The Avengers of Carrig
“We’re taking care of that,” Brzeska said. “As soon as we can detach a cruiser from somewhere else, it’s going to scout the Cyclops system. As you say, by now the cache must be pretty conspicuous.”
“Excellent.”
“How about the—ah—the divine intervention?”
“All in hand,” Langenschmidt said. “That’s why I planted those agents in the mines. Half Carrig will probably be knocked down by the eruptions, but Belfeor won’t be among the people who get up afterward.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
No matter how widely publicized, a denial never catches up with a rumor. Gus Langenschmidt watched with satisfaction, during the days that followed, how that ancient precept was being proved all over again in Carrig.
Once having allowed Ambrus to put into circulation the original story that there was to be no king-hunt, Belfeor had made certain that even those who most dearly desired to see him return to conformity with the obligations of a regent, scoffed at the parody of a hunt that was being organized this year. It was clear that the usurper was acting under duress, not from a proper sense of his duty toward the gods, and consequently the most ignorant and docile of the peasants who had massed in the city for the festival decided that he was no longer the lawful lord of Carrig, but a tyrant and blasphemer to be defied at all costs. The city-folk, of course, had had two full years to reach the same conclusion, and in every home, every tavern, every inn, the commonest toast was always to Belfeor’s downfall.
Late arrivals wanting to place their usual wagers on the contenders in the king-hunt found there were no betting-tables set up; over the doors of the houses and shops there were symbols of all the clans except the clan of the invaders, who had long ago forgotten the totem Pargetty advised them to adopt; bolder spirits dipped their festival garlands in black dye and hung them out in tatters, stark sign of the city-wide mourning … and not merely mourning, but grumbling that grew louder and louder with each day that passed.
A sense of sullen resistance was abroad, until one could almost feel the foundations of the city vibrating with suppressed anger.
Other factors reinforced the universal sense of the gods’ displeasure. Sited where it was, Carrig had a level of background radiation ten or twelve percent higher than the planetary average, thanks to the radioactive deposits in the volcanic range. However, the local people had developed good tolerance for it, and while the incidence of abortions was higher than in the southland, they hardly realized the fact.
Among the peasants farming the actual slopes of the Smoking Hills, though, the chances of stillborn and deformed children were unsually great. The peasants themselves generally put up with this; they were used to having to bury every second or third child before the age of a year, and anyhow their little farms could not support very large families. Moreover, in the hot southlands it was notorious that disease accounted for an equally high proportion of babies.
Despite this customary resignation to fate, there had always been a slow trickle of young married couples toward the city, in the hope of escaping the danger of bearing dead offspring. Now that they were being compelled to work in Belfeor’s mines without adequate radiation shielding, the city-folk also were losing their babies, and once Langenschmidt had planted a rumor to account for this in terms of a curse from the gods, it ran through the entire territory like wildfire.
Pleased, he cast about for ways of stressing Belfeor’s evil nature still further. The citizens of Carrig were much concerned about signs and portents, he remembered. Obviously it would help things along if a few suitable miracles could be arranged …
Carved in the rock at the foot of the citadel on which the temple and the fortress perched, there was an ancient statue of Larso-Veng, the god of good fortune, which was very popular with the townsfolk. It was the custom for people concluding contracts about some business venture to go to the statue and pat its plump jolly face before putting things in hand. Even foreign caravan-masters often did so, and no barge-skipper would fail to visit the statue before shipping cargoes down-river to the coast.
The morning after Langenschmidt decided it was time for omens, the skipper and helmsman of a boat that had come specially to Carrig for the king-hunt, decided not to stay after all, since the hunt would be such a sorry farce this year, and went gloomily to touch the statue. They reached up toward its face, on which centuries of gentle stroking had put a high gloss, and discovered to their amazement that the stone cheeks were wet.
Exclaiming, they looked closer, and saw that out of the god’s eyes slow tears were oozing.
