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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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Ocean of Clouds if a storm did not bring her down, for she’d been of that variety of voller susceptible to wind pressure.
After that I’d walked and ridden partway in an amith-drawn tracked vehicle, and then walked. I had looked at the city of Ruathytu with its long-striding aqueducts bringing crystal-clear water from the hills to north and south, its many domed temples, its powerful walls, and its thronged bridges, the Bridge of Sicce with its towered houses crowded above the Black River. And, too, I had looked at the grim castle on its narrow crag just east of the junction of the two rivers, the castle of Hanitcha the Harrower that men called the Hanitchik. And, you may be sure, I had not failed to look most malevolently at the tall palace on its artificial lake island, the palace of Hammabi el Lamma, where the diabolical Queen Thyllis ruled with such evil and terrible power.
All Nulty said was: “When do we return to Paline Valley, Amak? For I am grown weary of this great city.”
“What? And where will you find a Fristle fifi there?”
“I can live without them. No wife, no children for me, Amak. I served Amak Naghan, and his son, faithfully. Now you are returned safely, may Havil the Green be praised—”
“Yes, well, as to that, there is nothing in Paline Valley to which to return, is there?”
“We can rebuild! We can find people willing to go to start a new life. I have made friends. There are many guls, aye, and clums, also, who would leap with joy at the chance to start a fresh life.”
That must be true. There were many slaves in Hamal’s Ruathytu, Zair knew. And one miserable step above them, different only in that they called themselves free men, were the oozing masses of clums. Above them, better off, as craftsmen, with rights under the laws, were the guls. All these working-class people groaned under oppressions and taxes and iniquities. If a gul by his daily work as, for instance, a cobbler, employing a clum or two and a few slaves, made a couple of sinvers a day, the strict government of Hamal would relieve him of one of them by way of taxes. Yet I, an Amak, a low rank of noble, paid only ten percent in income tax.
On upward through the ranks of nobility, the nobles paid less and less. An Elten paid nine and a Rango paid eight percent. A Strom paid five percent. A Trylon paid four percent. A Vad paid two percent. A Kov just did not pay at all. Truly, the rewards of nobility were very great in Hamal!
Despite that I lived on a world four hundred light-years from the planet of my birth, and was wont to swagger about clad in a scarlet breechclout, a sword in my fist — all these bright cities with their fountains and their aqueducts, their armies and their air fleets, had to be paid for. Nowhere in the whole universe, I judge, is a man free of income tax.
“There is a gul with a shop just off the Kyro of the Horters,” went on Nulty. [5] “An honest fellow, I think, by name of Lon the Honey. His brother keeps hives outside the city walls and Lon sells the honey. He would be useful in Paline Valley. And there is a blacksmith who was condemned to be flogged unjustly, master, unjustly. And two sisters, seamstresses, who can weave the most wonderful cloth and are tired of making dresses for Horteras. And—”
“Cease, Nulty!”
I could see what he had been doing. He had been sure I was dead this time. He was a shrewd fellow, as I have said, and loyal. Now he must have conceived his loyalty as extending to Paline Valley itself in the absence of the Amak. That fine estate far over against the Mountains of the West had been raided and destroyed by the wild men from beyond those mountains in the eternal frontier fighting that went on, on those borders of Hamal. With a new people, free men and women who owed no slave-status to anyone, he could start anew. Suddenly I knew this was the right thing to do. I had promised to make the name of Hamun ham Farthytu renowned in Ruathytu, and I had not done
After that I’d walked and ridden partway in an amith-drawn tracked vehicle, and then walked. I had looked at the city of Ruathytu with its long-striding aqueducts bringing crystal-clear water from the hills to north and south, its many domed temples, its powerful walls, and its thronged bridges, the Bridge of Sicce with its towered houses crowded above the Black River. And, too, I had looked at the grim castle on its narrow crag just east of the junction of the two rivers, the castle of Hanitcha the Harrower that men called the Hanitchik. And, you may be sure, I had not failed to look most malevolently at the tall palace on its artificial lake island, the palace of Hammabi el Lamma, where the diabolical Queen Thyllis ruled with such evil and terrible power.
All Nulty said was: “When do we return to Paline Valley, Amak? For I am grown weary of this great city.”
“What? And where will you find a Fristle fifi there?”
“I can live without them. No wife, no children for me, Amak. I served Amak Naghan, and his son, faithfully. Now you are returned safely, may Havil the Green be praised—”
“Yes, well, as to that, there is nothing in Paline Valley to which to return, is there?”
“We can rebuild! We can find people willing to go to start a new life. I have made friends. There are many guls, aye, and clums, also, who would leap with joy at the chance to start a fresh life.”
That must be true. There were many slaves in Hamal’s Ruathytu, Zair knew. And one miserable step above them, different only in that they called themselves free men, were the oozing masses of clums. Above them, better off, as craftsmen, with rights under the laws, were the guls. All these working-class people groaned under oppressions and taxes and iniquities. If a gul by his daily work as, for instance, a cobbler, employing a clum or two and a few slaves, made a couple of sinvers a day, the strict government of Hamal would relieve him of one of them by way of taxes. Yet I, an Amak, a low rank of noble, paid only ten percent in income tax.
On upward through the ranks of nobility, the nobles paid less and less. An Elten paid nine and a Rango paid eight percent. A Strom paid five percent. A Trylon paid four percent. A Vad paid two percent. A Kov just did not pay at all. Truly, the rewards of nobility were very great in Hamal!
Despite that I lived on a world four hundred light-years from the planet of my birth, and was wont to swagger about clad in a scarlet breechclout, a sword in my fist — all these bright cities with their fountains and their aqueducts, their armies and their air fleets, had to be paid for. Nowhere in the whole universe, I judge, is a man free of income tax.
“There is a gul with a shop just off the Kyro of the Horters,” went on Nulty. [5] “An honest fellow, I think, by name of Lon the Honey. His brother keeps hives outside the city walls and Lon sells the honey. He would be useful in Paline Valley. And there is a blacksmith who was condemned to be flogged unjustly, master, unjustly. And two sisters, seamstresses, who can weave the most wonderful cloth and are tired of making dresses for Horteras. And—”
“Cease, Nulty!”
I could see what he had been doing. He had been sure I was dead this time. He was a shrewd fellow, as I have said, and loyal. Now he must have conceived his loyalty as extending to Paline Valley itself in the absence of the Amak. That fine estate far over against the Mountains of the West had been raided and destroyed by the wild men from beyond those mountains in the eternal frontier fighting that went on, on those borders of Hamal. With a new people, free men and women who owed no slave-status to anyone, he could start anew. Suddenly I knew this was the right thing to do. I had promised to make the name of Hamun ham Farthytu renowned in Ruathytu, and I had not done
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