by Tanith Lee
It had seemed reasonable to Velday that his amorphous plans could afford to move slowly. He was not impatient that they should do otherwise, being unsure of his method, unsure basically of his goal, for Ceedres’ death, though contemplated, had remained theoretical for him. (The alterations in Velday’s character were still congealing, and yet to harden into rock.) He was only aware of driving Tilaia toward some brink or other, and that this might be of value.
And then, in the tenth hour of Jate, Velday entered the lower salon of Hirz, that room in which his sister had heard eight houses speak against her, and Ceedres, turning from a robot, said to him; “Now we know why the region’s anteline herds are failing. We’re not hunting them out, it seems. Three or four prides of lionag are at the work.”
Velday, sallow from a wretched slumber, angry, and sullen that he had seemed forced to drink wine, blaming Ceedres, as always now, for his dependence and illness, put a hand to a bench to steady himself.
“Come,” Ceedres laughed, and led him to a seat. “The notion of culling lionag never used to set you fainting.”
“A lionag hunt,” said Velday thickly, staring at the floor, Tilaia’s wise habit. “I remember Ermarth Yune Zem was killed on the most recent one. I remember the dare-hunt when you were fourteen, the beast which leaped at you—”
“And which I shot with no trouble. Please don’t quake for me, Velday.”
Velday was seeing the old hunts dart before his vision. Lionag spelled danger and were revered for it. Ermarth was not the only young prince to give up his surety of three hundred years because of them. At nine years, Velday had crouched in terror, the sepia cat seeming to hang in the green air over Ceedres’ shoulders. They had been lucky, that Jate. Or Ceedres had been lucky. If Ceedres had had less luck, the fortune of others might have persisted.
Even in his novel persona, this idea disturbed Velday, suggesting as it did the concrete facts of death.
“If I’m to hunt, I shall have to curtail my draughts of wine,” he said aloud.
“Well, I never saw a drink spoil your aim, Vay.”
Velday’s blood seemed to rise up and choke him. In a split second, he reasoned everything and held the ultimate veracity in his hands. For he realized that Ceedres, whose plans till now had also been leisurely, saw in this unsafe hunt a way to be rid of him.
He thinks me far gone on my road indeed, to reckon I’d not fathom the scheme.
But Velday, frankly—(the former Velday)—would not have fathomed it. As for the other princely houses, they had watched his decline with pity, brief sympathy, disgust. Yune Hirz mourned for his sister, and took to debauchery to alleviate distress. That they forgave. But when the debauch had not satiated itself, but progressed into vaster and more uncaring depravity, they had averted their faces and their thoughts from him. If he went drunken to a hunt and died due to the foolishness, they would lament the destruction of his title and his house, and know an unadmitted relief that the thorn had been cut from their flesh. He disgraced them, their finesse and their code. He would be better dead, with his deranged sister. Let the name of Hirz drift away with the dust, or let Ceedres, popular and superb, bear that name alone, with the wrecked name of Thar.
For all his knowledge, Velday felt a bitter fury. Hunting death, it would be easy to dispose of an intoxicated fool, so easy to let him in the way of slaughter, and no hint of guilt for anyone. Again, the Law blinkered.
And then, the unformulated floating threads of Velday’s own plan wrapped together into a knot of steel. It was virtually as if another had sown the plot for him, cultivated and now presented it, seasoned, ripe, requiring only a touch to bring it from the tree.
Velday drank the wine Ceedres handed him.
“Years,” he mumbled, “since we hunted Lionag. I will be thankful for the sport, Cee.”
Ceedres immediately rewarded him, telling him some apocryphal tale of hunting. It was witty and made Velday laugh, through the white blade in his heart.
At the twentieth hour, the fourth of Maram, Velday entered Mansion Seta and was conducted to Tilaia’s apartment.
