that does not kill, does not even harm. This sword had lost that power, assuming it had ever possessed it, and Alex Hunter had been equipped as an ordinary fighting-man of Kregen — with this single exception of the sword.
On a bright morning when a little pink mist lifted from the treetops and birds sang with what I can only describe as a trilling note I told Theirson I must say Remberee.
“For one thing, good Theirson, I am eating far too much.”
“You are always welcome to share what we have, Drak.”
“And for that I thank you. But I ought to return to the beach and tell the people there what has happened.”
“They would be advised-” And then Theirson paused, and looked helpless. Indeed, what to advise those escaped prisoners?
“I will think of something,” I said.
He sighed. “If only the old Strom were here. He was a man! He ruled Valka with a rod of iron, and with justice and mercy. A girl could walk from one end of the island to the other without fear in those days.”
“Why does the Emperor permit these things?”
His distress was obvious. “We do not know. Perhaps the Emperor does not know what goes on in Valka. We are the most cut off of all the Stromnates.”
I didn’t necessarily believe that, but I knew what he meant.
A Strom is the nearest equivalent to a count, and a Kov to a duke; the Strom of Valka had been early killed in opposing the slave-masters and their mercenaries. After that the island had become a mere slave-droving ground. Although, so Theirson told me, in the central massif were many, many young men and women who had escaped from their villages and towns. The chief city of Valka, Valkanium, lay fast held in the clutches of the slavers and the aragorn, the men of prey who feasted on the carcass of the island.
“They guard themselves well behind their iron gates and their tall black towers,” said old Theirson. Thisi the Fair came hobbling fast along the main street. She panted. Her white hair had fallen free of the wooden pins holding it — for all her silver pins from the Street of the Silversmiths in Vandayha had long since been stolen — and the sunshine glistened off the sweat along her forehead.
“You must give me your sword, Drak!”
“Willingly, Thisi,” I answered in as uncharacteristic a speech as ever I could make. “But give me a good reason.”
She halted before me, twisted her head to look up, and tried to push her hair into place. “Why, I would clean the hilt for you, and, too, I would show it to Tlemi, who would recapture his youth.” She cackled, and there was strain in her laugh. “He is too old to work, and he lies on his pallet dreaming of the past.”
“The hilt is clean, Thisi.” I drew the sword and held it out to her, hilt first. “But show it to Tlemi, with my blessing, and tell him once a warrior always a warrior.”
“Aye,” she cackled, grasping the hilt and holding it as awkwardly as one can imagine. “I know about warriors, Drak.”
“I will pause a while before going into the fields, Drak, and drink a cup of water with you.”
“That will give me great pleasure, Theirson.”
So we sat in the early sunshine and drank our water and talked of the lack of rain and the crops and the old days in Valka. Truth to tell, I recall, I wanted to learn as much as I could of this island of Valka. This village had been raided often, and the pitiful attempt to hide it away from the main road and canal had been completely unsuccessful. That the roads here were reasonably good was a result of the old Strom’s grandfather, who liked to race zorca chariots, a sport he could not practice on the canals. Presently Thisi came back. “Tlemi had tears in his eyes,” she said. “The old fool. Over a mere sword!”
She looked a great deal calmer.
Thisi leaned over and whispered to her husband.
He started, and looked down the road, and then at me, and back at Thisi. He swallowed. “Here, Drak. Cover yourself with this old cloth-”
But I understood, and I cursed myself for a credulous simpleton.
They cared for me, these old folk, and they did not wish me killed. I had done nothing for them. I had brought merely sickness, and another mouth to feed. More altruistic love for a fellow man is difficult to find.
I stood up.
“I will go to Tlemi’s hut and get my sword, now-”
“It is too late, Drak. Look!”
I looked.
Riding in their pride and their power, the aragorn astride their zorcas moved up the street. The old folk stumbled to their knees as the mercenaries passed. Absolute power they held, absolute control, a will never challenged.
And I, Dray Prescot, stood like a loon in the dust before them, empty-handed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Theirson’s hand gripped my ankle and jerked, and stunned by the folly of my own actions, I lost my balance and tumbled into the dust at his side. He whispered fiercely, in an agony of terror.
“Put your forehead into the dirt, Drak! For the sake of the glorious Opaz himself! Else you are a doomed man —
Those last words, alone, could make me bend my stubbornly and stupidly proud neck. I bowed. I cringed. I, Dray Prescot, double-inclined to these cramphs of aragorn. The zorca hooves twinkled past. Following them the calsanys lumbered along, tails flicking. Tethered to the last two calsanys by lengths of rope were two people, a man and a woman. I could see only their naked legs. They stumbled as they were jerked along. The woman fell. Now I could see her. She was young, with long brown hair and a thin but vigorous figure, clad only in a wraparound of the orange Valkan cloth. She was dragged by her bound wrists. An aragorn reined back and beat her with his crop until she rose up silently, and stumbled on, dragged by the calsany. Theirson’s hand gripped my arm.
Then the party had passed and the aragorn were yelling for the headman and Theirson was rising and shuffling forward, head bent.
“Bibi!” said Thisi. I looked at her. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “Bibi — my granddaughter.”
Many secret societies exist on Kregen, as anywhere else, I suppose. Societies exist devoted to this end and that. On Valka, with the absolute dominance of the slavers and the mercenaries, and the disappearance of so many of the younger people into the central massif, a clandestine organization must grow up to resist. Given the normal strengths and fears of human beings — and of the halflings, too -
this is natural and inevitable. Bibi, Thisi’s granddaughter, must have come down with a message from the center. They — she and her companion — had been caught. Now the aragorn wanted to find out why she was visiting here.
I stood up warily, and looked up the street.
Theirson was talking to the aragorn. They looked to be the same six, evidently backtracking because of their captives. Other village people crouched abjectly by their huts. The six slaves stood by the calsanys, and the three dancing girls put their heads out of their preysany-palanquin covers and chattered like parakeets. The palanquins were gorgeously decorated with filigree work, and the poles by which they were slung were lavishly bound with silver wire. The preysanys — a kind of superior calsany — were likewise highly decorated and feathered.
I stood there and I looked down on Thisi.
My voice carried all that harsh, intolerant authority, and I know my face must have glared with that hateful devil’s look.
“Run, Thisi, and bring my sword. Tell Tlemi I have need of it.”
“But, Drak-”
“Run.”
