IV.
QUEEN PORFIA
Vakar ducked under the lower yard and ran towards the group. With a shout the sailors leaped apart, drawing knives. Vakar bore down upon the nearest, feinted once, and ran the man through. The man's scream pierced the rising clamor. As Vakar stepped back to pull out his blade he glanced over his shoulder. Fual had hardly finished ducking under the sail.
Damn the coward! thought Vakar, setting his teeth. As his victim fell he faced Ruaz, Sret, and two sailors, plus one other on the poop steering. Sret and Ruaz were shouting:
"Forward! Kill him! Get in close! Rush him!"
Vakar leaped over the body on deck, slashing right and left. His sword clanged against Ruaz's blade and bit flesh and bone, and then he was through them. As he whirled to face them again, his back to the poop, he saw that they were all still on their feet. As Fual finally came closer, a sailor turned and closed with him rather than face the sword. Now the twain were staggering about in a deadly waltz, each gripping the other's wrist.
The three facing Vakar closed, Ruaz in the middle. Vakar cut and thrust at the captain, who parried while Sret and the other sailor closed in from the sides. Vakar, wishing he had a light rapier against these agile unarmored foes, had to leap back until he backed into the high step up to the poop and almost fell.
They came on. Vakar slashed wildly, only his superior length of blade keeping them from finishing him. He could not quite reach them, for if he moved far enough towards any one the others would get him in the back. They moved on the swaying deck with catlike ease while he reeled and staggered. One got close enough to send a stab home, but the point failed to pierce Vakar's leather jack.
A shout came from behind: the steersman encouraging his mates. Vakar wondered what a ship would do without a man at the helm. He leaped back up on to the poop, turning as he did so, and swung a mighty blow at the sailor. The sharp bronze sheared through the man's neck. The head thumped to the deck, rolled off the poop, and continued its bloody course forward towards the mast while the spouting body collapsed beneath the steering-yoke.
Vakar turned to face his three antagonists on the main deck, but as they confronted each other the Dyra slewed to starboard and heeled far to port so that water poured over the port rail.
Vakar found himself sliding down the steep deck towards the black water. He threw up his free hand and snatched at the night air for support—and to his infinite relief caught a mast-stay. As the ship continued to heel, Vakar found his feet dangling over the water while he gripped the stay in a death-grasp.
He glanced forward in time to see a figure that he took for Sret go over the side into the smother of foam while the others, sprawling or sitting on the deck, snatched at the ropes and each other for purchase.
As the wind spilled out of the sail the Dyra began to right herself. When his feet were firmly on the slanting deck again, Vakar let go his stay to creep forward on knees and knuckles. Captain Ruaz was also on all fours, grouping for his sword. Vakar rose as he neared the captain and brought his sword down on his head. Down went Ruaz.
One sailor clung to the rail, which was just emerging from the water. Vakar struck at the gripping hand, missed, and struck again. This time the edge hit home and the seaman disappeared.
Up forward Fual lay upon the deck, holding the mast with his arms while his antagonist, the remaining sailor, clutched Fual's legs to keep from going over the side with the roll of the ship. Only a few heart-beats had elapsed since the ship had started to right herself and roll in the opposite direction. Vakar ran forward and, as the sailor rose crying a word that might have meant "mercy," he struck. The man threw up an arm, yelped as the blade bit into the bone, and an instant later collapsed with a split skull.
Fual started to rise, then clutched the mast as the ship rolled in the other direction. Vakar, staggering over to the starboard rail, cried:
"How do you straighten this damned thing out?"
"The steering-lever," said Fual. "You—you keep the ship's—that is—"
Without waiting for more explicit directions, Vakar, the next time the ship righted herself, bounded aft and seized the lever-arm. He hung on until the wind caught the sail and the Dyra began to pick up way on her former course. When she was straightened out and running free again, Vakar examined the steering-mechanism. He experimented so that the ship yawed wildly until he got the hang of steering. Fual said:
"My lord, I've never seen anything like the way you slew those four men! Just one—two—three—four, like that!"
"Luck," growled Vakar. "Must we always sail exactly with the wind?"
"No, I think one can sail at a small angle to it, or sailors would never reach home."
"I wish I knew whither we were headed. What land did Ruaz expect to sight next?"
"I don't know, sir. I believe Eruthea and Ogugia and Elusion lie somewhere ahead of us."
"In what order?"
"That I don't know."
"I once met the present Queen of Ogugia; a gangling child, but she'd be a grown woman now."
"Has Ogugia a king, sir?"
"Had; Porfia married a Lord Vancho, who was said to have been an amiable nonentity. He died of some pox, and as the Hesperian throne descends in the female line she'd still be queen."
