The Towers Of Melnon

Chapter SEVEN

The warriors of the Tower of the Serpent carried Blade on their shoulders all the way back through the Waste Lands to the base of the tower. That was just as well. Exhaustion, release of tension, and loss of blood from his wounded shoulder were making him light-headed. But his head was not so fogged that he wasn't able to do some hasty thinking.

It was hardly more than noon of his first day in the dimension of the Towers of Melnon. Yet he had already won acceptance as a warrior of one of the towers, a warrior of the First Rank in fact. He had a name, a reputation, a status, the friendship or at least the support of two other prominent warriors of the Tower of the Serpent, and the prestige that came from almost single-handedly winning a war for his new tower. From what the shouting warriors said as they carried him along, Blade gathered that this was something done perhaps once in a generation, if that often. He was doing well enough for the moment.

For the moment. He didn't have any idea of the possible dangers of his situation. Nor could he, until he learned a good deal more about life inside the Tower of the Serpent. And other Towers as well, he added to himself. Particularly the Tower of the Leopard. That Tower of well-drilled warriors looked and sounded worth investigating, if he ever had the opportunity to do so safely. But he didn't even know whether there was any peaceful contact among the Towers on a day-to-day basis. He decided to stop worrying about the future and enjoy the hero's reception that no doubt waited for him in the Tower of the Serpent.

He was not disappointed. Pen-Jerg must have sent messengers on ahead with word of Blade's epic triumph. As the war party lumbered across the Waste Land, Blade could see the balcony on the side toward him turning almost solid green with people. The lifters were going up and down almost continuously as well, lowering others to the ground. More than two hundred warriors were waiting at the base of the tower by the time the war party and Blade arrived. They greeted him with a new outburst of cheering. Blade found that his head was beginning to ache. It was a relief when they lowered him to the ground and stood around him. It would have been more of a relief if they had stood back and given him a chance to breathe.

Blade could hear Pen-Jerg bellowing, «What? The wounded man's lifter not down yet? Didn't Queen Mir-Kasa order it? What! You're suggesting that Her Splendor hasn't thought of everything for greeting a hero! Why you-«which led to a very detailed description of somebody's habits, ancestry, and likely fate. It was followed by an equally detailed description of Blade's heroism. No doubt Pen-Jerg intended it to make whoever had interfered with the reception for Blade feel even more like a worm than before. The description went on for nearly five minutes, occasionally interrupted by still more outbursts of cheering. It ended only when Pen-Jerg apparently ran out of breath. Blade had the impression that Pen-Jerg liked to play to a good audience if he could find one. No doubt such nearly perfect occasions were rare.

Red-faced and perspiring, the Commander then pushed his way through the warriors gathered around Blade and stood over him, looking down at him. Blade decided to use the time until the lifter arrived to ask a few more questions.

«What happens now, Pen-Jerg?»

The commander took a deep breath. «The wounded man's lifter will be sent down for you. It should have been here already, but that-«

«I know,» put in Blade. «I heard you describing him. In fact, I suspect they heard you describing him at the top of the Tower of the Eagle.»

Pen-Jerg grinned. «Perhaps they did. But to speak of you-you will ride up to the balcony in the lifter. Then we will lead you to the warrior's shaft, and up to the reception chamber. Queen Mir-Kasa will greet you there. I think Nris-Pol-«He broke off there, as if he had decided what he was going to say about Nris-Pol was not fit for public consumption. «But the queen will greet you, and confirm your status as a warrior of the First Rank, and give you a name of honor among the High People of the Tower of the Serpent. But before that, you must also have a common name in the style of Melnon. What was your mother's name?»

«Why do you ask that?»

«It is very simple. A man or woman belongs to the family of their mother. Each person has a name of his own-a birth name joined with the name of his mother. I, for example, am birth-named Pen, while my mother's name was Jerga. Thus I am Pen-Jerg. Our queen's mother, queen before her, was Kasa, and named her daughter Mir. So now we are ruled by Queen Mir-Kasa.

Blade nodded, and decided against asking any questions about kings. He doubted if there would be any such thing, and even asking about them might be considered-well, disagreeable. At least in the Tower of the Serpent they were matrilineal-that is, descent was traced through the mother. They might even be completely matriarchal-ruled by women. If that was the case, the warriors might be only a subordinate caste, and their rule-bound wars would make more sense. The Council of Wisdom could be-

Blade reined himself in sharply. He was not an anthropologist, although he had lived and loved and fought among people that any of a thousand anthropologists would have sold their souls to observe. And even anthropologists were not supposed to let their guesses run along ahead of the facts this way. There was a more immediate problem-his name.

«My mother's name was Elizabeth,» he said.

«A terribly long name,» said Pen-Jerg. «No doubt we can arrange to have it written down properly in the Book of Honor and elsewhere that the scribes insist. But to call you by it every moment of your life-can we shorten it to Liza, perhaps?»

