The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Read online

  "Sir, you may be a pimp and several other things I will not shock our hostess by mentioning, but you have the finest voice I have ever heard. I wish I could do as well."

  "That is nothing," said Thiegos, staggering back to his seat. "The song does have a certain crude barbaric vigor, but now we are more refined. For instance, I at least do not take all this mythology serious—uk!"

  An attack of hiccups ended the speech. Porfia called upon Vakar:

  "Now, sir, contribute your part! What can you do?"

  "I can tell you what I cannot do," said Vakar, counting on his fingers. "Once I thought I could sing, but now I have heard Thiegos I know I can only caw like a carrion-crow. I can dance when sober as the queen remembers, but just now I am not sober. I know a few stories, but not the sort a gentleman would repeat in such company—"

  "Forget you are a gentleman, old man, old man," giggled Garal. "I have heard livelier tales from the lips of the queen herself than any you are likely to know."

  "Very well; do any of you know the tale of the hunchback and the fisherman's wife? No? It seems that …"

  They all laughed heartily; in fact Garal's wife got into a fit of hysterics and had to be pounded on the back. Vakar told a couple more, and then Queen Porfia said:

  "You claim you once thought you could sing; let us hear this crow's voice!"

  "But really, Queen—"

  "No, I insist. Master Qasigan shall accompany you."

  "Then do not say I failed to warn you. Qasigan, it goes da de-de da de-de ..."

  When the tune had been straightened out Vakar gave them the Song of Vrir:

  "Vrir the Victorious rode to the river

  His scabbard of silver shining in sunlight ..."

  When he had finished, Porfia clapped, crying: "Magnificent! While I do not understand Lorskan, you sing even better than Thiegos."

  "I have heard no singing," growled Thiegos, who had got over his hiccups, "only the croaking of bullfrogs."

  "What do you think?" said Porfia to Garal. "Vakar is the better, is he not?"

  "They are both very good," said the minister with the adriotness of the practiced politician, and turned to Qasigan. "Pray, play us one of the tunes of your native country."

  Qasigan played a wailing tune. Thiegos said: "By Asterio's arse, that sounds like the tune of our dance to the moon goddess!"

  "How would you know, since men are strictly forbidden near when the maidens dance it?" said Porfia.

  "You would be surprised. Here, Porfia, you are the best dancer in Ogugia; dance it for us! Qasigan can play."

  "It would be blasphemous ..." said the queen, but the others shouted her down.

  At last she stood up and, with Qasigan playing, began a slinking dance. Being unsteady from the wines she repeatedly stepped on the hem of her thin trailing robe until she burst out:

  "Curse this thing! How can I ..."

  She unfastened the robe, slipped out of it, and threw it across the serpent throne.

  "Move those damned tables out of the way," she said, and continued her dance naked save for her jewelled sandals.

  Vakar found the room swimming in a delightful fog. It seemed that the flames of the wall-lamps swayed in time to the weird music, and that the frescoes came alive so that the bull-headed god appeared to get on with his protogenic project.

  Vakar felt an urge to leap up and seize the swaying white figure of Porfia in imitation of Asterio, for though small she had a form that practically demanded rape of any passing male. But at that moment the queen tripped and fell across Garal's knees. The minister raised a hand as if to spank the royal ramp, but reconsidered in time. The sight sent Vakar into such a convulsion of laughter that he could hardly keep his seat.

  "That is enough of that!" said Porfia, reeling back to her throne, where she struggled to don the robe and got wonderfully tangled in its folds until Thiegos came over to help. "Who knows something else?"

  "We have a game in Tegrazen," said Qasigan, "called 'Going to Kernê.' A number of stools are set in a circle, the number being one less than that of the persons present. Music is played and the persons march around the chairs. The music is stopped suddenly and all try to sit down, but one fails and is counted out. Then one chair is removed and the march repeated until there are but two players and one chair left, and whichever of these gains the chair wins. Now, suppose I play while the rest of you march, for I am a little old for such athletics."

  "A childish sort of game," said Thiegos. "I fear we shall be bored—"

  "Oh, you sneer at everything!" cried Porfia. "Vakar, Garal, move that chair back to the wall. Master Qasigan, sit here in the center and tootle. Great gods, look at him!" she pointed to Abeggu of Tokalet, who had quietly curled up in a corner and passed out. "Wake him up, somebody."

  Vakar said: "How any man with blood in his veins could sleep through the spectacle we have just witnessed ..."

  "It means nothing to him," said Thiegos. "They go naked all the time in Gamphasantia, he tells me. Ho, Lazybones, wake up!"

  He kicked the sleeping man. When Abeggu had been aroused and briefed on the game they began marching unsteadily around the circle. When the music stopped all plumped on to the seats except Garal's wife, who being fat was slow on her feet. She laughed and went over to the wall to sit while Vakar lugged another stool out of the circle.

  "Begin again!" said Qasigan.

  His music became more and more exotic. The whole room seemed to Vakar to writhe in time with the tune. He wondered what was wrong, for he had been prudently holding down his consumption of wine since his quarrel with Thiegos.

