Clouds hid the Three Ladies. Snow began falling. Stark disliked the inability to see clearly; anything might come upon them out of those pale drifting clouds. The party rode more slowly, keeping close together.
They came upon an inn, crouched over a crossroads. It had a tall roof like a wizard's hat, and one slitted yellow eye. Stark considered stopping there and instantly decided against it. By common consent they left the road and made a wide circle round the inn, walking the beasts carefully so as to make no sound.
Daylight was slow in coming, and when Old Sun did show himself at last it was only as a smear of ginger-colored light behind a blur of snowflakes.
It was in that strange brassy glow that they came to the bridge.
12
The bridge, the rocky gorge it spanned, and the village that existed solely to administer to and extort for the bridge, were clearly marked on all the maps. There was apparently no way around that did not take at least a week, even without snow, and the toll seemed reasonable. Stark loosened his sword in its scabbard and dug some coins from the leather bag that hung about his neck underneath the bulky furs. The Irnanese checked their own weapons.
In close order, they trotted themselves and their pack animals toward the toll-house, a squat blocky structure commanding the southern end of the bridge. An identical structure was at the northern end. Each building contained a winch that raised or lowered a portion of the bridge floor, so that no one could force his way through without paying. You might take one toll-house but never both, and a part of the bridge would always be unreachably open. The drop below it was unpleasant, several hundred feet down past jagged boulders rimed with snow and frozen spray to a vicious little river that drained some glacier slope higher up. The village was built on the southern side, against the face of a low cliff, strongly fortified. Stark guessed that the convenience of the bridge outweighed the nuisance factor, and so generations of merchants had let it survive.
Three men came out of the building. Short, broad and ugly troll-like men, with many furs and too-wide smiles. They smelled.
"How much?" asked Stark.
"For how large a party?" Small eyes probed the snowfall behind them. "How many beasts? How many wagons? The bridge floor suffers. Lumber is costly. Planks must be replaced. This is heavy labor, and our children starve to pay for the wood."
"No wagons," said Stark. "A dozen beasts. What you see."
Three faces stared in disbelief. "Six persons, traveling alone?"
Again Stark asked, "How much?"
"Ah. Um," said the chief of the three men, suddenly animated. "For so small a party, a small price." He named it. Stark leaned down and counted the corns into his grimy palm. It seemed, indeed, too small a price. The men departed chattering into the toll-house. They had some way of signaling to the other side of the gorge, and presently both sections of the bridge went creaking down into position.
Stark and the Irnanese rode onto the bridge.
The signaling was very effective, because before they could reach the other side the northern section of the bridge shot upward again, leaving a large cold gap to death.
"All right, then," said Stark wearily, "we fight."
They turned, with the intention of bolting back off the bridge, but a flight of arrows came from slits in the toll-house wall and thumped into the planking in front of them.
"Stand where you are!" a voice shouted. "Lay down your weapons."
A whole band of trolls, furred and armed, came waddling at speed from the village. Stark looked at the nasty little slits in the wall, where more arrow-tips were visible. "I think we're fairly caught," he said. "Shall we live a little longer, or die now?"
"Live," said Gerrith.
They laid their weapons down and stood where they were. The villagers swarmed onto the bridge and took them, dragging them out of the saddle, pushing, pummeling, laughing. The beasts were led off and tethered to a rack by the toll-house. The bridge-keeper and his friends came out.
"Six persons traveling alone!" said the bridge-keeper, and lifted his hands to the brassy glow in the south. "Old Sun, we thank you for sending us fools." He turned and pawed at Stark's garments, searching for the purse.
Stark resisted a strong impulse to tear the man's throat out with his teeth. Halk, who was being similarly handled, got his hands free and fought. He was immediately clubbed down.
