Looters Of Tharn

Chapter 9

For a long moment Blade stood as motionless as the neuter. The realization of what had happened was too overpowering for him to do anything else. It flooded into his mind and completely absorbed his attention. He could not have moved or spoken to save his life.

At last he cleared his mind of the shock and bewilderment. His eyes focused again on the neuter. He replied in the same clicks, whistles, and trills the neuter had used.

«I am no Looter, whatever they may be. I have come to Tharn from another land, for other purposes than those of the Looters.»

The neuter quivered all over as though he had just been stabbed. Then he clasped his hands together until their calloused and grimy knuckles stood out white and the fingers knotted together stopped shaking. It was his turn to speak.

«How is it that you know the true name of this land?»

Blade smiled. He had to fight to keep the smile from turning into a foolish grin. «I have been in Tharn before. I saw the great battle with the Pethcines, and saw them perish by the thousands. I saw the end of the power and the destruction of Urcit. Then I went away. I have traveled far since then, but now I have returned to Tharn. Now I have returned.» Blade was having trouble keeping complete control of his voice. The first overpowering surprise was passing now. In its place was a swelling exaltation, bubbling up inside him like vintage champagne in a glass.

They had done it! After all the time and money wasted on a dozen schemes to bring about a controlled return, he was back in a dimension he had visited before! Back in Tharn, by pure accident. Or was it pure accident? He had been thinking of Tharn as the computer gripped his brain. A clear image of Zulekia, the Maiduke girl he had loved, the girl he had left carrying his child, had been floating before his eyes as he was whirled away from Home Dimension. Did this possibly have something to do with where he had landed?

Possibly. But that was a question for Lord Leighton, back in Home Dimension. For the moment he had landed in Tharn, on his own, as he had always been. But in Tharn he had been Mazda, HE WHO CAME TO THEY. He had been given godlike reverence even before he turned Tharn upside down, ended the power, slaughtered the Pethcines, and finally helped bring about the destruction of Urcit, the great city of Tharn.

A thought struck Blade. Could he be sure that Mazda was remembered with favor, considering how much destruction he had wrought in Tharn? It had been needed to break the mold which had caught and frozen Tharn for centuries, the mold that held people, neuters, Maidukes, bearer maidens, ceboids, and even the Pethcines. They had all been dying in that mold. But what he'd wrought was destruction nonetheless.

Blade remembered the battlefield littered with the corpses of men, women, and horses, the smoke boiling up from Urcit as the explosion of the power pool destroyed it, the screams of the maimed and dying. Was it possible that Mazda would be remembered as a force for evil, who had brought destruction and death when he came to his people?

Blade could not really blame the people of Tharn if that was their attitude. But he had to find out, preferably before he came up against some Tharnians who would take vengeance on Mazda by filling him full of spears and arrows on the spot.

In fact, now seemed the best time. This neuter was weakly armed and comparatively feeble. He was also likely to know more of what had happened and was happening in Tharn. Blade looked at the neuter again.

The neuter had been growing increasingly uneasy as Blade stood silent and motionless thinking over his next move. Now he called out almost plaintively, «How is it that you know all those things? You are no neuter, for you have a Lordsman's body-or a Pethcine's. Yet you cannot be either, for you are too large for a Pethcine and all the Lordsmen were slain in the great battle with the Pethcines. Other than the Pethcines, the only being who had such as a Lords. man had-«He stopped and his mouth fell open as if there was a heavy weight attached to his lower jaw. His eyes widened until it seemed that the eyeballs were going to fall out of their sockets and drop to the ground.

«Yes,» said Blade, nodding. «I am Mazda, HE WHO CAME TO THEY. I came once and did much in Tharn. Now I have come again.» He tried to keep his voice low, soothing, and as calm as if he was buying pipe tobacco in a store. He had to fight down the urge to shout «I am Mazda!» until it went rolling away across the plains on the wind.

The neuter raised one skinny, shaking hand and pointed a finger at Blade. His mouth closed enough so that he could get out a few halting words.

«You-Mazda-once again in Tharn-you-«

Then the neuter passed out and fell flat on his face in the grass. Blade stepped over to him with a weary sigh. People in all sorts of dimensions had all sorts of reactions to him. But this was the first time he had ever made his first contact pass out cold.

Blade easily picked up the neuter and carried him into the machine. Then he poured water on the neuter until he woke up, spluttering and snorting in surprise and indignation.

He nearly passed out again when he realized he was inside one of the deadly Looter war machines. But he quickly realized that there could be no danger to him from this. The machine was obviously under the control of Mazda, so it was no longer dangerous to the people. Unless Mazda was returning as an ally of the Looters? The neuter unmistakably turned pale at the thought, and his lips trembled as he asked Blade.

«You do not return as an ally of the Looters, do you?»

«I do not,» said Blade indignantly. «Their ways are evil and destructive.» Presumably the Looters were the people whose machines had been demolishing the abandoned city.

«They are,» said the neuter. He struggled into a sitting position, but apparently thought better of trying to stand up. «I would make all slave-face in the old way, Mazda. But I hope you will pardon me if I do not. I am not the youngest of the surviving neuters, and this has been a day of shocks and surprises for me.»

