Jewel of Tharn

by Jeffrey Lord

  Honcho spoke again. “I am 14th level, Lordsman. I am He of all neuters. If you will now excuse me I will attend to Moyna. I again make slaveface, Lordsman.” The green eyes were narrowed and there was no mistaking the smirk on the mobile lips.

  Blade knew, in that instant, that here was an enemy!

  Honcho turned again to the cringing Moyna. It pointed to the circular pad. “Enter. I, who am He, command it!”

  Moyna wept. It began to crawl on its hands and knees toward the pad. Just as it reached the edge it turned back to face Blade. Blade sensed the enormous effort this took. The creature was going against all its training, its conditioning, its built-in obedience.

  Moyna held out its hands in pleading. “Lordsman! You promised…you promised to extend my kronos. Keep your promise. Save me!”

  The other neuter had stepped a little away and was watching with an enigmatic look on its bland features.

  Blade had promised. He whipped the rapier from its sheath and stepped between Honcho and the begging Moyna.

  “It is my responsibility,” said Blade. “I commanded Moyna to do what was done. If anyone is to be punished, let it be me. So, Honcho, punish me if you dare!”

  For a moment they confronted each other. Blade extended the rapier in threatening fashion, watching Honcho’s face for every nuance of response. He had no idea how this would turn out. That was the trouble: he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. He could only follow his instincts.

  Doubt and puzzlement flickered for a moment across Honcho’s face. Then it laughed. “There is something very wrong here, Lordsman.” No mistaking the sneer.

  Honcho looked at Moyna. “In! I am being merciful. If you do not obey at once you will suffer Number 2 destruct! Do you wish that, Moyna?”

  Moyna gave a little whistling sob and crawled onto the plastic pad. Blade leaped at Honcho and thrust with the rapier, a long reaching lunge that was aimed at the heart. In the practice of his profession Blade had dueled in earnest more than once and had lived. He felt a surge of primitive joy, of blood lust, as he rammed the slim rapier directly into Honcho’s heart.

  Blade tripped and fell, off balance. He sprawled ignominiously on the floor of the chamber. The rapier clattered from his hand. It had passed through air. He had stabbed nothing! The sharp edged teksin had sliced through a wraith.

  Honcho was a dozen feet away, on the other side of the chamber. It stared at Blade with narrowed green eyes and laughed, a taunting laugh. “There is indeed something very wrong here, Lordsman. More than I thought at first. You attempt to attack a simlu? You are mad, or you have the soka illness. Or…but we will speak of that later. Moyna!”

  Blade cursed and got to his feet, raging and helpless. He could do nothing. He did not understand it all, but he did understand that this Honcho was not the real neuter, the real He. It was a picture, a ghost, a wraith, call it anything, that was somehow projected into the chamber. The real Honcho was watching from some secret place.

  Moyna was crouched in the middle of the pad, whimpering and trembling. Honcho - the projection of Honcho - raised a finger. Blade guessed that it was a command to some unseen soldier or servant.

  Moyna vanished in mid-scream. There was a slight cloud over the pad, like steamy gauze, and a faint smell of burning in the chamber. That was all.

  Honcho did not look at Blade. It spoke, apparently to the vacant walls. “Moyna destruct. See that it is entered so.”

  Blade picked up the rapier and sheathed it. He had been defeated but not shattered. He could not kill a simlu, as Honcho had named his image, but it was logical that where there was a simlu there had to be a real neuter. A real Honcho. Blade must bide his time.

  Honcho turned to Blade. “And now, Lordsman, let us speak of you. You will answer my question. You are one of the Twenty? You have escaped from the Cage in Urcit?”

  Blade tried to bluff it out. The tale had worked with Moyna. Poor Moyna.

  “Yes,” said Blade. “That is so. I escaped, but I suffered a bad fall. I struck my head. I do not remember much.”

  Honcho regarded him. No doubt of the sneer now. And yet Blade could sense that Honcho was not altogether sure of himself. Not 100 percent convinced about Blade. Something was lacking.

  Honcho pointed to Blade’s kilt-like nether garment “Pull it up. I would see.”