Ceedres had gone to a supper at the Onds; Velday, politely invited, was too stupefied to accept, an event amazing to no one. When Ceedres had departed, most of the stupefaction was put away with the wasted flagons. In addition, Velday, who once in the vicinity of Ceedres had been his mirror, now assumed certain of the qualities of Ceedres during his absence. By the time Velday had come to Seta, these qualities had extended themselves. Until, when he stepped into the chamber and Tilaia was before him, the transfiguration seemed to Velday nearly complete. Last vestige of hero worship, it stimulated and uplifted him. On the girl, who seemed to note it well, it had another effect.
She kneeled to him, and cried: “Be kind—be lenient.”
“What else?” said Velday.
Across her cheek was a murky welt, the same upon her shoulder. The Chures had not, apparently, included good manners in their attentions to her. But she had not approached the Law—what zenena would accuse an aristocrat? The injury nauseated Velday, but he simply remarked, “I trust you were recompensed.”
Tilaia got up and met his gaze. Suddenly she appeared to accept this ally, or else she was as desperate as Velday had hazarded.
“They gave me nothing,” she said. “They came as the guests of Ceedres.” She let her eyes moisten with actual tears.
“That’s too bad. I can’t let you be treated in this way.”
He gave her the credits he had brought for her. Her face became greedy and frantic, and she concealed it by kissing his wrists.
“He shows me no generosity. But you—”
“I’d be your protector,” Velday said quietly, “to save you from his cruelty. But he would destroy both of us. Already I know he expects to kill me.”
“Impossible—”
“No. Too possible. He’ll evade the Law, as he did when he incriminated my sister to get a foothold in Hirz. He’s clever, and there are means at hand—a lionag hunt. He won’t find it unduly taxing to his ingenuity. When I’m dead, all Hirz will be his. I’m sorry, Tilaia. I don’t envy you. If you run from him, I suppose he will merely provide a worse punishment.”
Tilaia stole closer. Her proximity excited him, not to lust, but to strength, the strong identity of Ceedres.
“Prince,” she said. There was a long interval. Eventually, the words projected themselves, inevitably. “You spoke of vengeance—is there no way?”
“Yes. One way. But it would involve your help.”
At the outright confrontation, she recoiled. Then her hand wafted up to her bruised and lacerated cheek. Two practiced, mostly constrained, drops overflowed her eyes.
“You’re an aristocrat. You say the Lawguards can be lied to. You might involve me, then sacrifice me to the Law in your place.”
“You might do the same.”
“I?”
He perceived she understood, even as she interrogated him.
“You’ll be privy to my design, as I will be to your efforts to assist me. Equally guilty, how can one denounce the other? Yunean justice is flawed, I have seen that clearly enough, but it’s to our advantage. I surmise Ceedres can die without suspicion touching either of us. As he intends to kill me without suspicion touching him.”
“And you’d protect me? You would be my master?”
“Even if I wanted otherwise, I could hardly refuse. But in any case, I see your worth, if he ignores it.”
“But you don’t know my worth.”
“Oh, he speaks of you, sometimes.”
She was flattered rather than insulted, pure Slum-girl to her roots, he thought, Dimly, unacknowledged, the Ceedres he had almost become glanced staeds ahead, and beheld Tilaia also removed, a blighted plant, from his garden.
She did not scan so far, or, if she did, she did not dwell on the sight. The presen
t was her country.
“What must I do?”
“Get me some quick, debilitating, tactile poison of the Slumopolis.”
“A poison?”
“The Slum’s famous for such items.”
“There are residues of the manufacts, drugs—some have been known to apply them—but they leave their mark, even in a reduced dosage that does no more than cripple for a space. Anyone would detect murder.”
“It doesn’t have to dispatch him,” Velday said flatly. “Just make an imbecile of him. What he would make of me. The lionag will do the rest.”
An answering hate was in her look, and a nuance of insecurity, too, a shadow of loss, for worship had mingled with fear, as fear with worship. Ceedres was her god also, and to slay the gods took a weird courage, a temerity beyond all others.
Velday lightly raised her hand to his lips. There were flowers on her nails this time.
“Now you know it all,” he said, and very softly, in the winning, mesmerizing tone of Ceedres, “will you resign me to the Law?”