The same evening a graat went mad in the marketplace. One moment it had been standing quietly under its load of cloth while its owner discussed the price of a bale of felt with a stall-holder, looking docile enough for a curious soldier, a caravan guard, to prod and pat it as though with a mind to buying it; the next instant saw it rear on its hind legs, shrieking and kicking out in all directions. It took six men to rope it and hold it still long enough for it to be killed.
Furious, the owner entirely agreed with the soldier about the reason for the graat’s maddened cavorting. This whole city of Carrig was unlucky now. Had not the god of good fortune wept over the condition of the place?
Going to the never-failing well in the back courtyard of Clan Twywit’s town house, to which the family always moved from its country estate for the season of the spring new moon, a brawny cook dropped her bucket twenty feet to the water and drew it up full of scarlet blood. She let it fall again, screaming, and a score of scullions, turnspits, skivvies and footmen came to see what was wrong. Gawping, they agreed among themselves that so many miracles in so short a time could indicate only one thing.
As one, they turned and stared at the high pinnacle of the watchtower atop the fortress. Belfeor was there …
One of them was deputed to take the news to Sir Malan Corrie himself, so that he should be fully aware of the serious situation.
When the stories of the omens he had organized came back in embroidered form to the tavern where Langenschmidt had established his headquarters, he was astonished and delighted to discover how word-of-mouth transmission had improved the raw material. The well in Clan Twywit’s house, for example, into which he had contrived to have spilled a scarlet dye, was now reported to be full of dead bodies, murdered and thrown there during the winter by Belfeor’s henchmen. People swore that the maddened graat in the marketplace had screamed curses in a human voice, damning Belfeor. And the god of good fortune had not merely had tears oozing from tiny sacs concealed in its eye-sockets; its whole expression was said to have changed from merry joviality to deepest gloom.
It sounded as though he was on the right track. With the help of his colleagues he dreamed up another handful of similar omens and made sure that they were witnessed by the largest possible number of solid, trustworthy citizens. It was like pouring oil on a fire of damp wood.
Two days later still, with the new moon imminent, the workers in the mines mutinied. One of the overseers was tossed into an ore-crusher before the lavish use of energy guns restored order; and even then the men refused to work at more than a snail’s pace until Belfeor himself came and assured them that the king-hunt would indeed take place and they would be given time off to watch it. According to Langenschmidt’s two agents in the mine, Belfeor looked badly upset and kept screaming insults at his followers.
In the evening it was announced that he had sent for Sir Gurton Knole, presumably to discuss matters of ritual, but by that time Langenschmidt had played his ace of trumps. He had sent out his entire band of sixty Corps agents on a single errand: to inform as many people as possible that Belfeor had driven the parradiles out of the Smoking Hills. What then was he going to hunt this year?
Then he sat back, rubbing his hands, and Waited for the usurper to tumble into the trap he had dug himself.
Last year Ambrus had still felt sure enough of himself to endure standing on this parapet around the watchtower without brooding
on the fact that his father had cast himself to his death from a spot not five yards distant.
This year …
He tried to avoid the eyes of his uncle, Sir Gurton, standing beside Belfeor in his ceremonial regalia, and to concentrate instead on watching the sun set over the westerly end of the Smoking Hills. It was a fine clear evening, and the sun was tinging the few low clouds with pink.
But to look at the Smoking Hills now was to look at Belfeor’s handiwork. A web of machinery had been spun across them, at the cost of who could tell how many lives: gantry cranes, cableways, chains of ore-buckets leading down from the mine openings to the huge crushers and refining machines. By turning his coat, Ambrus had escaped having to slave over there like the majority of the adult males in Carrig, but he knew at secondhand all about what went on there, and the memory of what he had been told made his stomach churn.
Against his will he found himself turning to glance at Belfeor, and was pleased to see how completely the man had lost his self-possession. His face was dark with suppressed anger and he was sweating copiously. By his side Pargetty was trying to calm him, but that seemed to be just one more irritation. Finally he burst out savagely, “How much longer do we have to stand around here like dummies?”
