The Many-Coloured Land Read online

  "In final flight the aircraft took to air. We rode within them to the place, and all embarked to stand upon a rim of land above a cup of liquid sky too wide to see across, while all around the land lay scorched and still. We watched a Great Ordeal, the first upon this world, with Sharn contending for the Firvulag and for the Tanu, bright Lugonn. With Sword and Spear they smote until their armor blazed and birds fell from the sky and heedless watchers lost their eyes. They battled for a month of hours and longer still, until the folk who watched screamed out as one, transfigured in the glory that redounded to the Ship and solemnized its death.

  "At last, brave Sharn could bear no more. He fell with Sword in hand, steadfast until the end. The victory was won by bright Lugonn whose Spear had caused the crater's lake to boil and liquefied the rocks and conjured sparkling dew that merged its tears with ours. And thus the votive offerings of Man and Blade were chosen for the consecration of the Grave. We marched away, the voices of our minds raised up in Song for one last time in honor of the Ship and also him who there was offered up to captain it upon its voyage to the healing dark. There, comforted within the Goddess's womb, they wait the coming of the light . . ."

  The Firvulag raised his cup and drained it. He stretched his arms with a pop and crackle of ligaments and sat staring at Felice with a whimsical expression.

  Madame Guderian said, "Within this ancient tale are certain pieces of information that repay our study. You will have noted the reference to aircraft. These are clearly machines of some sophistication, since they were able to leave the moribund Ship prior to its entrance into Earth's atmosphere. Given the advanced technology implied by the encapsulation of the passengers within the intergalactic organism, one can hardly assume the smaller craft to be simple reaction-engine fuelers. It is more likely that they were gravo-magnetically powered, like our own eggs and subluminal spaceships. And if so . . ."

  Richard interrupted, wide-eyed. "They'd probably still be operational! And Pegleg said his people marched away from the Grave, so they must have left the aircraft there. Son of a bitch!"

  "Where are they?" cried Felice. "Where's this Grave?"

  The little Firvulag said, "When a person dies among us, the remains are taken by the family or friends to a secret place, one that none of the mourners has ever seen before. After the interment ceremony, the grave is never visited again. Its very location is blotted from the mind lest the remains be disturbed by the Foe or by irreverent rascals who would steal the funerary offerings."

  "Quaint customs," Richard said.

  Felice wailed, "Then you don't know where the Ship's Grave is?"

  "It's been a thousand years," the little man replied.

  Richard flung the ladle into the stewpot with a dang. "But, dammit, it's gotta be a whackin' great crater! What'd he say? 'A cup of liquid sky too wide to see across.' And it lies east of Finiah."

  "We have been searching," Madame said. "Ever since I first heard the tale three years ago and conceived the plan, we looked for the Ship's Grave as best we could. But understand the terrain, Richard! The Black Forest lies beyond the Rhine to the east. In our day it was a minor range, a picturesque parkland full of hikers and carvers of cuckoo clocks. But now the Schwarzwald mountains are younger and higher. There are portions well above twenty-five hundred meters, rugged and dangerous to cross and a notorious haunt of les Criards, the Howling Ones."

  "And do you know who they are?" inquired the Firvulag,

  smirking at Richard. "They're the people like me who don't like people like you. The snotty ones who won't let King Yeo-chee or anyone else tell 'em who their enemies are."

  Madame said, "We have, over the past years, done a precarious exploration of the middle portion of the Black Forest range, north of Finiah. Even with the help of friendly Firvulag such as our good friend Fitharn, the project has been fraught with peril. Ten of our people have been killed and three driven mad. Five more vanished without a trace."

  "And we lost some of our lads to the Hunt, too," Pegleg added. "Guiding humans just isn't healthy work."

  Madame went on, "Forty or fifty kilometers east of the Black Forest begins the Swabian Alb, a part of the Jura. It is said to be full of caves inhabited by monstrous hyenas. Not even the malign Firvulag care to dwell in this territory, although it is rumored that a handful of grotesque mutants eke out a pathetic livelihood in sheltered valleys. Yet it is in this inhospitable country that the Ship's Grave is most likely to be found. And with it, not only workable flying machines but perhaps other andent treasures as well."

  "Would there be weapons in the aircraft?" Felice asked.

