Planet of Adventure Omnibus (5 page)

“What of the
emblem?” asked Reith. “Do you not agree it is mine?”

“I must
consider,” declared the youth. “In the meanwhile, no more. Butcher-woman, take
the body to the pyre. Where are the Judgers? Let them come forth and judge this
Osom who carried Vaduz. Emblems, bring forth the engine!”

Reith moved
off to the side. A few minutes later he approached Traz Onmale. “If you wish, I
will leave the tribe and go off by myself.”

“You will
know my wishes when they are formulated,” declared the lad, with the absolute
decisiveness conferred upon him by the Onmale. “Remember, you are my slave; I
ordered back the blades which would have killed you. If you try to escape, you
will be tracked, taken, flogged. Meanwhile you must gather fodder.”

It seemed to
Reith as if Traz Onmale were straining for severity, perhaps to divert
attention-his own as well as everyone else’s-from the unpleasant order he had
given to the butcherwoman and which, by implication, he had rescinded.

For a day the
dismembered body of Osom, who once had carried the emblem Vaduz, smoldered
within a special metal kiln, and the wind blew a vile stench through the camp.
The warriors uncovered the monstrous catapult, started the engine and brought
it into the center of the compound.

The sun sank
behind a bank of graphite-purple clouds; sunset was an angry welter of crimson
and brown. Osom’s corpse had been consumed; the fire was ashes. With all the
tribe crouching in murmurous ranks, the Chief Magician kneaded the ashes with
beast-blood to form a cake, which was then packed into a box and lashed to the
head of a great shaft.

The magicians
looked into the east, where now rose Az the pink moon, almost at the full. The
Chief Magician called in a great belling voice: “Az! The Judgers have judged a
man and found him good! He is Osom; he carried Vaduz. Make ready, Az! We send
you Osom!”

The warriors
on the catapult engaged a gear. The great arm swung across the sky; the elastic
cables ground with tension. The shaft with Osom’s ashes was laid in the
channel; the arm was aimed toward Az. The tribe set up a moan, rising to a
throaty wail. The magician cried: “Away to Az!”

The catapult
gave a heavy twunggg-thwack! The shaft sped away too swiftly to be seen. A
moment later, high in the sky, appeared a burst of white fire; and the watchers
gave a sigh of exaltation.

For another
half-hour the folk of the tribe stood looking up toward Az. Did they envy Osom,
Reith wondered, presumably now rejoicing in the Vaduz palace on Az? He sought
among the dark shapes, lingering before going to his pallet, until, with a
smile of grim amusement for his own weakness, he realized that he was hoping to
locate the girl who had occasioned the entire affair.

On the
following day Reith was sent forth to gather fodder, a coarse leaf terminating
in a drop of dark-red wax. Far from resenting the work, Reith was happy to
escape the monotony of the camp.

The rolling
hills extended as far as the eye could reach, alternate cusps of amber and
black under the windy sky of Tschai. Reith looked south, to the black line of
forest, where his ejection seat still hung in a tree, or so he hoped. In the
near-future he would ask Traz Onmale to conduct him to the spot ... Someone was
watching him. Reith swung around, but saw nothing.

Wary, watching
from the corner of his eyes he went about his task, plucking leaves, filling
the two baskets he carried on a shoulder-pole. He started down into a swale,
where grew a copse of low bushes, with leaves like red and blue flame. He saw
the flutter of a gray smock. It was the girl, pretending not to see him. Reith
descended to meet her and they stood face to face, she half-smiling,
half-cringing, awkwardly twisting her fingers together.

Reith reached
forth, took her hands. “If we meet, if we are friends, we’ll get in trouble.”

The girl
nodded. “I know ... Is it true that you are from another world?”

“Yes.”

“What is it
like?”

“It’s hard to
describe.”

“The
magicians are foolish, aren’t they? Dead people don’t go to Az.”

“I hardly
think so.”

She came
closer. “Do that again.”

Reith kissed
her. Then he took her by the shoulders and held her back. “We can’t be lovers.
You’d be made unhappy, and get more beatings...”

She shrugged.
“I don’t care. I wish I could go with you back to Earth.”

“I wish you
could too,” said Reith.

“Do that
again,” said the girl. Just once more...” She gave a sudden gasp, looking over
Reith’s shoulder. He jerked around, to see a flicker of movement. There was a
hiss, a thud, a heartrending sob of pain. The girl sagged to her knees, fell over
on her side, clutching at the feathered bolt buried in her chest. Reith gave a
hoarse call, looked wildly here and there.