Her lids fluttered down, her hands in his fluttered. Her emotion seemed spontaneous. She had given him power over her. She had given him power.
* * *
• • •
The smoke marker blotted the air, thirty feet over the plain. It was black, the danger color of the Yunea, for it indicated a major nest of lionag, a pride seven or eight strong, in a crevice of the rocks above.
The hesten border of the Hirz estate lay only seventy-one staeds away, but this was a tract of dry brown veldt. Treeless, it leased itself instead to stands of slender cacti that gradually mounted up on large shelves and staircases of auburn stone, dashed with that lower redder sun of the outer hunting lands. Far out and to hespa, an opaque scale of greenness revealed water. Here, the world baked in its clay. Amid the rocks, unaware the robot machines of men had spotted them, labelled them with a banner of black smoke, the lionag kept Maram in Jate, poured over the ledges, or into the shelter of their rickety nest of reeds, cacti quills and the bones of creatures they had devoured long ago.
A quarter of a staed off, the lines of faceless hunt robots had halted, forming a ring. The spy kites, filaments extruded, had lifted above the steps of the rock, seeking noiselessly toward the nest.
The mortal hunters lounged in their bird chariots, around seven feet from the ground, and moderately quaffed their wine. Their pose was more affected than usual. The guns made a shining palisade between themselves and what might run down the natural stairway to greet them.
“This is too tame, Cee,” Velday said. “Do you remember when we were boys, when we hunted without robots? That was something. But this—this—”
“Vay wants to tear lionag apart with his bare hands,” said Omevia Yune Ond. Women did not generally pursue lionag, but she leaned on the rail of Ceedres’ chariot, her hair tinted the color of its bronze, her black hide gloves dappled with orange gems, an enticement to blood.
“Why not?” said Velday. “I have white caffea here. After a sip of that, a man can do—anything.”
“You should drink less with lionag in the offing,” said Naine Yune Ond, Velday’s neighbor on the other side.
“I have drunk very little,” said Velday. He straightened himself. It was true, he did not seem as dehumanized as on other occasions.
“I also think,” Ceedres added, “we might get in somewhat nearer. There are six of us and twelve robots. For myself, I propose taking a gun up to that ridge there. If the cats break away to hespa, we’ll lose them.”
There was a murmuring. Omevia said silkenly, “Six guns? You don’t include me in the tally, Cee.”
“Only as my inspiration.”
One of the Yune Domms called over: “Ceedres is right. These things have been pilfering our hunting preserves, too. Sometimes whole carcasses are left to rot. They’ll kill for sport and not eat, this nest.”
Uched Yune Ket was swinging from a kneeling chariot, pointing a Ket voice robot to select a gun for him.
“I’m for Ceedres’ plan. And I’ll carry the gun myself. The robot can walk behind.”
“And I,” said Omevia, “I’m to languish here.”
“Never languish,” Ceedres said to her. He kissed her fingers as Velday had kissed the fingers of Tilaia. “We’ll leave six robots and the voice robots to guard you. And our friend, younger Domm, must stay and guard you as well. And Velday.”
The younger Domm protested. Naine also protested at the foolhardiness of going up the rock on foot, yet he too swung down, his public bravery in the balance. Velday jumped from the upright bird and landed neatly.
“You see,” he said loudly, “I’m fit as any of you.”
“No, Velday,” Ceedres said.
“Yes, Velday,” said Velday. He flourished a bow to Omevia. “Gorgeous Mevi, tell my brother I’m capable of tearing lionag in two with my bare hands. Didn’t you say I would? See, I’m fastidiously gloved as you are.”
Omevia laughed desultorily and turned from him.
“Let him come with us,” said the elder Domm. “He’s just sober enough, and we have our half of the robots.”
