Part 5 (2/2)
Torla preceded Lukas through the doorway, with the rest of the sea rovers following close on the heels of the white-robed man. Harl was last to enter, looking behind him as he did so, his hand on his ax. He could not begin to feel easy about any man who welcomed seven armed strangers into his house.
Inside there was nothing to feed Harl's suspicions, save more of the same strange confidence. The entrance opened directly into a great manorial room, in which were set more than enough tables and benches to have accommodated the longs.h.i.+p's entire crew. At the huge hearth, a smiling and confident servant stood turning the spitted carca.s.s of a weighty meat animal. The roast was browned and dripping, so nearly done that it must have been started hours before.
Though a fair amount of light came in at the windows with the fog, on the walls were mounted enough torches to make the room quite bright. Through simple hangings that covered the rear wall, Harl could now and then glimpse servants going about tasks in distant chambers, which must be dug back behind the line of the cliff. There was of course no way of telling how many armed men might be in those rooms or lurking somewhere outside, but so far Harl had not seen a single weapon, barring table knives. Another easy-mannered servant was now laying out eight places at the head table, setting out worthy but not spectacular silver plates and tankards along with the cutlery.
Lukas proceeded straight to the head of the table-a couple of the sea rovers keeping casually close to him-and turned with a gracious gesture. ”Will you be seated? There is wine or ale, as you choose.”
”Ale!” barked Harl, giving his men a meaningful look. He had heard of potent drugs and poisons whose taste blended very smoothly with that of wine; and even honest drink must not be allowed to take the edge of clearness from their minds. The others echoed Harl's call for ale, though Torla looked somewhat disappointed.
The company seated themselves, and two girls promptly came from behind the hangings to fill their tankards. Harl watched to see that the wizard's drink was poured from the same vessel as his own, and he waited until the wizard was wiping foam from his own lips before he tasted the drink himself. And even then Harl took only a sparing swallow.
The ale was neither too strong nor too weak, but... yes, there was something slightly peculiar in its taste.
Still, Harl asked himself, in a place where everything was strange, how could the ale be otherwise? And he allowed himself another sip.
”The ale of your country is strong and good,” he ventured then, stretching the truth to make a compliment. ”So no doubt you have many strong men here and you serve a strong king.”
Lukas bowed slightly. ”All that you say is true.”
”And your king's name?”
”Our present king is called the Planetary Commander.” The wizard smacked his lips over ale. ”And whom do you serve?”
A tremulous groan pa.s.sed around the board. The tankards sc.r.a.ped in unison as they were lifted, and then together they thudded down, all lighter than they had been. All except Harl's. He had not observed the least sign of treachery-come to think of it, there was no reason why there should be any treachery here-but still he decided firmly that he would not drink any more. Not just now.
”Whom do we serve?” he asked the world. ”Our good young lord is dead.”
”Young Ay is dead!” Torla roared it out, like a man challenging the pain of some dreadful wound. A serving girl came to refill his tankard, and Torla seized her and pulled her onto his lap. But when she resisted his pawing with her thin weak arms, he only held her there gently, while a comical, witless expression grew slowly on his face.
Something about this made Harl wonder. His own mind was perfectly clear... and yet he should be more concerned, more alert than he was. Should he not?
”Young Ay's death would be sad news,” said Lukas calmly. ”If it were true.” The wizard seemed to be slumping slowly in his chair, utterly relaxed, forgetting dignity.
Oddly, no one took offense at the implication that they would be untruthful in such a matter. The men only sipped or drank, and there pa.s.sed another murmur of mourning around the table.
”We saw him die!”
”Ah, yes!”
Harl's big fists were knotted, remembering their helplessness against the dragon. ”We saw him die, in such a way that, by all the G.o.ds, I can scarce believe it yet myself!”
Lukas leaned forward, suddenly intent. ”And what way was that?”
In a faltering voice Harl told him. Harl's throat quickly grew dry with speech; scarcely realizing that he did so, he interrupted his tale to take another swallow from his tankard. The truth about the dragon sounded in his own ears like a clumsy lie. What chance was there of King Gorboduc believing it?
When Harl's recital was finished, Torla started to stand up as if he meant to speak. The girl fell from his lap and landed with a yelp on her soft bottom. Torla, his face showing uncharacteristic concern, bent as if to help her. But she rose and scurried away, and Torla kept right on bending over until he was seated again, with his head resting on the table. Then he began to snore.
