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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32473-h.zip b/32473-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4e18f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/32473-h.zip diff --git a/32473-h/32473-h.htm b/32473-h/32473-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffe5787 --- /dev/null +++ b/32473-h/32473-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4970 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Buttoned Sky, by By Geoff St. Reynard. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Buttoned Sky, by Geoff St. Reynard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Buttoned Sky + +Author: Geoff St. Reynard + +Release Date: May 21, 2010 [EBook #32473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUTTONED SKY *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1>THE BUTTONED SKY</h1> + +<h2>By Geoff St. Reynard</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of +Science and Fantasy August 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>Legends spoke of Earth's glorious past, of freedom and greatness. +But this was the future, ruled by god-globes, as men gazed +fearfully at—</p></blockquote> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The squire he sat in Dolfya Town,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He swilled the blood-dark wine:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"O who can blight my happiness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or face the power that's mine?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then up there spoke his daughter fair:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"The priest can end your joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The globe can sap your might away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the Mink can you destroy!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The day that Revel killed a god, he woke early. There was a bitter taste +in his mouth, and a pain in his ear where somebody'd hit him during a +shebeen brawl the night before. He rolled over on his back. The bed was +a hollowed place in the earth floor, filled with leaves and dried grass +and spread with yellow-brown mink skins sewn into a big blanket; he'd +slept on it every night of his twenty-eight years, but this morning it +felt hard and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>The water gourd was empty. In the cold gray mists of dawn he groped his +way sleepily to the well behind the hut, and drew up the bucket.</p> + +<p>"Damn the gentry!" he burst out. The bucket, an ancient thing made of +oak slats pegged together with wooden dowels, was half filled with dirt +and rotten brush. "Curse their lousy carcasses to hell!" he yelled, and, +suddenly scared, looked around to see if perhaps a god was floating +somewhere near him. But no yellow glimmering showed in the mists.</p> + +<p>Laboriously he cleaned out the well, dropping the bucket time after time +and dragging up loads of trash. Some roving band of gentry had fouled +the water for sport. Anything that hurt the ruck, made them more work or +injured them in any way, was sport for the squirarchy.</p> + +<p>At last he got a bucket of cold and almost clean water, filled the big +gourd and carried it back to the one-room hut. The morning that had +begun badly was getting worse; his mother's limp was painful to see; she +must have had a hard night. Bent and gray and as juiceless as the grass +of their beds, she slept more lightly and fretfully with every passing +month. Many years before a squire had ridden her down in the lanes of +Dolfya Town, as she scurried out of the path of his great stallion, and +her broken leg had mended crookedly. A few hours on the mink-covered bed +crippled her up so that moving was an agony.</p> + +<p>With the impious brain at the center of his skull—Revel had long before +decided that he had a number of brains, one obedient, one rebellious, +one dull, one keen and inquisitive, and so on—with the impious brain he +now cursed the gods and the gentry and the priests, and everyone above +the ruck who preyed on them and made their lives so stinking awful. If +he had thought then of killing a god, the idea would have seemed +pleasant indeed. But quite impossible, of course, for a man of the ruck +did not touch a god, much less slay one.</p> + +<p>He did not think of such a thing, but cursed the gods briefly and then +turned off his impious brain and began to wolf down his food. He paid no +attention to what he ate—it was the same old bread of wild barley +seeds, the same old boiled rabbit.</p> + +<p>When he finished, he glanced at his mother, feeling sorry for her, +wishing that she would go to the shebeens with him and have at least a +little happiness before she died. He wondered if she had ever known any +joy, any hope such as he had in drunken flashes now and then of belief +that life might some day be better for the ruck. He shook his head, +grabbed his miner's pick, booted his brother in the ribs to waken him, +and left the miserable hut to walk to the mine for his day's work.</p> + +<p>The day was brightening, and above him in concentric circles to the +horizon and beyond hovered the eternal red and blue buttons. He looked +up grimly. Always there, in all the spoken history of man, stretched +above the world to keep watch on every action of the ruck. The buttons +were full of gods, omnipotent, omnipresent.</p> + +<p>The mine was a mile from his hut, which lay on the outskirts of Dolfya. +It was halfway down a long valley, a gut between hills pitted with many +other mines. There coal was dug for the gentry and the priests. He +walked up to the entrance, gave his name telepathically to the god-guard +at the top of the shaft, and went down the ladders until he'd reached +his level. Another god passed him there, its aura of energy just +touching his skin and tingling it into small bumps.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Shutting off the thoughts of his various brains from any probing mind +that might be eavesdropping, he said to himself, Always, always they're +near a man! You go out of your hut and there's a god, a big golden globe +hanging in the air shoving its tentacles at you and reading your mind. +You come down the mine shaft and every hundred feet or so you see the +yellow luminosity. Why can't they leave us alone! Why can't they stick +to their temples, and exact their worship on Orbsday, instead of all +week long, all day long, every day in the year!</p> + +<p>He came to his work place, a dead-end tunnel. Jerran was there before +him, as usual. Revel grinned at him. Jerran was a runty wisp of a man, +with a face the color of old straw, and he had been Revel's friend since +the day he came to the mine from distant Hakes Town by the sea. A +wonderful drinking companion, Jerran, but he wouldn't brawl ... strange! +He was forever pulling Revel out of fights and trying to teach him +serenity.</p> + +<p>As Revel greeted him, he involuntarily glanced at the end of the tunnel. +There, behind a carefully casual erection of boulders, lay their secret +cave. They'd broken into it the morning before, and after no more than a +hasty glimpse of unknown wonders, and a check to see that no globes were +in sight, they'd walled up the opening and begun to dig along the +shaft's sides. Revel wasn't quite sure why he had followed Jerran's lead +in keeping it secret, but the brain which had decided to do it must be +the rebellious one. All secrets were taboo to the ruck, who were +required to report all finds to the gentry or the god-guards.</p> + +<p>Now a globe came drifting down the corridor, and Revel got quickly to +work, prying coal from a vein with his pick. The thing passed him, +flicking his mind lightly with its own, and went on to the end of the +tunnel. He watched it from the tail of his eye. Its glow brightened with +interest; it shifted back and forth before the rampart of rocks.</p> + +<p>They hadn't kept a tight enough check on their excitement yesterday! The +globes could sense emotions long after the man who'd had them left a +spot, and if the emotion were anger or grief or strong excitement, the +globes could detect their residue as much as forty-eight hours later.</p> + +<p>The thing floated back to them, briskly now, and ordered Revel +telepathically to pull down some of the rocks at the end.</p> + +<p>He eyed it coolly, his various brains walled with the protective screen +that he had learned to erect between his thoughts and the outside world. +This screen was made of shallow ideas, humdrum speculations on prosaic +things—the last woman he'd had, the good feeling he got from working +this rich vein of coal after some days of poor luck, even (to make the +god think it was hearing secret desires) a wish that he might taste the +wine that the gentry drank. He could throw up the screen and forget it, +using his core of brains for serious plans.</p> + +<p>A dozen rocks displaced, he thought, and we're doomed. For not telling +the gods about the cave, he and Jerran would be given to the squires for +the next big hunt.</p> + +<p>So, without much hope of living through the next minute, but believing +it was the only thing he could do now, he shoved Jerran to one side, +raised his pick and slammed it with all his might into the center of the +small, gold, eight-tentacled sphere.</p> + +<p>And Revel had killed a god!</p> + +<p>The feel of the pick slashing through it told him that: it was like +hitting an overripe melon. The globe recoiled, dragged itself off the +pick, and sank toward the floor, wobbling and dripping yellow ooze, with +its aura of energy fading quickly into air. Jerran said quietly, "No +others in sight. We're lucky!" and began to make a hole in a pile of +discarded rocks. "Help me hide it, Revel."</p> + +<p>"You can't hide it," he said dully. "They're telepathic, after all. It +must have signaled its consorts."</p> + +<p>"They can't hear or send messages through rock," said Jerran, working +away. Revel automatically started to help him.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"We've proved it."</p> + +<p>Revel heard the phrase, wondered who "we" might be; but so much had +happened in the last seconds that he did not question Jerran. He +couldn't absorb all the shattering facts. A man could not only touch a +god, he could murder it! The gods were not all-powerful, for they could +not perform telepathy if rock were in the way. Truly it was a morning of +wonders. The world was falling around him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He stared at the limp corpse of the globe. The tentacles were already +shriveling up, the emanation of energy that surrounded the living orbs +was gone. He bent, sniffed; no odor. He peered at it keenly, in the soft +blue light of the mine's lanterns, then straightened.</p> + +<p>A hand fell on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>He spun on one heel, the pick arcing round to gut whoever was behind +him. He had a glimpse of a short red beard and a popping walleye, and +stopped his whirl by an instantaneous checking of his whole muscular +system. The pick's point, still splattered with god's gore, was nudging +his brother's belly.</p> + +<p>"Nobody could have halted such a swing but you, Revel," said Rack +absently. His good eye, ice blue and sharp as a bone needle, was fixed +on the dead globe. "What happened?"</p> + +<p>"An accident," said Jerran. "The god interposed itself between your +brother's pick and the coal."</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Revel. He had been lying to his brother for years, +but he never grew reconciled to it; still, Rack was a man with but one +brain, and that one servile and obedient to every whim of the gentry, +the priests, the gods. So he had to be lied to.</p> + +<p>Rack brought his gaze to Revel's tense face. "I got in the way of your +pick," he said heavily. "You have the keenest nerves, the strongest body +in the mines. This was no accident."</p> + +<p>Revel began to grow cold in the head and the bowels. If Rack was +convinced that he'd slain the god on purpose, then he'd report him. The +religion that held the world so tightly was greater than any family +bonds. He looked up at Rack. The man was a giant towering four inches +over Revel's six feet one, and sixty pounds heavier. Rack's eyes were +blue and white, Revel's lustrous brown; the elder's hair and beard were +flame-colored, the younger had a sleek chocolate-brown thatch with a +hint of rich black in its sheen, and was clean-shaven.</p> + +<p>I'd hate to kill you, big man, thought Revel, but if I must, to save my +neck, I will.</p> + +<p>Jerran thrust his pick under the flaccid corpse and tossed it with one +quick motion into the hole. He piled rocks on it, as Revel stamped the +yellow ichor out thin and stringy, spread rock dust and jetty coal +fragments over it till no sign of the murder remained.</p> + +<p>"I'll report it," said Rack, apparently making up his mind.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll say you did it," snapped Jerran, turning on him like a mouse +baiting a bear. "What chance would you stand in the temple against me, +whose cousin serves in the mansion of Ewyo of Dolfya?"</p> + +<p>It was true, Jerran was slightly higher in the ruck than the brothers, +being related to a servant of the gentry. Revel hoped Rack would be +scared off by the threat. He had become perfectly cold now and could in +the blinking of an eyelash bury his pick in Rack's head, but he didn't +want to do it.</p> + +<p>When Rack said nothing, Revel spoke. "Brother, agree to hold your +tongue, or by Orb, I'll cut you down where you stand!"</p> + +<p>Rack glanced at his own pick. "You could do it," he acknowledged. +"You're fast enough. All right. I promise." He turned to his work +stolidly; only Revel could see that he was blazing with anger.</p> + +<p>The three began to dig coal from the wall. Revel kept glancing at the +small Jerran. What was there to the man that he had never suspected? How +did he know that globes were stymied by rock? Why had he taken the death +of the god so lightly?</p> + +<p><i>What was Jerran, anyhow?</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The squire has gathered all his kin,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To hunt the fox so sly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis not a beast with paws and brush,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But a man like you or I!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They hunt him down the thorny glen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And up the hillside dark;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"O hear him gasp and hear him sob,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whenas our hounds do bark!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>When Revel was due for a rest space, he went through the blue-tinged +dusk of the mine, cleaned his arms and face at the washers, scrubbing +the coal dust from his big hands, and climbed the ladders, up and up, +till day shone in his face.</p> + +<p>He stood beneath the cross-beam of the entrance, sucking in clean air. +The red and blue buttons shone in the sun; far down the valley a globe +passed between trees, bent on some private business. Another floated by +him into the mine; under it trotted a zanph, one of the ugly beasts, +six-legged and furry with the head of a great snake, that followed the +globes and sometimes attacked men on orders from the hovering gods.</p> + +<p>Would the deities discover that one was missing? If they found the +corpse, he and Jerran would be foxes for the gentry....</p> + +<p>Revel was a man of the ruck. The ruck was millions and millions of +souls, faceless, without rights; Revel had some little protection, more +than most others, being a miner and therefore important to the gentry. +The gentry numbered thousands, and they had many rights—owning great +estates, lighting their homes with candles, drinking wine legally, +keeping fierce dogs and going where they pleased on big wild horses. No +man of the ruck could touch one of the gentry and live. The gentry, the +squires who owned guns and hunted men three times a week, men called +"foxes"—it was whispered in the illegal drinking huts, the shebeens, +that the squires had once been members of the ruck. Above there were the +priests, who had always from the dawn of time been of the priestcraft, +being born a notch lower than the gods themselves, who were the golden +globes.</p> + +<p>"Our Orbs who dwell in the buttoned sky," said Revel aloud, and spat. +Before that day he wouldn't have dared to think of such an action.</p> + +<p>He walked out on the shelf of rock before the mine. Something moved at +the far end of the valley, a brown and silver speck that swiftly became +a horse and rider, rocketing toward him.</p> + +<p>It was a girl, her silver gown pulled up to the tops of her thighs so +she could sit astride; she appeared to be having trouble with her mount. +Passing beneath Revel, swearing loudly at the plunging horse, she +continued for a hundred feet, then fell in a swirl of silver cloth as +the brute reared.