Authors: Piers Anthony
Neq grabbed the leader with his left arm, his pincers threatened near her face, and held her before him as a shield against Yod's gun. She did not resist. Her sleek buttocks touched him.
The cover came up. The man inside was exposed.
It was Yod. But the man had no gun. He was dead, his hands servered, the hilt and blade of a dagger protruding from his mouth, and soaking in his own blood.
"Our men were bonded to him, and afraid," the captive woman said. "But we were not. We have brought your vengeance to you. Only spare the rest, for our children will perish if we are left without men."
"This is not vengeance," Neq said, troubled. "You have denied me my vengeance."
"Then kill us too, for we five killed Yod. Only leave this place."
Neq considered killing them, as she suggested, for they were trying to buy the reprieve of the guilty. But he found himself sick of it all. Now both Neqa and vengeance had been taken from him. What else was left?
He turned loose the woman. She merely stood, awaiting his response, and the others stood too, like waking dead. They were all young and fair, but there were pockets under their eyes and tension lines about their mouths, and they were less buxom than they might have been. Their vigil and their act of murder had scarred them already.
Neq lifted his sword and touched it to the leader's bosom. She blanched but managed not to flinch. He slid the blade along her front so that it cut open her dress of availability and the handmade halter beneath it, exposing her breasts and letting them droop. Yet they were full and handsome.
He had only intended to check her for weapons. If she had a knife on her person he would know for whom it had been intended, and that would justify what he might do. But there was no knife. Those breasts reminded him forcefully of Neqa's breasts... and suddenly he just wanted to forget.
Vengeance was too complicated.
He pushed her away and fled.
CHAPTER TEN
When Neq next took stock of himself, three years had passed. He was a scarred veteran of 28, still deadly in combat at an age when injury or death had retired many warriors. He had killed more men than any nomad he knew of--most of them outside the circle, for the circle code was virtually dead.
Abruptly' he realized three things--or perhaps it was these things that had brought him to this sudden awareness. First, he was now the age Neqa had been when he knew her. Second, he was no closer to true vengeance than ever. Third, the true culprit had not been Yod and Yod's tribe, but the situation that had brought about the dissolution of the circle code. In the old days no woman had been molested, and no man had been required to fight unless he chose.
It came to him that his only true vengeance had to be constructive. Killing gained him nothing. What he had to abolish was not the men who had injured him, but the system.
That meant that Helicon had to be rebuilt. Perhaps he had been working it out subconsciously the whole time. A concept of this complexity could not have struck him full-blown. But suddenly he had a mission, and the hurt that was the memory et Neqa abated, and the blood on his sword-arm assumed a certain vindication. He had no further desire to kill, for he had plumbed the depths of that and found it futile. He had no need to impress women, for there had been only one for him. He required no tribe, no empire, for he had long since experienced the heights of power and tired of them. He had his mission, and that was enough.
Rebuild Helicon, and the circle code could be restored. There would be supplies for the crazies, who would re-stock the hostels and subtly enforce their usual requirements, and the nomads would find themselves conforming, and the world he had known would come back. Slowly, perhaps; it might take decades. But it would surely come. And when the circle code lived again, outlaws like Yod would have no chance. Women would pass freely from hostel to hostel and from bracelet to bracelet, never forced, never hurt. The circle code was civilization, and Helicon was the ultimate enforcement of that code.
First he marched to the ruins of the mountain. He entered by Dick the Surgeon's passage and cleaned out the bones and the ashes. He reconstructed the damaged exits as well as he could and resealed the premises against intrusion and made the entire labyrinth bare but theoretically habitable. He worked slowly and carefully, pausing to feed himself when the need came and to search out supplies. A surprising amount had not burned. Perhaps the fire had suffocated soon after the people. Under layers of ashes the majority of Helicon's furnishings remained salvageable.
Neq sought no help, though his metal extremities were inefficient for this type of work and greatly extended the time that would normally have been required. It was tedious shoving a mass of cloth across interminable floors with his sword, mopping up the grisly grime, and his pincers were poor for setting hinges in new doors. But this was the place he had shared with Neqa, however briefly and horribly, and Helicon was somehow suffused by her presence, and blessed by it.
When he was done, a year had passed.