"Don't damage him," said the bridge-keeper. "All that muscle is worth its weight in iron." He found the purse and slashed the thong that held it, then prodded at Stark's chest with his dirty fingers. "This one, too—all strong big men, the four of them. Good, good! And the women—" He cackled, skipping on his thick feet. "Maybe we'll keep them here for a while, eh? Until we're tired, eh? Look at them, lads, and their damned long legs—"
Gerrith said, "I was wrong. It would have been better to die."
And Stark answered, "Listen."
It was difficult to hear anything over the chattering of the villagers, and her ears were not as keen as his. But as the sounds swept nearer she heard, and then everybody heard; the rush of hoofbeats, the jingle of harness, the clash of arms. Riders appeared out of the falling snow. They came in strength, they came like the wind, their lances were sharp, and Amnir of Komrey was at their head.
The villagers turned and ran.
"Oh, no," said Amnir, and the riders herded them back, jabbing them painfully so that they leapt and screamed. The bridge-keeper stood stock still with Stark's purse in his hand.
"You have broken the covenant," Amnir said. "The covenant by which we let you live, which is that once a man has paid fair toll for his passage across your bridge, he shall pass without let or hindrance."
"But," said the bridge-keeper, "six persons alone—such fools are doomed in any case. Could I spurn the gift of Old Sun? It is seldom enough that he sends us one."
Amnir's hard eyes looked down upon him. Amnir's lance-tip pricked his throat. "That which is in your hand. Does it belong to you?"
The man shook his head. He let the purse drop with a small heavy clink at his feet.
"What shall I do," asked Amnir, "with you and your people?"
"Lord," said the bridge-keeper, "I'm a poor man. My back is broken from the labor of the bridge. My children starve."
"Your children," said Amnir, "are as fat as hogs and twice as dirty. As for your back, it's fit enough for thieving."
The bridge-keeper spread his hands. "Lord, I'm greedy. I saw a chance for profit and I took it. Any man would do the same."
"Well," said Amnir, "and that is true. Or nearly so."
"You can slay us, of course," said the bridge-keeper, "but then who will do our work? Think of the time it will cost you. Think of the wealth you will lose." He shuddered. "Think of the Gray Feeders. Perhaps even you, lord, might make your end upon their hooks."
"It does not become you, at this time, to threaten me," said Amnir, and thrust a little harder with his lance.
The bridge-keeper sighed. Two large tears formed and rolled down his cheeks. "Lord, I am in your hands," he said, and wilted inside his furs.
"Hm," said Amnir. "If I spare you, will you keep the covenant?"
"Forever!"
"Which means until the next time you think you can safely break it." He turned in the saddle and shouted. "Back to your sties, filthy ones! Go!"
The villagers fled. The bridge-keeper wept and tried to embrace Amnir's off-side knee.
"Free passage, lord! For you, no toll."
"I'm touched," said Amnir. "And pray remove your dirty paws." The bridge-keeper scuttled, bowing himself backward, into the toll-house. Amnir dismounted and came to Stark and his party. Halk, bloodied and furious, had been helped to his feet.
"I warned you," said Amnir. "Did I not warn you?"
"You did." Stark looked past him at the riders, seeing how they had moved quietly to form a half-circle of lances that pinned the unarmed Irnanese against the end of the open bridge. "You must have ridden hard to overtake us."
"Very hard. You ought to have waited, Stark. You ought to have gone with my wagons. What was the matter? Didn't you trust me?"
Stark said, "No."
"You were wise," said Amnir, and smiled. He motioned to his men. "Take them."
13
The Three Ladies were remote, withdrawn, scarcely showing their faces. The Lamp of the North, like a burning emerald, dominated the sky. The short days of the darklands were little brighter than the nights. Old Sun's dull gleaming stained the sky rather than brightened it. The white snow turned the color of rust, and the vast plain, strewn with the wrecks of abandoned cities, tilted upward to a distant wall of mountains all dabbled in the same red-ochre. The line of great wagons creaked and crawled across this unreal landscape, sixteen of them with canvas tops booming in the wind. From long before sunrise until long after dark the wagons moved, and when they halted they made their own fort, with the beasts and the people inside.