</p> + +<p>Revel leaped down the rock shelf as the horse cantered away. He ran to +the girl, who lay flat on her back, long white legs bared below the +disordered gown. She was blonde, tall, beautifully slicked. No rucker +wore such clothing, or rode a bay stallion, much less looked so groomed +and cleanly; she was a squire's daughter.</p> + +<p>As he bent down she opened eyes the shade of sunlight on gray slate.</p> + +<p>"Lie still," he said, "you may have broken something, Lady."</p> + +<p>Her face was scornful. "Stand back, miner," she said, recognizing his +trade from the distinctive clothing he wore "Death to you if you touch +me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A confusion of emotions was rioting in him. So much had happened +today—too much for sanity. He surrendered to madness gladly. This was +the most perfect wench he had ever seen. "Shut up," he said, and ran his +fingers over her body. "We of the ruck are expert at mending things, +Lady: bones, pots, and lives. Orbs know, you gentry have busted enough +of 'em for us. That hurt?"</p> + +<p>She sat up, brushing her gown to her ankles as Revel took a last wistful +look at her legs. Evidently she was quite unhurt. "You'll play fox for +my father's hunt," she said coldly. "What made you do it?"</p> + +<p>"You took a bad fall," he said lightly, wondering at his lack of fear. +Never before had he touched a squire's woman. She felt as all women +feel, her high caste couldn't be sensed in her body. "I'd sit still a +moment, if I were you." It must be the killing of the globe, he thought; +after that, any crime is possible.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"A miner," he mocked, standing. His pick was in his hand, as ever. He +thought, Should I kill her too? No sense to that, when I was only trying +to help. Or was it her body I wanted to touch? "Who's your father?"</p> + +<p>"Ewyo of Dolfya, and his hounds will eat you for breakfast tomorrow."</p> + +<p>Ewyo was one of the richest squires in this part of the world, and +Jerran's cousin served him. "You're Lady Nirea, then. A fine-looking +wench."</p> + +<p>"My Orbs," she gasped, her scorn rattled by his incredible insolence. +"My Orbs above, who are you?"</p> + +<p>"A dirty miner, who puts coal into your father's hearth but must warm +himself over smoldering peat. Why would you report me?"</p> + +<p>"You <i>scum</i>," she said, the snarling hiss of a zanph in her voice. "Do +you remember when a brewer fell over a dog in Dolfya last year and +bumped my sister Jann? He was hunted over twelve miles before the pack +tore him to blood and rags! What do you think <i>you</i> deserve, who dares +address me in that way, and—and fondle me?"</p> + +<p>"Lady Nirea, if I fondled you, you'd know it," Revel said. Then, seeing +the hint of a smile on her sensuous lips, he looked up, for she seemed +to be staring over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>From the button above them a line of globes dropped, golden globules +radiating bright energy.</p> + +<p><i>Whom the gods destroy, they first madden.</i> That was part of the Globate +Credo, wasn't it? Well, Revel had been gradually made mad that day, and +now, by Orbs, he'd show them something before he was destroyed!</p> + +<p>As the first descended past him, and wrapped two tentacles under the +girl's armpits to lift her, he lifted his pick to smack it as he had the +supervising deity in the mine. He felt a tug; another globe had a +whiplash arm around his pick. Gritting teeth, he threw his tremendous +brawn into a swing, and the pick tore loose from the tentacle and +sprayed the guts out of the sphere before him. It fell on the grass +beside Nirea, an emptying sack. He slashed a second and a third, +laughing between set lips. What a way to go down—killing gods!</p> + +<p>Then he felt a searing pain, a sudden spasm of the flesh, as though a +sword had been heated in a bonfire and laid alongside his ear. +Reflectively he ducked to earth, sprang two steps forward and spun, +rising to his full height again. One of the bulbous brutes had touched +the side of his head, its energy aura so strong at that close contact +that the hair was burned to a char and the flesh scorched.</p> + +<p>So they could really hurt a man! He grinned with pain and defiance. If +his pick wasn't as fast as any damned floating ball, let them kill him! +He waited, crouched, keeping his eyes on them; and then they were rising +again, leaving him there in the valley with a screaming girl in a silver +gown.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Jerran, who had just started his own rest space, evidently, appeared on +the rock shelf and came down, walking faster than Revel had ever seen +him go. The little man came to him and, hardly glancing at Lady Nirea, +said, "Were you attacked, lad?"</p> + +<p>"I did the attacking, when they objected to my touching this wench."</p> + +<p>Jerran gazed up. "They're spreading out. The gentry will soon be on you, +Revel. You've got to hide."</p> + +<p>"Where can you hide from a god?" It wasn't a hopeless tone he used, but +a kind of laughing, bantering acceptance of his doom.</p> + +<p>"Come off it," said Jerran urgently. "You're still thinking like a +rucker."</p> + +<p>"I am of the ruck."</p> + +<p>"You're a rebel now, you fool! Think like one! Listen: <i>a man cannot +kill a god</i>."</p> + +<p>"The Globate Credo," grunted Revel. "<i>Our Orbs are everlasting, +untouchable.</i> Crud! I've killed four today."</p> + +<p>"Right. So stop fearing them and thinking they're omnipotent. <i>Our Orbs +see all we do.</i> More crud, lad! They're telepathic, adept at hypnosis, +but rock stops 'em. Get rock above you and you are safe for a while, +till I can think this over and get you some help."</p> + +<p>"The mine!" Revel barked; to his madness, his exhilaration, was added +hope. "The secret cave, Jerran!"</p> + +<p>"And of course," said Jerran wryly, "you have to take the woman."</p> + +<p>Revel's jaw dropped. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"You idiot, she just heard you say about six words too many. She'd lead +her father's pack straight to us!" Jerran evidently knew the Lady Nirea +by sight. "She knows our names, too. It's either take her or kill her." +His flinty eyes creased up. "Better kill her, at that. Less danger."</p> + +<p>Revel looked at her. The talk of murder didn't turn a hair of that +flawlessly-wrought coiffure: she was either too sure of the gentry's +power, or too stunned by the gods' death, to be consciously frightened.</p> + +<p>She was not stunned, for now she said, "You rabbit-brains, you filthy +grubbers, you must have lost whatever wits a rucker has. My father will +really think up something f—"</p> + +<p>"Damn your father," said Jerran. "He eats dandelions."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't!"</p> + +<p>"My cousin gathers them for the old hellion," nodded Jerran. "I ought to +know. Revel, have any of those bulbous bubbles gone into the mine, that +you noticed?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, I've been watching."</p> + +<p>"Good. Then get going. I'll take care of the wench."</p> + +<p>Revel saw her lips curl slightly; she didn't believe she could be hurt, +even though she had a moment before been screaming at the death of her +gods. She was brave, or stupid, or very confident of her untouchability. +He glanced down over her body, squeezed tight by the silver gown. Her +breasts were fuller and higher than a ruck girl's, her limbs unbunched +with muscles, smooth and lovely.</p> + +<p>"No, she doesn't die," he said. "Not unless I do." He bent and picked +her up and ran with her toward the entrance of the mine.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink he couches underground,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath the earth he lies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hears the fox's mournful yell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And knows he must arise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Too many lads have hunted been,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Too many women slain!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Mink he takes his pick in hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To end the gentry's reign.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The Lady Nirea thought a moment—she never attacked any new problem +without thinking beforehand—and then she began to struggle. This rucker +who had her over his shoulder, with a death-grip on her legs and her +head hanging down his back, was plainly insane. No man of his low +position was <i>ever</i> insane enough to actually harm a squire's daughter; +so if she kicked and bit, he would either drop her or—</p> + +<p>Well, it was the "or." He reached up and slapped her on the rear. Hard. +She opened her eyes wide. No one had ever before dared to touch her +there. She thought again, and bit him on the side.</p> + +<p>He was carrying her up the rocks toward the mine now. Surely there would +be a god-guard on duty there? She had often seen one in place at the +entrance, as she rode through the valley. Yes, peering upside-down under +his arm, she saw the golden glow. Then he was shifting her a little, +setting his muscles, and—great Orbs! He struck the god full in the +middle with his miner's pick. This man, this astounding brute with +chocolate-colored hair and a body like a wild woods lion, had dared kill +four gods in as many minutes. Perhaps she shouldn't be as certain of her +inviolability as she'd been till now.</p> + +<p>"You triple-damn fool," she said, making her voice husky so it wouldn't +squeak, "the globes are watching."</p> + +<p>"They always are." What a strong voice the beast had.</p> + +<p>"They see you going into the mine. D'you think you're safe here?"</p> + +<p>"Where I'm going, there's a chance," he said. His body moved lithely +beneath her. She clutched him around the ribs as they began to descend a +ladder. Blackness, tinged with blue, lay below. She felt her scalp +prickle with terror.</p> + +<p>The little man, Jerran, said from somewhere above, "Kill all the gods we +meet, lad; I'll hide or bring the bodies. And keep your emotions +controlled, or they'll follow our scent like zanphs on the trail of a +runaway."</p> + +<p>"Did the globes follow us?" asked the big man, whose name was Rebel or +something like it.</p> + +<p>"They were coming down again as I ducked in. Hurry it up."</p> + +<p>The swift plunge into the mine speeded. She deliberately worked herself +up to silent panic, giving the gods a spoor to chase.</p> + +<p>Now they were traveling on the level, and from the reflection of yellow, +the brisk jerk of his arm, and the pulpy squish, she knew he had met and +slain another globe. Was he inhuman, a visitor from beyond the world, +such as were told of in the ancient ballads? Certainly no man was ever +this bold!</p> + +<p>"Here's the end," said Jerran. "Set the wench down, she can't get away. +Hurry!"</p> + +<p>She was rudely plumped onto a pile of coal. She looked at her silver +gown and shuddered. Her flailing legs had ripped it from hem to +midthigh; the coal was staining it irrevocably.</p> + +<p>"When I catch that horse," she thought, half aloud, "I'll beat him. +Tossing me into all this!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They were pulling down rocks from the wall; now a black hole appeared. +The small man jumped up to a boulder and snatched down a blue mine +lantern. "Take this, Revel." That was it, Revel. An odd name, a rather +nice one. The ruck ordinarily had such awful names, Jark and Dack and +Orp. Revel. Not bad. It fitted the big lusty-looking brute.</p> + +<p>He came over. "Never mind picking me up," she said icily. "I can walk." +She peered into the hole, winced, and clambering over the rocks, losing +a heel from one of her slippers, she entered their secret cavern.</p> + +<p>Revel climbed in after her. Jerran was already piling rocks back into +the breach. The lantern looked faint and incapable of lighting a chimney +corner, but its blue radiance was deceptive, for the farthest reaches of +the place were cast into a moonlight sort of glow. She gazed around, +unable to take it in, seeing nothing at first but giant shapes of +mystery, unknown things in stacks and in tumbled heaps, figures like +grotesque statues, all lined in rows the length and breadth of the giant +cavern.</p> + +<p>The cave itself was square, perhaps a hundred feet to a side. It must +have taken scores of miners months of work to hew it out of the rock. +Unwilling to show interest, she still had to ask, "When did you make +this?"</p> + +<p>"We didn't make it, Lady. We found it. No man alive made this place."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"The miners would know it. We broke through the wall only yesterday."</p> + +<p>"What are these things?"</p> + +<p>"You know as much as I do." He was looking at her in the way her father +sometimes looked at rucker serving women, as though she had no clothes +on at all. She had little modesty, society was lax when it came to such +things as clothing, and frequently she had ridden the streets of Dolfya +Town in a suit of transparent silk that made the ruck gape and blush; +but this very personal scrutiny made her shield her breasts with one arm +as she stared back at him.</p> + +<p>"I've changed my mind about you," she said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Did the swine look eager?</p> + +<p>"I have ... you won't be hunted by the pack. You'll be flayed alive, +inch by inch, with white-hot needles of iron, starting with your feet +and working upward. And I'll watch."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "You <i>are</i> a wench," he said admiringly. Then he turned and +appeared to forget her as he began to inspect the contents of the +cavern. After a moment she wandered off to look at them herself.</p> + +<p>Nearest lay a long wooden chest, on which were arranged certain +contrivances that looked like guns, except that they were short, no more +than a foot long; they had triggers and barrels and small curved stocks, +so they must be guns! No one had ever seen a gun under four feet long. +She looked for the ramrods, but there were none on the chest. Possibly +they were cached inside it.</p> + +<p>Over the chest in an arch that covered the entire top was a sheet of +almost invisible stuff that she touched fearfully. She had never seen +anything like it—like frozen water! Hard and cold ... She thought of +the oiled paper in her father's windows. A sheet of this substance in a +window would be a magnificent possession, the envy of every squire in +Dolfya. Oiled paper was semi-transparent, while this stuff was like a +piece of air.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was a white square lying beside the tiny guns, with black printing +on it. She was deciphering it, painfully, for not only did she read very +slowly, even in the priceless old books of her father's library, but +this print was in a language slightly different from Orbish, when she +felt two hard hands on her waist.</p> + +<p>"Get your stinking paws off me," she said, without moving.</p> + +<p>She was picked up and set down gently on one side. Revel bent over the +chest.</p> + +<p>"What are they?"</p> + +<p>She thought fast. She had deciphered enough of the card to know they +<i>were</i> guns: <i>American handguns of 1940-1975 period</i>, it said. She +couldn't let him know it. The rucker must not get hold of a gun, or he'd +attack the gentry themselves, for hadn't he slain innumerable gods +already?</p> + +<p>"They are children's toys," she said. "I don't know what sort of +children would be interested in such weird-looking things."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of the Ancient Kingdom?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head; the term was new to her.</p> + +<p>"The ruck knows of it; the ballad-singers have many sagas of the Ancient +Kingdom, but I imagine the gentry have forgotten. It was the world and +people of a long time ago. I think these things were walled up here +then." His face, really a handsome face if you forgot he was a rucker, +screwed up in thought. Then he started to chant something.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The people of that far-off time,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They carried little guns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They had so much more freedom<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than we who are their sons."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He stared at the weapons. She thought fast. "These are toy guns, yes. +The writing says they are guns for children."</p> + +<p>"Maybe the toys of those children worked," he said looking at her.</p> + +<p>"You talk nonsense."</p> + +<p>He felt the transparent stuff over the chest, pushed on it hard, then +raised his pick and struck the stuff a heavy blow. It shattered into +bright daggers and fell on the guns and on the floor. Picking one of the +small things from its place, he examined it closely.</p> + +<p>"No toy, Lady Nirea," he grunted. "You lied to me."</p> + +<p>"I didn't! Can <i>you</i> read the writing?" she asked sourly.