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-12-

Shara put both fists to her mouth as if to stifle some cry. The Salariki spoke first.

"He is dead. But what did he ask of you?"

Andas still knelt, looking at the huddled body. He answered absently in Basic.

"He put upon me the Emperor's oath, passing to me rule and reign. Though if he had the right to do so—" He glanced about at the ruins. This was no housing for one with the right to pass the oath—which was done only in an atmosphere of great richness and ceremony.

Shara tugged at the body, drawing it back so that the harper's face could be seen. Since his driving will and spirit had departed from it, that face was now a mask of endurance and despair.

"Who was he?" Andas demanded.

"Emperor and lord." She did not look at him, but continued to pull at the flaccid body, straightening it.

"Of what? By the look of him he—"

"He fought when lesser men lay down and willed the coming of death. He believed and worked for that belief!" She came alive, on fire, facing him across the body, as if she had taken into her own wasted form the energy that had held a dying man to a fearsome task. "He was the only hope of the empire. And when he knew he had taken his death blow, he held off death that he might bring one to stand for him—"

"Stand for him? But how can I do that, woman, unless I know the whole of the tale?"

Though she appeared the poorest of desert nomads, yet this Shara spoke the pure court tongue. Also he was beginning to think she was much younger than she first appeared. What was she to the dead man? Wife, Second Lady? But at least she ought to make some sense now of what had happened to Andas.

She had taken off the piece of rough material she had wound about her shoulders as a shawl, straightening it out gently over the body, covering the face that was a mask of Andas's own.

"You are right. There is a time for mourning and the beat of drums, and a time when such must be forgotten. He knew he had but hours when he came hither, so upon me he laid the burden of remaining alive, of playing guide to the one who would come.

"This is a world twin to your own. I do not know why this is so. But it is true that those from your place have come among us from time to time. It seemed they could do this by chance but could not go back. The Magi Atabi worked to discover the secret. He made many experiments. The last was this—" She pointed to the harp with the now broken strings. "It was his belief that certain sounds could open the gate between. When he was an old man, a very old man, he came to court, to beg of the Emperor a chance to put his invention to the test.

"That was when Andas saw him. His tutor was a pupil of the Magi's and took Andas to meet him. And the old man, fearful of getting no notice from the authorities (which he did not), took much time and trouble to explain to Andas what he wished to do.

"But already the shadow reached over us. He had no listeners—save a prince who was a young boy."

She paused, and she no longer surveyed the shrouded body or Andas, but rather raised her eyes to the broken wall, rapt in some vision of her own. Andas spoke to her gently and as he might to an equal in rank.

"You speak of a shadow, lady?"

"Yes. And that shadow has a name—a foul name—one to be spat upon! Kidaya—Kidaya of the Silver Tongue!" Her wan face flushed darker. "Kidaya of the House of the Nahrads."

Andas started, and she must have noticed it.

"Do you know of her then? Is your world also so cursed?"

"Of Kidaya I have not heard. But the House of Nahrad, the Nameless people of the Old Woman—yes, I have heard of them. How came one of the cursed line to your court?"

"You might well ask. Ask it of those who sing the Bones. It was decreed after the rebellion of Ashanti that none of the Nameless were to come within one day's journey of the Emperor. Yet Kidaya came to lie in his bed, to eat from his marriage plate, though she did not wear the crown. Even a man bewitched can be kept from some crimes! He took her into the Flower Courts, but he dared give her no First Honors. And for that Kidaya made him pay, and this whole empire crumbled into what you see about you—ruin and decay.

"Faction was set against faction by her cunning, and one rebel after another arose. She laid memory spells on the Emperor, so he felt hatred toward those who served him most loyally. Houses fell, their heads and all their families slain. Even Andas's life was saved only by a trick—" She laid her hand on the covered body.

"When he was of an age to take shield, he was the only true-line heir. She had seen to that by her web-spinning. The Emperor was too old, too sunk in her dreams, to be reached by those who would still save him and the empire. But she—she did not grow old! The witchcraft of the Old Woman held, so that she grew in outward beauty and in evil power as the years passed.

"But she bore no son—openly. There was a story that in secret she mothered a daughter, dedicated to the Old Woman from the first drawing of her breath, and that daughter Kidaya determined would hold the key—"

At her words Andas's hold tightened upon the talisman. There was nothing to say that a woman could not rule in her own right. Twice over in the past had there been an empress who touched what he now carried. But that anyone tainted with the forbidden knowledge would so aspire—!

"When she thought she was strong enough to move, she wrought upon the Emperor until he turned his face from Andas. There was a silly plot uncovered, so botched a matter that all knew it was but a sham to give the Emperor reason for decreeing the Second Punishment—"

Again she paused, and Andas drew a whistling breath. In his own world the Second Punishment existed only in the dark annals of long past history, though it could still be used by law against any of the royal clans who rebelled. Yet it had not been so for more than a hundred years. To what barbaric state had this twin world sunk that this punishment could be once more invoked against a man?