«All right.»

«Good. You will be something-Liza. What does the word 'bla-hayd' mean in English?»

Blade grinned. «It means a sharp cutting tool. Like a sword, for example.»

Pen-Jerg stared for a moment, then burst out in roars of delighted laughter. «That is almost too perfect to believe. I cannot think of a better name of honor for you than 'sword.' But your name already means something like that in your own tongue. So you shall be known both among the warriors and in the Book of Honor as Blade-Liza. Do you consent?»

«I do.»

Blade didn't see that he had much choice in the matter, in any case. And he noted that Pen-Jerg was quietly accepting his story of coming from a strange people called the English. Apparently now that he had proved he could do things according to the War Wisdom, no one was disposed to argue over where he came from. One more point settled in his favor. But there was something else to mention.

«Pen-Jerg, is there going to be such a thing as a doctor to treat me? That eighth man did give me something of a gash in the shoulder. Or hasn't anybody noticed?» There was a sarcastic ring to his voice as he said the last sentence.

A moment later he regretted it. «Why, of course,» said Pen-Jerg. «A surgeon will indeed come to you-perhaps even the First Surgeon. We all saw the wound. But you said nothing of it, so we assumed that you were choosing to ignore it, in the manner of true heroes.»

«And I shall continue to ignore it,» said Blade firmly. «It has stopped bleeding»-largely true-«and it no longer pains me greatly»-which was definitely not true. «But even heroes can die or become unable to fight for their towers if they are careless about wounds altogether. So let the surgeon do his best.» Blade wasn't sure if he was going to lose any of his hero's position by saying this. But he knew he would a damned sight rather be less heroic and alive than more heroic and dead from an untreated and infected wound!

Before Pen-Jerg had any time to reply a shout came over the crowd that the wounded man's lifter was ready. Instead of the flying-trapeze arrangement of the regular lifters, it was a large rectangular mesh basket, with a padded bottom. A «wounded man» could stand, sit, or lie in it, depending on the seriousness of his wound and his own inclinations. Blade decided to sit. He would not cut so fine a figure sitting on the cushions as he would standing tall. But he was not sure if he could keep his balance as the basket swayed up the two hundred feet to the balcony. He had visions of himself striking a dramatic pose, overbalancing, and toppling out of the basket to drop all the way to the ground. That would end both of his careers-his permanent one and his new temporary one as a warrior of the Tower of the Serpent.

He climbed into the basket, braced himself against the mesh, and nodded. High above somebody shouted, and the basket lurched and swayed up into the air. Close up, Blade could see that it was raised and lowered on two incredibly thin cords or wires attached to swivel shackles at either end. No doubt the regular lifters used the same. That cord would be worth examining. It appeared to be hardly thicker than heavy sewing thread, yet two strands of it were raising Blade, lifter, and all, a total weight of several hundred pounds. Possibly more, for the frame of the lifter was made of solid metal rods at least an inch thick.

The lifter sailed rapidly up towards the balcony. As it approached the top, Blade saw hundreds of faces begin to line the railing, peering down at him. Up here he could see both men and women in the crowd-apparently the women were forbidden on the ground. The men were mostly wearing warriors' clothing, although some wore long flowing green robes and broad-brimmed hats. The women wore green also, but they were mostly bare-headed, and no two of their robes or gowns seemed to follow the same pattern. Blade saw everything from voluminous wrappings that covered and concealed from neck to ankles to abbreviated tunics that covered no more than a short nightgown and were semitransparent to boot.

The lifter reached the edge of the balcony, and once more eager hands by the dozen reached down to help Blade out. Looking up, he saw that, about thirty feet up, narrow catwalks ran out from small doors in the tower to the very edge of the balcony. At the end of each catwalk was a large winch, and at each winch sat a naked man, head shaved and chained by one ankle to the catwalk railing. As Blade watched, one of them began turning the handle of his winch. One of the trapeze lifters, hanging from the end of the catwalk, dropped slowly toward the level of the balcony. When it had reached that level, a man in warriors' gear was waiting there, to step gracefully into it and drop out of sight clinging to it.

As the warrior dropped out of sight, the men and women on the balcony crowded around Blade, exclaiming over his appearance, his wounds, and other things that made Blade almost want to blush. Frankness, it seemed, was a virtue-or at least not frowned on-in the Towers of Melnon. Then once more a crowd gave way before Pen-Jerg's bull strength and bull voice. The warrior reached down a hand to Blade and hauled him to his feet. «Enough of this!» he bellowed. «You'll get a chance to admire him and ask him all the questions you want at his Honor Naming. For the moment, he's Queen Mir-Kasa's business.»

«Particularly what he's got between his legs!» shouted one woman. «When the queen gets one look at that, she'll never let him go!»

«I wonder how Nris-Pol's going to like that?» said a warrior, and answered himself with a coarse laugh.

