Part 25 (1/2)
”I guess that's worth a nauseating camel ride or two.” Trefian brightened. ”You know what we should do after we've won? Once we're back in Toltz, we rent a hall and throw a huge victory celebration, I mean a full-scale rip-roaring bash, with champagne, food, entertainment, all of that. We'll invite everyone, absolutely everyone. Then, when the party's at its peak, we have someone outside the hall set off some firecrackers-you know, the big ones that boom like cannons. Then we have someone come running in to announce that the Grewzians have invaded, and that the city is under attack. I tell you, Stes, the place will explode explode, everyone there will go mad, utterly mad mad! What a spectacle!”
”Outstanding! Now there's something to look forward to!”
Both brothers burst into uncontrollable giggles.
As the caravan rounded a bend in the trail, the abrupt materialization of a mounted band cut the laughter short. They seemed to come out of nowhere-a dozen hawk-faced riders, picturesquely garbed, and armed with serviceable-looking carbines. Their leader, an individual of coolly authoritative aspect, called out some comment or command in the local dialect, and the caravan halted at once. The hired guide inclined his head with an air of extreme respect.
”What did he say?” Trefian Festinette inquired.
”What in the world is going on?” Stesian demanded.
”Silence,” their guide instructed quietly, in Vonahrish. ”It is the Mongrel.”
”Who or what is-”
”Silence.”
The guide and the Mongrel conversed briefly in dialect, the tenor of their discourse unintelligible to their Travornish listeners. The guide appeared to remonstrate. The Mongrel shrugged and replied firmly. The guide nodded a regretful acquiescence, whereupon the Mongrel gestured, and a couple of his followers advanced to clip lead lines to the halters of the Festinettes' jehdavis. jehdavis.
”What do you think you're doing there, my man?” Trefian Festinette demanded.
”Is this some sort of native custom?” inquired his twin.
There was no reply.
The Mongrel lifted his hand and the hors.e.m.e.n sped off along the trail, drawing the Festinettes in their wake. A spate of alarmed inquiries went unanswered.
For the next two hours the band rode hard, through the Navoyza Pa.s.s and along the winding mountain trails. At last they paused to water the horses. Trefian and Stesian slid from their camels with small moans of relief. One of the Zuleekis loitered nearby, and the twins accosted him at once.
”See here, I wonder if you wouldn't mind telling us-” Trefian began.
”You mustn't think we don't appreciate your lively attentions, but we should very much like to know-” Stesian seconded his brother.
The Zuleeki responded curtly in dialect, and turned away.
”What curious manners these people have,” Trefian murmured.
”I don't think he understood us, Tref. They're not terrifically civilized, these Zuleekis. Or civil, for that matter.”
”Maybe we'll have better luck with-” Trefian pointed, and his brother's eyes followed.
Not far away the Mongrel leaned stilly against a rock, piercing gaze aimed at the jagged horizon. The twins hurried to his side.
”Master-er-Mongrel, do you happen to speak Vonahrish?” Stesian essayed.
The Mongrel turned to inspect them at leisure. At last he answered, ”Some.”
”Oh, outstanding. Then perhaps you would be so good as to tell us, sir, what this is all about? Not that it hasn't all been a tremendous lark, you understand, but the fact is, my brother and I compete in the Grand Ellipse, which, in case you didn't know, is this whacking great race around-”
”I know the Grand Ellipse,” said the Mongrel.
”Excellent. Then you'll surely understand that-genuinely interesting an interlude though this has been-my brother and I must really be on our way.”
”Yes.”
Something in the Mongrel's quiet tone prompted an exchange of uneasy glances between the twins, and Stesian prompted dubiously, ”To-?”
”To Een Dja.s.seen Een Dja.s.seen.”
THE JOURNEY RESUMED and there followed another two hours of riding over wild terrain, along the smallest and stoniest of mountain trails. At the end of that time they came to a sharp grade rising to a small plateau edged with a high wall of reddish stone. Up the path to the great iron portcullis guarding the gateway rode the Mongrel and his followers. The guards on duty raised the portcullis at once, and the party pa.s.sed into the courtyard of a red fortress topped with a dozen twisted lead-roofed turrets. Each turret carried an iron spike crowned with a human skull. and there followed another two hours of riding over wild terrain, along the smallest and stoniest of mountain trails. At the end of that time they came to a sharp grade rising to a small plateau edged with a high wall of reddish stone. Up the path to the great iron portcullis guarding the gateway rode the Mongrel and his followers. The guards on duty raised the portcullis at once, and the party pa.s.sed into the courtyard of a red fortress topped with a dozen twisted lead-roofed turrets. Each turret carried an iron spike crowned with a human skull.
”What place is this this?” asked Trefian Festinette.
There was no answer.
The riders halted with a jingle of bits and spurs. An enormously tall and broad Zuleeki with a glossy bald head emerged from the building to meet them. A brief colloquy between the Mongrel and the bald man ensued, at the conclusion of which the Mongrel accepted a softly clinking leather pouch, and the lead lines of the Festinettes' camels were placed in the bald man's hand.
The Mongrel and his followers galloped from the courtyard.
The twins and their host surveyed one another in silence for a moment. The Zuleeki barked a sharp command in dialect, accompanied by a peculiar tongue click recognizable to the camels, both of which instantly knelt.
”Dismount,” the bald man commanded in Vonahrish.
The twins, obedient as the camels, did as they were bid.
”You come,” the bald man informed them.
Trefian Festinette found his wits and his voice. ”Who are you you?” he asked.
”I am Ilciu. I serve,” their host announced.
”Serve what, serve whom?”
”My master. The lord of this place and the lands that surround it.”
”And your master is-”
”Een Dja.s.seen.”
ILCIU LED THEM INTO THE FORTRESS, along dim and grim echoing corridors, past niches housing suits of antique armor, past wall displays of monstrous swords, pikes, and battle-axes, through chambers hung with threadbare tapestries ancient beyond reckoning, until at last they pa.s.sed through a great double doorway into what seemed another world.
The twins gazed about them in wonder. They stood in a vast vaulted chamber with billowy hangings of lilac silk and mauve gauze, crystal chandeliers with rose-colored shades, spraying perfumed fountains, and tall marble statues of G.o.ds and athletes, painted in lifelike colors. Here the air was soft, warm, and humid. Strains of music delicate as drifting petals sweetened the atmosphere, and the fragrance of violets hung like a pall over all.
The chamber was well populated. A floor of gleaming rose and lilac marble tile supported countless polychrome rugs and fringed cus.h.i.+ons, upon which sat or reclined no fewer than half a hundred young males, ranging in age from earliest adolescence to full maturity. All of them were well proportioned, all fit and firm-these attributes easily judged, for all were similarly clothed in abbreviated silken breechclouts and nothing more. All had handsome faces-most of the olive-skinned, hawk-featured Zuleeki type, but some fair northerners among them, and one calf-eyed, full-lipped adolescent cherub who might have been Aveshquian. The young faces were painted, the eyes lined and exaggerated with kohl, the lids brightened with metallic color, the cheeks and lips deeply reddened. Fingernails and toenails were varnished in tones of coral and poppy. The carefully pomaded curls were often highlighted with streaks of gold, white, or blue.
”What an outlandish crew,” Stesian observed, sotto voce. ”D'you suppose they're actors actors or something?” or something?”