The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  "You go ahead, Pern, I'll be along in just a moment. This won't take long, will it, Thru?"

  "No."

  Pern left them with a mocking smile.

  Thru leaned on the wall with a sudden extreme sense of weariness.

  "I cannot play for the Laughing Fish team anymore."

  Perensa's jaw dropped.

  "But why? I do not understand."

  "Pern Treevi is my sworn enemy. I will not take up the bat for any team of which he is a part."

  "This is a joke?"

  "No. Pern has tried to kill me on two occasions." Thru pointed to the bandage on the back of his head. "His malicious lies turned the Grys Norvory against me and caused me to lose my best work."

  "These are serious allegations. Do you have evidence against him?"

  "I have a witness, someone who saved my life."

  "Can this witness be produced?"

  "Oh, yes. His name is Toshak; he accompanies Nuza's troupe. I'm sure you've seen him."

  Shock spread over Rawli's plump features as the enormity of it all sank in. If Thru's charges were correct, then Pern had played a terrible trick on the Laughing Fish owner.

  "This is terrible news. We have signed paper with Pern; there is no way we can go back on it. There are lots of gold pieces in play. And, on top of that, we have your contract. You cannot play for another team anywhere in Dronned."

  Rawli's plump cheeks quivered with indignation. Thru sighed.

  "I know. That's what I agreed to, for this season. Next season I can play for anyone I want to."

  "Surely you will reconsider. Are you quite certain about these charges you have made?"

  "All too sure."

  "I have been made to look like a fool," Rawli said in disgust.

  "Pern will not care about that."

  With his dreams in tatters Thru left the Laughing Fish and went back to his room at Kussha's. He sat there trying not to let himself be consumed with the rage he felt. What would Master Cutshamakim say about this? What would Uzzieh Utnapishtim tell him to do in these circumstances?

  Every avenue had been sealed off by Pern's malice. And Pern's thugs would keep on trying to kill him until they succeeded. It was easy to feel doomed. But if Ulghrum could be brought to trial, then Pern's conspiracy might be unmasked. Of course, Thru was sure that Ulghrum would not be seen in Dronned again for a long time. Pern had other thugs at his disposal.

  When Thru failed to appear at Veso's Tavern for dinner, Nuza grew anxious. She hurried out of the city gates and on to Garth Road and Kussha's house, finding Thru in his small attic room. His news shocked her. Pern Treevi's hatred knew no bounds. At the same time she felt a wild sense of hope.

  "What this means, my love, is that you no longer have any reason to stay in Dronned. So you can come with us. Join the troupe." She was smiling, her eyes sparkling.

  "I'm not that good at juggling, and I'm surely not good enough to be an acrobat."

  "No, silly, you didn't learn those things young enough. But you can hit the ball."

  "So?"

  "So I have an idea."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Thru was now a member of the Magnificents, who accepted him quite happily as one of their own.

  "We're like a big family," said Gem, a tumbler and fiddler, who also kept stock of the troupe's store of gossip.

  "If you ever need to know somebody's business, ask Gem," rumbled big Hob, the brilby.

  "Oh, stop that. How will I ever gain his trust now?" said Gem in mock complaint.

  At the head of the procession marched Toshak, the grim, grey one with the sword. Apart from saving Thru's life, Toshak hadn't spoken much to him. Behind Toshak came their wagon, with Serling and Nuza walking beside it.

  Thru walked beside Gem while listening to the fiddler's tales of the life on the roads.

  "Nuza's very pleased at having added you to the troupe," Gem said with a conspiratorial wink. "She has an idea that hitting the white ball for money will be a crowd pleaser, too. It will be something completely different for a carnival, that's for sure."

  Thru got the feeling that Gem wasn't quite so sure. For all his flamboyance, he was a bit conservative at heart.

  "Nuza is a great artist, you understand," said Gem, suddenly turning serious. "She's the best acrobat I've seen, and I've been around carnivals all my life."

  "I've not seen that many, but certainly I've not seen one as graceful as she."

