_Volna the Beautiful_
Bram Forest had been day-dreaming.
Ylia? Hadn't Ylia been calling his name? But how could that be? Ylia
was almost two hundred million miles away. Clearly, as long as they
kept the magic disc away from him, he could never see Ylia again. And
besides, now that he had been vouchsafed a vision of his dead mother,
the former queen of Ofrid, and now that that vision had conjured up
the entire tragic past for him, why was it that when he shut his eyes
and allowed the bright sun to beat down on the lids through the cell
window he saw an image of the sun-browned maid, Ylia?
Could it be, he asked himself, wondering if somehow he were profaning
the memory of the mother he had never known, that Ylia stood not for
the past but for the present and the future, and that it was in the
present and the unknown future that Bram Forest must live and do his
life's work and perhaps perish, although he was motivated from the
past?
A guard brought food on a tray. The cell door clanged open, the tray
was delivered, the cell door clanged shut. The guard did not pay
particular attention to Bram Forest: he had been a docile enough
prisoner.
Ylia, he thought.
He knew he must escape next time the guard brought food.
* * * * *
Dr. Slonamn held up the bracelet with the metal disc on it and stared
curiously at the contraption. He was a psychologist, he could hardly
consider himself an expert on metallurgy. Still, he had never seen a
metal like that from which the disc had been fashioned. It seemed too
opaque for steel, too hard for silver. A steel and silver alloy, then?
But he had never heard of a steel and silver alloy.
He held it up to the light. Like a fly's many-faceted eye it threw
back manifold images of--himself. Somehow, it made him dizzy to gaze
at the images. He drew his eyes away and had an impulse to fling the
strange disc away across the room.
The sun was going down. He heard a clattering from the prison kitchen
as the evening meal was prepared. Tomorrow, he thought, should see the
completion of his work here. Another interview with the paranoid giant
who had brought the disc, perhaps. The disc fascinated him.
He looked at it again. He didn't want to, and recognized the strange
compulsion within himself. Then, before he quite realized it, he was
staring at his multiple image again. His senses swam. There was a
far-away rustling sound like--the words came unbidden to his mind from
a poem by Kipling--like the wind that blows between the worlds. He
gazed again at the disc. It seemed to draw him, as a magnet draws iron
filings. Now he wanted to fight it, wanted to fight with every ounce
of his strength. A wave of giddiness swept over him, leaving nausea in
its wake. He clutched at the prison-office desk for support. The
rustling grew louder.
He saw--or thought he saw--a girl, a lovely, sun-bronzed girl. There
was a look of fear on her face. She seemed to be crying out for help.
An abyss yawned before his feet, before his very soul. He longed
despite himself to plunge into the abyss, whatever the fearful
consequences might be. He lurched back, fighting the longing. Yet he
knew he wouldn't win. He took a step forward....
"Give it to me!"
The voice, urgent, distant, beckoned him back to reality. It seemed a
great distance off, but it was something to which he could hold.
"Give me that disc!"
He felt himself dragged roughly back, saw the abyss retreating. The
rustling of the wind between the worlds became distant, a sound
imagined rather than heard.
"Give it to me!"
* * * * *
He blinked. The nausea had washed over him. He felt weak, drained,
exhausted. But the substantial reality of the prison office surrounded
him.
The young giant stood before him, strapping the bracelet which held
the disc on his powerful arm. A look of intense concentration was on
his face. His skin was bathed with sweat although it was cool in the
room.
"What did you do to the guard?" Dr. Slonamn asked, wondering if the
prisoner would slay him.
"He'll be all right. I only hit him. I'm sorry. It was necessary." The
giant spoke in haste. His eyes were clouded, dreamy, as if he had
taken an overdose of barbituates.
"What are you going to do?"
"You saw? In the disc?"
"Yes," said Dr. Slonamn.
"I'm going. It's my home."
The giant took a step forward, then began to stagger.
"Your home?" Dr. Slonamn gasped. "Your _home_?"
The giant, who had given his name to the prison authorities as Bram
Forest, did not answer. Dr. Slonamn reached out, as if to grab him.