The skyline
was clear; no one could be seen. Reith bent over the girl. Her lips moved, but
he could not hear the words. She sighed and relaxed.

Reith stood
looking down at the body, rage crowding all rational thought from his mind. He
bent, lifted her-she weighed less than he expected-and carried her back to
camp, reeling and straining. He took her to the shed of Traz Onmale.

The boy sat
on a stool, holding a rapier which he glumly twitched back and forth. Reith lay
down the body of the girl as gently as he was able. Traz Onmale looked from the
body to Reith with a flinty stare. Reith said, “I met the girl picking fodder.
We were talking-and the bolt hit her. It was murder. The bolt might have been
meant for me.”

Traz Onmale
glanced down at the bolt, touched the feathers. Already warriors were
sauntering close. Traz Onmale looked from face to face. “Where is Jad Piluna?”

There were
mutters, a hoarse voice, a summons. Jad Piluna approached: one whom Reith had
noticed on previous occasions: a man of dash and flair, with a keen
high-colored face, a curious V-shaped mouth, conveying, perhaps
unintentionally, a continual insolent mirth. Reith stared at him in a
fascination of loathing. Here was the murderer.

Traz Onmale
held out his hand. “Show me your catapult.”

Jad Piluna
tossed it, an act of casual disrespect, and Traz Onmale turned up a glittering
glance. He looked at the catapult, checked the claw release and the film of
grease customarily applied by the warriors after using their weapons. He said: “The
grease is disturbed; you have fired this catapult today. The bolt”-he pointed
down at the corpse-”has the three black bands of Piluna. You killed the girl.”

Jad Piluna’s
mouth twitched, the V broadened and narrowed. “I meant to kill the man. He is a
slave and a heretic. She was no better.”

“Who are you
to decide? Do you carry Onmale?”

“No. But I
maintain that the act was accidental. It is no crime to kill a heretic.”

The Chief
Magician stepped forward. “The matter of intentional heresy is crucial. This
person”-he pointed toward Reith” is clearly a hybrid; I would suppose Dirdirman
and Pnumekin. For reasons unknown he has joined the Emblem Men and now
circulates heresy. Does he think we are too stupid to notice? How wrong he is!
He suborned the young woman; he led her astray; she became worthless. Hence
when-”

Traz Onmale,
again displaying the decisiveness so astonishing in a lad so young, cut him
short. “Enough. You talk nonsense. The Piluna is notoriously an emblem of dark
deeds. Jad, the carrier, must be brought to account, and Piluna curbed.”

“I claim
innocence,” said Jad Piluna indifferently. “I give myself to the justice of the
moons.”

Traz Onmale
squinted in anger. “Never mind the justice of the moons. I will give you
justice.”

Jad Piluna
gazed at him without concern. “The Onmale is not permitted to fight.”

Traz Onmale
looked around the group. “Is there no noble emblem to subdue the murderous
Piluna?”

None of the
warriors responded. Jad Piluna nodded in satisfaction. “The emblems stand
aloof. Your call has no effect. But you have laid a slur on Piluna; you have
used the word ‘murderer.’ I demand vindication from the moons.”

In a
controlled voice Traz Onmale said, “Bring forth the disc.”

The Chief
Magician departed, to return with a box carved from a single huge bone. He
turned to Jad Piluna. “To which moon do you call for justice?”

“I demand
vindication from Az, moon of virtue and peace; I ask Az to demonstrate my
right.”

“Very well,”
said Traz Onmale. “I beseech Braz, the Hellmoon, to claim you for her own.”

The Chief
Magician reached into the box, brought forth a disc, on one side pink, on the
other blue. “Stand clear, all!” He spun the disc into the air. It tilted,
wobbled, seemed to float and glide, and landed with the pink side on top. “Az,
moon of virtue, has decided innocence!” called the magician. “Braz has seen no
cause to act.”

Reith gave a
snort of sour amusement. He turned to Traz Onmale. “I call upon the moons for
judgment.”

“Judgment in
regard to what?” demanded the Chief Magician. “Certainly not your heresy! That
is demonstrable!”

“I ask that
the moon Az concede me the emblem Vaduz, so that I may punish the murderer Jad.”

Traz Onmale
gave Reith a startled glance.