Torla's s.h.i.+pmates, those who-were not on the verge of snoring themselves, only laughed at this. The men were all tired.... No. Something was wrong; they should not be drunk on one or two tankards apiece of any ale. And if they were drunk, some of them at least should be quarrelsome. Harl puzzled over the strangeness of this, took another thoughtful sip himself, and decided he had better get to his feet.
”Your king is not dead,” the wizard was repeating to him in a monotone. ”Not dead, not dead. Why should you believe that he is?”
”Why? We saw the-the dragon take him.” But Harl was no longer quite sure of what he had seen or what he remembered. What was happening here? He swayed on his feet, half-drew his sword, and croaked, ”Treachery! Wake up!”
His men's eyes were gla.s.sy or closing, their faces foolish. Some of them started to rise at his cry, but then they sank back, leaning on the table, letting weapons slide forgotten to the floor.
”Wizard,” one man muttered, turning pleading eyes toward Lukas. ”Tell us again that our king lives.”
”He lives and shall live.”
”He-he is-” Harl could not make him say that Ay was dead. In terror of he knew not what, he staggered back from the jtable, his sword sighing all the way out of its scabbard into his hand. To hurt anyone for any reason would be a monstrous crime, but he was so frightened that he felt he might do anything.
”Stand back!” he warned the wizard.
The wizard also stood up, not shaken, with the length of the table between himself and Harl. From inside his robe Lukas took a mask like an animal's snout, which he fitted onto his face. His voice came out thickly. ”No one will harm you here. I have shared with you the drink that makes men peaceful. Sit down now and talk with me.”
Harl turned and ran for the door. Outside, the mist suddenly sparkled in his lungs. He ran on until he reached the hillock from which he could see the beached s.h.i.+p, only to discover that all the men he had left there were dead or dying. Half a dozen nearly human monsters with gray, snouted faces were busy arranging their bodies in rows on the beach. Those of his crew who could still move were offering no resistance, but were letting themselves be led like load oxen.
It was really too bad that such a thing had happened. Harl groped reflexively for his sword and ax, but then remembered that he had thrown his weapons away somewhere.
”It's all right.” Lukas's soothing voice came from just behind Harl. As Harl turned, the wizard continued, ”Your men are all asleep. They need rest; don't wake them.”
”Ahh, that's it!” Harl sighed with relief. He might have known there was no reason to worry, not on this good island of sparkling ale and sparkling air and friendly people who spoke nothing but truth. He saw now that the snouted monsters were only men who wore masks like the wizard's. They were taking good care of his men. Harl looked confidently at Lukas, waiting to be told some more good news.
Lukas seemed to relax, sighing behind his mask. ”Come here,” he said. And he led Harl down to the water's edge, where the wet sand was kept lapping to perfect smoothness by the little wavelets coming in.
With his finger the wizard drew in the wet sand, making the crude outline of a grotesque head. ”Suppose now that this is the dragon you thought you saw. What exactly did you think happened?”
Harl groaned wearily and sank to his knees, staring helplessly at the sketch. Now that he could relax, he felt very tired, and soon he was going to have to sleep. But right now he had to concentrate on what the wizard was showing him. ”It seized Ay,” Harl said. ”In its mouth.”
”Like this?” The wizard's finger drew a stick figure clenched in the dragon's teeth, waving helpless lines of arms and legs. Even as he drew, the little waves were coming in over the sketch, smoothing aftd blurring its lines.
”Like that,” Harl agreed. He sat down awkwardly.
”But now all that is being wiped out,” the wizard intoned. ”Wiped away. And when this evil thing is gone, then the truth, what you and I want to be the truth, can be written in, to fill its rightful place.”
The waves were coming in, coming in, erasing the dragon. And Harl could sleep.
Somewhere along the line, during his hurried days of training, Matt asked, ”Then King Ay is in fact dead-and not wounded, as I was ”first told?”
A tutor explained. ”You were told he was only wounded, because he can be brought back to life. If you mission succeeds, his dying and his wounds will be as if they had never happened.”
”Then if I should fail, someone else can try again? If I am killed back there, my life too may still be saved?”
He had his answer at once from the gravity of their faces. But they went into explanations. ”All that you see being done here, all this work, is only to try to give that one man back his life. If we can restore him, then all the other bent and altered lives surrounding his will also flow back to where they were before the berserkers interfered. But not yours, for your life was not there in the original pattern. If you should die in the time of King Ay, that death will be real and final for you. And death will be real and final for all of us here, if you fail in your mission. No one will be able to try again.”
One of the perquisites of Derron's new rank was a small private cubicle of an office, and right now he was silently cursing the promotion that had given Lisa such a fine place in which to corner him.
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