</p> + +<p>"No rucker reads, as you know. But this is no toy, and you knew it." He +tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, took three more. "You can +show me how to use them later."</p> + +<p>She laughed in his face and was given a rough slap on the cheek. Skin +tingling, she said, "Play the squire, miner, you don't have long to do +it!"</p> + +<p>"They won't find this hole."</p> + +<p>"I left a trail of emotion that a globe could follow after a week!" she +told him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Slowly his brown face turned pale. Then he struck her again, but very +hard, so that she staggered back and fell. Without a word he grasped her +wrist and hauled her after him on a swift tour of the cavern.</p> + +<p>A huge intricate mechanism sat like a grotesque idol on the floor. "What +is it?" he said. "Read for me."</p> + +<p>She looked at the printing on the front. <i>Dynamo</i> she spelt out, and +shrugged. "A name I don't know."</p> + +<p>"If you lie to me again, I'll rip that gown off and strangle you with +it." He obviously meant it. She said sullenly, "I'm not lying."</p> + +<p>"I know you aren't, now. I have an instinct for lies." He dragged her +on. "What's this?"</p> + +<p>The language was very like Orbish, yet subtly different, and the words +were mostly strange. She said aloud, in syllables, "<i>Man of the 21st +century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and—</i>"</p> + +<p>"Never mind." He left the big shining case, which was oblong and +featureless and seemed made of metal, to pass to something else. Her +gaze caught another line on the card as she was pulled away: <i>Held in +suspended animation.</i> What could the words mean?</p> + +<p>They covered the big cave, finding almost nothing they could understand. +Here and there were ordinary objects—plates, hides of animals under the +near-invisible arches of wondrous material, arrows such as the ruck +vagabonds used for shooting birds, candles—but in the main it was a +place of mystery.</p> + +<p>"The people of the Ancient Kingdom," he said, rubbing his square chin, +"put these things into the earth for a purpose. I don't know what it +could have been, but I want Jerran to look at them. He's got any number +of keen brains."</p> + +<p>"Nobody has more than one brain," she snapped.</p> + +<p>He grinned. "I have six or eight myself," he said. The creature was +totally crazy. He was staring at her again in that lewd way. Now he put +a hand on her shoulder. The touch sent hot tingling sensations through +her body. The fact that he was of the ruck and no higher than an animal, +that he was a god-killer, paled before the desire his great body roused +in her. She moved a step toward him, all-but-voluntarily.</p> + +<p>His brown eyes lit up. His arm was around her waist, and his lips came +near her own. Deep-bred habit made her draw back, but she could not +fight the instinct that racked her.</p> + +<p>It's a strange place for passion, she thought dazedly; an unknown +cavern, full of antique wonders never heard of on earth, filled with a +blue haze, and only she and the tall fierce rucker....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink has come to the bright sun's light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His pick is lifted high;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hears the gentry's whooping yell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sees them gallop by.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now all too long we've felt the yoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cringed and fawned and died!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis time we turned upon the squire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To skin his rotten hide!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Revel was sitting beside the hole in the wall, now filled with rocks, of +course; he had replaced the four small guns in his belt and found, by +breaking open the chest they'd lain on, a number of boxes of ammunition, +with which he'd stuffed his pockets. Experiment had shown him how to +load, and tradition of the ruck told him that to shoot, one pointed the +end at something (or someone, he told himself grimly) and pulled the +small curved projection. The woman should have helped him, but she was +sulking in a corner, weeping. She had not wept an hour before!</p> + +<p>He wondered if he were the first rucker to hold a gun. Surely the first +to have four such tiny weapons, at least.</p> + +<p>He heard voices from beyond the wall, filtering in, oddly distorted, +through the air spaces between rocks. That was Jerran.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he came down here, and threatened me with his pick all dripping +yellow, said he'd killed a lot of gods. Crazy, that's what he was!" +Jerran's voice broke, a neat bit of acting. "Sure there's an emotion +trail! You think I wasn't scared of that maniac? Wasn't he excited? He +stayed here a minute and then left again."</p> + +<p>That was clever. Jerran had explained away the psychic scent left by the +Lady Nirea. He must be talking to a god. But another voice spoke now, +and Revel sat up, thinking, The gods don't make sounds!</p> + +<p>"Was there a girl with him, a girl of the gentry in a silver gown?"</p> + +<p>"No, Lord Ewyo—" it was her father, then!—"he was alone."</p> + +<p>"He may have hidden her body somewhere," said a heavy voice. Rack, by +the Orbs, Revel's brother Rack! "He's turned violent today."</p> + +<p>"I understand he's your brother?" said Ewyo.</p> + +<p>"Aye. A strong violent man, but worse today than ever he's been."</p> + +<p>"No rucker would dare harm Lady Nirea," whined Jerran.</p> + +<p>"No rucker should dared have touched her," barked the squire. Then, his +voice respectful, he asked, "Can you tell me if she's dead, priest?"</p> + +<p>There was a croak like a bull-frog's, a chugarum with words in it. "She +lives."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>Revel sucked in his breath. If the priest could see all, as they'd been +taught, he was doomed. Then, before any other voices beyond the wall +could speak, Nirea—he had been a muddleheaded and drooling fool not to +seal her mouth—Nirea screamed. "In here, father! Tear down the +barricades!"</p> + +<p>Revel was on her in two bounds and hit her a crack on the jaw, a vicious +blow that sprawled her into a pile of clay tablets (inscribed with +writing she had refused to read to him), dead to the world. Then Revel +was at the hole, waiting tensely with a gun in his hand.</p> + +<p>"What can lie in the rocks?" he heard Jerran say. "The voice was a +ghost's."</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue," roared Ewyo. "You'll make a fox for the hunt, small +yellow man!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A gap appeared. "Look in there," said Ewyo, and a head came thrusting +in, the head of a squire's servant topped with the distinctive peaked +cap and green ear flaps. Revel could not shoot a rucker. He hit the man +full in the mouth, and the head disappeared with a howl.</p> + +<p>"Tear them down, he's in there. We'll let the zanphs harry him a bit," +said Ewyo. "Hear that, rebel?"</p> + +<p>"Send in your zanphs," yelled Revel, grinning. "Let 'em come in, +squire!"</p> + +<p>The gap grew. Up over the rocks charged a zanph, its six legs scrabbling +frantically, its snake's head darting back and forth to search him out. +He let it see him and utter its war cry, a hiss that became a growl. +Then he pointed the gun's muzzle at its face and calmly pulled the +curved metal below the barrel. There was a crash as of a mountain +falling; dust rained on him from the roof, echoes raged together; and +the zanph, its skull fragmented all over four yards of floor, sank to +the furred belly and slowly rolled over.</p> + +<p>"Send me a globe!" roared Revel, delirious with glee. "Send me a god, +Ewyo!"</p> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + +<p>There was silence beyond the wall; then the priest croaked, "He has a +gun. Certainly this is more than a matter of a kidnapped daughter, +Ewyo!"</p> + +<p>Jerran's voice rose in a laugh. "It is, Lord Ewyo, it is!"</p> + +<p>What the hell did the old fellow mean? Revel shrugged. He'd learn later. +Now was the time for action.</p> + +<p>Going to the prostrate girl, he slung her over his shoulder, a limp +light weight. The tattered silver gown flapped as he walked to the hole.</p> + +<p>"Stand back," he cried. "I'm bringing your daughter to you, Squire!"</p> + +<p>Another zanph showed its horrible reptilian head; he blasted it out of +existence with another shot. There were outcries from the squire and his +servants, and the priest rumbled, "Sacrilege!"</p> + +<p>Rack's head showed between the rocks. "Calm down, boy," he said, his +staring walleye gleaming in the lantern light. "You've been living too +fast—"</p> + +<p>"Not fast enough, Redbeard. Out of the way!"</p> + +<p>Rack slowly withdrew, and after kicking a few more boulders from his +path, Revel stooped and went out into the tunnel.</p> + +<p>"At him!" croaked the priest, a thin man in a radiant blue-green robe, +the double scalp lock waving like twin plumes on his shaven head. "Pull +him down!"</p> + +<p>"Ewyo dies if I'm touched," said Revel coolly, pointing the handgun at +the squire's belly.</p> + +<p>"Kill him—with that little thing?" said the priest. His voice seemed to +come out of the ground, not from such a gaunt frame as his. "You bluff, +rucker."</p> + +<p>"Look at your zanphs if you think so." He glared at them. There was +Ewyo, burly in peach satin and white silk, his long-skirted coat pushed +back from a lace shirt, skin-tight pants held by knee-high black boots, +a cabbage rose thrust into his cocked hat. There was the priest, lean +and savage beneath two hovering globes. Three servants of the squire, +Jerran and Rack made up the rest.</p> + +<p>"Come here, Jerran," he ordered. Smiling lazily, the little man ambled +over. "Take a couple of these miniature guns from my belt. They're +loaded. You point them—"</p> + +<p>"I can use a gun," said Jerran, "though I never had my hands on one this +size."</p> + +<p>"They came to us from the Ancient Kingdom," Revel told him.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Jerran, nodding as he pulled two guns from the big man's +waistband. "I thought they might have. The ballads say they used such +weapons. Everyone carried 'em." He faced the squire, and his small body +appeared to swell and toughen as he went on. "Lord Ewyo, please to +precede us with your servants and that feather-brained priest. We'll go +to the ladders."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ewyo grunted. Orders from a rucker, to him, <i>him</i>, the greatest +landholder in Dolfya! But after another glance at the mutilated zanph, +he turned and walked down the tunnel.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," said Revel, but Jerran turned to him with a face as +hard and ruthless as a woods lion's. "Shut up, lad," he said. "I'll +handle 'em. You just tend to the wench. She's awake, in case you didn't +know."</p> + +<p>He knew now, for she had just bitten him on the rump. He hoisted her a +little higher and absently smacked her buttocks. "Lie quiet, damn you." +She lay quiet. He went on marveling at Jerran's commanding new presence, +but said nothing. He was behind a born leader now.</p> + +<p>Jerran said, "Priest, tell your gods to stop trying to get at my mind. +I've shut it off from 'em. You follow Ewyo."</p> + +<p>The priest turned on his heel. The servants scuttled after their lord, +and Rack sat down on a rock and pulled at his beard, looking thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it'd be overstating it," he said mildly, "to tell you two +you're in trouble."</p> + +<p>"So are the gentry, brother," Revel answered.</p> + +<p>"That'll be seen. Well," Rack said, squinting his good eye, "I'll be +seeing you. Or not, as the case may be."</p> + +<p>"Come along," said Jerran, and walked off, followed by Revel with the +Lady Nirea.</p> + +<p>Ewyo had vanished. His servants, uncertain, were grouped under the +ladder, and the priest was mounting up, his radiant robe billowing to +show scrawny, hairless legs. The two gods lifted through the murk.</p> + +<p>"Ewyo," said Revel, and Jerran interrupted. "Is gone. Did you expect to +hold him captive, lad?" He shook his yellow skull. "Too much trouble for +two men. Up you go."</p> + +<p>Revel sprang at the ladder and was soon crowding the heels of the +priest. That worshipful man reached the top of the ladder, turned and +knelt and thrust his face into Revel's. It was a vicious face, +hawk-nosed and mean. Now it barred his way, gloating openly.</p> + +<p>"You're dog-meat, rebel. A shame to kill the Lady Nirea with you, but +the gods order it." He reached out a hand and planted it firmly on +Revel's face.</p> + +<p>Hanging to the rung with his left hand, balancing the girl on the left +shoulder, Revel shot up his right and gripped the priest's wrist and +heaved up and back, ducking his head at the same time.</p> + +<p>The robed man flew into space with a screech.</p> + +<p>"Look out below!" roared Revel, and, chuckling, he finished his climb +and gave a hand to Jerran. "Where now?" From far below came the crunch +of a carcass landing at the foot of the ladders, on the lowest level of +the mine shaft. "One less priest!"</p> + +<p>"Follow me, lad," said Jerran, and dashed for the entrance. There was no +god on duty there, but the two that had accompanied the priest were +mounting into the buttoned sky.</p> + +<p>The girl was light on his shoulder, a delicious burden, he thought. He +hoped he could keep her. Just how, or where, he did not bother to +consider. Things were moving too fast for plans, at least plans about +women.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Jerran led him up over the crest of the hill above the mine. Beyond lay +the uncharted forests of Kamden. He had hunted mink and set rabbit +snares on the edges of it since boyhood, but had never seen its depths. +So far as he knew, no man had.</p> + +<p>As they started toward the wood, the beat of hoofs became audible in the +quiet countryside. Revel couldn't see the horses, but he began to run, +easily and fast, with Lady Nirea bobbing and swearing on his shoulder. +Jerran kept pace.</p> + +<p>Then they came up over the rim of the hill behind him, a pack of the +gentry on their huge fierce stallions, with a couple of hundred-pound +hunting dogs in advance, baying and yapping. The old terrifying viewing +call rose: "Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo allo-allo!" Thousands of the ruck +had heard the whooping cry moments before their grisly deaths. Revel +tightened his grip on the perfect legs of Nirea, and pounded on. He'd +ditch her if need be, but as long as he could hang on to her, by +Orbs....</p> + +<p>The forest was closer. He could pick out individual trees, oak and +silver birch and poplar, standing thick in the matted carpet of thicket +and trash. A broad trail opened to the left.</p> + +<p>"That way," gasped Jerran, pointing.</p> + +<p>"The horses can follow down that road!"</p> + +<p>"Don't argue—damn you—lad—just run!"</p> + +<p>The gentry came yelling in their wake. A gun banged. Were they shooting +at him? Not with the woman slung down his back. The priests might +sacrifice a squire's daughter without a murmur, but no gentryman ever +harmed a gentrywoman under any circumstances. It was likely a warning. +That was why they kept whistling the dogs back, too, for the enormous +brutes could rip a human to scarlet rags in twenty seconds, and not even +a squire's command stopped them once they'd tasted blood.</p> + +<p>He had reached the trees and the wide path. He plunged into it, Jerran +beside him; the older man was panting heavily now, but running as +strongly as ever. "A little behind me, Revel," he husked out. "See you +follow me close."</p> + +<p>Jerran knew where he was headed ... Revel surrendered all initiative to +him. The ground thundered beneath him to the pounding of the horses. He +looked back as he ran. They were almost upon him, gay and gaudy in their +scarlet, green, fawn and purple hunting clothes; their faces were +bloodless, malevolent, and entirely without pity. Several of them +carried guns, the long clumsy weapons handed down to them by their +grandfathers from the time, a hundred years past, when gun-making was +still a known art. Ramrods were fitted below the barrels and the muzzles +flared like lilies. He'd back his new-found little guns of the Ancient +Kingdom against any such heavy instrument.</p> + +<p>Jerran dived into what seemed a solid mass of brambles. Revel shifted +the girl and bent to follow; at that instant she grabbed the back of his +thigh and wrenched with all her might. He had been carrying her too low +again. The tug was just enough to throw him off balance, and rucker and +lady sprawled on the forest pathway, entangled together, struggling +frantically to rise, as the giant stallions of the gentry bore down upon +them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The pretty daughter of the squire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She came a-riding by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sunlight was her fine long hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of gray flint was her eye.