_The Journey of No Return_
Earlier that day, on the ice fields half a dozen jeks from Nadia City,
B'ronth the Utalian had sprinted boldly across the snow toward the
girl and her elderly male companion. This had taken considerable
effort, because B'ronth the Utalian had not been endowed with an
abundance of courage. But B'ronth was a poor man, as Utalia was a poor
country; a bag of gold would be a veritable fortune to him. Like most
cowards, B'ronth had one passion which could over-ride his timidity:
that passion in B'ronth's case was wealth.
The old man was fumbling clumsily for his whip-sword when B'ronth
hurtled at them. The girl screamed:
"Look out, Father Hammeth! Look out!"
B'ronth smiled. They would not see the smile, of course. B'ronth, a
chameleon man, was invisible. They would see his footprints in the
snow, true. They would know him for a Utalian and understand his
invisibility. But still the advantage of invisibility would be his. It
had always been so when a Utalian fought. It would always be so.
B'ronth leaped upon the old man even as he prepared to strike out with
the whip-sword. B'ronth was both naked and unarmed. The sword lashed
whining at air a foot from his face. B'ronth wrenched its haft from
the old man's hand. Hammeth stumbled back.
B'ronth swung the whip-sword. He was no duelist. A duelist would lunge
and thrust with the whip-sword, allowing its mobile point some degree
of freedom by controlling it deftly. A non-duelist like B'ronth would
hack and slash, the deadly sword-point whipping about, curling,
slashing, striking.
Hammeth held up his hands to defend himself. The whip-sword whined in
the cold air. The girl screamed. Hammeth's right hand flew from his
arm and blood jetted from the stump. Hammeth sank to the ground and
lay there in a spreading pool of crimson. His eyes remained open. He
was staring with hatred at B'ronth. In a matter of minutes, B'ronth
knew, he would bleed to death. B'ronth turned on the girl.
She stood before him swaying. She had almost swooned, but as B'ronth
approached her, she flung herself at him, crying Hammeth's name, and
they both fell down in the snow. B'ronth let the whip-sword fall from
his fingers. Half a bag of gold for a dead girl, but the whole bag if
she lived. She fought like a wild cat and for a few moments B'ronth
regretted dropping the weapon and actually feared for his life. But
soon, his courage returning and his whole being contemplating the bag
of gold, he subdued the girl.
She lay back exhausted in the snow. "Please," she said. "Please bind
his arm. He'll bleed to death. Please."
B'ronth said nothing. Ylia staggered to her feet, then collapsed and
crawled on her knees to Hammeth. The blood jetted from the stump of
his arm. He was watching her. A little smile touched the corners of
his mouth but pain made his eyes wild.
B'ronth licked his lips. He had earned his bag of gold and, earning
it, thought of more wealth. He thought: _why should I accept one bag
of gold from a common Abarian soldier when there are millions of bags
of gold in Nadia City_? He could deliver the girl, who obviously knew
something the Abarians did not wish the Nadians to know, to Nadia
City. He could sell her to the Nadians. Or, if the Abarians outbid
them, then the Abarians....
Bruised, her cloak in tatters, Ylia reached Hammeth. His eyes blinked.
He smiled at her again, smiling this time with his whole face. Then he
turned his head away and his eyes remained open and staring.
"You ... killed ... him," Ylia said, sobbing.
B'ronth dragged her to her feet. "Lulukee!" he called. "Lulukee!"
Where was the boy?
Lulukee did not answer. Cursing, B'ronth stripped the corpse and
dressed in its warm clothing. The blood on the right sleeve was
already stiff with cold. Where could Lulukee have gone off to?
wondered B'ronth. Well, no matter. They were only a few jeks from
Nadia City, where wealth awaited him....
"Come," he said. He dragged the girl along. She looked back at the
dead old man until a snow drift hid him from sight.
* * * * *
After the Utalian had dragged the beautiful girl beyond the ridges of
snow, Lulukee the Nadian came down into the valley. He was a small boy
of some sixty winters who, like many of the Nadians who did not come
from their country's single large city, had lived a hard life as an
ice-field nomad. He had seen an opportunity to profit in the service
of B'ronth the Utalian, but had not expected this service to include
murder. Thus when the Utalian had called him, expecting the boy to
drag his supply sled down into the snow-valley, Lulukee had remained
hidden. Now, though, he made his way to the body of the dead man and,
scavengerlike, went over it with the hope of turning a profit by
B'ronth's deed.
