Gods of Green Mountain

by V. C. Andrews®

  “Silence!” roared the king, slamming down his fist on the table. “My daughter has the floor. Let her finish her speech—and if anyone interrupts, they will be thrown into the dungeons!”

  Sharita glanced about, her face gone very pale, and slightly she trembled. “You have heard me called a murderess, for even though I am a princess, I am still just a woman, with no right to resist a man’s lust, or make an attempt at protecting myself.” Now she looked directly at Mark-Kan’s grim-faced father. “I am sorry Mark-Kan is dead. I am sorry I was the one to bring about his ultimate fate. But he was the one who planned in advance to kidnap me and turn me over to the outlaws to hold for ransom, a ransom that he expected to share. He even hinted that you, his father, knew and approved of his plan.”

  “You lie!” shouted Mark-Kan’s father.

  “Quiet!” ordered the king. “Let Her Highness finish—or I will do as I threatened.”

  “Mark-Kan’s crime was not one of passion and lust. It was calculated, an idea conceived to cause the worst possible friction between Upper and Lower El Dorraine. I think if my father investigates further into the political reasons behind my attempted abduction, he will find a few here at this table guilty. But that is my father’s dilemma. Mine is an attempt to change the laws of our land, so that a woman won’t have to stay hidden and guarded in her own home, so that she can walk down our avenues not afraid every second she is going to be brutally attacked, while secretly, all you men believe it is not brutality at all, that there are women who actually enjoy this sort of degradation. Well, I am one who does not enjoy it, and if ever again I find myself in the same position, I will pick up the nearest weapon, and I will use it!”

  The princess sat down, as all others jumped to their feet, yelling, screaming out angry accusations, and no one yelled louder than Mark-Kan’s father. He called out for her to be tried and judged, and banished to live outside of the city domes! “She has killed my first son! Death is the ultimate crime—whether or not it is accidental!”

  The king signaled his guards, and they advanced now with their weapons pointed, weapons that would paralyze the nervous system temporarily, not kill. In the face of these pointed weapons, the uproar in the council room dwindled to whispers, and the whispers into silence.

  Now, in the deadly quiet, Dray-Gon stood. “Your majesty, I would like now to correct a few errors in the Princess Sharita’s story. Will you give me the opportunity?”

  “Go ahead,” said the king drily, thinking nothing could make the situation worse.

  Sharita glared at Dray-Gon as he began, but he heeded her no more than she had heeded him. “Everything is true the princess said, except for a few minor details. Mark-Kan did steal her from her tent while she was sick and sedated. He did carry her back to where we had left the wagons, but the Princess did not kill Mark-Kan. I did. She was struggling with him when I entered her wagon, and it was I who used the knife. She has confessed to killing Mark-Kan so that I would not be judged and sentenced to exile. Being a princess, she did not think you would treat her in the same way as a common criminal. She foolishly believed you would find some admirable justification in a woman making an attempt to defend herself and her virtue, but nevertheless it was I who wielded the murder weapon!”

  “You lie!” cried out Sharita, rising to her feet, and putting her small hands on Dray-Gon’s shoulders, and trying to shake him forcefully from his story. “How dare you do this? I won’t let you! You weren’t there at all the hour Mark-Kan died!”

  “You see,” said Dray-Gon in a calm way as he grasped her hands and pulled her into his tight embrace, “the princess loves me and would protect me, but I will not hide behind her skirts and let her be punished when I am the murderer!”

  Again the king was forced to call for silence. “Where is the truth in all of this?” Ras-Far asked in great agitation, his head a mountain of growing pain.

  Arth-Rin gained his feet and spoke in deep earnestness: “Your majesty, it is as Captain Dray-Gon says. He was the one who killed Mark-Kan. Ask my man here who traveled with us to the Mountain, and they will tell you: It was our captain and not the princess who slew Mark-Kan, though we will also tell you, we believe that too was an accidental murder, not premeditated or contrived but entirely justified.”

  Each emissary to talk with the Gods was queried, and each swore he told the truth. “Yes, it was Captain Dray-Gon who killed Mark-Kan when he tried to rape our princess, after he had kidnapped her.”