«Enough, you babbling fools!» snapped Pen-Jerg. His face was flushed and red with more than his exertions. Obviously he did not like public discussion of bedroom politics. Neither did Blade. He kept his mouth shut as Pen-Jerg led him across the balcony, through the crowd, and into the Tower of the Serpent.

A long corridor ran in from the door, zigzagging sharply toward the center of the tower. It was almost completely deserted except for an occasional warrior who seemed to be on guard. But there were occasional polished metal grills in the wall. Blade could see pale, sunken-eyed faces framed in long dark hair staring through these grills.

«What is beyond those walls?» he asked Pen-Jerg, pointing.

«Nothing that need concern you-I hope,» said Pen-Jerg, with emphasis on that last two words. «Merely a level of the quarters of the Low People. It were more in keeping with the Peace Wisdom that we High People did not have to pass through their levels of the tower even as little as we do. But when the towers were built the Peace Wisdom and the War Wisdom were both for the future, and the reels and lifters not as good as they are today. It was considered both fit and wise to build the balcony where it is. And none have ever seen fit to move it higher.»

«How far up would it have to be moved?»

«The levels of the Low People and the work chambers extend up perhaps three times higher than this,» replied Pen-Jerg. «If the balcony were moved, we would have less to do with the Low People. And it would improve the breed of warriors. There are some weaklings among us now who can ride the lifters down from the present balcony. But were it thrice as far above the Waste Land, their weak hearts would show themselves.»

Blade could not help feeling that it was just as well the balcony was at its present height. He did not particularly look forward to playing the daring young man on the flying trapeze even at a mere two hundred feet up. Six or eight hundred feet up the sheer side of the tower, he suspected his own «weak heart» might show itself.

They reached a corridor that curved away to the left and the right, and took it to the left. When they came to a door decorated with the figure of a warrior in full armor, both swords drawn, Pen-Jerg stopped. Then he pressed a button beside the door. It slid open, and he motioned Blade through.

Inside was a large circular chamber entirely decorated in more pastel shades of green. As Blade looked around, he felt the floor under him quiver, and the chamber started moving upward. It rose so fast that he had to swallow hard several times to clear his ears. Pen-Jerg looked at him and smiled. «Yes, the Shaft of the Warriors rises the fastest of all the shafts in the Tower of the Serpent. And the shafts of the Tower of the Serpent rise the fastest among all the shafts of all the Towers of Melnon. Do you have such things in England, Blade-Liza?»

«Indeed we do,» said Blade. He was a trifle surprised at Pen-Jerg's boasting. The spirit in which the people of the towers seemed to go off to war was more like that of a football game than an army. No, that wasn't the best analogy, considering how many football and soccer games had turned into riots much bloodier than the war he had just fought. In any case, Pen-Jerg's remark suggested that beneath the surface of fairness and even temper the rivalries among the towers aroused strong feelings.

By the time Blade had finished considering this, the elevator car was slowing down. Finally it stopped, and the door swished open. A reception committee was waiting for them in the chamber outside-a warrior, white-haired and stooping, and two men in the flowing robes and broad hats of civilians. Both wore badges pinned to the brims of their hats-one appeared to be a gilded pen, the other a gilded vial.

«You are honored, Blade-Liza,» said Pen-Jerg. «The First Warrior, the First Scribe, and the First Surgeon of the Tower of the Serpent are all here to receive you and prepare you for Queen Mir-Kasa. This is an additional honor that I had not expected even for you.»

Blade was not sure how to react, so he contented himself with a bow as deep as he could manage. That appeared to be enough. The three men returned his bow, and led him and Pen-Jerg into a chamber beyond. This one was furnished with luxurious couches, a sunken bath with every imaginable extra, and a large desk. The First Scribe sat down at the desk, opened a plate in the corner of the top, and unfolded a small microphone on a long boom. Then he pressed a button, and lights flashed on all over the top of the desk.

«Speak toward this recorder, Blade-Liza. To take down your account of who you are and what you have done this way is not our custom. Normally a person being presented to Her Splendor has all the details of his life already recorded in the Metal Mind. But you are from-let us say, someplace other than the Towers of Melnon. There is much that we would know of one from our own Tower that we do not know of you. And without its being known, we cannot be altogether sure that you are fit to meet Queen Mir-Kasa or receive any honors or status among us. Speak, Blade-Liza. The First Surgeon will attend your-wounds while you do. Then there will be food and drink for you.»

Blade nodded. Apparently there were a few more hurdles to get over before his status among these people would be secure. Well, he should have expected it. And at least he came from a profession where lying with a straight face was a survival skill you learned early-or you didn't live to learn it afterward. He had both offered and broken cover stories a good deal more difficult than anything he was likely to need with these people.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the First Surgeon laying out his instruments and dressings on one of the couches. He cleared his throat, and began.

«My name is Richard Blade, Blade-Liza among the people of the Towers of Melnon. I was born in England, in-«