Omevia was already purring from Ceedres’ chariot, striving to fascinate the younger Domm, her gold-leaf lids lax with incipient boredom. She had come to see a kill and to ride with Ceedres. She stared across the plain and up the sun-washed staircase. Soon, the five princes made their show for her by climbing it in limber, meticulous strides, the guns glinting in their arms or the digits of their hunt robots. All but Velday. Velday straggled, pace fluctuating. She had a startling premonition, and half raised her hand, ready to cry out to them. Then her hand fell. The younger Domm had begun moodily to talk of intellectual, mechanically composed poetry, to intrigue her. Omevia, reclining on the hot balm of the endless day, grew listless with suspense, not attending.
Near the top of the staircase, higher than the black marker, the climbers checked.
“The nest is through that crevice, there,” said Uched.
“They’ll have heard us. They’ll be stirring,” said Domm.
Ceedres gave an order to two of the six robots to proceed up and around the rock case, to come at the nest from the rear.
“This is too close for selective aim,” said Naine. He shifted morosely. “I could go down a step or so.”
“Yes, that’s a good thought,” said Ceedres. “We’ll need at least one man to back us on this side.” Relieved, relaxing a fraction, Naine removed himself about ten feet down and poised, considering a further retreat. “What about you, Uched?” added Ceedres. “You’ve a keen eye.”
“I’m comfortable here.”
“Then, from here, I’ll go up alone.”
“Ceedres, we’re on top of them now,” Yune Domm said. A phlegmatic man, sense not nerves had prompted him.
“On top of them, and they haven’t come to meet us. They’re full of game, and sluggish. I think I can start the entire pride up and into our guns, if our placings are sound.”
“There are eight cats to our five men.”
“And the six machines. Some of the nest will be puny, young.”
“Ceedres,” said Velday, “is hunt master. Ceedres’ decree is our law. I remember—”
Ceedres stood by Velday and slipped one arm casually about his neck.
“We must not brag, Vay, of our babyhood ventures. Go to the hest and set your gun. Or, better, the robot will do it.”
All my life, striving to emulate my hero. He knows what he does now I must follow. the more he puts me away, the more I rush onward. He knows.
“Cee, I’ll go with you.”
Aloft, out of sight, a peculiar mewling snort.
Each man recognized the sound, and fell silent.
A spy kite sprang up into the sky and away, and filling the top of the rock after it was a lionag, burst from t
he nest below. Only one. Like a carving of the brown stone, it craned its serpentine head, polarized eyes gleaming like two black jewels. The collar of ruff was electric. It was impetuous, an adolescent of its kind. Reckless with bloodthirst, it launched itself straight off from the rock—and into the explosion of Naine’s gun and Domm’s. Uched’s order to his robot to shoot was superfluously carried out as the animal spun, shattered and bleeding, from view, back into the crevice.
Shuddering with reaction, Naine cried, “That will give them something to ponder.”
As if on his cue, a guttural snarling reverberated from the throat of the crevice. But no more cats came out.
Ceedres began, almost negligently, gun on arm, to ascend. He stepped through into the crack of rock just below the point where the first lionag had emerged. Domm cursed mildly. Recharging the stem of his gun with a deft sliding stroke, he went after Ceedres. Velday, gun in hand, thrust in front of him. Domm did not remonstrate. Naine with two robots on his lower stair, Uched crouched with a Ket hunt robot to hespa, were well stationed to pick off what might come erupting forth. The sixth robot trod after Domm, its featureless mask tilted slightly to absorb the sounds from the rock, the decrees of the men.
The crack widened, and the nest appeared, untidily agglomerated between the cacti and the stones. The single remaining young male of the pride prowled on the sloping ledge that ran up to the summit. About three yards below, the dead one lay. In the nest itself, the rounder heads of females, two of them, poked up and snaked down again, and there was the glottal chatter of two or three cubs. All was indecision now. Lionag could read death and its significance, and the spitting of guns. Then, with no proper warning, the king cat shouldered from the nest.
He was a colossus, some inches taller than a man from ear to pad, longer in his length than the brazen mechanical beasts which drew the princely chariots. Even polarized, his eyes gave off a redness, as of fire within. His thick tail lashed against muscled flanks fluid as oil. The younger male, impetus regained in the giant’s presence, jumped to his side.
Velday thought, So even they have their heroes.