  The music stopped and Thiegos this time was left standing.

  "Oh, well," said the queen's lover, "I do not find these antics very amusing anyway," and went over to sit by Garal's wife. Out went another chair.

  At the next halt, Abeggu of Tokalet was out.

  This time the music seemed to go right through Prince Vakar, to make his teeth and eyeballs ache. The lamps darkened; at least he could not see clearly. The music shook him as a dog shakes a rat ...

  Then it stopped. Vakar took a quick look and lurched towards a dark shape that he fuzzily identified as Queen Porfia's imported serpent chair, which as a seat of office was the only one in the room with arms and a back.

  He half-spun and fell into its stone embrace just ahead of Porfia herself, who landed lushly in his lap with a playful squeal that changed to a shriek of terror.

  Vakar echoed the scream with an animal noise, half grunt and half shout, as he realized in one horror-struck flash that he was sitting on the coils of a giant five snake. There was an explosive hiss as the head and neck reared up and back to stare down at the two human beings, its forked tongue flicking. At the same instant a loop, thicker than Vakar's thigh, whipped around both of them, preventing them from rising.

  Vakar vaguely heard screams and the sound of running feet as the coil tightened. His ribs creaked; it was like being squeezed to death by a live tree-trunk. He had no sword and his left arm was pinned between Porfia and the snake; his right was still free.

  Vakar frantically ripped open his shirt and pulled out the envenomed dagger that had slain Sol. With all his strength he drove it into the scaly hide, again and again ...

  The snake hissed louder, but the pressure of the coil relaxed an instant. With a tremendous effort Vakar freed his other arm. The snake's entire body was writhing convulsively around him. He got a foot against the coil in front and pushed. The coil gave, and he and Porfia were out of the monster's embrace. Vakar half-dragged the queen across the room out of harm's way, then looked back at the expiring snake. They were alone in the room.

  Vakar put away his dagger and held the queen in his arms until she stopped trembling. She put her face up for him to kiss, but when he would have gone on with a full course of lovemaking she pushed him away.

  "Not now," she said. "Is the monster dead?"

  Vakar stepped forward to see, then jumped back as the scaly body twitch
ed. "It still moves! What does that mean? We do not have these creatures in Poseidonis."

  "They die as a frog swallows a worm, by inches, but I do not think this one will harm us any more. Evidently the legend at which Thiegos sneered is no empty fable. And speaking of Thiegos, what a fine pack of poltroons I am served by! Not one stayed to help, save you."

  "Do not give me too much credit, madam. I was caught in the same scaly embrace as yourself, and could not have fled were I never so timorous. But why should our coldblooded friend here come to life just as we sat upon him? Do you suppose our extra weight was more than he could bear, and he showed his displeasure by awakening from his sleep of centuries?"

  "No, for I have often cossetted in that same chair with that craven Thiegos. There is malevolent magic in this, Vakar, and we must solve the riddle before the clues are scattered by the winds of time. But where is everybody? Elbien! Dweros!"

  No answer. She led Vakar about the palace, which proved entirely empty except for a trembling knot of guards in the front courtyard who pointed their spears at Porfia and Vakar as they approached.

  "What is that?" she said. "Do you not know your own queen?"

  A man in a cuirass of gilded scales stepped out and said: "You are no ghost, madam?"

  "Of course not, Gwantho!"

  "May I touch you to make sure?"

  "Of all the impertinent nonsense ... Very well, here!"

  She held out a hand with a regal gesture. The officer took it and kissed it, then said to the men:

  "She is real, boys. Your pardon, Queen, but the clamor of those that fled the palace so perturbed my men that but for me they would have bolted likewise."

  "It would have gone hard with them if they had. Next time you hear I am in danger you might try to help instead of thinking of nought but your own hides. Now back to your posts!"

  As the guards slunk off, Porfia said to Vakar: "That was Gwantho, the legate of the commandant of the city garrison. Are there no brave men outside the epics and legends? The runagates must have spread terror through the palace as they fled. What do you make of it?"

  "I, suspect our queer friend Qasigan," said Vakar judiciously. "On the other hand he is a stranger, as is Abeggu of Tokalet, while Garal and Thiegos, being among your familiars, might harbor some hidden rankling resentment."

  "I doubt that last. Neither is of royal blood and therefore neither could cherish regal ambitions."

  Vakar smiled. "That is no sure barrier. How do you suppose most dynasties were founded in the first place?"

  "Well, neither have I quarreled with either lately— unless you count my refusal to follow Garal's counsel to wed Shvo Zhyska."

  "He so advised you? Hang the hyena! I know Shvo well, being his cousin. He is as grasping as a Kernean and as perfidious as an Aremorian."

  "I am not likely to follow Garal in this matter. But we are not even sure' the serpent came to life by human agency, instead of in the course of the natural termination of the enchantment that bound it... Fetch your sword and cloak while I likewise dress for the street."

  "Where are we going?"

