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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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lifted a hand.
“I should have remembered, master, you are as cunning as a leem. Yes, Hardil kept treasure hoarded up for himself.”
“It must be returned to its owners—”
“Most of them are dead.”
“Then, as the Amak, I will take a tithe. The balance goes to the valley. That is understood?”
“Understood, master.”
“Make it so.”
The box of tough lenken wood bound in black iron stood under Hardil’s bed. Some of Nulty’s people dragged the chest out and smashed the locks. They threw the lid back. We all stared in. Treasure... Ah, treasure! This was the muck men fought and killed for, this was the wonder women schemed for...
There was a fair old quantity of gold and silver, some boxes of gems. Kregans are aware of the magic inherent in a gem if it is cut and faceted, unlike the Ancients of our own world. We hauled the stuff out and Nulty appointed a young stylor to make a reckoning, with elders standing by to oversee. The stylor Manchi was not available. Privately, Nulty told me he thought someone had chopped the stylor’s head off and stuffed him into a crack in the mountains. The Whip Deldars, too, suffered a similar fate. Deprecate the bestiality as much as we may, we must also face human nature. So the stylor carefully wrote down an account. I picked up a fine sword. It was a thraxter, but of a fineness that had caused it to be regarded as a treasure rather than a weapon. I hefted it. I bent the blade and it twanged back sweetly.
“Yes, master?” said Nulty.
“Write this among my share,” I said.
No one argued.
Perhaps that was as it should be, too. I know I was aware of the amusement that a Hamalian treasure store had yielded a superb sword for an enemy of Hamal. On the blade the etched magical brudstern in its usual open flower shape showed the blade to be of value. Folk tend to whisper rather than proclaim the magic properties inherent in the brudstern. To - me it meant simply the blade had been valued by someone enough to make me accept it as a brand of quality.
Outside, in the sweet air of Kregen, Nulty cocked a fishy eye up at me. “When, notor?”
“I grieve to say it, old friend. But as soon as possible.”
“I feared so.”
“Then do not fear. You know I repose complete trust in you. You have made of Paline Valley a paradise among the hills. The people love and respect you. I shall be back again to drink a stoup of ale with you and talk over the old days.”
“Make it sooner rather than later.”
“I will, as Havil is my witness.”
A week, I decided, would not be too much of a crime against my people of Vallia. A sennight I would spend with my people of Paline Valley, who were at war with Vallia. As Nulty said, screwing up his eyes against sunglare as the drums rolled from the watchtowers: “We may be cut off and isolated here, but we try to keep abreast of the news. Pandahem island is all ours now, and parts of Vallia. I have heard little from the south, from the Dawn Lands recently.” Then he snorted one of his barking laughs. “I heard precious little, stuck in the cells.”
The drum beat brought the people out of the houses. We all stared up. Wide-winged shapes drifted down among the streaming mingled rays of the Suns of Scorpio. Caught by Nulty’s appraisal of Hamal’s situation, for if anybody could, he represented grass-roots opinion, I stared at those shapes drifting down. I was surprised. More — I was flabbergasted.
“What—?” I said.
“Aye, master. The new flying ships of the air. Do not ask me why the Air Service uses them, although it is whispered they run short of essential commodities in voller manufacture.”
Hamal was never a great seafaring nation; they control airboats, which they call vollers. Together with Hyrklana and other countries of the Dawn Lands — and in Balintol or eastwards, we now believed — they had supplied Paz with vollers, always refusing to sell to old enemies. The secrets of voller manufacture were jealously
“I should have remembered, master, you are as cunning as a leem. Yes, Hardil kept treasure hoarded up for himself.”
“It must be returned to its owners—”
“Most of them are dead.”
“Then, as the Amak, I will take a tithe. The balance goes to the valley. That is understood?”
“Understood, master.”
“Make it so.”
The box of tough lenken wood bound in black iron stood under Hardil’s bed. Some of Nulty’s people dragged the chest out and smashed the locks. They threw the lid back. We all stared in. Treasure... Ah, treasure! This was the muck men fought and killed for, this was the wonder women schemed for...
There was a fair old quantity of gold and silver, some boxes of gems. Kregans are aware of the magic inherent in a gem if it is cut and faceted, unlike the Ancients of our own world. We hauled the stuff out and Nulty appointed a young stylor to make a reckoning, with elders standing by to oversee. The stylor Manchi was not available. Privately, Nulty told me he thought someone had chopped the stylor’s head off and stuffed him into a crack in the mountains. The Whip Deldars, too, suffered a similar fate. Deprecate the bestiality as much as we may, we must also face human nature. So the stylor carefully wrote down an account. I picked up a fine sword. It was a thraxter, but of a fineness that had caused it to be regarded as a treasure rather than a weapon. I hefted it. I bent the blade and it twanged back sweetly.
“Yes, master?” said Nulty.
“Write this among my share,” I said.
No one argued.
Perhaps that was as it should be, too. I know I was aware of the amusement that a Hamalian treasure store had yielded a superb sword for an enemy of Hamal. On the blade the etched magical brudstern in its usual open flower shape showed the blade to be of value. Folk tend to whisper rather than proclaim the magic properties inherent in the brudstern. To - me it meant simply the blade had been valued by someone enough to make me accept it as a brand of quality.
Outside, in the sweet air of Kregen, Nulty cocked a fishy eye up at me. “When, notor?”
“I grieve to say it, old friend. But as soon as possible.”
“I feared so.”
“Then do not fear. You know I repose complete trust in you. You have made of Paline Valley a paradise among the hills. The people love and respect you. I shall be back again to drink a stoup of ale with you and talk over the old days.”
“Make it sooner rather than later.”
“I will, as Havil is my witness.”
A week, I decided, would not be too much of a crime against my people of Vallia. A sennight I would spend with my people of Paline Valley, who were at war with Vallia. As Nulty said, screwing up his eyes against sunglare as the drums rolled from the watchtowers: “We may be cut off and isolated here, but we try to keep abreast of the news. Pandahem island is all ours now, and parts of Vallia. I have heard little from the south, from the Dawn Lands recently.” Then he snorted one of his barking laughs. “I heard precious little, stuck in the cells.”
The drum beat brought the people out of the houses. We all stared up. Wide-winged shapes drifted down among the streaming mingled rays of the Suns of Scorpio. Caught by Nulty’s appraisal of Hamal’s situation, for if anybody could, he represented grass-roots opinion, I stared at those shapes drifting down. I was surprised. More — I was flabbergasted.
“What—?” I said.
“Aye, master. The new flying ships of the air. Do not ask me why the Air Service uses them, although it is whispered they run short of essential commodities in voller manufacture.”
Hamal was never a great seafaring nation; they control airboats, which they call vollers. Together with Hyrklana and other countries of the Dawn Lands — and in Balintol or eastwards, we now believed — they had supplied Paz with vollers, always refusing to sell to old enemies. The secrets of voller manufacture were jealously
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