The countryside of South Minamand fell astern. They crossed the long narrow Serpent and the island Fraevarth with its bone-white villages, and swept out over the Great Sea of the South. Then the moors and the Sgolath crags, then around Mount Droghead to settle on the desolate plateau.
In Palafox's rooms they drank spiced tea, Palafox sitting in a tall-backed chair before a desk, Beran standing glumly by a window.
You must steel yourself to unpleasant deeds," said Palafox. "There will be many more before the issues are resolved."
"What advantage to resolve issues, if half the people of Pao are dead?" asked Beran bitterly.
"All persons die. A thousand deaths represent, qualitatively, no more than one. Emotion increases merely in one dimension, that of intensity, but not of multiplicity. We must fix our minds on the final..." Palafox stopped short, tilted his head, listened to the speaker concealed inside his aural passages. He spoke in a tongue unknown to Beran; there was the inner reply, to which Palafox responded curtly. Then he sat back, regarding Beran with a kind of contemptuous amusement. "Bustamonte is settling your qualms for you. He has thrown a blockade around Pon. Mamarone was advancing across the plateau."
Beran asked in puzzlement, "How does he know that I am here?"
Palafox shrugged. "Bustamonte's spy service is efficient enough, but he vitiates it by his arrogant stupidity. His tactics are inexcusable. He attacks when clearly his best policy is compromise."
"Compromise? On what basis?"
"He might undertake a new contract with me, in return for the delivery of your person to the Grand Palace. He could thereby prolong his reign."
Beran was astounded. "And you would accede to this bargain?"
Palafox displayed wonder of his own. "Certainly. How could you think otherwise?"
"But your commitment to me--that means nothing?"
"A commitment is good only so long as it is advantageous."
"This is not always true," said Beran in a stronger voice than he had heretofore employed. "A person who fails one commitment is not often entrusted with a second."
" 'Trust'? What is that? The interdependence of the hive; a mutual parasitism of the weak and incomplete."
"It is likewise a weakness," retorted Beran in fury, "to take advantage of trust in another--to accept loyalty, then fail to return it."
Palafox laughed in real amusement. "Be that as it may, the Paonese concepts of 'trust,' 'loyalty,' 'good faith' are not a part of my mental equipment. We dominie of Breakness Institute are individuals, each his own personal citadel. We expect no sentimental services derived from clan loyalty or group dependence; nor do we render any. You would do well to remember this."
Beran made no reply. Palafox looked at him curiously. Beran had stiffened, seemed lost in thought. In fact, a curious event had occurred inside his mind; there had been a sudden instant of dizziness, a whirl and a jerk which seemed to bypass an entire era of time, and he was a new Beran, like a snake sloughed of an old skin.
The new Beran turned slowly, inspected Palafox with dispassionate appraisal. Behind the semblance of agelessness, he saw a man of great age, with both the strengths and weaknesses of age.
"Very well," said Beran. "I necessarily must deal with you on this same basis."
"Naturally," said Palafox, but nonetheless with a trace of irritation. Then once more his eyes went vague; he tilted his head, listening to the inaudible message.
He rose to his feet, beckoned. "Come. Bustamonte attacks us."
They went out on a roof-top, under a transparent dome.
"There..." Palafox pointed to the sky "...Bustamonte's miserable gesture of ill-will."
A dozen of the Mamarone sky-sleds showed as black rectangles on the streaked gray sky. Two miles away a transport had settled and was exuding a magenta clot of neutraloid troops.
"It is well that this episode occurred," said Palafox. "It may dissuade Bustamonte from another like impertinence." He tilted his head, listening to the inner sound. "Now--observe our deterrent against molestation!"
Beran felt, or perhaps heard, a pulsating whine, so shrill as to be only partially in perception.
The sky-sleds began to act peculiarly, sinking, rising, jostling. They turned and fled precipitously. At the same time, there was excitement among the troops. They were in disarray, flourishing their arms, bobbing and hopping. The pulsating whine died; the Mamarone collapsed on the ground.
Palafox smiled faintly. "They are unlikely to annoy us further."
"Bustamonte might try to bomb us."
"If he is wise," said Palafox negligently, "he will attempt nothing so drastic. And he is wise at least to that extent."
"Then what will he do?"
"Oh--the usual futility's of a ruler who sees his regnum dwindling..."
Bustamonte's measures in truth were stupid and harsh. The news of Beran's appearance flew around the eight continents, in spite of Bustamonte's efforts to discredit the occurrence. The Paonese, on the one hand drawn by their yearning for the traditional, on the other repelled by Bustamonte's sociological novelties, reacted in the customary style. Work slowed, halted. Cooperation with civil authority ceased.
Bustamonte attempted persuasion, grandiose promises and amnesties. The disinterest of the population was more insulting than a series of angry demonstrations. Transportation came to a standstill, power and communications died, Bustamonte's personal servants failed to report for work.
A Mamarone, impressed into domestic service, scalded Bustamonte's arms with a hot toweclass="underline" this was the trigger which exploded Bustamonte's suppressed fury. "I have sung to them! They shall now sing in their turn!"
At random he picked half a hundred villages. Mamarone descended upon these communities and were allowed complete license.
Atrocity failed to move the population--already an established principle of Paonese history. Beran, learning of the events, felt all the anguish of the victims. He turned on Palafox, reviled him.
Palafox, unmoved, commented that all men die, that pain is transitory and in any event the result of faulty mental discipline. To demonstrate, he held his hand in a flame; the flesh burnt and crackled; Palafox watched without concern.
"These people lack this discipline--they feel pain!" cried Beran.
"It is indeed unfortunate," said Palafox. "I wish pain to no man, but until Bustamonte is deposed--or until he is dead--these episodes will continue."
"Why do you not restrain these monsters?" raged Beran. "You have the means."
"You can restrain Bustamonte as readily as I."
Beran replied with fury and scorn. "I understand you now. You want me to kill him. Perhaps you have planned this entire series of events. I will kill him gladly! Arm me, tell me his whereabouts--if I die, at least there shall be an end to all."
"Come," said Palafox; "you receive your second modification."
Bustamonte was shrunken and haggard. He paced the black carpet of the foyer, holding his arms stiff, fluttering his fingers as if to shake off bits of grit.
The glass door was closed, locked, sealed. Outside stood four black Mamarone.
Bustamonte shivered. Where would it end? He went to the window, looked out into the night. Eiljanre spread ghostly white to all sides. Three points on the horizon glowed angry maroon where three villages and those who had dwelt there felt the weight of his vengeance.
Bustamonte groaned, chewed his lip, fluttered his fingers spasmodically. He turned away from the window, resumed his pacing. At the window there was a faint hiss which Bustamonte failed to notice.
There was a thud, a draft of air.