  Then it was Mark-Kan’s father who jumped again to his feet, his face purple with rage as his eyes snapped: “Oh, what foolery is this! First it is reported my son fell with his horshet over a crater rim—and then the princess says he kidnapped her, then beat her and she slew him. Then all this is denied, and Ron Ka’s son rises to tell us he is the killer of my son! Lies, all lies! How are we to believe any of their tales now? How do we know they really did reach the Green Mountain and talked to a huge god? A god with an incredible tale to tell! And what is more, that this God has reasoned that we are all responsible for the demise of Bari-Bar, and that we must cultivate our wildlands and make them a part of our civilization. Why? Well, I will tell you why—just so the princess and her captain can’t be banished to the wildlands to live as outlaws for killing my son! There is no god living in that Green Mountain! It is all a falsehood conceived to protect the killer of my son!”

  Dray-Gon turned to face the father of Mark-Kan. “Are you standing there and telling me to my face that I have lied, that the princess has lied, that all the sons of the most eminent men of Upper and Lower El Dorraine have lied when they said they spoke to the God?”

  “Yes!” flared Mark-Kan’s father. “Your story is all too pat, to save your own skin!”

  “Suppose I can prove to you there is a god, taller than a mountain, would you then believe I am the genuine killer of your son? I am perfectly willing to be banished to live out my life as an outlaw—and you can, if you choose, deny all that the God has proclaimed about turning our wildlands into cultivated fields. Or you can wait until you hear that I am dead before you begin to follow his instructions.”

  Tumescent emotions suffused the face of Mark-Kan’s father. He floundered helplessly before he broke, and tears streamed from his eyes. “Whatever proof you show me will not bring back my son!” he choked.

  The king spoke in gentle tones: “Yes, this is true, Rallo Kan. The dead don’t return, even if the guilty are punished. Still I myself would very much like to see this proof that Captain Dray-Gon speaks of, though I believe every word of his story, without the proof.”

  Dray-Gon signaled to Raykin, and all eighteen of the bakaret’s sons excused themselves and left the table. While they waited for their return, Sharita tried desperately to force Dray-Gon’s eyes to meet with hers, but he stared solemnly over the heads of everyone as all waited in pregnant silence.

  Then, through the great open doors of the council room, entered the eighteen young travelers, so recently returned from the Green Mountain. Borne on their shoulders was a huge platform, and on the center of that was a most mammoth round ring, with a sparkling ruby stone.

  “It is the god’s gift to you, your majesty,” said Dray-Gon, “a ring from his smallest finger, for he feared that some here might not believe our story. And on that platform, please notice that long length of what appears to be wire—it is a dark hair from his head, the ultimate proof that he does exist.”

  This was proof no one could deny, not even Mark-Kan’s father, who stood and quaked at the size of that ring, and that single hair. “What does this solve, except that there is a God? Will the murderer of my son go unpunished?” he cried.

  “The murderer will be tried and punished,” said the king. “It is the law, and even the decisions of gods have to wait until men change the laws and write new ones.”

  Feeling trapped, helpless, and betrayed, Sharita watched as Dray-Gon was led away surrounded by palace guards. The cabinet ministers and bakarets at the council table c
ame and patted shoulders in fatherly, comforting ways, speaking of how brave and unselfish she was, to try and protect the man she loved. Indeed, they were proud to have her for their princess.

  Sharita turned her teary eyes on her father. “Your majesty, Father, do I ever lie?” she asked as tears spilled over her cheeks.

  “Sssh,” he cautioned. “We will speak of this later.”

  6

  Dray-Gon Banished

  With the word of eighteen young men to swear that Captain Dray-Gon was guilty of the murder of Mark-Kan, though each stated passionately it was unequivocal, justifiable murder, and not premeditated—Dray-Gon was found guilty, and sentenced to live out the remainder of his life outside of the city domes on the wildlands, with the other outlaws.

  Kept a prisoner in her tower apartment, the princess could only hear of Dray-Gon’s trial secondhand, through the king. “Father, he isn’t guilty!” she cried out time and time again, while the king turned deaf ears her way. “Mark-Kan was dead long before Dray-Gon rode up with Arth-Rin and Raykin to rescue me!”

