"What is it, child? What is it?"
"He—he fled. He had lost much blood and he was weak, yes, but he didn't even stay to protect me. He fled from Retoc. Is that a god? Is that even a man who can bring retribution to Retoc? Is it, Hammeth? Is it?"
"Yet you're taking the road to Nadia even as legend says the White God will take the road to Nadia."
"Nonsense," said Ylia, wiping away her tears. "Someone has to tell the Nadians what really happened to poor Jlomec, that's all. Retoc, Retoc will have them eating off his hand. He'll have them believing whatever he says. They'll never know that he killed a prince of their royal blood."
"But what can Bontarc of Nadia—or anyone—do against the power of Retoc's Abarians?"
"The White God could—"
"Ah, you see? Then perhaps you do believe, after all."
"The White God or whoever he was," said Ylia coldly, "fled a coward from Retoc." She pouted. "And yet, and yet he seemed so confused."
"Perhaps he fled so that the Ofridians might live again in the pride of their greatness," Hammeth declared with vehemence.
"You believe, don't you, Father Hammeth?" Ylia asked simply.
"I want to believe, child."
"You're panting so. You're tired. We'll have to stop and rest."
They were traversing the deepest part of the valley where the Nadian wind, funneling through between the hills flanking the depression, had piled the snow into drifts twice the height of a man. They hunkered down in the lee of one of the snow-drifts, where the wind could not reach them. With stiff fingers Ylia withdrew strips of jerked stadmeat from the inside pocket of her snow cloak, sharing them with Hammeth. They munched the tough cold meat, Ylia looking at the old man with tenderness and affection. Her foster father, he had been the only parent she had ever known. She closed her eyes and for a moment thought back over the years they had spent as wayfarers on the Ofridian Plain, the years dreaming of revenge and succor which would never come, the years....
"Ylia! Ylia!"
Father Hammeth was calling her name, urgently. She shook herself from her reverie. They were seated with their backs to one of the great snow-drifts, where it fell off suddenly like a suspended, frozen sea wave. With a trembling hand Hammeth was pointing before him, out across the ice fields.
There in the soft snow which mantled the ice of Nadia to a depth of only a few inches, were footprints. They were not old prints, deposited there when some wayfarer had passed. Incredibly, they were being made even as Hammeth and Ylia watched, as if by some creature with no palpable existence. The icy wind seemed intensified.
* * * *
"It—it's coming toward us," Hammeth said, his voice a croaking whisper. Ylia knew that he was afraid again. Somehow with the advancing years, the steel and fire had gone from Hammeth's heart. Or perhaps, she thought in sympathy, the terrible defeat and destruction of Ofrid a hundred years ago had done this to him, had turned one of the Queen's proven champions into an aging craven wayfarer.
"We'll have to flee," Hammeth said breathlessly.
Behind them was the frozen wave of snow. To the right, far away across the snows, Abaria and the Plains of Ofrid. To the left, not half a day's journey, Nadia City. Ahead of them, the advancing footprints.
"Your whip-sword!" Ylia cried. "Quickly."
"I carry it, but I can't use it now," Hammeth protested. "I'm an old man, Ylia. An old man."
"Then let me have it."
"You? But you're just a girl. You couldn't—"
"Don't you see, Father Hammeth? It's only a man. An Utalian. It can't be anything else. If he comes in peace, well enough. Otherwise ... here, give me that sword."
But Hammeth shook his head with unexpected pride and pulled the weapon from its scabbard.
Just then the footprints became wider spaced and appeared more quickly in the snow. The invisible Utalian was running toward them. Awkward, cursing at his own impotence, Hammeth fumbled with his weapon.
You who call yourself Bram Forest, Ylia thought, White God or whatever you are—help us, help us! Then she hated herself for the unbidden thought. Bram Forest had deserted her once, hadn't he, after she had saved his life? What help could she expect from a man like Bram Forest? Or was Father Hammeth right? Perhaps Bram Forest had fled so that Ofrid might one day live again to see the wrath of the gods fall on Retoc and his Abarians.
Or, Ylia thought with an abrupt flash of insight, perhaps Bram Forest's flight had been out of his control. Perhaps he was as yet a pawn in a game he barely understood....
