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Quest of the Golden Ape

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h2>The Journey of No Return</h2> <div class="figleft"><ANTIMG src="images/image_e.jpg" alt="E" width-obs="34" height-obs="40" /></div> arlier that day, on the ice fields half a dozen jeks from Nadia City, B'ronth the Utalian had sprinted boldly across the snow toward the girl and her elderly male companion. This had taken considerable effort, because B'ronth the Utalian had not been endowed with an abundance of courage. But B'ronth was a poor man, as Utalia was a poor country; a bag of gold would be a veritable fortune to him. Like most cowards, B'ronth had one passion which could over-ride his timidity: that passion in B'ronth's case was wealth. The old man was fumbling clumsily for his whip-sword when B'ronth hurtled at them. The girl screamed: "Look out, Father Hammeth! Look out!" B'ronth smiled. They would not see the smile, of course. B'ronth, a chameleon man, was invisible. They would see his footprints in the snow, true. They would know him for a Utalian and understand his invisibility. But still the advantage of invisibility would be his. It had always been so when a Utalian fought. It would always be so. B'ronth leaped upon the old man even as he prepared to strike out with the whip-sword. B'ronth was both naked and unarmed. The sword lashed whining at air a foot from his face. B'ronth wrenched its haft from the old man's hand. Hammeth stumbled back. B'ronth swung the whip-sword. He was no duelist. A duelist would lunge and thrust with the whip-sword, allowing its mobile point some degree of freedom by controlling it deftly. A non-duelist like B'ronth would hack and slash, the deadly sword-point whipping about, curling, slashing, striking. Hammeth held up his hands to defend himself. The whip-sword whined in the cold air. The girl screamed. Hammeth's right hand flew from his arm and blood jetted from the stump. Hammeth sank to the ground and lay there in a spreading pool of crimson. His eyes remained open. He was staring with hatred at B'ronth. In a matter of minutes, B'ronth knew, he would bleed to death. B'ronth turned on the girl. She stood before him swaying. She had almost swooned, but as B'ronth approached her, she flung herself at him, crying Hammeth's name, and they both fell down in the snow. B'ronth let the whip-sword fall from his fingers. Half a bag of gold for a dead girl, but the whole bag if she lived. She fought like a wild cat and for a few moments B'ronth regretted dropping the weapon and actually feared for his life. But soon, his courage returning and his whole being contemplating the bag of gold, he subdued the girl. She lay back exhausted in the snow. "Please," she said. "Please bind his arm. He'll bleed to death. Please." B'ronth said nothing. Ylia staggered to her feet, then collapsed and crawled on her knees to Hammeth. The blood jetted from the stump of his arm. He was watching her. A little smile touched the corners of his mouth but pain made his eyes wild. B'ronth licked his lips. He had earned his bag of gold and, earning it, thought of more wealth. He thought: why should I accept one bag of gold from a common Abarian soldier when there are millions of bags of gold in Nadia City? He could deliver the girl, who obviously knew something the Abarians did not wish the Nadians to know, to Nadia City. He could sell her to the Nadians. Or, if the Abarians outbid them, then the Abarians.... Bruised, her cloak in tatters, Ylia reached Hammeth. His eyes blinked. He smiled at her again, smiling this time with his whole face. Then he turned his head away and his eyes remained open and staring. "You ... killed ... him," Ylia said, sobbing. B'ronth dragged her to her feet. "Lulukee!" he called. "Lulukee!" Where was the boy? Lulukee did not answer. Cursing, B'ronth stripped the corpse and dressed in its warm clothing. The blood on the right sleeve was already stiff with cold. Where could Lulukee have gone off to? wondered B'ronth. Well, no matter. They were only a few jeks from Nadia City, where wealth awaited him.... "Come," he said. He dragged the girl along. She looked back at the dead old man until a snow drift hid him from sight. