he wouldn't need if he had to draw the sword abruptly.
The red carpet was thick enough to feel comfortable under Dennis' bare feet.
The pair of thrones provided Dennis with something other than vastness on which to focus. As he approached them, the visual scale of the room reduced to human norms. The face of the man seated to the right had wrinkles only about the eyes, but he was at least as old as Dennis' own father.
Certainly he was older than the woman to his left. She was the most beautiful girl Dennis had ever seen.
"Most noble King Conall," Gannon shouted, twenty feet from the thrones but still unable to sound impressive in a room so large. "Most gracious Princess Aria—"
There were ten or so additional men in decorative armor to either side of the thrones. An honor guard, Dennis supposed, like the one Ramos commanded at Emath.
And equally needless, it seemed. The men beside the thrones were older and paunchier than the ones who accompanied Gannon. Dennis suspected that the six who'd greeted him outside the gate were those who could throw on their accoutrements and race down the corridor in time to do so.
"I bring you Dennis of Emath," Gannon was continuing. "A wayfarer who begs your hospitality."
Dennis squeezed Chester's limb and stepped past Gannon. His body had gone cold when he realized what he was about to do, but it wasn't fear like that with which the dream wizard had struck him.
This was Dennis' choice; his decision not to be belittled before strangers... one of whom was named Aria, and whose blond hair spilled from golden combs to the middle of her back.
"Sir," he said, wondering if his own voice seemed as thin as that of Conall's champion, "I'm indeed Dennis, and I've come from Emath where my father is king. But while I wish your friendship, I need beg from no man. The jungle fed and kept me on the way here. It'll keep me again before I'll become a burden anywhere I'm unwanted."
Conall laughed and stood up.
"Pardon our insensitivity," he said as he stepped forward, extending his hands toward Dennis. "Visitors are a rare pleasure to those of us who live in Rakastava. And as for a burden—"
He gestured with one hand while the other clasped Dennis in friendship. "There are no burdens here," he said forcefully. "Rakastava is Paradise on Earth."
Aria had stepped down beside her father. Her smile had as much of amusement as greeting in it. "At the very least, Prince Dennis," she said in a clear voice pitched like a viola, "won't you allow us to provide you with clothing? If only until you return to the jungle to have it provide for your needs."
Dennis glanced down and blushed. He'd forgotten how ragged he looked. "Look," he said, grimacing. "We're traders in Emath. Traders and fishermen. Just Dennis is fine, please."
Aria herself wore a dress of gauzy blue pastel, cinched with a waistbelt. The belt's gold matched her combs and sandals, while her ring and earrings were clear, faceted jewels.
Around Aria's neck was a silver chain. Three carven crystal balls, nested one inside the other and the largest no bigger than a walnut, hung between her breasts. Th
e pendant moved when the girl did, but Dennis realized with a shock that there was no physical connection between the chain and the crystal.
As for his clothing...
"Ah, I'd very much appreciate—something to replace these," Dennis said. "I—the thorns, you know."
"Clothing of course," said Conall heartily. "And a meal, at least. You surely won't deprive us of a chance to talk with you during a banquet, will you?"
"Well, I..." Dennis said, losing his train of thought as he stared at Aria's crystal pendant. The three balls were rotating within one another, each on a separate axis. Their carved surfaces made patterns which changed the way the shadow pictures moved when a breeze stirred the leaves of Dennis' dream.
"And maybe Prince Dennis wouldn't mind taking a bath," Gannon said harshly from beside Aria where he now stood.
"I'll take him to a room where he can change, father," Aria said coolly, turning her head as if the King's Champion hadn't spoken.
"Certainly, daughter," Conall agreed, but his eyes were on Chester. "Ah, Dennis?" the king went on. "That is a—an artifact from the Age of Settlement, is it not?"
"Yes, Chester," Dennis agreed, reaching back and feeling his palm warmed by the tentacle it had snatched itself away from a few moments before. "We came from Emath together. We're friends."
Gannon smiled.
Flushing again, Dennis said, "This may interest you, Champion."
He slid the Founder's Sword a hand's breadth from its scabbard; not quite a threat but enough to show the blade's rugged lines. "It's from the Age of Settlement too. It's made of star-metal."
Conall smiled also. "How interesting," he said, bending forward to peer more closely. "May I?"
Dennis thought the king was going to take the sword. Instead, Conall flicked his hand so that the nail of his index finger rang against the flat of the blade.
He straightened. "How interesting," he repeated without emotion. "We have many artifacts of the Settlement here as well. I see you noticed my daughter's pendant."
"Is that what he was staring at?" Aria said with a twinkle of amusement.
Dennis flushed. Conall blinked. Gannon looked as though he'd been slapped.
"Yes, well," said the king. "Do please take our guest to a room. The banquet will begin as soon as he's refreshed himself."
"In our apartments, I think," said Aria.
Dennis watched the by-play between the princess and her father, but none of it made sense to him.
"I don't think—" Conall began doubtfully.
"It's closer," Aria said. "And it needn't be for long."
Gannon gave a snort.
"Yes, well, of course," Conall said at last. "Whatever you think best, child."
Aria gestured Dennis to come with her. The wall opened into a doorway just as Dennis was sure that she was about to walk into something solid.
But as he followed, watching the dress sway against her softly-curved body, he was sure of one thing: Aria wasn't a child.
CHAPTER 27
They were striding down a hallway, narrower and not as high as the corridor through which Dennis had been led to the assembly chamber. It was bland—but bright and cheerful, filled with the same diffused light as the larger volumes.
"Here, this will do," Aria said. Another door opened—would they do that for him? "Just ask for what you need, bath, clothing—whatever. Everyone's waiting in the assembly hall, but you needn't rush."
