Ardor on Aros (10 page)

“Thanks, Thro Alnaris. You return favors fast!”

“I hate being in debt!” he said, grinning, and pivoting on both feet, swinging his red-smeared sword up and down in the same motion.

Which, with a nasty CHUNKing sound, took care of the almost-man I’d knocked down. Thro Alnaris was glancing about for danger before he had his blade out of the twisting Vardor. I got up, fast, nodded at Alnaris and at the litter he’d made his responsibility, and looked at the other litter. It was about gone. The flames had shot twenty or thirty feet up, swiftly consuming the lacquer on the wood and the silk or whatever the curtains were made of. Now it had settled down to chewing away at the palanquin’s wood. I jerked my head around in a half-circle.

My eyes picked up the Vardor just as he slung his female bundle across a slook and thrust a booted foot into the stirrup. As he swung his other leg over, I started running. One, two, three, four, then five running steps, and I jumped. It was probably my longest jump so far; maybe twenty feet. As before, I came down rather slowly, having time to feel my innards floating around in the prolonged freefall. Then I alit, doubling my legs until my tail was close to the ground. And I launched myself again.

The Vardor wheeled his slook. Perfect: that way I came flying into him broadside. Both of us went off the other side of the beast, which snarled, rolling its eyes, and reared. The woman slid off his withers to plop to the ground a few feet away from me and my new opponent. We were wallowing, each of us trying to grab and hack at the other.

Now I learned a lesson. On Aros I am one hell of a jumper. With that jump I had saved a life or three and dispatched several of the slate-fleshed attackers. On the other hand I had never been any fair shakes as a wrestler; I’m not built for it and had never tried anyhow. This time I was in way over my head: I was trying to wrestle a 300-pound, eight-foot opponent with arms like a gorilla’s and strength to match.

Both our swords dropped. He just let go of his, and when he started squeezing me, over my arms, mine slipped out of my hand. He started to put on the pressure, grunting. I started dying. The night got blacker. The noises began to fade. My tongue lunged out, trying to find some way to curl around some air and drag it in. There was no way. I don’t remember my last thoughts.

He grunted again, louder than before, and I made an uglier noise as he suddenly exerted more pressure. But then he was heavy against me, the pressure slackening, and I forced his arms away with my own and sucked in the sweetest breath I’d tasted since the day I graduated from college. I looked up past his big head.

I didn’t see her face. She had her hood up. But as I looked up at her, the girl he’d been carrying yanked his dagger out of his back where she’d stuck it. She jammed it in again. He grunted again and jerked. I shoved him off and came out from under him.

I repeated the words Thro Alnaris had said to me: “My life is yours.”

Her voice, from the darkness of the hood, sounded young enough: “Oh no. You saved me. My life is yours.”

I retrieved my sword, taking deep breaths as I did. “Let’s don’t argue about it,” I said. “There wasn’t anyone else in that litter, was there?”

She shook her head, turning to look at the last crackling remnants of her palanquin. The flames were no more than foot or two tall, now, dancing about in delight at having eaten the litter so handily ad so quickly, without interruption.

She turned back to me. “You’re the man who joined the caravan this afternoon?”

I nodded. “Hank Ardor. Who—”

“You aren’t a Guildsman?”

“No, I’m a foreigner. Who—”

“You aren’t in the employ of Stro Fentris?”

“No. I was heading for Brynda, and happened to get here at the same time the caravan did.” I gave up trying to ask who she was.

“I am glad you did,” she said.

I looked around. Just as I turned my head a screeching maniac came swooping and fluttering down and landed on my shoulder, incidentally batting my face half a dozen times with his wings.

“Watch those damned claws, Bighead!”

“Sorry, Hank,” the parrot said. “Say, this was a wild scene. They’re running now, though.”

I was almost afraid to ask. “Who?”

“The bad guys, naturally. What’s that in all the robes?”

I looked at her; she was lifting her hands to her cowl. She pushed it back and stared just past my face with enormous eyes. She was staring at the parrot, of course, and I stared at her. He almond eyes were too big, and too long; her nose too straight, and too long; her mouth too wide, the lower lips too full, her cheekbones too pronounced. A collection of overdone features. Put them all together and they were breathtakingly female; startling beautiful.

It was Sophia Loren’s face.

“The—the bird talks?”

“What’d she say?” the bird demanded.

“She asked if you could talk.”

“Certainly. What’s she think I am, anyhow?”

“My familiar, probably. She’s looking at us as if we’re a male witch—warlock, isn’t that it?” I smiled at her and switched from the English the parrot understood: “Yes, he talks, and I understand, and he understands me. He doesn’t know your language yet—our language. He’s a very friendly bird, too. Name’s Pope Borgia—I call him Bighead.”