  "And I owe her a lot, because when I met her I was, well, very depressed. She helped me get back to tumbling and traveling."

  "Is there anywhere you haven't been?"

  "Oh yes, I've never been to Mauste. I spent a summer in Fauste, and that was hot enough to make me never want to go any farther south. But it was nice to see everyone walking around bare-chested, if you know what I mean."

  Thru chuckled. Gem was an extroverted lover of his own sex, no doubt of that. There were some mots who held prejudices against such folk, but Thru wasn't one of them.

  That evening they arrived in the village of Justero, twenty miles south of Dronned on the road to Sonf. They took rooms at the Oak Tree Tavern.

  When the sun rose the next morning, Thru visited the famous Justero shrine of the Spirit. Set in an oak grove south of the village, the stone shrine was like a bowl cut in the gray stone fifty feet across. He sat in the bowl and heard the soft echo of his own breathing. Mindfulness was easy to achieve here, and he meditated for a while.

  There was a shallow stone bath at the shrine, and Thru bathed in the cold water, conscious only of the feel of the water on his skin while he performed the ritual ablutions. Then he went up the steps into the stone building behind the meditation bowl.

  In the cool, dark interior a single lamp burned. An elderly mot in a brown robe bowed to him from his seat in the narthex. Thru stood quietly for a few minutes, absorbing its peaceful essence. Three rows of seats carved from stone occupied one part. An altar for placing ritual sacrifices filled the far end. A gallery opened out into the west for sunset ceremonies.

  He stood on the open stones of the gallery and did kyo. While he swept smoothly through the moves, the old brown robes watched him with complete fascination.

  Later Thru strolled back to the village in a relaxed, confident mood. Despite all the reversals and losses he had suffered in Dronned, he still had the most important thing of all, Nuza's love.

  After breakfast in the tavern's capacious kitchen, Thru took up his bat and walked the streets of the village behind the others while Hob shouted out his challenge.

  "One throw for a shilling and win twenty shillings if you can hit the red."

  That brought out a few interested parties. They told their friends.

  "Win twenty shillings if you can hit the red?"

  "You're on!"

  Nuza performed on the village green with the other tumblers and jugglers. Toshak gave his usual display of skill with the sword, and then Thru went to the Game Tree and took his stance. Judging the contest was sturdy old Lemser, the captain of the Justero Village team.

  There were quite a few young mots who thought themselves pretty good at throwing. They paid their shillings to Hob and stepped up to the line. The balls came whizzing in, hard, high, low, and wide. Thru eyed them, chose the ones that were on target, slid into his formidable batting kyo, and drove them back with one loud crack after another while a spellbound crowd watched a display of batting prowess the like of which they had never seen.

  Several of the biggest young throwers were convinced they could still get past him. They kept on laying out shillings, and stepping to the line. But nothing got by him that might hit the red zone on the Tree.

  When the last of the young throwers gave up after five attempts, Thru stepped away to applause. He was sixty shillings to the better. He gave twenty to Nuza for the troupe, and kept the rest.

  "You see," said Nuza. "I told you it would work. You're famous, my love. Everyone's heard of Thru Gillo who hit seventy-seven runs in a si
ngle game."

  "They didn't give up easily."

  "Well, of course not. Twenty shillings is a goodly sum to win. And then there's the fame of being the one to throw out Thru Gillo at the Game Tree."

  "And someone's going to get past me someday. Can't hit every ball."

  "You were good today. I bet the Laughing Fish wish they had you on the field for them tonight." It would be the final game against Yupay Village that night, and sure enough the Laughing Fish would miss him in their batting order.

  From Justero they went on to Rapuste, up the Slie River, then to Sonf and finally into Tamf. In Rapuste he struck forty-nine balls cleanly away before one got past him. Then he struck another eighteen before everyone was satisfied. He was left with forty-seven shillings. He gave Nuza fifteen and put most of the rest into the chest.

  In Tamf he faced nearly a hundred balls and drove forty to the boundary, while only one got past him to nick the red pole. He took eighty shillings, paid twenty more into the coffers of the troupe, and now had more than three hundred to his account.

