The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Read online

  "Get ready!" Vakar screamed to Fual, who blubbered with terror.

  Then the deck jerked back under him as the ship struck the beach. Vakar staggered forward and stopped himself by grabbing the mast. He ducked under the lower yard to find that Fual had already tumbled off the bow into kneedeep water and was splashing ashore, leaving the bag containing their possessions on the deck.

  With a curse that should have struck the Aremorian dead, Vakar threw the bag ashore and dropped off the bow himself, the pain of his arm shooting through him like red-hot bronze. He picked up the bag with his good arm and caught up with Fual, to whom he handed the bag, and then hit him across the face with the back of his hand. "That'll teach you to abandon your master!" he said. "Now march!"

  Staggering, Vakar led the way straight inland up the grassy side of a knoll that rose from the inner edge of the beach. At the top he looked back. The galley was still standing off the rocks while the Dyra lay heeled over on the edge of the sand, her sail flapping and water pouring in and out of her great wounds. As the galley did not appear to possess a ship's boat to send a search-party ashore, Vakar felt, secure for the time being—until Qasigan found a safer landing-place and took up his pursuit ashore.

  Vakar led the weeping Fual down the back slope of the knoll until he was out of sight of the sea, then turned to the left and walked parallel to the beach.

  They had tramped for an hour or so when a sound brought them up short: a fierce barking and snarling as of the dog that guarded the gates of the hells. They went forward cautiously, hands on swords, and over the next rise found a wild-looking shepherd clad in sheepskins tied haphazard about his person. In one hand he grasped a wooden club with stone spikes set in the thick end, while the other clutched the leash of a great dog, which strained to get at the travellers. The sheep huddled baaing in the background.

  Vakar held out his hands. The shepherd shouted. "What does he say?" asked Vakar. "To go away or he'd loose the dog on us."

  "A hospitable fellow. Ask where there's a settlement." Fual spoke in broken Euskerian. After several repetitions, the shepherd waved his club, saying: "Sendeu."

  "That's a village," explained Fual.

  "Toll him there's a wrecked ship back that way, and he's welcome to it."

  Vakar began a detour around the surly shepherd and his flock. As they passed out of sight the man was gathering his sheep to drive them south along the coast.

  Vakar's arm hurt with an agony he had never known before. He muttered:

  "I'll never sneer at others' sicknesses again, Fual..."

  Then the universe went into a whirling dance and Vakar lost track of what was happening.

  -

  VII. – THE SATYR OF SENDEU

  Vakar Zhu awoke to the sounds of domestic bustle. He was lying on a rough bed in the comer of a log hut that seemed, at the moment, to be entirely full of children and dogs.

  The cabin had a door at one end partly closed by a leather curtain, and no windows. On the walls hung the family's tools: a fishing-spear barbed with sharks' teeth, hoes made from large clamshells, wooden sickles set with flint blades along their concave edges, and so on. Animal noises from beyond the wall opposite the door told Vakar that this wall was a partition bisecting the cabin, the other half being used for livestock. At one side of the room a husky-looking peasant girl was working a small loom whose clack-clack furnished a rhythm under the barking of the dogs and the cries of the children. A sweaty smell overhung the scene.

  Fual was sitting on the dirt floor beside him. Vakar raised his head, discovering that he was weak as water.

  "Where am I?" he said.

  "You're yourself again, my lord? The gods be praised! You're in the hut of Juten, a peasant of Sendeu."

  "How did I get here?"

  "You walked, sir, but you were out of your head. We stopped at the first likely-looking hut, and you told Juten you were emperor of the world and he should order out your chariotry to attack the Gorgons. He didn't understand, of course, and after much struggle with the language I explained to him that you were a traveller who had taken sick and needed to lie up a few days. He was suspicious and unfriendly, but when I paid him out of your scrip he finally let us in." Fual looked around the hut with lifted Up. "Hardly people of our class, sir, but it was the best I could do."

  "How long ago was this?"

  "The day before yesterday." Fual felt Vakar's forehead. "The fever has left you. Would you like some soup?"

  "By all means. I'm hungry as a spring bear."

  Vakar moved his right arm, wincing. Still, it was better than it had been. Fual brought the broth in a gourd bowl.

  As the day wore on Vakar met Juten's wife, a very pregnant woman with lined peasant features. She began speaking to him while going about her chores, undeterred by the fact that they had only a dozen words in common; so the rest of the day Vakar was subjected to a continuous spate of chatter. From its general tone he guessed that he was not missing anything by lack of understanding.

  The people were tall light-haired round-headed Atlanteans, who never bathed to judge by their looks and smell. The girl who ran the loom was Juten's eldest daughter. Vakar never did get the names of all the children straight, but a little girl of six named Atse took a fancy to him. When he pointed at things and asked their names she told him, making a game of it and finding his mistakes a great joke. By nightfall he had a fair household vocabulary.

