The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid (24 page)
Read The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid Online
Authors: L. Sprague de Camp
Fallon told him, adding, “Before I forget, three Earthmen—Soares, Botkin, and Daly—have disappeared from Zanid in the last three years. Have you seen any sign of them? They weren’t included in Chabarian’s ordnance department, were they?”
“Nay, the only other is my colleague, Zarrash bad-Raú of Majbur. The other leaders in this enterprise were but high-class mechanics, five of ’em, Krishnans all. Of these, three have died of natural causes. The other two remain on as supervisors till, if Kir keeps his promise, these tubes have proved their might upon the sanguinary field of battle, whereupon we shall be released with all the gold we can carry. Assuming, that is to say, the Dour does not cut our throats to silence us for certain, or that the Yeshtites do not track us down and slay us for knowing too much about their infernal cultus.”
“Where’s this Zarrash now?”
“He has the third chamber down. He and I are at the moment on terms of cold courtesy only.”
“Why?” asked Fallon.
“Oh, a difference of opinion. A slight epistemological dissension, wherein Zarrash—as a realist-transcendentalist—upheld the claims of deductive reasoning. Now, I, as a nominalist-positivist was asserting those of inductive. Tempers rose, words flew—childish, I grant you, but long confinement frays the temper. But withal, in a few days we find ourselves driven to reconciliation by sheer tedium of having nobody else with whom intelligently to converse.”
Fallon asked, “Do you know what the explosives are made of?”
“Oh, aye. But think not I will babble the news.”
“You hope to sell that knowledge to some other Krishnan potentate—say the Dour of Gozashtand?”
Sainian smiled. “You may draw your own inferences, sir. I don’t risk a straight answer before I am free of this trammel.”
“What think you of the coming of the gun to this planet?”
“Well, the late Nelé-Jurdaré deplored the whole enterprise, assisting but unwillingly to preserve his own gore. He maintained that to further such murderous novelties was a sin against one’s fellow being, unworthy of a true philosopher. Zarrash on t’other hand favors the gun on the ground it will end all war upon the planet, by making it too frightful for men to contemplate—for all that it had not that effect in Terran history.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I look upon the matter from a different angle of vision: Until we Krishnans have some rough equality with you Terrans in force of arms, we cannot expect equality of treatment.”
“Why, what’s the matter with how you’ve been treated?”
“Nought is the matter, sir. Considering what you
could
have done, you’ve displayed exemplary moderation. But you’re a variable and various lot. You have furnished us on one hand with Barnevelt—a paragon of manly virtue who hath put down the Sunqar pirates and atop of that brought us the boom of soap. On the other hand, there have been palpable swindlers like that Borel. Your methods of selecting those who shall visit us baffle us. On one hand you stop your men of science from imparting their knowledge of useful arts to us—lest by taking advantage thereof we destroy your comfortable superiority. On the other hand, you unleash upon us a swarm of trouble-stirring missionaries and proselytizers for a hundred competing and contradictory religious sects, whose tenets are at least as absurd as those of our native cults.”
Fallon opened his mouth to speak, but Sainian rattled on. “You are, as I have said, more variable than we. No two of you are alike, wherefore no sooner have we adapted ourselves to one of you when he is replaced by another of utterly different character. Take, for instance, when Masters Kennedy and Abreu—both credits to their species—retired at Novorecife and were replaced by those sottish barbarians Glumelin and Gorchakov. And your relations with us are at best those of a kindly and solicitous master to an inferior—who is not to be wantonly abused, but who will, if he knows what is well for him, bear himself in an acquiescent and deferential manner toward his natural lord. Take this consul at Zanid—what’s his name . . .”
“I know Percy Mjipa.” said Fallon. “But look here: aren’t you afraid your planet will get pretty badly shot up? Or that whoever gets guns first will conquer all the other nations?”
“For the first contingency, a man is no deader when slain by a gun bullet than when clouted by a club. And for the second, that were no ill to my way of thought. We need one government for the world—first because we
must
have it ere you will admit us to your hoity-toity Interplanetary Council. Secondly, because it gives us an advantage in dealing with you in any case. Prestige follows power, she doth not precede, as says Nehavend.”