Bram Forest, we need you!
The running footprints were almost upon them.
CHAPTER XII
Volna the Beautiful
Bram Forest had been day-dreaming.
Ylia? Hadn't Ylia been calling his name? But how could that be? Ylia was almost two hundred million miles away. Clearly, as long as they kept the magic disc away from him, he could never see Ylia again. And besides, now that he had been vouchsafed a vision of his dead mother, the former queen of Ofrid, and now that that vision had conjured up the entire tragic past for him, why was it that when he shut his eyes and allowed the bright sun to beat down on the lids through the cell window he saw an image of the sun-browned maid, Ylia?
Could it be, he asked himself, wondering if somehow he were profaning the memory of the mother he had never known, that Ylia stood not for the past but for the present and the future, and that it was in the present and the unknown future that Bram Forest must live and do his life's work and perhaps perish, although he was motivated from the past?
A guard brought food on a tray. The cell door clanged open, the tray was delivered, the cell door clanged shut. The guard did not pay particular attention to Bram Forest: he had been a docile enough prisoner.
Ylia, he thought.
He knew he must escape next time the guard brought food.
* * * *
Dr. Slonamn held up the bracelet with the metal disc on it and stared curiously at the contraption. He was a psychologist, he could hardly consider himself an expert on metallurgy. Still, he had never seen a metal like that from which the disc had been fashioned. It seemed too opaque for steel, too hard for silver. A steel and silver alloy, then? But he had never heard of a steel and silver alloy.
He held it up to the light. Like a fly's many-faceted eye it threw back manifold images of—himself. Somehow, it made him dizzy to gaze at the images. He drew his eyes away and had an impulse to fling the strange disc away across the room.
The sun was going down. He heard a clattering from the prison kitchen as the evening meal was prepared. Tomorrow, he thought, should see the completion of his work here. Another interview with the paranoid giant who had brought the disc, perhaps. The disc fascinated him.
He looked at it again. He didn't want to, and recognized the strange compulsion within himself. Then, before he quite realized it, he was staring at his multiple image again. His senses swam. There was a far-away rustling sound like—the words came unbidden to his mind from a poem by Kipling—like the wind that blows between the worlds. He gazed again at the disc. It seemed to draw him, as a magnet draws iron filings. Now he wanted to fight it, wanted to fight with every ounce of his strength. A wave of giddiness swept over him, leaving nausea in its wake. He clutched at the prison-office desk for support. The rustling grew louder.
He saw—or thought he saw—a girl, a lovely, sun-bronzed girl. There was a look of fear on her face. She seemed to be crying out for help.
An abyss yawned before his feet, before his very soul. He longed despite himself to plunge into the abyss, whatever the fearful consequences might be. He lurched back, fighting the longing. Yet he knew he wouldn't win. He took a step forward....
"Give it to me!"
The voice, urgent, distant, beckoned him back to reality. It seemed a great distance off, but it was something to which he could hold.
"Give me that disc!"
He felt himself dragged roughly back, saw the abyss retreating.
The rustling of the wind between the worlds became distant, a sound imagined rather than heard.
"Give it to me!"
* * * *
He blinked. The nausea had washed over him. He felt weak, drained, exhausted. But the substantial reality of the prison office surrounded him.
The young giant stood before him, strapping the bracelet which held the disc on his powerful arm. A look of intense concentration was on his face. His skin was bathed with sweat although it was cool in the room.
"What did you do to the guard?" Dr. Slonamn asked, wondering if the prisoner would slay him.
"He'll be all right. I only hit him. I'm sorry. It was necessary." The giant spoke in haste. His eyes were clouded, dreamy, as if he had taken an overdose of barbituates.
"What are you going to do?"
"You saw? In the disc?"
"Yes," said Dr. Slonamn.
"I'm going. It's my home."
The giant took a step forward, then began to stagger.
"Your home?" Dr. Slonamn gasped. "Your home?"
The giant, who had given his name to the prison authorities as Bram Forest, did not answer. Dr. Slonamn reached out, as if to grab him. Bram Forest stood there, a smile and the acceptance of pain fighting for mastery of his face.
