Chapter 25

Shortly after dawn the yacht set sail and sped toward Estorya, a hundred miles west. The breeze was a strong thirty-five miles an hour, precursor of the violent winds that roared across the Xurdimur during the rainy season. Green set every inch of sail he had and took over the helm himself. Steering was not as simple as it had been, for traffic was getting heavy. In an hour he saw no less than forty ‘rollers, ranging in size from small merchants not much larger than his own craft to tremendous three-decker ‘rollers-of-the-line from far-off Batrim, convoying even larger merchant vessels, high-pooped and richly decorated. Then, as they came to within fifty miles of their destination, small pleasure yachts appeared in increasing numbers. And by the time they saw the white rocket-shaped towers that stretched from horizon to horizon, Green was sweating at the manner in which craft were shooting back and forth in front of him.

Miran said, “The entire nation is surrounded by these white towers and by many fortresses interspersed between them. Inside the great circle of towers the Estoryans have many rich farms on the plains. The city proper, however, is built on three roaming islands that were captured by their magic many centuries ago.”

Green raised his eyebrows at this information. “Indeed? And where is the vessel that brought the two demons down from the skies?”

Miran looked blankly at the Earthman, though he knew well enough that he was keenly interested in the so-called demons.

“Oh, it is located close to the palace of the king himself, but not on the hills. It landed on the plain.”

“Hmm. And the strangers will be burned during the Festival of the Eye of the Sun?”

“If they have lived, they will be.”

Green didn’t like to think about their dying. If they had, then his problem was solved. He stayed upon this planet and did the best he could here.

There was one thing he had to admit. That was that having Amra as his wife made such an event not so calamitous as it might have been. She’d keep him so interested that time would pass swiftly, even on this barbarous place.

In that case, he thought, why was he hesitating about taking her to Earth, if he got the chance? No matter where he was she’d see that life was a whirlpool of action. And she’d only begun to disclose the deeps within her. Give her an education, and what a creature might evolve!

What’s the matter with you, Green? he said to himself. Don’t you know your own mind? Are you so capable at handling physical events but a complete muckup when it comes to psychical? Why... ?

“Look out!” cried Miran, and Green threw the helm hard aport to avoid crashing into a small freighter. The captain, standing on the foredeck behind his own helmsman, leaned over the rail and shook his fist at Green and cursed. Green cursed back but after that he didn’t allow himself to begin thinking about Amra until he had steered the ‘roller into the ‘break.

The rest of the day he was busy getting cleared with the port authorities. Fortunately he had a letter from the officer of the island-fortress. It explained why he happened to be in possession of a foreign craft and also recommended that Green be given a chance to sign up in the Estoryan ‘roller-fleet if he wished. Even so, he had to tell his story so many times to an admiring and amazingly credulous audience that it was dusk before he could get free. Outside the customs building he found Grizquetr waiting for him.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked.

“Oh, she knew you’d be tied up for a long time, so she went ahead and got a room in an inn. They’re very hard to get during the Festival, almost impossible. But you know Mother,” said Grizquetr, winking. “She gets what she goes after, every time.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Well, where’s this inn?”

“It’s clear across town, but it’s within sight of the wall that’s built around the demons’ skyship.”

“Wonderful! Rooms must be twice as difficult to get there as on the edge of town. How did Amra do it?”

“She gave the innkeeper three times his asking price, which was high enough. And he found a pretext to quarrel with a man who had long ago reserved a room, threw him out and gave it to us!”

“Ah? And where did she get this money?”

“She sold a ruby to a jeweler who kept shop close to the ‘break. He’s sort of shady, I guess, and he didn’t give Mother what the ruby was worth.”

“Now, where would she get a ruby or any kind of jewel?”

Grizquetr grinned crookedly but delightedly. “Oh, I imagine that a certain fat one-eyed merchant-captain who shall remain nameless must have had one or two rubies within that bag he keeps inside his shirt.”

“Yes, I can imagine. The question that alarms me is how did she get it off Miran? He’d sooner lose a quart of blood than one of his precious jewels. And he’d notice its loss quicker than he would the blood.”

Grizquetr looked thoughtful. “I really don’t know. Mother didn’t say.”

He brightened with a smile and said, “But I’d like to know how she did it! Maybe she’ll teach me some day.”

“She seems to have a lot to teach both of us,” said Green.

He sighed. “Well, I’m eternally indebted to her. No getting out of it. Let’s call a rickshaw and see what kind of a place she has selected.”

Once both had settled in the high-backed chair of their vehicle, and the two men who pulled it had begun their slow trotting through the crowded streets, Green said, “Have you any idea where Miran is?”

