Flight to Opar

  "I'll stay with Hadon," Kebiwabes said. "I must stay with him to the end."

  Hadon laughed and said, "Let us hope that the end is not soon."

  Kebiwabes smiled but said nothing. During his wanderings over the northern savannas he had decided that Hadon was to be the hero of an epic poem which he would compose. This was titled Pwamwothadon, The Song of Hadon. Parts of it had been completed. The bard, accompanying himself with his stringed tortoiseshell harp, had sung these passages in marketplaces, taverns and the chambers of chief priestesses. It covered events from Hadon's departure from Opar for the Great Games in Khokarsa to his stand at the inner pass against the soldiers of Minruth.

  Kebiwabes discreetly refrained from singing the latest part. This concerned Hadon's rescue of Awineth and the vow Hadon forced from her. Though the persons of bards were supposed to be sacred, they were not always immune from retaliation.

  No one, no matter how highly placed, dared exact public revenge, but things could happen to a bard who had insulted someone high. He or she could have an accident or just disappear, never to be seen again. That the Goddess would punish the murderer was no consolation to the murdered.

  "There is no need for us to decide who shall go with whom," Paga said, "if Hadon also goes to Opar."

  "How can I do that?" Hadon said. "I have sworn to guard the life of Awineth until she is safe on her throne in the palace of Khokarsa."

  "But she swore she would not harm us," Lalila said. "Now she is making sure that we are parted and that I have to undertake a very dangerous journey to Opar. She has broken her vow, which means that you cannot be held to yours."

  "But you just said that you believed Kho Herself spoke through the oracle. So Awineth is in no way responsible for your going to Opar."

  Lalila said, "No, she is not. But she is responsible for your staying here. If the Goddess wants me to get to Opar so that our child may have a long and glorious life, surely She will want the father to be with us. Especially since the father is a hero and so is needed to see us through the dangers. And so Awineth is resisting the orders of the Goddess."

  Hadon smiled and said, "I don't know who is better at rationalizing, you or Awineth."

  "Rationalization is any woman's other name," Paga said. "Look, you two, Hadon says that Suguqateth indicated that Awineth was not going to get her own way. You don't know why she would go against the Queen, even secretly. But you say she did signify that she intended to do so. If this is true, why haven't you heard from Suguqateth? It's been three days now!"

  "I don't know," Hadon said. "But the priestesses seldom do anything prematurely. She will let us know when she feels it is time to act."

  Hinokly said, "She had better do so soon. I heard that Awineth leaves this valley within the week and goes to Dythbeth."

  "What?" Hadon said. "You heard that? Where? From whom Great Kho's teats! That is supposed to be a staff secret, known only to… Never mind—I shouldn't even be talking about it. But if you have heard this, who else knows? Who told you?"

  "The maid who changes the sheets in my bedchamber," the scribe said. "I talked her into a little extra duty, you might say, and while we were talking afterward, she said that she had overheard a butler tell her supervisor that the royal party would be leaving within ten days."

  Hadon slammed his fist on the table, shaking the mugs so hard that some mead slopped onto the wood.

  "Don't repeat that to anyone outside this group, Hinokly! The rest of you, keep this to yourself! Do you realize what would happen if Awineth found out how loose-mouthed someone on her staff is? Everybody would be subject to intensive questioning. By intensive, I mean torture! She'd go right through you, Hinokly, the maid, the butler, the supervisor and on to the source of the leak. And none of us here would be safe, since we'd heard about this from you. I would be, I suppose, if I told Awineth about it. But she'd take the opportunity to lock you up, Lalila. She couldn't hurt you, since you obviously aren't involved in disseminating the information. She would, however, keep you incommunicado so you couldn't pass it on. I wouldn't get to see you at all. We'd leave and you'd be released then, sent to Opar."

  Lalila had turned pale. The others didn't look too healthy either, not even in the reddish light.

  "But if I don't report this I'm disloyal, failing in my duty," Hadon said. "But how can I? You'll all be in grave peril then, and I surely will not see Lalila again!"

  He groaned.