  "In such perplexities I consult a wise-woman nearby. Hasten, and meet me here."

  Vakar went. When he returned with the hood of his cloak pulled up over his helmet he found a very different Porfia with peasant's cowhide boots showing under her short street-dress, a hood pulled over her head likewise, and a scarf masking her face below the eyes.

  Porfia led Vakar out the front entrance, where he took a torch from a bracket. She guided him into the stinking tangle of alleys west of the plaza in front of the palace, where not even the starlight penetrated.

  Porfia made a sharp turn and stopped to rap with a peculiar knock on a door. They waited, and the door opened with a creak of the door-post in its well-worn sockets.

  They were ushered in by a small bent black figure whose only visible feature was a great beak of a nose sticking Out from under her cowl. Inside, a single rush-candle lent its wan illumination to a small cluttered room with a musty smell. A piece of papyrus on which were drawn figures and glyphs lay on a three-legged table with one leg crudely mended.

  The witch mumbled something and rolled up the papyrus. Porfia said:

  "Master Vakar, this is my old friend Charsela. I need not tell her who you are, for she will have already discovered that by her occult arts."

  The witch raised her head so that Vakar could see the gleam of great dark eyes on either side of the beak.

  "Now do you know," quavered the crone, "I cannot tell you one thing about this young man? It is as if a wall against all occult influence had been built around him at birth. I can see that he is a Pusadian, probably of high rank, and that he is by nature a quiet scholarly fellow forced by his surroundings to assume the airs of a rough predacious adventurer. That much, however, any wise person could have inferred by looking at him with the eye of understanding. But come, child, tell me what troubles you this time. Another philtre to keep that sneering scapegrace true?"

  "No, no," said Porfia hastily, and went on to recount the strange tale of the serpent throne.

  "Ha," said Charsela and got out a small copper bowl which she filled with water and placed on the table.

  She lit a second rushlight, placed it in a small metal holder, and stood the holder on the table. She rummaged in the Utter until she found a small phial from which she dropped one drop of liquid into the water. Vakar, looking at the bowl, had an impression of swirling iridescence as the drop spread over the surface. Charsela put away the phial and sat down on the side of the table opposite the flame, so that she could see the reflection of the flame on the water.

  Charsela sat so long that Vakar, standing with his back to the door, shifted his position slightly, causing his sword to clink. Porfia frowned at him. Somewhere under the junk a mouse rustled; at least Vakar hoped that it was a mouse. He shifted his gaze from the motionless wise-woman to a large spider spinning a web on the ceiling. At last the witch's thin voice came:

  "It is strange—I can see figures, but all is dim and confused. There is some mighty magic involved in this, mark my word. I will try some more ..."

  She put another drop from the phial into the bowl and fell silent again. Vakar was watching her sunken face in the rushlight when the door burst open behind him with a crash.

  Vakar saw the witch and Porfia jerk their heads up to stare past him, and started to turn his own head then a terrific blow clanged down upon his helm and sent him sprawling forward.

  He fell against the table, which overturned with a clatter as the bowl and the rushlight struck the floor. Charsela and Porfia both shrieked.

  Finding himself on hands and knees with his head spinning, Vakar by a desperate effort sprang to his feet, whirled, and drew his sword all at once. He got the blade out just in time to parry another overhand cut at his head. By the light of the remaining candle he saw that three men had burst into the room, all masked.

  -

  VI. – THE BLACK GALLEY

  Vakar thrust at the nearest, the one whose cut he had just parried. As the man stepped back his foot slipped on the wet floor where the water from the upset bowl had run around the table and made the worn planking slippery. Before he could recover, Vakar drove his blade past the fellow's awkward attempt at a parry, deep into the folds of the man's clothing. He felt his point pierce meat.

  "Get her out, Charsela!" yelled Vakar, not daring to turn his head.

  The man whom he had stabbed fell back with a gasp, clutching his side with his free hand. Behind him Vakar became dimly aware of a yammering from the witch and an expostulation from Porfia, and the sound of a back door opening and banging shut again. Meantime he was engaged with the other two, who were stumbling around among the junk and trying to get at him from two sides. Blades clanged as the two bravoes drove Vakar, fighting a desperate defensive, back into a corner. With a shield and the advantage of left-handedness he might have handled them, but he had no shield and did not dare stoop for the w
itch's stool.

  Instead he reached into his shirt and pulled out the poisoned dagger that had already saved his life once that night. The poison, he thought, must have pretty well worn off by now, but at least it might furnish a diversion. He threw it at the shorter of the two men.

  The man tried to dodge. The knife struck him anyway, but butt-first, so that it clanged harmlessly to the floor. The man's attention had however been distracted, and even the other man let his eyes flicker from Vakar to the flying dagger.

  Instantly Vakar threw himself forward, and his ferocious passado went through the throat of the tall assassin. At that instant he felt a heavy blow and the sting of a cut on his right arm. The shorter man, recovering from his attempt to duck the knife, had thrown a backhand slash at the Lorskan.