"What sort of place is it?"
"Ogugia? I know little, save that it's called the Isle of Philosophers. I've always wished to ask those sages some simple questions, say about the origin of life and the immortality of soul and so on. Oh, Fual! Since you're no more mariner than I, throw these bodies overboard."
"Including this one without his head, sir?" said Fual with such a pronounced grimace of distaste that Vakar could see it in the moonlight.
"Especially that one. They clutter the deck."
Fual went to work, first stripping each corpse. When he had finished he came back to the poop with Ruaz's broadsword, which he had found in the scuppers, saying:
"May I carry this, sir? If we're to meet such perils we can't be too well armed."
"Surely, surely." Vakar turned the helm over to Fual while he straightened the kinks out of his own sword and smoothed down the nicks in the blade with his pocket-hone.
Towards morning Vakar sighted another land ahead and said: "Let's follow this coast around to the right until we come to a port."
"What will you do with the ship, sir?"
"I hadn't thought." Vakar looked around. "If somebody sees the blood they'll make trouble. Clean it up, will you?"
"And then what?" said Fual, hunting for rags.
"How does one sell a ship?"
"One finds a merchant who wishes to buy. Unless somebody recognizes it as belonging to Mateng of Po."
"How could we disguise it? When you finish with the blood, see if you can remove that image of Lyr at the stern."
Thus about noon a somewhat altered Dyra came in sight of a harbor full of tubby merchantmen and rakish fifty-oared war-galleys, with a fair city lying behind it. Vakar said:
"How do we steer this ship into the harbor without the wind at our backs?"
"I think one lowers the sail and rows in."
"And how—oh, I see! One unties that rope that runs from the upper whatever-you-call-it, that long stick, and lowers it until it rests upon the bottom one."
He meant the upper and lower yards, for the ship had yards at both the top and bottom edges of the sail. A tackle of ropes confined the sail and kept it from spilling over the deck when lowered. Vakar steered the ship as far into the port as it would go. Then Fual unhitched the halyard, but, as the upper yard and the sail were heavier that he, they sank down into their tackle hoisting the little Aremorian into the air. The spectacle so doubled Vakar up with mirth that, despite Fual's yells, it was some time before he came forward to pull his servant back down to the deck.
They got out the sweeps and pushed the ship shoreward. It was a long row for only two oars, and Vakar, though his hands were hard from weapon-practice, had begun to develop blisters before they reached the shore. Along the waterfront men were unloading ships and hauling their cargoes away in ox-drawn sledges and truckle-carts. As the Dyra neared the quay a small knot of loafers gathered to gaup: dark men smaller than those of Poseidonis. Vakar said:
"Get ready to leap ashore with the stern-rope."
As they drifted against the quay, Vakar sprang ashore with the painter and belayed the rope to one of the row of posts, while Fual did likewise astern. Vakar caught the eye of the nearest loafer and called in Hesperian:
"What place is this?"
"Sederado, the capital of Ogugia."
Vakar said to Fual: "Let's hope Queen Porfia remembers me . . . I know! As we can't drag this whole cargo with us, I might jog her memory with a portion of it and dispose her to help us on the next leg of our journey. Ho, you people! I wish four strong porters to carry a load to the palace. Fual, pick the four and make an arrangement with them for their wage. You with the nose! Is copper mined in Ogugia?"
"Yes," said the man addressed.
"Do you have mammoths or bison?"
"No mammoths, though there are a few bison in the royal park."
Vakar turned back to Fual. "Ivory is the thing she'll best appreciate. Help me get these hatch-covers off."
In a few minutes Vakar had his porters lined up, each with a great curling mammoth-tusk over one shoulder. He was about to order them to march when he noticed that the people on the quay were staring seaward.
Vakar saw another ship drawing up to the adjacent wharfage-space: a low black thirty-oared galley, much larger than the Dyra with a crew of a dozen besides the rowers and three passengers. The ship had a beak of bronze jutting out at the waterline forward, and (like all ships) a pair of eyes painted on the bow so that, sailors believed, she could see her way. No device or insigne, like the mermaid of Ogugia or the octopus of Gorgonia, variegated her plain brown sail, nor did any pennant or banderole betray her origin.
One of the passengers was a man of medium height with a small round cap perched on his shaven poll, a small pointed gray beard, and a loose robe to his ankles. The other two, who wore no clothes, were not really human. One was a pigmy about four feet high with huge membranous ears like those of an elephant in miniature, and covered all over with short golden-brown fur. The other was eight feet tail with a low-browed apish countenance and coarse black hair all over. He carried a great brass-bound club over one stooping shoulder while his other arm embraced a large wooden chest with bronze clamps.