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> After the Utalian had dragged the beautiful girl beyond the ridges of snow, Lulukee the Nadian came down into the valley. He was a small boy of some sixty winters who, like many of the Nadians who did not come from their country's single large city, had lived a hard life as an ice-field nomad. He had seen an opportunity to profit in the service of B'ronth the Utalian, but had not expected this service to include murder. Thus when the Utalian had called him, expecting the boy to drag his supply sled down into the snow-valley, Lulukee had remained hidden. Now, though, he made his way to the body of the dead man and, scavengerlike, went over it with the hope of turning a profit by B'ronth's deed. In that he was disappointed. B'ronth had taken the dead man's snow cloak and his whip-sword: there was nothing left for Lulukee's gleaning. He was about to turn and trudge back the way he had come, when he realized that if he did so, if he exposed himself on the higher wind-ridges, B'ronth might see him. Therefore he remained a long time with the frozen body of Father Hammeth, actually falling into a light slumber while he waited. He awoke with a start. He blinked, then cowered away from the apparition which confronted him. It was a man, but such a man as Lulukee the Nadian had never seen before, a superbly muscled man a head taller than the tall Abarians themselves. "Where's the girl?" the man demanded. "I—I don't know, lord." "How did this happen?" The man looked down with compassion at Father Hammeth's corpse. "I only just arrived, l-lord." "You lie," the big man said. "You were sleeping here. You'll tell me, or—" Lulukee blanched. He owed no loyalty to B'ronth the Utalian. If indeed he remained loyal he might be implicated in the murder of the old man. He said: "It was B'ronth the Utalian." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "Where is he?" "G-going to Nadia City, I think." "Alone?" "No, lord. With his prisoner. A—a lovely woman." "Ylia!" the giant cried. "You! How are you called?" "I am Lulukee of Nadia, lord." "Lead me to the city. Lead me after them." "But lord—" "Lead me." The giant did not shout. He did not menace of glower or threaten. Yet there was something in his bearing which made it impossible for the frightened Lulukee to do anything but obey. "Yes, lord," he said. "Tell me—" as they started out, the boy's sled reluctantly left behind—"is this B'ronth the Utalian in Retoc's pay?" "No, I don't think so. He works alone, lord. Reaping profit wherever he can." "And he took the girl unwillingly?" "Yes, lord." "He won't profit in this venture," Bram vowed. The wind howled behind them. Six jeks ahead of them was Nadia City. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "Can't you see I'm busy? Can't you see I have no time for the likes of you?" Prokliam the seneschal whined in self-pity. "Then make time," B'ronth said boldly, his cowardice obscured by dreams of avarice. "What I have brought through the Ice Gates is important to your ruler." "Bontarc of Nadia," said the seneschal haughtily, "does not waste his time on every Utalian vagabond who reaches his court." "True. But I assume Bontarc of Nadia wishes to know exactly how his brother, the Prince Jlomec, died?" Prokliam fought to keep his puckered old face impassive. But his mind was racing and his heart throbbed painfully. Could the Utalian know anything about that? If so, and if he, Prokliam, brought this B'ronth before the Princess Volna as she had ordered.... "Wait here," Prokliam snapped arrogantly. "And keep your cloak on. We don't want invisible Utalians floating about the palace." B'ronth offered a mock bow. Prokliam turned to go, then whirled about again. "If you're lying, wasting my time—" B'ronth smiled unctuously. "In the ante-room, being amused by your palace guards, is one who has been on the Plains of Ofrid quite recently." "So?" "When the Prince Jlomec was there. She saw him slain." "Wait here," said Prokliam a little breathlessly. He pushed the hanging aside and stalked down a corridor, and around a bend, and up a flight of stone stairs. He was busy, all right. That had been no lie. Preparations must be made for the funeral games of the Prince Jlomec, to which all the nobility of Tarth had been invited. But this, obviously, was more important. On this Prokliam's life might depend.... "Are they checking way-passes, lord?" Lulukee asked the big, silent man at his side. Ahead of them, filing slowly through the Ice Gates, were hundreds of visitors entering Nadia City for the funeral games. A flat-bottomed air-car hovered overhead, peltasts leaning over its sides, ready. Guards flanked the Ice Gates with drawn whip-swords, as if admitting the superiority of Abarian weapons of war. "We'll get through," Bram Forest vowed. "Tell me, Lulukee, if you brought a prisoner to the city who might be worth much to the Abarians but also to the Nadians, and if you were intent on getting the biggest profit, where would you take her?" "If I had great courage, lord?" "If you dreamed of reward." "I would take her to the royal palace, lord, to Bontarc the King or to his sister, Princess Volna the Beautiful, who, some say, is the real power behind the Nadian throne although Bontarc is a great soldier." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> They had reached the gate. "Way passes," a bored guard said. Lulukee mumbled something uncertainly. His heart beat painfully against his ribs. His brain refused to function. There was intrigue here, he could sense that. More intrigue than he cared to have a hand in. As a Nadian citizen, he owned a way pass, of course. But the giant? Obviously the giant did not. Lulukee was sorry he had ever agreed to go along with B'ronth the Utalian. Now he only wanted to get out of the entire situation as quickly—and safely—as possible. He pointed an accusing finger at Bram Forest. "He has no way pass!" Lulukee cried. The guards stiffened, their whip-swords ready. They looked at Bram Forest. Overhead, the air-car hovered, its peltasts stationed there in the event of trouble, their slings poised. Ylia was in there somewhere, a prisoner. Bram Forest spurned violence for its own sake, but Ylia might need him. Ylia, who had nursed him back to health when Retoc had left him for dead on the parched Plains of Ofrid. Ylia, the lovely. "I'm going through," Bram Forest said softly. "Don't try to stop me." For answer, the nearest guard let his left hand drop. It had been a signal. Overhead, the peltasts drew back their slings. "Will you go in peace?" the guard asked, his eyes narrow slits now, his right arm tensed to bring the whip-sword around. Bram Forest waited. Every muscle in his superbly-conditioned body cried for action, but he would not initiate it. The guard pointed back along the path across the ice fields, where hundreds of visitors to the city were waiting impatiently. "Then go," he said harshly, "before your flesh feeds the stilt-birds on the banks of the River of Ice." The guard raised his sword menacingly. Standing rigidly still and giving no warning, Bram Forest lashed out with his left fist, hitting the guard in the mouth. Lips split, teeth flew, blood covered the guard's face. Someone screamed. The guard fell, but his companion lashed out with his own whip-sword. Bram Forest lunged to one side and grabbed the sword-arm, twisting it. The guard howled, dropping his weapon. Lulukee made a dive for it. But the guard, his legs still free, kicked Lulukee in the face. As he fell, his senses blurring, Lulukee wondered why he had made that desperate, foolish attempt to help the big, silent man. He could not answer the question in mere words. But there was something about him, something about Bram Forest, which drew loyalty from you even as the sun drew dew from the ground.... <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Bram Forest lifted the second guard by sword-girdle and scruff of neck and held him aloft. The guard's arms and legs flailed frantically. "No!" he screamed up at the peltasts. "No...." But they had already unleashed their first volley of stones, pelting the helpless guard until he lost consciousness. Bram Forest flung him aside, leaped over the first fallen guard's supine body, and plunged recklessly into the crowds milling just inside the Ice Gates. "He went that way!" a voice screamed. "That way!" "Over there!" "There he is!" It was an ancient city, with narrow, tortuous alleyways and overhanging buildings and little-used passageways. The wide streets—the few there were—mobbed with people. For all his size, the giant had disappeared. Lulukee picked himself up, dusted himself off, and showed his way pass to the guard. The guard said nothing. He had lost three teeth and his mouth was swollen, painful. Lulukee sensed that somehow the little he had done to help Bram Forest was all he would ever do for him. Yet he felt with a strange pride he did not fathom that although his role in the saga of the mysterious giant had come to an end, it was the most important event in his life and would remain so if he lived to be six-hundred. He felt somehow—and could not explain why he felt this—as if in his small way he had done something to make the world Tarth a better place in which to live. Whistling, he pushed his way through the crowds and was lost to sight just as the giant who went before him. