The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (28 page)

             
He turned the thing over and found a place where tools had worked upon it:
evidently
to saw or chisel off the small piece from which the smith of Tartaros had made the Ring of the Tritons. He gazed at it in wonder. So this was what a star looked like up close? He would have expected something bigger. He asked:

             
"Are you sure this is the Tahakh?"

             
"Quite sure."

             
"Why does Awoqqas leave it in such an accessible place? One would think to find it in an underground chamber guarded by an army of izzuneg and a couple of dragons."

             
"He is a man of strange quirks. Perhaps he thought if it were left practically in the open nobody would notice it. But let us talk of other matters, my lord."

             
She lay back on the bed, stretching luxuriously. "You will soon realize you have never known what joy life can hold. Come kiss me!"

             
She held up her arms. Well, thought Vakar, why not? Life did not go on forever, and in this career of adventure into which he had been pitched it was likely to be even
shorter than otherwise. He laid down the Tahakh, lifted his sword-belt off over his head and laid baldric and scabbard beside the fallen star, and picked up the silver wine-cup for one more swallow.

             
He stood by the bed, holding the cup in his hand and looking down at
Rezzâra
's sleek olive-skinned form, from which the jewels winked up, adorning without concealing. He realized that these ornaments represented enough of an asset to take a traveller a long
way
...

             
And then the wine-cup dropped from Vakar's limp fingers as a horrifying change took place before his eyes. The girl's head faded from view, leaving her nothing but a female izzuni. "
Rezzâra
!" he called sharply.

             
A faint voice—Rezz
â
ra's, but barely audible, sounding inside his skull, replied: "Come, my love, let us take our fill of passion ... I burn for you
...
"

             
He leaned over and passed his hand through the air where her head had been. It met no resistance. He could not quite force himself to touch the downy neck-stump. Again that tiny voice sounded in his head, like the cry of a distant bird flying off into the sunset:

             
"So—you know? Do not blame me, stranger, for I am but a wandering sylph, constrained by Awoqqas's will. He cast a glamor upon this body to beguile you. If you wish, you may still
...
"

             
The suggestion was never completed, for a sound over Vakar's head caused him to look up and then to jerk frantically back as a great net detached itself from the canopy. It fell down upon the bed and was drawn tight over
Rezzâra
's body. One of the ropes brushed Vakar's hair as he leaped, and at that instant the door flew open.

             
In rushed a squad of izzuneg, unarmed, with hands outspread to clutch, and behind them came the
little
king.

             
Vakar stooped for his sword. His right hand snatched up the scabbard while his left touched the Tahakh. He rose, whirling to face the intruders with both objects, and hardly knowing what he did he hurled the heavy stone over the izzuneg at Awoqqas, then drew his sword just as the izzuneg reached him. There was no time for thrusting. Sidestepping, he struck right and left, slicing open torsos and reaching arms. The izzuneg, spraying blood, came on anyway. Hands clamped upon his
arms
...

             
The grip of the hands relaxed. All the izzuneg, with a faint exhalation of breath, slumped to the floor in a tangle of bare brown bodies. Looking across the shambles, Vakar saw the king lying near the door with his head staved in. And in his mind the thin voice of the sylph that had animated
Rezzâra
sounded:

             
"The spell is broken and we are all free
...
Thank you, stranger, and farewell
...
"

             
Vakar stood staring stupidly, his mind wandering, until Fual burst in, crying: "What's happened, my lord? I was in the kitchens, where this king ordered me to go, when all the headless ones fell dead! Isn't that the king, dead too? And who's that on the bed? Have you cut off her head? I should not have thought that of you, sir
...
"

             
"She never had any, poor thing," said Vakar slowly. "She was an izzuni like the others, but Awoqqas put a spell upon her to make her look like a whole woman. T
hi
nking me a great wizard he sent me into the room containing the Tahakh with the intention that I should touch it and lose my magical powers. Then
Rezzâra
should lure me on to the bed. The door has a spy-
hole, and the king meant to watch me through it and drop the net over us both, as in that myth about the goddess Aphradexa that fellow sang of in Huperea. Then Awoqqas would rush in to secure me, no doubt to turn us into izzuneg. But I'm no wizard, and the wine showed me
Rezzâra
's true shape."

             
Fual's teeth chattered. "What now, sir?"

             
"Collect our stuff and get out."

             
Fual leaned over the body of
Rezzâra
, cut the ropes of the net with his dagger, and started stripping the carcass of its ornaments. The bodies began to stink of decay with unnatural rapidity. He said over his shoulder:

             
"My lord, whither now?"

