Eyes of the Calculor (44 page)

Alarak was roused by the jangling of a bell, which was more of a signal that the door was to be opened than a request to enter. The Tiger Dragon on duty drew back the bolt, and a young man with an impressive scar down his face entered. He was wearing the jacket of

the Dragon Librarian Service under a long coat, and the insignia of rank that he wore was black. Alark remained seated beside the window, and after favoring Dramoren with a glance returned his gaze to the rooftops of Rochester.

Dramoren raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Two Tiger Dragons entered, followed by an edutor.

"Has this man been instructed about the ranking and peerage conventions in Rochester?" asked Dramoren.

"Yes, Highliber."

"So he knows who I am?"

"Yes, Highliber."

"Guards, do your duty."

The Tiger Dragons holstered their long barrel flintlocks, then marched over to Alarak. One hauled the navigator to his feet and pinned his arms, then the other backhanded him across the face. This was not just a formal slap meant to signify an insult but a blow delivered with all the strength of a very strong man. Stars flashed blue before Alarak's eyes, and he would have reeled with the shock had he not been held. Being a person who liked symmetry in everything, the guard now delivered in identical blow with his other hand. Blood began to flow from Alarak's nose. The Tiger Dragon placed his face very close to the navigator's. Dramoren had given him a raw clove of garlic to munch and swallow just before they had entered.

"Do I have your complete and undivided attention you filthy, insolent little man?" the Tiger Dragon shouted in Alarak's face.

"Y-yes," replied Alarak at once.

The guard delivered another two backhands to his face.

"That's yes, Fras Tiger Dragonl"

"Yes, Fras Tiger Dragon."

"What do you do when the second most senior noble in all of the Rochestrian Commonwealth enters your presence?" shouted the guard with undiminished volume and ferocity.

"I, I, I—"

"Let me remind you! You stand! You face him!" Alarak was hauled around to face Dramoren. "You bow!" Before Alarak was

even given the option of defiance or a bow, the guard kneed him in the testicles. He doubled over. The other guard tried to haul Alarak straight again, but his feet merely came off the ground and he remained doubled over. "You say, 'The afternoon's compliments, Highliber!' "

"The afternoon's compliments, Highliber," wheezed Alarak.

The other guard released Alarak, who fell to the floor. The guard kicked him in the ribs with a resounding thud that made even Dra-moren wince.

"Now get up and greet your patron, protector, and benefactor with the deference due to his rank!"

It was not as if Alarak were lacking in courage, but the sudden, catastrophic change in treatment had shattered his determination in a way that weeks of slowly escalating torture could not have. With his chest on fire from three broken ribs, his genitals feeling as if they were being massaged in broken glass, with blood pouring down over his lips and dripping from his chin, he got to his feet, straightened a little, bowed, and greeted Dramoren exactly as the Tiger Dragon had demanded. Dramoren began to circle him.

"Now, then, Fras Alarak, for six weeks we have lavished care upon you and in return you have given us your name, rank in the navigator's guild, and artisan's serial number—not to mention quite a lot of insolence. In my experience, this is the way of particularly stupid commoners when faced with exotic, foreign manners, and nobility. Having determined that you are a commoner, I have decided to have you flung into our lowest, most squalid dungeon and to have Fras Dangerdrine here put in charge of your interrogation. You will be most savagely abused, but kept alive for a long time nevertheless. I no longer care whether you tell me anything about anything, I just want you punished for the rest of your miserable life for insulting me. Occasionally I shall come down to listen, but only when I am in a bad mood and require cheering. Take him away, then have his smell scrubbed from the tower."

Dramoren broke off for the door without another word. Alarak was by now broken, but not only in the physical sense. He suddenly realized that he had grossly insulted one of his betters, that he had

been rude to the equivalent of an airlord, and worst of all that he was being regarded as a commoner. Should Samondel learn any of the foregoing ... A hand seized his collar.

