Gods of Opar (v1.0), page 17
“What do you say, Mineqo?” the major said.
The fort’s priestess was of ancient stock, as were many who came from the northern shores of the Kemu. She was tall, blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful despite a hawkish nose and thin lips. She wore a bonnet of the tail feathers of eagles, indicating that she was a priestess of W”uwos, goddess of the red-headed female eagle. Around her neck was a chain of eagle bones from which hung a tiny figure of W”uwos carved from an eagle’s leg bone. Around her waist was a belt of eagle skin, and below that a kilt of skin covered with eagle feathers. On a stand near her was a giant eagless, chained, glaring at the party as if she would like to eat them. But she was not hungry; she was fed living hares and snakes.
“If she is a priestess and has done all that Hadon says, then she will sit with us,” Mineqo said. “But if she eats disgustingly, as I understand the Klemqaba do, then she will leave.”
“I have trained her not to blow her nose or relieve herself while eating with others,” Hadon said.
The Klemqaba was summoned and sat quietly through the meal, saying nothing unless she was addressed, which was not often. The meal was delicious. Hadon forgot his usual abstinence and ate of tender partridge stuffed with emmer bread, sweet pomegranates, domestic buffalo steaks covered with hare gravy, mowometh berries (the sweetest thing in the world), okra soup in which duck giblets floated, and fried termite queens, a rare delicacy. He also indulged too much in the mead, which was cooled with ice brought down from the mountains. This was the first time in his life that he had experienced iced drinks, though if he became king he could have such every day.
Kwasin ate three times as much as the others, gobbling, smacking, and grunting, and when he finished, belched loudly. The priestess frowned and said, “Hadon, your bear-man has cruder manners than the Klemqaba.”
Kwasin stared, his face becoming red, and said, “Priestess, if you were not a holy woman I would eat you too. You look good enough to eat.”
“He has been out in the Wild Lands a long time,” Hadon said hastily. “I am sure that he did not mean to offend you. Isn’t that so, Kwasin?”
“I have been gone a long time,” Kwasin said. “And I would not offend the first beautiful woman I’ve seen, Lalila excepted, since I began my wanderings so many years ago.”
“Kwasin? Kwasin?” the priestess said. “Now, where have I heard that name before?” “What?” Kwasin bellowed, spraying mead down his beard. “You haven’t heard of Kwasin? Have you been in the sticks all your life?”
“I was born here,” Mineqo said icily. “I have been to Miklemres twice, once for five years to attend the College of the Priestesses and once to attend the coronation of the high priestess of that city. But no, savage, I have never heard of you.”
“I thought you knew,” Major Bohami murmured.
She turned to him fiercely and said, “Knew what?”
“This is the giant that ravished the priestess of Kho in Dythbeth and killed her guards,” he said weakly. “Instead of being castrated and flung to the pigs, he was exiled. The Voice of Kho Herself decreed that sentence.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said.
“I was busy arranging for the comforts of Hadon and his people. And I thought you knew. It is not up to me to advise you on what to do.”
“And you are the man whose child I carry,” she said. “I hope it isn’t as stupid as you!”
The major reddened but said nothing. Kwasin gulped down a beaker of mead, belched again, and said, “O Priestess, do not get angry. It is true that I was exiled, but the Voice of Kho also said that I would return someday. She did not say when, so I have come back to plead forgiveness from Her. I have suffered more than enough; my sin should be expiated by now.”
The priestess rose from her chair and said, “That is for Kho to decide! But you have been forbidden to step inside this land, and this fort is in the boundary of the empire!”
She pointed a finger at the doorway and shouted, “Out!”
Kwasin heaved himself up and gripped the edge of the table with his massive fingers. “Out, you say? Out to where?”
“Out of this fort!” she cried. “You may sleep by the gate for all I care, like an outcast dog, but you will not stay in this land! Not until the Voice of Kho has been notified that you are knocking at the gate and not until She says—if indeed She will—that you may enter!”
