Where the ground could be seen it was dark red-brown with blood. Clouds of flies were settling upon the cadavers, and vultures circled expectantly overhead.
Vakar Zhu sheathed his blade and tied up his leg-wounds with strips of cloth from the garments of fallen men. He found Lord Kalesh (he who had brought word of the Gorgons' circumnavigation to Lorsk) astride a blood-spattered horse. Vakar put Kalesh in charge of the army with instructions to secure any Gorgonian ships that had not gotten away, and to camp on the plain that night. Then he borrowed Kalesh's horse and set off up the steep road for Mneset. At the top he picked up Ryn with his chariot. Vakar slid off his horse, saying:
"Mind you if I ride with you? These wounds in my legs will heal faster."
"Get in, get in."
They creaked slowly homeward, learning that nearly everybody they met thought that the Lorskans had lost the battle, such word having been spread throughout the land by the early fugitives.
-
Nine days later they reached Mneset in a drizzle with several hundred men trailing behind them. They found the gate shut and signs of preparations for a siege. Vakar shouted:
"Ho there! Open for Prince Vakar! The Gorgons are beaten!"
An armed man stuck his head over the wall. "What's that, sir?"
"I said, the Gorgons are beaten. Open up!"
"Just a minute, my lord." The man disappeared, but others appeared in his place, looking down silently and fingering their bows and spears.
Vakar fidgeted with impatience. The stragglers from the army came seeping along the road, afoot and on the backs of horses and mules, until a crowd of them was gathered in a semicircle around the gate.
Vakar fumed: "I don't know what ails those fellows. They've had plenty of time to open."
He shouted, but without effect; the armed men on the wall stared down silently. After a while the head of his brother Kuros appeared, saying:
"What's this lying tale of the Gorgons' being beaten?"
"Lying!" cried Vakar. "Come out here, coward, and I'll show you what's a lie!"
"What? No man speaks to a king like that and lives!"
"King?" yelled Vakar. "What do you mean, king?"
"Just what I said. The old man died while you were gone, first naming me his successor. He agreed it was high time we dropped the absurd old custom of ultimogeniture."
It took Vakar a few seconds to gather his wits after this shattering news. Finally he said:
"That's illegal and unconstitutional, and you know it. Even if it's true, which I have only your worthless word for, the king may not change the succession without the Council's approval."
"Well, I'm king in any case, with several thousand soldiers to make it stick. What are you going to do about it?"
"Murderer! Traitor! Usurper!" screamed Vakar, foaming in his rage. "You slew Söl the spy when he'd have revealed how you'd sold Lorsk to the Gorgon king! You tried to destroy your own army at Kort by fleeing as the battle started, and now you've seized the throne after no doubt hurrying our poor father into his next incarnation by smothering him with a pillow! Come out here with your sword, now, and we'll settle the succession man to man!"
"Do I look stupid?" replied Kuros. "Here!"
As he spoke, Kuros snatched a bow from a man beside him, nocked an arrow, and let fly. Vakar ducked as the missile whizzed past, missing him by inches and piercing the foot of one of the spectators, who yelped. The stragglers scattered in all directions, the wounded man limping after them with the arrow in his foot. As Kuros reached for another arrow, Vakar cracked his whip, wheeled the chariot around, and drove back out of range, snarling:
"I'll back-track and pick up the rest of the army! I'll take Mneset by storm and hang that traitor from the gate-towers until he rots ..."
Ryn shook his head, clawing at his goatish beard. "That would be hard on the city, no matter who won."
Vakar leaned against the side of the chariot, staring somberly into space. The stragglers stood about in little clumps, looking from Vakar to Kuros, who stood on the wall with his second arrow nocked but not drawn, waiting to see what Vakar would do. Ryn added softly:
"And is that what you really want? Think now."