Then he went to see the crazies.
The minor crazy outposts had all long since been devastated, but the fortress-like administration building of Dr. Jones remained intact. And the old crazy,chief was there, much the same as ever. He seemed never to have been young, and he did not age.
But there was now no girl at the front desk.
"How have you survived, with no defense?" Neq demanded. "It has been four years since I was here, and they have not been kind years. By the sword men live. But no man challenged me as I entered here. Anyone could ravage this place."
Jones smiled. "Would a guard have prevented you from entering?" When Neq merely glanced at his weapon, he continued: "I am tempted to inform you that our philosophy of pacifism prevailed... but that would not be entirely accurate. We hoped that the diminished services we offered would dissuade the tribesmen from violence, but there always seemed to be another more savage tribe on the horizon whose members were immune to reason. Our organization has been devastated many times."
"But you live unchanged!"
"Only superficially, Neq. My position remains tenuous." Dr. Jones began unbuttoning his funny vest.
The old crazy must have hidden when the outlaws invaded, Neq thought, and emerged to rebuild after the region was clear again. Tribes would not stay here long, for there would be little food, and the building itself was alien to the nomad way. Still, Dr. Jones must have courage and capability that did not show on the surface.
The crazy had finally finished with his buttons. He opened his vest and began on the clean white shirt beneath.
"How did you know me?" Neq inquired, hoping the man wasn't senile.
"We have met before, you remember. You took Miss Smith and released Dr. Abraham--"
"Who?"
"The Helicon Surgeon. He has been of immense assistance to us. Do you recognize his handiwork?" He opened his shirt to reveal his bony old chest.
Scars were there. It looked as though a dagger had cut him open, chopped up the ancient ribs, and made a careless foray into the meager gut. But somehow everything had been put together again, and what should have been a fatal wound had healed.
"Dick the Surgeon," Neq said. "Yes, he worked on me too." But did not raise his sword to demonstrate the surgery, afraid the gesture would be mistaken.
"I think it safe to assume I would have perished after that particular episode," Dr. Jones said, beginning the slow task of buttoning his shirt and vest. "But Dr. Abraham restored me. Since he would not have been present except for your timely assistance, I belief it is not farfetched to infer that I owe my preservation to you."
"For every life I may have saved," Neq said, "I have taken fifty."
Dr. Jones seemed not to have heard. "And of course his report enabled us to dispense with any further effort in the region of Helicon."
"Neqa died."
"Miss Smith... your bracelet..." Dr. Jones murmured, sifting through his information. "Yes, so Dr. Abraham informed us. He said the two of you were very close, and I am gratified to know that. She was a remarkable person, but alone." He did not say more, and Neq was sure the old crazy knew everything.
"I come to avenge her."
"Your reputation precedes you. But do you feel that more killing will satisfy your loss?"
"No!" And, with difficulty, Neq explained his conclusion about the real cause of Neqa's death, and his determination to rebuild Helicon.
Dr. Jones did not respond this time. He sat as if suffering from his venerable wound, eyes almost closed, breathing shallow.
Neq waited for several minutes, then raised his pincer-arm to touch the man and determine whether he was all right. Death by old age was something he had never encountered and was almost too horrible to contemplate. What were its symptoms?
Dr. Jones was alive, however. His eyes reopened, "Do you require proof that I was there, in the mountain?" Neq asked. "I brought papers for you. I do not know what they say." He had saved out these singed writings because of Neqa's literacy; any writing reminded him of her.
Now the crazy reacted beautifully. "Papers from Helicon? I would be extremely interested! But I do not question your veracity. My thoughts were momentarily elsewhere."
Momentarily? Crazies were crazy, naturally!
Then Dr. Jones got up and left the room.
Neq remained, baffled.
A few minutes later Dr. Jones returned with another man, a rotund crazy in spectacles. "Please tell Dr. Abraham and you told me," Jones said. "About your plans."
It was Dick the Surgeon--the man Neqa had rescued from the cage! Now he only remotely resembled the thin fugitive of four years ago.
Neq repeated his philosophy and his plan.
"Why do you come to us?" Dick asked, as though he had never had experience with the wilderness.
"Because I am a sworder, not a builder. I can't read, I can't operate the machinery of Helicon. You crazies can."
