“Now wait a minute,” said Arth-Rin as the two who had been billing and cooing just a few minutes ago squared off for a real fight. “You are both going at this from the wrong direction. When we are back in the palace, we will tell all in the council room, that Mark-Kan was riding his horshet on one of the black crater rims, when his mount slipped and they both fell over to their deaths.” His pleasant, round face broke into a pleased smile, satisfied with the way he had solved everyone’s problems. He looked at the other men gathered around. “Isn’t that the way Mark-Kan died?”
The men agreed, yes, it was a terrible thing to see Mark-Kan fall to his death.
Pale-faced and grim, Sharita faced them all. “And you will all be telling lies!”
“Lie or not, that will be our story,” stated Dray-Gon, glaring hard at her. “And who will know the difference?”
She whispered then, “The God will. I told him I was directly responsible for Mark-Kan’s death.”
The men stared at her, thoroughly shocked.
“Oh, Sharita, how could you be so foolish?” cried out Dray-Gon. “You know the God has requested for another delegation to visit him! And they will learn the truth of Mark-Kan’s death!”
When Dray-Gon reached to take her in his arms, Sharita backed off, rage on her face. “I have stood here and listened to all you men have said—and not once have a one of you mentioned the unfairness of that rule that would banish me to the wildlands! I accidentally killed a man who was trying to rape me, and then turn me over to outlaws who would brutally assault me, and then hold me for ransom! Has any one of you mentioned that? No! Why? Because I am only a woman! Even though I am a princess, of royal blood, I am supposed to submit to any man who forcefully tries to take me, rather than kill him to protect myself! There comes a time when old laws are outdated—and that time is here! Ninety-nine percent of my life I have been locked away in a high tower, so no man could get to me, and when I was out of that tower, I was followed about by guards, to see I was protected! I have been a prisoner all my life, so that men can walk around and do as they want, with any woman they want, if they are of that kind of lustful nature! So when we are in that council room, I will tell the truth before all, and if I am banished—so be it! At least I will have struck my blow for the freedom of all women!”
“Sharita, you will lie!” stormed Dray-Gon, his face dark with passion.
“Dray-Gon, I will tell the truth!”
“It is an old, old law, one of our most ancient ones. You cannot take a life, whatever the cause, and Mark-Kan was without a weapon to threaten your life. No one will see it your way,” Dray-Gon concluded grimly.
Very quietly, Sharita queried, “Do you see it my way?”
He stood looking at her, his thoughts racing. He had never questioned that law, just accepted it. If women were used against their will from time to time, it was a black mark against the man, but nothing could equal the sin of taking another’s life. And it was commonly believed by most of the men that in the depths of their secret hearts, most women wanted to be taken brutally, especially those of the common variety—though he realized with a delicately bred girl of Sharita’s heritage, it might be different. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, regarding her pale face, and beautiful eyes that glared at him, as if thinking he had taken many a woman against her will, and laughed when he reported his conquests to his friends.
“How many women have you raped, Dray-Gon?” she asked, confirming his speculations.
“None! I have never needed to. The idea of taking a woman by force has never appealed to me.”
The princess spun about and scanned her eyes over each and every man there. “We have come a long way together, and traveled on an equal basis, and most of you have treated me very respectfully, and only one has made furtive, sneaky advances to me while I was asleep. And which one of you that was, I don’t know. I suspect you treated me as well as you did because I am royal, and each of you have requested my hand in marriage, and attacking me would spoil your chances of my acceptance, for my father will choose for my husband only a man of my choice. We have agreed on that a long time ago; unlike other fathers, he will not marry me off just for political reasons to a man I detest. I choose this time to thank you for your respect, and your control over lusts that you would let loose on some other, lesser woman than myself. But when I am banished, exiled out to the wildlands, I will be stripped of royalty and royal protection. I will be as any other woman, at the mercy of any man who is ruthless enough to take her. Think about that—and how you would feel to be a woman so vulnerable—if you can.” Here she broke, and sobbed before she turned and ran, and hid herself in Dray-Gon’s wagon, which had been turned over to her.