For a moment Hadon thought that Kwasin intended to upset the table. He moved his chair back, at the same time whispering to Lalila and the child to get out of the way. Paga, he noticed, had already done so. But Kwasin, quivering, his eyes black lava, managed to control himself.
He said, “It is only because I do not wish to offend mighty Kho again that I do not ravage through this fort, slaying everyone. I will go, Priestess, but I won’t hang around here like a jackal waiting for scraps. It will take months to get a message from the Voice of Kho, and I am impatient! I will go on into the land, and woe to him who dares to get in my way! I will go to the mountain of Kho myself and there throw myself on Her mercy!”
“If you attempt to enter without Her permission, you will be slain!” the priestess said.
“I’ll take that chance,” Kwasin said, and he turned and walked out. Hadon followed him in time to see him come out of his room with the great ax. Kwasin said, “Ho, cousin, do you mean to stop me?”
“Why should I?” Hadon said. “No, I am not trying to get in your way. But though you have offended me and been as troublesome as a fly up my nostril, I would not see you commit suicide. I beg you to do as the priestess says. Stay here until Kho bids you come or bids you depart.”
“Kho is a woman and no doubt has changed Her mind about me by now,” Kwasin said. “No, I am going to Her and demand that She say yes or no Herself. I’m not going to wait. As for my being killed before I get there, that is nonsense. I don’t intend to march through the land where everyone will see me. I will steal through the country like a fox, steal a boat when I get to the Kemu, and sail to the island. And then I will go softly and at night up the mountain and face the oracle, the Voice.” “And if Kho is still adamant?”
“Then I just might ravish the oracle and knock the temple down with this ax,” Kwasin said. “If I die, I will not do so meekly.”
“Sometimes I think you mean it when you say fantastic things like that,” Hadon said.
“Of course I do,” Kwasin said. He strode out of the room, which suddenly became much larger.
Hadon returned to the dining room. Lalila said, “What does he mean to do?” “He is indeed mad,” Hadon said. “Kho has taken his senses away, and I am afraid that She will take his life soon.”
“Perhaps he would be better off if She did,” Paga said. “He is a miserable creature, full of arrogance and hate. But if such were to be struck down, this world would have only a few people left in it. Which would be a blessing.”
“Let us not talk of him,” Mineqo said. “Sit down, Lalila, my dear, and we shall talk of you. Before that elephantine buffoon interrupted us, you were telling me that you were a priestess of the moon among your own people.”
“Not I,” Lalila said. “My mother was. I would have been if my tribe had not perished.”
“And what other goddesses do you worship?”
“Many. We also worship many gods. But the two greatest deities are the moon and the sun. They are twin sisters, daughters of the sky, who gave over her empire to them after the first humans were created by her.”
“Ah!” Mineqo said. “Among us the sun is the god Resu, though in the ancient times Resu was Bikeda, a goddess. She is still worshiped as such in some of the rural and mountainous areas. Just so was Bhukla once the chief deity of war but was dislodged by Resu and became the goddess of the sword. All this came about because the Klemsaasa, the Eagle people, conquered Khokarsa when she was weakened by earthquake and plague. They strove to make Resu greater than Kho but did not succeed. But the priests of Resu have not given up the struggle, even though they tempt the wrath of Kho.”
“I do not understand,” Lalila said. “How can the deeds of mortals cause changes in the heavens?”
“That is a deep question, and the answer is deep. It was all explained to me when I was in the college, but it would take me an hour to explain to you. First, I would have to define the technical terms, and that might cause more confusion than ever. However, you may be enlightened when you get to the city of Khokarsa. Since you are a priestess of the moon, even though from an alien people, Awineth may decide that you can be initiated into the priestesshood.”
“Sahhindar suggested that I might benefit if I did become a priestess,” Lalila said.
“Sahhindar!” Mineqo said. “The Archer God came to you in a dream?”
“No dream,” Lalila said. “Sahhindar talked with me and walked with me in the flesh, as a man, as real and solid as Hadon. It was he who sent Paga, Abeth, and me here. He put us under his protection.”