"But his eyes—" he protested. The dead man's face was hidden, but Andas was sure he had not been mistaken. Those eyes had been normal—he had not been blinded.

"He had friends still, ready to risk their lives and more than the true line not come to an end and that witch sit on the Triple Throne," Shara said. "But he played a game thereafter such as few men would have the strength to do, for he wore the mask of the Second Punishment, and no man knew that he had not lost his eyes. As a blinded prince he had no chance for the throne. She could contemptuously let him crawl into any hole he chose to hide shame and disgrace. But he lived and so won a small victory, since she would not send against him, blinded, such evil arts as the Old Woman's blood-sworn knew, such as had been turned against others. He was a nothing, a grain of dust she had swept aside and need not remember."

"But he was not blind," Andas said slowly. A blind prince, a cripple, one slack or injured of wits, could not stand as emperor—an easy way in the dark old days to sweep away a rival. But for a man to play blind so cunningly to save his life, that required such patience that he marveled at the thought of it.

"He was not blind. And he was young, very young, but his wits were old and his understanding great. He played his part very well. At first she kept him about the court, a warning and a threat to others. Also, I think, a symbol of her own triumph to please herself. But at last she discovered that pity does not die under disfavor, and she sent him to the Fortress of Kham. There she made her mistake."

"The mountaineers have never welcomed those of the Old Woman," Andas commented. Though that knowledge was of his world and not this, he saw Shara nod.

"Is that so with you as well as us? It is true. They had a spirit caller of unusual power, one sworn to peace and well versed in the inner life. He had made several miraculous cures—publicly. The commander of the fortress then was of the House of Hungang—"

"So he would be shield-up against all the Nameless." Again Andas interrupted. This was like viewing a half-remembered history tape.

"That is so. And the spirit caller wrought another cure—but on that day also the news of the Emperor's farewell flashed from the Triple Towers."

"So civil war followed? Did your Kidaya have enough of the lords to back her?"

"She had built well. Three-quarters or more of those making up the inner circle of the court were her men. She need only close her fist to crush them, as they well knew. Yes, she had backing, and there was war. But it would have been an even judgment between us had she not brought mercenaries from the stars. And they had such weapons as beat the loyal houses out into the hills like beasts. Since then all has gone wrong." Shara raised her hand and let it fall. "The mercenaries hold the center of the land. But they have had no further help from off-world since our raiding parties destroyed the call tower at Three Ports two years ago. They have already had to abandon many of their weapons for lack of ammunition or repairs.

"Also there was the choking death, and they died from it, more of them than us. It is even said that the choking death was one of their weapons that was misused, since it spread out of Zohair after they occupied it. There are other ills, though, that Kidaya has loosed—the night crawlers—"

Andas shivered. "But those are only legends—to frighten children. Sensible men—"

"Sensible men believed not—and died! What we prate of as superstition in the days of pride and safety may seem different in the dark when men hide from death. The night crawlers here are real. Then—then there was betrayal in our own small ranks!" Her voice, which had held so even and colorless, suddenly quavered. "My dear lord was so struck down. He knew that he had his death wound, though he held to life with both hands as long as he could that he might bring aid to those who had put their trust in him. For months he has sought the cache left by the Magi Atabi, hoping that in it might be some weapon strong enough to turn against the invaders now that they are weakened. But when he found it, then that secret enemy struck. I think that it was in the mind of that unknown one to take what my lord had found and use it to bargain with Kidaya.

"But my lord beat off the attack, losing in it all save me. And he would allow me only to bind his wounds and aid him here—with what he had found in the cache—for the Magi had left a writing, and my lord believed that with this strange harp he could summon from the other world one who was himself there. As he did! So he passed to your hands the power, the task—"

"But, my lady, this is not—I cannot—" For the first time Andas realized fully what he had done when, bemused by the ritual of the passing of rule, he had taken those oaths to a dying man. This quarrel was not his. He could not possibly take upon his shoulders the burden he understood so little. The first who met him would know him for an impostor.

"You are Andas, Emperor." She looked at him sternly. "I bear witness, as can this alien—whom you so foolishly brought with you—that you are. And with my swearing so, who would believe otherwise? You have his face."

"He has a scar. There is a difference," Andas was quick to point out.

"That scar was gained but a few days before the final attack in which he was wounded," she told him. "None living, save me now, knew he had it."

"And who are you that your voice will make or unmake an emperor?" Andas demanded.

He could see nothing about her that would give credence to the certainty with which she spoke—as if she held the power she allotted in her tale to Kidaya. She was a bone-thin woman with her hair in the tight, small braids of a nomad, wearing tattered sacks as a robe of honor.