She left behind her a group of silent and very reflective young men.
4
The Return
Every day in the morning, in the afternoon, and just before the last sun downing, the king stood on his daughter’s high terrace and looked out over the hills and valleys. He looked to the rounded dome of the Green Mountain. So long they had been gone—an eternity. In his sometimes despairing thoughts he could picture all of them lying somewhere, brown, dry, dead—or else rooted into the ground in the death-seeking way of old.
“Oh, Gods of the Mountain,” he prayed, “keep them safe! Let them all return home alive and well!” He didn’t speak special prayers for the one he loved most, for that wouldn’t be suitably impartial.
He liked it best up here, in her rooms, where he could feel her presence, and sniff the elusive flowering scent that still clung to her belongings. From his busy schedule he took time to feed her little birds, and clean their cages, just as he cared for her other small pets—not trusting servants to give them the loving care he would, the kind of care they were accustomed to. But for him, as kind as he was, the animals were not lavish with their responding warmth and love—not as they were with her. Sharita’s pets all drooped a little, missing her, just as he did.
All of El Dorraine, Upper and Lower, was tired of waiting. “Where are our sons?” they cried out in force before his palace. “You sent them out on an impossible quest! An unreasonable journey! They will never return! How much better if we had forgotten and forgiven the horror of Bari-Bar! How we have sacrificed our best young people—and for no purpose! Your majesty, how could you have such bad judgment!”
“Ah, but it is difficult,” Ras-Far complained to Es-Trall when he paid him his daily visit, “to know when right is wrong, and when wrong is right!”
Es-Trall paid no heed. He was busy, as always, peering through his telescope, noting down this or that, occupying every second of his days with something he considered of momentous importance.
“Tell me, Es-Trall, what do the stars say? Tell me when they will return.” For that was all Ras-Far was really interested in.
Then Es-Trall would clasp his gnarled hands together, in his own private expression for a subject so to his liking—the topic of stars—and their meaning. An overwhelming explanation of the complexities of the juxtapositions of this star, upon that of another star, would begin, and there were at least two dozen interpretations, enough to set the king’s head awhirl.
Truly, it was said, if one threw a splinter to Es-Trall, he would throw back a tree! And just you try and find that splinter again!
“They are on their way back. The stars say so,” said Es-Trall, seeing the king’s impatience. “They have been to the Green Mountain and are coming home. That is all I can say.”
“Are they alive—everyone?” asked the king fearfully.
Es-Trall grew very pensive, screwing his prune-wrinkled face into a small tight ball. “The stars say one is dead…one human, two animals.”
“Oh, dear Gods!—is the human male or female?”
“The stars don’t speak so minutely—male or female is of no difference to them.”
“Hah!” Ras-Far slammed down his hand hard on the table piled high with rolled-up charts of the heavenly bodies. “You are no
good to me whatsoever, Es-Trall, if you cannot read the charts more accurately! Look again—see if one of the dead is female!”
“ ’Tis better not to know so much,” quavered Es-Trall in a tired voice, for the king kept him busy night and day, scouring for details written in the sky.
But a king was a king, even for a very special person, such as the wisest man in all El Dorraine, so Es-Trall turned again to the telescope, and squinted his best eye, and stared out into space. His was not an exact science, it was a combination of intuition and calculated knowledge, not only of the stars, but what he knew of human nature. “I see a small bit of powdery dust. It could mean one of the dead is female, but then again, it might not.”
The king would grind his fist right through the table! He squinted both his eyes in exasperation. “What color is the dust you just now see?”
Es-Trall squinted too, and peered ever closer. “It appears to be of many colors.”
Oh! That was very bad to hear. Bowed down by the weight of what might be, the king descended the spiraling steep stairs, and returned to his office, and began the daily routine.