  Blade obeyed. He bared his genitals. The neuter gasped and took a step backward. For a moment Blade thought it was going to fall on its knees and make slaveface as Moyna had done. But no.

  The green eyes had narrowed still more, until they were mere slits now. Honcho nodded and nodded and stroked its chin with the tapering fingers. Blade covered himself, adjusting the kilt, sensing that he was losing this round.

  Honcho walked around Blade. Around and around, studying the big man from every angle. At last the neuter spoke.

  “You are no Lordsman! That I know. Yet you are homid, one of THEY. I do not understand it. And I should understand it. My birthplate lies - I am far above 14th level, although THEY do not know that - and I should understand it.” Honcho ran a finger over his close-clipped skull. “There is a great mystery here - a mystery that I will understand, I swear it - and perhaps a mystery that I can use in my own plans.”

  Blade had to keep reminding himself that this was only a simlu, not the real Honcho. It was hard to do. The neuter confronting him now was real in everything but substance.

  Blade said: “All right, Honcho. I am no Lordsman. I may be homid, but I don’t know exactly what that is. I lied. I did not strike my head. I am a stranger in your land. You appear to be an intelligent being, so let us sit down and reason together. Let us talk. You can find out about me and I can find out about you. We will be friends, not enemies.”

  Blade smiled at the neuter. It was his best smile and he took great pains with it. “I am sorry that I lost my temper and tried to kill you, Honcho. Shall we be friends?”

  Honcho fingered its chin. “It is most strange. You speak our language. We understand each other. Yet you use words I have never heard before. Friends? What are friends?”

  Blade kept his smile firm. “It means that we will not try to harm each other. That perhaps we can help each other, work together, so that each of us gets what he wants.”

  The neuter nodded slowly. “Yes. I understand that. Not that you could harm me with weapons as crude as these.” It gestured around the large chamber. “These are arfactis, from the time of a million kronos, kept as curiosities or as playthings for the beast-soldiers.”

  Blade did not answer. He sensed that the neuter image was only talking to cover deep thought. It was trying to come to a decision.

  The decision was made. Honcho put a finger to its lips and shook its head slightly at Blade. When it spoke it was not to Blade, but to the listening walls. Blade knew that this was only simlu, not the real flesh and blood creature, yet his skin crawled and the hairs prickled on his neck.

  Honcho said: “All spiscreens in Provo of North Gorge to be shuttered. I am He who commands. There will be no memspeak of those past minikronos. I repeat - no memspeak! All to be erased. Do so on command of He.”

  Honcho raised his hands and clapped them sharply. Blade sensed that now the unseen listeners and watchers were gone. Honcho wanted privacy for some reasons of his own.

  The neuter image stared at him. “Come,” said Honcho. “We will go to my real where we can talk. In secret.” He stepped toward the circular pad. Blade hesitated.

  Honcho smiled at him. “You are afraid, then? Of what happened to Moyna? Do not be. It is only to teleport, not destruct. Come. No harm. As you have said, we are friends. For now. It is really very simple. A simple disestablishment of quarks.”

  Blade stepped onto the pad. He was very close to Honcho now, and could not resist the temptation to sweep a hand through the image. He felt nothing and the image was not disturbed. It was like passing his hand through a solid vapor. Blade did not even question the contradiction in terms. He was thinking ahe
ad. Thinking furiously.

  Honcho was staring at Blade. He laughed softly. “You do not really understand at all, do you? Such a simple thing. So now I know who you are not!”

  Blade stared back. “All right. Who am I not?”

  “You are not Mazda! Not HE WHO WILL COME TO THEY. That much I know. If you were Mazda you would know all things.”

  “We are getting a little too involved,” said Blade coolly. “It is useless to talk of such things now. Let us wait, as you say, and talk in secret and in leisure, so we can come to understand each other.”

  Honcho’s face was very close to Blade’s. The neuter’s facial area was smooth skinned, marred by only a faint down, the teeth longish and a glistening white. The slitted eyes were deep green pits.

  “I tell you one thing,” said Honcho. “I have already decided this. I know you are not Mazda. You know you are not Mazda. But THEY do not know that you are not Mazda. So, if I decree it, and I may, you will be Mazda! You will be HE WHO COMES TO THEY. It is understood?”