  Ras-Far pitied her, comforted her, tried to soothe her, and rationalized it was far, far better for a strong young man like Dray-Gon to be banished to the mercies of the wildlands than a mere girl, who would soon be captured and made a slave to the outlaws. “My darling, sweet, only child, give me some relief! Can I turn you out, and deny Dray-Gon this magnanimous, self-sacrificing gesture he is making on your behalf? I know he is not guilty. I know you too are not guilty of Mark-Kan’s death. But I will not see you punished for an accidental murder that Mark-Kan well deserved. Give me time, and I will solve this problem, and reunite you with Dray-Gon.”

  “But the outlaws will hear of his trial, they will be waiting outside the city gates, and they will tear him limb from limb! You will reunite me with a dead man.”

  “I will do the best I can for him, to see that he has means of survival,” said the king, grown tired and on edge from facing one impossible situation after another. “Then let me go with him,” pleaded Sharita, “we can both return to the home of the God and live there with him in safety.”

  “Impossible!” Ras-Far roared, out of patience. “How could the two of you make it there alone? And I will not have you go so far from me! You are my solace and my comfort in my old age, Sharita. Think once in a while about my happiness!”

  She looked her father over, strong and tall, not much different than he had been when she was a small child, and could only think of Dray-Gon living alone, without comforts, his life threatened every day, not only by the outlaws but by the ruthless forces of nature, and the hopeless despairs that come from living without others to care and love. So she continued to storm, to rage, to plead, to cry. “Father, there is no life and no happiness for me without him. So turn him out, and make him sterile as you did Sintar and the other outlaws, so they cannot produce children to live as wild beasts, and then I will close my doors to you, and I will never speak another word to you, nor will you see me. And if you try to force me, then I will destroy myself!”

  “That is a sin unforgivable!” shouted the king, now thoroughly enraged and caught in frustration. “You have a duty and obligation to me, and to our people, and you will fulfill it, regardless of your cruel threats! It will take time, but I vow I will bring Dray-Gon back unharmed. The fear of castration has deterred more crimes than any other form of punishment, even exilement!”

  Pivoting about, Sharita turned her back to him and clamped her lips tight together. She strode away, to her most private chamber, where she bathed and performed intimate, private things—where even a king and a father could not follow in decency. And if he should dare, he did not doubt that she would do just as she said and take her life. “Sharita,” he pleaded outside of the closed and locked door, “don’t do this to me. You are making it so much more difficult.”

  The chamber behind the closed door gave back to him only silence. And the next day, it was the same, and the next, and the next.

  Disconsolate and miserably unhappy, the king returned to his own private chambers, and when he entered, his wife got up to leave. “La Bara,” he called out, “what is this nonsense? Every time I enter the room, you take yourself from it.”

  La Bara turned her large amethyst eyes on him, as hard and cold as her daughter’s. “Your majesty, I am in agreement with my daughter. The punishment inflicted upon Dray-Gon is too severe, when all he did was protect the person of the girl he loved—who just happens to be our daughter. The daughter of a lesser family than Sharita can be beaten and raped, and the offender would go free after ten weak lashes in a public square. It is time for a change in our laws so that a woman has the right to defend herself, even if it means she has to use a weapon.”

  Wearily the king dropped into a chair and propped up his feet. “I am doing all that I can, but the wheels of change grind slowly.”

  The queen looked at him with a small smile. “I have spoken with a few other women, Ras-Far, and we have discovered a way to make the wheels of change speed exceedingly fast.”

  “So? Tell me what women can do to make stubborn men move, when I cannot.”

  “You will find out, Ras-Far,” the queen replied enigmatically before she retired from the room, leaving the king alone, when he would have her stay and talk to him.