Bram Forest stood there, a smile and the acceptance of pain fighting
for mastery of his face.
Dr. Slonamn staggered back as if struck. _His hand had passed through
Bram Forest's body._
Staggering, trembling, Dr. Slonamn leaned for support on the desk. He
could see through Bram Forest now. See through him entirely.
A cold fierce wind, like no wind ever felt on Earth, touched him. He
shuddered.
When he looked again, Bram Forest was gone....
* * * * *
"Retoc the Abarian!" the seneschal's voice proclaimed.
An uneasy stir passed through the crowd of mourning courtiers in the
palace chamber. Retoc, ruler of Abaria, did not often visit Nadia. A
state of armed tension existed between Abaria and Nadia of the ice
fields. Nadia alone of the many disunited nations of Tarth had
strength in some ways comparable to that of black forested Abaria, but
even then, if a war came between the two nations, the issue would
never seriously be in doubt.
As a matter of diplomacy, Retoc had been invited to the funeral of
Prince Jlomec, although neither Bontarc, ruler of Nadia, nor his
sister, Volna the Beautiful, had ever dreamed he would come.
While the crowd milled about in their white mourning garments, Retoc
told the seneschal: "I wish an audience with the Princess Volna."
The crowd was suddenly quiet. Volna the Beautiful, haughty, imperious,
princess of the royal blood, would certainly refuse to see the Abarian
ruler. Nevertheless, the seneschal bowed low, said, "Your request will
be carried to the staff of the royal household, lord," and disappeared
behind a hanging.
* * * * *
Some time later, in another part of the palace, Bontarc was saying:
"Volna, Volna, listen to me. You can't see that man now."
"I'm going to see him," Volna the Beautiful told her brother. "So it
may not be said that a princess of the royal blood hid in fear behind
a wall of tragedy."
"But sister! With dear Prince Jlomec still not on the burning barge
which will carry him down the River of Ice on the final journey from
which--"
"Please, brother," Volna said a little coldly. "I'm going to grant
Retoc his audience. Don't you understand? He thinks me weakened by
Jlomec's death. Oh, I loved the Prince, yes. He was always so--so
quiet and aloof from affairs of state. But I can be strong if strong I
have to be."
"Then you won't change your mind?" Bontarc asked. He was a fighting
man by nature. The devious paths of diplomacy he set foot on only with
reluctance.
For answer Volna said: "Let me prepare to greet the royal visitor."
And she watched Bontarc leave her quarters.
At once she clapped her hands. Six serving maids skipped through the
hangings into her huge bower and while they clustered jabbering about
her like so many excited birds, she undid the fastening at her left
shoulder and allowed her gown of mourning white to fall in a crumpled
heap at her feet. She stood naked and perfectly still while the
serving maids administered to her, each girl a master in one of the
cosmetic arts. And Volna, she of the haughty face and glorious body,
she who already had been beautiful to look upon, was soon transformed
by the cosmetic arts into the loveliest woman the planet Tarth had
seen since the Queen Evalla.
Her thoughts went to the dead queen of Ofrid as the maids dressed her
again in the mourning garment. Evalla, a woman with beauty to match
Volna's, had ruled the most powerful nation Tarth had ever known.
Then, Volna smiled, why not another such woman, with hands strong
enough, and vision clear enough, to grasp the chalice of power and
drink deeply of its heady brew?
* * * * *
"Retoc," she was saying a few moments later.
She clapped her hands. The maids in waiting withdrew, giggling.
"Volna, Volna," said the big Abarian ruler. "You are glorious. Every
jek of the journey from the Plains of Ofrid across the ice fields of
Nadia, I burned for you." He came very close to her. His face swam
before her vision, a hard, strong, handsome face with the cruel eyes
of a sadist. Fitting consort for a woman who would rule the world? His
lips parted....
Volna, smiling, placed her cool hand over his mouth.
"Then let me put out the fire," she said coolly, "for we have much to
discuss."
