Hadon of Ancient Opar

  “And then,” Paga said, “we wandered along the shore looking for the others. As Lalila says, we never saw them again. Finally we turned inland for Lalila’s homeland. We found the lake over which her people lived in huts on piles. But the huts were empty, and the bones of their owners lay in the lake or along the shore. We did not know what had caused their deaths. We thought that a pestilence of some kind had struck many, and the others had fled. We waited for three moons for some to return, but they never did. Lalila’s child by Wi was born. Then a band of tall yellow-haired men came, and we fled into the mountains. They pursued us until we were trapped in a cave, trapped by the bear in the cave and the men without. Wi slew the bear, a creature twice as large as a Hon, but he was clawed badly across the back. Then he turned and fought the yellow-hairs while I thrust with a spear from behind him, between his legs. Seven men he slew with the ax before a spear went through his throat.

  “All seemed over, but then came cries from the men still outside. Those within ran out, only to be felled by arrows that came so fast that it seemed three men were firing. The remaining yellow-hairs fled, and presently a tall man with black hair and gray eyes came out from behind a boulder. It was Sahhindar, who had visited the village again, seen our tracks, and followed us.”

  “We buried Wi, and with him my heart,” Lalila said. “Then we told our story, and Sahhindar said that he would take us to a land where we could live in comfort, a land such as we had never dreamed of. When we encountered a Khokarsan expedition, Sahhindar entrusted us to their care. The rest you know.”

  “Not all of it,” Hadon said. “When the expedition was attacked, how did you escape the savages after your boat overturned?”

  “We swam to the opposite shore,” Paga said, “though the weight of the ax almost drowned me. It was tied to my wrist, and I couldn’t get the knot loose. But Lalila helped me support the ax. We carried it between us, each swimming with one hand. The child could swim almost at birth, and so we did not have to worry about her. By the time we reached shore, the river was alive with crocodiles attracted by the uproar. That was fortunate for us, since five savages had remained behind to go after us. But they did not dare attempt the river. And so we decided to go northward, in the direction they would not expect us to take. As I said, we also decided to seek out Sahhindar and tell him what had happened.”

  Hadon said, “I wonder why Sahhindar did not accompany you all the way to Khokarsa? Surely he knew that there were many dangers between the Ringing Sea and the Kemu?”

  “I think that he was on a mission of his own when he rescued us,” Paga said. “He deferred it to see us to safety. When we met the Khokarsans, he thought he could entrust us to them. He was eager to get going.”

  “Perhaps he would not have left us if he had known that I was bearing his child,” Lalila said. “But then I did not know it myself. Of course, that did not matter in the end, since I lost it two moons after it was conceived.”

  “You carried the seed of a god in your womb?” Hadon said. He felt awe at the same time that, for some unknown reason, he felt sick. Or was the reason so hidden? Was it because he felt jealous?

  “He says he is no god, but certainly he is as close to being a god as a mortal can get,” she said. “However, I am not unique. He says that half the population of the lands north of the Ringing Sea and half the population of Khokarsa must be descended from him. After all, he has been roaming about for two thousand years.”

  “I myself can trace my descent to Sahhindar,” Hadon said. “Though to tell the truth, I have often wondered if the genealogy was not just something that my ancestors made up. But apparently not.”

  “Lalila is also a descendant of Sahhindar, a great-granddaughter, I believe,” Paga said. He chuckled and said, “In fact, Sahhindar once commented that he was a descendant of himself. Though what he meant by this, I do not know.”

  They came into sight of the camp then and were quickly challenged by a sentry. Hadon went through the ridiculous rigmarole of identifying himself, and escorted the three to his headquarters, a tiny hut made of poles covered by leafy branches. There he told Tadoku to summon all to be informed that the first phase of their mission was completed. He had no intention of looking also for Sahhindar. If Minruth demanded to know where he was, he would be given the general location. Let him send someone else to look for him.