“But shouldn’t such a government come about as a result of voluntary agreement among the nations?” Fallon smiled at the realization that he, the cynical adventurer, was arguing for Terran political idealism, while Sainian, the unworldly philosopher, spoke for Machiavellian realism.
“You’ll never get voluntary agreement in our present stage of culture, and well you know it, Earthman. Why, if the aya-men of our nearest heavenly neighbor, the planet Qondyor—what do you Terrans call it?”
“Vishnu,” said Fallon.
“I recall now—after some fribbling Terran deity, is it not? What I say is: if these rude savages invaded us—let’s say brought hither in Terran spaceships for some recondite Terran reason—think you that even that threat would unite our several states? Nay. Gozashtand would seek revenge upon Mikardand for its defeat at Meozid. Suria and Dhaukia would see a chance to throw off the yoke of Qaath, and then each to erase the other—and so on down the list, each angling for the help of the invaders in extirpating its neighbor, indifferent to its own eventual fate.
“Had we another thousand years wherein to advance at our natural gait, ’twere well—but such time is lacking. And, as I recall my Terran history, you fellows all but blew up your planet before you came to that happy degree of concord; and your general level of culture was far ahead of our own at present. So, say I, we shall receive equal treatment when—and only when—we no longer have this multiplicity of independent sovranties that you can play off, one against . . .”
“Excuse me,” said Fallon, “but I’ve got to get back upstairs before my friend guarding the door goes off duty.”
He crushed out his cigar, rose, and opened the door. There was no sign of Fredro.
“Bákh!”
Fallon breathed. “Either the fool’s gone off exploring on his own, or the guards have taken him! Come on, Sainian, show me around this warren, I must find my man.”
XVI
Sainian led Fallon briskly through the halls and rooms of the crypt. Fallon followed, shooting glances right and left from under his cowl into the many dark corners.
Sainian explained: “Here the guns are stored when finished and inspected . . . Here is the room where the barrels are bored true after forging . . . Here is the stock-making chamber. See how they carve and polish stocks of bolkis-wood; Chabarian lured woodcarvers from Suruskand, for in this treeless land the art’s but feebly developed . . . Here the explosive is mixed . . .”
“Wait,” said Fallon, looking at the mixing process.
In the middle of the room a tailed Koloftu stood before a cauldron under which burned a small oil flame. The cauldron contained what appeared to be molten asphalt. The Koloftu was measuring out with a dipper and pouring into the asphalt the materials from two barrels full of whitish powder, like fine sand, while with his other hand he gently stirred the mixture.
“Beware!” said Sainian. “Disturb him not, lest we all be blown to shreds!”
But Fallon stepped nearer to the cauldron, thrust a finger into one of the barrels of powder, and tasted. Sugar!
Though no chemist, Fallon’s store of general information—gathered in the course of his ninety-four years—informed him that the other barrel probably contained niter. In back of the Koloftu, Fallon could see a mold into which the mixture would be poured to harden into small blocks. But he could not linger to watch this process.
They searched through more chambers: some used by the workers for living, some for storage of raw materials, and some vacant. In one section of the labyrinth, they came upon a door with a member of the Royal Guard standing before it.
“What’s in there?” said Fallon.
“ ’Tis the tunnel to the chapel across the street. In former times the priests used it for their convenience, especially in rainy weather. But now that the government hath rented their crypt, they must needs slop through the wet like common mortals.”
As they searched, Fallon started as a trumpet call reverberated through the caverns. There was a bustle of guards clanking about, the lamplight gleaming on their armor.
“The guard is changed at midnight,” said Sainian. “Be that a matter of moment to you?”
“Hishkak, yes!” said Fallon. “Now we can’t leave until tomorrow noon. You’ll have to put us up.”
“What? But my dear colleague, it would mean my head were I caught harboring you . . .”
“It’ll mean your head if we’re caught, in any case, because you’ve been seen walking all over this place with me.”
“Well then, it were not irrational for me to seek a boon from you in turn. Does that conspiratorial wit of yours hold some plan for freeing me from these noisome toils?”
“You mean you want to escape?”
“Certes!”
“But then you’ll forfeit all this pay the government has supposedly been banking for you.”
