The Nearest Fire (V1.0), page 15
So I first heard the tale of the Gulgavor who had joined together to capture Scott Gale for the Great Elder. They failed at first after some brawl by the fairground of Otolor, then they waylaid Scott, Dorn and this Ablo in the very streets of Rintoul.
“Meetal knows you are coming, Scott,” I said. “She will crack your skull if she can.”
“Not if I can help itl” said Scott Gale.
He looked dangerous for a moment, with a look I had hardly seen on a human face. I did not know it then, but there had been a death in the field by Otolor. Scott Gale had killed one of the Gulgavor by a blow with the side of his hand. In all the time I had spent with the humans on Tsabeggan, violence and fighting had played no part in our lives. We had argued, perhaps, and Sam Deg had shouted, and Tsorl had been cross and aloof, but none of us had thought of lifting a hand.
“This Ammur Ningan is a dangerous creature,” said Scott. “I have heard about it from Vel Ragan, our friend.”
“I know of this scribe,” I said carefully, “for he comes from Tsagul.”
“When will the EsnarI sail?” asked Scott.
“Not until the setting of the Far Sun.”
“And the Captain has secret orders … ?”
“They expect to sail to Rintoul or to lie off Tsabeggan,” I said.
“Yolo,” said Scott Gale, “what do you think the Pentroy plan is?”
“Tiath Gargan has said it himself, through the Witness Obal,” I replied. “He will have your ship on the mainland in a place where he can watch it.”
“I have heard the Great Elder speak,” said Dorn with a shudder, “and I would not hear him again, not even through a Witness.”
“Sam Deg would not believe,” I said sadly.
Scott Gale began to laugh.
“Sam Deg!” he said. “That is a good name for Captain Sam Fletcher!”
He laughed and his laughter choked a little as if he were close to tears.
“I want to see them,” he said angrily, clenching his fists. “To come so damned far and not to see those guys …”
He walked around the sleeping hold, and Dorn went after him to comfort him. Ablo Binigan fed me more medicine and urged me to lie back, to rest. Presently Scott Gale and Ablo went up on deck to speak with the Captain, and I fell into a kind of half-sleep with the rocking of the ship. I lay in this dreaming state for an hour or more, then was wide awake in the dim, salt-smelling hold. I was afraid and empty; the time in camp was over. I did not know what would become of me. Then I saw that Dorn Brinroyan, the mountain cub, was watching by my sleeping net.
“How long have I slept?”
“It is middle night and Esder is well up,” he said. “We are still lying off Tsabeggan while Diver—Scott Gale—I decides what to do.”
We stared at each other warily in the dark cabin with only a small lantern containing a candlecone to give light.
“Tell me how you found Scott Gale,” I said.
So he began to speak, slowly at first, then with real spirit and excitement. Dorn was a good storyteller; the tale he had to tell is well known on Torin through bis telling: everyone has heard of Othoro Brinroyan, the Luck of Brin’s Five, and of his adventures. Even players have taken up a version of this strange tale and carried it about the towns and villages of Torin. But I am proud that I heard it that strange night in the hold of the ship Beldatt,I when we had one or two more adventures before us.
“Now,” said Dorn, when his tale was done and I had thanked him for it, “tell me something, Yolo Harn. How long were you in the camp of the other humans? How long did it take you to learn their speech?”
He sounded full of interest, maybe a little envious; Dorn had the instincts of a scholar. I thought of my struggles with the Teaching Machine and laughed sadly. I would have gone on the wretched thing all over again just to have that time, that time of learning and peace and friendship over again. I told him all about learning Basic English.
“If we come out of this cave-in,” I said, “you can have Scott Gale put the metal cap on your head and turn on the sleeping light. If I took forty camp hours, you might take fewer to learn the speech.”
“What is a cave-in?” asked Dorn.
“It is the miners’ word for a bad time. Maybe you call it a tangle,” I said. “I am rested now. Is there anything to eat?”
