“So far it moves as it should. We must prepare for visitors and for what those shall bring.” Drawing a deep breath she leaned back in her chair. Her hands were now clasped under her chin and she looked straight ahead.
“It begins, at last it begins!” There was a note in her voice which I associated with a demand for deliberate action. It was as if she could fashion time itself to her pattern even as she did her dolls.
Well fed and with the warmth of acceptance of those who, if they were not kin, were yet of my own land, I settled in to sleep. There was yet the long trek into Vapala before us, though the excitement which gripped the caravan at the thought of the coming assembly at the capital had begun to flower in me also. Vapala had been for so many years a storied place that the chance to see this proudest and wealthiest of the queendoms was something to look forward to.
Yet it was not Vapala, or even the trail ahead of us, which twisted my dreaming that night. Once more I stood in a strange room, one different from any I had ever seen. The walls rose into a darkness so far overhead that I could not distinguish any ceiling in that gloom. They also stood far from the surface on which I stood. Around me were great boxes and coffers, some taller than I and many nearly as large as my small dwelling at home.
I was not alone. Murri stood by me, as still as if he listened for some faint sound which would release him eager for a hunt. What I saw above me were great twin orbs of a silver brightness, and these were set in a vast expanse—
A face! So great a face that for me the features could not easily be fitted together. It was as if some craftsman had turned the whole of an islet into a single giant head—not that of a boundary cat but of a human. The eyes moved, blinked.
That I was the object of their survey was very obvious. I strove to move. There was that in that regard which I found vaguely threatening. Yet I was as frozen in place as if I, too, were a fashioned thing and not of flesh, blood, and bone.
Then I strove to speak to Murri. But that power had been taken from me also. I was a mind, an awareness, locked into an image.
“You will come—” I had expected any voice from that vast overhang of face would roar like thunder—but this was no true voice. It was an order which flashed into my mind. “You will come—” There was a repeat of the same words and then an addition. “Ravinga waits—
The face vanished, the walls, the very surface on which I stood was now gone; rather it was as if my own eyes had been detached from my imprisoned body and looked down from the sky on which could only be the sprawl of city buildings—but such a city as if my well-known Meloa had been enlarged a hundred or more times over.
It spread farther and farther, the details became ever cleared as I dropped nearer to it. Now I could see that, unlike Meloa, it had a wall about it and there was a wide gate. Warriors moved there. Their battle wigs were the clear white of mar-stones—their skins also paler. While those who came into the city (they were but shadows shown me in no detail) must stop by these warriors as if to assure the keepers of the gate that they had a rightful business there.
Starting from the gate, that which was the part of me was sent upon a strange journey swinging over a street, pausing above a building which had about it a very large space, in which sheltered many oryxen and I thought that it might be an inn. My sight of that lasted for only a second and then was pushed on, down a short side way, keeping to more of such passages, away from the main thoroughfares where there was a constant passing of the shadow people, until I came so unto a dead-end court and halted (or my sight did) before a building which showed marks of age—in fact at one time it might have had another story, for the top was ragged-looking.
The court was a narrow one, its room shared only by two other buildings, one of which was definitely a ruin, its roof long gone and only part of the outer shell still standing.
Here was no stir of the shadow people. Only it was made clear to me that I should remember well this place and seek it out.
Once more I was drawn back along the same way I had come and I found that I could easily remember every turn or change of small side way and alley which had brought me here.
I had returned to the inn when there was a loud sound, one which shook the whole of the scene I looked upon, as if that was a curtain stirred by a breeze which rent it.
There was no longer any city. Only darkness—
“Rise!” That I had certainly truly heard. I opened my eyes.
One of those I remembered from the night before—one of the caravan guards—stood beside me. The sun was near down and the whole of the encampment had come alive.
Yaksen were being harnessed between the shafts of wagons or stood patiently waiting for their packs to be adjusted.
“We move out,” she who had awakened me from that very strange dream said impatiently. “There is food at the kettle fire but that will soon be gone.”
Remembering my bondage in that dream, I half feared that I could not move now, or was this true reality? I rolled that extra sleep cover I had been loaned and stuffed it into my package, making very sure that the Kifongg, Kynrr’s gift, was well shielded from any chance breakage.
I was not the last to fill my bowl at the fire—the others being sentries of the last watch. Murri had kept close beside me and accepted from my hands a second bowl. I had feared that being among the yaksen and the two or three oryxen which were the mounts of the caravan leaders, he might cause trouble with the animals who would very quickly pick up the scent of an old enemy.
However, it would seem that there was some sort of a truce among them. He did not venture too near, and, though they turned heads and moved nervously as he passed, they did not stampede. For which I was devoutly thankful. If I had had to choose between Murri and this company as to which might be my only salvation, I feared I could not have faced that choice with any fortitude.
As it was we took up our position at the tail of the caravan. The sun was gone and the twilight welcomed travelers to the road. Somewhere along the strung-out line of riders, beasts of burden, carts, a voice started a song and the rhythm of that singing carried us at a steady pace as one after another picked up the refrain.
We halted at intervals to rest the beasts. Dried fruit chunks were passed from the forage cart. These were a treat which only the best of the caravans could afford, for fruit was a great delicacy. My own people never tasted it except at ceremonial feastings, and I found the gummy sweetness could be chewed for a long time, well satisfying any thirst or need for other food. Even Murri, meat-eating predator that he was, appeared to relish it.
There was much talk of the future, speculation as to the choice of Emperor. There would be one trial for each queendom, and only when those of that section of the land accepted the candidate as a success in his endeavor, could he pass on to try the next.
The dead Emperor had such a long reign. In fact so long that those of my father’s generation had been children or quite young when he had taken the trials in triumph. He had displayed successful power of character from the first. It had been he who had put down the custom of duel wars between the Houses, and had not been greatly beloved among his own Vapalan country people for that slighting of what was their cherished belief in “honor.”
However, though they might not still right openly, there were still personal grudges and struggles in the dark between House and House, yet all would close ranks against outsiders. The oft-stated opinion of those I now traveled with was that it was time for the rulership to pass from Vapala, that a winner from one of the other nations would bring welcomed changes at court to be the benefit of the others. The Vapalans, with their noted arrogance regarding all other peoples, needed a taste of a few new changes.