Stark and the Irnanese rode their own mounts and were fed from the rations they had bought at Izvand. Amnir was delighted that their transportation was costing him nothing. Each mount was led by an armed rider. The captives had their fur-gloved hands bound and their fur-booted ankles tied together with a thong under the animal's belly. The bonds were arranged expertly to hold without impeding circulation, so that the extremeties should not freeze.
Uncomfortable as this was, it was an improvement over the first days, when Amnir kept them close in the wagons, away from curious eyes. Other parties of armed merchants were on the roads, and Amnir had business at two or three centers where itinerant traders like the Harsenyi nomads brought their wares. These places were like blockhouses, with crude shelters around them where travelers might find some respite from snow and wind. Amnir stayed away from the shelters. He seemed to have no friends among the darkland traders. His men did not mingle with men of other wagon trains, but remained aloof and perpetually on guard.
At the last of the centers there was an altercation with some wild-looking people bringing in a string of little shaggy beasts loaded with bundles. These people called Amnir unpleasant names in a barbarous dialect. They threw stones and clots of ice. Amnir's men stood ready but no real attack developed and the wild ones withdrew once they had worked off their bad tempers.
Amnir was not disturbed. "I took a large portion of their trade away from them," he said. "It was necessary to kill some of them. Let them yabble at me, if it gives them pleasure."
After that they left the marked roads and went off into this enormous emptiness, where the wagons followed a dim and ancient track that was only apparent when it went through some cut or over a causeway that showed an engineering skill long lost on Skaith.
"An old road," said Amnir. "Once, when Old Sun was young, all this land was rich and there were great cities. This road served them. Folk didn't ride on beasts in those days, or drive clumsy wagons. They had machines, bright shining things as swift as the wind. Or if they wanted to they could take wing and rush through the sky like shooting stars. Now we plod, as you see, across the cold corpse of our world."
But a note of pride was in his voice when he said it. We are men, we survive, we are not defeated.
"For what purpose," asked Stark, "do we plod?"
Amnir had refused to tell them what he intended doing with them. It was obvious from the pleased speculative looks he gave them that he had large plans. Whatever they might be, Kazimni had certainly had a part in making them and would share in the profits. Stark bore Kazimni no ill-will for that. He had done his task honorably, getting the party safely to Izvand. Nothing had been said about getting them safely out again.
Knowing perfectly well what Stark wanted, Amnir smiled and evaded.
"Trade," he said. "Wealth. I told you that I trade farther into the darklands than others, and this is the way of it. Metal ingots kept appearing in the market-places of Komrey and Izvand, ingots unlike any I had seen before. Ingots of a superior quality, stamped with a hammer mark. My centers of greed are highly developed. They began to deliver certain juices which stimulate curiosity and the ability to scent profit. I traced these ingots back through a long and complicated chain of trade carried on by such as you saw back there with their bundles. Men died in that tracing, but I found the source."
He was riding, as he often did, beside Stark, whiling away the long cold hours with talk.
"These people of the ingots love me. They look upon me as their benefactor. Formerly they were at the mercy of many things: accident, loss, theft, stupidity, the haphazards of going through many hands. Now that I give them direct and honest trade, they have become so rich and fat that they no longer have to eat each other. Of course, because of this, their population is growing, and one day some of them will have to leave Thyra and find another city."
"Thyra," said Stark. "A city. One of those marked with a death's head?"
"Yes," said Amnir. He smiled.
"But they no longer have to eat each other."
"No," said Amnir, and smiled the wider. "Pray that we reach it, Earthman. There is worse between." And he added fiercely, "No great profit is made without risk."
Stark kept a watchful eye on the landscape. As they went farther on he was sure that he saw, in the rusty gloom, pale things slipping furtively behind hillocks and into ravines. They were distant. They were silent. Perhaps they were only shadows. In this light, vision became confused. In the moonless mornings and afternoons, one could be sure of nothing. Still, he watched.