  14

  Kwasin was the one who gave the most trouble, as was to be expected. All the males adored Lalila, but though they might wish to lie with her, they would not have dared suggest it by words or touch. Hadon had ordered that she was to be treated as a priestess even if she were a savage. The order was not necessary, since word spread quickly through the small camp that she was indeed a priestess of the moon. This was not true. However, her mother had been one and Lalila in due course would have succeeded her. Moreover, her name, which meant moon of change in Khokarsan, reinforced the belief that she was a holy one. And her titles, the White Witch from the Sea and the Risen-from-the-Sea, were enough to scare off even the randiest. The latter was also, by another coincidence, a title of Adeneth, goddess of sexual passion and of madness.

  Kwasin was the only one not scared, of course. On first seeing her, he exclaimed with wonder, fell on his knees, seized her hand, and kissed it. Hadon watched him in alarm, because there was no telling what the giant would kiss next. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it and lop off Kwasin’s head if he should insult her. Kwasin rose to his feet and bellowed that he had never seen a woman so lovely or so radiant, that she was indeed like the goddess of the moon, fair and remote and holy. He would bash in the skull of anyone who dared even hint of violating her. Hadon hated him for that. To tell the truth—and he did so in his heart—he desired her mightily. And he suspected that Kwasin, if he managed to be alone with her, would not find her untouchable. At least, not as far as he was concerned.

  And what of Awineth, the young and beautiful queen who was waiting for him by a throne that would be his? Ah, yes, what of dark-haired, dark-eyed, shapely Awineth? She was far off, pale and tenuous as a ghost seen at dawn. Which was not a very realistic attitude, Hadon told himself. She represented glory and power, and to give these up by giving her up was madness. Besides, Awineth would regard such an act as an unforgivable insult. She could reject him if she wished, but for him to reject her would probably result in… what? Exile? Or death on the spot? The latter, most probably.

  It was truly insane to consider such a thing. Unthinkable. But he was thinking it, and so was mad. And knowing this, he still was happy. Why was he happy? Lalila had not given the slightest sign of any tender feeling toward him.

  They had a long way to go, and who knew what might happen before they arrived at the border of the empire?

  Kebiwabes, the bard, also seemed struck by the madness which the full moon or a beautiful woman sometimes sends. He began composing the Song of the Moon of Change, the Pwamwotlalila, and at the end of the second week of their journey southward sang it. It was not an epic, but a lyric modeled in the spirit and after the structure of the songs that the priestesses of the temples of the moon, the Wootla, the Voices of the Moon, sang at the beginning of the annual orgiastic rites in the ancient days. These rites had been suppressed for five centuries, though they were still practiced secretly in the countryside and in the mountain areas. Hadon, listening, felt arousal of spirit and flesh. Kwasin stripped and danced the ancient Dance of the Mating Bear, causing Lalila to turn away in embarrassment. Mad Kwasin danced on, his eyes glazed, seemingly unaware that she had walked away into the darkness.

  Hadon followed her to apologize and found her and the manling standing by a great boulder in the moonlight.

  . “I could not stop him,” he said. “To have interfered would be insulting the goddess of the moon, since her spirit has seized him.”

  “Do not apologize,” she said. “My people have—had—similar dances, and I have witnessed them without being offended. But in this case the
dance was not impersonal. It was obviously directed at me, and it made me very uncomfortable. I fear that monster; he has been touched by the moon; there is no telling what he may do when he is possessed. And from what you and the bard have told me, Kwasin is no respecter of chastity or holiness when he is seized.”

  “True,” Hadon said, “but he knows that the next time he transgresses, he may die. If men do not strike him down, Kho may. And he also wishes to have his exile terminated, which will not happen if he offends her again. So, though he is possessed, he is still trying to control himself. I will give him that, and I am not one to give him much.”

  “He is also possessed of a stature and strength which all men should desire,” Paga said. “But I do not. Both Kwasin and I are misshapelings. He has been given too much and I too little. But whereas the deities have made me small, have cut off my legs, they have given me an intelligence to compensate. Him they have given too much of the body and so have deprived him of his wits. I have a keen nose, Hadon, and I smell misfortune and evil sweating from that great body. Tell me, is it true that you lived with him for a while when you were both young?”

