Rogue Queen Read online

  “Poof! What powers?”

  “Could we build a ship like that?”

  “N-no, but what of it? How can they harm anybody with their magical ship, save by dropping it on them? And if it’s anything like a normal watership it would break like an egg if they tried it.”

  “They have other powers. I have seen one stand up to a charging vakhnag and point a little hollow metal rod at it, and bang! the beast fell dead with a hole through it you could put your head into.”

  “Did they tell you how this device worked?”

  “No. When I asked, they became evasive.”

  “Clever rascals, it seems. What other devils’ tricks have they to hand?”

  “That is hard to say. I heard they had a device that tells whether a person is lying. There was so much new about them I couldn’t absorb it all at once. I will make notes as I remember and write a report for the Council.”

  “Good.” Intar turned. “My good Iroedh, you did well to bring Rhodh in without waiting to untangle the threads of protocol. Resume your watch, and, as I shall probably have further orders for you, don’t leave Elham. By the way, on your way out tell that drone I shan’t want him. I have other matters on my mind.”

  As Iroedh passed through the anteroom on her way out, she saw Antis pacing the floor and gave him the message.

  “My luck!” Antis scowled, then brightened. “In that case, why shouldn’t we take our supper over to the ruins? Ythidh guards the dronery tonight, and if I can neither elude nor bribe her my name’s not Antis of Elham.”

  “Fine,” said Iroedh. “But Antis dear, let me warn you again not to drop hints of our unsupervised amusements in front of others.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You did before Rhodh just now.”

  “That stupid creature?”

  “She’s not so stupid she didn’t understand what you were talking about. If she complains to the Council it could be unpleasant. She would, too.”

  “What do they think I’m going to do to you? What can I do besides eat supper and help you look for antiques?” He laughed heartily, showing a fine set of blue teeth. “Anybody’d think you were a functional female!”

  Iroedh sniffed. “Sometimes I find your peculiar sense of humor positively revolting.”

  He waved a hand. “Forget it, beautiful. I shall see you at Khinam at sunset.”

  Iroedh had been back on watch for an hour and was beginning to look for her relief when Rhodh appeared, saying:

  “Queen Intar has decided to send a party back to this sky ship to establish closer relations with the men. As senior member I shall head the party, the foreign officer being unavailable. The others will be Iinoedh, Avpandh, Vardh, and you.”

  Iroedh’s face lit up. She was especially pleased that Vardh was coming, for Vardh had always looked up to Iroedh.

  “What wonderful luck! Thank you, Rhodh dear!”

  “Hmp! Don’t thank me. I would never have chosen you, and I don’t know why the queen did. This would never have happened if the Council had been functioning, but you know Queen Intar. The agricultural officer must have put in a word for you; we all know you’re a pet of hers.”

  Iroedh listened first in astonishment and then in anger to this tirade. She flared:

  “What have you got against me? I’ve traveled before, and my efficiency rating is well above the mean.”

  “It is not that, but these tales of your fraternizing with a drone, sneaking off on picnics with him and Ledhwid knows what else. He practically confirmed the rumor with his own words today.”

  “And what business is that of yours?”

  “None, but you asked me why I didn’t think you an ideal choice for this mission. Workers who associate with drones fall into dronish habits. They waste time, fool around, and take their pleasure when there is work to be done. They dance and plant flowers and that sort of nonsense. However, the next Cleanup will take care of that!”

  Iroedh, who had reason to hate the word “Cleanup,” made her face blank and replied coldly: “I suggest you defer judgment on my fitness for the mission until it’s over. When do I report?”

  “Tomorrow after brunch, in full campaign gear. Good night.”

  Iroedh watched Antis peck with his flint and pyrites until he had a small fire going, then slipped around to windward so as not to have to endure the smell of cooking meat. It was a measure of their affection that they were willing to eat together, the pleasure they got from each other’s company outweighing the disgust that the diet of each aroused in the other.