I had had a thought while we were speaking and I knew one thing that I must do, but it did not frighten me too much. Dorn gave me some sailors’ fare, sea cake and a little tot of thin tipsy mash, while he went to fetch Scott Gale. When they came down the ladder, I saw that Scott wore a blue zippersuit like the ones Sam and Lisa and Karen wore sometimes in the camp. I saw him as a member of the team, the Navigator: Scotty, whose guitar hung in his sleeping place in the blue tent. He completed the Bio-Survey Team—in a way he was their Luck too; they had been unhappy without him.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“I thought of risking a confrontation,” he said, “of talking to the Ningan.”
“No!”
“No … I will not try it,” he said. “It’s too dangerous for the others.”
“They have no weapons; they cannot fight their way off the Esnar,”I I said.
“Well, perhaps they fight better than you think, Yolo Harn,” he said, “but I agree that they are outnumbered.”
“Scott Gale,” I said, “I am going back on my boat. I will see them. I will sail with them on the Esnar.”
“Would you do that?” he looked at me thoughtfully.
“Whew!” said Dorn. “Go back to that Ningan? Go and visit Tiath Gargan? You are brave, Yolo Ham.”
“I must do it,” I said. “I cannot leave them without a Speaker.”
At this moment a heavily built Moruian came down the ladder and said his name to me. “Mamor Brinroyan!”
The Captain of the BeldanI had the same face as Dorn, but old and scarred. The family bond was made clear between all these three: Mamor, Dorn and Scott Gale, their Luck. They sat together touching each other on the shoulder in the common family sign of recognition. Then Mamor leaned forward from the round bench where they were sitting and began to speak of Tsagul. I slipped from my sleeping net and sat on the matted floor of the hold to answer him. He had lived in Tsagul once when he was young, it seemed, and his uncle had been a glider pilot. Between the two of us, we knew the old place pretty well. I had spoken a good deal before I realized that Mamor was checking my story. I drew breath to steady myself: there were only these three in the hold, and I trusted them.
“Friends,” I said, “I will tell you how I came to Tsabeggan as a castaway. It is a story I have not even told to my friends on the island.”
So I told them of my crime and my imprisonment and how I came to Itsik. I fought against my own shame in the telling.
When I came to the journey on the muck raft, Mamor slapped his leg and cried, “What a yarn! What a sailor you are, Yolo Ham! I would have you in my crew!”
I felt comfortable, having told so much, but I had still said no word of Tsorl-U-Tsorl. I missed him as much, even more, than I missed the team. I needed his advice, his ruling on all that had happened; I thought of him hobbling about on the island. Yet his secret meant so much to him that II could hardly blurt out his name, bring him to life again, even before these persons of good will.
“Scott Gale,” I said, “I must go back. How will you handle these vassals who lie in wait?”
“I will secure the ship,” he said. “Everything follows from that. Mamor will bring the Beldanto that beach where your raft lies, below the old Tsatroy villa. We won’t attempt a hand to hand fight between this crew and the vassals.”
“But that ship is a fortress,” put in Mamor. “If your friends have locked it, how will you come into it again?”
Scott Gale caught my eye, and we both smiled.
“Yolo Harn knows the secret,” he said.
“There is a door-control, a sesame box on the outside of the ship,” I said. “It is hidden behind a panel. It is for an emergency: if the crew of the ship get accidentally locked out of their ship on a strange world.”
“Oh, the great air ship!” cried Dom. “Will we fly in it, Diver? Will we fly the round of Torin?”
“You are too bold,” I said. “I am a miner from Tsagul, but the metal of that ship is too much for me. I fear it almost as much as the Pentroy vassals. It is larger than the BeldanI and fierce as a fire-mountain. Yet there is one Moruian who does not fear it.”
“Who can that be?” asked Scott Gale. “Do you mean Nantgeeb?”
“Well perhaps that is such another,” I said, “but the Moruian I mean is on Tsabeggan.”
“Another Moruian on the island?” he asked.
“Truly,” I said. “I am reluctant to say his name, but he came with me from Itsik. He has committed no crime and is no friend of the Pentroy.”
I saw Mamor and Scott exchange glances.
“This sounds like a certain leader,” said Mamor, “but it cannot be so!”