Blade laughed. «I can well believe it,» he said. «What is your name, by the way? I do not think I remember you.»

«I am-I was-Krimon, Neuter of the 11th Level. I served in the baby plants. We would have seen little of each other when you were in Tharn the first time. Even if you had seen me, I would not expect Mazda to remember one neuter after so many years have passed. Though Mazda's body seems not to have aged, yet even he can keep only so much in his memory.»

The phrase «so many years» struck a jarring note in Blade's ears. Admittedly his first trip to Tharn had been back in the early days of Project Dimension X. But the whole project had only been running for a few years, not «many.» Unless the year they had adopted in Tharn was much shorter than Home Dimension's?

«Much has happened to me since I left Tharn, as I told you,» said Blade. «But Tharn has been much in my mind during that time.» Blade had many years ago become an expert at telling lies-or at least half-truths-with a straight face. «Tell me, Krimon, what has happened in Tharn during those many years? I would know it, and know it before we travel on to meet any more of the people.»

With an obvious effort Krimon gathered his scattered and befuddled wits and nodded. «I am honored that Mazda asks me. But I wonder if I am the best to tell him. My work was in the House of Bearing, and it was hard work that left me small time to concern myself with other things. I was never high among the ranks of those who fought the Lesser War or reared your son or-«

«My-son?» Krimon looked blankly at him. Blade realized that he had let out a wordless croak. He swallowed hard and tried again. This time the words came out clearly enough so that Krimon understood them. His face looked slightly less blank as he asked, «You did not know that the Maiduke woman Zulekia was carrying your son when you departed from among us?»

«Yes-I knew. But-I did not know what would happen to it-or her. I knew life would be hard for them both, so I did not want to go away. But-«

«We understand. Zulekia did, and so does your son. He will be happy to welcome you to Tharn.»

«He-he is important there?» Blade realized that he was asking his question in a very ungodlike way. He sounded more like a village idiot than a god. But he simply could not force his brain to absorb so many stunning facts at one time. He was facing a situation that he not only had never faced before, but had never in his wildest dreams imagined that he could face.

«Your son is King in Tharn,» said Krimon simply. «Certain neuters who knew much of the legends of ancient Tharn said that was the proper title for a man who ruled. Also, the Pethcines already used it. It was easier to get them to accept your son's rule when he bore a title they knew. But it was not truly easy even then. The Lesser War was a bloody affair. Fortunately your son was a man by then, a mighty warrior. His vengeance upon the Outlaw Pethcines for his mother's death was terrible. They will not-«

Blade held up a hand. «Wait a minute.» He wanted to shout it out, but didn't. «Zulekia is dead? And my son old enough to be a warrior? How-?»

«Yes, Zulekia, Beloved of Mazda, is dead. She was slain in the Lesser War by the Outlaw Pethcines. A long-delayed vengeance for the Great War. But they gained nothing by it. In fact even more of them died than would otherwise have been the case. Your son-«

«My son,» said Blade. The idea of his son seemed the only fixed point in a world that was whirling faster and faster around him, threatening at every moment to explode into a thousand fragments. «How old is my son?»

«I do not know how time is reckoned in the worlds where you have traveled,» said Krimon. «Our wisest neuters-«He broke off hastily as he saw Blade's face turn dark with impatience. «Your son has wives of his own now, and they have borne him children old enough to run and ride and begin training in weapons.»

Blade nodded, keeping his self-control with a considerable effort. «Krimon, how do you measure time in Tharn? Is the chronos still used, or-?»

«Oh no,» said the neuter. «It is sometimes cold and wet, at other times hot and dry. We now measure time by a complete cycle of these particular times. Your son-I think he has now lived through twenty-five of these cycles. In fact, I know that for certain, because I was one of those present to watch over his birth, though I have been kept aside from him since. But when it came time for the child of Mazda to be born, none who had knowledge that might keep it and the mother alive were excluded. I-«

«Krimon,» said Blade quietly. «I would ask you to be silent. If you go on babbling like this, I will pick you up with my own two hands and bounce you off the walls of this cabin until you are quiet.»

Krimon showed no sign of fear. Instead he smiled. «Mazda, it is your right to do with me as you choose. But may I ask you not to kill me until after I have eaten some food? It has been a long time since I last ate. I would like to die on a full stomach if I have the choice.»

Blade laughed. He was beginning to like Krimon. The neuter might have been only of the 11th Level, but it was obvious that surviving twenty-five years of hard living had sharpened his wits considerably. He wondered what it had done for the others who had survived. Then he thought of his son, his son who ruled in Tharn, and for a moment he could not think of the others.

His son. His son, King in Tharn. The words kept repeating themselves in his mind, over and over, going around and around like the spinning wheels of a car stuck in the mud.

With a great effort he dragged his mind back to reality and looked at Krimon. Suddenly he realized that he also was ferociously hungry. It had been a long day for him, too.

«I think that is an excellent idea, Krimon. I will get us both food and water.» Blade rose and went over to the storage compartments.