  "Only one," said the Firvulag Fitharn, staring into the fire. "The Spear. But it would be enough, if you could get your hands on it."

  Scowling, Richard said, "But I thought the Spear belonged to the guy named Lugonn, and he was the winner of the fight!"

  "The winner received the privilege of sacrificing himself," Madame explained. "Lugonn, Shining Hero of the Tanu, raised the visor of his golden glass helmet and accepted the thrust of his own Spear through his eyes. His body was left at the crater, together with the weapon."

  "But what the hell good would this Spear do us?" Richard asked.

  Fitharn spoke softly. "It isn't the kind of weapon you might think. Any more than the Sword of our late hero, Sharn the Atrocious, which the obscene Nodonn has had in his thieving clutches in Goriah for forty years, is any kind of ordinary sword."

  "They are both photoaic weapons," Madame said. "The only two that the exotics brought from their home galaxy. They were to be used only by the great heroes, to defend the Ship in case of pursuit or, later, in the most exalted forms of ritual fighting."

  "Nowadays," said Chief Burke, "the Sword only serves as the trophy of the Grand Combat. Nodonn's had it so long because the Tanu have won the contest for forty years running. Needless to say, there's little chance we'd ever be able to get our hands on the Sword. But the Spear is another matter."

  "Christ!" Richard spat in disgust "So to make Madame's plan work, all we have to do is mount a blind search over two-three thousand square kloms crawling with man-eating spooks and giant hyenas and find this antique zapper. Probably clutched in some Tanu skeleton's hand."

  "And around his neck," Felice said, "is a golden torc."

  "We will find the Ship's Grave," Madame stated. "We will search until we do."

  Old Claude hauled himself to his feet with some difficulty, limped over to the pile of dry wood, and picked up an armful. "I don't think any more blind hunting will be necessary," he said, tossing the sticks onto the blaze. A great cloud of sparks soared into the Tree's black height.

  Everybody stared at him.

  Chief Burke asked, "Do you know where this crater might be?"

  "I know where it has to be. Only one astrobleme in Europe fits the bill. The Ries."

  The stout fighter with the pipe smacked his own forehead and exclaimed, "Das Rieskessel bei Nordlingenl Naturlich! What a bunch of stupid pricks we've been! Hansi! Gert! We read about it in kindergarten!"

  "Hell, yes," sang out another man from the crowd. And a third Lowlife added, "But you gotta remember, Uwe, they told us kids a meteorite made the thing."

  "The Ship's Grave!" one of the women cried out "It it's not just a myth, then there's a chance for us! We really might be able to free humanity from these bastards!" An exultant shout went up from the rest of the crowd.

  "Be silent, for the love of God!" Madame implored them.

  Her hand were clasped before her breast almost prayerfully as she addressed Claude. "You are certain? You are positive that this, this Ries must be the Ship's Grave?"

  The old paleontologist picked up a branch from the woodpile. Scuffing an area of dust flat, he drew a vertical row of X's.

  "There are the Vosges Mountains. We're on the western flank, about here." He poked, then slashed a line parallel to, and east of, the range. "Here's the Rhine, flowing roughly south to north through a wide rift valley. Finiah is here
on the eastern bank." More X's were drawn behind the Tanu city. "Here's the Black Forest range, trending north-south just like the Vosges. Same basic geology. And beyond it, slanting off to the northeast, the Swabian Jura. This line I'm drawing under the Jura is the River Danube. It flows off east into the Pannonian Lagoon in Hungary, someplace over under the woodpile. And right about here . . ."

  The entire company was on its feet, straining to see and holding its collective breath as the old man stabbed his branch down.

  ". . . is the Ries astrobleme. A few kloms north of the Danube, at the site of the future city of Nördlingen, maybe three hundred kloms east of here. And sure as God made little green apples, that's your Ship's Grave. It's a crater more than twenty-five kloms in diameter. The largest in Europe."

  There was an uproar among the Lowlife folk. People crowded in to congratulate Claude and get refills of wine. Someone got out a reed flute and began to play a sprightly tune. Others laughed and danced about. The day that had begun in panicked flight from exotic enemies showed signs of ending as a celebration.

  Ignoring the merrymakers, Madame whispered to Chief Burke. She and the Native American beckoned to the remnant of Group Green and withdrew into a deeply shadowed part of the hollow sequoia.