"I am Shara, the Chosen of Emperor Andas." Her chin lifted, and there was about her a pride which was as illuminating at that moment as if she did indeed stand with her feet in the slippers of gold, the pearl diadem on her dusty head. "I am of the House of Brawa-Balkis. What say you to that, son of the House of Kastor?"

Kastor was a royal house, yes. But there were older clans with the right to provide a ruler at the Triple Towers, and of them all Balkis was the fabled, the legendary one. The last daughter of Balkis had chosen to unite with Brawa. But long ago that house had dwindled and disappeared in his own world. Chance could have kept it alive here, and Andas recognized a speaking of the Blood. No one would claim such heritage unless it was the truth.

He raised his hands in the formal gesture of one veiling his eyes before a sun-bright superior. "Hail, Blood of the Blood."

"Far away and long ago that." Her voice had lost that chill pride. "But here and now I am the Chosen. Do you think that my word concerning you will not be believed? You are Andas, Emperor. And he who lies here—he must be laid secretly with only the honors we can do him in our hearts, not even knowing where he lies."

But she was moving too fast for him. Andas got to his feet and, for the first time in many moments, remembered the Salariki. He turned to look for Yolyos and could just barely make out the alien's form as the other hunkered down some distance away, facing out into the rain and the night as if he were on guard. Andas went to him.

"You now have some knowledge of what this means." Yolyos greeted him with a statement rather than a question.

Andas repeated all Shara had told him.

"So he gave you the rule. And she says that you are now the Emperor and plans to hide his death and pass you off as him. You will do this?"

Andas had been dodging the need for a decision. Perhaps that was why he had listened to her story, tried to keep his mind on the past rather than the present or the future.

But one fact was ever before him. Though he had not taken that oath in the temple or before the glitter of a court, he had given it. And all the conditioning of his life had set in one mold, that the Emperor had a duty of service. Once he had taken the oath, he was no longer so much a man as a symbol. Though that was cold and bleak, yet it was the position to which he had been born and bred.

Could he explain it so that Yolyos would understand? Andas sought to put it into words—only death now could dissolve his responsibility. He could not tell why he had been moved to answer the appeal, the determined will of that other Andas. But having done so, he was bound.

"And if you are not in truth this Andas, but an android?" Yolyos asked then as Andas stumbled through his explanation, finding his logic dwindle when he had to present it to an alien who could not understand long conditioning.

"I am Andas, Emperor, now!" He refused that other thought.

"This female tells you there is no going back. Can you believe her?"

"As she knows it, she is telling the truth. And the harp that seems to have brought us here, it is now broken."

"Conveniently, as far as they are concerned," Yolyos growled.

Andas was jolted out of his own concerns. He might be bound here, but what of the Salariki? He certainly had no duty pressed upon him by death and a ritual of words, and he would be wholly in exile.

"Perhaps there is other information kept by this Magi, to be found in the cache of which she spoke. We can—"

"Always hope?" Yolyos finished for him. "Yes. Also there is this. As you have found yourself so superseded in your time, perhaps I also have been long so. There has never come any good of counting the horns on a Kuay buck before one has shot it, nor the teeth of a gorp that escapes one's net. It is better to look to the foretrail than behind one. So we hide this emperor's body—then what?"

"She must tell us." So much would depend upon Shara's help. That she would be willing and eager to give it, he knew. And she must be able to brief him so thoroughly that he could pass as the proper Andas, even with those who knew him well. What he would do as that Andas, however, he had not even speculated.

They buried the Emperor in the ruins of the building he had chosen for a campsite, piling rubble from the walls up, over, and around him and then, at last, uniting their strength to push over a standing portion to cascade upon the mound, covering it.

Shara brought a bundle into the open when they were done. She opened a roll of mat-cloth and shared out twists of dried meat and some fruit as hard as metal pellets and tart enough to pucker the mouth.

"It would seem that your commissary does not do well, Emperor," Yolyos commented when they had managed to choke it down, washed by drafts of water they hand-scooped from hollows where the rain had gathered.

Shara tugged at Andas's sleeve. "He speaks with the tongue of the mercenaries. It is better that he learn ours as swiftly as he can."

Andas passed this suggestion along. The Salariki growled.

"Well enough, if you can teach it. But these mercenaries—are any of them Salariki?"

When Andas translated, Shara shook her head. "They are all like us, save that they have very pale skins and their hair is yellow. They wear it even on their faces—so—" She drew her finger across her upper lip. "And they speak among themselves with a sharp click-click—like a pang beetle—though they use the speech you talk in to this one also. They wear garments something like yours"—she touched Andas's sleeve—"so we shall say that you killed one of a patrol and took his robe. With supplies so few for us, this often happens. Even the enemy go ragged at times since there are no more ships setting down to bring them what they wish.

"White-skinned, yellow-haired, wearing mustaches." Andas was trying to place the enemy. He translated for Yolyos. The other had a suggestion.