Vakar straightened up with a laugh. "Now I see what Charsela was driving at! And I also know what Rethilio meant when he said I should have to make a choice of destinies; I couldn't encompass them all in one lifetime. Why should I fight that oaf for a drafty old castle and the right to boss a mob of yokels when I have a much pleasanter berth awaiting me in Ogugia?"
"Why indeed?"
"I'm no conqueror, but a quiet fellow who asks only to be let alone to acquire true scholarship. Say farewell to Bili for me and lend me some trade-metal. I'm for Sederado!"
Vakar filled his scrip and, his legs now healed, vaulted on to Kalesh's horse. He raised his voice to the stragglers and the men on the wall:
"You have all seen and heard what has happened here. If you wonder why I'm not pressing the fight against my brother, 'tis for two reasons: first, I'm not so avid of the duties of kingship as he seems to be, and second, our land has suffered enough of late without plunging it into civil war. I'm going into exile, without renouncing any claim to the throne. If at some future date you tire of the rule of a murderer and traitor ... Well, we'll let that take care of itself when the time comes. Farewell!"
Vakar waved, threw an ironical salute to Kuros, and galloped off toward Lezôtr, singing:
"Vrir the Victorious rode to the river,
His scabbard of silver shining in sunlight ..."
-
The gods, gathered in their place of assembly, all yammered at Drax: "Fool! Why told you us not that the center of this malign influence would shift to Tartaros, Vakar Lorska being but one minor link in the chain of causation ..."
Drax writhed uncomfortably. "Pray be patient, divinities. I gave you all that my science had revealed to me. Perhaps all is not yet lost. By speeding the sinking of the western regions we can submerge not only Poseidonis but Tartaros as well."
"What matters it," said Lyr, "whether we perish by the spread of the star-metal or by the extermination of our worshippers? Why could you not leave well enough alone? If we had not caused Entigta to stir up his Gorgons, the Tahakh would still be a mere lump of meteoric iron, a harmless curiosity in the hands of Awoqqas of Belem."
"No doubt all this was fated from the beginning," said Okma.
This started a furious argument over free-will versus predestination, in the course of which Asterio, the bull-headed forest-god of Ogugia, pulled Entigta's tentacles cruelly.
But Vakar of Lorsk rode happily towards Amferé to take the last ship of the season for Sederado.
The End
* * * * * * *
Book information
"SEND PRINCE VAKAR TO SEEK
THE THING THE GODS FEAR MOST."
The witch's advice would be more useful, Vakar feels, if she would tell him what the "thing" is. But he must go, if he is to save his country from destruction at the hands of the Gorgons.
Armed only with his sword and the poisoned dagger he draws from the body of a spy killed trying to pass vital information to him, Vakar sets forth across Poseidonis, the sinking continent. Confronted with death at every turn, dazzled by the sorcery of hostile magicians, Vakar finds his true enemies are the ancient gods themselves—against whom he will have no weapon until he discovers
THE TRITONIAN RING
L. Sprague de Camp
The
Tritonian
Ring
PAPERBACK LIBRARY
A KINNEY SERVICE COMPANY
NEW YORK
PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION
First Printing: January, 1968
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Fiction House, Inc., of Stamford, Conn., for permission to quote from "The Tritonian Ring," in Two Complete Science Adventure Books for Winter, 1951.
Copyright, 1953, by L. Sprague de Camp
Paperback Librar
y is a division of Coronet Communications, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Paperback Library" accompanied by an open book, is registered in the United States Patent Office. Coronet Communications, Inc., 315 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.
TO FRITZ LEIBER
* * * * * * *
Back cover
Prince Vakar battles
the savage prehistoric gods
in his dangerous quest for
The Tritonian Ring
Night falls on the bronze-age world of Poseidonis, a continent threatened with destruction.
In the smoke of the magician's fire appears the figure of the witch Gra. "What wish the lords of Lorsk with me?"
"Advise us how to avert the menace of the Gorgons," the magician answers.
"Send Prince Vakar to seek the thing the gods fear most!"
-
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Page 24