  “That was my misfortune,” Hadon said. “We both resided with our uncle in a cave high above the Sea of Opar for a few years. Kwasin had to have someone to bully, and since he dared not insult my uncle, who would have kicked him off the cliff into the sea, he bullied me. I am good-natured, and I put up with it for a while, trying to get him to be more agreeable, trying to get him to become a friend. Eventually I lost my temper and attacked him. It was humiliating, because he beat me severely and laughed at me while doing it. I am strong, but I am a weakling compared to Kwasin, as, indeed, all men are.

  “My uncle did not say a word to Kwasin about this, but he did arrange a series of athletic contests for us with malice aforethought. Whoever lost would be beaten by him, and my uncle saw to it that the games were to Kwasin’s disadvantage. We ran the quarter-mile and the half-mile, and though Kwasin, huge as he is, can keep pace with me for fifty yards, he lags far behind in the longer runs. So my uncle beat Kwasin severely when he lost. Kwasin was probably strong enough even then to strike my uncle down, but he was afraid of him. I think my uncle was the only man Kwasin ever feared. Perhaps because he was even madder.

  “My uncle also had us exercise with wooden swords. Though I took some very hard, near-crippling blows, my skill overcame Kwasin’s brute force, and I bruised and stunned him often. At last he caught on to what was happening and said he wanted no more of the races and the wooden swords. My uncle smiled and said that that was all right with him. But he might renew them if he thought it was wise. Kwasin ceased to bully me, except in subtle ways, and he has never forgiven me. He considers that I defeated him, a thing which he cannot forget. He must always have the upper hand, always be the dominant. Now I am his commander, and he hates me even more.”

  “Yet he sometimes jests with you, and even seems to like you,” Lalila said.

  “Kwasin is two people in one. He is one of those unfortunates whom Kho has given two souls. Too often, the evil soul is the ruling one.”

  The child, sitting nearby, complained that she was tired. Lalila took her to their little lean-to to sing her to sleep. Hadon listened to her voice, as silvery and as soft as the light of the moon, and he was consumed with a fire as hot as the sun’s, as if the moon had summoned the sun to rise before its time.

  Paga, watching him, said, “It seems the fate of some to be driven mad and of others to drive people mad. Lalila, unfortunately for her, is of the latter. She is not evil, but she brings evil. Or rather, she brings out the evil in people. Her beauty is a curse to her and to the men who desire her and to the women who are jealous of her. It is sad, because she desires only peace and joy; she has no wish for power over others.”

  “Then she should live in a cave far from all men,” Hadon said.

  “But she loves to be with people,” Paga said. “And perhaps deep within her there is a desire to have power over men. Who knows?”

  “Only the Goddess knows,” Hadon said.

  “I do not believe in gods or goddesses,” Paga said. “They exist only in the minds of men and women who created them so they can blame someone outside themselves for the things they themselves bring down on their heads.”

  Paga, carrying the ax on his shoulder, waddled away while Hadon stared after him. But no thunder and lightning, no heavings of the earth followed. The moon shone serenely, the jackals yapped, the hyenas laughed, in the distance a lion roared. All was as before.

  They continued southward. Ten days later they came to a river the headwaters of which were somewhere in the mountains to the northwest. Paga felled trees with his keen-edged iron ax, and they chopped off the branches with their bronze axes. With fire and ax, they shaped the logs into dugouts and made planks for seats. These were fitted into grooves in the interior and secured with wooden pins. They put their supplies, armor, and weapons underneath the seats, and using paddles they had fashioned from long blocks of wood, they set out.

  The current was swift here, and Hadon hoped that it would remain so for hundreds of miles. It was pleasant not to have to paddle hard, to allow the stream to do most of the work. Moreover, getting food was easy. The river was full of fish, and ducks and geese thronged its surface and the banks. The fish were easily caught on hooks, or speared, and the vast numbers of crocodiles and hippopotami ensured that they would not suffer for lack of meat, though the taking was dangerous. The jungle alongside the river harbored many types of antelope. Several types of berries and nuts and a variety of green cabbage provided plant food.