  Out on the Scarlet Sea a great flying fish flapped and wheeled in circles, looking for smaller sea creatures to snap up, and silhouetted blackly against a blood-colored setting sun. Around them rose the ruins of Khinam, whose shattered spires and hypnotic mosaics the modern Avtini did not even try to imitate, let alone surpass. Near at hand rose the Memorial Pillar of Khinam, celebrating some forgotten hero or victory. Although the statue that crowned it had been eroded down to a mere pitted torso, the pillar itself, being of solid masonry, had survived better than most of the city’s structures.

  Antis, looking up from his fire making to watch the flying fish, remarked: “That’s an omen of change.”

  “What is?”

  “When a flying fish circles withershins.”

  “Oh, silly! You see omens in everything, and changes are always occurring.”

  Iroedh fell into a reverie as she absently munched her own meager meal of biscuits and vegetables while turning over her loot in the fading light.

  “What,” she said, “do you suppose this is? It’s too frail for a weapon, and doesn’t look like an ornament. A staff of office, perhaps?”

  Antis looked up from the haunch of leipag he was roasting. “That’s a telh, with which the ancients used to make music.”

  “How does it work?”

  “You blow into that hole at the end and twiddle your fingers over the other holes. Remember that picture on the wall of the Throne Hall?”

  Iroedh blew without result.

  “Come to think,” said Antis, “you don’t blow into the hole, but across it—like that!” Iroedh’s shift in position was rewarded by a wail from the flute. “Here, let me try it.”

  “Your hands are greasy!” said Iroedh.

  “Very well, after I finish this. What’s that book among the junk?”

  Iroedh picked up an ancient volume from the litter. Its pages of vakhwil bark were cracked and crumbly, and the ink so faded that the text could not be read in the waning light. Above each line of writing ran a strip of fine parallel lines dotted with little black spots.

  “A songbook!” cried Antis. “What luck!”

  “I suppose those little black spots show what hole you close with your fingers?”

  “Or more likely which you leave open. Try it.”

  Iroedh began blowing and fingering. Despite her inexpertness, a certain tune became recognizable.

  “I think I know that one,” said Antis. “When I was first admitted to the dronery there was an old drone named Baorthus who’d been let live through several Cleanups after his time because he was so skilled at his task. He used to hum a tune like that. I suppose I ought to have memorized it, but I was too occupied with my new function, and at the next Cleanup Baorthus got it. I’d forgotten all about it till now.”

  He wiped his hands on a weed and came to look over Iroedh’s shoulder. “By Eunmar! With more light we could read the song and the notes at the same time, don’t you think? Let me feed the fire.”

  He went out, leaving Iroedh to tweedle mournfully. There was a sound of breaking sticks and back he came with a bundle of fuel.

  “Now,” he said when the fire was blazing, “let’s start at the beginning. You play, I sing.” He scowled at the faint spidery letters. “A plague on this archaic spelling! Let’s go:

  “Love does not torment forever.

  Came it on me like a fire,

  Like the lava of Mount Wisgad,

&nbs
p; Or the blaze that sears a forest.

  When my love is not far distant,

  Do not think my sleep is easy;

  All the night I lie in torment,

  Preyed upon by love in secret…”

  Their performance was hampered by the fact that every line or two one or the other would get off the tune, and it finally broke up in a fit of mutual laughter.

  When she could get her breath Iroedh asked: “What’s this ‘loved one’ the fellow keeps talking about?”

  “A friend, I suppose; a fellow member of the Community.”

  “I can’t imagine losing sleep over a fellow worker; or even over you, my best friend.”

  Antis shrugged. “Ask the Oracle of Ledhwid. The ancients had some funny ideas. Maybe their lack of dietary control had something to do with it.”

  Iroedh mused: “The only time I ever saw an Avtin so stirred was when that foreigner, Ithodh of Yeym, learned that her Community had been annihilated by the Arsuuni. She killed herself, even though the Council offered to admit her to Elham as a member.”