  "It may be possible," Madame said, "just barely possible, to implement the plan yet this year. But we will have to set out at once. You must lead, Peo. And I must also go to detect and repel the Howling Ones. We will require your help to find the crater, Claude and that of Felice to coerce hostile animals same coin as that unjustly used. The loss of your starship, of your livelihood, was not enough and you know it! You must give of yourself, and then you will no longer despise yourself. Help us. Help your friends who need you.

  "Damn . . ." He bunked away the mist that had risen in his eyes.

  Save.

  His words were barely audible. "All right." The others were all looking at him, but he could not see their eyes. "I'll go with you. I'll fly the aircraft back here if I can. But that's all I can promise."

  "It is enough," Madame said.

  Back at the central fire, the singing and laughing were more subdued. People drifted away to the smaller hearths to prepare for sleep. A small figure hobbled toward Madame, silhouetted against the dying bonfire.

  "I've been thinking on your expedition to the Ship's Grave," said Fitharn. "You're going to need the help of our people."

  "To find the Danube quickly," Claude agreed. "Do you have any idea of the best way to reach it? In our time, its head-waters were in the Black Forest. God knows where the river begins nowadays. The Alps, even some super version of Lake Constance."

  "There is only one person with the authority to help you," the Firvulag said. "You're going to have to visit the King."

  Chapter Two

  Yeochee IV, High King of the Firvulag, came tiptoeing into the main audience hall of his mountain fortress, his seeker-sense probing the dim recesses of the great cavern. "Lulo, my little pomegranate! Where are you hiding?" There was a sound like the jingling of tiny bells mixed with laughter. A shadow fluttered among the red-and-cream stalactites, the hanging tapestries, the tatty fringed trophy banners from Grand Combats forty years gone. Leaving a musky scent in its wake, something glided like a huge moth into a cul-de-sac chamber at one side of the hall.

  Yeochee rushed in pursuit "Now I've got you trapped! There's no way out of the crystal grotto except past me!"

  The alcove was lit by candles in a single golden sconce. The flames struck glints from an incredible profusion of quartz prisms that encrusted the walls, sparkling pink and purple and white like the interior of a giant geode. Heaps of dark fun made inviting mounds on the floor. One of these heaps quivered.

  "So there you are!"

  Yeochee bounded into the grotto and lifted the concealing rug with tantalizing slowness. A cobra with a body as thick as his arm reared up and hissed at him.

  "Now, Lulo! Is that a way to welcome your King?"

  The serpent shimmered and acquired a woman's head. Her hair was varicolored like the snakeskin, her eyes a teasing amber. The tongue that stole from her smiling lips was forked.

  With a cry of delight, the King threw open his arms. The snakewoman grew a neck, shoulders, soft arms with clever boneless fingers, a marvelously formed upper torso. "Stop right there for a moment," Yeochee suggested, "and we'll explore a few possibilities." They fell onto the bed of furs with an elan that made the candle flames gutter.

  A trumpet sounded far away.

  "Oh, damn," groaned the King. The concubine Lulo whimpered and uncoiled but her forked tongue continued to dart hopefully.

  The trumpet. Waited again, nearer this time, and there was a booming of gongs that made the mountain vibrate in sympathy. The stalactites just outside the crystal grotto hummed like tuning forks.

  Yeochee sat up, his once jolly face a mask of dismay. "That stupid contingent of Lowlives. The ones who think they're onto a secret weapon against the Tanu, I promised Pallol I'd check 'em out."

  The alluring lamia wavered, melted, and became a plump little naked woman with apple cheeks and a blonde Dutch bob. Pouting, she pulled a mink rug over herself and said, "Well, this is going to take a while, for Té's sake at least get me something to eat. All this chasing about has got me starving to death. No bat fritters, mind you! And none of that awful broiled salamander, either."

  Yeochee tied his slightly shabby cloth-of-gold dressing gown and ran his fingers, comb-fashion, through his tangled yellow hair and beard. "I'll order you something lovely," he promised. "We caught us a new human cook the other day who has a marvelous way with cheese-and-meat pastry." The King smacked his lips. "This business won't take long. Then we'll have a picnic right here, and for dessert . . ."

  The trumpet sounded a third time, just outside the hall.

