The Many-Coloured Land sope-1

by Julian May

  “We do not enjoy it, either. You have caused us a good deal of trouble by escaping into the Vosges. Ordinarily, the Tanu are inclined to let us be, and our free people reside in small homesteads or in secret villages. I myself live in Hidden Springs, which is near the future site of Plombières-les-Bains. But now Lord Velteyn of Finiah is wild over the killing of Epone. You must understand that no Tanu has ever before been killed by a mere bareneck human. Velteyn’s Flying Hunt will now search out even the most remote of our settlements, hoping to find Felice. There will be gray-torc patrols everywhere, at least until the Tanu become distracted by the preparations for the Grand Combat… As to what shall be done with you, we will discuss that when Peo and his warriors return. I have already perceived their approach.”

  Claude rolled one of the large rosary beads toward the little cat. The animal patted it toward Amerie, then arched its back in appreciation of its own cleverness. The nun picked up the cat and stroked it as it tried to nestle into her sling. “Do you have any news of the other escapees? The people in the boats? Our friend Yosh? The Gypsies?”

  “Two of the Gypsies survived their encounter at the ravine bridge. They will be guided here. There has been no word at all about the Japanese. The Firvulag in the northern regions are savage and not inclined to respect the alliance that their High King has formed with us. Your friend’s chance of survival is not good. As to those in the boats, most were recaptured by gray-torc marines from the lake forts. They are now imprisoned in Finiah. Six escapees who reached the Jura shore are presently in the care of friendly Firvulag and will be taken to a free-human refuge in the high mountains. Seven more,” Madame shook her head, “were taken by les Criards, the malign Firvulag known as Howlers.”

  “What will happen to them?” Amerie asked.

  Madame lifted her shoulders and the golden torc reflected the flames. “These exotics! Ah, ma Soeur, they are barbaric, even the best of them. And the worst! Who shall even speak of their enormities? Firvulag and Tanu are members of the same species. En vérité, they actually constitute a dimorphic race with a most peculiar genetic pattern. On their home planet, this led to an ancient antagonism between the two forms, the one tall and metapsychically latent, the other mostly short in stature and with limited operancy. You must understand that the exotics came to Earth in order to be free to pursue certain barbarous customs, holdovers from their archaic culture, that were justly proscribed by the civilized ones of their galactic confederation. Some of their cruel games are physical, the Hunt, the Grand Combat, of which you will learn more later. But others are jeux d’esprit, games of the mind. The Tanu, with their wide-ranging latent meta-functions, do not favor this subtle jousting so much. It is more commonly the province of the torcless Firvulag. The Little People possess some farsensing power, plus one highly developed operant metafunction, that of creativity. They are masters of illusion. But what illusions they make! They are capable of driving humans, even the weaker among the Tanu, insane with terror or anguish. Sensitive persons may even be killed outright from psychic shock. Firvulag can take the shape of monsters, devils, whirlwinds, conflagrations. They insinuate their delusions into more helpless minds and trigger suicide or self-mutilation. The latter is of great amusement to the worst of them, the so-called Howling Ones, since they are themselves deformed mutants. The weapons of the Firvulag are our own nightmares and fever-dreams, the fears and phantoms that assault one’s imagination in dark places. They take a sadistic delight in destroying.”

  “But they haven’t destroyed you” Felice said. “They gave you a golden torc. Why?”

  “Because they hope to use me, of course. I am to be a tool, a weapon, c’est-a-dire, against their most deadly foe: the Tanu, their brothers.”

  Amerie said, “And now you hope to use us.”

  Madame’s thin lips lifted in a small smile. “It is obvious, is it not, ma Soeur? You do not know how poor we are, what odds we have faced. The Tanu call us Lowlives… and we have assumed the name proudly. Over many years our people have managed to escape from captivity and were hardly thought to be worth pursuing. Most of us have no special talents that can be used against the exotics. But you in your Group are different. The Tanu would take revenge upon you, but we Lowlives see you as invaluable allies. You must join us! Felice, even without a torc, can control animals, even influence certain humans. She is physically strong and an experienced game-playing tactician. You, Amerie, are a doctor and a priest. My people have struggled for years without either. Richard is a navigator, a former commander of starships. For him there may be a key role in the liberation of humanity…”

  “Now just a damn minute!” bellowed the pirate, waving his soup ladle.