             
"Since the smiths of Tartaros seem to know how to make things of this star-stuff, I thought we should go there."

             
"To Blackland?
But they
eat
people!" wa
il
ed the Aremorian.

             
"Not all of them, and we're too lean to be appetizing. Roll the Tahakh up in our blanket."

             
A few minutes later they were walking the corridors, Vakar prowling in the lead with buckler before him and sword out, Fual clumping behind. Here and there they passed the sprawled corpse of an izzuni. Once a whole man brushed past them and ran down the corridor, his sandals slapping. Vakar gazed after him,
then
whirled as another charged around a corner.

             
"Halt there!" cried Vakar, stepping in front of the man. He recognized the fellow as his acquaintance Shagarnin, who had guided them to Niowat. The Belemian tried to dodge past, but Vakar held his arms out. "How do you get out of here?"

             
The man breathed heavily and his face was distorted with fear. "Izzuneg all dead," he gasped. "The commoners are up in disorder and are tearing all the
ullimen
to bits! Let me go—they will kill me—they will kill me—"

             
"Stand still!" shouted Vakar. "Tell me how to get out of here or I will rob the commoners of that pleasure!"

             
"Go the way I just came—turn right, then left, then go straight
...
"

             
"Where are our horses?"

             
"Paddock off to the right as you come out the entrance, but the rabble will be there. Let me go
...
"

             
"Why not come with us? You would have some chance to save your worthless life."

             
"No—I am afraid—they will kill me—" Shagarnin ducked under Vakar's arm and raced down the corridor as his predecessor had done.

             
"Hurry," said Vakar, setting a pace that Fual with his burdens could scarcely follow.

             
As they neared the entrance to the tunnel-palace Vakar became conscious of a buzzing sound as of an overturned beehive. When the tunnel entrance came in sight he was struck by the red glow around it. It would, he reflected, be just about sunset.

             
But the glow was not
sunset
, though the sun had already set behind the peaks. The redness was the light of the fires that were burning the houses of all the
ullimen
of Belem. Here and there in the city below the palace lay little groups of bodies of both sexes and all ages, stripped and mutilated, while a crowd of several hundred commoners danced shrieking around the burning houses. In one place Vakar saw a group gathered about an aristocrat whom they had tied to a tree and were skinning alive; another group was torturing a young girl with fire. The stench of rotting izzuneg combined noisomely with that of burning human flesh.

             
"Let's go quickly," said Vakar, and led the way to the paddock, where lay another clump of dead izzuneg.

             
An outburst of yells from the mob below caused Fual to look back: "They've seen us, sir! They're coming this way!"

             
"Well, help me catch these damned animals!" snarled Vakar.

             
Presently they had rounded up three of the least skittish, bridled them (the Belemians rode bareback) and lashed their load to one. The screams of the approaching mob grew louder.

             
"Our only chance is to go through them at full speed," said Vakar. "Ready?"

             
He slapped his horse's rump with the flat of his sword, and the animal started as if bitten and bounded out of the paddock. The commoners were swarming all around the entrance to the palace; some were pushing into the tunnels while a group of others was coming towards the paddock. The yells redoubled in volume. A stone struck Vakar's shield with a clank and another glanced off his helmet.

             
The horse tried to leap over the side of the path, but Vakar hauled it back with brutal jerk, knowing that if they tried to gallop down the steep hillside they would surely be unhorsed. He forced the animal right at the screeching savages, who tumbled out of the way as he leaned forward, howling like a demon himself and cutting right and left. He looked one of them in the face: a face covered with dirt and matted hair, out of which a pair of bloodshot eyes glared insanely. He struck at it and felt the blade bite into the skull; felt his horse stumble on the body and jerked the reins to bring the beast's head
up
...

             
They pounded across the echoing bridge and down the main street of Niowat, skimming through the scattered crowds, and then they were out of town. Behind them the yells of the commoners died away, and the flames of the burning houses vanished around the bends in the road.

-

             
Vakar said to Fual: "I've never been for pampering the commoners, but neither is there any sense to oppressing them to madness. Cutting off all then heads forsooth! No wonder they wished to flay Awoqqas and his nobles. The only sad thing is that they will in their stupid fury have destroyed all the amenities of civilized life in Belem, so that there will remain nothing but wretched savages, unable to rise from their own filth
...
"

             
They were riding towards Lake Kokutos, the chief body of water in Gamphasantia, having retraced part of their route from Tritonia to Belem and then turned off westward at Lake Tashorin, skirting around the northern end of the Tamenruft. The tropical midsummer sun glared down cruelly upon them from a cloudless sky.