Dr. Slonamn staggered back as if struck. His hand had passed through Bram Forest's body.
Staggering, trembling, Dr. Slonamn leaned for support on the desk. He could see through Bram Forest now. See through him entirely.
A cold fierce wind, like no wind ever felt on Earth, touched him. He shuddered.
When he looked again, Bram Forest was gone....
* * * *
"Retoc the Abarian!" the seneschal's voice proclaimed.
An uneasy stir passed through the crowd of mourning courtiers in the palace chamber. Retoc, ruler of Abaria, did not often visit Nadia. A state of armed tension existed between Abaria and Nadia of the ice fields. Nadia alone of the many disunited nations of Tarth had strength in some ways comparable to that of black forested Abaria, but even then, if a war came between the two nations, the issue would never seriously be in doubt.
As a matter of diplomacy, Retoc had been invited to the funeral of Prince Jlomec, although neither Bontarc, ruler of Nadia, nor his sister, Volna the Beautiful, had ever dreamed he would come.
While the crowd milled about in their white mourning garments, Retoc told the seneschal: "I wish an audience with the Princess Volna."
The crowd was suddenly quiet. Volna the Beautiful, haughty, imperious, princess of the royal blood, would certainly refuse to see the Abarian ruler. Nevertheless, the seneschal bowed low, said, "Your request will be carried to the staff of the royal household, lord," and disappeared behind a hanging.
* * * *
Some time later, in another part of the palace, Bontarc was saying: "Volna, Volna, listen to me. You can't see that man now."
"I'm going to see him," Volna the Beautiful told her brother. "So it may not be said that a princess of the royal blood hid in fear behind a wall of tragedy."
"But sister! With dear Prince Jlomec still not on the burning barge which will carry him down the River of Ice on the final journey from which—"
"Please, brother," Volna said a little coldly. "I'm going to grant Retoc his audience. Don't you understand? He thinks me weakened by Jlomec's death. Oh, I loved the Prince, yes. He was always so—so quiet and aloof from affairs of state. But I can be strong if strong I have to be."
"Then you won't change your mind?" Bontarc asked. He was a fighting man by nature. The devious paths of diplomacy he set foot on only with reluctance.
For answer Volna said: "Let me prepare to greet the royal visitor." And she watched Bontarc leave her quarters.
At once she clapped her hands. Six serving maids skipped through the hangings into her huge bower and while they clustered jabbering about her like so many excited birds, she undid the fastening at her left shoulder and allowed her gown of mourning white to fall in a crumpled heap at her feet. She stood naked and perfectly still while the serving maids administered to her, each girl a master in one of the cosmetic arts. And Volna, she of the haughty face and glorious body, she who already had been beautiful to look upon, was soon transformed by the cosmetic arts into the loveliest woman the planet Tarth had seen since the Queen Evalla.
Her thoughts went to the dead queen of Ofrid as the maids dressed her again in the mourning garment. Evalla, a woman with beauty to match Volna's, had ruled the most powerful nation Tarth had ever known. Then, Volna smiled, why not another such woman, with hands strong enough, and vision clear enough, to grasp the chalice of power and drink deeply of its heady brew?
* * * *
"Retoc," she was saying a few moments later.
She clapped her hands. The maids in waiting withdrew, giggling.
"Volna, Volna," said the big Abarian ruler. "You are glorious. Every jek of the journey from the Plains of Ofrid across the ice fields of Nadia, I burned for you." He came very close to her. His face swam before her vision, a hard, strong, handsome face with the cruel eyes of a sadist. Fitting consort for a woman who would rule the world? His lips parted....
Volna, smiling, placed her cool hand over his mouth.
"Then let me put out the fire," she said coolly, "for we have much to discuss."
"But Princess, I—"
"Hush. And what, exactly, were you doing on the Plains of Ofrid?"
Retoc's big face flushed red. Then, when he saw Volna was still smiling, he said: "When we met last, you mentioned that two men stood between you and the throne of Nadia."
"Yes?" said Volna, mocking him, turning swiftly with the light behind her sending its bright beams through the white mourning garment and outlining the seductive curves of her body.