  "You're on," said Lulo, snuggling down under the mink. "Hurry back."

  King Yeochee stepped outside the grotto, took a deep breath, and transformed himself from one hundred sixty to two hundred sixty centimeters in height. The old robe became a great trailing cloak of garnet-colored velvet. He acquired a splendid suit of gold-chased obsidian parade armor, its open helm surmounted by a tall crown sprouting two curling members like golden ram's horns and a beaklike extension jutting over the forehead that threw his upper face into deep shadow. He turned on his eyes so that they gleamed with sinister chatoyance. Making a run for it, he assumed the throne without a moment to spare.

  The trumpet sounded for the last time.

  Yeochee raised one mailed hand and several dozen illusory courtiers and men-at-arms winked into being about the throne dais. The rocks of the mountain hall began to glow with rich colors. Rippling music, as from a marimba of glass, filled the room as six Firvulag of the palace guard escorted the humans and Fitharn Pegleg into the royal presence.

  One of the quasi courtiers stepped forward. Using Standard English for the sake of the Lowlives, he declaimed: "Let all pay homage to His Appalling Highness Yeochee IV, Sovereign Lord of the Heights and Depths, Monarch of the Infernal Infinite, Father of All Firvulag; and Undoubted Ruler of the Known World!"

  An organlike peal of deafening intensity stopped the approaching visitors in their tracks. The King arose and seemed to grow taller and taller before their eyes until he loomed among the stalactites like some gigantic idol with emerald eyes.

  Fitharn doffed his tallhat briefly. "How do, King."

  "You have our leave to approach!" boomed the apparition.

  Fitharn stumped forward, the seven humans trailing after him. Yeochee noted with regret that only two of the Lowlives, a sharp-featured fellow with a big black mustache and a younger woman, hollow-cheeked and thin, with fair hair pulled into an unflattering knot, seemed genuinely impressed by his monstrous guise. The rest of the human party regarded His Appalling Highness with either scientific interest or amusement. Old Madame Guderian even betrayed a trace of Gallic ennui. Oh, what the hell. Why not relax?

  "We shall co
ndescend to assume a gentler aspect!" Yeochee decreed. He shrank down to his ordinary self, gold dressing gown, bare feet and all, with his coronet set askew as usual. "Now what's all this?" he inquired of Fitharn.

  "Madame Guderian's plot against the Tanu seems to've taken a quantum leap, King. Better let her tell it."

  Yeochee sighed. Madame reminded him disconcertingly of his late grandmother, a lady who always knew when he had been up to childish mischief. Despite the old Frenchwoman's talent for political intrigue, Yeochee had long since bitterly regretted giving her a golden torc. Madame's schemes always seemed to end up benefiting the Lowlife humans, with only minimal gain to the Firvulag. He should have followed his first instinct and blasted her to flinders with his psychoenergies in those early days when she first had the temerity to step through her own time-gate. Indirectly, after all, she was the author of the present Firvulag degradation!

  The old woman, dressed now in the dappled deerskin garments favored by forest prowlers of her race, stepped boldly to the throne and gave the King a perfunctory bob of her head.

  "You're looking well, Monseigneur. Plenty of healthy exercise, one trusts."

  Yeochee frowned. But at least the old trout had jogged his memory in regard to Lulo's promised snack. He reached out and pulled a bellrope. "Pallol tells me you may have discovered the location of the Ship's Grave."

  "It is true." She gestured toward a silver-haired man among the humans. "One of our new compatriots. Professor Claude, believes he has identified the locale. It was known to him through his scientific studies in the world of the future."

  "Still known six million years from now?" The King beckoned to the paleontologist, who came closer. "You there, Claude. Tell me, in the future, did your people have any recollections of us?"

  Claude smiled at the little exotic and let his gaze wander about the fantastic hall that lay within the heart of the Vosges' highest mountain.

  "Your Majesty, right this minute humanity's direct ancestors are small apes cowering in the forest. They have no language, and so there is no way they can pass on to their descendants any memories whatsoever. Primitive human beings having the power of speech won't evolve for another two or three million years or so, and they won't develop oral traditions until, oh, say, eight or nine thousand years before my time. Wouldn't you agree that it was highly unlikely for future humanity to have retained any recollections of a race of small shape-changing exotic people who live in underground dwellings?"