The Warrior of World's End, page 11
Ganelon seized the girl knight’s arm as the fire Yaargha had been tending suddenly went out—completely out; even the glowing coals blackened and died instantly.
“Let go of me, you big lummox!” the girl said, wriggling in his grasp. “Yaargha’s sick—”
“Yaargha is dead,” growled Silvermane, hackles bristling. “The Death Zone is upon us”
Then, without any further remonstrations or waste of words, the bronze giant scooped up the girl in his arms and headed for the edge of the jungle. The Sirix of Jem-merdy was like a child in the grasp of his mighty arms; her head pillowed against the dark, massively muscled shield of his chest, the girl permitted herself to be borne away without further protest. Suddenly she had realized the significance of what she had seen: the iron spoon had made no sound when it fell against the stones, because sounds could not travel through a vacuum.
It was as Silvermane had morosely predicted: it would be shrewd and foresighted of the Airmasters to devastate and depopulate the mining regions, thus depriving even the Dome Villages of the life-supporting supplies of precious vapor!
Silvermane entered the borders of the jungle, moving at the speed of an express train. The sudden and unexpected advance of the dreaded vacuum bubble had thrown the administration of the camp into complete disorder. Thus no guards sought to interfere with the giant as he bore the girl off in his arms, and they were able to make their escape without even the necessity of breaking a few heads.
The raw jungle vegetation had been crudely hacked down around the entrance to the mines, creating a raw clearing of stamped earth about two hundred square yards in extent. To one side stood the barracks of the laborers, enclosed in a palisade fence topped with spikes and patrolled by Tigermen guards. The guards themselves, about one hundred warriors strong, lived in huts scattered about the perimeter of the clearing. Beyond the circle of guard-huts, a barrier of packed earth rose to the height of some ten feet or so, partially to discourage entry into the camp by jungle predators, and partly to discourage escape from the camp by any of the laborers. Ganelon cleared the top of the earthworks with a single gigantic leap.
He forged a path into the jungle for about half a mile before he came to a halt and set the breathless girl upon her feet again. The giant stood listening, an expression of intense concentration visible upon his features.
“Whatever are you listening for?” the girl knight demanded sharply. It rather offended her sense of knightly self-sufficiency to be rescued by a man; and, besides, she was heartily annoyed that Ganelon had been astute enough to detect the approach of the Death Zone before she did. “Do you think you’ll be able to hear the vacuum coming?” she inquired sarcastically.
He nodded somberly. “Vegetation crushes in upon itself when in the vacuum,” he said. “We should be able to hear the crunching of collapsing wood and brush…
But no such sounds were audible; after a time, the giant relaxed. As far as he could tell, the Death Zone had been extended only to cover the mining camp and the entrances to the shafts; it did not seem to be encroaching upon the jungle at all.
They discussed this in low tones; Ganelon wanted to return through the jungle to see if any of the slaves and guards still lived. Xarda, on the other hand, argued that doubtless all were slain and that they should continue making their escape while they could, putting as much distance between them and the vacuum-smothered slave camp while they were able to do so. Her rational arguments won the day over the humane impulses of the tenderhearted Construct. They pushed on. It was less than an hour past midday; they had all afternoon to travel, and during that expanse of time doubtless they could find a secure refuge in which to spend the night. It made better sense to travel by day than by night, since during the hours of darkness the monsters of the jungle woke and hunted.
As they strolled along together side by side, the girl a diminutive, childlike figure beside the brawny giant, she stole an occasional thoughtful look at him with a sidewise flick of her green eyes.
The kingdom of Jemmerdy was not a woman-dominated realm run by Amazons, such as the country of the Warrior Women of Khond. Hereditary kings ruled in Vladium, the Jemmerdine capital, and males gnerally held the chief administrative posts. But the men of Jemmerdy were given to intellectual and artistic pursuits, with little or no interest in, or proclivity for, the arts of war. Hence it had always been the custom in Jemmerdy for young women between the ages of fourteen and (if unmarried) forty, to hold positions in the Nine Knightly Fellowships which comprised the army of the Jemmerdines. At seventeen, Xarda was dubbed knight—or “knightrix,” as the female soldiers were called in her homeland. She was not exactly contemptuous of men, but never before had she met a male who was bolder, stronger, swifter, or more valiant than she. Never until meeting Ganelon Silvermane, that is.
