The Quest of Kadji
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Chronicles of Kylix #1
- Год: 1973
- Язык: английский
- Год: Five Star Paperback
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Quest of Kadji». Краткое содержание книги:
Kadji filed this small puzzle away, too, under the heading of Mysteries To Be Explored Later.
He had been ill for two full months. His mouth tightened grimly at the news, and he frowned. Shamad was gone now beyond all hope of finding. There were ten thousand places in the wide-wayed world in which the Impostor could have hidden himself, so the Quest, if not actually ended, was at least made futile now… .
In those two months the worst of winter had passed, and when Kadji was permitted out of the cave he saw that spring was near. Gnarled old treees and withered black shrubs grew near the mouth of the snug little cave, and bright green buds stirred upon them. And here and there upon the rounded low hummocks of the old hills, where patches of dirty snow were slowly shrinking, green young blades of grass were thrusting up through the bare, scabrous soil. Grey skies and lowering clouds were giving way to clear blue skies and the gusty wind brought the smell of fresh grass and sunshine.
Further east by some leagues was a city and to it they intended, when Kadji was strong enough to ride. They had lived through the winter in the cave, Akthoob and Thyra taking turns at hunting, and the great wolf, Bazan, proving himself the finest huntsman of them all. It had been hard—grim and desperate at times—that winter, but it was almost over.
Every day now Kadji exercised in the sun. He had emerged from the darkness of his long sleep as pale as a sickly child; but weeks, of exercise in the sunshine and fresh air put meat on his bones, toughened his weak sinews, and bronzed him with his usual tan.
A tenderness had grown up between the boy and girl. Their eyes met often, and they laughed together much, although they, did not speak to one another for the curious shyness that grew between them. Kadji had no experience with women; Thyra was virtually the first woman since his long-dead mother whom he had known on any terms of intimacy. At times Thyra was gay and laughing with him, her face no longer thin and worn, but flushed and bright-cheeked; at times she seemed sad, moody and withdrawn and even abrupt. It was as if she expected something from him, a word, a look, a touch, that would prove the overture to affection. If so, the gesture was not forthcoming, and at times she seemed puzzled and hurt by his lack of response.
Kadji did not understand her feelings at first; he was baffled by her changeful moods, and grew angry sometimes when she was silent with him. He wanted her always to be laughing, always gay and happy. When it dawned on him that she was waiting for him to make an overture, he became most unhappy. It was not that she did not excite and stimulate him, for she did. But he was sworn to a sacred Quest, and a vow of chastity was upon him. In Kadji’s zealous and perhaps over-strict interpretation of the meaning of that vow, even a gesture or token of affection was forbidden. For it seemed to him that there was no very great difference between the physical act of love and a tender word or gesture of love: hence his vow forbade him from either.
He grew puzzled that she could not understand this, for surely she knew he bore with him the sacred honor of his people and could not act as he wished. He was not a free agent, but a bound man. Why could the stubborn girl not see this and stop mooning at him one moment and snapping rudely at him the next?
From feeling puzzled he came to feel hurt and from thence to feeling angry with her, and he exhibited a bit of rudeness himself, from time to time. Old Akthoob sighed dismally, seeing the growing gulf of silence and misunderstanding between the young people, and reflected sadly that to be young is to be terribly vulnerable; it was better, he thought, on the whole, to be old and be past such storms and furies.
But the wise old wizard said nothing to either of them. He had his reasons. He suspected a terrible truth about the girl but it was not his secret to divulge. Besides, although he did not think so, he might be wrong.
The next morning they awoke to find Thyra gone.
iv. Ambar
SHE MUST have arisen before dawn, saddled her grey mare, packed her clothing, weapons and provisions, and ridden off with the great plains-wolf loping like a shadowy phantom at her side. She had left no message, no explanation.
Kadji was grimly silent. He had by this time recovered most of his strength and expressed his determination to press on to the town of Ambar which lay further east; there they could pause before deciding whether to continue east on a trail now months old, or give up the Quest altogether.
The old Easterling wizard did not ask why this decision could not be reached here in the hills. He guessed that this cave bore too many reminders of the girl Thyra, too many memories, for Kadji to endure, They rode east on the Grand Chemedis Road under skies clear and fresh and across a world quickening with the green impulse of spring,
Ambar was a squalid huddle of hovels woven through with reeking alleys, dominated by the hulking ruins of a fallen wall and the time-eaten wreckage of a mighty citadel. Once this had been a provincial outpost of the great world-conquering Horde, but that was ages ago, when Chemedis, City of the Kings, had been young and rich and powerful. That age had long-since passed, the two travelers knew, and although a shrunken remnant of the Chemed Horde yet lurked in the half-ruined, half-deserted metropolis of Chemedis itself, many leagues to the east, all of this portion of the vanished empire had been abandoned for centuries and was given over to wilderness.
They found an inn in Ambar where they could stay and house their steeds, but no one knew aught of any travelers before them. They lingered a time, Kadji grim and sullen, old Akthoob dismal and unhappy, wondering what to do. And then occurred a diversion.
Merchant caravans still used the Grand Chemedis Road, of course. The mighty highway spanned half a continent, and on their year-long journeys between the raw young kingdoms of the west and the ancient and decadent empires of the east, there was no better route than the massive way of paven road that had been constructed in the golden days of the first and mightiest of the great Ja Chans of the Horde.
Some of these merchants were of Akthoob’s own people, as their yellow skin, black queues, and slitted eyes attested. During long evenings in the inn of Ambar, the old wizard conversed with his countrymen, and one evening he came to Kadji quivering with excitement.
“It is an odd tale, but this lowly one suggests there may be something of interest therein,” he puffed, black eyes a-glitter with suppressed eagerness. Kadji bade him speak on.
The tale was shadowy and elusive, but it hinted at something that made Kadji’s blue eyes sparkle. Far to the east, in the half-ruined splendor of Chemedis where the vapid, enfeebled, and powerless descendant of the world-whelming Ja Chans of old held his shrunken court, a mysterious and unknown being had materialized out of nowhere and had rapidly risen to a position of enormous influence. No man knew the history of the nameless one, nor from what dim corner of this world of Gulzund he had come, but he claimed to be a messiah returned from out of ancient time to awaken the weak and languid and decadent Horde to its golden days of former greatness.
Old Chemedian prophecies whispered that a messiah would come after ages of time—a Masked Prophet who would rouse the Chemed warriors again, and place the descendant of the Ja Chans upon the world-spanning throne of his ancestors. Kamon-Thaa, the God worshipped by the Hordesmen, would lend him magical powers. And this prophecy had come to pass!