“It is impossible!” said Scott. “The Pentroy have made many enemies. Vel Ragan’s old liege …”
“What?” cried Dorn. “Is this the one she means? Is it Tsorl-U-Tsorl?”
So the name was blurted out anyway, but they did not see my face.
“No, it cannot be,” said Mamor. “Dorn, we did not tell you, but word had come from Vel Ragan before we sailed. The Deputy of Tsagul is dead. He lies in a nameless grave on Itsik—Vel Ragan has seen the place by now.”I Dorn reacted strongly to this news. He had never seen the Deputy, but he must have had some attachment to the idea of such a leader. He looked angry and as if he would weep.
“You should have told me,” he said. “I am not a baby, four years shown. I did hope that Vel Ragan and Onnar the Witness would find their leader again, at Itsik or some other place. Tsorl-U-Tsorl. It is a proud name. Did you know him, Yolo?”
“I have heard him speak many times,” I said.
I held out a hand to Dorn in the gesture that means, “Do not weep … be comforted,” and when he clasped my fingers in acknowledgment I drew himI closer to me and whispered.
“I heard him speak this same day on the island!”
Dorn drew back, eyes wide with astonishment.
“Then they are wrong!”
“Tsorl is alive,” I said. “I dug his grave myself. Vel Ragan mourned over it for nothing. For a bunch of bara stalks sewn in a sack.”
Scott and Mamor stared in unbelief.
‘Tsorl-U-Tsorl …” said Scott Gale. Then he burst out in the human language: “The old devil must lead a charmed life!”
I laughed then.
“That is exactly what he has said about you!”
So I added the rescue of Tsorl to my story and told what he had done on the island and how I left him at the last, hidden in the forest by the ogodan tree.
‘There is no one easier to kill thanI a dead person,” I said at last. “The Deputy is still in danger … Ammur Ningan would swat himI like a honey-bug. Please find him.”
“I promise,” he said, giving his version of the Moruian sign for a promise.
‘Truly, the winds must have protected this fellow,” said Mamor shaking his head.
“Say rather the fire-spirits,” I laughed, “for he is a citizen of Tsagul!”
I thought of that time when Tsorl-U-Tsorl stood before tile Tsatroy villa at the setting of the Great Sun and hailed the spirits of fire.
We climbed on deck again, and I checked my good boat. Scott Gale was very restless, striding the deck and staring at the dark bulk of the island, silvered on its heights when the clouds parted over the Far Sun. The BeldanI had out its sea anchor, but it was drifting slowly to the south in the edges of the Round Current; I was actually a little closer to Tsabeggan than I had been. Scott Gale sat with me in the waist of the ship.
“This is the most difficult part, Yolo Harn,” he said. “I don’t think you should tell Sam or the girls that you have seen me. If I know Sam, it would make him try to leave the ship at all costs … they might all get hurt.”
“But if there is a real chance?” I asked.
‘Then tell them. They could secure the ship and tell the Ningan to go to hell.”
“Scott Gale,” I said, “will there be much fighting … wounding … when you go ashore … ?”
“No,” he said solemnly. “No … I’ll do my best.” “Tsabeggan is a good place,” I said. “I would not have it accursed … stained with blood. Have you heard of a place called Sarunin?”
“Why yes,” he said, “yes, I have. Vel Ragan spoke of it as we sailed down to Rintoul. The fire-clan, the Tsatroy, committed suicide there. What really killed the army?I Some kind of plague?”
“Red-wither,” I said. “Summer plague. The only purification for such a sickness is burning.”
“We have a cloak in the family … in the Brinroyan family …” he said. “It has the insignia of the fire-clan. It was made for the old Highness Elbin Tsatroy. I wore it at the Bird Clan Air Race.”
“Well, you are under her protection then,” I said, as cheerfully as I could.
“Don’t be afraid, Yolo Ham,” he said, smiling. “We will all come out of this net. Tsabeggan will not turn into a battleground. Let me give you a letter for the team.”I “No,” I said. “Give me rather some words that they will understand as coming from you.”
