The Lohvian Cycle I

Chapter two-1

Chapter two“Dribble, dribble, dribble,” said Mevancy. “He’s just like an overgrown baby.”

“With shoulders like that,” observed Mistress Lingshi, wife of Nath the Landlord, “overgrown he surely is.”

Mevancy wiped soup away with a yellow cloth and then filled the spoon again. Carefully, she tilted it over my mouth and some of the soup splashed between my lips. Thank Zair my inward parts still worked. And, too, I felt supremely fortunate that my eyelids could close and open. Utter torture would have resulted if they’d been as paralyzed as the rest of me.

Mevancy sighed and filled the spoon again and a little more soup trickled down my gullet. It was a soup I had not tasted before, rich but not as thick as it might have been. And it was not hot; these parts, then, shared the fashion of drinking soup cold. All I had seen after being carried here in a blanket had been sky, ceiling and a swift vision of wall and bed when I’d been turned over to be washed. As Mevancy had said to Mistress Lingshi: “I rescued him and so I feel responsible for him.”

“But you and your poor dead friend rescued a whole lot of people—”

“True. But they’re not like little babies, are they?”

“And you mean to go on with the caravan? The way is very dangerous, particularly at this season.”

“Without being disrespectful to your delightful town, Larishsmot is not the place for me. I must push on to the coast—”

“But!” exclaimed Mistress Lingshi. “You can’t mean to travel through Tarankar? Never! They fry and eat babies, you know.”

“Well,” said Mevancy, and a trill lightened her words. “This one here would make a feast for them!”

“Tsung-tan in his majesty preserve us!”

“Well, I suppose I could leave him here—”

“Oh, I don’t think you ought to leave him here with us, dear. Much better to be able to keep an eye on him yourself.”

“Well, if you think that best—”

“Quite the best. Oh, yes, the best all round.” Mistress Lingshi sounded positive, alarmed and relieved, all at the same time. I swear I detected that lilt of mockery in Mevancy’s tone.

“It’s lucky,” said that young lady primly. “I’ve plenty of money so that’s no problem.”

“Of course, dear, if you think it better for us to look after him—”

“Oh, no, dear Mistress Lingshi, as you say it’s best all round if I take him along. I couldn’t impose on you in that way, money or no money.”

“We-ell, dear—”

“Here is the soup bowl and spoon. Now I’ll just plump up his pillows and then I must see Master Cardamon.”

When a woman has a fellow helpless in bed the pillows become objects of desire for her. She is forever plumping them up. And I was paralyzed and couldn’t dodge the barrage of straight lefts and right hooks that whistled past my ears. When Mevancy had gone a round or two with the pillows and got them thoroughly cowed and obedient, she let out a snort of satisfaction, and strode off with Mistress Lingshi trailing after.

The door creaked and then slammed shut. Shortly thereafter it creaked open and soft and furtive footfalls approached the bed. I just lay there, rigid as a brick wall. The seamed face of Nath the Landlord hovered over me. He held a spouted wine jug. He smiled and nodded but said nothing. He applied the spout and I glugg-glugged. When he judged I had swallowed enough he looked around furtively and then crept out and the door creaked shut.

Good old Nath the Landlord of the Jeweled Crook.

There are many Naths in the grouping of continents and islands called Paz. I blessed Nath the Landlord who had felt fellow-feeling for a man in distress surrounded by pillow-punching females.

My own feelings of lethargy persisted. I was well enough aware that having accomplished my mission for the Star Lords I could go home. I was absolutely confident this paralysis was merely temporary. All too soon I’d be up and about and this little interlude be over. And, I own, despite the pillow-punching propensities of Mevancy, I enjoyed this slothful lying down and doing nothing. She was an odd one, this Mevancy. Her face was not that of a great beauty; it possessed animation and aliveness. Her nose was finely shaped but her mouth was generous, far too generous for beauty. Her teeth were small and white. As for her eyes, they were dark and unfathomable. Her dark hair, from which I had bashed sparks, was usually caught up in a plain linen band. She habitually wore a slashed tunic and tights. The arms of the tunic were fastened down their length with latches giving a mannish Renaissance look. Her skin visible through the oval openings looked strange, almost granular, yet the skin of her face was real skin, smooth and silky, and nothing like a squamous or pebbled skin.

Nowadays there are two sapiens in our name; we are Homo sapiens sapiens, having recognized our old rivals Homo Neanderthalensis as being sapiens also. Homo sapiens sapiens on Kregen is apim. I wasn’t certainly sure this strange girl Mevancy was apim. Just at the moment it didn’t matter — unless she was from a race that practiced cannibalism.

When she returned she was practical and businesslike, all starched efficiency and bustle. “Master Cardamon will take us in his caravan and we must leave right away.” She stared down at me. “If you do not wish to go with me blink your eyelids twice.”

I tried not to blink at all.

“Very well.” She turned her head. “Nafty! Pondo! Come and get him.”

All I saw of these two was the back of one as they hoisted me, bed and all. By Krun! Mevancy had bought the bed off Nath and was taking it and me!