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "B'ronth of Utalia!" Prokliam the seneschal proclaimed. Volna the Beautiful nodded. The doddering old seneschal had already told her about the Utalian. She was prepared to receive him now. If he knew what he claimed to know, if he knew the true details of the death of Prince Jlomec, then he must be silenced. Naturally, he wanted gold. They always wanted gold. But gold was not the way to silence them. Gold never worked. It only made them greedy for more. With Volna were, instead of her usual ladies in waiting, two discreet palace guards. Grinning, she looked at their whip-swords. That was the way to silence one such as B'ronth the Utalian. "He may enter," Volna told the seneschal. Prokliam bowed out, saying: "And Princess, you will not forget—" "No, Prokliam, I won't forget. You hardly knew the Prince Jlomec at all, did you? You certainly couldn't have been his favorite." "Princess," breathed the seneschal tremulously as he withdrew. A moment later, B'ronth the Utalian entered the royal chamber. He wore a snow-cloak. He was all but invisible except for the snow-cloak. He was, eerily, a disembodied cloak floating through air. Although, noticed Volna, if you looked closely you could see the faintest suggestion of a man's head above the cloak, as if you saw the rich wall tapestries of the room through a transparent, head-shaped glass. Likewise, the suggestion of arms and legs.... "You are B'ronth?" An unnecessary question, but Volna had not yet made up her mind what must be done. "Yes, majesty," the cloak said in a different but somehow unctuous voice. "You are alone?" "No, majesty," said the cloak. "Then—?" "A girl. A wayfarer of the Plains of Ofrid. I accompany her." "And the story you have to tell?" "I realize, majesty, how the royal Princess must grieve at the loss of her royal brother, the Prince. I realize...." "To the point, man. Get to the point. Are you trying to say you know how Prince Jlomec was slain? You know who killed him?" "Yes," said the cloak boldly, eagerly. Princess Volna smiled. Perhaps something in that smile warned B'ronth the Utalian. But of course, the warning came too late. In a quick jerky motion, the cloak retreated toward the doorway. "Princess...." B'ronth said. Princess Volna told her guards: "Kill him." B'ronth the Utalian had time for one brief scream which, if a sound could, seemed to embody all his frustrated dreams of wealth. Then one of the guards moved swiftly, his arm streaking out. The whip-sword in his hand lashed, blurring, toward the cloak. Bright red blood welled, jetted. B'ronth the Utalian's head, no longer invisible, rolled on the floor at Volna's lovely feet. "Clean that up," she told one of the guards. To the other she said: "Now fetch the girl." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "Mind, lord, I don't question you," Hultax the Abarian said. "But it's just—" "Did you send the message?" Retoc cut him off. "As you ordered, sire. Yes." "Good." "Sire, I hate inactivity. I loathe it. I am a soldier." "As I am," said Retoc slowly, his hard cruel eyes staring at something Hultax could not—and would never be able to—see. "So we just sit here in this rented house in Nadia City, cooling our heels. It doesn't make sense, sire." "Sense?" mused Retoc. "What is sense? Is it victory and power for the strongest? Well, is it?" "Yes, lord," Hultax responded. "But—" "And you sent the message? Our legions will come?" "Yes, lord. Two days hence they'll be encamped on the ice fields three jeks march from the city gates. But I don't see—" "You obey, Hultax. I see. I do the seeing." "But I thought you ... the Princess Volna ... together...." "The Princess can serve me, now. If she can deliver Nadia without a fight, then Tarth is mine, Hultax, don't you see? In two days all the royal blood of all the royal families of Tarth will be assembled here in Nadia for the funeral games. If Bontarc's army doesn't interfere, then I will be master of Tarth." "But if Bontarc finds out—" "That, Hultax," said Retoc with a smile, "is why you sent the message." "My sire," said the proud soldier Hultax humbly. Soon, thought Retoc, all Tarth would call him that. My sire.... <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Ahead of Bram Forest loomed the ramparts of the palace. He must hurry. He knew he had to hurry. He pushed impatiently through the crowd. Several times men looked up angrily, and would have said something. But when they saw his face, they turned away. What they saw in Bram Forest's face made them afraid. "Majesty?" Prokliam the seneschal said. "Well?" Volna demanded. "Didn't the guards send you for the girl?" "Majesty, I was thinking...." "Well, Prokliam, what is it? Didn't you go for the girl?" "Not yet, majesty, begging your pardon...." "If you have