Gods of Green Mountain (34 page)

"But just think of the smooth, easy ride we would have, so much less dangerous than picking a path between those black craters" was Ral-Bar's more optimistic comment.

Dray-Gon turned about, seriously considering. "If it did rain, we could climb those walls, using the little niches for footholds, and the horshets and puhlets are excellent swimmers."

"Hah!" Raykin snorted, "loaded down like they will be, the horshets would sink like stones! I'm for the top! Sun, wind, craters, crusty hollow earth and all!"

"But it would be safer, as long as it doesn't rain and more pleasant, and we could keep an eye on the weather," Dray-Gon went on in an objective way, "and if we see a storm approaching, we could hurriedly seek a way to lead the animals into one of those caves." Here he pointed toward one of the many dark holes in the canyon face. "See--there are narrow ledges we could use..."

"I'm against it!" Raykin declared, scowled up darkly.

"I'm for it!" Arth-Rin stated just as firmly, plucking another melon and breaking it open to eat more of the sour-sweet fruit. "Why, we might come across some other variety of pufar, and enjoy fresh fruit for a change."

"Eat, eat, that's all you think of!"

Dray-Gon threw the officers under his command a sour look. "There are pros and cons for choosing this way, or riding the top. Let's go back for the others and lead them all here, and we'll take a vote."

It was Ral-Bar he ordered back to fetch the others. "And bring the princess too; her life is involved in this just as much as ours."

When all nineteen men and the single girl were gathered together in the gorge, Dray-Gon thoroughly explained the hazards of traveling the deep passageway, as compared to the hazards they already knew only too well. "I don't want to influence anyone with my choice, but I am for chancing the risks down here. It won't be impossible to scale those walls, if we see a storm threatening, and I don't anticipate any other kind of danger."

So they voted verbally, ending up with a vote of ten for the top crust, and nine for risking the chances that it wouldn't rain, or if it did, they could find sanctuary in a high cave.

"Well, it's up to you, princess, to make it a tie, or to swing the weight in the other direction," said Dray-Gon with a wry smile, as if he anticipated she would go against him, as she usually did.

She refused to meet his eyes, but turned hers upward to study the almost perpendicular walls, with only the narrow ledges and notches to assist them upward if a deluge began. She didn't know if storms from Bay Gar could travel this far, but well they might, for they came with power unlimited and might well encircle the whole globe. And if it did rain, they would surely drown. There wouldn't be time to climb those sheer walls to reach the safety of the dark caves, which Dray-Gon had pointed out to her. But riding above held as many risks as riding here in the cool, refreshing shade. Here, no animal could slip and fall to its death, or take one or more of the riders with them. The blasting hot winds couldn't sweep them down into a crater bottom, and there was fresh grass for the animals to eat, and fresh melons for them. There was also needed relief from the glare of the two hot suns.

Her small pet female puhlet came running to her, nuzzling its soft nose against her hand. Sharita bowed her head and petted Ramaran's head. She looked up and met Dray-Gon's cynical eyes, narrowed as he waited for her decision. "Many years ago, the Founder, Far-Awn, was led onto the ice fields of Bay Gar by the puhlets, and he survived. Two years later, the puhlets led Far-Awn into Bay Sol, and he survived that, coming back to help all our peoples survive. It occurs to me that the puhlets are destined to always select the right way for us. So why should we reject now this straight and even passageway leading to the Gods when it is chosen by the animals who have always saved us?"

"She is right!" cried Raykin, who had led the opposition against using the deep canyon. "I change my vote! We will go this way, our destined way, with Far-Awn's great-granddaughter to lead us!"

A new vote was taken, and this time all chose the valley between the towering walls.

Once more the supplies were loaded on the horshets, and soon they were on their way, headed again toward the home of the Gods. The ride was better here, in a hundred ways. It was cool, it was patterned with light and shade, and the winds didn't blow, and they could travel faster, without caution, and ride abreast, if they chose. Somehow, without planning, Sharita found herself riding side by side with Dray-Gon, ahead of all the others.

"Do you know, Sharita, you and I have finally agreed about something? It's a very pleasing change. I thank you for your help."

She turned her face toward him, with her long, silvery blond hair moving lightly in the wake of their forward motion, and smiled in a slow, bedazzling way that made Dray-Gon put out his hand, unconsciously wanting to touch her. Just as naturally, she put her hand in his as he reined his mount in closer to hers. She looked down at their hands linked together, seeing the two rings on his fingers. "I find it paradoxical that you wear a royal crest of authority on the same hand you wear a cheap little ring made of imitation metal and a simulated jewel."

He released her hand, and directed his horse different, so yards were between them, instead of only inches. "That cheap little ring was given to me as a good luck charm, and I intend to keep it for the rest of my life," he said stiffly.

"Why? Was the giver of that ring so important to you?"

"In some ways, yes. It may be that with that ring she gave me more than you ever would."

"Then you must believe I could give you only the imitation of something real."

Dray-Gon laughed harshly. "Princess, as I said on the first night we met, I came to Far-Awndra for something that I thought I really wanted, especially after I'd seen you. It chills my spine sometimes to think all your beauty is on the outside, and inside you are a political machine, programmed to speak and act for the good of your country. Why, you have even inherited some of your father's noted rhetoric. You could at some later date put your arms around me and kiss my lips, and convince me with kisses and sweet words into believing you loved me. And all the while I thrilled to having you in my arms, I'd be wondering just what motivations you had: if you really wanted me or just a kingdom without rebellion."

"And you, of course, came to Far-Awndra with no political schemes? You loved and wanted me sight unseen! The reports of my beauty and cold, aloof, arrogant nature didn't turn you away at all. You headed straight toward your objective of obtaining power, even if you had to marry it!"