She nodded, the eyes still very big. Lord, but it was so weird to be standing there looking at Sophia Loren! Wearing a wig of course, and with a lot of tan; all these people are dark and black-haired.

“Kharik, Sorrvelinas,” she said.

“What’d she say?”

“She said ‘Hi, Bighead.’” I told him.

He wiggled, ruffling his wings. “Did you have to tell her that name?”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to smile at the girl at the same time. I was aware of our rudeness, talking in a language she couldn’t understand. “I also said ‘Pope Borgia,’ but of course those words aren’t familiar to her.”

“Hmp! Who’s she?”

I raised a hand to Bighead’s back, stroking the green feathers and hoping he wasn’t carrying psittacosis. “He says hello to you too, beautiful lady, and asks what your name is?”

“Oh—I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I am Dejah Thoris.”

 We had killed a lot of them, but they had, too. The water-boy died, and four Guildsmen, and a slook driver and two others. They had also destroyed a litter and slain two slooks and drive off another one, laden with fine cloth about which its owner hadn’t ceased moaning by the time we reached Brynda. We counted thirteen Vardor bodies and two Vardor slooks. One of the latter and two of the former weren’t quiet corpses when found, but that was quickly remedied. I also watched Chief Stro Fentris, with agony in his eyes, dispatch one of his men who’d lost an arm and too much blood and had an arrow sticking out of his groin. He himself requested his euthanasia-by-sword.

I was sitting on the ground near one of the litters, while Pope Borgia shot off his mouth and the girl helped the other woman silence her caterwauling infant. The kid was about eight months old. He had been born in Itza two weeks after his father’s death, and his mother was returning him to her family in Brynda. I was mostly sitting on the ground, staring at it and thinking.

First Elizabeth Taylor.

And now Sophia Loren. Bearing the name of, in case you haven’t read Burroughs and have forgotten Evelyn’s and my discussion back at the beginning of this narrative, the Martian wife of Burroughs’ hero John Carter, Dejah Thoris, daughter of Tordos Mors, King, as I recall, of Helium. A “deathless beauty”—which is just how I’ve always felt about Sophia Loren.

I turned it all over and over in my mind, that and the parrot and his parrot-headed men and the vanishing jungle and a few other things. I couldn’t make it tie nicely together into a package with a card reading “Sense.”

I wasn’t sure I
was
the protagonist. Come to think of it, I’m still not.

I looked up as a pair of boots halted before me. Then another pair. And another.

“Thro Alnaris says you saved his life,” Stro Fentris said.

“He returned the favor about five minutes later,” I said.

“After he had rescued me again,” Thro Alnaris said.

“Thro also says you rescued the girl Thorisan Dejah.”

I gazed up at him. “Um. As a matter of fact she killed the Vardor. And Alnaris slew both the ones he says I ‘rescued’ him from.”

“And Pro Sharais says you saved his life, also.”

I looked from Stro Fentris to the man beside him. Oh yes, the archer. I shrugged. “Guilty. There were two; we killed one apiece.”
And listen to me,
I thought.
Talking about killing as if it were something I’ve been doing every day of my life and twice on Sundays. How come I don’t feel sick to my stomach?
(I did feel a little queasy, but it wasn’t urgent.)

“You saved three people’s lives and killed three Vardors, although at least two others should be credited to you.”

“All right,” I said. “You three look like judge and jury, Chief. I admit guilty to all charges.”

Stro Fentris shook his head. He put out his weapon hand—there was blood on the wrist. “Don’t call me Chief,” he said. “Stro.”

I got up quickly then, and we gripped hands. Sure it’s an Earthside custom. Undoubtedly stemming from the “Look: no weapons” days, then giving way to “Look, you hold my weapon hand and I’ll hold yours,” when man got shrewder. It had developed the same way here. It’s natural enough, in an arms-bearing society. It still means more on Aros, of course; the threat is still there. In a few centuries it will be a formality here, too.

His giving me his name was more an honor. He was Chief Protector of the caravan. Everyone called him Chief save his own men; the brotherhood of warriors all call each other by name, although usually nicknames or surnames, since there are so few giving names in use. (At the time of Julius Caesar there was only eight first names in use among the Romans. And “Julius” was Julius’
last
name; his wife and close friends called him Gaius. Probably half the population of the Republic had that same popular first name. Marcus, but the way, was a last name, too.)