  Claude flipped bits of wood into the fire. “Don’t forget me. As an old fossil hunter, I can tell you exactly what Pliocene beast will be cracking your bones for the marrow after the Tanu and Firvulag get finished with you.”

  “You are quick with a jest, Monsieur le Professeur,” said Madame tartly. “Perhaps the old fossil hunter will tell us his age?”

  “A hundred and thirty-three.”

  “Then you are two years my senior,” she retorted, “and I will expect you to render good advice to our company as a result of your vast experience. As I lay before you my grand design, the plan for the liberation of humanity, give us your invaluable counsel. Correct any youthful impulsiveness that I may show.”

  “Gotcha, Claude,” Richard said, snickering, “Say… if anybody cares, this vat of slumgulion is as ready as it will ever be.”

  “Then we will eat,” said Madame, “and shortly Peo and the fighters will join us.” She raised her voice. “Mes enfants! You will all come to supper!”

  Slowly, all of the people from the smaller fires approached, carrying bowls and drinking vessels. The total number of Lowlives included perhaps two hundred, far more men than women, with a handful of children as quiet and alert as the adults. Most of the people were dressed in buckskin or homespun peasant garb. They did not seem to be outstanding physical specimens, nor were any of them decked out in the wildly eccentric fashion of certain timefarers in the Finiah caravan. The Lowlives did not look beaten or desperate or fanatical. In spite of the fact that they had just fled for their lives at Madame’s mental alarm, they did not seem afraid. They saluted the old woman gravely or cheerfully, and many of them had a smile or even a joke for Richard and the other cooks dishing out the hastily prepared fare. If one word could be used to describe the guerrilla contingent, it might be “ordinary.”

  Amerie searched the faces of these free people, wondering what had inspired this relative handful to defy the exotics. Here were exiles whose dream had come alive again. Was it possible that this small nucleus could grow, even prevail?

  “Good friends,” Madame was saying, “we have among us newcomers whom all of you have seen but few as yet have met. It is on their account that we have had to gather here. But we may hope, with their help, to reach our precious goal that much sooner.” She paused and looked about the company. There was no sound except the snap and sizzle of the firelogs. “As we eat, I will ask these new arrivals to tell us how they came from the prison of Castle Gateway to this free place.” Turning to the remnant of Group Green, she asked, “Who will be your speaker?”

  “Who else?” Richard said, pointing the ladle at Claude.

  The old man rose to his feet. He spoke for nearly a quarter of an hour without interruption until his narrative reached the point where Felice was about to initiate the attack upon Epone. Then there was a loud hiss. Amerie’s little cat sprang from her arms and struck a stiff pose, facing the door of the Tree like a miniature puma at bay.

  “It is Peo,” said Madame.

  Ten people, all heavily armed with bows and blades, came stamping and dripping into the shelter. They were led by a gigantic middle-aged man nearly as massive as Stein who wore the shell ornaments and fringed deerskin clothing of a Native American. Claude held off continuing his tale until these people were s
erved with food and given a place close to the big fire. Then the paleontologist resumed and told the story to the end. He sat down and Madame handed him a cup of hot wine.

  Nobody spoke until the gray-haired Native American said, “And it was iron, iron that killed the Lady Epone?”

  “Nothing but,” Richard declared. “She was chewed to pieces and I let her have a couple of good ones with the bronze sword, but she still just about nailed me. Then something made me try Felice’s little dagger.”

  The red man turned to the girl and demanded, “Give it to me.”

  “And who the hell do you think you are?” she said coolly.

  He roared with laughter and the sound of it boomed in the hollow trunk of the Tree as in an empty cathedral “I’m Peopeo Moxmox Burke, last chief of the Wallawalla tribe and former justice of the Washington State Supreme Court. I’m also the one-time leader of this gang of paskudnyaks and its present Sergeant at Arms and Warlord in Chief. Now may I please examine your dagger?”

