Lin Carter - The Man Who Loved Mars Page 9
We strode into the hall to a crash of slim trumpets. The scene was one of stupendous and barbaric splendor. A veritable forest of immense red marble pillars soared far above our heads, supporting a lofty, vaulted ceiling lost in gloomy shadows. The pillars were carved with spiraling lines of antique inscriptions; here within the Great House the weatherings of time had worked less destruction on such monuments of the past, and the ancient pigments were still visible, for faint traces of rich colorings could be glimpsed in the graved glymphs.
Basketwork cressets of hard bronze cupped smokeless white fires, dazzling and odorless. There is little wood on Mars and little enough oxygen whereby to burn wood; but the People have found a chemical substitute, derived from the oil of certain common mosses, which ignites with flame-less brilliance when combined with a powdered mineral we have yet to identify.
Several hundred of the lords and nobles of the Moon Dragon sat on ritual cushions before ankle-high slab tables of carved stone. They wore ceremonial feasting robes of brilliant hues, and the scenic effect of the massed nobles in their glittering finery, under the blaze of the cressets, was savage and opulent.
My companions were delighted at the warmth of the room, for great fires roared on stone grates and the steamy vapor of broiling meats filled the air with succulent odors and robbed it of its bitter chill. They were even more delighted when I advised them that they could safely remove their respirators. The atmosphere of Mars is thin and oxygen poor, of course, but it is no less breathable than that of the Himalayan heights or the great Andean plateau. It is the intense cold and the terrible dryness of the air that are so injurious to the lungs of Earthmen as to require the use of respirators. These condense the air which passes through them to a more breathable thickness and also heat and moisten it.
The deep-throated trumpet call died in echoes far overhead as we entered the hall and took the places indicated by the chamberlain. The hundreds who had risen to salute me at my entrance sank in a deep bow as I strode down the broad lane between the tables with my companions behind me as a sort of entourage.
I was guided to the High Seat of Honor on a broad dais of yellow marble with many steps. My chair was a capacious, thronelike thing of very ancient black wood which rose higher than the place of the Prince, who stood to welcome me. Keresny and Ilsa and Bolgov were given places of lesser honor on a lower step of the dais.
I noted sidewise glances and mutterings, and a certain hostility gleamed in the eyes of many of the nobles and chieftains as they saw that my companions were of the F’yagha, the Hated Ones. There was nothing that could be done about this, and I suppose the reaction was only natural, considering how much the People have suffered at the hands of the Earthmen. But I did not fear any open gesture of unfriendliness, and I felt that the stares and mutterings would pass, as indeed they did. For hospitality is a holy virtue among the People, and guest right a sacred obligation of honor.
A cold goblet of cut amethyst crystal was ceremoniously set into my hands by the Prince himself, who took up an identical goblet. Then with great solemnity, as a hush fell over the feasting throng, the fat chamberlain poured into our twin goblets a clear fluid. We drank together, he and 1.
It was water���pure, cold water, rarer and more precious than any wine. Now I had “shared water” with Prince Kraa, as I had shared it with Thuu and Mha and Yatha and Eonnah, also Princes of Nations. And in so doing, a pact of friendship and brotherhood was sealed between us that only death could rend asunder.
He had yet to lay his sword at my feet, however, in the Vow of Fealty.
The precious water bottle was removed, and the goblets taken away. Cups of green jade were given us and were filled with wine. I saluted my water friend and drank deeply. The wine was thin and pale and golden, with honeyed fire at its heart, and it sang with delicious vigor through my veins like the rarest and most superb of champagnes.
Then the feast began; an endless variety of highly spiced meats, porcelain cups of steaming broth swimming with precious herbs, pickled roots and tubers, candied fruits from the Wetlands, and sugared pastries passed before us, borne on the shoulders of out-clan slaves on huge platters of gold and silver. And there were goblets of that curious and very precious blue-green metal peculiar to Mars, which became all the rage for jewelry back on Earth after Christoffsen returned home with the first sample. Martium they call it.
