John Dalmas - Return to Fanglith

"Deneen," I added, "my communicator is acting up again. Same old problem-clicking noises. I've adjusted the gummox. If you can hear me, transmit again and let's see if it's working now. Over."

Both Arno and I looked at the communicator as if watching would help it work. Of course it didn't make a sound that he could hear. "Deneen," I said, "we do not receive you. Transmit again please. Over."

Her voice murmured in the privacy of my ear canal. "Well, brother mine, was that quiet enough for you? Cough if your remote is working. Over."

I coughed, cleared my throat, then looked at Arno, and he at me. "The amulet refuses to talk for now," I said in Norman, shaking my head. "I've had trouble with it before. It will work for a while, and then for no apparent reason it quits."

Of course Arno, being a Norman, was suspicious. I could read it in his face, even by moonlight.

I shrugged. "It will probably work all right later. Will it be all right for me to put it to rest? No use running down the power cell." The last two words were in Evdashian, of course. "That which gives it power," I added in Norman.

To him it was all magic. I could almost smell his distrust as he nodded. "Do what you must," he said, "as long as I keep the amulet."

"If you insist," I answered, and reaching again, switched off the transmitter. The remote would continue to function.

As we started down the road, the remote murmured again. "Larn, I'm getting ready to give him a demonstration. You might want to prepare him so he won't think he's being attacked."

I had this natural urge to answer, but didn't. "Arno," I told him, "if I know Deneen, we can expect her to do something to prove her power to you. I'm sure she won't harm anyone, because we'd like to be your allies. But it may be pretty noisy, so be ready."

He nodded, saying nothing. It wasn't more than half a minute later that a spotlight caught us. Brislieu, taken by surprise, stopped his horse and drew his sword, glancing upward for a moment. Arno was too smart to look at the lamp even briefly; it would make his pupils contract. He looked only at the illuminated area of the ground. Their squires halted behind us; I don't know what they made of all this.

Then the light switched off.

Nothing more happened for a long minute. I sat holding the reins tight, waiting. If what I suspected happened next, my horse might easily start bucking; the average saddle gorn at home would have. Then the light came on again. This time it wasn't an intense and narrow beam, but spread to flood a grove of trees planted in rows not far from the road. I tensed, almost sensing Tarel at the weapons controls.

The dull "thud thud thud" of the heavy blaster punctuated the night, a series of twelve or fifteen shots in maybe six seconds. Energy bolts hissed, trees burst, fragments of wood whirred and plunked around. The horses, well trained, jerked and danced but settled down quickly. Then it was quiet, and the floodlight showed shattered stubs where the nearest trees had been, two hundred feet away.

After a moment it switched off again; only the dark was left. I wondered if any locals had seen what had happened, and what they'd make of it if they had.

The light came back on, its beam narrower again, to shine on a steep, rocky slope about a quarter mile away. Our eyes went to it. The blaster thudded again- one, two, three, four-the bolts slamming one after another into the bedrock. Shards flew, and above the target point a large slab broke loose to slide crashing to the foot of the slope.

Then once more it was dark.

"I think she's done now," I said quietly in Norman. "We have much more powerful weapons this time than before. And we are harder. We have seen our friends killed, and we are looking for allies."

As I said it I had a kind of feeling I'd never had before, a sort of dry emptiness that marked some kind of change in me. It wasn't especially bad, but it wasn't good either. There was a certain flavor of regret to it, but not a heavy sadness or anything like that. And with it came a sense of strength as well. I didn't think I'd ever be awed by Normans again. Impressed by them maybe, but not awed.

"Let us go on," Arno said, also in Norman. "We have miles to ride yet." His voice was quiet. He sounded more than just impressed; he sounded as if he had things to think about.

A Norman sergeant, wearing helmet and hauberk, let us into Count Roger's castle at Mileto. I'd never been in a Norman-built stone castle, so I couldn't compare this with one of them. But it was a lot different from the timber castles that were usual in Normandy. The stone defensive wall was so thick that the small gate we went through was like an inky tunnel.

The grounds inside were like a big country estate with a wall around it. Arno told me it had been built for a Byzantine governor. There were no lights, not even a lamp by a door, and the moon was all but down, hidden by a hill. But even by simple starlight, the buildings were graceful, more beautiful than any I'd seen before on Fanglith.

I couldn't tell how many buildings there were. Quite a few. Some had wings, and courtyards of their own. There were gardens with privacy walls, and trees for fruit and shade. I could smell something in flower. But the walls had corner towers, one much larger than the others, to remind me that war was a way of life on Fanglith.

Arno had told me that Judith of Evreux, Roger's wife, really loved the place. I could understand that, especially if her father's castle in Normandy was like the castles I'd seen there. Arno didn't say so, but I got the idea that he liked this better, too.

We headed for the big stone tower. After Arno had warned the squires to say nothing about what had happened that night, they took the horses away to rub them down and feed them. Arno, Brislieu, and I went into the tower. Our "bedroom" was the large dark hall, lit by a single lamp-a bowl of oil with a cloth wick and a flickering small flame. I could make out other men sleeping-knights and sergeants no doubt. After each of us had gathered together his own little heap of the dry hay piled in a corner, Arno and Brislieu stripped off their hauberks. Then we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep.

They didn't smell nearly as bad as the Norman knights I'd been among in Normandy, or the monks in Provence, as far as that was concerned. What dominated my nostrils was the hay-a clean, pleasant smell. I wondered if they'd learned about baths in this new country they'd conquered.

Arno:

It had been a long enough day, riding in to Reggio, arranging for a ship with a horse hold, rinding and capturing the star man, and riding back to Mileto. But my mind was roiling like a kettle over a fire, too full of thoughts just then for sleep.

The star man! He was ignorant, carried no sword, spoke inadequately, had only a vague idea what to say or do. Even with his sorcerous weapons, which on two occasions I'd deprived him of, and with his sister overhead in their sky boat, he should have been dead long before this. Instead, since the first hour I'd known him, he'd gone from one dangerous situation to another, slipping through each as if, in truth, he was guided by some angel, or the Holy Spirit Himself.

I remembered my old training master, Walter Ironfist, telling us that the only lasting luck was the luck you made for yourself. And while I accepted that, the knowledge did not seem particularly useful. But in the case of this Larn, certainly his luck was beyond mere chance.

I could wish I'd never met him; yet I had. I seemed drawn to him, and despite myself I liked him. And if he, in some way, created luck, one might do well to share a project with him.

Once I'd seen Sicily and come to know it a bit, seen how wealthy Saracen princes lived, and Jewish and Byzantine merchants, I too wanted wealth. And it seemed to me that I could best become wealthy by being a merchant. Fighting, living in the saddle, sleeping among the rocks with one's hauberk on, saddle for pillow, hand on sword hilt and one eye open-it all has a certain flavor. Yet while I admit to relishing it, it was a life I would willingly sacrifice for wealth.