"But Princess, I--"
"Hush. And what, exactly, were you doing on the Plains of Ofrid?"
Retoc's big face flushed red. Then, when he saw Volna was still
smiling, he said: "When we met last, you mentioned that two men stood
between you and the throne of Nadia."
"Yes?" said Volna, mocking him, turning swiftly with the light behind
her sending its bright beams through the white mourning garment and
outlining the seductive curves of her body.
"Jlomec is dead," Retoc said simply.
Still smiling, Volna slapped the big man's face ringingly. Retoc
stepped back, startled.
"Fool!" Volna hissed. "I can call the guards. I can have you slain."
"But I--"
"I did not say I was not pleased. But don't lie to me. That isn't why
you slew my brother. Well, man, is it?"
Retoc bowed his head. Only in his eyes there was fury. "We'll make a
strange pair, Volna, you and I," he said passionately.
"Is it?"
Retoc shook his head slowly.
"You see? I knew it. I knew it was you when they told us Jlomec had
been slain, and yet because I know you and know too how you are quick
to passion, I told myself you had not done it consciously because I
had suggested it to you. Fool. Can I trust such as you?"
"Only Bontarc stands between you and empire. And Bontarc is a simple
man."
"As you are a passionate man."
"Yet you need me, Volna. You need the strength of my arm--and my army.
What a pair we'll make!"
Volna stepped into the embrace of his big arms and allowed herself to
be kissed. Retoc burned for her. He had said so. All men burned for
her, she knew that. And, before she was finished, every man of Tarth
would kneel at her feet and call her Queen.
Retoc drew back finally, breathing hard. Volna had for him only a
cool, mocking smile.
* * * * *
At last he said, "There are some who might say Retoc of Abaria killed
the royal prince."
"Dolt! Were you seen?"
Retoc shrugged as if it were not important. "A band of wayfarers on
the Ofridian Plain. They were so frightened, they fled at once. After
I had wounded the white giant."
Volna's eyes flashed suddenly. "There was someone else? You did not
kill him?"
"I tried to. He escaped, Princess."
"Then you are more a fool than I thought."
"But I--"
"Begone! We can't be seen together too much. Take quarters in Nadia
City, and let me know where you are. You understand?"
"Yes, Princess."
She allowed him to kiss her hand, then he withdrew. A few moments
later, at her summons, the seneschal appeared. Subtly her face had
changed. No longer was she the desiring and desirous princess.
Instead, she was a grieving sister, whose brother's body still lay in
state in the royal palace.
The seneschal, whose name was Prokliam, bowed obsequiously. He knew
that by custom the body of a royal Nadian floated down the River of
Ice in the company of two living servants--one man and one woman--who
would perish with him in the Place of the Dead. He knew also that he
had been Jlomec's favorite and now lived in constant fear that the
Princess Volna would decree that he, Prokliam, must accompany his dead
master on the Journey of No Return, to serve him in death as he had
served him in life.
"Yes, lady?" the frightened Prokliam asked.
"Bontarc, our king, grieves mightily for the dead prince," Volna said.
"All Nadia grieves for Jlomec, lady," Prokliam said, and added
hastily: "Although I must admit I do not grieve more than the next
man. No, no, it is a mistake to think I was Jlomec's favorite."
"Be that as it may Bontarc grieves so that for a while at least some
of the affairs of state will be in my hands."
"I hear and understand lady."
"Good. If anyone comes--anyone at all, whether wayfarers from Ofrid or
others--with news of how Jlomec died, they are to be brought at once
to me. Is that understood?"
"Yes, my princess." Prokliam the seneschal bowed low once more.
"Serve me well in this, Prokliam, and you will be rewarded in
measure."
Prokliam smiled. "I will be the personification of discretion," he
said boldly, baring his toothless old gums.
"Then perhaps I will still the rumors that you were the dead Jlomec's
favorite."
Prokliam dropped at the royal feet and touched his lips to the royal
toes. Then he bowed out of the room.
Volna stared for many moments at her beautiful face in the mirror.
Queen, she thought. She said it aloud:
"Queen Volna."