  But summer was coming to a close. The vine leaves were already turning scarlet in the wine country of Tamf. The maples up north would be in their glory soon. It was time for Thru to get back to Warkeen Village, to help the family get in everything from the fields and the seapond. There was always a tremendous amount of physical labor required for the harvest, and no son of Ware Gillo would shirk it.

  He took his purse from the troupe's chest in the form of three fat gold crowns and sixty small silver shillings and at the market in Tamf he bought a pair of fine chisels for Ware and several bolts of the finest Mauste silk. Thus equipped with presents for everyone, he bought a passage north to Warkeen aboard the fishing boat, Conch, skippered by Captain Olok, a weird-looking old mot; one-eyed, with almost white fur on his head and shoulders.

  Olok was heading up to the Guni channel, where the mackerel would soon be leaping in their millions. For the consideration of a few shillings from Thru's purse, Olok would be happy to put him ashore on the sand outside Warkeen.

  On the stone jetty at Tamf harbor he and Nuza said farewell, with tears and kisses and many hugs, before he finally stepped aboard the Conch. It felt like he was tearing off a limb, but eventually he let go of her hand.

  "I will come back after the frost. The fishing boats will be heading south then, back from the banks."

  Nuza waved from the jetty. "Until then, my love. I will be in my family's old house awaiting your return."

  The command to slip the ropes came down from Olok's place behind the tiller and the Conch, a forty-foot cog with a single mast, moved away from the jetty. The sail was run up and began to billow on a fresh breeze from the south.

  He waved, but after a while there was only the distant line of the jetty to be seen, and then it was obscured by the northern headland.

  Captain Olok had a reputation as a sea mystic and that night, after a meal of fish chowder, biscuit, and seabeer, he regaled Thru with tales of the sea.

  He had actually seen mysterious beings like the Sea Mors, who swam in the ocean and sang to sailors to draw them onto the rocks.

  "But why would they do that?"

  "None can say, but 'tis thought they want to make love to them."

  Thru shook his head at such a fantastic story.

  The other members of the crew, Ushk and Duldli, were stolid types, well used to their captain's wild tales. They sipped their seabeer in silence and chewed seaweed every so often for the taste.

  Thru spent his hours on watch alert to anything like the sound of Sea Mors wailing in the surf, but the Conch just kept sailing northward, driven by a steady wind out of the south all that first night. Once he thought he spied a light somewhere in toward the land on their right side, but it lasted only a moment. He heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  After beating up the coast past distant Dronned, the Conch put into the estuary of the Dristen River. Soon they were passing seaponds to left and right and then while the Conch cast an anchor they let down the dinghy and Ushk rowed Thru ashore.

  Thru gave him three shillings and stepped ashore onto the shingle of Warkeen beach. There was a definite bite in the air. Autumn had come to the Land.

  "See you in a month's time, young Thru Gillo," said Ushk as he pushed off and rowed back through the waves toward the waiting fishing cog.

  Thru turned about and walked up the beach to the lane.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Harvest festival lasted four days in Warkeen Village, as it did all across the northern part of the Land, where winter bit more deeply than in the south. Fueled by the new season's beer, the usual dancing and singing filled the evenings in the village hall.

  The Harvest festival was a traditional time for weddings in Warkeen Village, and that year there were four, including that of Snejet Gillo, who was wed to Oiv Melbist, a distant cousin of Snejet's mother. Oiv held some good polder and a full field on the north bank of the Dristen. He would move into the Gillo household, as was customary for newlywed sons-in-law, and remain for three summers.

  The ceremony at the old oak tree had most of the village in attendance. Afterward trestle tables were laid out in the village hall and a tremendous dinner was served up. The piece de resistance was Ual Gillo's grand sweet pudding served with custard sauce. Throughout the proceedings there were toasts from all the relatives and friends. By the time everything was eaten there were restless feet under the tables.

  The fiddlers and drummers soon took up their instruments, and the dancing began.