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink he takes her by the arm:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Now you must come with me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We'll dwell a space in the wild wild woods<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beneath the great oak tree!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets, +coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane +whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward.</p> + +<p>He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save +himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of +the wench and try to preserve them both.</p> + +<p>He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady +Nirea.</p> + +<p>At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her +sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for +that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving +too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx. +He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body. +As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between +them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force +of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute.</p> + +<p>Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him +while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he'd +ever done. As the squires' legs came abreast, one blink later, he took +hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled +down. Then he leaped forward between the horses' tails, twitching the +woman after him with a jerk that almost tore the arm from her body.</p> + +<p>The squire in the blue breeches toppled over, howling, and fell on the +path. Revel yanked the Lady Nirea to one side as the mass of them swept +by, and saw with satisfaction a stallion, trying not to step on the +fallen squire, take a nasty tumble itself, flinging its rider ten feet +ahead, where he was trampled by a couple of less cautious nags.</p> + +<p>Other horses fell over the first one, and the gentry milled about, +roaring bloody hell and death on everybody. The two hounds smelled blood +and attacked the fallen squires, and Blue Breeches raced off into the +woods, one of the ravening dogs at his heels.</p> + +<p>Revel made for the other side, the brambles where Jerran had +disappeared. He was hauling the girl behind him. A beef-faced squire on +a pirouetting horse loosed off his gun at Revel, who snatched a handgun +from his belt and fired back. Both of them missed. A gentryman in tan +and gold long-skirted coat leaped in front of the miner, the flared +muzzle of his gun coming up toward Revel's breast.</p> + +<p>Revel shot by instinct, without aiming. The man's face turned into a +mess that looked like squashed raspberries. Revel stepped over his body +and tried to plunge into the brambles, but he had lost the exact spot, +and thorns barred the way.</p> + +<p>Then, four feet down the road, Jerran's yellow face popped into view. +"Here, lad!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At that instant Lady Nirea gave a wrench and freed herself from Revel's +grip. He whirled and leaped and snatched down, catching the collar of +the silver gown. Her momentum carried her forward, but the dress stayed +in his hand ripped completely off. He went after her—she was falling +now—and caught her, though the atmosphere seemed to be composed equally +of gentry and rearing stallions.</p> + +<p>Then he turned, carrying her slung over one arm, and managing to reach +Jerran's anxious-looking head by knocking down one squire and kicking +another in the groin, he dived into the bushes. The Lady Nirea squalled +shrilly as the thorns gashed at her soft skin. But Revel blundered on +into the bramble patch.</p> + +<p>Jerran led him through what seemed impenetrable thickets, following a +route that must have been marked, though Revel could not see how. Behind +them, the gentry howled and loosed off their guns, but the brambles +defeated them, for Revel caught no sounds of pursuit. A scream that +thrilled up and choked off must have been the unfortunate Blue Breeches.</p> + +<p>Revel looked up, thinking of the globes; he could see the sky in many +places through the tangle, but realized that it was probably a thick +green solid floor to a watcher from above. A god would have to come very +low to see anything moving beneath it.</p> + +<p>The woman said bitterly, "For Orbs' sake, at least carry me in some +fashion that won't expose <i>quite</i> so much of me to the thorns!" She +paused and added as an after-thought, "You mudhead!"</p> + +<p>He hitched her around and held her curled to his chest, faintly +conscious of the smooth body, but concentrating on protecting her from +harm; he thought suddenly that he was treating her as if she'd been a +ruck woman, instead of one of the gentry, the loathed and feared +squirarchy. Was he putting too much importance on the physical +attractions that had made him take her?</p> + +<p>Jerran was leading him now along a tunnel-like passage of twined, arched +shrubbery that made them stoop low. "It'd help if you walked, Lady," he +said.</p> + +<p>"You may not have noticed it, miner, but I have on just one slipper, and +it doesn't have a heel." She scowled up at him. "And when I say one +slipper, I mean that's <i>all</i>."</p> + +<p>"You look fine," he grinned. "No silk and satin looks as attractive as +your own pelt, my lady."</p> + +<p>They traveled for upwards of half an hour, sometimes down forest lanes +that allowed free passage, other times through thickets that ripped +their flesh and slowed them to a swearing, sweating crawl. Always there +was a screen above them of natural growth, shielding them from the +buttoned sky.</p> + +<p>At last before them there opened a huge amphitheater of the forest, a +hollow with gently sloping sides, covered by a gigantic roof of twined +willow wands and twigs. Jerran said, gesturing upward, "That's the +biggest piece of camouflage we ever did! The top of it is planted with +grass and scrub, rooted in square sods of earth cut from the woods' +floor in many places. From above it looks like a round hill rising out +of the trees. Took us a year to perfect it."</p> + +<p>"Jerran, who is 'us' and—"</p> + +<p>"Why, lad, the rebels."</p> + +<p>Revel stared at the little man. Could Jerran, the straw-colored stringy +fellow he'd worked beside all these years, the quiet one who'd preached +serenity and dragged him out of a hundred brawls, could he be a rebel? +Fantastic....</p> + +<p>The rebels were the anonymous elite of the ruck. They were the +malcontents of their society, men whose intellects could not swallow the +dreary bromides of the priests, who felt savage indignation against the +cruel gentry and the bright, all-mighty globes. It was said that they +formed an organization in Dolfya and other cities, these rebels, and +that to them could be laid the sabotaging of the coal and diamond mines, +the gentry slain in accidents that looked too pat, and the constant aura +of uneasy discontent that pervaded the shebeens and all such illegal +gathering places of the ruck.</p> + +<p>The rebels were highly romantic figures, but Revel had always considered +them mythical, for who could think of resisting the condition of Things +As They Are? Songs were sung about them over the turf fires, in the +squat little huts of the people, and by vagabonds who roamed the +countryside by night. The rebels went by fanciful names, as rebels of +the people always do; and the one most sung of, most whispered about, in +Dolfya at least, was the Mink, who seemed to be a kind of promised +savior who would come (soon, always soon) with punishments for the +gentry and liberation for the ruck.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So Revel stared at Jerran, mouth agape, and repeated stupidly, "The +rebels?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, lad! Didn't you ever guess?"</p> + +<p>"Orbs, no!"</p> + +<p>"Why'd you think I kept stopping your fights in the shebeen?"</p> + +<p>"Because you were a pacifist."</p> + +<p>The small man shook with laughter. "One, there's nothing I love so much +as a good brawl. Two, a brawl might bring the orbs or the gentry to our +hidden drink-house, and that'd be bad. Three, a man who's a rebel must +appear <i>not</i> to be one, even to men he believes he can trust. Four, I've +had my eye on you ever since I came from Hakes Town, and didn't want you +murdered in a drunken scrimmage. So five, though I hated to do it, I had +to preserve you from raging and quarreling until all that brute force +and honest fury could be turned to real account for us."</p> + +<p>"I can't take it in," Revel said helplessly. "It's as though the heroes +of the Ancient Kingdom that we sing about, Rob-'em-Good and Jonenry and +Lynka, had met me here. I never believed in rebels, truly, Jerran."</p> + +<p>"Why should you? We haven't done anything big yet. We've been searching +and waiting for a leader."</p> + +<p>Revel snapped his fingers. "The Mink!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the Mink." Jerran looked at him oddly, head cocked like a small +yellow bird. "He hasn't come yet, but he will."</p> + +<p>Revel looked around him. The amphitheater was dim, lit only by the +sunlight that managed to creep in from the forest around it; for no +illumination fell from the sodded roof. It must be capable of holding +hundreds of men. "How many are you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Some four thousand and three hundred." There was pride in the man's +voice. "After today, Revel, we shall be uncountable thousands. Now the +gods have been torn down."</p> + +<p>"Not torn down."</p> + +<p>"Torn down," repeated Jerran firmly, "from their false 'untouchable' +eminence. You've shown the world that the globes can be slain as easily +as hares."</p> + +<p>"They can still rise into the buttoned sky, and rule from there."</p> + +<p>"We'll find ways," grunted Jerran impatiently. "False gods that can die +can be lured down by trickery—or we can find a way to go up to the +buttons."</p> + +<p>"That's insane," said Revel, and would have amplified it, but at that +moment the girl spoke.</p> + +<p>"When you are quite ready, <i>Squire</i> Revel, I wonder if you'd kindly set +me down?"</p> + +<p>He had forgotten her, slung over his shoulder like a slain doe. Hastily +he slipped her off and set her on her feet. She was like a forest nymph, +one of those legendary wild women who haunted the trees near towns and +lured men to their death; tall and whitely lovely, her stark naked body +shone against the greensward with a perfection that made Revel's throat +constrict.</p> + +<p>Then she doubled up a fist and hit him in the eye.</p> + +<p>"You lout!" said the gorgeous creature. "Can't you at least get me +something to wear?"</p> + +<p>"I can have clothes for you in two minutes, Lady Nirea," said Jerran. +"Man's clothes, I'm afraid. No woman has ever seen the meeting place +before you."</p> + +<p>"Man's clothes—rucker's clothes," she said caustically. "If I'd known +what—"</p> + +<p>Then her words were muffled by a terrible sound, a noise as of the earth +exploding beneath them. Nothing moved, yet they had the sensation of +being shaken intolerably by a giant blast of wind. The roar dwindled +away, reluctant to cease, and Revel said, "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Come on," said Jerran urgently, "we'll go to the dome and see."</p> + +<p>"The dome?"</p> + +<p>"The roof of the sanctuary," barked Jerran impatiently. "It holds the +weight of a score of men without quivering. We build slowly, but well." +He sprinted away.</p> + +<p>"The girl!" yelled Revel.</p> + +<p>Jerran called over his shoulder, "If she's fool enough to risk woods +lions and the bears, let her go!"</p> + +<p>Revel stared at Nirea. Then he chuckled. "No gentrywoman could find her +way home from this maze-center. You'll wait." He followed his friend.</p> + +<p>They shinned up a tree on the edge of the clearing, and jumped to the +rim of the dome, which never even swayed beneath their impact. Revel saw +it stretch up before him like a grassy hill, and marveled at the rebels' +artistry. Shortly they were standing on the crest, and he was clutching +at Jerran's arm.</p> + +<p>"Orbs above! Look there!"</p> + +<p>On the horizon lay a tremendous cloud of gray-black smoke, like the +reeking smudge of a forest fire; above it rose another and more ominous +cloud, this tinged with red and of mushroom shape.</p> + +<p>Revel was speechless, but Jerran ripped out a curse that would have +curled the hair of a squire's neck.</p> + +<p>"The Globate Credo," he said. "You've proved it wrong in one respect, +but there's terrible proof of its truth in another." He spat. "If I +figure right, that cloud's hanging over the eastern quarter of Dolfya +Town, where none but the ruck lives; and every soul that lived there is +dead as last week's dinner."</p> + +<p>"The Credo?" said Revel haltingly.</p> + +<p>"Sure. <i>Vengeance of the gods comes swift and without warning, below the +twin clouds, with a sound of volcanoes.</i> Nobody ever knew what that +meant ... till now."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The pretty daughter of the squire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She mourned and would not eat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Mink he tried to tempt her<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With barley bread and meat.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O no, O no, you rebel cur,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'll never eat nor drink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till father's hall I see again!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till death has trapped the Mink!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>There were seven hundred silent men in the amphitheater of the forest, +and more came in each minute, slipping from the trees without a sound, +taking seats on the sloping grass. Miner's lanterns, the marvelous +contraptions that hung in the shafts beside the veins of coal or pockets +of diamonds, glowing with a dull penetrating radiance, had been filched +from the mines one by one over years, and now illumined the strange hall +like blue glowworms spaced around a pit.</p> + +<p>Revel sat, uneasy, on the sward in the center, at the bottom of the +bowl; beside him were Jerran and Dawvys, the small rebel's cousin who +served in the house of Ewyo the squire. There also was the Lady Nirea, +dressed in a miner's plain short-sleeved shirt and unornamented pants, +but looking as delectable to Revel as she had in the silver gown. She +had not spoken to him since the great bang and the twin clouds, but his +mind was so full that he didn't care.</p> + +<p>He had killed gods. This had brought his whole world down in ruins, +shaken his belief in all he had ever been taught by the priests.</p> + +<p>He had killed gentrymen, squires whom no breath of trouble from the ruck +had ever disturbed. This had made the myths of rebellion very real to +him, very possible; and then Jerran had admitted to being a rebel +himself.</p> + +<p>The east quarter of Dolfya had been wiped out, as Jerran had guessed; +men from the town, coming in after dusk, had confirmed it. The place for +a square mile was level, featureless, without sign that thousands of +people, women and shopkeepers, brewers and doctors, shebeen hosts and +small craftsmen and thieves and vegetable-growers, had lived there just +this morning. They were all gone into the smoke of the double cloud.</p> + +<p>His own mother was dead, then, and perhaps Rack, if the big red man had +gone home.</p> + +<p>He had taken a squire's daughter and made love to her, love that was +returned if only for a brief time; and afterwards he had shot down +zanphs with his new-found guns and plummeted a priest to destruction.</p> + +<p>So now where was he? Among rebels, certainly, but mentally, where did he +stand? Did he espouse the cause of the rebels? He nodded to himself. Of +course. Their cause was the ruck's, and Revel was a man of the ruck. He +had given the rebels a terrific boost with his god-killing, too. As word +went round of it, he could see faces turn toward him, marveling, +awe-struck, respectful.</p> + +<p>And what was he to do? Become a vagabond, probably, living by night, +skulking in the forest edges, passing from town to town hoping he could +find a place where the gods had not heard of him, so he might settle +down and eventually become a miner again. Mining was all he knew.</p> + +<p>He felt for his pick, tucked into his trousers at the back. For all the +new handguns, with their ammunition that made hash of a head or a belly, +he still preferred his pick. It was the weapon of a man.</p> + +<p>He took out a gun from his belt and stared at it. Then he asked Nirea, +"What is this called, the curved metal you pull to shoot?"</p> + +<p>She glanced over haughtily. "The trigger. Any dolt knows that."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd be nicer. I don't mean to harm you."