"By all the gods, what are those?" said Vakar. "Some kind of satyrs? The large one looks like the giant in the Lay of Zormé:
"Grimly gloweringand fearsomely fanged
The monster menaced the vulnerable virgin . . .
"Eh?"
Fual said: "The larger I don't know, but the smaller is a Coranian."
"A what?"
"A native of the northern isle of Corania. It's said they can hear any word uttered for miles around."
The second ship tied up as their own had done, and its people climbed ashore and set out in various directions. Vakar said:
"We can't wait around all day; I'm for the palace. You stay here to dispose of the stuff . . ."
Just then the shaven-headed man pushed through the spectators towards Vakar. After him came the giant ape-man and the Coranian.
"You are for the palace, sir?" said the man in strongly accented Hesperian. "Perhaps you will permit me to go with you, for my errand takes me thither also and I am not familiar with Sederado. And while I have never met you, something tells me I ought to know you. My name is Qasigan."
"And whom have I the honor of addressing?" said Qasigan, smiling pleasantly as he fell into step beside Vakar. His leathery skin was even darker than Vakar's, and his broad head bore a round blunt-featured face. He stooped slightly and shuffled rather than walked.
"My name is Vakar."
Vakar happened to be looking at the man's face as he spoke, and observed the pleasant smile vanish and flicker back again.
"Not Prince Vakar of Lorsk!" said the man.
Vakar tended to take a dour and suspicious view of untried strangers—especially queer-looking ones who traveled about in their own war-galleys with inhuman assistants and showed an egregious interest in his identity. He shook his head.
"Merely a relative. And what, sir, do you know of Lorsk?"
"Who does not know the world's greatest source of copper?"
"Indeed. Where do you come from?"
"Tegrazen, a small city on the mainland south of Kernê."
"You have unusual servitors. The first, I understand, is a Coranian?"
"That is correct. His name is Yok."
"And the other?" said Vakar.
"That is Nji, from Blackland. The Blacks caught him young, tamed him, and sold him. He can speak a few words, for he is not the great ape of Blackland—the gorilla—but another and rarer kind, intermediate between apes and men."
Vakar fell into a wary silence until they arrived at the palace. He gauped like a yokel at the rows of gleaming marble columns and the gilded roof, for this was the first two-storey building that he had ever seen.
He sent in the four tusks with word that Vakar of Lorsk would like an audience. After a half-hour's wait he was ushered in, leaving Qasigan staring pensively after him.
"Prince Vakar!" cried Queen Porfia, stepping down from her audience-throne and advancing upon him. She kissed him vigorously. "I thank you for your splendid gift, but you need not shower me with wealth to assure your welcome! Did you think I had forgotten when we won the dance-contest in Amferé ten years ago? What brings you so far from the bison-swarming plains of windy Lorsk?"
Porfia, Vakar thought, had certainly developed into a splendid-looking woman. Though she was not large, her proud carriage gave her a deceptive look of tallness. Lucky Vancho! He said:
"I am on my way to mighty Torrutseish, madam, and could not pass by Ogugia without renewing so pleasant an acquaintance."
She looked at him keenly from emerald-green eyes. "Now how, I wonder, does it happen that you and one servant put into the harbor of Sederado navigating a small merchant-ship all by yourselves in most thwart tyronic fashion? Are you running away from Lorsk to become a corsair? Perhaps to sail under the octopus banner of the accursed Gorgons?"
"You seem to have learned a lot in a short time."
"Oh, I watch my kingdom's commerce, and was getting a report on you while you waited. Well, what happened? Was all the ship's company but you washed overboard, or snatched by a kraken?"
Vakar hesitated, then gave in to his instant liking for Porfia and told the story of Sret's treachery.
"So," he concluded, "being as you have said no barnacled mariners, we propose to sell this ship and continue eastward on the next merchantman that passes that way."
"How much cargo have you?"
"By Tandyla's third eye, I do not know!"
"Well then. Elbien!" A man came in and Porfia told him: "Go to the waterfront, board Prince Vakar's ship, and reckon up the value of the cargo." As the man bowed and left she turned back to Vakar. "I will give you your ship's fair value in trade-metal. If Mateng squeals we will remind him that as owner he is responsible for the murderous attack upon you. And what do you know of that odd fish who came in with you? The one who arrived in his private galley?"
"He claims to be Qasigan of Tegrazen, but beyond that I know no more than you, Queen. He is certainly as peculiar as a flying pig, though courteous enough."