At any rate, Fentris was accepting me into the club, telling me to call him what his men called him. I accepted his hand, squeezed it, gave him a surprise by pumping it a little, and said, “Honored. Hank.”

He nodded. “Hahnk.”

And then it was “Thro” and “Hank,” and then the archer: he introduced himself as “Proby,” which is an elongated diminutive for Pro in the same way Johnny is for John.

We stood there and beamed at each other.

Proby nodded past me, at the two women. “Julan,” he said, and all three of them laughed, Thro Alnaris rolling his eyes. Then they looked at each other again and we all shook hands again and they walked off. I turned to the two women and the now-silent child. Dejah Thoris introduced me to the other woman. Oh; she too had given me a less formal name, though not a strictly buddy-pal one. Casual acquaintances would call her Thorisan Dejah: “Thoris’ daughter—” Strange; ther wasn’t any workd like “dejah” in my vocabulary. (There still isn’t. Her father says her mother made it up, and her mother is dead. Sorry.)

“Julansee,” Dejah Thors-with-the-face-of-Sophia said.

I smiled and bowed my head. “Thank you. I am honored and delighted I saved you.” (Julansee: I offer Reward, or Compensation. A formula, of course, although I wasn’t fully aware of its meaning at the time. And if you think these people are full of rituals and formulas, think about yourself. Handshaking. Waving. “Hello” every time on the telephone, even if you just saw the caller thirty seconds before. “Dear” in a letter, even if it’s to someone you hate, or to a magazine. “Thanks” and “you’re welcome” and “I’m in your debt” and all that stuff; kissing and so on. All cultures are full of formulas. True, they mean a bit more on Aros; it’s a younger culture, and the original reasons for the formulas and the rituals are still only a little in the past. New ones are still being born, too).

“Will you be all right with—” I’d forgot the baby’s mother’s name already. She and Dejah looked at each other and frowned, and I was embarrassed at having forgot and particularly at not having done a better job of covering it up. Slowly, they both nodded. The mother looked a little stricken; I could read Dejah’s face.

“I will be close by,” I said. “All the way to Brynda.”

“Good!” the mother said. Oh, her name was Kronah something. Feminine of the popular “Kro.” She smiled; bad teeth. “Please do, Hank Ardor. We want you to, don’t we, Dejah?”

“Of course. And my life is yours.”

“Well, since he was busy squeezing me to death and
you
saved
me
by using his own dagger on him, let’s call it even.”

Kronah’s eyebrows rose. “Oh! Is THAT it!”

I looked at her, wondering, then nodded. “I’m afraid it is. I was man enough to knock that Vardor off his slook, but not to wrestle with him! I’m sorry—I will admit I remember Kronah but not your—“

“Don’t bother. Call me Kronah,” she said, smiling brightly.

I nodded. “Kronah, Dejah Thors, I think I should go and help the others.”

Uncomfortable, wishing a guy could save a life and have his own saved now and then without all the froofraw, I turned and left them. Kronah was smiling, just as if she didn’t have yellowed front teeth. Dejah Thoris was not.
Well,
I thought,
the daughter of Tordos Mors can’t afford to be too friendly to a common warrior—and a furriner at that. Still, it would’ve been nice if she’d said something, instead of letting what’s-her-name do all the talking. And she might’ve said “thanks,” too!

I joined the other men in time to learn what they did with the corpses of slain enemies, or at any rate slain Vardors:

First they separated them from their weapons and clothing, so that they’d enter the Midworld naked and defenseless, without anything to identify them as warriors. Next they separated them from their heads and crushed the skills, so that when the bodies entered Midworld they’d be blind and voiceless to identify themselves or narrate their deeds. Third they bound the heels of those headless bodies with rope and tied the ropes to slooks and dragged them a long way out into the desert. When the slooks were well away, the crushed heads were hurled into the jungle, a lovely business. This so the bodies would have no hope of finding their heads.

They treat the bodies of their own dead rather better, insuring they are without nothing during their journey to Midworld, their stay there, and their ultimate return as infants. Only fools, after all, bother to do nice things for defeated enemies. They might come back again, so that, say, a war to end all wars might repeat itself a short time later.

When all the stripping and butchering and dragging off and throwing into the jungle was at an end, Stro Fentris and Thro Alnaris came to me, carrying a collection of robes and weapons. Those of the two Vardors I’d slain, plus those of the two who’d had Thro hemmed against the litter. I agreed to split with him, after a brief friendly argument. We discarded most of the bloody clothes, but it occurred to me that he weapons and belts and so one would represent currency = food in Brynda. Proby and I worked out the same arrangement with the two we’d slain together. By the time I had it all sorted out and secured together, Kline had a pretty hefty pack. Or would have; Kline was one of the slooks the attackers had killed. They’d probably vented their anger on him when they saw he was laden with Vardor gear. I sighed. And the Vardors hadn’t left behind any mounts, either, not live ones. I suppose the ones whos masters were dead either followed the others: herd instinct, or were mindcalled by the fleeing “men.”