</p> + +<p>"You touched me, and more. I'm dreaming of your torture. Leave me +alone."</p> + +<p>Jerran stood up. The rebels, who had been buzzing and talking in low +tones, quieted until Revel could hear the rabbits hopping in the +underbrush beyond the amphitheater.</p> + +<p>Jerran began to speak. He told them the whole story of the day, of the +gods' death and all. Murmurs and exclamations arose, and he hushed them +with a gesture.</p> + +<p>"Many of us," he said, "though rebels, have owed allegiance to the gods. +Our quarrel has been only with the gentry, whose useless existence and +awful power over us are a constant irritation. They who hunt us as +'foxes'—who kill us if we touch them—we have seen are only men like +ourselves, women like our women." He pointed to Nirea. "There's a +gentrywoman; is she different in body from our wives? Not by so much as +a mole!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see any moles," whispered Revel to the girl. She turned red in +the face and clamped her teeth together.</p> + +<p>"Is her mind different, superior? It's eviller, cruder, more ferocious, +maybe, but no whit better than our own! Why then should her kind have +power over us?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The amphitheater roared to the angry yells of rebels. Jerran waved his +hand again. "That's been our quarrel with the established way of things +in the world. We've hoped for weapons to fight the gentry, and prayed +for guidance from the gods. Now we know that the gods are mortal too! +They can die! Then they aren't gods, not if gods are the supreme beings +we've all been taught! They flee from a miner's pick? Then, by Orbs, +they're craven cowards, not fit to be worshipped!"</p> + +<p>A hush, then another roar.</p> + +<p>"I said we'd waited. The biggest need was a leader, a man of brains and +guts and power. We've sung of him for centuries, made up stories of him, +songs about him." Jerran paused dramatically. He flung out a finger at +the mob. "Who will he be?"</p> + +<p>The answer almost broke Revel's eardrums.</p> + +<p><i>The Mink! The Mink! The Mink! The Mink!</i></p> + +<p>"He's here! He's come, from the bowels of the ruck, from the mines, from +the people, as he was to come! Already he's done some of the acts the +saga-makers put into the Ballad of the Mink!"</p> + +<p>Revel frowned. Jerran hadn't told him that the Mink had come at last. +The small yellow-faced man went on.</p> + +<p>"He's the greatest trapper of mink in Dolfya—his family sleeps under +blankets of the little beasts' hides. His own hair is the shade of a +mink's pelt, as was foretold. He's as swift and deadly and cunning as +the oldest mink alive. He's slain gods and priests, and taken toll of +the gentry. I've worked beside him for years, and know his mind and +heart have always been ours, though he lived in ignorance of us."</p> + +<p>The light, a lurid incredible light, began to dawn on Revel.</p> + +<p>Jerran's voice rose to a shriek as the rebels muttered stupefaction. "I +tell you I know this is the man we've waited for, us and our fathers and +their father's fathers before them! Rebels of Dolfya, I show +you—<i>Revel, the Mink!</i>"</p> + +<p>The shouts that had come before were murmurs to the chorus of stentorian +bellows which assaulted Revel's ears now. The woman turned and said +something to him, her fine face disdainful, but the words were lost in +the tumult. A dozen men surged down and lifted him to their shoulders +and paraded him round, while hands reached up to touch him and wave +greeting to him.</p> + +<p>It was the beginning of a celebration he had never seen the like of, a +festival occasion that included a great dinner of boar and deer meat and +stolen gentry's wine, over which much vague planning was done; and it +ended only when the last rebel had left to sneak homeward, and he and +the girl were left alone with Jerran.</p> + +<p>"Sleep now, lad," Jerran said, grinning. "You're exhausted. It isn't +every day a man finds himself a savior."</p> + +<p>"But the Mink—I, the Mink?" He still had not entirely accepted it.</p> + +<p>"I think so ... and if I care to call you the Mink, no one can +contradict me."</p> + +<p>"All the while I was doing those things this morning," muttered Revel, +"I had the feeling I'd done them before. I must have been remembering +the old ballad, for by Orbs, the acts do fit!"</p> + +<p>"That minor blasphemy begins to annoy me," said Jerran seriously. "It's +like saying 'by the man I killed yesterday.' We've got to revise our +swearing habits."</p> + +<p>"Why not substitute <i>Revel</i> or <i>Mink</i> for <i>Orb</i>?" asked the girl +harshly. "Our Revel who dwells in the buttoned sky," she added, with a +malevolent sneer.</p> + +<p>"Ah, go to sleep, both of you," said Jerran. "Tomorrow we start to +plan—really plan—to overthrow the gentry."</p> + +<p>"And the priests," said Revel fiercely, "and the gods!" He almost +believed that somehow they could climb into the air and destroy the gods +in their red and blue buttons. He lay down, one hand vised on the +woman's wrist, and though he felt he should never sleep that night, +being far too excited, in three minutes he was snoring mightily.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He woke some time later with the prickling feeling of danger on his +skin. He opened his eyes and saw red, literally a red mist that obscured +the world. Then his head began to open and shut, open and shut, and he +knew he had been hit a hell of a blow on the forehead, and there was +blood in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Groping for his pick, that had lain next his left hand, he missed it; +then he recalled the girl, reached out for her, found she was gone too. +He drew the back of his arm over his eyes and cleared the gore a trifle. +"Jerran?" he said quietly. No answer.</p> + +<p>Blinking, he saw the vast meeting place empty, lit by the blue lanterns. +He rolled his head and there, its point buried deep in the sward an inch +from his right ear, was his pick. He sat up. Jerran lay a dozen feet +off, looking very dead indeed, with his thin hair matted with blackening +blood.</p> + +<p>Instinctively he tore the pick out of the ground. It was buried so deep +that only a very strong hand could have sent it in; not the girl, he +thought, somehow relieved that she hadn't done it. No, a miner's blow +alone might have done it, for the earth was packed solid as oak's wood +by untold multitudes of rebels' feet.</p> + +<p>Wait a minute, he said to himself: this is all wrong. That blow should +have opened my skull like a walnut. It missed me by a fraction—either +the aim was poor, or else damned good. I could have struck such a blow, +sure to miss where I wished to, but not even many miners could duplicate +it.</p> + +<p>Had the enemy missed, then walloped him with another weapon and left him +for dead? Gingerly he felt the wound on his head. It was healing +already, a tap that might have laid him out for a few hours, but would +never have slain him.</p> + +<p>He glared at the pick in his hand. Then he brought it up and in the +combined light of the blue lanterns and the dawn filtering in from the +woods, he squinted at the handle.</p> + +<p>Where his own pick bore the crude carving of a mink (he had taken the +beast as his symbol a long time ago, another sign of his identity), this +one had a jumble of grooves meant to represent a woods lion.</p> + +<p>This wasn't Revel's pick—it was his brother Rack's!</p> + +<p>Caught in an appalling dream that was the hardest reality he'd ever +faced, he pored over the pickax, scanned the motionless form of his +friend Jerran, then goggled foolishly at nothing in particular as he +thought of his situation, stranded in a place he could not escape from +alone, with many half-formed plots in his head but no way to carry them +out. Between him and Dolfya, and the other rebels, lay miles of tangled +forest no man, be he ever so skillful at woodscraft, could penetrate +without the knowledge of a route; thousands of the ruck were depending +on him to lead them, and he couldn't even lead himself home.</p> + +<p>"If you're the Mink, Revel m'lad," he said aloud, "it's time you came up +with a brilliant idea!"</p> + +<p>And there wasn't a scheme in his head.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The haughty maid has left the Mink,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She finds her father's place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The squire has looked her in the eye:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Now what a fox to chase!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He's called in all his friends and kin,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And dealt out guns and shells;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He's sworn an oath to catch the Mink<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By all the seven hells!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Lady Nirea was puffing and blowing and clawing her way through endless +miles of creepers, thorns, and brushwood. She wished Revel were carrying +her now, even if it meant the loss of her clothing again. Now she +appreciated what a job he'd done, for naked though she'd been, not half +as many scratches had marred her skin on their first journey.</p> + +<p>Ahead of her, the giant called Rack was doing his best to break trail +for her; and in front of him, with a rope under his arms which the +red-bearded man held tightly, went Dawvys, her father's servant.</p> + +<p>As she understood the tale from Rack's few sentences, growled out in a +voice that reeked with hatred of somebody, whether herself or Revel or +whom she couldn't tell, he had caught Dawvys just emerging from the +forest and made him lead the way back to the domed glade. Ewyo the +squire had sent Rack out for her, and Rack was evidently all a rucker +should be—faithful, reverent, and obedient to the least command of the +gentry.</p> + +<p>She remembered waking, Revel's strong hand still clamped on her wrist, +and seeing this walleyed brute just aiming a swing of a pick at his +brother's head. She had screamed, and Rack had missed. She wondered +whether he had meant to hit at all. There was already a bloody gash on +Revel's scalp, and the little yellow man, Jerran, lay quite still with +red trickling out of his head.</p> + +<p>Then Rack had picked up Revel's pick and disengaged the grip of his hand +(was it as cold and lifeless as she'd thought? could the Mink be dead?) +from her wrist, and booted Dawvys out on the trail.</p> + +<p>That had been hours ago. They were still bumbling through the forest, +although the sun was high.</p> + +<p>"He's leading us wrong," she panted. "Don't trust him. He's an important +rebel."</p> + +<p>"He wants to live as badly as we do, Lady. He'll take us home."</p> + +<p>And sure enough, they had come shortly to the rim of the woodland. She +swayed and nearly collapsed. "Give me your arm, rucker," she said. "I +give you permission to touch me."</p> + +<p>His arm was like stone, supporting her along the road to Dolfya's +outskirts where her father's mansion lay. After a few minutes he dropped +the rope that held Dawvys. "Damn," he said loudly, "he will get away!" +and bent to retrieve it. Dawvys leaped off like a pinched frog, and Rack +said grimly, "No use to chase that one, he can sprint faster than a +dozen hulks like me."</p> + +<p>"You let him go," said Nirea.</p> + +<p>He turned his blue eye on her. "That is as you see fit to believe, +Lady."</p> + +<p>She would turn him over to her father's huntsman, she thought. Or would +she? He'd saved her ... was this gratitude in her mind? It was a foreign +emotion. Wait and see, she told herself; don't fret now. She was very +tired.</p> + +<p>They came to the house of Ewyo, a sprawling erection of field stone and +ancient brick dug from distant ruins of another time. No one could make +bricks like that now. She touched the gate in the wall and instantly a +dozen hounds, gaunt and savage, came leaping from the lawns. Recognizing +her, they fawned, and she opened the gate. "Come in," she said. He +grunted and obeyed, eyeing the dogs.</p> + +<p>In the library of the house, which contained more than twenty priceless +books allowed her ancestors by the gods, she met her father, the squire +Ewyo. He scowled up at Rack.</p> + +<p>"You bring this rucker, this miner, into the library, Nirea?"</p> + +<p>Not a word of greeting, she thought, not a single expression of relief +at her safety. For the first time she began to contrast the manners of +the gentry with those of Revel. He was rough, true, and crude and +inclined to glory in his animal strength, and he had made love to her, +to boot; but if he had found her after thinking her dead, by the Orbs! +he wouldn't have snarled out something about an unimportant convention!</p> + +<p>"The man saved me at great risk, and killed his own brother doing it," +she said coldly. She would not mention Dawvys at all. Not now! "He +deserves a reward, Ewyo, and not harsh words from you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He slapped his high sleek boots with a hunting crop. He was a burly, +beefy-looking man, nothing like the lean tough Mink. She felt a sense of +revulsion. She turned to Rack and stared at the big face, scarred by +whipping branches, firm and fearless, as hard as the heart of a +mountain. "Go home and get some sleep, Rack," she said kindly. "You'll +hear from me later."</p> + +<p>"I have no home, Lady," he answered. "The gods destroyed our part of the +town yesterday."</p> + +<p>Ewyo snorted, "Dawvys can give him a bed for now in the servants' huts. +Dawvys!"</p> + +<p>It was on her tongue to say that Dawvys wouldn't be likely to answer his +bawl, but the man appeared in the doorway, spruce and clean, with only a +few scratches to tell of his activities. "Yes, Lord Ewyo?"</p> + +<p>"Take this rucker and find a bed for him. Jump!"</p> + +<p>"Yessir." Dawvys, a plump fellow with no hint of his enormous endurance +in his look, motioned Rack out of the library.</p> + +<p>Ewyo said, "Well! How are you, Nirea? Your sister Jann and I have been +worrying."</p> + +<p>"I'm all right."</p> + +<p>"Did you suffer indignities at the hands of that crazy miner?"</p> + +<p>He looked like a damned red-faced bear, she thought, and surprised +herself by saying, "Revel treated me with—with much consideration."</p> + +<p>"Huh! Wouldn't have thought it. You want to sleep?"</p> + +<p>"Don't bother about me," she said, turning. "Get on with your pressing +business, father." She went to her room and lay down on the +satin-sheeted bed without even removing the tattered rucker's clothes. +For a long while she lay there, thinking. Then she did a thing that no +one could ever have convinced her she'd do till that day. She changed +into a sheer black gown, after bathing of course, and slipped downstairs +to her father's private room.</p> + +<p>She had never been in it, no one but Ewyo had; she had no clear notion +of what she was looking for. But an army of questions warred in her +mind, and it seemed to her that there were secrets she must discover: +answers which she had never looked for, explanations for things she had +always taken for granted.</p> + +<p>For instance, she thought, turning the handle slowly and without noise, +why were the gentry the gentry? Why did the gods allow almost anything +to her kind, when the ruck had no rights? She shook her head. All her +breeding said she was mad, yet she opened the door of the private room +and walked in.</p> + +<p>Dawvys whirled from where he had been bending over a huge leather-bound +book on a table. His face was white, but it cleared of panic when he saw +her.</p> + +<p>"The Lady Nirea moves silently."</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"The same thing you mean to do, Lady. I'm seeking the answers to certain +problems."</p> + +<p>"Can a rucker read minds like a globe?"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "It was an obvious guess, Lady."</p> + +<p>"And have you found answers, Dawvys?"</p> + +<p>He sighed. "I cannot read, as the Lady knows. No rucker reads."</p> + +<p>She watched his face a moment. "Stay here," she said. "<i>I</i> can read."</p> + +<p>"The Lady of the Mink is kind," he said, bowing. The title did not shock +her. Strangeness on strangeness!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The book was full of queer writing, like none she had ever seen. Instead +of letters that each stood alone, the letters were joined, each word +being a unit without a break; and they seemed to stand up a little from +the page, not being sunken into the paper as all printing was that she +had seen.</p> + +<p>With difficulty she read a few sentences.</p> + +<p>"This day the third in the month of Orbuary I did feed the gods, more +than forty of them in the morning and twenty after eating. I am so weak +I can hardly hold this pen."</p> + +<p>"What does it mean?" asked Dawvys.</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She flipped a page. "This day did hunt the fox, he being +a strong untiring trapper who was found with forbidden ale cached in his +house, and chased him over eight mile before he went to earth in a +spinney, where the dogs found him and tore him to bits. Afterwards did +feed nine gods, who have drained me so I cannot see but in a fog," she +read aloud.