“Is this true?” the priestess said, turning to Hadon and Hinokly.
“True, Mineqo,” Hinokly said. “I was there when the Gray-Eyed God charged our expedition to return to Khokarsa and see that she was given both safety and respect there. Evidently you had not heard of this.”
“But why didn’t you tell me this before? I thought that your expedition was only a scientific survey team.”
“There was too little time, O Priestess,” Hinokly said.
Mineqo looked bewildered. “I do not understand this at all. Sahhindar was exiled by Kho because he disobeyed Her. The priests of Resu claim that Sahhindar is therefore the ally of Resu.”
“He is no god, Mineqo,” Lalila said, “though godlike. He told me himself that he is only a mortal. He says that he was a traveler in time, that he had been born in the future, over eleven thousand years from now, and that he traveled backward by use of a...”
She hesitated and then said, “We do not have a word for the thing which transported him. He used a word from his own language to name it...a...mashina, I believe he, said.”
“And what is this...masina,” Mineqo said, unable to utter the -sh- sound.
“Something like a boat which carries a device that pushes it through time, as a boat is pushed by wooden blades.”
“Pardon, Priestess,” Hadon said. “Lalila has never seen a boat with sails. A more apt analogy would be that time is like a wind which pushes the time boat’s sails.”
“But Sahhindar was the one who taught the Khoklem how to domesticate plants and animals, how to make bricks, how to make bronze, how to add and subtract and multiply,” Mineqo said. “That was two thousand years ago. Do men live that long?”
“Sahhindar said that there are a few people of the far future who have an elixir which keeps them from aging,” Hinokly said. “But I myself heard him disclaim his godhood.”
“Do they know that at the palace?” Mineqo said.
“They do,” Hinokly said. “I imagine that that revelation has caused a storm of controversy among the colleges.”
“Such things are beyond me,” Mineqo said. “I have lived too long in this isolated post to remember all the philosophy I was taught as a young girl. Let the colleges decide what this means. I will send all of you with an escort to the chief priestess at Miklemres, and she can decide what to do with you.” x
“That is my province!” Major Bohami said. “I am the military commander here, Mineqo, and I say who is to come and to go. At present, we are short-handed, and I cannot spare more than a couple of guides.”
“I have heard you boast that you and five men could disperse any attack by the barbarians,” Mineqo said. “And the last trouble we had with them was when I was a little girl. The Klemklakor are too few around here to be a danger, but what if they attack this party deep in the mountains? You know that they often try to ambush our supply trains.”
It was evident that the major felt that he had to protest his sovereignty, yet wanted a way to agree with the priestess. He said, “Since you put it that way, I agree that there is sense in what you say. But I will issue the orders, and 1 do so only because our guests are so important. The wishes of the king and queen and of Sahhindar make it imperative that I give them all the protection that we can spare.”
Hadon said, “We would like to leave shortly after dawn.”
“That shall be done,” Mineqo and Bohami said at the same time.
Bohami glared at her, and she spoke in a low voice, “You will sleep alone tonight, Bohami, unless you apologize.”
“So be it,” Bohami said. “I don’t like your undercutting my authority. You should consult with me in private and leave the public issuing of orders to me.”
Hadon was embarrassed and so bade them good night as quickly as he could.
16
The party, accompanied by twelve soldiers, climbed up the narrow cliff girdling path. Toward noon they put on the thick mountain-leopard furs provided them. The snows hung above them, making them uneasy. The soldiers said that more than one patrol and supply train had been buried in avalanches. In fact, the fort was beginning to run short of goods from Miklemres because the last train had been wiped out. The avalanche may have been an accident or it may have been triggered by the wild tribes of the Bear Totem. These, the soldiers said, were the descendants of the mountaineers who had stayed behind when the Klemsaasa invaded Khokarsa with their rebellious Miklemres allies and conquered the devastated capital. Since the Klemklakor had been at war with the Mountain Eagle Totem then, they had not taken part. Escaped criminals and runaway slaves had added to their numbers during the one thousand and eleven years that had passed since the Klemsaasa had left the Saasares ranges. It was said that the Klemklakor were so numerous now that they needed only a leader to unite them to become a dangerous threat to the Miklemres queendom. So far, they were so busy fighting among themselves that the Khokarsans had been able to control them.