"Perhaps I believed I could break through your shell, and turn you into a human being!"

"So did your countryman, Mark-Kan--his way was to beat me into submission! And while he was slamming his fists into my face, he was yelling at me, telling me whom you really loved! He implied a great many things, Dray-Gon! I stay awake at night, wondering if they're true."

"What kinds of things?" he snapped, turning to glare hard at her.

She had stayed awake enough nights thinking about all that Mark-Kan had implied to have a ready long list on the tip of her tongue. Instead, a lump came in her throat, and tears into her eyes, and she sobbed. Pulling hard on the reins, she turned her horshet about and galloped back to ride between Benlon and Raykin.

"Are you feeling well, Princess?" asked Benlon, his eyes soft with love as they saw her tears.

"I am feeling fine. Never better!" To prove this, she swiped the tears from her face with an impatient fist and began to sing. Arth-Rin grinned and lifted the stringed musical instrument he kept always attached to his saddle, and began to play and sing with her. Soon they were all singing, except Dray-Gon. He led the way, just behind the puhlets, not singing or smiling.

The days passed. Straight and true, the deep ravine led to the Green Mountain, although they could not see its rounded smooth top above the towering walls. They bedded by night in one of the many caves. Always selecting carefully, always keeping in mind the dangers a heavy rain would bring, and always choosing a cave high enough for the rays of the first sun to find. That was the most difficult part, for sunbeams only managed to straggle briefly into the shaded canyon.

It became their habit to sing as they rode, and Sharita's habit to help prepare all the meals, charmingly flirting with every one of the young men, all in love with her already. After dinner in one of the huge caves, she would suggest dancing as a way to pass the time, and that became a habit too. Only Dray-Gon refused to join in their revelry. He sat remote and gloomy-looking, whittling a chunk of wood into the rough form of a puhlet. He ignored the small skirmishes of jealousy that Sharita's flirtations caused, and the small injuries, such as black eyes, that Benlon doctored.

"You are doing a great job, Princess," he said to her bitterly one night, as she curled up in her blankets to sleep. "Just keep playing one man against the other, and we'll end up killing each other."

Her eyes widened and she suddenly looked like a lost and forlorn child. "I'm sorry, if that's what I'm doing. It was just my way to keep them happy."

"Happy! Look at Ral-Bar with a broken arm--does he look happy? Princess, lay off the charm and warmth and draw back into your cold shell again, until we're back in your palace--and then you can do anything you please!"

"Sleep near me tonight," she whispered. "Someone tried to molest me last night. I don't know who it was."

"It serves you right!" But nevertheless, he lay down upon his blanket near her side, keeping any other man from that position, for Sharita was against a wall. In the morning, he held her blanket as a shield so she could undress behind it, and do a bit of washing, before she changed into clean clothes.

"Hurry up," he ordered as his arms grew tired, stretched out sideways so long, resisting the temptation to look over his shoulder and see what the devil took her so long.

Sharita sat quiet and subdued in the evenings now, refusing to join in when the men danced to Arth-Rin's music. She watched Dray-Gon's primitive little carving shape up into a small work of art. "What are you going to do with it?" she asked. "Why do you ask?" he questioned in return. "Just wondering. I would like very much to have it, something to remember you by, when you go back and marry your servant girl."

"Don't call her that!" he said sharply. "And you can have this thing if you want it. It's just something to do, and I was going to give it to you anyway. I used Ramaran as a model, because you love her most, because she's most like you, graceful, delicate, and sweet when she wants to be." Sharita looked at him oddly, her eyes deep and dark in the shadows of the cave. "Ramaran is always sweet, unlike me," and she took the little model and stroked it with her fingertips, and went to sleep with it held tight in her hand.

They still sang as they rode, ever closer to the mountain. It seemed the worst of the trip was over. The Gods were near. Welcoming them with a smoother, less harassed, beleaguered way--seemingly given as a benediction.

The plant inheritance of Sod-a-Por was forgotten, a part of the past they didn't have to fear, so long they had lived in safety beneath the transparent domes of the cities. The ancient need for long hours of sunlight lay dormant, lulled and soothed, but there.

Weeks passed as they traveled there, in comfort, in shade, in safety. It didn't rain. No horrors came upon them in the night. Fully now they were assured of the friendliness of the Gods, and even put aside their fears of a sudden deluge. If they were unwelcome, they would not have been permitted to come this far--so they innocently reasoned.

Insidiously, so slowly and so uniformly, a change came over them, so that not one saw a difference. Their desire to sing was lost. This was reasoned away as monotony; it grew dull, boring to do the same thing. They became sleepy, listless, apathetic as they swayed in their saddles. This, they reasoned, was mere exhaustion from the long, tiresome journey. There was nothing strange about the despairing way they felt, it was only to be expected. So they slept without fires, too fatigued to make them, and nibbled without appetite at food ill-prepared.

Then one night came the long-delayed storm from Bay Gar. The gusting frigid winds blew, the rains dumped down, the waters sluiced down into the deep ravine, a roaring, raging, rushing torrent drowning all that lay in its path. Deeply asleep in their high and dry cave, the travelers slept, lucky it wasn't day, and they were down below. They slept, wrapped in blankets, with the puhlets among them for warmth, and the horshets staked down and covered with blankets too. Although none of those sleeping in the cave knew it then, the same river tearing down the gulley where they traveled during the day hours would eventually join with all the other underground rivers that arteried through the inner-earth of El Dorraine.

For three days the driving rain needled the earth. The deep ravine denied those sleeping in the cave the brightness of day, and the short direct beams of sunlight from the high suns when they shone directly down into the canyon. They would awaken briefly, look about, see the rain, hear the rushing torrent of water below, and go back to sleep, as their ancestors had. In sleep there was comfort, dreams, and best of all, complete oblivion.