I missed a stux and a wing of the wicked broad head sliced my left shoulder. I cursed. The oldsters and the youngsters and the mothers were running for the head of the valley where palines grew in luxurious and yet ordered abundance. I could see the gorgeous glow of the yellow berries and I would have given a very great deal indeed to have a mouthful to suck on, there in the heat and dust of the press. And the press was all against me, all against a lone man. I swirled the longsword and I husbanded my blows, and no longer allowed the blade to strike deeply enough to dispatch my man. I had noticed that the flutsmen’s heads had been lopped off as I struck, and I knew that to be the signal that I was consciously exerting too much strength, and thus betraying the growing weakness overtaking me. This could not go on much longer.
Then I saw the final mark of doom.
Over the ordered rows of the yellow-berried paline bushes flew a great crowd of mirvols. The brilliance of the riders’ clothing and armor gave me no hope. They swept on effortlessly, their weapons winking on the backs of the flyers, brave in the mingled streaming light of the Suns of Scorpio. They swooped down in a maelstrom of flashing wings to finish me.
I felt a blow sledge across the back of my head. I felt it very briefly. My skull is thick, but the blow felled me. And, as I pitched forward into the blackness of Notor Zan, I had the last thought that, anyway, all this had been no business of mine.
Chapter Three
The wonderful world of Kregen under Antares possesses, besides the twin suns, seven moons. When all of these nine luminous bodies are below the horizon there rises Notor Zan, the Tenth Lord, the Lord of Blackness.
I clawed back out of the star-spangled black cloak of Notor Zan to hear a gruff but firm and kindly voice saying: “So you still live, Jikai. Truly, your gods hold you in high favor.”
Even then I was canny enough, through the clanging resonance of all the bells of Beng-Kishi, that carillon ringing in my skull, to understand that this man was not prepared to commit himself to mentioning any specific god or spirit or guardian. He would no doubt wish me to commit myself first. My eyes opened and I blinked.
He was not a flutsman.
He was apim, like myself, a tall, well-built, grave man, with eyes that showed a deeper pain, even, than that caused by this attack on his village. For I could now guess what had happened. The maelstrom of mirvols which had swept about me had borne, not reinforcements for the flutsmen, but the returning warriors of the village. And so it proved. I had been dragged out from the corpses, washed, placed in a bed in the chief house, watched over, my head bandaged and my various cuts doctored, and now, here came a fusty little doctor bearing his linen-covered tray of needles. My host said in his grave way: “Allow Hernli to see to you, Jikai, and then, when you are recovered, it will be my privilege to talk to you.”
I did not reply. The doctor was already sticking his acupuncture needles in me, and twirling them, and with that amazing fluency that never ceases to astonish, he banished my aches and pains. I do not smile easily, but I cracked a grimace for the doctor, at which he started back, and said, “Are you still in pain, Horter? That is strange, for I have found the lines with exactitude-”
“No, Doctor,” I croaked out. “You did fine.”
Then I went to sleep.
When I woke up I lay for a considerable time, content just to lie there and take stock of my surroundings. A makeshift frame roof had been flung over the burned shell of the house. From the few items of furnishings I guessed the houses had been luxurious — truly luxurious — within their mud walls. You can never judge the interior of a house from the exterior, although an approximation can obviously be reached, and I judged these people to be well off, comfortable, living with a high degree of sophistication, basing it on their ancestral riches of vast herds of cattle, the enormous profusion of paline bushes, and — and what? With cattle and with palines a village is rich indeed, and by good business dealings may acquire whatever they need. Certainly, I had seen to it in my redevelopment of Valka after we had banished the aragorn, and in the work in Djanduin after the disastrous civil wars, that building up the cattle herds and planting palines had figured very high up on the list of priorities. And, anyway, these people would keep other animals and grow other crops as well. No, they weren’t poor. When a young girl, rosy with shyness, came for me and I shambled out into the shafting rays of the twin suns and looked about on my way to take the baths of nine — for the complex of the bathhouses down by the stream had not been burned — I saw more of this place.
I will say at once that I liked the spread. In the days that followed as I built back my strength I explored Paline Valley — for that was the name of the estates — in the company of a man for whom I developed a growing friendship and affection. This was Nulty, a loyal body-servant to the lord here. He was a great shambling fellow, with a shock of hair, bulbous nose, and a pair of sharp eyes, and he came up to the middle of my chest. He was originally a gul — that is, a craftsman and no slave — until he had taken service with the lord here.
We were in Hamal, which is a mighty empire on the southern continent of Havilfar, and these people were all Hamalian — people for whom I had formed an ambivalent attitude. They professed the state religion of Havil the Green. Still, at this time, Green was anathema to me, although I was, I think truly, learning. There were other religions: the finer and purer religion of Opaz -
the great Twinned Invisible Spirit, so predominant in other and nicer parts of Kregen — had a small following in Hamal, generally in secret; and, too, the evil cult of Lem the Silver Leem was edging in with lures of cheap passion, quick wealth and dark arts, ousting devotion to Havil the Green. Like it or not, religion has a potent power in the material world as well as the world of the spirit. So I knew I must tread carefully in my dealings with these folk, as I had earlier when I had spent a fruitless sojourn trying to find out what made a voller tick. My own flier was a total wreck. The gear had been taken out and stacked in a room that had been given over for my use. This meant, of course, that they knew I was not Hamalian. Delia had stowed away much besides food and good clothes — weapons strange in Havilfar. The Lohvian longbow, for one. The longsword for another. Also she had packed four rapiers and four left-hand daggers. Much of my personal gear — the razor, the toiletries, the shoes, the wide Vallian hats — proclaimed me a foreigner. So: “And, Notor Prescot, are you to visit our capital city of Ruathytu on your travels? I wish you would remain here with us in Paline Valley for a time.”
I was sitting munching on palines, which are superb, and I looked up as the lord entered. I did not stand up. I must have been half mad at the time, what with this and that and the fight, and I must have blurted out my name when they asked me. I have had many names, and so far have told you of only a few of them. Now the lord, whose name was Naghan, sat beside me and took up a handful of palines.
“You are very kind, Notor Naghan. Paline Valley is charming. The coolness of the valley after the veld, the greenness of the trees — and the palines! — all tempt me. But, as I said, I am a traveler.”
“Come, Notor Prescot! You are the Lord of Strombor. We have dealings, here in Hamal, with your great enclave city of Zenicce, far away on the continent of Segesthes. Here we are isolated from the main currents of political life in Hamal. We tend our flocks and grow our crops, and we grow rich, and essentially we must protect ourselves.” He paused then, his grave face growing longer and more savage. He was thinking that protecting himself came high. He and his fighting-men had been away, flying their mirvols to check a predatory band of the wild men from over the mountains, outside the sway of the Empire of Hamal, when the slavers had struck. The slavers must have been preparing to attack the village and then no doubt had been of two minds when the fighting strength had flown off. To take up the poor residue would not bring much in the way of sales figures, but the catch would be cheaply won. We all knew the decision to which they had come.