In that he was disappointed. B'ronth had taken the dead man's snow
cloak and his whip-sword: there was nothing left for Lulukee's
gleaning. He was about to turn and trudge back the way he had come,
when he realized that if he did so, if he exposed himself on the
higher wind-ridges, B'ronth might see him. Therefore he remained a
long time with the frozen body of Father Hammeth, actually falling
into a light slumber while he waited.
He awoke with a start. He blinked, then cowered away from the
apparition which confronted him. It was a man, but such a man as
Lulukee the Nadian had never seen before, a superbly muscled man a
head taller than the tall Abarians themselves.
"Where's the girl?" the man demanded.
"I--I don't know, lord."
"How did this happen?" The man looked down with compassion at Father
Hammeth's corpse.
"I only just arrived, l-lord."
"You lie," the big man said. "You were sleeping here. You'll tell me,
or--"
Lulukee blanched. He owed no loyalty to B'ronth the Utalian. If indeed
he remained loyal he might be implicated in the murder of the old man.
He said: "It was B'ronth the Utalian."
* * * * *
"Where is he?"
"G-going to Nadia City, I think."
"Alone?"
"No, lord. With his prisoner. A--a lovely woman."
"Ylia!" the giant cried. "You! How are you called?"
"I am Lulukee of Nadia, lord."
"Lead me to the city. Lead me after them."
"But lord--"
"Lead me." The giant did not shout. He did not menace of glower or
threaten. Yet there was something in his bearing which made it
impossible for the frightened Lulukee to do anything but obey. "Yes,
lord," he said.
"Tell me--" as they started out, the boy's sled reluctantly left
behind--"is this B'ronth the Utalian in Retoc's pay?"
"No, I don't think so. He works alone, lord. Reaping profit wherever
he can."
"And he took the girl unwillingly?"
"Yes, lord."
"He won't profit in this venture," Bram vowed.
The wind howled behind them. Six jeks ahead of them was Nadia City.
* * * * *
"Can't you see I'm busy? Can't you see I have no time for the likes of
you?" Prokliam the seneschal whined in self-pity.
"Then make time," B'ronth said boldly, his cowardice obscured by
dreams of avarice. "What I have brought through the Ice Gates is
important to your ruler."
"Bontarc of Nadia," said the seneschal haughtily, "does not waste his
time on every Utalian vagabond who reaches his court."
"True. But I assume Bontarc of Nadia wishes to know exactly how his
brother, the Prince Jlomec, died?"
Prokliam fought to keep his puckered old face impassive. But his mind
was racing and his heart throbbed painfully. Could the Utalian know
anything about that? If so, and if he, Prokliam, brought this B'ronth
before the Princess Volna as she had ordered....
"Wait here," Prokliam snapped arrogantly. "And keep your cloak on. We
don't want invisible Utalians floating about the palace."
B'ronth offered a mock bow. Prokliam turned to go, then whirled about
again. "If you're lying, wasting my time--"
B'ronth smiled unctuously. "In the ante-room, being amused by your
palace guards, is one who has been on the Plains of Ofrid quite
recently."
"So?"
"When the Prince Jlomec was there. She saw him slain."
"Wait here," said Prokliam a little breathlessly. He pushed the
hanging aside and stalked down a corridor, and around a bend, and up a
flight of stone stairs. He was busy, all right. That had been no lie.
Preparations must be made for the funeral games of the Prince Jlomec,
to which all the nobility of Tarth had been invited. But this,
obviously, was more important. On this Prokliam's life might
depend....
"Are they checking way-passes, lord?" Lulukee asked the big, silent
man at his side. Ahead of them, filing slowly through the Ice Gates,
were hundreds of visitors entering Nadia City for the funeral games. A
flat-bottomed air-car hovered overhead, peltasts leaning over its
sides, ready. Guards flanked the Ice Gates with drawn whip-swords, as
if admitting the superiority of Abarian weapons of war.