  “Well, no doubt we should be upset if we heard Elham had been wiped out. It may be yet, you know.”

  “Let’s not think of anything so horrible before we must!”

  “All right, my dear. Let me borrow the telh and the book, will you?”

  “Certainly, but why?” said Iroedh.

  “I thought I should have fun with my fellow drones. If you hear strange sounds from the dronery, it’ll be Kutanas and I teaching them the ancient art of singing.”

  “I hope it won’t cause the trouble the Lay of Idhios did!”

  “And who taught me the Idhios?”

  “I did, but only to keep it from dying out. I didn’t expect a poetic orgy—”

  “Just so; and neither shall these songs be let perish. After all, I shan’t be around too much longer to cherish them.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, knowing very well what he meant, but hoping against hope.

  “One of these days there’ll be a Cleanup, and I’m one of the oldest drones.”

  “Oh, Antis!” She seized his arm. “How dreadful! Has the queen been complaining?”

  “Not so far as I know, and I’ve certainly been giving her upstanding service. But a Cleanup has been overdue for some time.”

  “But you’re not really old! You’re hardly older than I, and should be able to perform your duty for many years.”

  “I know, but that’s not the Council’s view. Maybe they’re afraid we shall turn rogue if let live until we’re old and crafty.”

  “You wouldn’t ever, would you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose if you learned I was planning to escape and join the rogues you’d turn me in like a dutiful worker?”

  “Of course. I mean I suppose so. It would be a dreadful decision to make. But don’t plan anything so anti-Communitarian! Hold on as long as you can. You don’t—I—”

  Her voice choked off in a sob.

  “Why, Iroedh!” said Antis, putting an arm around her. “You sound like one of those ancients with their ‘burning love.’”

  Iroedh pulled herself together. “I’m foolish. And I’m no ancient, but a neuter worker and proud of it. Still, life would be so utterly empty without you.”

  “Thanks.” He gave her a friendly squeeze.

  “Nobody else in Elham shares my love for antiques. Sometimes I feel as a solitary rogue must feel, wandering the woods and looking in on the domes of the Communities he can never enter again.”

  Antis grinned in the gathering dark. “I can reassure you on one point, darling: If I should ever plan to go rogue, I won’t confide in anybody who might spoil my plan.”

  She shivered. “Br-r-r. We should have brought clothing with us. Let’s go back.”

  II. The Sky Ship

  “Remember,” said Rhodh, “we have two objectives: to use these men and their knowledge against Tvaarm, and to keep them from learning anything they might use against us.”

  Her ueg trotted beside that of Iroedh along the stretch where the road to Thidhem became one with the beach of the Scarlet Sea. The chariots of Iinoedh, Avpandh, and Vardh bumped along behind.

  Rhodh continued: “So keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth, as far as possible, shut. There is so much new about these men that none of us can grasp it all at once. Flatter them, get them to brag, anything to loosen their tongues. But don’t encourage them to visit us, tell them where Elham is, or reveal our political situation or methods of warfare. I am speaking particularly to you, Iroedh, because I know your weaknesses. They are interested not only in us but also in our history, and would like nothing better than to be guided to Khinam to look for relics. Then all they would have to do is to climb one of the towers to see the domes of Elham.”

  “I’ll be careful,” said Iroedh, bored almost to the screaming point because Rhodh had been through all this before. She wanted Rhodh to leave her alone so that she could get back to her golden daydreams of ancient times.

  “Your task will be to cultivate Blok, who speaks Avtinyk after a fashion and, like you, is interested in many different philosophies. If you apply yourself diligently to your task you will forget all about that drone you so imprudently befriended.”

  “Why should I?” said Iroedh in a louder voice than she intended. There went her good resolution not to let Rhodh bait her!

  “Don’t shout. You had better begin soon, because he will no longer be around on our return.”

  “You mean—”

  Rhodh turned a cruel smile toward Iroedh. “Didn’t you know? The Council collected a quorum this morning just before we left and fixed the date for the next Cleanup. It was decided to kill the three senior drones: Antis, Kutanas, and Dyos, to make room for the next crop, some time this eight-day. They were of course confined to balk escape.”