  He smiled at Felice and held out a great hand. She smacked the golden scabbard into it smartly. Burke drew out the leaf-shaped little blade and held it up in the firelight.

  “Stainless steel alloy with an eversharp edge,” the girl said. “A common toy on Acadie, useful for picking teeth, cutting sandwiches, pricking out transponders from rustled cattle, and putting out the lights of casual assaulters.”

  “It seems quite ordinary except for the gold of the hilt,” Burke said.

  “Amerie has a theory about it,” Claude said. “Tell him, child.”

  Burke listened thoughtfully as the nun set forth her hypothesis on the possible deadly effect of iron on torc-bearing exotics, then murmured, “It could be. The iron disrupting the life-force almost like a neural poison.”

  “I wonder…” Felice began, staring at Madame with an innocent expression.

  The old woman went to Chief Burke and took the knife from him. As the assembled crowd gasped, she held it to her own throat below the golden neck-ring and pricked the skin. A pearl-sized drop of dark blood appeared. She handed the dagger back to Burke.

  “It seems,” Felice said gently, “that Madame is made of sterner stuff than the Tanu.”

  “Sans doute,” was the old woman’s dry reply.

  Burke mused over the small blade. “It’s incredible that we never thought to try iron against them. But vitredur and bronze weapons were so easily available. And we never tumbled to the reasons why they confiscated steel items back at the Castle… Khalid Khan!”

  One of the crowd, a gaunt man with burning eyes, a scraggly beard, and an immaculate white turban, got to his feet. “I can smelt iron as readily as copper, Peo. All you have to do is furnish the ore. The religious prohibition that the Tanu put on ironwork among their human subjects simply led us to carry on with copper and bronze out of sheer inertia.”

  “Who knows where iron ore might be found?” Madame asked of the company. There was silence until Claude said, “I might help you there. We old fossil hunters know a little geology, too. About a hundred kloms northwest of here, down the Moselle River, should be an accessible deposit. Even primitive men worked it. It’ll be near the site of the future city of Nancy.”

  Khalid Khan said, “We’d have to do the refining work up there. Arrowheads would be best to begin with. Some lance tips. A few smaller blades.”

  “There’s another experiment you might try,” Amerie said, “once you have a strong iron chisel.”

  “What’s that, Sister?” asked the turbaned metalsmith.

  “Try removing gray torcs with it.”

  “By damn!” exclaimed Peopeo Moxmox Burke.

  “Iron might short out the linkage between the brains of the torc wearers and the slave-circuitry,” the nun went on. “We must find some way of freeing those people!”

  One of Burke’s fighters, a hefty fellow puffing a meerschaum, said, “To be sure. But what about those who don’t wish to be freed? Perhaps you don’t realize, Sister, that a good many humans are quite content in their filthy symbiosis with the exotics. The soldiers, especially. How many of them are sadistic misfits, delighting in the rules given them by the Tanu?”

  Madame Guderian said, “It is true, what Uwe Guldenzopf says. And even among those of goodwill, even among the bare-necks, there are many who are happy in bondage. It is because of them that the expiation of my guilt cannot be a simple matter.”

  “Now don’t start that again, Madame.” Burke was firm. “Your plan, as it stands, is a good one. With the addition of iron weapons, we can shtup it forward that much faster. By the time we’ve located the Ship’s Grave, we’ll have enough of an armory to give the scheme a reasonable chance of success.”

  “I’m not going to wait weeks or months for you people to hatch your plot,” Felice declared. “If my dirk killed one Tanu, it can kill others.” She held out her hand to Burke. “Give it back.”

  “They’d get you, Felice,” the Native American said. They’re expecting you. Do you think all of the Tanu are as weak as Epone? She was small fry, fairly powerful as coercers go, but her redact function wasn’t worth much or she’d have smelled you out back at the Castle, even without using the mind-assay machine. The leaders among the Tanu can detect people like you in the same way that they detect Firvulag. You’re going to have to keep out of the way until you get your golden torc.”

  She exploded. “And when will that be, dammit?”