"We'll get through," Bram Forest vowed. "Tell me, Lulukee, if you
brought a prisoner to the city who might be worth much to the Abarians
but also to the Nadians, and if you were intent on getting the biggest
profit, where would you take her?"
"If I had great courage, lord?"
"If you dreamed of reward."
"I would take her to the royal palace, lord, to Bontarc the King or to
his sister, Princess Volna the Beautiful, who, some say, is the real
power behind the Nadian throne although Bontarc is a great soldier."
* * * * *
They had reached the gate. "Way passes," a bored guard said.
Lulukee mumbled something uncertainly. His heart beat painfully
against his ribs. His brain refused to function. There was intrigue
here, he could sense that. More intrigue than he cared to have a hand
in. As a Nadian citizen, he owned a way pass, of course. But the
giant? Obviously the giant did not. Lulukee was sorry he had ever
agreed to go along with B'ronth the Utalian. Now he only wanted to get
out of the entire situation as quickly--and safely--as possible.
He pointed an accusing finger at Bram Forest. "_He_ has no way pass!"
Lulukee cried.
The guards stiffened, their whip-swords ready. They looked at Bram
Forest. Overhead, the air-car hovered, its peltasts stationed there in
the event of trouble, their slings poised.
Ylia was in there somewhere, a prisoner. Bram Forest spurned violence
for its own sake, but Ylia might need him. Ylia, who had nursed him
back to health when Retoc had left him for dead on the parched Plains
of Ofrid. Ylia, the lovely.
"I'm going through," Bram Forest said softly. "Don't try to stop me."
For answer, the nearest guard let his left hand drop.
It had been a signal. Overhead, the peltasts drew back their slings.
"Will you go in peace?" the guard asked, his eyes narrow slits now,
his right arm tensed to bring the whip-sword around.
Bram Forest waited. Every muscle in his superbly-conditioned body
cried for action, but he would not initiate it.
The guard pointed back along the path across the ice fields, where
hundreds of visitors to the city were waiting impatiently. "Then go,"
he said harshly, "before your flesh feeds the stilt-birds on the banks
of the River of Ice."
The guard raised his sword menacingly. Standing rigidly still and
giving no warning, Bram Forest lashed out with his left fist, hitting
the guard in the mouth. Lips split, teeth flew, blood covered the
guard's face. Someone screamed. The guard fell, but his companion
lashed out with his own whip-sword. Bram Forest lunged to one side and
grabbed the sword-arm, twisting it. The guard howled, dropping his
weapon. Lulukee made a dive for it. But the guard, his legs still
free, kicked Lulukee in the face. As he fell, his senses blurring,
Lulukee wondered why he had made that desperate, foolish attempt to
help the big, silent man. He could not answer the question in mere
words. But there was something about him, something about Bram Forest,
which drew loyalty from you even as the sun drew dew from the
ground....
* * * * *
Bram Forest lifted the second guard by sword-girdle and scruff of neck
and held him aloft. The guard's arms and legs flailed frantically.
"No!" he screamed up at the peltasts. "No...."
But they had already unleashed their first volley of stones, pelting
the helpless guard until he lost consciousness. Bram Forest flung him
aside, leaped over the first fallen guard's supine body, and plunged
recklessly into the crowds milling just inside the Ice Gates.
"He went that way!" a voice screamed.
"That way!"
"Over there!"
"There he is!"
It was an ancient city, with narrow, tortuous alleyways and
overhanging buildings and little-used passageways. The wide
streets--the few there were--mobbed with people.
For all his size, the giant had disappeared.
Lulukee picked himself up, dusted himself off, and showed his way pass
to the guard. The guard said nothing. He had lost three teeth and his
mouth was swollen, painful. Lulukee sensed that somehow the little he
had done to help Bram Forest was all he would ever do for him. Yet he
felt with a strange pride he did not fathom that although his role in
the saga of the mysterious giant had come to an end, it was the most
important event in his life and would remain so if he lived to be
six-hundred. He felt somehow--and could not explain why he felt
this--as if in his small way he had done something to make the world
Tarth a better place in which to live.
Whistling, he pushed his way through the crowds and was lost to sight
just as the giant who went before him.