  Then Juten came in, thickset and stooped with dirt worked deeply into the cracks of his skin. He gave Vakar a noncommittal look and spoke in broken Hesperian:

  "Lord better now?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  Supper was a huge loaf of barley-bread, milk, and a strange golden fruit called an "orange". Juten pointed apologetically to a jug in the corner:

  "Beer not good yet."

  Next day Vakar, now well enough to move around, continued his fraternization with Atse. He encouraged her to talk, stopping her every few words for an explanation. She got bored and went out, but then a rainstorm drove her in again.

  "What do you do for fun?" he asked, shaving the three days' stubble from his chin with his bronze razor. "I play with the others and I visit the tailed lady."

  "The what?"

  "The lady with the tail. She lives in the hills over that way." Atse" gestured eastward. "I call her with this."

  She produced a tiny whistle tied around her neck with a string of grass and blew on it. Vakar, hearing nothing, asked:

  "How can she hear you when that thing makes no noise?"

  "Oh, but it does! A magical noise that she alone can hear."

  Vakar tried blowing on it himself, with no result save that the two dogs who happened to be in the hut both howled. Later, when Atse had gone out again, Vakar asked Juten's wife about the tailed woman.

  "She told you that?" cried the woman. "I will tan her hide! She knows she should not ..."

  "Why? Many children make up imaginary playmates—"

  "Imaginary! Would that she were! This is a satyr of Atlantis who has settled near here and entices the children into stealing our food and taking it to her secretly. The men have hunted her with dogs, but her magic baffles them."

  Vakar, who had understood only about half of what the woman had said, dropped the subject of the satyr to take a snooze. That evening, after supper, Juten mumbled something about a village meeting and went out into the sunset. Vakar dozed until aroused by Fual's shaking him.

  "My lord!" said the valet. "We must flee or they'll murder us!"

  "Huh? What are you talking about?"

  "I spied upon the village meeting, which was called to discuss us. Egon, the headman, urged that we be killed and persuaded the others."

  "Lyr's barnacles! Why?"

  "From what I could understand, they seemed to think that all foreigners are evil, and that we have wealth on our persons which the village could use. Moreover their witchdoctor said he could insure a year's prosperity by sacrificing us to their gods. They s
acrifice people with torture, and the shaman claimed his gods had appeared to him in a vision to demand our fives. Juten and one or two others wished to spare us, but were outvoted."

  "What's their scheme?"

  "They'll wait until we're asleep and rush in. They dare not attack us openly for fear of our swords."

  Vakar glanced to where Juten's wife sat placidly in the doorway, milling barley with a hand-quern. He thoughtfully twirled his mustache. Feeling sure that she would not have understood the conversation in Lorskan he said:

  "Is all our gear in the bag?"

  "Nearly, sir. I'll pack the rest now."

  Vakar got up, stretched, and put on his cloak. He bent over the children's beds until he located Atse, whose single garment was wadded up to make a pillow. Vakar explored gently until he found the tiny whistle and withdrew it. He did not like robbing a child, but had little choice. He dropped the whistle into his scrip and said to Juten's wife:

  "Your pardon, madam, but we are going out for a walk."

  "Are you strong enough, sir?" she said, rising to make way for the pair of them. "I think so, thank you."

  Vakar led the way, Fual following with the bag on his back. Vakar walked toward the corner of the hut. Just before he reached it the woman called after him:

  "Sir, why are you carrying your belongings? Are you leaving us?"

  Pretending not to hear, Vakar swung rapidly around the corner of the house and headed eastward between it and the next hut. They passed a couple of store-sheds, detoured a pig-pen and a paddock containing horses, and strode through a plowed field, their boots sinking into the mud and coming out with sucking noises. Vakar felt a little weak and his arm was sore, but otherwise he seemed to be active again. He asked:

  "This is the first I've seen of the neighborhood since recovering my senses. Can you lead the way?"

  "No, sir. Except for a few glimpses of the main street of the village I know hardly more about it than you. Where are you taking us?"

  Vakar told about the female satyr, adding: "I know not whether she's real or a peasant superstition, but I brought the child's whistle along to try. She might conceivably help us, being of the third class of friends."

  "What's that?"

  "There's your friend, and your friend's friend, and your enemy's enemy. She seems to be of the last kind."

  He blew experimentally, whereupon there was an outburst of barking from the village.

  "For the gods' sake, my lord, don't do that!" said Fual. "There must be some sound emitted by that thing, even though we mortal men can't hear it. You'll have all those devils on our trail." He glared back at the village and muttered Aremorian curses upon the Sendevians.

  They tramped in silence until they passed out of the fields and entered the zone of wild grass and scrubby forest. The stars came out though the moon, being past full, had not risen. Somewhere in the hills a lion roared. They were stumbling their way up a draw between two of the smaller foothills of the Atlantean Mountains when Fual said:

  "Sir, listen!"

