Jeffrey Lord: Jewel of Tharn

Blade stepped back into the cover of the brush. He crooked a finger at the kneeling figure. He smiled.

"Come here," Blade said. "I will not harm you. I want to talk to you."

Blade halted, stunned. It was impossible and yet it was happening, had happened.

The creature understood him. Blade was speaking in English, as he had always spoken, and the thoughts leaped clear and alive into words.

Yet what came from his lips was a jumble of clicks, trills, and cluttering whistles.

Blade saw no danger in the thing kneeling before him. They could understand each other. Blade was a Lordsman, whatever that was, and he was supposed to have escaped from a cage. The Cage. Take it from there.

He touched the thing on the shoulder. It trembled and began kissing his feet. "Forgive me, Lordsman. Forgive me for my fear. I will serve you in any way I can. Only do not destroy me, I beg you. I have not yet 200 kronos of my time. I am yet owed over 300 kronos before my time of destruction."

"Come with me," said Blade. "Obey me exactly and I will not destroy you. Help me, obey me in all things, and perhaps I will extend your kronos."

He had already spotted the word kronos as being extremely important in this new language which he could speak, and understand, yet not entirely understand. He guessed that kronos had something to do with time, rewards, payment...possibly a great many meanings and nuances. He must bluff his way ahead.

They went down the pebble strewn incline to the pool. The neuter, Blade was now thinking of it so, looked at Blade.

"Permission to drink, Lordsman?"

Blade nodded curtly. He was getting well into the part now. "Permission."

The neuter drank thirstily, wiped its mouth on the back of a hand and gazed up at Blade. Its eyes were a pale green, and glinted with what Blade guessed was a secondary, a limited, intelligence. But at the moment he was completely sure of only one thing: this neuter could not harm him, had no wish to harm him, and might be of great help.

The neuter spoke first. "You will really extend my kronos, Lordsman? Beyond the 500 that is given?"

Blade nodded. He was in it now. Might as well keep on lying and groping.

"Yes. But we will speak of that later. Right now I want your help. I...I have been ill. I escaped from the Cage, as you guessed, but I had a bad fall. I struck my head. And now I do not remember much of anything. I do not know where I am, or what I am doing here. So we must begin at the beginning, you see."

A hint of a smile. A flicker of cunning mirth in the light green eyes. "You fell, Lordsman? You did not have too much soka?"

Blade filed that away. Soka. It could only be the native variant of booze. It was a trifle but it made him feel enormously better, like the comfortable echo of some well-known voice.

Then he scowled and made his voice gruff. "Your name?"

The neuter trembled as though the words had been a physical blow. "Moyna, Lordsman. Moyna. Kronos 4013 AG, Tier 9, Decantment 4. Destruct Kronos 500. It is all here, Lordsman, as required on my birthplate."

The neuter raised an arm and pointed to its armpit. Blade stared. The skin there was as smooth, as hairless, as that around the genital and chest area. Beneath the skin, easily decipherable, was a rectangular plaque bearing the information Blade had just been given. Blade read it with ease, as though he had been doing it all his life, and hardly thought it remarkable. He might not understand a damned thing yet, but he was acclimating fast.

He smiled at the neuter. "All right. You are Moyna. I am Blade!"

The neuter nodded and watched him with bright green eyes. "I understand, Lordsman. You are Blade. You are one of the Twenty and you have escaped from the Cage. I understand that much, Lordsman Blade. It is nearly time for the Sacer and you are afraid that you would fail, that you would not be chosen. I do not understand that, Lordsman, because it is beyond my cuna but if you say it then it must be so. But how can I make slaveface for you, Lordsman Blade?"

Blade tapped his temple again. "I told you, Moyna. I struck my head and I have forgotten much. Nearly everything. So you will answer my questions."

"With all slaveface, Lordsman Blade."

"Where am I, then? What is this place?"

"You are in Tharn, Lordsman. But of course you must know that much?"

Blade nodded curtly. Lied. "Yes. That much I remember. In what part of Tharn am I?"

"In Canto 13, Lordsman. The Provo of North Gorge." The neuter pointed to the fields beyond the hedge. "This is maniarea Zygote. We are harvesting the mani as always."

Blade stared at it, remembering what he had heard on first awakening. Mani must be the cotton-like stuff. But not cotton, since it was edible.

"Who is Jargo?" he asked.

The question seemed to puzzle the neuter. It shrugged and blinked green eyes at Blade. "Jargo, Lordsman? One of the ceboids, of course. A worker beast Of no importance. Why, Lordsman?"

Blade frowned at it. "You will not ask why! You will only answer. Understand that!"

The neuter began to tremble again and tried to kiss Blade's feet. He pushed it away, not ungently. "Enough of that. I want food, shelter, and clothing. And a place where we can talk without being disturbed. Can you find those for me?"

The neuter shook its head. "There is no such place, Lordsman. Surely you know that! But I forget - you struck your head. But let me think. I will try, because it is my duty as slaveface to you, but do not be angry if I fail. I am only thinkspeak to the fourth level."

And now Blade was suddenly uneasy again. He gazed around the barren little pit. They were alone and desolate, and yet suddenly he knew it was not so.

The neuter was crouching, staring at the ground, obviously in deep thought.

Blade said: "Is there danger, Moyna?"

Again surprise in the green eyes. "Danger, Lordsman? That blow on your head was surely a great one. Of course there is danger. There is always danger in Tharn. Much danger for both of us, now. If I am missed and cannot explain to Honcho he will destruct me. If you are taken you will be sent back to the Cage and...but you must know, Lordsman."

Blade was silent. For the moment he was more dependent on the neuter than he liked to admit.

Moyna raised its head and looked around at the pit in which they stood. It looked at Blade and smiled. "I cannot thinkspeak beyond the fourth level, as I said to you, but it is possible that in this place, because it is low lying, we have not yet been seen on the spiscreens. I do not say this is so, Lordsman, but it is possible. One reason I say it is possible is because Honcho has not yet sent soldier-beasts to capture us. If we are on the spiscreens he would have done so by now. So if we are swift we may yet escape. Follow me, Lordsman."

It was, Blade admitted, pretty good reasoning. Thinkspeak at fourth level turned out a pretty intelligent neuter. For which, he thought with no sense of blasphemy, let us thank whatever Tharnian Gods there were.

Moyna was clawing at the side of the pit with his hands, digging like a dog after a buried bone. Soon enough of the gravel was cleared to reveal a round trapdoor made of what appeared to be plastic. It was thick and opaque and emitted a ringing sound when Moyna struck it. Yet it was not metal.

Moyna pulled the trapdoor open on a single hinge. Somewhere inside a light glowed. The neuter motioned to Blade to enter. "Quickly Lordsman! Before we are picked up on the spiscreens."

Blade went down stairs cut into stone. He was in a narrow tunnel floored with stone and so high that he did not have to stoop.

"What is this place, Moyna?"

The neuter was fitting the trapdoor back into place. It turned to Blade and smiled, shrugging. "I said I am only fourth level, Lordsman. So I can not retain much of kronoswrite. I found this place by accident one day, while I was searching for a sled of mani that one of the ceboids had stolen and hidden. They are most cunning at times. Anyway I found this place and explored it, and then I forgot it until this time. I did not memthink or thinkspeak of it, because it is not of my level."