«You are-witness. Witness according to the-laws of the Sky Father.» Afuno's voice gained strength, and for the last time it came out as the voice of a king as he said the ritual words. «I, Afuno, King of Zunga, find Richard Blade of the English, Great D'bor of Zunga, most worthy as consort and king with Princess Aumara. Say you yea or nay?»
«I say yea, oh, King,» said the Great D'bor.
«Good.» Afuno's voice faded. «The Sky Father keep you, Blade.» The last effort had exhausted him. Presently his eyes closed, then his breathing stopped. The Great D'bor knelt beside him and spread a cloth over his face, then remained kneeling, tears running openly down his cheeks.
Blade was not far from doing the same himself. But, he knew there remained still more to do before he could accept calmly the computer's snatching him home. He turned to a warrior. «Go quickly, and summon the Great D'bor Nayung and the Princess Aumara. I must speak to them.» The tension must have showed in his voice, because the warrior stared at him.
«Is the hand of the Sky Father on you, King Blade?»
Blade started at being addressed as king. «Not yet, but it may be soon. The Sky Father deals in strange ways with those of the English. Go quickly!»
«There is no need to summon me,» said a familiar voice from behind him, and he whirled to see Aumara standing there. She held out her hands. «Zunga is ours, Blade. Or rather, it is yours. You have broken all our enemies and offered them up to the Sky Father. This is the greatest victory in all the history of our people. And my father-did he. ?»
«He lived long enough to see it, Aumara. And he found me most worthy to be king after him. Will you have me?»
She came into his arms. «When I bear your child within me? How could it be otherwise, even if I wanted it?» Tears began to trickle down her face, cutting paths in the dust that caked it. Blade lifted her face to his and kissed her on the lips. They stood for a time in each other's arms. Then Blade stepped back to arm's length and spoke quickly.
«Aumara, I must tell you this now. The hand of the Sky Father may be upon me also. If it is, I want you to choose the Great D'bor Nayung as your next consort. He is a wise man and a good one. He will do well for Zunga, and justly for our child.»
Aumara nodded, reluctantly. «He is what you say. But the Sky Father will not lay his hand on you, Blade. Not you and my father both. He has no thought for Zunga if he does so!»
Blade shook his head-then stiffened as another tentative pain struck through it. «No, Aumara, I am the Sky Father's creature. I have come from him, and I must go to him when he calls. He is calling me now, Aumara.» He reached out his hands and took Aumara's, clutching them hard as another stronger pain hit him.
Then Aumara screamed, and the scream seemed to echo endlessly and terribly in a great hollow chamber. Blade saw Aumara blur and waver as if he was seeing her through a sheet of water. Her face was turned toward him. Her staring eyes were gleaming as they had done that first night on the plain. They kept on gleaming as the rest of her faded away into a blur, kept on gleaming as the field and the strewn bodies were swallowed up, kept on gleaming-gleaming. Then they winked out like fading skyrockets, and darkness slammed down over Blade.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The cocktail party was beginning to warm up, and Richard Blade was hoping the girl beside him would do so too before long. It would be a pity if she didn't-she was a strikingly handsome brunette, with a fashion model's graceful, economical figure. Unfortunately she was also a rather aggressive feminist, and little inclined to talk about anything else.
Suddenly the crash of glass broke through the chatter of conversation. Blade whirled, dropping almost by instinct into a defensive stance, hands raised. One of the male guests was holding an aluminum clothespole and staring sheepishly down at the rug. Fragments of glass littered the plush red carpet, and, looking up, Blade saw the chandelier swaying violently, minus rather more than half its glass.
The hostess came bustling through the crowd, «Freddy, what on earth are you doing?»
«I was just showing these chaps a little quarterstaff work,» the man with the clothespole said plaintively. The four men around him nodded vigorously.
«Well, you've certainly done a fine job on the chandelier,» said the hostess sarcastically. «Perhaps you'd like to start working on the windows? Or even better, go outside and do your demonstrations there?» Freddy nodded sheepishly and led his audience out through the French windows. Blade stared after him, his mind racing back to the last time he had seen quarterstaves used. They had been smashing more than chandeliers then. They had been smashing down Kandan and Rulami soldiers, winning the day for Zunga.
The girl noticed the expression on his face. «What's so interesting about that, Mr. Blade? I call it a typically adolescent piece of male fooling around. So eager to show off the skill he thinks he ought to have that he won't admit the possibility that he doesn't have it.»
Blade nodded. «He certainly isn't very good with that pole. But then it's not right for quarterstaff work in any case. It's much too light and not at all well balanced.»
«Oh?» said the girl. She seemed genuinely interested, and Blade felt a momentary flicker of hope. «Do you know how to use a quarterstaff.»
Again Blade nodded. «It's one of the deadliest weapons ever invented for hand-to-hand combat if you use it right,» he said.
«Have you ever-used it in combat?»
«Yes, as a matter of fact.»
Her mouth was now open wide. «Where?»
Blade stiffened. Was the girl probing him for details out of sheer curiosity, or for other reasons? Such as being a Soviet agent, perhaps? He shook his head. «It was sort of a private matter. I'd rather not discuss it.»
The girl snorted. «Meaning a woman would never understand it. Typical masculine attitude.» She turned her back on him, and edged away to a safe ten-foot distance. Blade grinned wryly. She had been genuinely curious-no foreign agent would have picked a fight with him that way. And there went the evening's chances. Well, a good night's sleep would not do him any harm. He had brought no wounds back from Zunga, but it had been a lively time there, and even his magnificent constitution needed to be restored a bit.
He followed the path of the quarterstaff demonstrators out through the French windows and onto the lawn, but did not go near them. Even from a distance he could see they were making asses of themselves. None of them would have lasted two minutes in combat with a Zungan warrior. He was almost tempted to go over and show them what he could do, but that would risk the same sort of awkward questions he had just fended off from the girl. And the Official Secrets Act was adamant.
But in the privacy of his own mind he could consider the latest adventure and what he had done in Zunga. Most of his memories, frankly, revolved around Aumara. For her he had been no casual affair; the memory of him would remain with her as long as her memory would stay with him. No doubt after a time she would take Nayung as her consort, and together they would rule Zunga, bring up the child, and generally do well by both themselves and their people. But she would remember him, and so she would keep alive the story of the English warrior sent by the Sky Father to aid Zunga. He had done what the Sky Father had bidden, and then returned to his homeland. In time Blade would be a legendary figure among the Zungans-and in Rulam and Kanda, a figure mothers used to frighten naughty children, perhaps?
In any case, Blade knew he had done well. He would indeed be a legend in his own time-if not in his own dimension.