In those moonless hours, Amnir would now and again stare up at the stars, as though for the first time in his life he was thinking of them as suns with families of planets, other worlds with other people and other ways. He seemed not entirely happy with the thought, and he blamed Stark for having brought it home to him.
"Skeg was a long way off. We had heard about the ships, and the strangers, but we thought little of it. We never quite believed. It was too large a thought, too strange. We had enough to think about without that. Eating. Drinking. Begetting children. I have six sons, did you know that? And daughters as well. I have wives. I have family matters. I have property. Many people depend upon me for their livelihood. I have matters of trade to consider, to judge and act upon. These things take up my days, my years, my life. They are quite sufficient.
"Like the Izvandians, we of Komrey are descended from folk who came originally from the high north, who did not wish to go farther south than was necessary to sustain our way of life. We remained in the Barrens by choice. We consider the people of the city-states, like the Irnanese, to be soft and corrupt." He glared at the stars as though he hated them. "One is born on a world. It may not be perfect, but it's the world one knows, the only world. One adjusts, one survives. Then suddenly it appears that there is no need to struggle because one has a choice of many worlds. It's confusing. It shakes the whole foundation of life. Why do we need it?"
"It isn't a question of whether or not you need it," said Stark. "It's there. You can use it or not, as you please."
"But it makes everything so pointless! Take the Thyrans. I've heard all their ballads, The Long Wandering, The Destruction of the Red Hunters, The Coming of Strayer—he's the folk-hero who is supposed to have taught them how to work metal, though I suspect there were many Strayers—The Conquest of the Mountain, and so on. The long dark years, the courage, the dying and the pain, and finally the triumph. And now we see that if they had only known it, they could have run away to a better world and avoided all that." Amnir shook his head. "I don't like it. I believe in a man staying by what he knows."
Stark refused to argue this. And then Amnir's curiosity would betray him and he would ask how it was on other worlds, how the people ate and dressed and traded and made love, and if they really were people. Stark took a wicked pleasure in answering, unstitching Amnir's self-assurance, opening up the wide heavens to show him a thousand places where Amnir-out-of-context would not exist.
Amnir had a way of setting his jaw. "I don't ca
re. I am myself, I've fought my fight and made my place. I ask for nothing better."
Stark played the tempter. "But it makes you a little dissatisfied, doesn't it? You're a greedy man. Do you see the great ships coming and going between the suns, bearing cargoes you haven't got a name for, worth more money than your small horizon can hold? You could have a ship of your own, Amnir, just for the asking."
"If I set you free. If you succeed. If, if. The odds are too long. Besides—I am a greedy man, yes, but a wise greedy man. I know my small horizon. It fits me. The stars do not."
As a matter of policy, Amnir kept his captives apart. There was less likelihood of mischief, and he knew that the thought of escape was always in their minds. Stark could see the others, hooded and wrapped in furs like himself, riding their led beasts, but he had no chance to talk to them. He wondered what Gerrith would be thinking now about the prophecy.
Halk made one desperate, ill-considered attempt at breaking away, and after that he was confined to one of the wagons. At night they were all put inside. Stark was bound to the wagon frame in such a way that he could not bring his hands together nor get at the tough thong with his teeth. Each time they bound him he tested the bonds to see if they had been careless. When he found they had not, he lay on the bales of goods that formed his bed and slept, with the iron patience of a wild thing. He had not forgotten Ashton. He had not forgotten anything. He was simply waiting. And every day brought him closer to where he wanted to go.
He asked Amnir about the Citadel.
Amnir said, "All of you have asked me the same question. I give you all the same answer. Ask the Thyrans."
He smiled. Stark was getting bored with his everlasting smiles.
"How long have you been trading this far north?"
"If I complete it, this will be my seventh journey."
The Ginger Star-Volume I of The Book of Skaith Page 8