"So? The description of him sounds like one of the Gorgonian race, though that proves nothing because Tegrazen lies near the Gorgades on the mainland and the people of those parts are much mixed. But tell me how things go in Lorsk: the land of warriors, heroes, and athletes, with hearts of bronze and heads of ivory?"
Vakar laughed and plunged into small-talk. A man of few friends, he felt that at last he had found someone who spoke his language. They were chattering away some time later when Porfia said:
"By Heroé's eight teats, I have spent the whole morning on you, sir, and others await me. You shall stay at the palace, and we will have a feast tonight. You shall meet my minister Garal and my lover Thiegos."
"Your—" Vakar checked himself, wondering why he felt a sudden pang of annoyance. It was none of his affair if the Queen of Ogugia kept a dozen lovers; but the feeling persisted.
She appeared not to notice. "And I think I will have this Master Qasigan too if I like him. He seems like a man of position, and we should at least get some rare tales of far lands."
"Queen," said Vakar, "I told Qasigan my name but denied being the scion of Lorsk, and should therefore prefer to be known simply as Master Vakar, a simple gentleman, while that fellow in the long shirt is about."
"It shall be done. Dweros! Take Pr— Master Vakar to the second guest-chamber in the right wing and provide for his comfort."
Vakar saw no more of Porfia until evening, but spent a lazy day sleeping, being washed and perfumed, and reading a Hesperian translation of the Fragments of Lontang in the library while his dirty clothes were being washed and dried. As the writing of the time was largely pictographic, the written languages of Ogugia and Lorsk differed much less than their spoken tongues. However, the symbols for abstract ideas differed widely. Vakar asked a dignified-looking oldster copying a roll of papyrus in the corner:
"Can you tell me what this means, my man? This skull-and-crescent thing?"
"That, sir, signifies 'mortality'. It combines the skull, which symbolizes death, with the inverted crescent, which represents the abstract aspect of the moon, to wit: time. Therefore the meaning of the passage is:
"Though germinate of mortal man generations
In thousands of thousands while in dwellings divine
A god grows his eye-teeth, yet time taketh all:
Even the gods so glorious must march at the last
Down the dim dusty road to death the destroyer."
"Is Lontang trying to tell us that even the gods must die?"
"Yes. His theory was that the gods are created by the belief of men in them, and that puissant though they be, in time men will forsake them for others and forget them, and they will fade away and vanish."
Vakar said: "You seem a knowledgeable man in such matters. May I ask your name?"
"I am Rethilio, a poor philosopher of Sederado. And you . . . ?"
"I am Vakar of Lorsk."
"Curious," mused the man. "I have heard your name . .. I know! Last night I dreamt I witnessed an assembly of the gods. I recognized many of ours, such as Asterio, and some of those of other nations like your Okma. They seemed to be rushing about in agitated fashion, as if dancing a funeral-dance, and I heard them ejaculate 'Vakar Lorska'!"
Vakar shuddered. "As I never dream of the gods I can shed no light on this matter."
"Are you remaining here long, Prince?"
"Only a few days. But I should like to return to Ogugia some day to study its famed philosophies."
Too late Vakar realized that he should have at once denied his principate; by failing to do so he had confirmed Rethilio's guess as to his true identity. Rethilio said:
"Many of my colleagues believe that if only kings would study philosophy, or the people would choose philosophers as their kings, the world would be a less sorry place. In practice, however, kings seem to lack either time or inclination."
"Perhaps I can combine the two."
"A laudable ambition, though broad. The gods grant that you achieve it."
"I see no difficulty. I have many ambitions and, I trust, many years to fulfill them."
"What are these ambitions, sir?" said Rethilio.
"Well. . ." Vakar frowned. "To be a good king when my time comes; to master philosophy; to see far places and strange peoples; to know loyal and interesting friends; to enjoy the pleasures of wine, women, and song . . ."
He stopped as Rethilio threw up his hands in mock horror. "You should have been twins, Prince!"
"I am—or rather my brother Kuros is my twin. What do you mean, though?"
"No man can compress all that into one lifetime. Now it seems life is endless and you can sample all experience while attaining preeminence in any careers that suit your fancy. As time parses you will discover you must make a choice here and a choice there, each choice cutting you off from some of these many enticing possibilities. Of course there is the hypothesis of the school of Kurno, that the soul not only survives the body but is subsequently reincarnated in another, and thus a man undergoes many existences."
"I do not see how that helps if one cannot remember one's previous lives," said Vakar. "And if that be so, how about the gods? Are their souls likewise reincarnated?"
They were at it hammer and tongs when Dweros appeared to tell Vakar that his clothes were ready.
"I hope I shall see you again before I leave," he told Rethilio.
"If you are here tomorrow at this time we may meet. Good-day, sir."