Pargetty looked appalled. His eyes burning, Sir Gurton half-turned.
“Till the evening star appears,” he snapped.
“This—this rigmarole!” Belfeor took out a kerchief and mopped his perspiring forehead. “Stupid, time-wasting … Oh, what’s the odds? It’s got to be done, I guess.”
Pargetty made another attempt at hushing him. He took no notice. “And what happens if there isn’t a parradile out there for me to kill, hey?” he demanded. “Is that allowed for in your damn-fool ritual?”
Sir Gurton scowled and did not deign to answer. Ambrus clenched his fists. How could he ever have been so blind as to throw in his lot with this arrogant babbler? He felt his cheeks grow hot with shame. To put an extra pace between himself and the man for whom he now felt only repugnance, he took a step back, and the heavy ceremonial sword slung at his side tapped his thigh, swinging.
Faint in the distance could be heard the noise as the nobles of Carrig assembled for the evening ceremony. In past years there would have been shouting and excitement, a sense of grand occasion. Now there was merely the dull tramp of many feet, with sometimes a door slamming to. The servers, acolytes, and sages, ranked on the parapet according to traditional form, shifted restlessly from foot to foot. Ambrus wondered why they had permitted him to join them; having disowned his clan he should not legally be taking part. Possibly the answer was that they gave him so little thought now they did not care whether he was present or not.
“I think I see the evening star,” whispered the sharpest-eyed of the young servers, staring upward with concentration. He reached for Sir Gurton’s staff, meaning to guide it in the right direction in case the old man’s vision had not yet shown the star to him.
At that very moment, however, something dark and flapping rose from among the smoke that crested the volcanoes. All those on the parapet exclaimed with one voice.
“The king! The king!”
“Yes, but there’s something strange about it!” Ambrus said excitedly. “Look! It’s carrying something in its talons!”
Sir Gurton, peering where the others pointed, hesitated. He said, “Can anyone discern what it is?”
“I think,” the young server said, and had to swallow nervously before going on—“I think it’s a man. Hanging by some kind of harness under the parradile’s body!”
They stared incredulously for a long moment. This was so extraordinary that even Sir Gurton forgot he had not yet made the formal announcement to open the king-hunt season. Belfeor broke the silence impatiently at last.
“Well, what different does it make?” he roared. “There’s a parradile—isn’t that what you wanted?”
No one took any notice. The parradile was gliding closer, crossing the outskirts of the city, giving the occasional lazy stroke with its vast wings to keep it on a course directly toward the fortress. It was plain now that the server’s keen sight had been as reliable as ever. A man was indeed hanging under the parradile’s belly, cradled in a sitting position in a web of strong cords.
“Oh, I’ve had enough of this nonsense!” Belfeor said suddenly. “There’s a parradile, and you’ve been pestering me to kill a parradile, and to me it makes no difference whether I kill it now or later. I’m going to get the job over with!”
He pulled the energy gun from the holster on his belt.
Ambrus did not consciously decide what he was going to do. He seemed to be driven by a force outside himself—a force stemming from centuries of tradition, but reaching back beyond tradition to an original divine law. His right arm jerked down; his hand closed fast on the hilt of his ceremonial sword and tugged it from the scabbard.
The blade whistled as it slashed the air.
With his energy gun raised in the very act of sighting on the parradile, the usurper’s skull was cleft from crown to chin. The sword stuck fast and Belfeor’s fall snatched it from Ambrus’ hand.
Pargetty screamed like a woman and fumbled for his own gun. Ambrus snarled at him—no one else had had time to move—and hurled himself in a wild charge. His shoulder took Pargetty in the chest and his impetus carried them both across the parapet, over the low ledge, and into the empty air beyond.