“Klemklakor is a generic term for them,” Tadoku said. “Actually, though the Bear people are in the majority, there are a dozen totems in these mountains, most of them descended from refugees. But all are enemies of the Khokarsans. If we should have another Time of Troubles, they would sweep down on Miklemres like locusts. United, they would be a formidable enough force. Being heretics, they use the bow and arrow, and this makes them triply dangerous.”
The trail wound down again. By the morning of the second day they were warm enough to shed their furs. Two days later they put them on again. On the fifth day they saw a bear only a quarter of a mile away. Hadon became excited because he had never seen this legendary creature in the flesh.
“If you think it is big, you should see a klakoru, a cave bear,” Hinokly said. “Rumors have it that there are still a few in the highest ranges. Those who have seen them say that they are as big as elephants, though no doubt that is an exaggeration.” At noon of the seventh day they were proceeding down a trail halfway up the slope of a mountain. Suddenly the earth trembled and the mountain roared. They looked up and saw a dozen gigantic boulders bounding toward them, followed by a mass of smaller stones and snow. There was no place to run, though some did run. The rest, Hadon among them, jumped below the trail into a depression and flattened themselves out against the earth. Within a minute the first of the boulders soared over them, striking a few feet past them. Others followed them, rumbling and banging, one smashing a fleeing soldier, and then it became quiet, the only sound that of the boulders still leaping and rolling far below.
They got up cautiously while snow powder and dust fell on them. The mass behind the boulders had slid to a stop a few yards above the trail. Kho had protected them.
The incident, however, was not over. Far above were the yells of men in a desperate fight. Hadon saw tiny figures emerging from a stand of firs. They scattered in two directions along the slopes, and presently they had run into the trees to the north and the south. After a while a familiar figure emerged. It came slowly down the slope, skirted the loose mass directly above the party, and walked toward them on the trail. It was Kwasin, gigantic in bearskins, covered with blood, and carrying his bloody ax on his shoulder. One hand held two severed heads by their beards.
He flung the heads at the feet of Hadon and roared, “Behold the ambusher of the ambushers, cousin! I spied them long before they saw me, and I crept up on them. I wasn’t in time to prevent their rolling down boulders at you, but shortly thereafter I launched my own avalanche! Myself! Though they were a score, I attacked them and slew half a dozen before they decided that I must be a werebear! Then I clothed myself in furs they no longer needed and cut off some trophies. You may thank me now, cousin, for saving your life, though if the beautiful Lalila had not been with you I might not have interfered!”
“In which case, Lalila may thank you, but I won’t,” Hadon said. “And what now?”
“I will go with you to Khokarsa and protect you!”
“After we reach Miklemres, it is you who will need the protection,” Hadon said. “Are you depending upon my status as the king-to-be to get you to the capital safely?”
“You see through me!” Kwasin said, and he laughed.
“Then you will have to obey my orders again.”
“So be it! But when we reach the capital, cousin, and Awineth compares you to me, she may change her mind and take me as her husband. How would you like that, little one?”
Better than you could guess, Hadon thought, but he did not reply.
Two months of slow up-and-down travel passed. Four times they were lucky enough to escape hunting or raiding bands of the Bear people. Their scouts saw the barbarians and warned the party in time to permit hiding or flight. And then, at noon one day, they came around a trail, and the plains of Miklemres spread out below. Their joy was quickly smothered, however, when they saw heavy smoke rising from two places along the river. The next day they cautiously approached the first site. Seeing no one living, they entered into the charred area. Many mutilated corpses lay in the ashes. The sergeant from the fort poked around and confirmed what they all knew.