* * * * *
"B'ronth of Utalia!" Prokliam the seneschal proclaimed. Volna the
Beautiful nodded. The doddering old seneschal had already told her
about the Utalian. She was prepared to receive him now. If he knew
what he claimed to know, if he knew the true details of the death of
Prince Jlomec, then he must be silenced. Naturally, he wanted gold.
They always wanted gold. But gold was not the way to silence them.
Gold never worked. It only made them greedy for more.
With Volna were, instead of her usual ladies in waiting, two discreet
palace guards. Grinning, she looked at their whip-swords. That was the
way to silence one such as B'ronth the Utalian.
"He may enter," Volna told the seneschal. Prokliam bowed out, saying:
"And Princess, you will not forget--"
"No, Prokliam, I won't forget. You hardly knew the Prince Jlomec at
all, did you? You certainly couldn't have been his favorite."
"Princess," breathed the seneschal tremulously as he withdrew.
A moment later, B'ronth the Utalian entered the royal chamber. He wore
a snow-cloak. He was all but invisible except for the snow-cloak. He
was, eerily, a disembodied cloak floating through air. Although,
noticed Volna, if you looked closely you could see the faintest
suggestion of a man's head above the cloak, as if you saw the rich
wall tapestries of the room through a transparent, head-shaped glass.
Likewise, the suggestion of arms and legs....
"You are B'ronth?" An unnecessary question, but Volna had not yet made
up her mind what must be done.
"Yes, majesty," the cloak said in a different but somehow unctuous
voice.
"You are alone?"
"No, majesty," said the cloak.
"Then--?"
"A girl. A wayfarer of the Plains of Ofrid. I accompany her."
"And the story you have to tell?"
"I realize, majesty, how the royal Princess must grieve at the loss of
her royal brother, the Prince. I realize...."
"To the point, man. Get to the point. Are you trying to say you know
how Prince Jlomec was slain? You know who killed him?"
"Yes," said the cloak boldly, eagerly.
Princess Volna smiled. Perhaps something in that smile warned B'ronth
the Utalian. But of course, the warning came too late. In a quick
jerky motion, the cloak retreated toward the doorway. "Princess...."
B'ronth said.
Princess Volna told her guards: "Kill him."
B'ronth the Utalian had time for one brief scream which, if a sound
could, seemed to embody all his frustrated dreams of wealth. Then one
of the guards moved swiftly, his arm streaking out. The whip-sword in
his hand lashed, blurring, toward the cloak. Bright red blood welled,
jetted.
B'ronth the Utalian's head, no longer invisible, rolled on the floor
at Volna's lovely feet. "Clean that up," she told one of the guards.
To the other she said: "Now fetch the girl."
* * * * *
"Mind, lord, I don't question you," Hultax the Abarian said. "But it's
just--"
"Did you send the message?" Retoc cut him off.
"As you ordered, sire. Yes."
"Good."
"Sire, I hate inactivity. I loathe it. I am a soldier."
"As I am," said Retoc slowly, his hard cruel eyes staring at something
Hultax could not--and would never be able to--see.
"So we just sit here in this rented house in Nadia City, cooling our
heels. It doesn't make sense, sire."
"Sense?" mused Retoc. "What is sense? Is it victory and power for the
strongest? Well, is it?"
"Yes, lord," Hultax responded. "But--"
"And you sent the message? Our legions will come?"
"Yes, lord. Two days hence they'll be encamped on the ice fields three
jeks march from the city gates. But I don't see--"
"You obey, Hultax. I see. I do the seeing."
"But I thought you ... the Princess Volna ... together...."
"The Princess can serve me, now. If she can deliver Nadia without a
fight, then Tarth is mine, Hultax, don't you see? In two days all the
royal blood of all the royal families of Tarth will be assembled here
in Nadia for the funeral games. If Bontarc's army doesn't interfere,
then I will be master of Tarth."
"But if Bontarc finds out--"
"That, Hultax," said Retoc with a smile, "is why you sent the
message."
"My sire," said the proud soldier Hultax humbly.
Soon, thought Retoc, all Tarth would call him that. _My sire...._
* * * * *
Ahead of Bram Forest loomed the ramparts of the palace. He must hurry.
He knew he had to hurry. He pushed impatiently through the crowd.
Several times men looked up angrily, and would have said something.
But when they saw his face, they turned away.
What they saw in Bram Forest's face made them afraid.