something to say, then say it. And get the girl." "Majesty, a seneschal knows the palace. It is his job...." "I warn you, Prokliam, I have little patience today." Her anxiety was evident. "No one wishes to be chosen," Prokliam blurted quickly, boldly, "even as I did not wish to be chosen to accompany the body of Prince Jlomec on the Journey of No Return. Now that you have spared me, in your royal benevolence, I thought I might in turn advise you...." "Yes, what is it, man?" "You should not have killed the Utalian, majesty. If it is ordained that a living man and a living woman accompany the Prince's body to the Place of the Dead, to die there with him, their spirits serving him in death, why choose from among the palace staff? We all have family, we all have friends, we all stand something to lose. But majesty, if you were to break with tradition, if you were to send instead two strangers whose loss meant nothing to the palace, the palace staff would love and revere you even more than they already do." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Volna's beautiful face smiled at him. He did not know what she was thinking. He never knew. No one did. She might reward him or have him slain on the spot. "Why do you tell me this, Prokliam?" she asked. "For saving me when it was thought I would accompany—" "No. There must be another reason." "If you do this deed and if the palace and the people love you for it, and if the scepter of power should slip from Bontarc's hand to yours, and if, when it came time to select your prime minister...." "Ha! Ha! Ha! We have an ambitious palace butler." "But surely you—" "Yes, Prokliam. I understand. I won't deny it. Perhaps I had the Utalian slain impetuously. But there's still the girl." "I'll fetch her at once, majesty." "And if," mused Volna, no longer aware of the seneschal's presence, "we could find another stranger, a man, to accompany the body of Prince Jlomec on the Journey of No Return, not only the palace, but the people as well would love me. A stranger...." "Take me to your King," Bram Forest told the palace guard. The guard smirked. "Do you think any stranger in the realm is granted an audience with King Bontarc, fool?" "It is a matter of life and death." "But whose life and death?" demanded the guard, roaring with laughter. "Yours, idiot?" "It is about Ylia the Wayfarer." "I know of no Ylia the Wayfarer. Begone, dolt!" "It is about Prince Jlomec." The guard's eyes narrowed. The word had been passed by no less a person than Prokliam the seneschal that anyone with information concerning the death of the royal Prince should be brought at once not to Bontarc but to Princess Volna. Could the guard, could he, Porfis, do less? "Very well," he said. "Come with me." Unarmed, but aware of his giant's strength and the mission which had seen him spend the first hundred years of his life in a crypt on Earth, Bram Forest went with the guard. The way was long, through chambers in which priceless tapestries hung, through narrow, musty corridors into which the light of day barely penetrated, through rooms in which ladies in waiting and courtiers talked and joked, up bare stone stairs and through heavy wooden doors which Porfis the guard opened with a key which hung at his belt. The doors opened slowly. Bram Forest entered a large room. It was, he could see at a glance, a woman's bower. Someone was standing at the far end of the room, in shadow. He squinted. He took two slow steps into the room. He began to run. "Ylia! Ylia!" he cried. Too late he saw the fetters binding her arms. Too late he saw her bite savagely at something and twist her neck and spit the gag from her mouth. Too late he heard her cry: "Bram! Bram Forest! Behind you!" He turned barely in time to see Porfis the guard, his whip-sword raised overhead hilt-first. He lifted his arm, but it was swept aside in the downward rush of the sword. Something exploded behind his eyes and all eternity seemed to open beneath his feet. He plunged into blackness with Ylia's name on his lips. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Unconscious, he was taken with Ylia through subterranean passages to the Royal Dock on the River of Ice. The barge with Jlomec's embalmed body waited. It was very cold on the river. The Place of the Dead beckoned from the unseen end of the Journey of No Return. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG class="img1" src="images/cover_3.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="523" alt="" title="" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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