I saw Bolgov’s eyes glitter with greed as smoking meats were offered to us on a platter of solid Martium worth twenty years’ salary to one of his profession. He accepted a plate of small cubes of sweet white meat from the priceless platter, and I smiled as he gobbled them hungrily, eyes following the sheen of the metal.
“Delicious, isn’t it, Brother Konstantin?”
He grunted. “Not bad.”
“Yes, beautifully spiced. It’s sand snake, of course …”
His face purpled, and he spat the mouthful into his napkin as I chuckled.
There were twenty-three courses and nine wines, ending with a brandy like liquid gold.
Musicians played between the tables, using instruments that few Earthmen ever see save in temple frescoes. Keresny followed them with fascinated eyes. The music was all composed of wailing minor notes, rather like Arab music, and the ringing of little silver chimes made a weird, tuneless counterpoint. Bolgov shifted restlessly, guzzling down the precious brandy; even Ilsa fidgeted a little, and I could not blame her. For all that my heart belonged to this desert world, even I did not understand her native music!
A fat chamberlain conducted the phases of the feast. As the musicians passed, he rang his heavy silver crozier against the marble pave and summoned the dancing girls with an imperious gesture.
They were slim and young, with tawny copper flesh, and their bare bodies writhed with boneless grace through a gliding sequence of alluring postures that were the very essence of all that is voluptuous. And they were nude beneath a thin layer of purple gauze, with gems woven through the night-black falls of their silken hair.
Bolgov ogled them with hot, hungry eyes. The Doctor took in the scenery with a twinkle in his eye, and the amused smile of a connoisseur. Ilsa, however, sat stiff with disapproval, her face flushed and eyes averted. I grinned, inhaled the magnificent brandy, and admired the dance.
The old Prince and Lord Kuruk, his only son, sat near me on the high place, but we exchanged few words during the feast itself, as the People considered it most rude to hold a conversation during a meal. I saw that the little dwarf-pontiff shared the crest of the dais with us and stuffed himself greedily, although he did not touch any of the wines. From time to time he shot me a glance eloquent of cold malignity, but I did not deign to return his look. I found myself wondering yet again at the reason for his obvious hatred of me.
True, the ancient priesthood of Mars has always been at odds with the great hereditary Princes, but the Jamad is above all such rivalries. Or so I had always supposed.
Once we were done eating, I broached the subject of our coming to Prince Kraa. I was as diplomatic as possible about it and as vague as I dared to be concerning the exact nature of our quest, but even so, the Prince was disturbed to learn that we sought to find the Lost City of Ilionis.
I tried to explain our motives, presenting them as something nobler than a squalid hunt for gold and jewels. I attempted to get across the notion of a scientific expedition, but this proved too subtle and alien for the old man to readily grasp. The People have fallen very far from the heights their splendid civilization once achieved, and the technological skills that enabled their ancestors to perfect such sophisticated artifacts as the thought records has long since become lost. The very concept of science itself is difficult to convey to them, and the Tongue lacks even a word for a scientist.
“The silver-haired one among my companions,” I explained carefully, “is a Doctor. In the tongue of the Hated Ones that denotes a student of the ancient arts, a seeker after the lost wisdom of past ages. He would study the records of
the achievements of your remote ancestors and set these matters down in writing, so that other men may learn thereof, thus adding to the store of their knowledge.”
Kraa was baffled that a man should so spend his days and inquired seriously if Keresny was in good health.
“Surely, the Dok-i-tar has his women and the hunt and the wars of his people,” he said dubiously. “He is not a priest, that one���a kaffarh?”
I strove to stifle a grin: a kaffarh is one who has been deprived (through drugs) of the use of certain organs and has thus lost his ability to enjoy one of the sensual prerogatives of a male, the better to perform his priestly or oracular duties without the distractions of the flesh. A gelding, you might say.
“No, the Doctor is a ‘whole man’���but a man of great wisdom and deep learning,” I said.
Kraa gave it up with a shrug. But he was unhappy at the thought of our questing after the Lost City.