"Jlomec is dead," Retoc said simply.
Still smiling, Volna slapped the big man's face ringingly. Retoc stepped back, startled.
"Fool!" Volna hissed. "I can call the guards. I can have you slain."
"But I—"
"I did not say I was not pleased. But don't lie to me. That isn't why you slew my brother. Well, man, is it?"
Retoc bowed his head. Only in his eyes there was fury. "We'll make a strange pair, Volna, you and I," he said passionately.
"Is it?"
Retoc shook his head slowly.
"You see? I knew it. I knew it was you when they told us Jlomec had been slain, and yet because I know you and know too how you are quick to passion, I told myself you had not done it consciously because I had suggested it to you. Fool. Can I trust such as you?"
"Only Bontarc stands between you and empire. And Bontarc is a simple man."
"As you are a passionate man."
"Yet you need me, Volna. You need the strength of my arm—and my army. What a pair we'll make!"
Volna stepped into the embrace of his big arms and allowed herself to be kissed. Retoc burned for her. He had said so. All men burned for her, she knew that. And, before she was finished, every man of Tarth would kneel at her feet and call her Queen.
Retoc drew back finally, breathing hard. Volna had for him only a cool, mocking smile.
* * * *
At last he said, "There are some who might say Retoc of Abaria killed the royal prince."
"Dolt! Were you seen?"
Retoc shrugged as if it were not important. "A band of wayfarers on the Ofridian Plain. They were so frightened, they fled at once. After I had wounded the white giant."
Volna's eyes flashed suddenly. "There was someone else? You did not kill him?"
"I tried to. He escaped, Princess."
"Then you are more a fool than I thought."
"But I—"
"Begone! We can't be seen together too much. Take quarters in Nadia City, and let me know where you are. You understand?"
"Yes, Princess."
She allowed him to kiss her hand, then he withdrew. A few moments later, at her summons, the seneschal appeared. Subtly her face had changed. No l
onger was she the desiring and desirous princess. Instead, she was a grieving sister, whose brother's body still lay in state in the royal palace.
The seneschal, whose name was Prokliam, bowed obsequiously. He knew that by custom the body of a royal Nadian floated down the River of Ice in the company of two living servants—one man and one woman—who would perish with him in the Place of the Dead. He knew also that he had been Jlomec's favorite and now lived in constant fear that the Princess Volna would decree that he, Prokliam, must accompany his dead master on the Journey of No Return, to serve him in death as he had served him in life.
"Yes, lady?" the frightened Prokliam asked.
"Bontarc, our king, grieves mightily for the dead prince," Volna said.
"All Nadia grieves for Jlomec, lady," Prokliam said, and added hastily: "Although I must admit I do not grieve more than the next man. No, no, it is a mistake to think I was Jlomec's favorite."
"Be that as it may Bontarc grieves so that for a while at least some of the affairs of state will be in my hands."
"I hear and understand lady."
"Good. If anyone comes—anyone at all, whether wayfarers from Ofrid or others—with news of how Jlomec died, they are to be brought at once to me. Is that understood?"
"Yes, my princess." Prokliam the seneschal bowed low once more.
"Serve me well in this, Prokliam, and you will be rewarded in measure."
Prokliam smiled. "I will be the personification of discretion," he said boldly, baring his toothless old gums.
"Then perhaps I will still the rumors that you were the dead Jlomec's favorite."
Prokliam dropped at the royal feet and touched his lips to the royal toes. Then he bowed out of the room.
Volna stared for many moments at her beautiful face in the mirror. Queen, she thought. She said it aloud:
"Queen Volna."
CHAPTER XIII
The Journey of No Return
Earlier that day, on the ice fields half a dozen jeks from Nadia City, B'ronth the Utalian had sprinted boldly across the snow toward the girl and her elderly male companion. This had taken considerable effort, because B'ronth the Utalian had not been endowed with an abundance of courage. But B'ronth was a poor man, as Utalia was a poor country; a bag of gold would be a veritable fortune to him. Like most cowards, B'ronth had one passion which could over-ride his timidity: that passion in B'ronth's case was wealth.
The 8th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Milton Lesser Page 33