The Chief
Magician cried out in indignation. “Impossible; how can a slave carry an
emblem?”

Traz Onmale
looked down at the pathetic corpse and gave a curt sign to the magician. “I
release him from bondage. Throw the disc to the moons.”

The Chief
Magician stood curiously stiff and reluctant. “Is this wise? The emblem Vaduz-”

“-is hardly
the most noble of emblems. Throw.”

The magician
glanced askance at Jad Piluna. “Throw,” said Jad Piluna. “Should the moons give
him to the emblem I will cut him into small strips. I have always despised the Vaduz trait.”

The magician
hesitated, considering first the tall hard-muscled figure of Jad Piluna, then
Reith, equally tall but thinner and looser, and still lacking his full vigor.

The Chief
Magician, a cautious man, thought to temporize. “The disc is drained of its
force; we can have no more judgments.”

“Nonsense,”
said Reith. “The disc is controlled, so you claim, by the power of the moons.
How can the disc be drained? Throw the disc!”

“Throw the
disc!” ordered Traz Onmale.

“Then you
must take Braz, for you are evil and a heretic.”

“I have
called on Az, which can reject me if it chooses.”

The magician
shrugged. “As you wish. I will use a fresh disc.”

“No!”
exclaimed Reith. “The same disc.”

Traz Onmale
sat erect and leaned forward, his attention once again engaged. “Use the same
disc. Throw!”

With an angry
gesture the Chief Magician snatched up the disc, spun it high and twinkling
into the air. As before, it wobbled, seemed to float, drifted down with the
pink face up.

“Az favors
the stranger!” declared Traz Onmale. “Fetch the emblem Vaduz!”

The Chief
Magician stalked to his shed and brought it forth. Traz Onmale handed it to
Reith. “You now carry Vaduz: you are an Emblem Man. Do you then challenge Jad
Piluna?”

“I do.”

Traz Onmale
turned to Jad Piluna. “Are you prepared to defend your emblem?”

“At once.”
Jad Piluna whipped forth his rapier, flourished it whistling around his head.

“A sword and
hand-foil for the new Vaduz,” said Traz Onmale.

Reith took
the rapier which presently was tendered him. He hefted it, whipped the blade
back and forth. Never had he handled so supple a sword, and he had handled
many, for swordsmanship was an element of his training. An awkward weapon, in
some respects, useless for close-range fighting. The warriors at practice held
their distance from each other, swinging, slashing, lunging, swerving the blade
down and up, in and out, but using relatively little footwork. The triangular
knife-foil for the left hand was also strange. He swung the blade back and
forth, watching Jad Piluna from the corner of his eyes, who stood
contemptuously at ease.

To attempt to
fight the man in his own style was equivalent to suicide, thought Reith.

“Attention!”
called Traz Onmale. “Vaduz challenges Piluna. Forty-one such encounters have
occurred previously. Piluna has humiliated Vaduz on thirty-four occasions.
Emblems, address yourselves.”

Jad Piluna
instantly lunged; Reith parried without difficulty, hacked down with his own
blade: a blow which Jad Piluna glossed off with his knife-shield. As he did so
Reith jumped forward, struck with the point of the knife-shield, to puncture
Jad Piluna’s chest: a trifling wound, but sufficient to destroy Piluna’s
complacence. Eyes bulging in wrath, the red in his face almost feverish, he
leaped back, then launched a furious attack, overwhelming Reith by sheer
strength and technical brilliance. Reith was extended to the utmost even to
fend away the whistling blade, without thought for counterattack. His shoulder
gave a sudden ominous twinge and began to burn; he panted for breath. The blade
slashed into his thigh, then his left bicep; confident, gloating, Jad Piluna
pressed the attack, expecting Reith to fall back, to be carved into tatters.
But Reith lurched forward, knocked aside the blade with his knife-shield,
slashed at Jad Piluna’s head and struck the black hat askew. Jad Piluna stepped
back to set his hat straight but Reith jumped forward again, inside comfortable
fighting distance with the rapier. He struck with the knife-shield, batted
again at Jad Piluna’s hat, knocked it off, and with it the emblem Piluna. Reith
dropped the knife-shield, seized the hat. Jad, bereft of Piluna, stood back
aghast, his face ringed by brown curls. He lunged; Reith swung the hat, caught
the rapier in the ear-flaps. He stabbed with his own rapier, piercing Jad’s
shoulder.