  Standing in the front row at the ceremony, Thru had felt a quiet pride in seeing that the cloth he'd bought Snejet in Dronned had been used to make her wedding cape. The vibrant yellow-and-blue stars stood out spectacularly against the white of her dress. As they sang the wedding song in unison, Thru noted that his sister looked radiantly happy. Thru knew that Oiv was well set with polder and field and that he had a reputation as a hard worker himself. Moreover, Ual was ecstatic about the marriage. Still, Thru might have wished for a bit more wit in his first brother-in-law. But Snej was very happy with him, and that was what counted.

  Later, after the dancing had begun, Thru went up to young Oiv and embraced him. Oiv was darker and slighter in build, but Thru sensed he was strong and good of heart.

  "You take care of my sister, Oiv. Don't let her work herself to death."

  "I will try to stop her, but you know how head strong she is."

  Snejet came up and embraced both of them.

  "What do you think of him, Thru?"

  Thru looked over at Oiv. "He seems a good one for you Snej. I think you two will be very happy."

  "What about you, Thru? Will you be happy? I worry about my beloved brother wandering the face of the earth with no home."

  Thru chuckled. "But I have more than one home now. I have a home with the troupe and with Nuza. And I still have a home here."

  "You're living with an acrobat! Mother is seething, you know. All her plans have come to nothing."

  "Oh I know. I'm a disappointment to her. But at Highnoth they told me that some mots are meant to leave their home villages and move around the Land. Mixes folk up, keeps our breed strong and true."

  "Well, Oiv and I have a family. How about you and your lovely acrobat?"

  "I think so. Nuza says she wants to settle down soon and have some children."

  "And where will you live then?"

  "Well, I don't know. Maybe in Tamf, maybe Dronned, maybe here in Warkeen."

  Just then a squad of determined-looking chooks came up to present Snejet with a crown of flowers and the best wishes of all the chook clans in the village. Feathers were flying as the big birds jumped up and down and flapped their wings.

  Eventually the bonfire was lit and the King of Sloth, a dummy tied to his throne, was brought out. Round and round the fire they marched, singing the harvest song, with the king riding on the shoulders of four mots. Then they pitched the king into the fire and everyone cheer
ed as the straw mot burned and took the rule of sloth away from the village for another year.

  More barrels of new ale were being broached. Foaming mugs were held high. The hops from the early part of the summer were dry, the new barley was in, and the strong ales of autumn were brewed once more, but as a consequence, Harvest festival also had a reputation for clownish behavior and fistfights.

  Fistfights were discouraged, of course, although a few were inevitable. Clownish behavior on the other hand, was encouraged. After the hard labor of getting in the harvest, it was good for everyone to unwind. Masks and funny hats, often handed down for generations, were common at the evening revels.

  The wild music was kicking up again, and the village threw itself back into the toe-to-heel, arm-in-arm, around-and-around kind of dancing that had always marked this night of celebration. The whole village was jumping, with the chooks crowing from the rooftops.

  Thru took a breather after a while and got himself a fresh mug of ale. He slipped to the back of the crowd, where the benches were set up, and took a seat. Ware came and sat beside him. For a few moments they sat there together, sipping the ale and staring at the flames.

  "We worked hard this year, didn't we, Father?"

  "I was thankful that you came back, son."

  "Oh, I wouldn't have let you down."

  They sipped for a moment.

  "So what will you do now, my son?"

  "The repairs in the seapond need to be in place before the winter storms, but that will take only a few days with Oiv and Gil both working. When that's done then I hope to get my passage back to Tamf. The mackerel boats will be passing soon. Captain Olok was going to look for me on his way back south."

  "How long will you stay in Tamf?"

  " 'Til spring. Then the troupe will take to the road, and I'll go with them."

  Ware grimaced. "My son, this sounds like a vague, uncertain kind of life. You intend to wander forever?"

  "Well, I can work through the winter on my weaves and sell them in the summer. You said yourself that I had earned good money on my expedition to Dronned. And I can earn money in the summer just by swinging a bat."