"Highliber, pardon, pardon, pardon!" babbled Alarak as he attempted to drop to his knees.

Dramoren turned in the doorway to see Alarak suspended in midair, Dangerdrine holding him by the collar.

"Well?"

"Highliber, most apologies. No excusings insult. Deserve beatings more."

"Oh, that will be done, have no fear of that."

"Ask all. If say I can."

Dramoren walked back into the room. The Tiger Dragon put Alarak down.

"Where are you from?"

"Mounthaven, glorious Council of Airlords sending."

"Mounthaven in North America, I know the place. Why are you here?"

"Wishing trade—pardon, please."

"Trade? In what?"

"Horses trading. None, are having. In America."

This took Dramoren by surprise. Horses were seen as useful in the Commonwealth, but the idea that an air-going power might value them was not at all expected.

"Good, the Rochestrian Commonwealth is founded upon trade, and we have the finest work and cavalry horses on the continent."

It was now Alarak's turn for surprise.

"Honor, honor, honor," he said to Dramoren's boots.

"Why were you so insolent to my Dragon Librarians?" demanded Dramoren.

"Monthaven, librarians nothing. Flying noble everything. Stupid am, I being. Noble librarian, mighty librarian, wise librarian. Now know. Here no flying."

Dramoren returned to the door, glanced out and snapped his fingers, then turned back.

"Plug his nose, clean him up, then march him down to the Prom-

enade Courtyard," he ordered. "Oh, and one last thing, what is your rank in your North American peerage?"

"Ah, ah," began Alarak, wondering whether or not to confer rank upon himself. His nerve failed. "Like edutor, important edutor. Not warrior. Know maps, finding stars, using for direction."

"Ah yes, I see. A respected calling, but not nobility. Just as it is here."

"Wise Highliber, very right."

It was a half hour before Alarak was clean and sufficiently straight to walk down the three hundred stairs to the Promenade Courtyard. The place was a two-hundred-yard oblong, bordered by Libris buildings, and was alive with men and women engaged in fencing, flintlock practice, and general strength and fitness training. While they were all in exercise tunics, they still wore their colors of Dragon Librarian rank. Alarak was walked the entire length of the place, to where Dramoren was waiting beside a cloth practice dummy that was being used for knife throwing targetry.

"Fras Alarak, until six weeks ago the Commonwealth had no air machines at all, apart from tethered hot air balloons," Dramoren declared as he held up his hand.

All at once the general activity in the long courtyard ceased.

"Look to that tower behind you, the tall, central one."

Alarak turned in time to see something detach from the great beamflash tower, something in the shape of a wing. It gathered speed, flying straight, then banked to circle the tower once before approaching the square. Alarak realized that a man was suspended beneath the wing, but that it had no engine and was just gliding. It flew the length of the courtyard, losing height all the time, then at about thirty yards distance there were two gunflashes from above the flyer's head. The glider swooped over them, then the flyer's feet touched the ground and he ran along until he had lost momentum. Two holes had been drilled through the cloth targetry dummy's head.

"We may be primitive, but we learn very, very fast," said Dramoren.

"All that, six weeks?" gasped Alarak.

"Less," said Dramoren.

Alarak could see that the flyer appeared to be a monk. This was not a surprise, for Mounthaven's monastic clergy also engaged in fundamental research.

"Like centuries past, warden duelwing gliders," said Alarak, realizing that the wing was armed with just fixed flintlock pistols. "Amazing. You are learning all, just having wreck. Sailwing of?"

"Yes," replied Dramoren.

"All this, such wonder."

"Come, talk as we return to your tower," said the Highliber, and again the groups of sweating librarians parted to let them pass. "What are wings used for in Mounthaven?"

"Dueling. Noblemen—and women—only. Gunwings. Have sailwings, carry important things."

"Important things?"

"Messages, gold, treaties, greetings. Sailwings, regals, using for."