  Blade knew that to be servile would be a mistake, perhaps a fatal one. In any case he was not a servile man. Had never been. “I promise nothing,” he said gruffly. “Let us wait and see.”

  “Yes. We shall indeed see. Take a chair and make yourself comfortable.”

  Blade gazed around in new amazement. Only an instant before he had been in the chamber, on the pad; now he was standing in the midst of a tall-ceilinged room. Somewhere music was playing. Beneath his feet was a thick-piled white rug that he knew would be made of the ubiquitous mani. There were cabinets around the walls. In the very center of the room was a large, low desk with two contour chairs facing it. In one of the chairs, reclining, smiling except for the gimlety green eyes, was Honcho.

  The neuter waved a hand toward the other chair. “Sit.”

  Blade approached the chair warily. Was this the real Honcho or more simlu?

  Honcho guessed at Blade’s thought. It stood up and extended a hand across the desk. “Touch.”

  They touched hands. The neuter’s was cool, nearly as frail as Moyna’s had been, but it was flesh and blood. Blade sank into the chair.

  Honcho smiled. “You are convinced that I am in my real at the moment, not simlu?”

  Blade nodded. “Yes. I am convinced.”

  “Good,” said the neuter. For a moment it toyed with the chain of diamonds around its neck. Then it reached into a drawer and came out with what Blade recognized as a sort of ball point pen and slate.

  Honcho poised the pen, it was really more of a stylus, over the slate and looked at Blade. “Your name?”

  But before Blade could answer the neuter held up its hand. “One moment. Before we begin I had better explain something to you. Tell me a lie.”

  Blade stared. “What?”

  Impatience flickered over the neuter’s face. “Tell me a lie! Say something that is untrue.”

  Blade grinned. “My name is Queen Elizabeth.”

  A low buzz sounded from somewhere in his chair. Two lights, set into the arm rests, began to flicker. Blade’s smile pained a little. A built-in lie detector was going to make it tougher.

  “You get the point,” said Honcho. “Now…your name?”

  “Richard Blade.”

  Again the buzzing and the flickering lights. Blade frowned. “But I’m not lying, damn it. I am Richard Blade!”

  “Wrong,” said the neuter. “You may have been Richard Blade, whoever and whatever he was, but from this seg of kronos you are Mazda. HE WHO COMES TO THEY. Never forget it.”

  Blade could only stare, feeling foolish and helpless, with his mouth half open.

  “You are Mazda,” Honcho repeated. “You are a God in homid form. After millions of kronos the promise has been kept. You are here. HE WHO COMES TO THEY.”

  There was no mistaking the glitter, the cunning, in the green eyes now. “And,” said the neuter, “you are also my own very private God. My own to do with exactly as I please.”

  Chapter Four

  As nearly as Blade could reckon it was three days before he saw Honcho again. He had no way of telling time. He did not yet understand the Tharnian kronos, and there were no days and nights, no sun or moon or stars. Only the neutral, curdled milk sky. Blade had to content himself by guessing at the hours, and making marks with a stylus and slate he found in his apartments.

  He lived alone, in great luxury, and knew that he was continually watched by spiscreens which he could not locate. He could find no wires, no mikes or cameras as he understood them. He found nothing. Yet he was sure that he was being watched.

  Honcho, the neuter who was He, had said as much before they parted.

  “There will be some kronos seg before my plans are ready,” Honcho said. “I was all but prepared, but your coming has altered matters. For the better, I think. Also there are some things I do’ not understand, which I must understand, and I must have a period of deep-think and memspeak. I cannot make any mistakes. Go, Blade. I call you that. Me only. To all others you are Mazda. A God. Remember it. You are HE WHO COMES TO THEY.”

  Blade lived well. He was allowed to retain the rapier, and so knew it would do him no good. There were closets filled with kilts and toga-like garments. There was a bath, a huge and ornate room, where he was cleansed by jets of perfumed vapor. There was no soap and no razors. Blade did not particularly mind. His beard was heavy, he had always had to shave twice a day, and now it began to thicken and curl, dark and lustrous.