Her face lost its look of superiority though not the bitter humor that had always underlain it. "We have plenty of time here in Rakastava."
"Ah..." Dennis said. Chester could help him figure things out. Aria certainly wasn't coming into the room with him. He'd never thought that she would, never... "Thank you."
He stepped into the room. Its walls were sand colored, the hue of the shaded side of dunes in late afternoon.
"You aren't like most of the wanderers we see here," Aria said. "Vagabonds, really."
"Pardon?"
She turned away. Her skirt flowed silently as she swept back up the hallway. "It doesn't matter," she tossed over her shoulder.
"How do I close the door, Chester?" Dennis whispered to his companion.
"Tell the door to close, Dennis," the robot replied.
"Ah, close, door."
"If you meet a beautiful woman," Chester went on as the wall spread itself back over the door opening, "prove that your control over your body is greater than hers."
"Hush, Chester."
The room had a bed of modest size and what seemed to be an empty sideboard. There was no bath.
"Ah, bath, pour yourself," Dennis ordered. One of the beige walls quivered. Water gurgled beyond it.
Dennis whisked aside what turned out to be drapery rather than a solid surface like the other three sides. A tub shaped in the gentle curves of a half clamshell was filling, apparently by osmosis through its glistening body.
The tub was full by the time the youth had stripped off his clothes to get in. Not much in the way of clothing had survived the weeks since he left home, he admitted ruefully. He supposed he could wear leaves or bark... something, at any rate... if he were to spend the rest of his life in the jungle.
The water was hot but not quite uncomfortable. It had a slight scent and astringence which suggested that it already contained some sort of cleansing agent. He wished he had a proper bath sponge, but the multiple scabs and scrapes he could reach with his bare hands softened pleasantly as he rubbed them.
"Chester," he said. "Should I stay here? Or should I go back to Emath now?"
"The one who asks foolish questions wearies those around him," said the robot, his outline blurred by the steam rising from Dennis' bath. "Who but yourself knows where your heart is?"
"I can't see—spending all my life in the jungle," the youth went on. "This place is—very wonderful, in some ways... But there's something about it I don't like. And back home, well, I was right to leave and I don't think I want to go back just yet.
"I think—" Dennis closed his eyes and rested his head and arms on the edge of the tub for a moment, luxuriating in the warm cleanliness. "—that we'll stay in Rakastava for a while and learn a little more about it. And then we can go on if we want to."
"If you ask for clothing, it will appear in the cabinet, Dennis," Chester said.
Dennis rose in the tub and stepped out. The level of the water began to drop immediately. "Clothes, appear," he said tentatively.
A set of bright yellow garments rose from—through—the bottom of what he had thought was an empty sideboard.
"Wow!" he breathed aloud. "Ah, and a towel?"
When the towel—dark beige like the room's walls—appeared, he realized that he should have asked for a sponge before he got into the bath.
The garments were slippers, a tunic and loose trousers—all of a soft, slick fabric that was similar to silk; but not silk, and not any textile with which Dennis was familiar.
"Do you suppose all the rooms in Rakastava are like this, Chester?" he asked as he slid the tunic over his head.
"All the rooms are like this, Dennis," the robot replied. "Except that they may be finer."
The slippers fit perfectly. "That's amazing," Dennis said. "And none of it costs anything."
He looked at the blank wall and said, "Door, open!"
Behind Dennis as they strolled toward the assembly hall, Chester said quietly, "It would indeed be amazing if there were no costs, Dennis."
CHAPTER 28
Dennis hadn't known what to expect in the assembly hall. When the hall door opened for him, he found that tables were arranged in a circle large enough to seat the entire population of the community—well over a thousand faces staring at the newcomers.
The table closest to the door was bright with the polished metalwork of Conall's honor guard. Between the king himself and his daughter, both of them turning to greet Dennis, was an empty chair.
So far as Dennis could see, it was the only vacant seat in the ass
embly. The thrones and carpet had disappeared. It made him somewhat uneasy to realize that the tables had probably risen from—and the thrones had vanished into—the floor, much as the clothes he wore had coalesced through a solid surface.
"Well, come sit down, silly," Aria directed with a wave of her hand toward the empty chair.
Gannon glared at Dennis from the other side of the king. That was a human sort of dislike and therefore less disconcerting than many other things about Rakastava. He sat down and felt Chester creep past to lie curled and comforting at his feet.
There were no—human—servants in Rakastava. King Conall himself raised the lid of a serving dish and offered Dennis a slice of savory meatloaf. It was the first meat Dennis had eaten since leaving home. It smelled delicious, and the taste was wonderful and intriguing—
But he wasn't quite sure that it was meat after all.
No matter. It was good, and so were the vegetables on the platter beside it... Though these vegetables weren't anything he'd eaten before, either, and they had a curious uniformity instead of the layering of garden truck Dennis had eaten at home.
"I wonder, Prince Dennis," said Conall with a casualness that could only be deliberate. "There's no question of you being a burden on us here, of course. But if it would make you more comfortable during your stay at Rakastava—"
Aria made a muffled sound and looked down at her plate, though she didn't lift the forkful of loaf to her lips.
"Yes, go ahead," Dennis asked, feeling his body tense.
He'd belted the sword on over his fine new clothing, less because of expected need than because he was afraid it might vanish into the floor the way his tattered garments had if he left it. Now he was glad of its awkward weight.
"I was thinking," Conall continued. "A bold lad like you with a fine sword, well—"
Gannon was chuckling behind the king's leonine head.
"You see, we keep a herd of cows here in Rakastava. Not for our own use, but for trade with the, ah, local people."