</p> + +<p>"That's your father speaking," whispered Dawvys, "He hunted a trapper +last month."</p> + +<p>"But how is it down here, if it was Ewyo? The books were made many years +before my grandfather was born. No one makes books now. The art is +lost."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, I think Ewyo made this one himself. Unless it's a +prophecy of the gods." He turned the book over. "What does it say on the +outside?"</p> + +<p>She read it with cold grue inching up her back. "Ewyo of Dolfya, His +Ledger and Record Book."</p> + +<p>"Then he did make it."</p> + +<p>"How? How could he? The art is lost!"</p> + +<p>"Many things the ruck believed have been proved false in these last +hours," Dawvys said. "Perhaps the gentry's beliefs are equally wrong."</p> + +<p>She left the book and went to a desk by the oiled-paper window. A drawer +was partly open. Inside was a big heap of dandelions, thick grasses, and +wild parsley. She remembered Jerran's taunt, "Your father eats +dandelions!"</p> + +<p>"Dawvys, why are these here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Lady. I gather them and the squire eats them, but why, I +can't say."</p> + +<p>There was a sound at the door. Dawvys sprang toward the brocaded +hangings, too late; Ewyo thrust in his head, black rage on his features.</p> + +<p>"What in the seven hells are you doing here, Nirea?"</p> + +<p>The habits of a lifetime couldn't be overcome by a day in the presence +of the Mink. She said quickly, "I saw Dawvys come in, father, and +followed him."</p> + +<p>"Oh. Good for you. Dawvys, report yourself to the huntsman for a fox!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Dawvys bowed and went out. She breathed freely; he would escape, and +still she'd saved herself. What Ewyo might have done to her, she didn't +know, but she feared him when he was roused.</p> + +<p>She yearned to ask him about the book and the weeds, but didn't dare. +She passed him and went to the resting room, where she occupied a chair +for an hour, blankly pondering the tottering of her universe.</p> + +<p>At last she stood up. She was a gentrywoman, she had guts in her belly. +Why shouldn't she ask her father questions? Before she could think about +it and grow scared, she went searching, and ran across her sister Jann.</p> + +<p>Jann was twenty-four, a tall ash-blonde woman with snaky amber eyes and +pointed ears who lorded it over the household.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Ewyo?"</p> + +<p>"He's in the private room."</p> + +<p>She headed for it, and Jann ran to catch at her arm. "You can't disturb +him there!"</p> + +<p>"I've been in it before."</p> + +<p>Jann clawed at her. "You haven't! Even I was only there once...."</p> + +<p>"Even you. My, my." Nirea walked on, Jann tugging at her futilely. "I +have to talk to him."</p> + +<p>"Stop! Damn you, you whelp, you can't—"</p> + +<p>With precision and force, Nirea socked her sister in the left eye. Then +she strode down the hall and knocked on the door of the private room and +immediately went in.</p> + +<p>The sight that greeted her, completely incomprehensible, was still as +revolting and horrifying a thing as she had ever seen. Her father lay +back in a big armchair, relaxed and half-asleep to judge from his +hanging arms and barely open eyes. A curious sound, a kind of brrm-brrm, +came from his chest.</p> + +<p>Resting on his throat was a golden globe. Two of its tentacles were +pushed almost out of sight into his nostrils, two more dipped into his +gaping mouth. The remaining four waved slowly above the squire's face.</p> + +<p>Nirea screamed.</p> + +<p>The globe floated upward, slowly, grudgingly. Its tentacles withdrew +from the squire. Ewyo stirred and opened his pale eyes to glare at her. +A flush of hideous fury spread up his cheeks. He struggled to his feet +and lurched over and slapped her face, so that she ceased to scream and +fell against the wall, moaning. The squire stood over her.</p> + +<p>"You meddlesome bitch, I ought to have you cut up for the hounds!"</p> + +<p>"In the name of the Orbs," she said, whimpering, "what were you doing?"</p> + +<p>He grimaced at her like a madman. "You're not supposed to be told till +you're twenty, and you don't do it yourself till you reach +twenty-eight."</p> + +<p>"<i>Do it myself.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Certainly." He gave a humorless snort of laughter. "D'you think we +don't pay for the privilege of being gentry, you fool? Now leave me +alone!" He lifted her and flung her at the door. The golden sphere +hovered motionless in the air. "Never speak of what you saw, and never +ask another question of me till your twentieth birthday ... if you live +to reach it!"</p> + +<p>She fumbled the door open and staggered into the hall, and wept there +with awful tearing sobs, while her sister Jann looked at her and giggled +hysterically.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink he seeks the gentrylass;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He eyes the gods above;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He laughs their might to scorn, the while<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He hunts his highborn love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A fearsome lion bars the way,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Mink he cannot pass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He lifts his pick with fearful rage,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And blood besmears the grass!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Revel was plowing through the brush like a wound-crazed bear. Jerran +came behind, shouting directions, for Revel's impatience would not be +stilled enough for him to follow anyone, especially the small Jerran, +whose head rang, he said, from the skull-cracking blow he'd been given +by Rack, and who was slowed as a consequence.</p> + +<p>Revel got farther and farther in advance, tearing with his pick at vines +and creepers, trampling small trees, making enough noise for seven men. +Dimly he remembered much of the trail hereabouts, and at last he was so +far ahead of Jerran that he couldn't hear him.</p> + +<p>He came into a tiny glade, ceilinged with branches of the oaks. Across +its width, some twenty feet from him, a huge woods lion lay above the +torn corpse of a man. One of the rebels from the meeting, thought Revel, +who wasn't so lucky as most. The lion looked up and growled.</p> + +<p>Its mane was long and bur-tangled, black as sin; its body seven hundred +pounds of muscle and bone, was longer than Revel was tall. He greeted it +joyously, a foe to grapple with at last!</p> + +<p>It came to its feet, challenge on challenge rumbling in its massive +chest. He drew a gun, then stuck it back. His hands ached for work, more +work than the pulling of a trigger. He ported his pickax. "Come along, +old monster," he said. "We'll see how a mink and a lion can mix it!"</p> + +<p>It stalked two steps, gathered itself for a leap; he didn't wait, but +sprang forward to meet it. The lion rose, checking its pounce with +surprise, for surely no man had ever charged <i>it</i> before. The pick swung +down as it struck sideways at Revel, catching it in one shoulder, +tearing the flesh like dough. It screeched, clawing for him.</p> + +<p>One of the scimitar claws caught his side, gashing shirt and skin. Revel +whirled, yelling, flung himself on the animal's back, grabbed a handful +of mane with his left hand, and buried the pick in the center of the +woods lion's skull. The carcass lost its stiffness, sagged and fell, leg +bones cracking like gun shots as the tremendous body came down upon +them. Revel sprang to one side, lighting on his feet.</p> + +<p>"Not bad," said Jerran drily, coming into the glade. "If you're quite +through, Revel, we might be going along?"</p> + +<p>"I had to find out if I'm really the Mink," explained Revel, retrieving +his pick from the splintered bone of the lion's head. "The Mink could +slay a woods lion with one blow, it says in the ballads. This fellow +took me two blows."</p> + +<p>Jerran said, his face twisted, "Damn you, don't get cocky on me! You're +important now, no dirty miner, but a leader! If you haven't got the +brains to lead, at least keep still, follow my orders, and be a +figurehead. But don't take chances for the fun of it, because your lousy +hulk may be the salvation of man, despite yourself!"</p> + +<p>Revel hung his head. Jerran looked at him a moment. "Nerves, that's it, +and excitement, and eagerness to do something with your big hands. +You're young, and I shouldn't expect strict attention to duty of you. +But I <i>do</i>, blast it! Now march!"</p> + +<p>When they had traversed the forest, they emerged a little west of +Dolfya, on a stretch of dirt road bordered by maples. The lane seemed +deserted. Here and there in the buttoned sky were the bright dots of +gods passing back and forth between their abodes. Jerran led him +purposefully down the road.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Suddenly a man came bursting out from the maples and ran headlong into +them, knocking the small man back into Revel's arms. It was Dawvys, +clothing disheveled, mouth agape with running. "They are after me!" he +panted. "Ewyo sentenced me to the hounds. I ran, but they're after me!"</p> + +<p>Revel hauled out his pick. "Look there," he said, jerking his head +upward. "Concentration of orbs above us."</p> + +<p>"They point the way for the squires," grunted Jerran. "I don't hear the +dogs, though."</p> + +<p>"Ewyo wants me alive."</p> + +<p>"He won't get you!"</p> + +<p>"Will I not?" Ewyo himself had stepped quietly out from the trees, +directly in their path. In puce velvet, a great trumpet-mouthed gun in +his hands, he stood beefy and menacing before them. "Do you tell me I +won't, Revel the Mink?" He chuckled icily at the looks of amazement. +"D'you think I wouldn't have rucker spies? D'you think we don't know +about your foolish hideaway in the forest, and couldn't clap our hands +down on all of you in an hour if we wished to?" Two more squires, tall +and red-faced and prominently armed, came out behind him, "Gentles," +said Ewyo with mock politeness, "I give you Revel, the Mink, and two +minor henchmen."</p> + +<p>Revel lifted his pick and came forward, roaring defiance. Ewyo's gun +thrust out at his belly. "Don't die now," said the big squire +pleadingly. "I want you for a fox, Revel."</p> + +<p>Jerran snatched a handgun from his belt. One of the squires loosed off +at him instantly, the slug striking the handgun more by accident than +design, sending it spinning as Jerran howled and gripped his numbed +fingers.</p> + +<p>"Nice shooting, Rosk," said Ewyo. Revel still stood with his pick +raised, wondering what his chances of a swipe at Ewyo would be. "Put it +down," said the squire. "Drop it!"</p> + +<p>"Drop it, Revel," said Jerran. The Mink did so, and Rosk picked it up.</p> + +<p>"Come along," said Ewyo then. "I have some excellent torture rooms I'd +like you to inspect. Personally!" With a grin like a weasel's, he +motioned them through the maples. Several others of the gentry came up, +and the three rebels were surrounded and marched off to the great house +of Ewyo of Dolfya.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The room was large, of field stone, set below the house like a mole's +den; portions of the walls were black with age-old soot, from what +hellish fires Revel did not like to guess, and the rafters were grimed +and looked like axe-blades, darkened with dry blood, ready to fall upon +him. One wall had thongs hanging from it, beside a nine-lashed whip +hanging on a post. Candles illumined other instruments, the purpose of +all of which was torture.</p> + +<p>"Strap him to the wall," said Ewyo. Two of his servants did so; they +were evil-faced ruckers, fat with good living in the squire's huts. +Rosk, the lean-jawed, red-cheeked squire who was Ewyo's closest friend, +said, "Shall I flay a part of him? The left hand, say, or one foot so +he'll be slow in the hunt?"</p> + +<p>"No. I want him hale and hearty." Revel breathed easier. "The gods want +to do something, though. I'm not sure what. I have my orders." Ewyo took +a seat by the wall, gestured his servants out. As the door closed behind +them, a hideous yell echoed in the vault.</p> + +<p>Ewyo said comfortably, "They are taking the hide off the back of Dawvys, +in the next chamber. They'll split his fingernails, too, and perhaps +take off an ear. He's the least important of you upstarts, and I don't +care if he's as slow as a slug tomorrow."</p> + +<p>Revel thrashed impotently in the leather straps.</p> + +<p>Rosk studied the face of the Mink. He opened his gash of a mouth to say +something, and Revel spat accurately into it. "I wish it were my pick," +he said, as the squire sputtered and backed off.</p> + +<p>"Let be, Rosk," said Ewyo, smiling a little. "He'll pay for it +tomorrow." Rosk wiped his lips as the burly squire cocked his head, +listening to an unseen command. Then he walked over, opened the door, +and let in another yelp of agony, followed by a pair of golden orbs, +with their attendant zanphs.</p> + +<p>The globes floated down to the level of the Mink's face, and his skin +prickled at the nearness of the energy aura. What now? The long feelers +came darting out, touching his eyelids, his cheeks, and Revel winced, +expecting a searing burn. There was only the tingle. They could regulate +the energy, then, burning an opponent only when necessary. But how +loathsome their nearness was, to a sane and enlightened man who had +discarded the creed of their god-hood!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Now their minds came probing into his. Automatically he erected the +rampart of innocuous thoughts. Yet the probing continued; he could feel +it as a tangible finger of force, needling here, thrusting in there, +pressing aside the thoughts that meant nothing, feeling out not only his +true thoughts, but his memories, his unconscious hopes, the very traits +of character which made him what he was and of which he was scarcely +aware.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>This was no casually suspicious probing, such as an orb might give a man +as it passed him in the mine. This was a brutal wrenching of brain-stuff +that would not be denied. He felt it go into his rebellious brain, poke +and pry, ferret out all he remembered and believed. All the conceit +washed out of Revel the Mink. All the scorn he had felt for these +creatures turned to fear, and the bitter hatred increased a +thousandfold. And he knew that they felt it as it happened.</p> + +<p>At last the feelers drew back, and the orbs lifted toward the rafters. +Their zanphs lay watching them, and the two squires stood up +uncertainly. Then Rosk said in a hollow, unreal voice, "This man is to +be guarded closely. He must not be allowed to escape. It would be better +if he were killed now, rather than kept for the hunt. He is the most +dangerous rebel we have ever found."</p> + +<p>The Mink realized that the gods were using Rosk as a dummy, speaking +through his lips.</p> + +<p>Ewyo said, looking at the globes, that burnt with a dull golden radiance +in the upper gloom, "It would be better if he were hunted down. He is +the 'Savior' the ruck has been waiting for all these years, they think, +and if we slew him in this chamber, his death would never be believed. +He should be hunted before the whole town, and torn to pieces by the +dogs."</p> + +<p>The globes, through Rosk's lips, said, "That is so. Hunt him, then; but +if he escapes, you die and your family's status is reduced to that of +the lowest rucker's." They floated toward the door, which Ewyo hastened +to open for them. The sound of Dawvys' groans came in, and Revel +strained again at his bonds.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ewyo's pale eyes darted toward him. "What a fox you'll make," he +gloated. "We'll run you in my own lands, which are the best for the game +in all this country. We'll run you naked, I think, and allow the ruck to +gather on the hills and watch you scuttle from afar. Their precious +savior! A naked, frightened, harried rabbit, instead of a bold fighting +mink! How'll they like <i>that</i>? How much talk of treason will there be +for the next ten years, after <i>that</i>? Precious little, Revel of the +Ruck!"</p> + +<p>He called his servants. "Take him and bind him with two dozen thick +thongs, and have twenty men sit in a circle round him all night. Give +him plenty of food and water—by Orbs, give him a beaker of my wine! +We'll have a fox tomorrow to remember for a lifetime!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And now the squire has trapped the Mink,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And now he sets him free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now the Mink is hunted down<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On hill and vale and lea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He pants and gasps, his legs grow weak,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His eyes with sweat are blind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In squire's halloo and hound's mad bark<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He hears his death behind!