  "It's not an unsolvable dilemma," Lalila said, stroking his arm. "Send her an anonymous note warning her. But don't tell her the source of your information. That way you fulfill your duty and yet avoid hurting the innocent people."

  "Innocent people?" Hadon asked. "Who knows who is or is not guilty? There may be no one guilty on the staff. Awineth herself might have let slip a word to her maids-in-waiting, one of whom might have let slip a few words to her lover. But you can be sure Minruth has his spies here. If they find out that Awineth is leaving the valley, they'll be watching for her. And once she's on the way, accompanied by a relatively small guard, she's open to attack."

  "So write anonymously to her that she has to change her plans, that she must not let anyone know about the change until the last moment," Hinokly said.

  "Easier said than done," Hadon said. "Just how do I get the note to Awineth? Any messenger will be detained and the identity of the note-sender forced from him, you can bet on that."

  "Write the note," Lalila said, "and I will see that it gets into the temple mail system. Suguqateth has asked me to see her tomorrow morning. I do not know why, though I suspect she will tell me what she means to do about you and me, Hadon. In any event, I will drop the note into the offering basket outside the hall of the holy whores."

  "It's too bad I have to resort to such indirect ways. It would be nice to be able to go straight to Awineth and tell her she's in danger."

  "You're old enough by now to know how the world works," Hinokly said.

  "Yes, I am, and I do," Hadon said. "But that doesn't keep me from complaining about it now and then."

  "Heroes don't complain," the bard said, but he laughed.

  "Heroes exist only in songs and stories," Hadon said. He shoved back his wooden chair and rose. "Heroes are men who happen to deal, more or less adequately, with heroic events. And who are also lucky enough to catch the attention of a singer or a teller of tales. For every sung hero there are a hundred unsung. Anyway, I am tired of this talk of heroes!"

  The next day he felt much better. He had written the note and given it to Lalila, who took Abeth with her to the temple while Hadon put on the dress uniform of the Queen's numatenu guard. He wore a tall, three-sided scarlet hat, rounded on top, sporting a red fish-eagle's feather. Around his neck was a rosary with one hundred and forty-four blue electrum beads, each nine-sided. Over his shoulders was a short blue shawl of woven papyrus fibers, from the edges of which dangled twenty-four leather tassels, each knotted thrice. These stood for the largest cities in the Khokarsan Empire.

  On his shaved chest was painted a stylized head of a red ant, indicating Hadon's totem and incidentally his birthplace, since this totem was found only in Opar.

  A broad belt of leopardskin held up his striped kilts of honey badger fur. The belt also supported a rhinoskin sheath for a throwing knife on his right side. On his left was a wooden holder into which was thrust his numatenu sword. The slot admitted the blade only to its widest part. This resulted in half of the long, slightly tapering, blunt-edged sword projecting above the holder. Thus Hadon, like all the Queen's uniformed numatenu, had to support the upper part by holding the hilt with his left hand. He didn't mind. Only the numatenu bore their weapons in this manner; it was an honor.

  Hadon had inherited the sword from his father. Kumin had been a numatenu who had hired out to the rulers of Opar, though he himself had been born in Dythbeth. Kumin had married Pbeneth, daughter of a mining foreman. Pheneth had seven children, but only three reached maturity. Her first child had been by Resu,
the Flaming God, conceived in Resu's house during the month when Pheneth dedicated her body to the god's temple. This child had died of a fever.

  When Hadon was seven his father lost an arm in a battle with pirates in the vast underground complex beneath the city. His king had also died then and a new king, Gamori, had been chosen and wedded by the widow, Phebha. Kumin had contemplated—and rejected—suicide, the usual course taken by crippled numatenu. Instead he accepted a job as a sweeper of floors in the Temple of Golden Kho of Opar.

  Hadon's childhood from then on had been penurious. And he had had to endure many humiliations because of the change in his social stature, But his father had taught him to be proud, to endure much for the sake of a worthy goal. His Uncle Phimeth, probably the greatest swordsman in the Empire in his youth, had taught him all he knew about the tenu.

