The Hand of Zei
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Серия: Viagens Interplanetarias #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Hand of Zei». Краткое содержание книги:
"Food again!" she cried, her irrepressible good humor fully recovered. "Said I not all Nyamen were gluttons? And now back to our game…"
Starvation or no starvation, Barnevelt thought, it was just as well for the ancient customs of Qirib that a few minutes later a shaihan cart, headed north, creaked up the road. Instantly he and Zei were on their feet thumbing. The driver spat and halted his animal.
"Clamber aboard, sir and madam," he said. " 'Tis long since the Mejrou Quarardena has honored my poor slow vehicle with a commission, but your uniform is credential enough for me."
CHAPTER SEVEN
The stagecoach to which they had changed in Alvid stopped at the border between Suruskand to the south and Qirib to the north. On the Qirib side of the line was the usual Amazon guard, the usual inspection, and the usual warning that Barnevelt's sword would have to be wired up in accordance with Qiribo law.
"And now," said the customs inspector while a guard went to fetch the wire kit, "your names?"
Barnevelt had not given the question of identification a thought. Therefore he simply answered, "I'm Snyol of Pleshch, and this young lady is Zei bab-Alvandi…"
"What?" cried the inspector, her voice leaping an octave. "So she is! Your Altitude!" The inspector knelt. "We were commanded to watch for you."
Barnevelt started to say, "Oh, let's not make a fuss…"
"Girls! The princess is saved! Light a fire in the smoke box to send a signal message to the capital! But Your Preemin-encies cannot continue on in a vulgar noisome common carrier! Our dispatch coach is at your service, and I myself will escort you. Descend, I pray. Your baggage? None? What ignominy you must have suffered! Girls, hitch up the carriage. Saddle jap—let's see—five aya. Vaznui, you shall command the post till my return. Rouse the second watch from their slothful beds and bid 'em don parade uniforms, with boot and lance for escort duty…"
Half an hour later, Barnevelt found himself speeding toward Shaf in the back seat of the official barouche, with the top down, Zei beside him, and the customs inspector, her knees touching theirs, facing them from the front seat. The vehicle had a plain black-lacquered body with the royal arms in gold on the doors. A mere male drove the two oversized aya, while the five customs guards, resplendent in purple and gilded brass, galloped before and behind. To clear the road when they approached a settlement, the leader of these blew a shrill little silver trumpet.
Although this was both faster and less smelly than the public tallyho they had just quitted, Barnevelt was not altogether pleased by the change, for his intimacy with Zei was now cut off. Besides, the accouterments of the escort clattered so that one had to shout to be heard, and on the dry stretches one had to breathe the clouds of dust the hooves of those in front stirred up. Finally, Barnevelt had no escape from the chatter of the inspector, a gushy female. She gar-ruled on about the gloom that had descended upon the realm with Zei's disappearance and the unbounded joy that would now reign…
By frequent changes of teams they kept up their headlong pace, save when a rain slowed them during the afternoon. The second day after passing the frontier saw them winding along the road on the north shore of the Qiribo peninsula, the same road on which the emissaries of the Morya Sunqaruma under Gavao had ambushed Barnevelt and Tangaloa on their first approach to Ghulinde. This time, however, there was no interference. To the left crawled the emerald waters of Baj-jai Bay; to the right rose the shaggy peaks of the Zogha.
Roqir was descending behind them when they came in sight of the capital of Qirib. Barnevelt had not seen Ghulinde from this angle, whence the colossal image of the god Qunjar showed his profile, brooding over the spired city on his knees like an overstuffed Buddha with a birthday cake in his lap.
To the left and lower lay the harbor of Damovang. As it came clearly into view, Barnevelt saw the harbor was crammed with shipping. Moreover, most of the ships were war galleys, making a much larger fleet than the/ modest navy he knew Qirib to possess.
"What's all that?" he asked the customs inspector.
"Know you not? Of course, I'm a witless wench, how could you? 'Tis the combined fleet of the powers of the Sadabao Sea, which our magnificent monarch seeks to plat into a firm alliance for the extirpation of the scoundrels who've so grievously affronted us. She does but wait to be sure of the fate of my lady princess ere setting her martial machine into motion. Yonder lie the battleships of Majbur, of Zamba, of Darya, and of other powers of the western Sadabao. Never since Dezful the Golden reigned in riotous ribaldry in Ulvanagh has the sea groaned beneath such armament."
"What kind of ship is that?" asked Barnevelt, pointing. "The galley with a roof."
The ship in question did indeed look like an enormous galley with a flat roof over it.
The inspector giggled and said, "It is a ship of Prince Ferrian of Sotaspe, who's ever dazzling the world with some new thing. One of his subjects has invented a glider of novel design, differing from other gliders in that 'tis propelled through the empyrean by engines pyrotechnic. This galley is adapted to bear a score of such devices on its roof, where-with, 'tis said, he hopes to assail these pirates in their swampy home by flying over them and lapidating them with missiles. But hold, we must make arrangements for your arrival."
She called to the leading customs guard and gave her instructions to gallop on to the palace while the coach dawdled to give the queen time to get organized.
Thus, when the barouche drew up in front of the palace, all the elements of a royal reception were present: Amazons with lances presented, trumpeters blowing flourishes, and the royalty of Qirib and its neighbors drawn up on the steps in glittering array.
Ta-raa went the trumpets. Barnevelt almost glanced over his shoulder to see if there wasn't a movie camera on a boom dolly hovering behind him, so cinematogenic was the scene. Then he remembered the camera on his own finger, and pressed the stud as he advanced toward the queen. A few paces from Queen Alvandi in the front rank, George Tangaloa flashed him a wink, while moving his fist in a way that showed that he, too, was filming the performance.
Barnevelt knelt to the queen while the latter embraced her daughter, then rose at the sound of Alvandi's stentorian voice:
"… inasmuch as our state, in accord with its divinely ordained institutions, does not possess an order of knighthood, I cannot confer it on you as a token of the favor and esteem in which I hold you, General Snyol. I do however hereby confer upon you honorary citizenship in the Monarchy of Qirib, with full rights appertaining not only to the male but to the female as well—together with a draft upon our treasury for fifty thousand karda.
"Now let me present you to these lords and princes gathered here. Ferrian bad-Arjanaq, Prince Regent of Sotaspe. King Rostamb of Ulvanagh. President Kangavir of Suruskand. Sofkar bad-Herg, Dasht of Darya. Grand Master Juvain of the Order of the Knights of Qara of Mikardand. King Penjird the Second of Zamba…"
Having tucked the draft into his jacket, Barnevelt tried to impress on his memory the long roll of names and faces. The first Krishnan whose thumb he grasped, the famous Prince Ferrian, proved a youngish-looking fellow of middle height, slim, swarthy, and intense-looking, wearing a cuirass of overlapping plates, of black-oxidized steel damascened with gold. Next came Rostamb of Ulvanagh, big, burly, and wearing a straggly caricature of a beard, who looked at Barnevelt with dour intentness. After that, however, the unfamiliar names and faces merged into one big confusion in his mind.
The queen was speaking again, "Where's Zakkomir, Master Snyol?"