“How shall the Dok-i-tar find the place of Ilionis? No man can truly say he knows the way. Many there be who say it is but a fable and not a thing of fact. Never have I heard a man tell the way to that place. Even we who dwell here in Farad, which the old songs say doth guard the road to Lost Ilionis���as is inscribed upon the pillars of the city gates���know naught of that place.”
“He believes he has found the road thither,” I said. And then I described the direction and the distance we intended to travel. I broke off suddenly, noting the dismay written large upon his features.
“Lord, that is beyond the boundaries of the Hualokka, the Sacred Land! No warrior of the Riders of Chun would trespass beyond the stone pillars that mark the borders of that land!”
His face was worried, and his voice was troubled. I tried to soothe him, reluctant to impose my authority as Jamad upon the will of my host and a warrior king I hoped would join me as an ally. But if I could not win his aid willingly, I would have to command him; for we needed his help; we could never make the march on foot across the bleak plateau alone.
“Nothing will be disturbed in that land,” I said quietly. “The Doctor will look, will study, will observe. The holy peace of Ilionis will not be broken; neither will its treasure, if there indeed be treasure, be looted of so little as a single coin or one small gem.”
It was dirt on my tongue to have to lie to the old man, and inwardly I breathed a curse on Josip Keresny and his damnedable treasure hunt. And most devoutly did I wish that there should indeed be no treasure at all and no city either. For Keresny and Bolgov could not be persuaded to leave the treasure intact, the vault unplundered; and how could I, the Jamad, be a party to such a sacrilege as the looting of the holiest place on Mars?
When I had first agreed on this thing, I had believed without question that Lost Ilionis was a baseless fabrication���the El Dorado of Mars���and no more.
Now I was not so certain. For the distress in the voice of Kraa was eloquent testimony.
He shook his head wonderingly. “Lord, my fathers and my fathers’ fathers have held all of the Hualokka sacrosanct since time began. And yet you are my Jamad, and your whim is my law … Nay, stronger even than the Law is your will! Aiiil These be heavy matters to decide.”
It was then the capricious Fates took a hand.
For the dwarf-priest Dhu had been leaning near to catch our words. Now his beady eyes flashed, and he threw up his hands in a display of righteous indignation.
“Do I hear true, O Prince?” he shrilled. “The F’yagha would have you lead them into the Sacred Land? To set foot there is an affront to the very spirits of your sacred ancestors, and it is to spit in the faces of the Timeless Ones themselves!”
Kraa’s face hardened.
“Be silent, priest, when Princes confer!” he snapped. “If we require the opinions of the priesthood, we will invite them.”
The hunchback was not intimidated by this.
“Yet still 1 say these things are blasphemy���utter blasphemy!” he insisted. “And a true Jamad, a Jamad of the ancient blood, would know that this is Law. The F’yagh Jamad may wear the Crown and boast the name, but he is an Outworlder and doubly forbidden to set foot on the soil of the Sacred Land.”
Some intuition told me to keep silent and let the two of them fight this out. So I kept my face impassive; little Dhu cast a gloating eye in my direction to see how I was taking this and seemed the slightest bit disconcerted by my apparent serenity and composure. As for the Prince, he was wavering.
Dhu sensed his triumph. He drew himself up to the most commanding height he could manage and delivered the coup de grace in a scathing tones of withering contempt:
“But the F’yagh you name Jamad is but an imposter, lit-tie learned in the ways and lore of the People. Imagine! He searches for Ilionis, lost Ilionis, the city of the treasure; but were he truly a master of the ancient lore, he would know that Ilionis is but a legend and no more. It does not exist; it is only a story, only a myth out of lost ages!”
Prince Kraa’s face was grim, and he cast me a dubious glance.
On a lower step of the dais, fat, moonfaced little Huw had lolled all this while. He was somewhat the worse for all the tankards of wine he had taken aboard: his round face was flushed, and his eyes twinkled with mirth. It would seem he had eavesdropped on this scene of confrontation.
“Eh, lords,” he wheezed, “but if this Ilionis does not exist at all, well … I wonder how it can be that merely to seek for it is blasphemy and sacrilege?”