He thought for a few moments then laughed sadly and said, “Tell them ‘Corrigan sends his love.’ ”
He coached me in the strange word a few times until I knew it. We went to the rail; it was time for me to embark. Scott Gale’s blue eyes were very bright; Dom stood beside him to comfort him. The boat went down in a sling and everyone pressed around me for a farewell. I climbed down to the boat, tugged on its string, and veered off toward the island. I waved to theBeldanI and saw Scott Gale in his blue suit leaning over the rail. Then I set my face toward Tsabeggan and went off into the misty half-light of Esder under cloud.
It was not such a battle as before, but it took some strength and concentration to get the boat back to the island. I found myself on a stretch of rocky shore about a weaver’s mile from Little Fish Cove. I bent down, dragging the boat under cover and thought I saw light through the trees in the direction of the harbor. I was shaken from my travels, and I had a strong sense of danger growing upon me.
I moved slowly toward Little Fish Cove, then the light of two, three torches picked me up and I heard shouts. II ran back into the darkness to my boat … the Pentroy vassals were out looking for me. I heard my name called and other jeering names they called me: “The Runaway,”I “The Telling-Bird.” I knew that I must let myself be caught, and that they must not know where I had been. There was nothing for it; I released the valves on my poor boat and with a sad hissing sound it crumpled into a bundle of wet plastic around the powerpack and I thrust it well out of sight under the bushes. Then I ran through the trees in the direction of the Tsatroy road.
It was easy to let oneself be caught; I blundered out before a second search party of three vassals and was grasped firmly by Meetal Gullan herself.
“Stupid little muck-eater!” growled the omor. “You have given us trouble!”
I said nothing but found my strength, the old violent strength I had used in prison. I twisted from her grasp and landed several good blows before I was held hand and foot and dragged toward the campsite. Meetal shook a fist the size of a crushing hammer in my face.
“The Ningan will deal with you—”
“Then hold your hand …I vassalI said boldly. “She wants me to be able to speak.”
Meetal dropped her hand at my word. Shouts went up as we came to the Esnar at the dock: “Found! Found! Call off the search!” I had not expected this reception; the Ningan seemed to value my efforts as translator. I knew that I must have this one thread of bargaining power, but as I came to the ship and saw that spare, gray figure, I was afraid. I could see none of the humans. My captors half carried me up the gangplank, across the deck, where the vassals and sailors were stoking again. I was shoved up the ladder to the bridge where Ammur Ningan sat on her writing chair. The moment I was released I struggled upright and faced her. There were torches about and in the light her long eyeslits shone red like those of a wild beast.
“You have wasted my time,” she said in a thin, whining voice.
She gave a signal, and the Esnar was made ready for departure. Meetal and the members of the land party went ashore. I stood on the high bridge with the Ningan in a little circle of quiet; Obal stood watching and a couple of other Pentroy vassals.
“You were needed here,” said the Ningan. “You ran off. Why was that, I wonder?”
I made no reply; the Ningan gave a sharp, controlled movement with her right hand, and I felt a cruel stinging blow on my cheek. Her whip was made of thin, black grass rope; its handle was made of bone.
“Speak up!” said the Ningan.
Again the whip stung my cheek in exactly the same spot; the pain was sharp, but I knew that the skin would be no more than reddened. At the same time I knew that the whip could be made to split the skin, to take my eye out, if she willed it. Still I made no reply, there was nothing I could say.
“Well, the answer is known to me!” hissed the Ningan. “I know very well why you ran off …I Cub Dohtroy!”
She nodded to one of the vassals, who climbed down from the bridge and went into the luxurious fore-cabins. I heard the humans coming up, their heavy boots on the ladders. Sam, Lisa and Karen all were ushered out to stand beside the Ningan’s chair, and she bowed and smiled and made polite gestures to them as she had done before.
“For heaven’s sake, Yolo—where,did you get to?” said Sam.
“Look—we need you . . said Karen. “We don’t want to take you if you would rather stay, but it is so difficult ;..”
“Were you looking for … your friend?” asked Lisa.
I saw them there, my true friends, and I thought of Tsorl and of Scott Gale and all that had passed. I could have sunk down on the deck and wept for fear and weariness and the things I knew and could not tell.
“Don’t speak!” ordered the Ningan. “We will see how good a translator you are.”