When the screaming had ended, Sir Gurton made a sign with his right hand. “He has made amends,” he said heavily. “Now may his father be reborn in peace.”
As though an enormous load had been lifted from their backs, all those standing around straightened themselves and began to smile. Only the young server, shocked at the sight of Belfeor’s gory corpse, had to turn away and vomit against the wall.
“The question remains,” Sir Gurton said after a pause, “what shall be done with those who follow this—this lump of carrion here? In a moment men will go to see what fell from the tower; they will find Pargetty dead and Ambrus with him. Moreover, it is my obligation to declare the king-hunt due. Since the parradile approaching us is male, that in default of challengers must be the new king. And tomorrow—”
He was interrupted by the keen-eyed server. Recovered from his fit of nausea, the boy had turned back to resume his proper position, but suddenly he was shouting and waving.
“Look! See who it is that rides beneath the parradile! It’s Saikmar son of Corrie, that I swear!”
In amazed silence they watched the parradile come sliding down the air toward the tower. And the rider was Saikmar. No mistaking that long-boned figure, that sharp face now half-concealed behind a manly beard, that regal bearing so reminiscent of his father. The parradile brought itself up short, hovering with gentle slaps of its pinions so that Saikmar swung close enough to call to them.
“Have you declared the king-hunt due?” he cried. They had not expected such a question. It was a moment before Sir Gurton could find an answer. He went forward, shouting that they had not.
“Do not do so, then!” Saikmar said. “We of Carrig shall nevermore kill the king-parradile. Henceforward we are friends and allies of his kind! Has not this noble creature borne me back to dethrone the usurper? Sound the signal for revolt!”
And, as though his words were the trigger, the Smoking Hills blew up.
CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
It was established afterward that not a single citizen of Carrig was killed in the eruptions. Almost all the peasants from the nearby farms had gone into the city for the king-hunt; those unlucky ones chosen by lot to stay behind and keep guard against wild animals fled directly they felt the ground begin to shudder, and suffered little worse than sprained ankles and burns from flying cinders. As to the workers in the mines, Belfeor’s overseers had resigned themselves to letting them too go down into the city, knowing they would mutiny if the privilege were denied. They, however, remained to make ready a new shipment of radioactives.
br /> They were all killed.
Langenschmidt’s agents, by showing a quick and alert understanding of their work—but not so quick as to arouse suspicion—had got themselves appointed crew-bosses so as to work with only occasional supervision by Belfeor’s men. This gave them their opportunity to filch sufficient partly refined uranium to build a small fission-bomb—extremely makeshift, but adequate. They secreted it in an old parradile lair where the heat of the rock indicated that a vein of lava ran close to the surface, down-slope from a particularly active crater. Before leaving for the city with the rest of the workers, they fused the thing and fervently hoped that it would function. Probably there had never been such a weird bomb in history; it was of the primitive missile-and-target type, and what slammed the two components together was crude black powder made of native sulfur, powdered charcoal, and potassium nitrate from parradile dung.
It worked extremely well.
Much of the blast, naturally, was wasted; it shot loose stones out of the mouth of the cave like grapeshot from a cannon. But enough was contained to split wide open the vein of lava penned behind the rock wall. The sullenly bubbling volcano sprang enormous leaks around the sides of its crater and streams of molten rock began to pour down the hillside.
Within a short while, the heat of the escaping lava had made the neighboring rocks plastic. The tremendous weight of the lava in adjacent craters bowed the softened rock, deformed it like clay, created a passage for more and still more lava.
The earth began to shake.
North of Carrig the snows were still melting and the rivers and streams were swollen. A hundred thousand tons of rock slid down into the course of one such river, blocking its normal channel and making it overflow into the honeycomb passages of a stratum of pumice underlying the cone of one of the biggest of all the volcanoes. Gas had bubbled through the rocks here while they were cooling. The water was able to spill downward for three hundred feet before it encountered a layer at red heat and exploded into steam.