She peered curiously into the impassive bronze mask of his face, wondering what he was thinking about. The young giant excited her, impressed her, annoyed her, and in a way frightened her a little. One of the things which annoyed her most, although she was not aware of it, was that the gigantic youth seemed totally unaware of the fact that she was extremely attractive, more than half naked, and just a bit susceptible to his masculinity.
“What are you thinking about, with that grim look on your face?” she asked after a steady hour of progress through the humid jungle.
“Sky Island,” he said, nodding toward the sky, patches of which were visible through rents in the foliage over their heads. The aerial kingdom hung, a tiny black mote against the hot blue afternoon sky, to the north. “We’re free now, and part of my plan to help the Tigermen is accomplished. But how can I get to that height? The Airmasters fly between heaven and earth astride their Phlygul, but I have no Phlygul.” In response to her next query he painted a word-picture of the hideous, batwinged flying monsters with the thirty-foot wingspread about which Aarghax had told him.
The monsters sounded indescribably frightful. Falling silent, Xarda could not get them out of her mind. Thus, a few moments later, when an enormous shadow fell over them and she looked up to see a fearful winged monster descending upon them, and she screamed deafeningly, the only thing that entered her stunned and frozen mind was— the Phlygul were coming for them!
20. A PEACE CRISIS IN JEMMERDY
The immense winged shape floated down to the jungle floor and bent upon the two a severe eye.
“My goodness, child! There’s no, need to shriek so; I swear you have cracked my tympana. And as for my nerves—!”
The girl knight shrank into the circle of Silvermane’s arms.
“What is that dreadful thing?” she whispered.
“It’s a Bazonga,” Ganelon said happily.
“The Bazonga, I’ll have you know! The only one there is; and prominently featured in a popular creed, I am told,” the bird-vessel corrected him in scandalized tones. “ ‘A Bazonga,’ indeed!”
“Dear bird, where is my master?” Ganelon inquired anxiously.
“Fm here, you great idiot,” snapped a peevish voice from the floor of the cockpit. A robed shape struggled into view. “This cursed contraption spied your auric emanations from the air and descended with such abruptness, I lost my footing,” grumbled the magician, setting his disarranged garments straight with a jerk of his gloved hands. Then he studied Ganelon with a gaze whose fierceness could not disguise its affection.
“You seem to be all in one piece, at least. I hope this will teach you a lesson, my boy! ‘Try to stay out of trouble,’ I said; so of course you immediately tried to take on half the priests in Horx single-handed, to say nothing of two-thirds of the civic law-enforcers, get hauled up before an ecclesiastical court, and sold into slavery in a foreign realm—all within the space of two hours!”
The giant put his hands behind his back and hung his head as if unwilling to meet his master’s eye, like a small boy being reprimanded for stealing cookies.
“Yes, master. I’m sorry, master, truly I am. But it’s not my fault, really! They were beating this girl with whips, and they wouldn’t stop when I told them to. So what else could I do?”
The Illusionist examined the still-frightened girl curiously. Then his manner softened, and he chuckled.
“Chivalry is still alive and well in Northern YamaYamaLand, I preceive! Well, my boy, this once I will forgive you for disobeying my instructions. And now perhaps you should introduce me to this young lady. …”
Before Ganelon could introduce them, the girl spoke up in a brisk, defiant voice. He got the impression she was heartily annoyed with herself for having displayed fear when the monstrous bronze bird had descended upon them.
“Hail, sorceror! I am the Sirix Xarda of Jemmerdy; knightrix first-class-with-bannerol in the Ancient and Noble Order of the Oliphaunt and Star.”
The Illusionist permitted no trace of his amusement to appear in his voice as he returned the greeting and introduced himself.