"Mercenaries are now hired from only two sectors. I have seen men of Njord among the bodyguards of the Svastian overlords who resemble your description. But how can we judge the here with our own world? Mercenaries among us are largely outlawed. It could be for a similar reason that ships have ceased coming here. Your empire may be under ban by the Patrol."

Andas had heard of such bans—of planets, even systems, so deeply embroiled in some chaotic war that they were declared off limits for any space contact. Or it might be that the plague Shara had spoken of had isolated this world. There was nothing so feared throughout the galaxy as plague, and nothing that sooner put a whole world into a quarantine that might last for generations.

But if such limited the inflow of mercenaries, perhaps this isolation was to be welcomed rather than deplored. However, it was what lay immediately to hand that mattered. Andas did not know how long they had been about the business of burying his double, but the rain had stopped and the sky was now lightening into day. The ruin they had demolished as much as they could to cover the grave was only a part of a vast, devastated area where the signs of fire, explosion, and the use of weapons that could melt and curdle stone were only too evident. He stared about him, seeing no relation to anything he had known in his own world.

Finally he asked, "What is this place?"

Shara had tied together her bundle, taking care with the scant remnants of the unpleasant field rations she had supplied. She looked up with a strange half smile.

"This is the one-time heart of the empire, my lord. Know you not the Triple Towers?"

"The—the Triple Towers?"

He put his hand to his head as if dazed by a blow. Nor could he believe that this wilderness of riven desolation was the vast spread of palace, pavilion, hall, courtyard, and garden that he had known so well all his life.

Andas turned slowly, pivoting, to seek out some point of reference, at least one of the towers themselves, or the bulk of the temple against the sky. But the change was too great. He could not guess where they now stood as compared with that other world.

"What happened here?" he demanded.

"Ask of Kidaya," Shara replied. "We were hiding afar, back in the hills. All we saw was the flash of fire. What survivors we have met were not in the palace at all, but across the river in Ictio, and they were all suffering from radiation burns."

"But if the burn-off destroyed Kidaya—"

"I did not say that! She and those who could best serve her purposes were away before it happened. We do not know whether it came from her will or some accident—but it ended our chance of holding the heart of Inyanga. We had those planted here ready to further our cause. And could Andas have reached the temple—" She shrugged. "What might have been and is are far removed one from the other."

"The temple!" Once more Andas's hand closed upon the key. If the other Andas had had its equivalent and could have reached the temple, and if the old records were true—

Shara turned around, much as Andas had when seeking a landmark. "That way, I think. But it is high in radiation, and no one can enter without a protecto suit, which is as difficult to obtain as Kidaya's death. What want you with the temple?"

He turned the key around. But what was the use of thinking now about what that might have led him to. If the temple lay in hard radiation, it was as far removed from his penetration as the third moon of Benin.

"Nothing that matters now. But I think we would be better away from any source of radiation. Where do we go?"

"This is wasteland now." She swung her bundle under one arm. "And the only path I know is the one by which we came. It is roundabout but will bring us to the Garden of Astarte, or what is left of it. And from there we go to the mountains. It is a weary walk and one not to be taken too openly. The enemy still send out scout skimmers. I know not how effective the Old Woman's seers may be, but Kidaya has put them to good use in the past. And such events as your coming through the gate of the Magi should have set up a troubling in that spirit world and made them suspicious."

She believed in cold facts, the colder the better, Andas decided. He translated her warnings to Yolyos, and they followed behind her. It was a weaving path, swinging wide at times to avoid places Shara told them still registered high in radiation. She had a small wrist detect, which he was not sure recorded correctly, but it was their only guard against straying into deadly territory.

All through that march Andas was unable to recognize any building or part of a building that he knew. He concentrated on Yolyos's learning the new language. Except that he had a hissing accent, the Salariki fortunately proved to be quick at picking up their speech. Of necessity his answers were curtailed and very simple, but he retained words at a single repeating much better, Andas thought, than he would be able to do himself under the circumstances.

They came out at last into a place where vegetation had survived, though it was an odd color and misshapen. Pillars had been tossed back and forth, crisscrossing each other on the ground as one might toss twigs in a game. But this was, Andas knew, the Garden of Astarte.

Here they halted, sheltering belly down under a trio of fallen pillars. Shara motioned at the ground stretching before them. There was not even a bush of a size to give cover.

"By day to walk there is to be seen," she commented. "They patrol outward from the Drak Mount, which is their stronghold."

"How far do we have to go?" Andas wanted to know.

"A day's travel, plus a night more, on foot. After we reach the cache there are elklands for riding, if they have not broken free."

"Wait!" Yolyos's hand closed upon Andas's upper arm. "Listen!"

He could hear now, too, the high, faint whine from the sky. There was a skimmer aloft.

 

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