“Some. He was detained by the port-officers, too, because he had to explain what had happened to his ‘roller. Then he called a rickshaw and left in a big hurry. He had an officer with him. Not a naval officer. A soldier from the palace, one of the King’s Own.”

Green felt a sinking sensation. “Already? Tell me, does he know where we are staying?”

“Oh, no. When I saw him coming out of the customshouse, I hid behind a bale of cotton. Mother had told me to stay out of his sight. She explained how treacherous he is, and how he hates you because he thinks you brought all his bad luck upon him.”

“That’s only the half of it,” Green replied. He was silent for a while, thinking, his gaze roving idly over the crowds. There were many foreigners in town, sailors from every nation that had a border on the Xurdimur, pilgrims who belonged to the far-flung cult of the Fish Goddess and had come here for the Festival. The majority, however, were Estoryans, a fairly tall people, brown or red-haired, green or blue-eyed, with big noses, thick lips and a slight epicanthic fold. They spoke a guttural polysyllabic semi-analytic language. They wore broad-rimmed hats shaped like open umbrellas, tight-necked shirts with long stringties and pants that were skin-tight from crotch to knee, then ballooned out into many ruffles. Little bells tinkled on their ankles, and the women carried canes. All had a fish, a star, or a rocket-shaped tower tattooed on their cheeks.

Along the narrow winding street were many little shops, flowering with a variety of articles. Green was intrigued by the magical charms being hawked everywhere. Many of these were little towers, replicas of the large ones that encircled the country. On Earth they could have passed for toy spaceships. He bought one. It was made of white-painted wood and was about seven inches long. The big flaring fins and landing struts were well reproduced, but there weren’t any of the fine details that he could have found in such a toy on Earth. There were no holes in the stern or nose for the drive-exhaust or any indications of doors or detector apparatus.

He gave it to Grizquetr and leaned back to do some more thinking. The charm hadn’t disappointed him, because he had not expected any more than what he’d seen. If, in the beginning, those models had been furnished with every little detail, the passage of many thousands of years would have seen them blunted and reduced to their present state of fuzzy symbolic images. Time ate down to the skeleton of things.

He wondered how the charm could have survived up to the present, because it surely must have been over twenty thousand years ago that the prototype, the real spaceship, disappeared and man sank back to savagery again. Then, why had this lasted here, whereas it had not done so on other planets, Earth included?

Abruptly, he noticed that his rickshaw had stopped.

“A procession of priests, going to the palace of the King, where they will spend all night preaching to the demon,” said one of their rickshaw boys. He yawned and stretched. “I suppose that it will be a fine burning, since the priests have predicted that the sun will shine at high noon. They are safe doing that, as it has not failed to shine on Festival Day for a thousand years.”

Green leaned forward, his hands gripping the sides of his chair, and said, “Demon? You meant demons, didn’t you? Weren’t there two of them?”

“Oh yes, there were. But one died two days ago. Hung himself, I heard, though I can’t swear to it since the priests have released no details. The holy ones have been giving the demons a rough time.”

“Demons?” said Grizquetr, snorting with disbelief and disgust. “Doesn’t the very fact that one killed himself prove they’re not fiends? Everyone knows that a demon can’t kill himself.”

“Quite true, my small friend,” replied the taxi man. “The priests have admitted their error. They are truly sorry--so they say.”

“Then aren’t they letting the other man loose?”

“Oh no. Because he may still be a demon. Tomorrow, at high noon, the prisoner goes under the Sun’s Eye and there meets the only death a demon may know. By fire he was born, by fire he shall perish. Chapter Twenty, Verse Sixty-Two. Or so I remember the High Grauchning saying in his sermon yesterday. Myself, I’m not much for reading. Too busy making a living, running my legs off, killing myself so my wife and kids may eat and have clothes on their backs.”

Green scarcely heard the garrulous rickshaw man, so shocked was he at the news. Had he been too late? What if the man who’d died was the pilot and the other one unable to handle the ship?

The rest of the ride he was sunk in such deep gloom he hardly saw any of the many sights that Grizquetr kept pointing out. But he did rouse when the boy said, “Look, Father, there’s the King’s palace, on top of the hill! Beyond that is the ship of the demon. You can’t see it from here, but you will tomorrow when you go to the burning.”

“Don’t be so heartless,” said Green, but he looked carefully at the great marble structure that rambled all over the hill. Somewhere below that, probably filled with dirt, undoubtedly forgotten, was just such an entrance as he’d found on the island of the cannibals. He’d also discovered a similar one upon the fortress of Shimdoog, the night before when he’d gone exploring and Miran had followed him.