"And you came in a sailwing."

"Yes."

"Tell me, what of your antiengine movement?"

"Pardon?"

"Your antiengine movement, the Christian Gaia Crusaders. Certain of my spies have reported that they oppose all fueled engines, like our own Revivalist Gentheists."

"Pardon? Mounthaven?"

"Yes."

"Is not exist. Compression engine, holy machine. Right hand of God, defense against darkness. Engine opposition heresy! Anti-God, anti-American, antimorals, anti-airlord. Not exist."

"You do not have to lie, just refuse to answer and be civil about it."

"Is truth. Christian Gaia Crusaders not existing. Cannot existing. Heresy, treason, abomination, attacking engines, is."

Dramoren stroked his beard as he walked. "Interesting," he said. "Thank you, Fras Alarak, I'll send a medician to tend you. Your words have saved me a great deal of confusion."

"Excusings? Is all, you are wanting?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. But is there any question you want to ask me?"

Alarak thought carefully. This noble was being gracious, but possibly this was some test. Would he prove something by asking a stupid question? Would he betray Samondel, about whom they appeared to suspect nothing?

"Shooting down of me: why?"

"Fras Alarak, had I appeared on horseback in a Mounthaven city, riding for the, ah, airlord's palace as fast as I could, would not the palace guards have opened fire upon me?"

Alarak nodded. "Ah. Explains all."

As the door closed behind Alarak he felt curiously secure. Although he had been subjected to quite a brutal beating, he had established his place in Rochestrian society and at least achieved a meeting with someone very senior. He realized that while they did not have much flight artisanry, they were a very advanced and skilled people. Questions remained, however. What to do next was clearly of most concern, but for now there was no alternative to nothing. The existence of the Christian Gaia Crusaders and the fact that they claimed to be American was quite beyond comprehension.

1-tEARTS OF THE LOVERS

Traralgon Castellany, Southeast Australica

ierjon found that riding a horse had some similarities to controlling a gunwing. Even after a mere five days of lessons and experience, he could manage a walk, trot, canter, and gallop, and had overcome his fears of an animal that was an order of magnitude heavier than anything on either of the American continents. Samondel had been right. Horses had the strength of a small steam engine, were fueled on grass and water, could go almost anywhere, and needed no artisans to build them. Whoever had horses would rule the Americas.

The Warlord of Traralgon was riding beside him, a big and powerfully built man dressed in a shaggy hide coat, leather kilt, and horned helmet. He reeked of horses and sweat, but he knew horses like Serjon's father knew compression engines. He also knew mounted warfare.

"There, watch the apple," said Galdane as one of his lancers came about at the end of a field beside his fortress. "It is the size and color of a heart, and at heart height."

A peasant was standing a few feet away, holding up an apple on his open palm. The lancer urged his horse into a gallop, bearing down on the peasant. The man did not seem concerned, although he was not actually smiling. The lancer thundered past in a flash, and Serjon realized that the apple was now on the end of the lance. The

lancer returned and tossed the apple to the peasant. The peasant began running, again holding the apple in his outstretched hand. Again the lancer skewered the apple. Galdane and Serjon rode over and examined the lance, the apple, and the peasant's uninjured hand.

'Time? Learn also?" asked Serjon slowly.

"To be as good as Fras Canavar? Years. To just kill peasants without style, a month if you worked hard."

They rode past the village, which lay beside the fortress and behind a stagnant-looking moat and low earthwork wall. Twenty lancers were with them, all armed with lance, saber, and musket, and wearing light plate armor that seemed more decoration than protection. Presently they came to a long, ancient wall, where two peasants had lined up a number of pottery jars. As Serjon and Galdane watched, a lancer suddenly left them and charged the wall with a musket in his hands. At about a hundred feet he fired, shattering a jar, then he drew his saber and chopped another jar as his horse jumped the wall. Serjon was so impressed that he clapped.