A shrill noise began to rise around Blade, filling his ears so that he could no longer hear the clang of bronze meeting bronze or his own panting breath. Then with a shock he realized that the shrill noise was the sound of flutes, loudly played and getting closer. With a still greater shock he realized that the Holy Warriors around him were no longer crowding in to strike. He no longer had to raise his sagging arms to guard against their blows or deliver his own. The Holy Warriors had drawn back, and he was standing by himself on the slope of the temple mound. In a wide circle around him the stone was red and slick with blood and littered with maimed or dead men.
He looked to where the flute music was sounding. A solid column of King Hurakun's black-clad warriors was marching around the temple mound toward him, their swords drawn, their musicians marching in the lead. Blade suppressed a groan. So Hurakun's guard was intervening, to curry favor with the cult of Ayocan? Very well, they would find him just as hard to kill as the warriors of the cult had. No, that couldn't be. He was too exhausted, and the heat and the loss of blood were already making him lightheaded. They would have an almost easy kill. Almost.
He dropped his battered sword and started searching the bodies around him for a better one.
He was reaching down to pick one up when the flutes stopped suddenly. Shouts came from the top of the temple mound, and Blade looked toward it. As he did so, a tall figure in black robes and glossy black headdress stepped to the edge of the white slabs, black plumes waving above him. King Hurakun was about to speak.
The king's voice was high-pitched, almost feminine, but it carried-and it carried authority. «In sight of the people of Chiribu, we, Hurakun, King of Chiribu, invoke the Royal Right of Pardon. We invoke it for this man, warrior and formerly prisoner of the cult of Ayocan for the High Sacrifice. We order that he be taken at once to the House of the Pardoned, and there be given all due and proper treatment. Warriors of Hurakun, take the pardoned.»
There may have been further explanations. There may have been reactions-anger, amazement, surprise, joy-from both the priests and warriors atop the mound or from the crowd below. Blade didn't hear any of it. As the black-clad warriors turned toward him, his knees gave under him. He was aware of the feel of baking-hot, blood-slick stone against his cheek as he fell. And then he stopped being aware of anything for quite a while.
Chapter 10
Blade was back on the cold blue river above the falls, but this time he was sitting up in the canoe, paddling. He was all alone, and suddenly he was at the falls. He paddled frantically, trying to put the canoe ashore. But he wasn't strong enough, and the cloud of mist at the end of the blue water swept closer-closer-closer. Then the mist rose up around him and the outside world disappeared. He should be over the edge now, and falling down a mile to the muddy Low River. But he couldn't see anything, and he had no sensation of falling.
He had just reached the point of being surprised at that, when he realized that he wasn't in a canoe on the river or anywhere else. So there was no reason why he should feel that he was falling, because he wasn't falling at all! This seemed to be a great and momentous discovery, nearly on a level with the theory of relativity. It occupied all his attention as he tried to figure out why it should be that way.
But not for long. He found his ability to concentrate on the problem slipping away. As it did, he became aware of a soft surface under him, cool breezes blowing over him, a familiar smell in his nostrils. The narcotic! That recognition woke him up in a hurry.
He was lying naked on a wide mattress supported by a frame of glossy black wood. The bedposts, he noted, were carved in the form of serpents with three jutting horns on their heads. Black as a symbolic color, and three-horned serpents. That sounded almost as familiar as the narcotic. Of course. He was in the House of the Pardoned of the King of Chiribu. The symbolic color was black, and he recalled seeing three-horned serpents on the banners and the shields of the soldiers. In spite of the smell of the narcotic, he was not back in the hands of the cult of Ayocan. He began to look around the room more calmly, no longer expecting things to jump at him from out of the walls.
The room was large, with fresh air and sunlight pouring in through large arches that opened onto a balcony. The walls and ceiling were painted pale green, the floor tiled in black and dark red. Several flowering shrubs stood in bronze pots just outside on the balcony, the smell of their blossoms drifting pleasantly into the room on the breeze.
Looking down at himself, Blade realized that he was swathed almost from neck to groin in bandages and pads soaked in the healing narcotic. At least he hoped it was the healing form of the narcotic and not the mind-destroying one! Since he was under the protection of King Hurakun, he suspected it was the former. There were also bandages wrapped around his legs and arms, even in places he couldn't recall being wounded. The details of the long fight on the mound were coming back to him, but only a little at a time.
Then he heard light, brisk footsteps approaching along the balcony. A loud male voice issued a challenge, and a softer female one replied. Then suddenly a small graceful figure was silhouetted in one of the arches.
Of all the things that he had seen since waking, the girl who came through the arch was the one Blade most wished was real. No-the woman. As she approached, Blade could see the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that suggested thirty years, perhaps more. But her figure was arrow-straight and arrow-slim, with pert, high breasts, and the hair drawn tightly back from her brown face was glossy black. She wore a robe of semitransparent silk, and much to Blade's regret she wore under that a pale green embroidered shift.
She came over to the bed and stood by its head, looking down at him, a faint smile playing across her neat little mouth. «So, warrior, you are awake. Could you tell me what is your name among your own people, if you have one? Otherwise we shall have to go on calling you merely 'warrior,' as the priests of Ayocan did. We would not do as they do.» There was no mistaking the cold contempt and hostility in her voice as she said the last sentence. Blade suddenly realized that none of the colors he had seen in this palace were those of the cult of Ayocan-no white, no dark blue, no yellow-orange.
«My name is Richard Blade,» he said slowly. «My own people are called the English.»
«I have never heard of them,» said the woman. «Are they beyond the mountains?»
For a moment Blade couldn't understand what she meant. Then he realized she must mean the mountains that bordered the high plateau where he had landed. No doubt they marked the limits of the known world for these people.
«Yes, the English live far beyond the mountains.»
«How far?»
«Why do you ask that?» Blade countered.
The woman bit her lip and lowered her eyes. Apparently she hadn't expected him to be that much on the alert for trick questions. He could see her debating in her mind how much to tell him.
Finally she bit her lip again and said slowly, «You are the mightiest warrior ever seen in Chiribu or even in Gonsara.»
«Gonsara?»
«The kingdom that lies farther down the Great River, farther to the south toward the Dark Sea.»
«I see.»