  Iroedh’s rose-red skin paled a shade. Eunmar blast them! So that was why Antis hadn’t said good-by. First she had thought he must be angry; then she wondered if he’d forgotten (which was unlike him); then she speculated as to whether he was trying to protect her by minimizing their attachment. When all the while…

  “Weu!” she said in a choked voice. “You might have told me sooner.”

  “And have you throw an emotional scene or balk at your orders, and hold up our departure? I’m not so stupid. You will live to thank me yet.”

  “Why was such an early date chosen for the Cleanup?”

  “Because of that prophecy Tydh cited, about a drone’s seeking a new home. It was feared that if the drones heard of it they would desert in a mass. And it is not really an early date; one has been due for some time. Antis will certainly be no loss; there is no place in a well-run Community for his japes and scrapes.”

  Iroedh subsided, her mind in turmoil. She even thought of wheeling her chariot around and dashing back to Elham, but lifelong discipline and ingrained devotion to the Community stopped her. Besides, what would she accomplish except to get herself punished?

  What to do? Though a mature worker, Iroedh had not yet settled into fatalistic acceptance of the tragedies of life. There must be something…

  Why should Rhodh gloat? Iroedh could think of no reason for Rhodh to hate her. She had done nothing except be herself. That must be it; Rhodh, outwardly contemptuous of Iroedh’s interest in the ancient arts, secretly envied her it. Or perhaps Rhodh was simply one with a passion for uniformity, to whom Iroedh’s heterodoxy represented a social eyesore to be extirpated.

  Iroedh’s mind went back into its little revolving cage: How to save Antis? There must be something. No, nothing. But there must be, if she could only be clever enough to think of it. What, then? If I could only think of it. How do you know there is anything to think of? There simply must be. But that’s wretched logic; things don’t exist because you wish they did.…

  She pondered the matter for hours while they drove past the place where the beasts had devoured the unfortunate Queen Rhuar, and over the Lhanwaed
Hills where forgotten legends told of an egg the size of a royal dome waiting to hatch out—what, nobody knew. Iroedh had come to no conclusion when they reached the frontier of Thidhem.

  Here they were stopped by a pair of guards whose armor bore the symbol of Queen Maiur. Rhodh identified herself to the senior of these guards, Gogledh.

  “I know you, Rhodh,” said Gogledh in the dialect of Thidhem. “I met you when you came here about the Gliid colony. Is this a surveying party, or what? When will the first colonists go out?”

  Rhodh replied: “No, we are investigating the sky ship. What is Thidhem doing about it?”

  “Nothing. Queen Maiur feels that contact with visitors having customs so different from ours might unsettle our social structure. She is even trying to stop all discussion of the event—which you know as well as I can’t be done.”

  “Has your Council no say?”

  “In theory, yes, but in practice Maiur usually gets her way. How about your colony?”

  “No colony until the war with Tvaarm has been settled. If it comes we shall need every worker who can wield a spear.”

  Gogledh said: “You have a princess near her majority, whom you were going to send to Gliid, haven’t you?”

  “Yes: Estir. She matures in about another eight-day.”

  “And if you don’t send her out with the new colony, there will have to be a Royal Duel, won’t there?” Gogledh added eagerly. “And maybe there’ll be passes for visitors from Thidhem?”

  “I don’t know; that will be up to the Council.”

  “Oh. Well, have the Arsuuni moved yet?”

  “Not the last I heard. Our general’s on the frontier watching.”

  “Poor Elham! I wish, just once, an Avtiny Community would overcome one of the Arsuuni.”

  Rhodh sighed. “We will do our best, but what can we accomplish against a caste of soldiers half again our size? We should need not only luck but also a great superiority in numbers, which we do not have.”

  “How many adult workers have you?”

  “About four hundred and fifty. There would have been more but for last year’s plague.”