“I have heard of the lady knights of Jemmerdy/’ he mused. “Are you not rather far from your kingdom, young lady? On a quest, perhaps? I believe such is still the custom in your quaint and charming homeland, which I have not visited, I regret to say, for the better part of half a century…
Xarda relaxed her knightly stance to the extent of giving him a wary smile. “Not exactly a quest, Magister; I was engaged in searching for employment as a mercenary swordswoman when those repulsive Horxite bullies arrested me on the most absurd and unreasonable charges imaginable. Jemmerdy, you see, has fallen into a Peace Crisis; our present monarch, Maresco the Seventh, is given to scholarly and learned pursuits, to an even greater degree than are most of the Jemmerdine males. In order to enjoy his bibliophiliac studies in a mood of unbroken tranquility, quite early in his reign, the king concluded peace concordats with all realms, kingdoms, duchies, and baronies adjacent to our borders; and none of our neighbors has, as yet, seen fit to break a single one of them!”
“A distressing occurrence.” The Illusionist smiled. “Or, more precisely, lack of occurrence! Pray continue, my dear.”
“We of the Nine Knightly Orders were thus left with little or nothing to do except to maintain the internal security of our nation,” the girl explained. “This was remarkably easy to do, since, as you probably know, the men of Jemmerdy are, virtually without exception, ridiculously peaceful, law-abiding, and artistic or scholarly. And most of the girls and women of the realm, who would normally be given to feuds, vendettas, duels, or other typically feminine interests, were already enrolled in one or another of the Knighthoods, since the recent recruitment drives have proved miraculously efficient. Knighthood, you understand, promises a colorful and exciting life of action, adventure, and derring-do, such as every red-blooded woman normally craves.”
“A wave of peace hysteria doubtless swept the citizenry, then,” said the Illusionist, amused.
The girl knight nodded grimly, red curls bobbing.
“It was simply terrible! Simple nothing to do. After all, a healthy womanly thirst for violence and bloodshed can only for a certain length of time be sated by tournaments, field maneuvers, weapons practice, war games, and other such tame endeavors. I decided I had a bellyful of peacetime pap, and set out to procure martial employment in foreign lands less cursed by threats of unbroken tranquility than my own. I came here, you might say, on an extended leave of absence from my Order.”
“I heartily sympathize with your unfortunate predicament, my dear! Ganelon, I commend you on your choice of a damsel worthy of rescue; just this once I will say I approve of your impulse to transgress my edicts and admit you were quite right in following the instincts of your heart. Well, I must say, you led us a merry chase, though!”
“I was afraid they had arrested you, too, master,” said the young giant.
“Oh, they did, they did, my boy! I believe the counts against me included such novel charges as Fomenting Dissension, Conspiracy to Transgress the Peace, and Nurturing Blasphemy in, however, only the Second Degree. However, it is not for nothing that I have spent the equivalent of more than a few ordinary human life-spans in the mastery of the magical arts and sciences. As soon as those self-righteous idiots had clapped me in the city jail I concocted a few mind apparitions resembling the frightful Indigons who had, so very recently, harried the Horxite borders on their way south to the mountains. I believe the total of my illusory Indigons ran to an estimated seventy thousand; more than enough to plunge the excitable priestlings into a holy frenzy, I assure you! As soon as the dominant hierarchy had locked themselves in that immense anthropomorphic temple of theirs, the one which resembles a red-brick colossus squatting at stool—”
“Yes, master, I remember it well. You said they called it ‘the Archtemple… ”
“Quite right. Well, as soon as they were all locked away behind those fortresslike walls, which they presumed would protect them against what they fancied was an imminent invasion of those blue monsters you so effectively scattered at the Battle of Uth, I called the Bazonga to me by a mental command issued on the wavelength employed by sentient crystalloids such as herself. You recall, we had parked the creature on the roof of our hostelry, tethering her to a chimney. … Well, with such alacrity did the dear
Bazonga respond to my mental summons that she not only reduced the chimney of the unfortunate hostelry to a mound of rubble, but burst the walls of the jailhouse asunder in her concern to free me from confinement.”