  Madame said, “When we manage to obtain one for you. Or when the Firvulag choose to give you one.”

  The girl replied with a volley of obscenities. Claude went up to her, took her by the shoulders, and sat her down on the soft wood-dust of the floor. “Now that’s enough of that.” Turning to Burke and Madame Guderian, he said, “Both of you have referred to a plan of action that you seem to expect us to participate in. Let’s hear it.”

  Madame uttered a deep sigh. “Very well. First, you must know what we are up against. The Tanu seem to be invulnerable, immortal, but they are not. They can be killed by Firvulag brainstorms, the weaker ones, and even a powerful coercer-redactor may be over-whelmed if many Firvulag all project together or if one of their great heroes, such as Pallol or Sharn-Mes, chooses to fight.”

  “What is this bad vibes thing?” Richard asked her. “Can you do it?”

  She shook her head. “My latent abilities include the far-sensing function in moderation, a somewhat less powerful coercive ability, and an aspect of creativity that may spin certain illusions. I can coerce ordinary humans, and grays who are not under direct compulsion from a Tanu. I cannot coerce humans wearing gold or silver torcs, except with subliminal suggestions, which they may or may not follow. My farsense permits me to eavesdrop upon the so-called declamatory or command mode of the mental speech. I can hear the golds, silvers, and grays when they call out to one another over moderate distances, but I cannot detect more subtle narrow-focus communication unless it is directed at me. On rare occasions I have perceived messages coming from far away.”

  “And can you farspeak back?” Claude asked in an excited tone.

  “To whom would I speak?” the old woman inquired. “All around us are enemies!”

  Amerie exclaimed. “Elizabeth!”

  Claude explained. “One of our companions. An operant far-speaker. She was taken south to the capital.” He told what he knew of Elizabeth’s former life and her regained metafunctions. Madame frowned in preoccupation. “So it was she that I heard! But I did not know. And so I suspected a Tanu trick and withdrew at once from the touch.”

  “Could you contact her?” Claude asked.

  “The Tanu would hear me,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “I seldom project, except to sound the alarm to our people. Rarely to call to our Firvalug allies. I have not the skill to use the narrow focus that is undetectable except to the intended receptor.”

  Felice broke in rudely, “The plan! Get on with it!”

  Madame pursed her lips and lifted her chin. “Eh bien. Let us cont
inue to speak of the potential vulnerability of the Tanu. They kill one another by decapitation during their ritual combats. In theory a human could accomplish this, too, if it were possible to get close enough. However, the Tanu with coercive or reductive functions defend themselves mentally, while the creators and the psychokinetics are capable of physical assault. The weaker among them remain within the protective sphere of their more powerful fellows or else have bodyguards of armed silver or grays. There are two other ways in which Tanu may meet death, both very rare. The Firvulag told me of a very young Tanu who died by fire. He panicked when burning lamp oil spilled upon him and in fleeing, fell off a wall. His human guardians were unable to reach him before he was incinerated. If they had rescued him before his brain burned, they could have restored him to health in the usual Tanu fashion.”

  “Which is?” Amerie asked.

  Chief Burke said, “They have a psychoactive substance that they call Skin. It looks like a thin plass membrane. Tanu healers with a certain combination of PK and redact are able to work through this stuff in some metapsychic way. They just wrap the patient up and start cogitating. They get results comparable to our best regeneration-tank therapy back in the Milieu, but with no hardware. Skin works on human beings, too, but it’s worthless without the Tanu operator.”

  “Do the Firvulag use Skin?” asked the nun.

  Burke shook his huge head. “Just old-fashioned frontier doctoring. But they’re tough little devils.”

  Felice laughed. “So are we.”

  “The last way that the exotics may die,” Madame resumed, “is by drowning. The Firvulag are excellent swimmers. However, most of the Tanu are rather more sensitive than humans to the injurious effects of immersion. Still, death by drowning is very rare among them and seems to take mostly certain careless sportsmen of Goriah in Brittany, who are accustomed to carry their Hunt to the sea. Sometimes they are swallowed or carried into the depths by the enraged leviathans that they prey upon.”