And all the days passed so slowly dull, so much the same, as if all life hung and waited for a reason to go on. Ras-Far had lost enthusiasm for meals, for official meetings, for making speeches, for launching new sky-flitters, for looking at his wife, for opening letters, for signing papers, even for bathing and combing his hair. He read a list of long-winded requests from the lower borderlands and heavily yawned. The heavy ache in the center of his chest was turning to stone, so that it would stay there always if she didn’t return. Three wives a man was allowed, and three children only. A wife for the days of his youth, a wife for the middle years, a wife for old age. La Bara was his wife of old age, and Sharita his last daughter to be born of that wife. A son he would never have, except through Sharita and it could be her dust in the sky. In the old days, a man had as many wives as died young and forced him into taking another. A man could make as many children as he was capable of, and each child was needed desperately. In those days, as in these, three times as many girls were born as boys: expendable girls. Lucky had been Baka to have twelve sons and only one daughter. And I have produced through three wives, three girls, thought Ras-Far, but not with bitterness. To him, Sharita was both son and daughter, friend and companion, child and peer, giving to him everything that soothed his heart, and gave him peace.
Strange too, that she should come from La Bara, who could irritate him beyond belief at times and other times, be so sweet and yielding that she was a delight. The wife of his youth had never answered him back, meek and docile, pretty and almost speechless—and that too could be dull. His middle-years wife he had loved in a desperate way…for at that time he had feared growing old and impotent, resentful he had yet another daughter from her.
He thought of Sharita, who said she would have a man who would keep her as his wife all the days of his life. “The rules and laws of El Dorraine are so unjust to women, Father. If a man can have three wives, one at a time, then why not let each woman have three husbands?” How unheard of! Ridiculous for her to say such a thing! It wouldn’t balance out that way: too many women, not enough men. And women were notorious for not needing men as much as they were needed by men. Indeed, his daughter could come up with uncommon thoughts.
A commotion outside of his office interrupted his thoughts. La Bara burst into his office, terribly excited! Her round, greenish face lit up, so her purple eyes flashed. “Ras-Far, you must come with me to the tower! Es-Trall has spotted something moving on the wildplains!”
“Bay Sol?” he asked, his heart leaping upward and beginning to race.
“What other do we care about?” she asked. And jumping to his feet, scattering official papers to the floor, the king raced after his wife’s already disappearing figure. He ran, in an undignified, nonmajestic way, after his wife, and soon overtook her and sped on ahead, reaching the secret staircase, and bounding up the stairs three at a time.
Crouched in a chair, Es-Trall was napping, totally unconcerned. His many notes littered a floor that was never anything but covered with papers.
The king went directly to the view-spotter. He stooped to put his eye to it, for he was much taller than Es-Trall, and the telescope was already directed correctly at Bay Sol. He fiddled with the lens while the queen nudged him impatiently. “Hurry, dear. I can’t wait to know! Look and see. Is it them? Is our daughter coming home at last?”
She couldn’t wait! What an understatement! Carefully he focused in, and slowly scanned the distant plains of Bay Sol. The surrounding hills kept him from having a broad scope, but there was a small file of moving dots! He fiddled again with the lens, and managed to bring the dark dots into closer and larger perspective. “La Bara,” he said excitedly, “I am sure it is them! I can see the wagons, and the men on horshetback!” And valiantly he tried to count the riders, but it wasn’t possible.
Considerately, Ras-Far turned the lens over to his wife, so she too could see. “Oh, my darling, my precious daughter, she is coming home! Ras-Far, I have been so frightened, so afraid for her, so scared we would never see her again! You have had three children, but I have had only one, and I love her so much, and I thought if she died, I would never forgive you for letting her go away on such a ridiculous trip! A girl of Sharita’s breeding, alone with twenty young men? What do you think they have done to her all these many months?”
How many times the king had wondered about the same thing, though he replied easily, confidently, “They are all responsible, respectable young men from the very best families, and I thoroughly instructed them on how they were to treat our daughter. Plus, I commissioned Dray-Gon to take particular, personal care of her.”