It was as if his casual words, drawled in a lazy and laughing voice, had dropped into the scene like a bombshell.
Dhu flushed; his wide, froglike mouth, which had opened to drive home yet another nail in the coffin of my hopes, hung open for a moment, as the vindictive little monster suddenly realized he had put his foot in it.
By a miracle I kept my face straight, managing to retain my expression of calm composure. But the Prince’s eyes flashed, and his hps curled in a little smile as the implications of the fat minstrel’s remarks began to occur to him.
Dhu faltered, wavered; Prince Kraa eyed him blandly; and I began to understand that little or no love was lost between the Prince and priest. It was the age-old struggle for supremacy, acted out here in Farad as it has been played on many another stage across the face of this old, old world. And fat Huw, either intentionally or through sheer accident, had just given Kraa splendid ammunition to win this round of the old battle.
“Your opinion on this point, O Dhu?” he inquired in a soft, purring voice. “If there is no such place as Ilionis, to which truth you yourself attest, then how can the searching for it be considered sacrilege?”
“I… uh … it… is sacrilege to attempt that which the Timeless Ones, in their infinite wisdom, have forbidden,” the priest stammered lamely.
“Then the Timeless Ones have forbade men to search for that which is nowhere and which, therefore, cannot possibly be found?” the Prince inquired blandly.
Dhu shut his mouth sulkily, eyes ugly.
Below, where he sprawled on plump cushions, Huw chuckled. The little hunchback snarled, flushing.
With an expression of smug amusement, the Prince watched Dhu as the hunchback thought furiously, eyes roaming desperately about in search of an inspiration or a diversion or both.
AndT understood the situation in Farad. The seesaw struggle for power had been going on between these two for so many years that the Prince by now was in automatic opposition to the wishes of his priesthood. Therein, very possibly, lay the factor that might win Prince Kraa to assist us in the quest.
In a word, I did not have to exert my authority as the Jamad. It was not necessary, for the Prince would convince himself to aid our purpose. By now he was conditioned to turn left, whenever he believed the priests, led by Dhu, wanted him to turn right!
“We await your answer, O Dhu! Is it���can it���be sacrilege to search after something that is not even there? Why should the Timeless Ones forbid such a curious thing?”
“Yes, O Prince!” he said. “Because … by forbidding Uionis to exist, the Timeless Ones are telling us not to look for it.”
The Prince said nothing. Dhu licked his lips, eyes uncertain; that sounded like pretty bad logic, even to him. He went on, losing momentum visibly.
“And anyway, the Sacred Land is forbidden to all men.”
“True,” the Prince nodded, with a quiet smile. “But that is a prohibition enacted by the Jamad Jonnath XII of the Silver Dynasty. By his law, we stand guard here in this place forever, so that men shall not enter the Sacred Land. Is it not true, what I say?”
Dhu nodded uncertainly: it was as if he knew what was coming.
“But the law a Jamad makes, another Jamad can rescind. Is that not equally true?”
Dhu nodded miserably and shot me a glance that was a shaft of pure poison.
“But the land is inviolable in ancient custom, and the priesthood invokes the curse of the Timeless Ones upon he who desecrates the sacredness of tradition,” he snarled.
“The Jamad is holier than any priest,” I observed calmly. “And I too can curse.”
The hunched little priest paled, for he knew the Power I bore and could guess the strength of my curses!
“Can any action of a crowned Jamad Tengru be sacrilege?” asked the Prince thoughtfully. “I doubt if it can. Since the Jamad is himself the very embodiment of the Law. As well, he is guided by the cumulative wisdom and inspiration of the holy wearers of that Crown who went before him. And is it not written in a thousand scriptures that the Timeless Ones watch over the Jamad and guide his steps? How could the gods lead the Jamad into impiety or sacrilege? The thought is impossible … would you not say, priest?”
Dhu wilted. He nodded sullenly, not deigning to meet my smile or the bland, bright gaze of Prince Kraa.
And for the rest of the feast, he sat unmoving, savoring the sour taste of defeat.
And it was thus that I won the aid of the Moon Dragon Prince for the quest.