Part 18 (1/2)

”Earlier, Hultax,” Retoc said with a hard smile, ”you craved action. I give you action. Take a boat. There are some moored down-river for the use of Nadian priests on their religious pilgrimages to the banks where the stilt-birds dwell. Overtake the royal barge. Board it. Slay the man and the woman.”

”But I--the Place of the Dead....”

”Fool!” hissed Retoc. ”I didn't ask you to visit the Place of the Dead. That's up to you. If you slay them first, on the River of Ice, and can bring back proof ... but the longer we talk, the further they are. You'll go?”

It was phrased as a question; actually, it was a command. Grim-faced, the whip-sword trailing at his side, Hultax left the crowd of soldiers and made his way downstream. A few moments later he had poled a wooden skiff out into the icy current and went down-river in pursuit of the royal barge.

The guards had unbound Ylia's fetters on the barge, knowing she could never swim for safety in the waters of the River of Ice. She sat now at the foot of Jlomec's bier, with Bram Forest's handsome head cus.h.i.+oned on her lap. It was very cold there on the river. Wind blew, rustling the reeds which grew along the bank. They had long since emerged from the river's underground cavern. The swift current carried them now through a country of ice, a tundra. The reeds, twice as tall as a man, seemed to thrive on the riverbanks. They swallowed everything.

Bram Forest opened his eyes, and looked at her, and smiled. He tried to sit up, wincing as pain knifed through his head. ”We seem to make a habit of this,” he said, smiling again.

”Shh, you mustn't talk.”

She leaned close. He could smell the animal perfume of her body, like musk and jasmine. Impulsively, she kissed him softly on the lips. His arm went around her neck. He pulled her head down and drank deeply of her.

”Why ...” she began, all breathless.

”Because I love you. I think I loved you the first moment I saw you.

But I didn't know it then.” He laughed softly, gently, and she did not know why this should be so.

”Why do you laugh?”

”I was an infant, the son of the Queen. Of Queen Evalla. Portox the scientist fled with me, the last of the royal Ofridian blood, to the other side of the solar system, to a world the twin of this, a world we never see because the sun always stands between us, a world called Earth. There I would wait until maturity. There I would be given the strength and the wisdom I needed. And then I would return to Tarth and right the ancient wrong. Well, I have returned. I love you. It is enough, Ylia. I want to think of the future, not the past.”

Ylia let him kiss her again. ”Isn't it the same, the future and the past? Aren't they one? I too am of Ofridian blood, Bram Forest, of the lesser n.o.bility. There are hundreds of us, living nomadic lives on the Ofridian Plains, where once our great nation stood.”

”I didn't know that. It wasn't in Portox's training. Now Portox is dead. I buried him on this world called Earth. He could not even come back to his native Tarth.”

”Darling, don't you see? That's exactly why the ancient wrong must be righted, why Retoc must pay for his infamous deeds. So Portox and the millions of other Ofridians, slain, all slain, can sleep eternally in peace. You are their champion.”

”But revenge? What is revenge if--”

”You are the champion of the future too! Don't you see, oh, don't you?

Of all the unborn tomorrows when the Ofridian nation may live again.

Of all the unborn tomorrows when the nations of Tarth can live together in peace and harmony. Don't you understand that?”

”It's funny. I try to see my mother's face. Queen Evalla. But all I see is you. She's the past, Ylia. You're the future.” He held her lightly.

”There is no future for anyone as long as Retoc the Abarian rules, and dreams of Tarth, all Tarth, as his domain.”

Bram Forest stood up. The cold winds blew. He looked at the blue-cold body of Jlomec, lying in state, at the ice-choked river, at the banks of rustling reeds. He did not have to ask where they were. He knew.

”Perhaps,” he said at last. ”I only mean that if I do this thing it will be more to see that future generations live in peace than to bring vengeance on a power-mad Abarian.”

”Oh, Bram! That's what I wanted you to say. I wanted to hear you say that. For tomorrow! For all our tomorrows.”

Bram Forest walked to the rail of the barge, and gripped it, and looked out over the ice-flows. He recited: