The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (40 page)

"It is enough," Madame said.

Back at the central fire, the singing and laughing were more subdued. People drifted away to the smaller hearths to prepare for sleep. A small figure hobbled toward Madame, silhouetted against the dying bonfire.

"I've been thinking on your expedition to the Ship's Grave," said Fitharn. "You're going to need the help of our people."

'To find the Danube quickly," Claude agreed. "Do you have any idea of the best way to reach it? In our time, its head-waters were in the Black Forest. God knows where the river begins nowadays. The Alps, even some super version of Lake Constance."

"There is only one person with the authority to help yon," the Firvulag said. "You're going to have to visit the King."

CHAPTER TWO

Yeochee IV, High King of the Firvulag, came tiptoeing into the main audience hall of his mountain fortress, his seeker-sense probing the dim recesses of the great cavern. "Lulo, my little pomegranate! Where are you hiding?" There was a sound like the jingling of tiny bells mixed with laughter. A shadow fluttered among the red-and-cream stalactites, the hanging tapestries, the tatty fringed trophy banners from Grand Combats forty years gone. Leaving a musky scent in its wake, something glided like a huge moth into a cul-de-sac chamber at one side of the hall.

Yeochee rushed in pursuit "Now I've got you trapped! There's no way out of the crystal grotto except past me!"

The alcove was lit by candles in a single golden sconce. The flames struck glints from an incredible profusion of quartz prisms that encrusted the walls, sparkling pink and purple and white like the interior of a giant geode. Heaps of dark fur made inviting mounds on the floor. One of these heaps quivered.

"So there you are!"

Yeochee bounded into the grotto and lifted the concealing rug with tantalizing slowness. A cobra with a body as thick as his arm reared up and hissed at him.

"Now, Lulo! Is that a way to welcome your King?"

The serpent shimmered and acquired a woman's head. Her hair was varicolored like the snakeskin, her eyes a teasing amber. The tongue that stole from her smiling lips was forked.

With a cry of delight, the King threw open his arms. The snakewoman grew a neck, shoulders, soft arms with clever boneless fingers, a marvelously formed upper torso. "Stop right there for a moment," Yeochee suggested, "and we'll explore a few possibilities." They fell onto the bed of furs with an elan that made the candle flames gutter.

A trumpet sounded far away.

"Oh, damn," groaned the King. The concubine Lulo whimpered and uncoiled but her forked tongue continued to dart hopefully.

The trumpet. Waited again, nearer this time, and there was a booming of gongs that made the mountain vibrate in sympathy. The stalactites just outside the crystal grotto hummed like tuning forks.

Yeochee sat up, his once jolly face a mask of dismay. "That stupid contingent of Lowlives. The ones who think they're onto a secret weapon against the Tanu, I promised Pallol I'd check 'em out."

The alluring lamia wavered, melted, and became a plump little naked woman with apple cheeks and a blonde Dutch bob. Pouting, she pulled a mink rug over herself and said, "Well, this is going to take a while, for Té's sake at least get me something to eat. All this chasing about has got me starving to death. No bat fritters, mind you! And none of that awful broiled salamander, either."

Yeochee tied his slightly shabby cloth-of-gold dressing gown and ran his fingers, comb-fashion, through his tangled yellow hair and beard. "I'll order you something lovely," he promised. "We caught us a new human cook the other day who has a marvelous way with cheese-and-meat pastry." The King smacked his lips. "This business won't take long. Then we'll have a picnic right here, and for dessert..."

The trumpet sounded a third time, just outside the hall.

"You're on," said Lulo, snuggling down under the mink. "Hurry back."

King Yeochee stepped outside the grotto, took a deep breath, and transformed himself from one hundred sixty to two hundred sixty centimeters in height. The old robe became a great trailing cloak of garnet-colored velvet. He acquired a splendid suit of gold-chased obsidian parade armor, its open helm surmounted by a tall crown sprouting two curling members like golden ram's horns and a beaklike extension jutting over the forehead that threw his upper face into deep shadow. He turned on his eyes so that they gleamed with sinister chatoyance. Making a run for it, he assumed the throne without a moment to spare.

The trumpet sounded for the last time.