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mind<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>They took Revel to the top of a hill just behind Ewyo's mansion. He was +stripped to the buff, but on his feet were stout sandals of horsehide in +triple thickness, so that he could run well and give them a good hunt. +On the crest they untied him, and he stood naked in a ring of the horsed +gentry, rubbing his wrists and glaring at them. Beside him were Jerran +and the mutilated Dawvys, who both wore their customary shirts and +trousers.</p> + +<p>Running his eyes over the squirachy, Revel saw with a strange thrill of +horror the Lady Nirea, on a deep-chested roan stallion, as cool and +distant as the moon ... and as beautiful, he thought bitterly. Well, but +hadn't he had her? He, a rucker born had loved this woman of the gentry! +Let her watch him die—small compensation that would be!</p> + +<p>He bowed to her. "May you be in at the death," he said clearly, and had +the satisfaction of seeing her face go white.</p> + +<p>"Give the Mink his fangs," said Ewyo. The burly squire was all in +scarlet silk and purple velvet, with white calfskin boots on his thick +legs. At his command, Rosk threw the tall rebel a belt with two +holsters, in which were thrust two short iron daggers. "By rights you +should go without, Mink," said Ewyo, "but it's more sport to chivvy a +fox with a bite in him. Now, you have till the count of three hundred."</p> + +<p>"Five hundred is customary," interrupted Nirea.</p> + +<p>"Three is plenty for the savior of the ruck. Hold your tongue, Lady." He +leaned over his steed's head. "Three hundred, Mink, and then we come +after you. Your course is down this hill and straight away toward the +sea. Don't try to escape the straight, either, because the hills are +rimmed with guards who'll blow your guts out if you cross the line; and +some thousands of your slimy kin are clustered on those hills to watch +their hero die." He nodded to the woman beside him, a blonde wench with +vicious amber eyes. "Begin the count, Jann."</p> + +<p>The blonde said loudly, "One, two, three—" and at the third word Revel +was off, running like a slim brown stag down the slope of the hill. +Behind him came Dawvys and Jerran. The little man cried, "Don't wait, +Revel lad. Save yourself if you can. Remember you're the Mink!"</p> + +<p>"I wish to Orbs I wasn't," he growled, and hit the bottom, skimmed over +a patch of raw rocks and struck the green beyond. As he ran he buckled +the belt around his waist, with a knife hanging on each hip. He had not +expected these, and though Ewyo thought he'd lose only a hound or two, +Revel intended to take at least a pair of squires with him into the +unknown....</p> + +<p>He was a fine runner. By the time Lady Jann had counted two hundred and +fifty, he was half a mile down the straight, which was a belt of land +some quarter of a mile wide and twenty long, ending above the sea on a +cliff's edge. As the squire had said, he would not be able to break off +the straight, for guards and packed mobs lined it and a naked man would +be far too conspicuous heading toward them.</p> + +<p>Now he thought of his two comrades in ill fortune. Neither of them was a +runner of any caliber. Should he wait and help them?</p> + +<p>Selfishness said <i>no</i>—and unselfishness said <i>no</i>, for wasn't his first +duty to the ruck, not to his friends? Didn't he owe it to humanity to +save himself? And besides, he was a lusty young buck, and didn't want to +die.</p> + +<p>But he glanced back, slowed, waited till the two had come panting up to +him, and thrusting an arm around each waist, ran them forward with him, +ignoring their protests.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They came to a coppice of elms, grown thick with brambles and cluttered +with deadwood. It covered perhaps an acre. Revel ploughed into it, +cursing as the thorns stabbed his naked hide. Too late he realized he +should have skirted it. In the rare quarter-seconds when the branches +were not snapping or the brush whipping noisily aside from their +progress, he could hear the faint barking of the great hounds; even, he +thought, the whoops of the excited gentry as they started down the hill +on their fiery stallions. He pictured Nirea, her slate-hued eyes +gleaming, her creamy skin aflush as she leaned forward eagerly for the +first sight of the Mink. Damn her!</p> + +<p>Abruptly the earth slanted off to the right, so that Revel, who was +still pushing Dawvys and Jerran, went headlong into a patch of nettles, +losing his balance at the unexpected dip and shoving both companions +down on their faces. Dawvys rolled, yelping at the pain of scratches on +fresh wounds, then vanished with a howl. Revel crouched, staring, +unbelieving. In a moment the head of the plump rucker came up out of the +earth.</p> + +<p>"What in Orbs' names—"</p> + +<p>"It's a pit," said Dawvys. "It was covered with trash." His eyes were +wide and frightened. "Go on, Revel. I can't run another step."</p> + +<p>The Mink thought swiftly. Dawvys was right, he could run no longer. +Quickly Revel shoved the man's head down, threw several branches and +bushes across the mouth of the pit, began to disguise it, talking as he +worked.</p> + +<p>"Lie down and be very still, old fellow. Jerran and I will make enough +of a trail for the hounds to follow, and only bad luck will discover you +to them. If we escape, we'll come back tonight for you." The pit was +camouflaged, looked like a mound of trash beside the trail. Revel +murmured a good-bye, and went plunging on through the coppice to the +other side, Jerran following him nimbly with the strength of second +wind.</p> + +<p>Now they could truly run, for Jerran, though forty-two, was no antique; +and Revel had the thews of a woods lion. The way before them was smooth, +grass cropped close by the sheep of Ewyo, gently rolling mounds one +after another so that skimming down one slope gave them impetus to dash +up the next. A faint cheer came to them from the left. The ruck was on +their side.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if I die well enough, thought Revel, my death may spark a +revolt, and so count for something. He felt at the hilt of the iron +daggers. Just give me Ewyo, he prayed to whatever higher powers there +might be; just let me have one thrust at Ewyo the Squire!</p> + +<p>From the crest of the highest hill he looked back, as Jerran sucked for +breath. The gentry were just topping a rise some half mile behind. Not +bad! But the dogs were much closer. They had gone through the coppice +without discovering Dawvys; now, with any luck, they never would.</p> + +<p>Revel ran on. His feet thudded on rock, slithered on grass, shuffled +through the mire of a narrow swampland. Here trees slashed at him, there +a woodchuck sprang out of his path and made him stumble with sudden +panic. His chest labored, drawing in air; his legs pumped and ached. +Then he came to a river.</p> + +<p>It was some ten yards broad, with a swift current. He said to Jerran, +"If we can make headway against that current, land up-stream on the +other side, we may have a chance."</p> + +<p>The runty yellow man shook his head. "Look up," he gasped. Above them +soared a score of globes, plainly marking their position for the gentry.</p> + +<p>"The filthy schemers," growled Revel. "The foul cheats! They call this a +game, yet 'tis as easy for them as it would be to shoot at us in a small +sealed room!" He bent down. "Get on my back, little one." Jerran climbed +on, and Revel grasped his legs, told him to hang tight around his neck, +and leaped into the river.</p> + +<p>Only thirty feet across, it was yet quite deep, and Revel sank like a +dropped rock. When the water above his head was so opaque that he could +not distinguish anything save a dull mirky lightness, he struck out +downstream. For a full minute he swam with the current, then began to +rise, Jerran clinging weakly to his neck. The Mink thanked his Orbs—no, +not them, but whatever brought him luck—that he was one of the few +ruckers who had taught himself to swim....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He had gone farther by swimming than he might have running, for the +current was like a demon with a thousand legs, all speeding it on and +carrying him with it. His head lifted clear of the waters in the center +of the stream, and Jerran behind him broke into coughs and gurgles. +Revel looked for globes, and saw them upriver, lifting and falling +uncertainly. He said, "Take a breath!" did so himself, and sank again. +This time he stayed under for the space he could have counted fifty, +then rose again near the far bank.</p> + +<p>He was among trees, birch and poplar and evergreen, that grew to the +water's brink. He struggled ashore, carrying a limp Jerran, and fell +with his burden beneath a single giant oak, which sheltered him from the +buttoned, all-seeing sky.</p> + +<p>"Rest a while, Jerran. We've put plenty of distance behind us."</p> + +<p>Yet when he stood up and gave his friend a hand, five minutes later, he +could already hear the baying of hounds.</p> + +<p>A touch of panic threaded down his spine—not the panic that flared and +died when a woodchuck startled him, but the panic of any hunted creature +who, do what he may, still hears the pursuers close behind him. The +sound of the howls told him the dogs had crossed the river. He looked +up, but saw no orbs. No dog scents a man two miles off. Who had betrayed +them? Or were the gentry presuming that they must have crossed?</p> + +<p>He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have +found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk +beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network +of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood.</p> + +<p>He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at +best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was +open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted +him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and +high in the distance.</p> + +<p>At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his +skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had +been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured.</p> + +<p>"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind +him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill to the side of the +patch of bad ground.</p> + +<p>Then it dawned on him how they had been followed; for behind the +stallioned squires rose the hills, which bordered the straight hunting +course, and on them showed small dots of color, the keen-eyed watchers +of the gentry. No matter where he ran on this long narrow coursing +ground, there would be eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>At least the ravening dogs were not nearby. He picked up Jerran, tucked +him under one arm, and dashed for the shelter of the evergreen woods +before him. The hoofs of the horses pounded behind. He dodged in among +the pines, and the mournful call lifted—"Gone to earth! Go-ho-hon to +earth!"</p> + +<p>"Damn you, put me down!" rasped Jerran. "Am I a child, to be carted like +this?" Revel dropped him. They skittered from tree to tree, and then a +charging horse was on them, and Jerran was rolling aside, bleating with +fear of the hoofs, while Revel turned and stood foursquare in the path. +As the stallion all but touched him, he jumped aside, jumped back, so +that the head of the beast passed him but the rider was struck and +clutched and hurled from his saddle, losing his trumpet-gun as he fell. +The Mink was sitting astride him before he could bounce up, and two +ruthless hands took him by the throat and tore out his jugular. The +second rider at that instant drew rein behind them, and lifted his own +gun for a quick shot.</p> + +<p>Jerran hurled a rock. It took the squire on the head, spilled him out of +his saddle, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.</p> + +<p>"Two guns, by Orbs!" crowed Revel, gathering them up. "And two horses!" +He put a foot into the stirrup of the second one, but it shied madly at +the touch of a bloody, naked man; dashed forward, startling the other, +and together they vanished among the trees. "Hell!" said Jerran, taking +one of the guns; "nothing gained but two bullets, Mink."</p> + +<p>"Two bullets is two more slain squires. Come on!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The evergreens gave out shortly, and they were in a valley channeled by +sluggish rivulets and grown with noxious weeds and clumps of coarse +grass. Some distance away, a priest walked slowly, head bent, his double +scalp lock flopping down over the radiant blue-green robe. Above him, +apparently in communion with him, hung a golden globe.</p> + +<p>Revel shifted his gun up and took aim at the orb. He must risk a shot, +rather than a god's exposure of his whereabouts. The priest looked up, +saw him, yipped in surprise, and the orb shot up ten feet just as Revel +fired.</p> + +<p>One bullet wasted. Jerran fired as the echoes of the Mink's shot +racketed away, and the priest crumpled in on himself, a glittering sack +of dead meat.</p> + +<p>"You fool!" said Revel, with a brief, pithy anger. "The man I could have +stabbed or broken in two. The sphere is beyond us now." It was slanting +up an invisible incline, faster than he had ever seen one travel before. +"Come on," he snarled. "We've got to travel!" He threw away the useless +gun and ran for his life.</p> + +<p>Behind him, to left and then to right, rose the calls. Hoofs thundered, +dogs baying out afresh as they sighted their quarry, and the valley +filled with sound and horses, dogs and men. Over and over the calls +rang, and the air above the fugitives was filled with watching gods. +Revel ran as he had never believed he could run, and the calls, the +calls, the calls beat upon his eardrums....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The pretty daughter of the squire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She gallops down the hill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blood of gentry pounds so fierce,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Tis like to make her ill!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thinks she, I've come to see his death,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The man who did me shame!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then she spies him limping there,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All stripped and torn and lame....<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The squire was clad in a sky-blue velvet coat, long and loose with a row +of big silver buttons down the front, a cabbage rose on each flared +lapel, a thick fall of silver lace over an olive-green weskit, lime +breeches in white calf boots. His blunderbuss was tilted carelessly up +over one crooked elbow, for he trusted to the iron-shod hoofs of his +hunting stallion to smash the rebel into the muck of the valley. He was +a portly, floridly handsome man of some thirty summers, and he would not +live to see the sun rise again.</p> + +<p>Revel turned at bay. He was just under the overhang of a short cliff, on +his right hand a swamp, on his left a pack of approaching hounds, and +before him the squire on his upreared horse. He had just boosted Jerran +up to the cliff's edge, and the little man was scrambling away, calling +to him to follow; but there was no purchase for his fingers, and the +thing was too high to jump, at least in the brief moment he had. So he +was brought to bay.</p> + +<p>The Mink drew his daggers, his fangs of Ewyo's more or less generous +bestowal. The horse poised an instant before bringing its mallet-hoofs +down on his head, and Revel leaped in and thrust—hands together, +knuckles pressed tight, so that the blades drove deep into the flesh +just below the rib cage of the stallion, their points not two inches +apart. Revel jerked them apart and out, and the horse contorted and +writhed together in a thrashing heap and came down, its blood hissing +out from a foot-long gash. The squire, unable to realize what was +happening, fell sideways on top of the Mink, who stabbed upward blindly +as he rolled away from the dying horse. The squire took one dagger in +the groin of his spotless lime breeches, the other just under a silver +button above his heart. The world shut out for him in pain and terror +and a loud, broken screech.</p> + +<p>Revel fought out of the tangle of limbs and crumpled corpse, shot to his +feet in time to meet the charge of a pair of slavering hounds. He knew +he was done now, there was no more running for the Mink, and he cursed +his fate even as he blessed whatever power had sent him so many gentry +to be pulled down with him. The dogs leaped, one died in mid-air and the +other carried him down once more, its lean teeth snapping off a patch of +hide and muscle from his shoulder as its guts poured free of its body +through a frantically-given wound. Revel was up again, shaking himself, +grappling with a third hound whose knowledge of men made it wary of his +blades. It hauled away as he slashed at it, lunged for his throat, +caught an ear instead, and coughed out its life as it was flung over his +shoulder in time for him to run the next dog through the skull as it +sailed at him.