  Hadon was given his father's sword on winning the Lesser Games in Opar. Though no longer technically a numatenu, Kumin had the right to give his weapon to whomever he thought deserved it. Hadon, though he could use the sword by right of inheritance, was not technically a numatenu; according to custom, he had a certain time after getting the sword to establish his right to it. If he earned it, then he was to be initiated into the rather loosely organized guild of numatenu. He had earned the right at least a dozen times over and so had gone through the rites shortly after entering this valley.

  He had expected to be made captain of the guard. After all, if he had not been cheated, he would have been Awineth's husband and thus ruler of all Khokarsa. The least she could have done was make him head of her personal bodyguard. But no, he was given the lieutenancy, immediately under Captain Nowiten, a thirty-five-year-old veteran.

  Under other circumstances Hadon would have been grieved and offended. Now he had only two great concerns: to get Lalila to Opar, and make sure that he went with her.

  Pondering just how he could accomplish this without breaking his word, he wandered around the town of Akwaphi, first past the Temple of Resu, a large square building of granite topped by phallic minarets at each corner.

  Four priests stood talking on the columned porch. Their heads were shaved except for roaches of hair from the forehead to the nape of the neck, brushes kept stiff and upright by eagle grease. They had sported full beards and mustaches in accordance with Minruth's decree, defying ancient tradition, but when the news of Awineth's imprisonment had reached this valley, the priests hurriedly reverted to their shaved state. In addition, they had renounced Minruth's doctrine of the domination of the Flaming God. Whether this step was taken from true orthodoxy or a desire to survive was not known. Whatever the motive, the priests had saved their lives. If they had stood by Minruth, they would have been torn to pieces by the wrathful worshipers of Kho. The temple might have been taken apart and the idol of Resu shattered or else moved into Kho's temple to be placed at Her feet.

  These acts of desecration would have resulted in guilt among the responsible and horror among the nonparticipants.. No matter how high passions rose in this matter, Resu was a god. He had been placed on an equal footing with his mother in theological theory, though in practice most worshipers placed Kho first. Yet he was a deity, and to lay violent hands on his vicars, idols and houses of worship was blasphemy. The priestesses said this was permissible, that Resu himself had repudiated those of his worshipers who tried to displace his mother. Those who had committed blasphemy in their wrath still felt uneasy. They expected retribution at any moment.

  When divine vengeance did not come after a long period of waiting, the blasphemer had one of two reactions. One was that the priestesses were right: Resu had turned his back on his own people because they had tried to raise him above his mother. But another reaction was the feeling that perhaps Resu was dead—if indeed he had ever lived. And if he had not existed, then what about Kho?

  Very few people dared voice such thoughts and they were never uttered publicly, of course.

  The priests stood closely together, their flowing robes lifting and falling in the breeze. Their right hands, the ritually pure hands, worked their rosaries while they gestured with their lefts. They stopped talking for a moment as Hadon, passing, saluted. He wondered what they were discussing. Grave matters of theology? The difficulty in getting enough rations in this now overcrowded valley? Or, as many suspected, were they spies transmitting information on Awineth's movements? If the latter was true, it was not his concern. It was up to Awineth's counterintelligence to determine such matters.

  14.

  Hadon strolled through the marketplace, a broad square formed by various government buildings, the Temple of Takomim, goddess of trade, thieves and the left-handed, the Temple of Besbesbes, goddess of bees and mead, and a gymnasium. In the center of the square was a fountain, a broad shallow bowl of limestone with a statue on a pedestal in its middle. This was of bronze and represented the local river godling, Akwaphi, in the act of making the headwaters of the river. The local belief was that women who had failed to get pregnant as divine prostitutes might become fertile if they drank from the godling's spout. This had also resulted in males shying away from the source of water.