My own russets lay folded neatly at the foot of the bed and my rapier and main gauche hung from a bedpost at the head. They had attracted notice only as foreign weapons, known to these people. All I wore was the old scarlet breechclout. The money pouch on the belt had not been opened by Mevancy as far as I knew. That belt also supported the scabbarded seaman’s knife.

As we went lolloping down the stairs and along the street to the Wayfarer’s Drinnik and the blue sky passed overhead, I reflected again on the reasons for the Star Lords to dump me down with clothes and weapons, something that had happened infrequently in the past. Rafael, burned to death and now, I had heard, decently buried, had probably been deposited well-armed and clothed and with money. Well, he’d been wise to team up with Mevancy, for it was clear she was a young lady used to having her own way and with the wherewithal to pay for that way.

If, as I vaguely suspected, Mevancy was not fully apim, that would make no difference. On Kregen, if miscegenation could occur, people looked only to see if true love was involved. Cynics scoffed, of course; but cynics get their kicks from mistrust widely advertised.

The uproar from the Wayfarer’s Drinnik was, as was usual and expected, prodigious. Dust smoked under the twin suns. I could see the sky without a scrap of cloud; yet I could see in my mind’s eye all that was going on around me with absolute clarity.

The caravan of which Cardamon was Master was due to head west. This town of Larishsmot was more than a mere caravanserai. Here a caravan would rest up to make repairs and buy provisions and get ready for the next stage of the journey. Also, as lady Floria had said, this was a time to relax and snatch what entertainment might be found.

A shadow fell across me and against the light the form of Mevancy showed hard and edged, riding a zorca. I felt relief that this land knew of zorcas and, no doubt, as did everywhere else, cherish the wonderful riding animals.

“You will ride in the cart. It will not be comfortable. The quicker you regain your senses the quicker you’ll ride easier.”

Mevancy spoke Opaz’s solemn truth, by the invisible Twins!

The damned cart was uncomfortable. Hideously uncomfortable. Yet I am an old sailorman trained in the toughest Navy the world of Earth has ever seen. I have been wounded before and carried home in a cart. Getting wounded in a battle is not to be recommended. This despicable example of the cartwright’s art disdained springs. I do not believe the wheels were triangular, as might well be believed, but merely square. The thing jolted up and flopped down and threw me about like the ball a child tosses up and down in a handled cup. Now I might be paralyzed so that I could neither move nor talk; I could damn well feel, by Vox!

When this hoity-toity young madam had dragged me out of the fire I’d felt my back scraping along the ground. I reasoned that I must have hit the back of my head and neck on some hard projection thus to become paralyzed. I did not think the falling beam had done this. Anyway, I could feel. And I felt every jolt and jerk of that infernal cart. This was a physical torture to add to the mental torture of my situation.

I shall have more to say on this question of torture, which is often bandied about as though torture is a commodity to be purchased over the counter. Those people who traffic in torture are, of course, sub-human despite overt intentions, as has been exemplified in the teachings of San Iwanhan, who suffered at the hands of well-intentioned torturers. This cart was, indeed, a simple-minded example of torture, to be sure; at the time I raved mentally and cursed all the dark gods and spirits of Kregen for their vile habits.

In the nature of things much of that portion of the journey went away from me as though shrouded in mists. I was sponged down a couple of times, by which I knew the way was waterless. If I couldn’t begin to move pretty soon sores would start to appear, and quite apart from the inconvenience to myself, I would shrink from inflicting the smell on those about me.

The two louts engaged by Mevancy to help proved an ill-assorted pair. Nafty giggled and fooled around a lot of the time; Pondo remained silent and surly. Once or twice I was turned on my side and could catch occasional glimpses of the outside world over the side of the cart. Mostly that was low dry hills, a few thorn ivy bushes, and the distant figure of an outrider. Some of these hired caravan guards rode zorcas and some a thumping six-legged waler of a saddle-animal with family connections to the sectrixes. But, mostly, when I lay on my side I could study the whorls and knots and weathering of the timbers of the cart’s side and bed.

In that wood were whole worlds, maps of Kregen and of Earth, faces of friends and foes, a picture gallery that my mazed mind pondered for hour after hour. When I was turned over onto the other side I found a distorted mirror image; for my brain transcribed from the wooden markings the same faces and pictures although the maps were different. Then I would be rolled onto my back and so could study the even white blueness of the unchanging sky.

The twin shadows of the suns moved across the cart as the days went by, the jade and ruby lights streaming the mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. Then I caught a few surly words from Pondo and a light bubbly rejoinder from Nafty.

“There’d be total darkness over the land, Pondo, if Luz and Walig waited for you to laugh before they rose of a morning.”

So now I knew where I was.

It does occur to me that you who have listened to my story will already have reasoned out where I was. But you must remember I was not myself; I was not the true Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, late Emperor of Vallia. I was a poor creature who had been cruelly stricken down with paralysis of body and mind. I was sluggish. I’d seen people around with red hair, and some of the guards carried impressive longbows; but these are found all over the lands of Paz.

Still — Luz and Walig.

I knew the twin suns better as Zim and Genodras, or Far and Havil or any of the plethora of local names. Luz and Walig.