serving no other function than of being bearers of the Domeheads and the strange
creatures that carried them around like living chariots and attended their every
need. Presumably, therefore, flying creatures existed in the world beyond the
sky that the Domeheads were from, and the Domeheads had learned to tame them
just as robeings had learned to tame steeds, power generators, load-lifters, and
foodmaking machines. But what form of being was it that was not a machine yet
was attended by machines, and at whose bidding magic creatures saw through
mountains, reported distant events, and destroyed without hesitation any who
aroused their masters’ displeasure? Thirg brooded over the question and said
little as the band descended into the valleyhead beyond the saddle and crossed
the slopes below to pick up a track leading in the direction of the river.
Lower down, the slopes leveled out into flat banks covered by pipe-fronded
chemical processing towers, storage tanks, and picturesque groves of
transmission lines and distribution transformers, beyond which the track joined
a wider road that crossed a stretch of open ground to a bridge. The party had
just emerged onto the road when a group of horsemen wearing the uniforms of
Carthogian soldiers appeared ahead, approaching at full gallop from the bridge.
Thirg braced himself for the brutalized fanatics that Kroaxian teachings had led
him to expect; then he saw that Dornvald had eased his mount to a halt and was
sitting relaxed and at ease with a broad grin on his face while the column drew
up behind. “Major Vergallet, unless I’m much mistaken,” Dornvald murmured to
Geynor, who was shading his imagers next to him.
“It is,” Geynor confirmed. He glanced at Thirg and explained, “From the
Carthogian border fort across the bridge.”
Thirg nodded and turned his head back to look. The Carthogians were smartly
attired, alert, and well disciplined, and their leader was at that moment
smiling in a way that was anything but brutally fanatical. He drew up before
Dornvald and saluted crisply. “It’s good to see you back again, sir. I trust
your mission was successful.” Thirg blinked his imager shades, jerked his head
round toward Geynor for a moment, and then stared back at Dornvald. Sir?
“Very much so, thank you, Major,” Dornvald replied. He turned and indicated
Thirg with a gesture. “This is Thirg, an inquirer, who has wearied of Kroaxia’s
stifling ways and comes to enjoy fresher air among our thinkers and artificers
in Carthogia. Thirg, meet Major Vergallet.”
“We are honored to have the general’s companion as our guest,” Vergallet said.
General? Thirg blinked again and shook his head. “The honor is surely mine to be
admitted into such league,” he replied lamely as the column began to move again
and the soldiers formed up on both sides.
Dornvald laughed at Thirg’s bemusement. “You will find Kleippur’s officers in
the most unexpected places and the strangest garbs,” he said. “A small nation
such as ours has to live by its wits and its ability to know more about its
enemies than they know about each other.”
“And more by the skills and knowledge of its armorers than by the size of its
army,” Geynor added as he saw Thirg looking curiously at one of the strange
elongated steel tubular devices which the Carthogian soldiers were carrying
slung across their backs. “And that of course, Question-Answerer, is one of the
reasons why you are here.”
The party rested and refreshed themselves at the border fort, and by the end of
even that brief stay Thirg had already dismissed most of what he had heard about
the Carthogians as ignorant superstition at best, and at worst as a campaign of
misinformation and lies waged deliberately by the more orthodox ruling elites of
other nations to protect themselves from the threat that Kleippur’s social
experiment represented. “The servility and obedience that the Kroaxian priests
teach as a duty heretical even to question serve the nobles and princes in ways
that are clear enough,” Dornvald remarked as he and Thirg talked over their
meal. “But why the whims and fancies of mere mortals should be of such concern
to an all-powerful Lifemaker is far more difficult to conceive. And does it not