  Vakar halted and heard, far behind them, a murmur of voices and a chorus of barking. Looking back he saw a tiny glimmer as of a swarm of fireflies. That would be the men of the village setting out with dogs and torches to hunt them down.

  "Oh, hurry!" said Fual, teeth chattering. Vakar hurried. One or two peasants he would have faced, but if all the able-bodied males of Sendeu caught him, emboldened by numbers, stone axes and wooden rakes and pitchforks would do him in as surely if not so quickly as whetted bronze. He blew on the whistle again. Nothing happened. They stumbled on, pausing betimes for breath. Each time the sounds of pursuit became louder. When the moon rose, Vakar straightened out their course towards the east, where, he hoped, the more rugged terrain would give them a better chance of escape.

  Fual said: "Sir, why did you bring me on this terrible journey, where we spend all our time fleeing from one dire doom after another? You could have left me to serve your brother—"

  "Shut up," said Vakar, gasping for breath.

  He looked back down the valley they were now traversing and plainly saw the swarm of torches at the lower end. He raised the whistle to his lips, but Fual cried:

  "Oh, pray don't blow that again! It only draws the dogs faster."

  "They'll track us by smell in any case, and it's our last »

  Fual sank to his knees, weeping, and kissed Vakar's hand, but Vakar pushed him roughly back.

  "I shall blow, and if it doesn't work, look to your sword. I'm too tired to run further, and we can at least take a few of these sons of sows with us."

  Ignoring Fual's prayers, Vakar blew. The torches came closer and the barking became louder. Vakar was feeling his edge when a voice spoke in Euskerian:

  "Who are you, and what do you wish?"

  Vakar saw nobody, but replied: "We are two travellers whom the villagers of Sendeu seek to murder. We thought you might give us sanctuary."

  "You do not look or speak like peasants. Could you do me a favor in return?"

  "What favor?" said Vakar, with a lively memory of legends wherein people offered some petitioner anything he asked and lived to regret then impulsiveness.

  "I wish help in getting back to my native land."

  "We will do our best."

  "Come then; but if this is a trap you shall be sorry."

  There was a movement in the shrubbery on the hillside, and Vakar started towards the fugitive spot of pallor. His rest had given him strength to pull himself up the hillside. The three of them—Vakar, Fual, and their half-seen guide—crossed the crest of the ridge as the dogs and torches streamed past below. At the point where the fugitives turned off, the dogs halted and milled.

  Vakar whispered: "Will they not .follow our scent?"

  "No, for I cast a spell upon them. But come, for these spells are short-lived."

  -

  An hour later Vakar followed the satyr into a cave on a hillside whose mouth was cunningly hidden by vegetation. The being rummaged in the darkness. Vakar saw the shower of sparks caused by striking flint against pyrites, and presently a rush-light glimmered.

  "I do not use fire myself," said their rescuer, "but when my lovers used to come from the village I found they liked to see what they were doing, so I laid in a store of these things."

  Vakar looked. The satyr was a young female, naked, about five feet tall and quite human except for the horse-like tail, snub nose, slanting eyes, and pointed ears. He asked:

  "Have you a name?"

  "Tiraafa."

  "I am Vakar and he is Fual, my servant. What is this about human lovers, Tiraafa?" Vakar found the habits of the near-human species fascinating.

  "With us," said Tiraafa, "one must have love, much more than among you cold and passionless humans. Since there are no others of my kind hereabouts I encouraged the lustier young men of the village to visit me. Of course the love of a man is a limp and feeble thing compared to that of a satyr, but it was all I could do."

  "Why are there no others of your kind?" said Fual. "I always understood satyrs dwelt in Atlantis."

  "They do, but not of my tribe. I come from the Saturides, far to the north, having been seized by Foworian slavers. I was sold in Gadaira, but escaped and fled into the mountains. When I found a tribe of satyrs they thought, because I was a stranger who spoke a dialect different from theirs, that I must be a spy sent against them by the human beings. They drove me off with sticks and stones—and here I am."

  "You wish to return to the Satyr Isles?"

  "Oh, yes! Could you help me?" She seized his wrist imploringly.

  Fual, cheerful again, said: "Have no fear, Tiraafa. My lord can arrange anything."

  "Maybe," granted Vakar. "What ended your relations with ~Sendeu?"

  "The maidens of the village complained to their fathers, who forbade their sons to visit me. No longer having the food they brought, I had to steal or persuade the children to bring me some, and the headman swore to kill me."

  "We have
had our troubles with Egon too," said Vakar. "A right friendly fellow. But as we seem safe for the moment, let us get some sleep and plan our next move in the morning."

  "As you wish," said Tiraafa. "However, I have had no love for months, and expect as part of the price of your rescue—•"

  She began sliding her hands up his arms towards his neck in a way that reminded Vakar of Bili.

  "Not me, little one," said Vakar. "I am a sick man. Begin with Fual, and in another day I may be able to help out. Fual, the lady wishes love; attend to it."