  Several nights later, Dray-Gon was awakened, and led by two palace guards up out of the dungeons, and out onto the palace grounds. Furtively he was guided to a remote, hidden gate, where the king waited. He looked at Dray-Gon with pain and regret and deep compassion before he dismissed the two guards, and he and the prisoner were left alone. “There are some who are clamoring that you begin your sentence, Dray-Gon, and since you have been judged guilty, I must comply. However, I have chosen the dead of night for you to leave, for even outlaws don’t roam now in fear of the warfars. And I have broken a few of our laws to favor you, such as giving you a horshet, so that you may ride fast and far. And your mount is fully packed with supplies—pufar seeds you can plant and always have a supply of food, and a paralyzing weapon to use for your protection. As you know, a common criminal is turned out with only the clothes on his back.”

  “Thank you, your majesty,” replied Dray-Gon stiffly, deeply disappointed that Sharita wasn’t here to bid him farewell, and kiss him good-bye. “Has not the princess sent me any sort of message?”

  Ras-Far snorted. “Hah! The princess refuses to speak to me, as does her mother. Sharita eats alone in her rooms, refuses to see anyone, and when I enter her apartment, she hides herself behind a locked door. But I will tell you truthfully, before she resorted to this silent way of punishing me, she wept many bitter tears for your sacrifice, and pleaded with me to be allowed to marry you in a secret ceremony or let her go with you unmarried. But as much as I love her, and would do what I could to give her—and you—a few days of happiness, Sharita has duties and obligations here. She must marry within this year, though she vows she will wed no one but you. I have been considering your friend Arth-Rin as the right man to be her husband.”

  The tiny triple moons cast pale moonlight to reveal Dray-Gon’s shocked expression, with color departed from his face. He swallowed over the raw lump that rose and choked his throat. “You have chosen well. Arth-Rin is a good man.”

  The king observed his reaction and then nodded. “It is, perhaps, a cruel thing that I tell you this now, on the night of your departure, but you may hear rumors of her betrothal even out there, and I want you to understand she is pushing me into making this decision. It has been reported to me that she is refusing to eat, and I will not have her starve herself to death. A husband can go where I cannot, and force food down her throat. Arth-Rin swears that he loves her, Sharita will forget you, and I hope you will forget her and find another.”

  Bitterly Dray-Gon smiled. “Yes, I can steal a woman from the outlaws I suppose, or sneak into a small city, and kidnap a girl like the other criminals do!”

  The king laid his hand on Dray-Gon’s shoulder. �
��Do not speak so bitterly. All is not hopeless for you. I am working night and day to find a way to bring you back into our society, and when I succeed, and succeed I will, I will have the royal flag flown from the high tower where Es-Trall lives. It will be my secret signal to you that it is safe to return. And if Sharita will begin to eat again, I will stall in announcing her engagement to Arth-Rin.”

  Hope, like a kindled spark rising, flared in Dray-Gon. “Will it take long before you fly that flag?”

  The king couldn’t answer that, though a strange look came to his eyes when he thought of the women of Far-Awndra, and their ways of making the wheels of change begin to roll very fast. “I will do my very best,” he promised, and then embraced Dray-Gon like a son. Then he turned over Sharita’s letter to Dray-Gon, along with the illuminator light from his pocket. He stepped back into the shadows to give Dray-Gon privacy while he read the letter. Sharita had written:

  To my barbarian, my savage, my captain, my love:

  So you have saved me, and lost yourself. So you will go, and I will stay. So what have you solved? We are apart, and my father will have me wed Arth-Rin. But his way is not my way. I am not my mother, or my grandmother, and I will not be forced to go against my heart.

  So, heed me closely, and speak not to my father of what I write next. I have been to Es-Trall, and he has told me of a safe place for you to live. Follow the directions I write down, and if you love me and want to give me any peace of mind, go to that place and wait. Be of good cheer, for there is a way for us to be together…

  Dray-Gon finished reading Sharita’s letter, then neatly folded it and stuffed it into his pocket. His eyes were glowing as he smiled at the king, and thanked him again for all he had done. Then swinging onto the saddle of his mount, he rode off into the black of night while the king watched until he was out of sight.

  Ras-Far sighed heavily, wishing it could have been different. Now he would have to go back to the palace and tap on that locked door in Sharita’s apartment and tell her that the man she loved was exiled, perhaps never to return. Once they had only warfars to fear on the wildlands; now they had wildmen, turned into animals a thousand times more vicious than any beast.