  Hadon was thirsty, but instead of drinking from the fountain basin, he purchased a cup of hot hibiscus-steeped water. While sipping it, he looked around at the scene which never failed to interest him. It was noisy and colorful, alive with traders, merchants, townspeople, farmers and hunters. Adding to the clamor were ducks quacking in cages, pigs grunting in pens, domesticated buffalo mooing, obese food-dogs yapping in wickerwork baskets, collared and leashed monkeys chattering on stands, ravens and parrots croaking or screeching, hunting dogs—for sale—barking, a baby leopard in a cage squalling. There were small open booths everywhere, arranged in no pattern, and merchants hawked their wares from these. Fresh and dried fish, dressed carcasses of pigs, sides and legs of beef, unplucked ducks and game fowl hanging by their necks, fresh or hard-boiled duck eggs, loaves of acorn-nut bread, cartloads of millet grain, jugs and barrels of mead, kegs of honey, high-priced hogsheads of wine and beer imported just before the blockade; dried hibiscus leaves and medicines and charms for curing acne, decaying teeth, cataracts, smallpox scars, impotency, piles, glaucoma, obesity, anemia, fevers, worms, amnesia, insomnia, backache, anxiety, bed-wetting, constipation, diarrhea, bad breath, strabismus,stuttering, stammering, shyness, tumors, malaria, colds, the itch, lice, crabs, deafness and the many others in the long, long list of things plaguing humankind even in 10,000 B.C.—giving some people even then a chance to make a profit.

  The square was unpaved. Though water was sprinkled on the earth several times a day, it was not enough to prevent the dust from rising. It rose and fell, coating those who hung around all day. Their sweat lined their faces with clean stripes. At the end of the day, the stink of unwashed bodies, human urine, animal dung, bird droppings, spilled and breathed-out mead, wine, beer, decaying meat, fowl and fish, all created a medley of repugnant odors. Nobody knew they were repellent, however. They had been used to them all their lives, just as they were used to the thousands of flies circling, buzzing, crawling on meat, excrement and faces.

  Hadon finished the hibiscus-tea and passed on, loitering, idly examining merchandise, eavesdropping, passing the time while waiting for Lalila's interview with the head priestess to end. His attention was finally held by a man who had entered the market a few minutes before. He was about six feet three inches high, a stature which would attract Hadon at any time. Hadon was six foot two, which had made him the tallest man in Opar. On arriving at the capital of Khokarsa, he had been somewhat upset to find that he was not also the tallest man in the Empire. Even so, those who could look down at him were few.

  The stranger had walked out from a side street with a bold, long-stepping stride. He held his head high and proudly, resembling an eagle in the manner with which he turned it from side to side. His hair was long, straight and very black. It fell over his forehead in bangs, chopped off several inches above the eyebrows. His large eyes
were widely spaced and, when Hadon was near enough, he perceived they were dark gray. They looked strange and unsettling, as if they saw everything before them quite distinctly and analytically, yet also saw things which were not there.

  The face was handsome, though not regularly proportioned. The nose was short but straight, the upper lip short, the chin square and deeply cleft. His physique was big-boned and muscular, but suggestive of the leopard rather than the lion.

  His only clothing was a loincloth of antelope hide, which made Hadon think that he must be a mountain-dweller, since these folk wore very little during the summer. On the other hand, the hill people wore skins obtained from local animals, and there were no antelopes in this area.

  His only weapon was a large long-handled knife in a leather belt.

  The soles of his bare feet were calloused at least half an inch thick.

  The stranger sauntered around, occasionally meeting Hadon's glance. Hadon did not wish to appear too interested, so he looked away at once. Others were looking at the stranger. His height attracted notice, but the fact that he was a newcomer was enough ta cause curious stares and muttered asides. Everybody was spy-conscious, especially since the Queen had offered high rewards for such information.

  The stranger moved around, stopping to sip some hibiscus-tea, munching on some nuts, watching a puppet show. Then he chose a shady place under the roof of a hare-seller's booth and squatted. He stayed there so long, motionless except for brushing the flies off his face, that Hadon began to lose interest. The fellow, though striking in appearance, was probably just a hunter. He'd come down to look at the sights and perhaps take in some of the cosmopolitan attractions. He did not seem to have much money; the few coins he'd spent had come from a small flat bag attached to his belt. If he needed women, however, he didn't have to have money. A man of his physique and good looks would be grabbed by the divine whores. His only difficulty might be in getting out of the chamber.