  Moreover, Hadon had a chance to talk to Lalila, since she sat directly behind him. As the days drifted by, Awineth receded even more in his mind and heart and Lalila became ever more glowing. Sometimes he suffered from the sharp points of the trident of conscience, but he could not control the workings of his love for Lalila.

  Hadon regarded the finding of the river as a good omen. On the tenth day of travel, however, he changed his mind. The muddy shore, which had sloped gradually from the river, suddenly became steep and rocky, and the narrowed river became stronger. As the hours passed, the stream sank deeper into the rock, and at noon the tops of the cliffs on both sides were twenty-five feet above them. The current was too swift to paddle back up the river. The sky, which had been bright, became black. A strong wind whooped above them, and a half-hour later rain fell. It was so thick that Hadon sometimes wondered if a river high in the sky had not fallen on them. He set Paga and Abeth to bailing with the leather helmets, while he, Lalila, and the two soldiers in the stern steered with their paddles.

  Lightning cracked above them, fiercely illuminating the darkness and frightening them. The flashes showed them that they were now perhaps fifty feet below the tops of the cliffs. Hadon did not need the lightning to know that the water was becoming rougher. The river had become even more narrow, and they were beginning to encounter huge boulders.

  Then they rounded a curve and were in the grip of rapids.

  There was nothing to do but pray to Kho and the unknown river godling and to ride it out. Their boats were tossed up and down, turned around, the sides sometimes striking the perpendicular walls of the canyon. Once, during a flash, Hadon glanced back. He saw the third vessel behind him spin, its stern smashing into the side of a great rock near the wall. When he looked during the next flash, the boat and its occupants had disappeared in the foam. Lalila’s face was white and strained. Paga looked pale too, but he grinned at Hadon, his large teeth like gold insets in a curved alabaster skull.

  That was Hadon’s last look behind. The rest of the transit, he was too busy trying to keep the boat straight, trying to steer it past the threatening rocks, shoving his paddle at times against the canyon wall to keep the boat from colliding.

  No use. The dugout rode up, up, up a white-headed wave, leaned far to the left as it scraped against the wall, and turned over. He heard Lalila shriek as he pitched into the maels
trom. Something struck his shoulder heavily—either the boat or a rock—and his head came above the surface briefly. He went under again as if the river godling had seized him by the ankles. He scraped against stones, fought upward, heard a roar louder than that of the rapids, and was cast outward and down. Half in water, half in spray, he fell, struck solid water, was plunged deep, scraped again on the rocky bottom, fought upward, and suddenly was in relatively smooth water. But the current was still strong, and he had to fight hard to get to the shore.

  He dragged himself up a gentle slope of grass-covered earth and sat panting. Then he saw Lalila and the child clinging to the bottom of an upturned dugout, and he swam out to help them. Lalila, gasping, said, “Get Abeth! I can make it!”

  The child seemed in even less danger than her mother. She swam strongly to the shore, and Hadon, hearing a cry through the thunder of the cataract, turned. For a minute the large brown head of Paga was above the surface. Hadon dived toward it, and by accident or the grace of Kho, his hands touched Paga. He felt blindly around, touched him again, felt along his arm, felt the thong attached to the wrist and knew that at the other end was the reason why the manling had been dragged down. The ax. The wonder of it was that Paga had been able to swim up even once.

  Hadon seized Paga’s long hair and swam heavily upward. Reaching the surface, he pulled the manling on up. The current carried them past Lalila and the child, who were crawling out onto shore. Hadon, his one hand under Paga’s chin, towed him in to land about fifty yards down. Paga’s head kept going under, but he did not struggle against Hadon, and suddenly Hadon was able to stand up. He lifted Paga above the water and walked backward to the shore. There he placed the manling face-down, his one arm outstretched, the ax still in the water. Paga coughed and wheezed, and water ran from his mouth and nose, but he would live.