Sainian grinned and tapped his forehead. “My true fortune is in there. Promise to get me out—and Zarrash too if you can—and I’ll hide you and your comrade. Though Zarrash be but an addlepated animist, yet I would not leave a professional colleague in such a lurch.”
“I’ll do my best. Oh, there’s the
fastuk
now!”
Having scoured almost the entire cellar, they came upon Dr. Julian Fredro. The archeologist was standing before a section of ancient wall near the exit stairs on which appeared a faint set of inscriptions. In one hand he held a pad and in the other a pencil with which he was copying off the markings.
As Fallon approached with thunder on his face, Fredro looked up with a happy smile. “Look, Mr. F-Fallon! This looks like one of oldest parts of building, and the inscription may tell us when it was built . . .”
“Come along, you jackass!” snarled Fallon under his breath. On their way back toward Sainian’s quarters, he told Fredro what he thought of him, with embellishments.
Sainian said, “There is room for but one here, so I will put the other in Zarrash’s chamber.” He tapped with his knuckle on Zarrash’s door-gong.
“What is it?” asked another elderly Krishnan, opening the door a crack.
Sainian explained. Zarrash slammed his door shut, saying through the wood, “Begone, benighted materialistic chatterbox! Seek not to lure me into any such scheme temerarious. I have woes enough without harboring spies.”
“But ’tis your chance to escape from the Safq!”
“Ohé!
By Dashmok’s paunch, that is an aya of a different gait.” Zarrash reopened his door. “Come in, come in, ere you be overheard. What is that?”
Sainian explained in more detail, and Zarrash invited all to sit down to wine and cigars. Learning that Fredro was a Terran savant, both philosophers began to ply him with questions.
Sainian said, “Now, touching this matter of inductive versus deductive reasoning, dear colleague from Earth, perhaps you can with your maturer wisdom shed light upon our difference. What is your rede?”
Thus the conversation took off into the realms of higher reasoning, far into the night.
The following morning, Fallon felt the bristle upon his chin and looked at himself in Sainian’s mirror. No Earthman could pass as a Krishnan with an incipient beard of the full European or white-race type. Krishnan whiskers were usually so sparse that the owners pulled them out, hair by hair, with tweezers.
Sainian slipped in, bringing a plate on which were the elements of a plain Krishnan breakfast.
“Be not palsied with fright,” said the philosopher, “but the Yeshtites search their temple for a brace of infidels said to have attended last night’s rite, disguised in the habit of priests. The purpose of this intrusion and the identity of the intruders are not known. But since the doorkeepers swear that no such persons went out after the service, they must still be there. And they can’t have descended into the crypt because the only door thereto is constantly guarded. I have no notion, of course, who these miscreants might be.”
“How did they find out?”
“Someone counted the capes of the third-class priests and found that two more had been employed than there were priests to wear them. So, ere this mystery leads to wider searchings, methinks you and Master Yulian had best anoint yourselves ere you bring disaster upon us all.”
Fallon shivered at the thought of the bloody altar. “How long before noon?”
“About an hour.”
“We shall have to wait until then.”
“Wait, then, but stir not forth. I’ll do my proper tasks, and tell you when the guards have changed again.”
Fallon spent the next hour in solitary apprehension.
###
Sainian put his head in the door, saying: “The guards have been changed.”
Fallon pulled his hood well down over his face, glided out with the shuffling walk of the priests of Yesht, and gathered up Fredro in Zarrash’s room. They headed for the exit stairway. The crypt was still lit by oil lamps and the glow of furnaces, just as it had been before; there was no way to tell day from night. When Fredro sighted the carving that he’d been copying the night before, when Fallon had found him and dragged him off, he wanted to stop to complete his transcription.
“Do what you like,” snarled Fallon. “I’m getting out.”
He mounted the stairs, hearing Fredro’s disgruntled shuffle behind him. At the top of the flight he came to the big iron door. With a final glance around, Fallon smote the door with his fist.
After a few seconds there was a clank as the outer bolt slid back, and the door creaked open. Fallon found himself facing a trooper of the Civic Guard in uniform—but not Girej. This Krishnan was a stranger.