Yeochee raised one mailed hand and several dozen illusory courtiers and men-at-arms winked into being about the throne dais. The rocks of the mountain hall began to glow with rich colors. Rippling music, as from a marimba of glass, filled the room as six Firvulag of the palace guard escorted the humans and Fitharn Pegleg into the royal presence.

One of the quasi courtiers stepped forward. Using Standard English for the sake of the Lowlives, he declaimed: "Let all pay homage to His Appalling Highness Yeochee IV, Sovereign Lord of the Heights and Depths, Monarch of the Infernal Infinite, Father of All Firvulag; and Undoubted Ruler of the Known World!"

An organlike peal of deafening intensity stopped the approaching visitors in their tracks. The King arose and seemed to grow taller and taller before their eyes until he loomed among the stalactites like some gigantic idol with emerald eyes.

Fitharn doffed his tall hat briefly. "How do, King."

"You have our leave to approach!" boomed the apparition.

Fitharn stumped forward, the seven humans trailing after him. Yeochee noted with regret that only two of the Lowlives, a sharp-featured fellow with a big black mustache and a younger woman, hollow-cheeked and thin, with fair hair pulled into an unflattering knot, seemed genuinely impressed by his monstrous guise. The rest of the human party regarded His Appalling Highness with either scientific interest or amusement Old Madame Guderian even betrayed a trace of Gallic ennui. Oh, what the hell. Why not relax?

"We shall condescend to assume a gentler aspect!" Yeochee decreed. He shrank down to his ordinary self, gold dressing gown, bare feet and all, with his coronet set askew as usual. "Now what's all this?" he inquired of Fitharn.

"Madame Guderian's plot against the Tanu seems to've taken a quantum leap, King. Better let her tell it"

Yeochee sighed. Madame reminded him disconcertingly of his late grandmother, a lady who always knew when he had been up to childish mischief. Despite the old Frenchwoman's talent for political intrigue, Yeochee had long since bitterly regretted giving her a golden torc. Madame's schemes always seemed to end up benefiting the Lowlife humans, with only minimal gain to the Firvulag. He should have followed his first instinct and blasted her to cinders with his psychoenergies in those early days when she first had the temerity to step through her own time-gate. Indirectly, after all, she was the author of the present Firvulag degradation!

The old woman, dressed now in the dappled deerskin garments favored by forest prowlers of her race, stepped boldly to the throne and gave the King a perfunctory bob of her head.

"You're looking well, Monseigneur. Plenty of healthy exercise, one trusts."

Yeochee frowned. But at least the old trout had jogged his memory in regard to Lulo's promised snack. He reached out and pulled a bellrope. "Pallol tells me you may have discovered the location of the Ship's Grave."

"It is true." She gestured toward a silver-haired man among the humans. "One of our new compatriots. Professor Claude, believes he has identified the locale. It was known to him through his scientific studies in the world of the future."

"Still known six million years from now?" The King beckoned to the paleontologist, who came closer. "You there, Claude. Tell me, in the future, did your people have any recollections of us?"

Claude smiled at the little exotic and let his gaze wander about the fantastic hall that lay within the heart of the Vosges' highest mountain.

"Your Majesty, right this minute humanity's direct ancestors are small apes cowering in the forest. They have no language, and so there is no way they can pass on to their descendants any memories whatsoever. Primitive human beings having the power of speech won't evolve for another two or three million years or so, and they won't develop oral traditions until, oh, say, eight or nine thousand years before my time. Wouldn't you agree that it was highly unlikely for future humanity to have retained any recollections of a race of small shape-changing exotic people who live in underground dwellings?"

The King shrugged. "It was only a thought... So you know where the Ship's Grave is, eh?"

Claude said, "I believe so. And you have no moral objections to our plundering it to our mutual benefit?"

Yeochee's beady green eyes flashed dangerously. "Be careful, old Claude. You won't be robbing the Ship of anything that can't be returned in good time, with interest, when the unfair advantage that the despicable Foe has seized is equalized."

Madame said, "We will help you to accomplish this end, Monseigneur. I have sworn it as part of my expiation! When humans can no longer be enslaved by the Tanu, the status quo between your two races will be restored. And our first strike will be against Finiah, using an aircraft and the Spear from the Ship's Grave."