  His food was brought to him, and the apartments cleaned, by creatures that he knew must be the ceboids of which Moyna had spoken. The worker-beasts he had seen in the fields on that first day in Tharn.

  But these were obviously soldier-beasts, not workers, and Blade observed them closely. They were apparently especially bred for special duties.

  The ceboids always came in a squad, five females and one male. The females wore breastplates and kilts and sandals, and did not carry arms. The male ceboid who always accompanied them was armed. He stood guard at the single door when the magveil was inoperative. Blade had tested the door only once, and had instantly been thrown back by the invisible charge.

  The ceboids did not speak Tharnian. They chittered among themselves in a fashion that reminded Blade of apes. Yet the ceboids were not apes. There was something baboon-like about the faces, yet the ears were almost human. They walked easily erect, yet could scuttle on all fours when they chose. The females were well developed with large firm breasts, straight legs, and only a vestige of tail. The male, the only one Blade ever saw, was as well built in a masculine way, had a much longer tail, and kept one of the teksin tubes trained on Blade all the time it was in the apartment.

  After the first visit of the ceboids Blade reclined, reading one of the many books in the apartment, and tried to ignore them. Or to give that impression. He was, actually, watching them covertly all the while. He did not expect anything to come of it, but he felt that he had nothing to lose. He was searching, with quiet desperation, for any loophole, anything at all, that would permit him to face Honcho on more even terms. At the moment it did not appear promising.

  The female ceboids, on their part, took an inordinate interest in Blade and did not try very hard to disguise it. They all had rather large eyes, brown, murky and muddy, in which at times he detected a humid glitter. The females kept staring at him, from odd angles, and making sounds that Blade could only suppose were ceboid giggles. Now and again the male ceboid would speak harshly to them, and for a moment they would desist and be all business, but soon they were at it again. It was not long before he guessed what they were up to - they were trying to get a glimpse beneath his kilts! Blade was amused, and was very careful not to exhibit himself.

  Blade read omnivorously, knowing that it was to Honcho’s purpose that he do so, the books were hardly there by accident, but he did not concern himself with the neuter’s motives. He must learn if he was to survive.

  One thing he learned was that Tharn, literally, meant
THE ALL OF EVERYTHING. That than which there is no other. It was, Blade conceded, quite a comforting concept. The fact that he, and he alone, knew that it was not true, did nothing to alter matters.

  There was a large terrace on which he was permitted to roam. There were no magveils across the open windows of his bedroom, which opened on the terrace, and now he strolled to a waist-high balustrade. The ceboids had come and gone for the time being and he was alone, though conscious of being watched.

  Blade put his elbows on the balustrade and peered down. He knew, because he had tested it, that there was a magveil just six inches from the outer edge of the balustrade.

  The Gorge rather frightened Blade, who was not afraid of much. The tower in which he was confined stood on the verge. By leaning over the balustrade and peering down, careful to avoid touching the magveil, he could see for miles down into nothingness. It was the same looking across the Gorge. Miles of vacancy. He could very nearly, not quite, believe what his eyes told him: that Tharn existed on a plateau surmounting an abyss of eternal space.

  It could not, of course, be true. Not even in Tharn. Moyna had mentioned the Pethcines before it had been destructed. This tower, this whole rambling structure built of great blocks of the dull plastic, Blade had begun to think of it as a castle, was only one of a series of such structures built to watch the Gorge and guard against the Pethcines. Who, what, were the Pethcines? Blade, musing idly, wondered if they might be possible allies? Friends? Or new enemies?

  He had been walking along the balustrade. Just ahead it curved in, fencing him, and he knew the magveil was beyond. This was as far as he was allowed to roam.

  Blade gazed down. There was another terrace, very like the one on which he now stood, about a hundred feet below him. He had noted it before. It had always been deserted. In any case there was the magveil hemming him in. He had been giving some thought to circumventing the magveil, but as yet had come up with nothing. He did not yet know enough about magnetic fields, and flux, which he was sure the Tharnians were using with a high degree of sophistication. But Blade was reading and learning with each passing hour. And as an old intriguer he knew intrigue when he saw it; Honcho was up to something and Blade, somehow, figured large in the head neuter’s plans. So Blade felt fairly secure and was content to wait and see. To bide his time.