"Majesty?" Prokliam the seneschal said.
"Well?" Volna demanded. "Didn't the guards send you for the girl?"
"Majesty, I was thinking...."
"Well, Prokliam, what is it? Didn't you go for the girl?"
"Not yet, majesty, begging your pardon...."
"If you have something to say, then say it. And get the girl."
"Majesty, a seneschal knows the palace. It is his job...."
"I warn you, Prokliam, I have little patience today." Her anxiety was
evident.
"No one wishes to be chosen," Prokliam blurted quickly, boldly, "even
as I did not wish to be chosen to accompany the body of Prince Jlomec
on the Journey of No Return. Now that you have spared me, in your
royal benevolence, I thought I might in turn advise you...."
"Yes, what is it, man?"
"You should not have killed the Utalian, majesty. If it is ordained
that a living man and a living woman accompany the Prince's body to
the Place of the Dead, to die there with him, their spirits serving
him in death, why choose from among the palace staff? We all have
family, we all have friends, we all stand something to lose. But
majesty, if you were to break with tradition, if you were to send
instead two strangers whose loss meant nothing to the palace, the
palace staff would love and revere you even more than they already
do."
* * * * *
Volna's beautiful face smiled at him. He did not know what she was
thinking. He never knew. No one did. She might reward him or have him
slain on the spot. "Why do you tell me this, Prokliam?" she asked.
"For saving me when it was thought I would accompany--"
"No. There must be another reason."
"If you do this deed and if the palace and the people love you for it,
and if the scepter of power should slip from Bontarc's hand to yours,
and if, when it came time to select your prime minister...."
"Ha! Ha! Ha! We have an ambitious palace butler."
"But surely you--"
"Yes, Prokliam. I understand. I won't deny it. Perhaps I had the
Utalian slain impetuously. But there's still the girl."
"I'll fetch her at once, majesty."
"And if," mused Volna, no longer aware of the seneschal's presence,
"we could find another stranger, a man, to accompany the body of
Prince Jlomec on the Journey of No Return, not only the palace, but
the people as well would love me. A stranger...."
"Take me to your King," Bram Forest told the palace guard.
The guard smirked. "Do you think any stranger in the realm is granted
an audience with King Bontarc, fool?"
"It is a matter of life and death."
"But whose life and death?" demanded the guard, roaring with laughter.
"Yours, idiot?"
"It is about Ylia the Wayfarer."
"I know of no Ylia the Wayfarer. Begone, dolt!"
"It is about Prince Jlomec."
The guard's eyes narrowed. The word had been passed by no less a
person than Prokliam the seneschal that anyone with information
concerning the death of the royal Prince should be brought at once not
to Bontarc but to Princess Volna. Could the guard, could he, Porfis,
do less?
"Very well," he said. "Come with me."
Unarmed, but aware of his giant's strength and the mission which had
seen him spend the first hundred years of his life in a crypt on
Earth, Bram Forest went with the guard.
The way was long, through chambers in which priceless tapestries
hung, through narrow, musty corridors into which the light of day
barely penetrated, through rooms in which ladies in waiting and
courtiers talked and joked, up bare stone stairs and through heavy
wooden doors which Porfis the guard opened with a key which hung at
his belt. The doors opened slowly.
Bram Forest entered a large room. It was, he could see at a glance, a
woman's bower. Someone was standing at the far end of the room, in
shadow. He squinted. He took two slow steps into the room. He began to
run.
"Ylia! Ylia!" he cried.
Too late he saw the fetters binding her arms. Too late he saw her bite
savagely at something and twist her neck and spit the gag from her
mouth. Too late he heard her cry:
"Bram! Bram Forest! Behind you!"
He turned barely in time to see Porfis the guard, his whip-sword
raised overhead hilt-first. He lifted his arm, but it was swept aside
in the downward rush of the sword. Something exploded behind his eyes
and all eternity seemed to open beneath his feet. He plunged into
blackness with Ylia's name on his lips.
* * * * *
Unconscious, he was taken with Ylia through subterranean passages to
the Royal Dock on the River of Ice. The barge with Jlomec's embalmed
body waited. It was very cold on the river. The Place of the Dead
beckoned from the unseen end of the Journey of No Return.