The King twisted his beard into golden ropes. "The time factor! It's only three weeks to the equinox, then another week and a half and we're into the Truce for the Grand Combat in-gathering. H'mm. Our forces would need at least a week to prepare for an attack against the Tana. Is there a chance that you can get back here with the flyer and the Spear before the Truce begins? We'd be willing to join you in an attack if there was a real hope of knocking off Velteyn and his flying circus. If we were successful against Finiah, the morale of our lads and lasses would be at zenith going into the Games this year."

The old woman turned to Claude. "Is it possible for us to get to the Ries and back inside of a month?"

"We might barely manage it But only if we obtain a guide who can take us by the shortest route to the head of small boat navigation on the Danube. This would be some place beyond the Black Forest in a kind of sediment-filled basin, the molassic foredeep between the Swabian Jura and the Alps. The river would likely flow as gentry through the molasse as the Sweet Afton. We could sail to the Ries easfly and fly back."

"Within the month?" the King persisted.

"If you use your good offices to get us a guide, it's feasible.''

Fitharn stepped forward. "The mighty Sharn-Mes suggested that one Sugoti might be made to assist the expedition. A bad-tempered joker, even for a Howler, and not any too loyal But he claims to rule the Feldberg country, even the Water Caves beyond the Paradise Gorge. Sharn-Mes thought that if anyone knew of this river, Sugoll would I can take these people to Us lair if you'll authorize Madame to impress his service."

"Oh, very well," grumbled the King. He crouched down and began groping under the throne, presently hauling out a small coffer that looked as if it was carved from black onyx. After fumbling with its golden catch, he flung it open, rummaged around, and came up with a Parker pen of twenty-second-century vintage and a much-creased, stained piece of vellum. Still kneeling on the floor he scrawled several emphatic ideographs and appended the royal signature.

"That should do it." He replaced the writing materials and the chest and handed the missive to Madame. "It's the best I can do. Freely translated, it says: Help these people or It's your ass. You have our royal leave to coerce this Sugoll into slime-mold if he gives you a hard time."

Madame gave a gracious nod and tucked the note away.

A bowlegged little fellow in a belted red smock came trot-ting into the audience hall and sainted the King. "You rang. Appalling One?"

"We hunger and thirst," said the Monarch of the Infernal Infinite. He turned abruptly from the steward and shot a question at Madame. "You really think this expedition has a chance of success?"

"It does," she affirmed solemnly. "Captain Richard, here, was a master of starships. He will be able to pilot one of the flyers spoken of in your legends, if they have not been destroyed by the elements. Martha and Stefanko possess technical knowledge that will enable us to make both the aircraft and the Spear operational. Chief Burke and Felice will defend us against natural perils en route. I myself will use my metafunctions to confound inimical members of your own race, as well as such Tanu that may venture to pursue us. Professor Claude will lead us to the crater once we are safely on the river. As to success..." She ventured a wintry smile. "That remains in the hands of le bon dieu, n'est-ce pas?"

Yeochee glowered at her. "Why can't you speak English like a regular human being? Don't I have enough trouble with you? Oh, I admit the plan sounds good. But so did the scheme for tunneling under the Finiah wall and setting off that damned guano explosive your people cooked up. And at the last minute Velteyn let the Rhine into the diggings! A hundred and eighty-three Firvulag stalwarts swiming for their lives in a soup of bird shit!"

"This time it will be different, Monseigneur."

Yeochee beckoned to the steward. "Bring me some of the best ale. And have that new human cook, Mariposa, the one with the nose, bake up one of those big flat open-face tarts with the melted chamois cheese and tomato sauce and the new sausage."

The steward bowed low and ran off.

"We have your leave, then, to pursue the expedition immediately?" Madame asked.

"Oh, yes, yes." The King's growl was petulant He drew his golden bathrobe around himself. "We command it, in fact. And now you are dismissed... Fitharn, you stay here. I've got something to talk over with you."

The palace guards, who had stood immobile in their black-glass armor during the interview, now thumped short lances on the floor and prepared to escort the human visitors out.But the smallest female, the one with the cloud of pale hair , who was scarcely as tall as a Firvulag woman, had the boldness to call out.