The Illusionist regarded the great creature with fondness. “I begin to perceive the inestimable value of possessing a vehicle that is a friend as well as a mode of transport!” Then, turning to the mystified girl knight, he explained: “The Bazonga is composed of solid bronze, you see, lightly dusted with yxium, which renders her thoroughly weightless. However negative her weight may be, the dear bird still possesses the enormous mass of her solid metallic construction, and, if you can imagine a flying, seven-ton battering ram of solid bronze, hurtling herself like a maddened bull against the flimsy brickwork of the jailhouse wall … well, you can perhaps picture for yourself the sudden and dramatic method by which the kindly creature procured my freedom for me …!”
“I can indeed,” the girl murmured, her green eyes sparkling. Doubtless she was envisioning the immense usefulness such a weapon as the sentient vehicle would be when next the Knightly Orders of Jemmerdy enjoyed the pleasures of laying siege to castle, fortress, or recalcitrant city.
The Sirix Xarda began to realize with inner excitement and delight that a few trouble-prone adventurers such as Ganelon Silvermane and the Illusionist of Nerelon were just what the unfortunate kingdom of Jemmerdy needed in the current Peace Crisis.
21. THE AIRMASTERS’ ULTIMATUM
The Bazonga bird’s cockpit held seats enough for six passengers, so there was more than enough room within the voluble vehicle for the Illusionist, Silvermane, and the girl knight from Jemmerdy.
“Where to, master?” the bird-creature chirped brightly.
The Illusionist briefly consulted his chart and delivered directions for Xombol, the capital of the country of the Tigermen. This was the nearest large city, and, as the Illusionist was definitely persona plus grata with the ruler of the Tigermen, he envisioned no particular difficulties in passing off the two escaped Air Miners as his wards or pupils.
Ganelon and Xarda still wore their slave garments; these consisted of kiltlike short skirts about the loins, dyed the shrieking scarlet of slavery. Above the waist they wore nothing. This semi-nudity did not bother the girl, accustomed as she was to the rough, hardy life of barracks, camp, and field: neither did it bother the simple young giant, who had not as yet displayed any emotional awareness of the opposite sex.
It did, however, offend the sensibilities of the Illusionist. A confirmed bachelor, the master-magician of Nerelon found the small, adolescent breasts of Xarda a distraction. Luckily, the luggage compartment built in the tail-section of the Bazonga still held Ganelon’s duffel and gear, so the Construct simply tossed aside slavery’s scarlet and donned his usual togs. The Illusionist found a spare robe of his own wherewith to clothe the half-naked girl.
They arrived in the city of Xombol in late afternoon, and found it in an uproar. Securing overnight quarters at a local inn, they inquired as to the occasion of the excited, snarling crowds that surged to and fro in the streets brandishing placards and smashing all objects in sight. The innkeeper, a corpulent Tigerman with one badly chewed ear (the token, he wheezed, of a slight domestic quarrel with his late wife), told them that word of the vacuumization of the Air Mines had reached the capital only shortly before, on the heels of a new ultimatum from the Airmasters of Sky Island.
“Indeed?” “the Illusionist inquired coolly. “And what do the Sky Islanders demand this time by way of tribute?” Growling under his breath, the fat innkeeper named a sum so prodigious as to represent the total graft accumulated by any average municipal officer over a lifetime of corruption.
“What brazen effrontery!” murmured the Illusionist. “Ganelon, my boy, store our gear in the room and rejoin Xarda and me as soon as you can. We shall be in the taproom.”
“My son Grf will show you to your room, sir,” puffed the fat innkeeper, pocketing the night’s payment in advance. Silvermane hoisted their bags to one broad shoulder and followed the small waddling Tigercub to the third floor back, where he stowed their gear under the bed. He soon rejoined the Illusionist and the girl, who were refreshing themselves with huge wooden cups of strong brown ale.
“The first item on our agenda is to secure an appointment with the prince of the Tigermen, whose name is Vrowl the Fifth; I was on rather good terms with his late father, Vrowl the Fourth, so there should be no difficulty in obtaining—”
“Wrong,” said Xarda. “The first item on our agenda is to purchase a few articles of feminine apparel! You go to the palace and interview the king of the cats, if you like; Ganelon and I will go shopping.”