One can’t have everything.

In the morning we wended into the lane through the jungle, with the parrot I now called Bighead answering the cries of the other birds in the trees. He disappeared several times, once for hours. I didn’t question him. Everyone always yaks about the birds and the bees. But my dad told me about people and dogs and the like, and I STILL don’t know how birds Do It. Or bees either, come to think. There aren’t any bees on Aros. I hate honey.

The causeway through the jungle was wide enough for about six slooks abreast; we rode with two abreast, for the most part. It was very cool, quite dark, and blessedly un-dusty. I learned that Dejah Thoris was carrying a great deal of money, mainly in the form of the “checks” used between the three friendly cities. She had snatched it and thus saved it when her litter was burned by a Vardor arrow. The short, slender merchant in the third litter was not at all happy to be turned out, but both the caravan-master and Stro Fentris insisted, and the fellow sullenly bestrode a slook while Dejah Thoris remained invisible in the palanquin. It was pretty much that, rather than a slookback howdah. While at present both she and Kronah rode in their curtained little houses on slooks, the litters were designed for hand-carrying; only the carrying-poles needed be slipped through their rings.

The litters were separated by five pack slooks and two Guildsmen between. I rode beside Dejah’s. Her curtains remained closed, but I saw her twice that day, and we exchanged some words and pleasant smiles. Something seemed a little funny, but she didn’t put on the childish act with which the original Dejah Thoris had tormented that Carter fellow.

When we stopped for lunch and again for supper and to camp (a little past sunset; we were determined to get out of the jungle) I remained with the protectors. I had assumed the jungle would yield onto a savannah or rolling farmlands with horizontal hills, and I was not disappointed. A rippling savannah stretched out and out to give way to obvious farmlands dotted with trees and occasional animals in the distance. Farther still, a series of gentle hills nudged the sky.

“May I ask questions?” Stro Fentris asked, as we finished eating.

I shrugged. “May I neglect to answer some of them?”

He laughed. “You came from nowhere. You talk to that bird, who talks to you—both of you in a language I’ve never heard. You are not a Guildsman, or even of Brynda, but you fought as well as any man.”

Huh,
I thought.
Better!

“And now you remain with us, rather than with Thorisan Dejah. Also you cannot mindspeak. And there’s the matter of your agility.”

“A man needs some talent to compensate for a closed mind,” I said. “I receive thoughts very well, thought.”

“I noticed. I believe you receive thoughts better than anyone I know—unless there’s another explanation for your ‘hearing’ me and coming this afternoon; you should have been out of range, as it turned out.”

“I’m not with Thorisan Dejah,” I said, “because that widow has her eye on me, and they’re together every time we stop. Naturally enough; they’re the only two women along. As to my receiving thoughts—” I shrugged. “I’ve no explanation.”

“Um. How far can you leap?”

“Pretty far. You saw?”

“No, I didn’t. But I’ve had enough men tell me. What’s that gold disk you wear about your neck?”

I glanced down at it: Dr. Blakey’s chiming pocket watch. Since the chiming bothered me, I had pushed the stem to hush the thing up. Why did I wind it? —habit, what else? It’s a watch. One winds watches, whether they mean anything or not.

“Something that belonged to someone I liked,” I said, which was truthful enough, if evasive.

“Are there jadiriyahs were you come from, Hank?”

I shook my head. “Your countrywoman is the first jadiriyah I’ve ever met,” I said. “Or heard of.”

“Hm. And you—are you a sorcerer?”

I thought about that. Sort of, I thought, on Aros. I could talk with a bird—with, not to. If Stro was right, I was a better receiving set for mindspeak than he and his people. And certainly I could jump a lot farther and higher!

“Sort of,” I admitted, thinking that it might help me but surely could not harm me.

“I thought so,” he said. “What powers do you have?”

“Uh, remember I didn’t promise to answer everything? I will pass that one. I’ll admit I can’t mind-travel myself, like your Bryndoy jadiriyah, though.”

“What will you do in Brynda?”

“Stro, I don’t know. Maybe I can find someone to recommend me to the Guildchief.”

We exchanged smiles. And went to sleep, and traveled for two more days, uneventfully, and came at last to Brynda at the foot of Bryno Mountain.