“Him?” flared La Bara, again shocked by his choice. “Why not Raykin? Why did you choose a man from the lower borderlands, and not one of our own?”
The king looked very stern. “Now listen to me, La Bara. You are a woman and no judge of men. I happen to be a very good judge of men—you can’t deny that! I have the facility to look right through a false facade and almost read minds—and Dray-Gon sincerely loves Sharita. Besides, he is rough, and accustomed to living in a primitive way, and whether you know it or not, our daughter is greatly attracted to Dray-Gon.” The king’s eyes sparkled with amusement, for he had some hidden knowledge that he hadn’t revealed to his wife.
Minutes later, all of El Dorraine was alerted. Their children were coming home!
From out of the provinces came all the parents, rushing through the ribboned highways to Far-Awndra. Following the parents came aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, neighbors and friends, plus all those others who had to be in the capital city for the rousing welcoming ceremony!
It became necessary for the king to send out a warning, flashed over the news-reflectors. “Every soul in El Dorraine must not try to crowd under the single dome of Far-Awndra! There is not room for any more! Stay at home and watch the celebration in the comfort of your homes, or else you will end up sleeping in the parks!”
Day by day, the dark moving spots on the desert grew larger and larger. Sometimes the roll of the land would hide them from view for long periods of time, and then they would reappear, much closer than before.
The king sent soldier outriders to protect the returning delegation from being attacked by the outlaws, as they had been attacked when they left, for Es-Trall had reported that to the king, shocking him. “You mean, those men I banished to live outside the domes would attack a cavalcade including my daughter—after I saved their lives?—when they were murderers? Are there some who never learn?”
The slow progress of the returning caravan gave time to plan and prepare for the greatest celebration El Dorraine had ever known. Every banner, flag, ribbon, and streamer was pulled from closets and cupboards and draped across the avenues. The pots boiled and the ovens baked, for nothing was too good, or too much trouble, to prepare for the seekers for truth and justice: their ow
n brave, wonderful young people!
The great arching doors of Far-Awndra were swung open, and crowds ran out onto the hot unshielded area, many for the first time in their lives. They ran in competition to see who would reach the returning cavalcade first. They stopped running when they saw the first of the returning riders, carrying a long pole with the purple-and-blue flag emblazoned with gold for the house of Far-Awn, and waving next to it was another flag, green for the Gods of the Mountain! Their pre-arranged signal: the green banner of accomplishment! They had been to the Mountain and talked to the Gods, and had lived to tell the incredible tale! The impossible quest had been fulfilled—it was beyond belief. It was more than they had expected. Just as happy they would have been to have them home again only, alive and well. Stunned with awe, they were at first silent. Then someone less timorous cheered. Then all were cheering, shouting, throwing their hats in the air!
The people counted the mounted riders as they straggled in, hot and tired-looking, their uniforms faded and torn and dirty, and the men were unshaven, though smiling and happy-looking. The men were counted two or three times by everyone. One was missing. This sobered them. They counted the wagons…six…all there. The animals were counted. One horshet missing, and one puhlet. Three dead. Three were not returning. Saddened, the cheering ended. They were idealists. They would have it all so perfect. Not easily did they let one life dim into eternal darkness without a share of mournful respect and regret.
A mother screamed when she saw it was her son that was missing. A father caught her sagging form in his arms and tried to comfort her.
Sharita heard the scream, and she turned her head to see Mark-Kan’s parents and shivered inside even as tears rose to her eyes. Oh, it wasn’t going to be easy to explain. It was going to be an ordeal worse than facing that huge God. Someone rode up close to her mount and whispered, “Brace up, princess…and consider again telling a lie. Old ways of thinking are not easily put aside for new causes. No one will know. All the men have sworn to back up the story of Mark-Kan falling into a black cavern, and that will explain the loss of the horshet too.” Unknown to the princess, her wagon had been scrubbed clean.
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