"He knows his limitations," Dr. Jones observed.
"But he is a killer."
"Yes," Neq agreed. "But I have had enough of killing." He lifted his arm. "I would make this sword into--"
"A plowshare?" Dr. Jones asked.
Neq did not answer, not being familiar with the term.
"Your former leader, Robert of Helicon," Dr. Jones said to Dick. "Was he not a ruthless man?"
"Robert? Oh, you mean Bob. Yes, ruthless but efficient. Maybe you're right." Dick looked at Neq. "It is ugly, but--"
Neq did not follow much of this. "I have cleaned and restored the mountain, but I cannot do more without your help. I can't fill it with people who can make it function. That is why I'm here."
"It would take a year for a man in your condition to tidy up that carnage!" Dick exclaimed.
"Yes."
There was a silence. The crazies hardly seemed enthusiastic!
Finally Dr. Jones brought out a sheet of paper. "Bring me these people," he said, handing it to Neq. "Those who have survived."
"I can not read. Is this the service you require of me in exchange for your help?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. I must ask you to tell no one of your project. And I must advise you that your weapon will be valueless in this endeavor--perhaps even a liability."
That seemed to be the extent of his answer. Neq glanced at his sword, wondering whether he should remind the old crazy that it was impossible for him to set aside his weapon, useful or not. "Tell me the names."
"You can remember them accurately?"
"Yes."
Dr. Jones picked the paper out of Neq's pincer-grasp and read. "Sos the Rope. Tyl of Two Weapons. Jim the Gun."
Neq halted him, astonished. "Sos the Rope went to the mountain... oh, I see. He may be alive after all. Tyl is master of the largest remaining tribe. Jim the Gun--"
"You may know Sos better by his later designation: the Weaponless."
"The Weaponless! Master of Empire?" And yet of course it fit. Sos had gone to the mountain; the Weaponless had come out of it. To take the wife he had always wanted--Sola. Neq should have made the connection long ago.
"Have you changed your mind?"
Angry, Neq kept silence while he considered. The crazies were trying to set him an impossible task! Was it to be certain he would fail? Was this really their way of refusing assistance? Or was Dr. Jones serious, having decided that it was necessary, before Helicon could be rebuilt, to eliminate its destroyers? The Weaponless, Tyl, Jim the Gun--these had been the architects of Helicon's demise. The Weaponless had provided the motive; Tyl the manpower; Jim the weapons....
Perhaps it made sense. But how to locate the Weaponless now! If the man lived, so did the empire, and Neq himself still owed him fealty!
"I think the Weaponless is dead," Neq said at last.
"Then bring his wife."
"Or his child," Dick said.
"And if I bring these people to you, then you will give me the help I need for Helicon?"
"There are more names." Dr. Jones read them: all unfamiliar.
"I'll bring every one that lives!" Neq cried recklessly. "Will you help me then?"
Dr. Jones sighed. "I should be obliged to."
"I do not know where to find them all."
"I will travel with you," Dick the Surgeon said. "I know many of the Helicon refugees by sight, and have some notion where they might hide. But it would be your job to persuade them to come--without killing them."
Neq mused on this... The company of the surgeon did not appeal to him, but it did promise to facilitate an onerous task. "I can't tell them and I can't kill them. Yet I must make them come. The leading warriors of the old empire, including the very man who--" He shook his head. "All because I want to rebuild Helicon, and restore your source of supply, so that you can bring back the circle code."
Dr. Jones didn't seem to comprehend Neq's irony. "You have the essence, warrior."
Angry and disappointed, Neq walked out. But Dick the Surgeon followed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tyl's tribe was not as large as it had been in the heyday of empire, for he had taken losses in the Helicon reduction and in the anarchy following. But its demesnes were larger because of the general decimation of nomads in recent years. Now it represented a kind of civilization itself, for shelters had been built, fields cultivated, weapons forged, and the circle code was enforced. There was now a preponderance of staffs, clubs and sticks, mostly wooden weapons, because metal was much cruder than Helicon's product. The fine old weapons were increasingly precious now. Neq knew that those who carried swords of the old type were veterans, for today a man was challenged as frequently for possession of a superior weapon as for woman or service or life.