</p> + +<p>He was bleeding like a punctured sack of wine, though the wounds were +far from mortal. One ear lobe was gone, his left shoulder felt as though +it had been scalded by boiling pitch, and his whole frame was stiffening +somewhat from the myriad tiny cuts it had received. Revel was in his +glory, although he counted his life in seconds now. The whole pack was +not in the valley, these four dogs had not run with it, and only men +remained. Yet above were the orbs, to take a hand if he should prove too +mighty for the gentry's handling.</p> + +<p>A squire galloped up, jumped from his saddle and came at the Mink. Revel +blinked blood from his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Rosk!" he said, grinning. Now the gods were kind!</p> + +<p>The lean-jawed squire halted twenty feet away, presenting his gun to the +Mink's breast. "A fine fox," he said admiringly, "a damned fine fox, but +too vicious for the hounds. Die, Mink!"</p> + +<p>"Damned if I will," said Revel, flinging himself forward and down. The +gun roared harmlessly as Rosk, startled, tugged on the trigger. Revel +went up to stab for the man's belly, but a warning tremor of the ground +gave him pause; a stallion was thundering down on him from the left. He +flicked a glance at it. A great roan, with the Lady Nirea up, and coming +straight for him.</p> + +<p>She would run him down? He bared angry teeth—but she was going to miss +him! She was galloping between him and Rosk! She was....</p> + +<p><i>She was stretching down a hand to him, her face twisted with hope and +fear and—friendship!</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Instinctively he slapped her wrist with his palm as she hurtled past, +jerked his legs up and was carried off by the rocketing roan. As he +writhed into the saddle behind her, she screamed.</p> + +<p>"Help, oh help! He has attacked me!"</p> + +<p>The bi—no, the clever girl, by Orbs! Helping him, she was yet saving +her own reputation and life, making it seem that he had leaped astride +her mount as she was carried by him. No squire could have seen that +helping hand, for they were all on the opposite side of her. A vast +hullabaloo went up from their ranks.</p> + +<p>"Throw me off, you fool," she hissed at him, twisting round and +pretending to strike him. "Throw me off!"</p> + +<p>He reached past her, hauled on the reins, brought the animal back on its +heels, pitched her off unceremoniously, winked broadly at her and found +time for a leer as her riding skirt hoisted unladylike as she sat up; +then he rammed heels to the brute and was off on a run for his life. +Guns banged behind him, slugs tore the air inches from his bowed back. +Let 'em shoot, curse them, he had a chance now!</p> + +<p>The cliff of reed-laced muck dwindled, and he turned the roan and leaped +him up to the higher level of ground. Then he turned and went charging +back the way he had come, quick eyes searching for his comrade.</p> + +<p>"Jerran! Jerran, you scuttling mouse, where are you?"</p> + +<p><i>Bang</i> went a musket.</p> + +<p>"Here, Revel!" The little straw-colored man popped out of a bush in his +path. He bent as Nirea had, gave the rebel a hand up behind him. Then he +swerved the horse and went off through the oaks, while the gentry cursed +and raved and came after as best they could.</p> + +<p>"Discomfortable riding, this, without pants. Ouch! Where shall we head, +ancient one?" Revel asked grimly.</p> + +<p>"The way we're going. There, see that hill? Up and over that, and we're +on a straight path for the forests of Kamden."</p> + +<p>Revel was jolted nearly out of his battered hide by the unfamiliar +jounce and rock of the steed; but he knew he could stick on it till +night if he had to. The only enemies that fretted him now were the +golden spheres. You could not distance a god simply by mounting a horse.</p> + +<p>"Look up," he said, watching the path. "Are there gods?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but high, following us. They mark our way."</p> + +<p>"Let them! Jerran, at nightfall we head for the mine. Our mine, and our +cavern."</p> + +<p>"You can't go there, you drooling baby, you'd find an army of globes, +priests, gentry, and zanphs. They'll be crawling all over the things in +that cave, especially after you took guns from it! What is it that draws +you there?"</p> + +<p>"A metal chest—ouch—I've been thinking of for a long time. Jerran, +what's 'suspended animation'?"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Nirea kept muttering it to herself in the cave. I think she read it on +the chest."</p> + +<p>"Suspended," mused Jerran. "Temporarily halted. Animation, life. Life +held in check? Movement stopped for a time?"</p> + +<p>"That's it."</p> + +<p>"Love of freedom, lad, what's it?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Revel, glancing up at the soaring spheres, said half to himself, "Man of +the 21st century. Century's a hundred years. Twenty-first? John R. +Klapham, atomic something ... suspended animation. John sounds like a +name. Rest of it, enigmas, but...."</p> + +<p>"Watch out!" yelled Jerran, turning against his back. "A god comes at +us."</p> + +<p>"How good are you at throwing knives?"</p> + +<p>"As good as the next rebel. Damned good."</p> + +<p>"Take one from my belt, and see if you can spit it in the air. If it +touches you, you'll be a frizzled-up cinder in a wink."</p> + +<p>He felt the knife leave his holster, there was a pause, then Jerran said +under her breath, "Blast this horse—ugh—got it!"</p> + +<p>They were almost at the crest of the hill now. None of the ruck watched +the chase from here, for it was far from Ewyo's house and none had +expected Revel and Company to come so far. There were guards, though: +three squires sitting their quiet horses on the brow of the hills, a +hundred yards apart. They watched the roan with its double burden beat +up toward them, then blinked and peered as they saw that the foremost +rider was naked.</p> + +<p>"Va-yoo," said one uncertainly, then, realization hitting him, "va-yoo +hallo! Here he comes!"</p> + +<p>He came, and the squires bunched to meet him; he aimed his horse's head +for their center, they split off wildly at the last instant, and he was +through them before they could draw guns from the saddle boots. A crack +behind him was the first one speaking tardily, and the roan leaped +forward, touched into fury by the slug's creasing its withers. Jerran +said calmly, "I'm hit in the leg. Let me see. A flesh wound, no matter. +Ride, lad!"</p> + +<p>"The globes are our only worries now," said Revel exultantly.</p> + +<p>"And they're some worries, for they descend even now at us."</p> + +<p>He looked up, and saw that it was true. A multitude of the radiant gods +were dropping from their buttons, and the forest of Kamden with its +sprawling borders and its secret, protective darknesses lay half a mile +before the Mink.</p> + +<p>Almost he would rather have died by a squire's bullet than a +pseudo-god's fierce energy blast. He recalled the feelers that had +touched his face yesterday, the searing heat of the aura that before +that had crisped off the hair above his ear. It was a filthy way to die.</p> + +<p>The roan, strongest of all the gentry's horses, was easily distancing +them all. But it could not distance a down-slanting globe.</p> + +<p>Revel the Mink committed his soul to whatever might receive it, and dug +in his heels for a last desperate gallop.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The ruckers all have heard the call<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Mink has sounded clear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They come from near, they come from far,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To fight the squire and sphere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He arms them all with stolen guns,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With horses, pikes, and fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sends them all abroad to hunt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The savage-stallioned squire!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>As night fell, Lady Nirea left her father's house by the servants' door. +She was dressed in the miner's clothes she had worn the previous day, +and carried a gigantic portmanteau, so heavy she could scarcely lift it.</p> + +<p>In the bag were her favorite gowns, numbering sixteen; two coats she +especially loved; some bracelets set with diamonds—the rarest gem of +any, for though they were mined extensively throughout the country, the +globes took all but a very few for their own mysterious purposes—and an +antique golden chain she'd inherited from her grandmother; some personal +effects, paint for her lips and such frivolities; a trumpet-mouthed gun +with the stock unmounted, together with as much ammunition as she could +find; and lastly, four books from her father's secret chamber.</p> + +<p>These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of them +labelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "God-Feeding" on +its cover. The fourth was far older than the others, indeed, the oldest +book Nirea had ever seen.</p> + +<p>Ewyo lay drunk in a deep chair in his library; he would sleep now till +nearly the middle of the night, when he'd wake up and howl for another +bottle. Jann she had not seen for hours. The servants, being ruckers, +did not count. Her escape from the mansion was going to be simple.</p> + +<p>In the stables, Lady Nirea ordered her second best horse, another roan +stallion, saddled and laden with the portmanteau on a special rack +attached to the rear of the cantle. The usual trappings, the fancy reins +and broidered saddlecloths, she had the stableman leave off; she didn't +want to call attention to the fact that she was Ewyo's daughter.</p> + +<p>When the roan was ready, she mounted, and turning to the stableman, a +young rucker with shifty eyes and a shy, retiring chin, she asked +steadily, "Are you a rebel?"</p> + +<p>"Me? No, Lady! Do I look crazy?"</p> + +<p>"You look sneaky, but smart enough." She leaned over the saddlebow +toward him. "Tell me the truth. Don't be afraid, you fool. I am the +Lady of the Mink." It was a title she uttered proudly now. Nirea of +Dolfya had been forced to think this day, and it had changed her +greatly.</p> + +<p>The stableman backed off a little, his pasty face writhing with tics. +"My Orb, Lady, I don't know what you're thinking of! You, Ewyo's girl, +calling yourself such a name—"</p> + +<p>Her roan was trained to the work she now put him to; a number of times +she'd used him for it in the streets of Dolfya, just for sport, out of +boredom. Now she pricked his ribs with the point of her sharp-toed +shoes, just behind the foreleg joints, and said, "At 'em, boy!" The tall +beast reared up and danced forward, hoofs thrashing the air. The +stableman shrieked, took a step back, and threw up his arms as one +iron-shod hoof smashed into his face. Then the roan was doing a kind of +quick little hop on his body, and red blood ran out over the +packed-earth floor.</p> + +<p>"If you were a rebel, you were too craven about it to be much good to +your people," Nirea said, looking at the body. "If you weren't, then +your mouth is shut concerning me." She wheeled the roan and trotted out +of the stable.</p> + +<p>By the gate in the wall a tall figure waited, white in the early moon's +light.</p> + +<p>"Jann!" said Nirea, with surprise and fear. Her older sister had always +bullied her; Nirea was unable to wholly conquer the dread of this +amber-eyed, sharp-eared woman. Jann stood with one hand on the gate, her +high breasts and lean aristocrat's profile outlined against the dark +black-green of the woods behind her. Now she turned her head to look up +at Nirea.</p> + +<p>"What in the seven hells are you doing in that rucker's outfit? Where +are you going?"</p> + +<p>"None of your business. Get out of my way."</p> + +<p>Jann stepped forward and grasped the bridle at the roan's mouth. "Get +down here, you young whelp. I'm going to beat you—and then hand you +over to Ewyo to see what's to be done with you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Nirea never knew, though afterwards she thought of it often, whether she +touched her horse's ribs deliberately or by accident. All she knew was +that suddenly he had thrown his forequarters up into the air, that Jann +was screaming, twisting aside, that the roan was smashing down....</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>Jann lay on the grass, and her profile was no longer aristocratic; nor +were her breasts smooth and sleek and inviolate.</p> + +<p>Nirea sobbed, dry-eyed, turned the roan away, leaned over to push open +the gate, and cantered off down the silent road, numb with horror, yet +conscious of a small thrill of gratification, somewhere deep in her +feral gentrywoman's soul. Nineteen years of knuckling under to Jann, of +taking insults and cuffs and belittling, were wiped out under the +flashing hoofs of her roan stallion.</p> + +<p>Now where should she ride? She was a rebel herself, molded into one by +her father's actions and her memories of the Mink. If he were dead, that +great chocolate-haired brute, then she would simply ride straight away +from Dolfya until she found a place to live, and there plan at leisure. +But if he were alive, then she would be his woman.</p> + +<p>She touched the horse to a gallop, and sped toward the only place she +could think of where she might get news of him: the mines.</p> + +<p>Someone scuttled off the road before her; she reined in, peered +unsuccessfully into the darkness, and called softly, insistently, "If +you're a rucker, please come out! Please come here!"</p> + +<p>A rustle in dry brush was her answer. She tried a bolder tack. "It's the +Lady of the Mink who commands it!"</p> + +<p>After a moment a man stepped onto the road from a clump of bracken. Red +were his hair and beard in the moon, and the white walleye stared +blindly. Fate, chance, the gods—no, not the false, horrible globes, but +whatever gods there might be elsewhere—had crossed her path with Rack, +the giant whom she trusted more than any other rucker.</p> + +<p>"Rack!" she called quietly. "Come here, man."</p> + +<p>He was at her stirrup. "What are you doing, Lady?" His voice was +anxious:</p> + +<p>"I'm joining the rebels, big man. Where can I find the Mink?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Lady, are you mad? The rebels are saying that the gods +are overthrown and there will be gentry blood running all over Dolfya by +noon tomorrow. They're out of their heads."</p> + +<p>"No, Rack, they're honest men fighting a hideous corruption." She told +him rapidly what she'd seen in her father's room. "I don't know exactly +what it means, 'but it's bad—degrading, horrible! I don't want to be a +gentrywoman any longer. I—I'm the Mink's girl. Listen," she said, +leaning over to him, "he took me two days ago, and Revel is my man, hell +or orbs notwithstanding. Now where is he?"</p> + +<p>"I've heard he's alive," said Rack slowly. "I thought he would be; he's +too tough to kill. Where he is, no one knows."</p> + +<p>"Do the rebels trust you?"</p> + +<p>"No." His face turned up to hers, honest and bewildered. "I'm of two +minds.... I serve the gods, as any sane man must, but I have seen +things...."</p> + +<p>"So have I. Rack, come with me. We must find the Mink."</p> + +<p>He bit his lip. Then he took hold of her stirrup. She thought he was +going to pull her off, and edged her toes forward toward the signal +points of her roan; but he merely said, "I'll hang on to this and run. +Go ahead, Lady."</p> + +<p>She tapped the horse to a canter, feeling better than she had in hours. +Rack was a servant (say rather an ally) worth four other men.</p> + +<p>"Head for the mines," grunted Rack. Her own idea. Surely it must be +worth something. Soon they were coming into the coal valley. God-guards +shone with an eerie and now-abominable golden light at the various +entrances. "Which is Revel's?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Up there. He wouldn't be there, but if I can get past the guard, and +there's no reason I should be stopped, there are men on our level, the +fourth down, who might know about him. There's no other place to check. +I don't know the meeting places. I have never been a rebel." He seemed +to brood darkly for a minute, then added, "Before!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They hobbled the horse in a nook of upended rocks, and she hid the +portmanteau under some brush. They walked to the mine, she now +remembering the location by certain landmarks, and Rack said, "There's +no god showing. That's strange."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you as far as I can. If we do meet a god, I can explain +myself mentally; after all, I'm of the gentry. I'm not in danger."</p> + +<p>"I hope not." He helped her up the shelf, and they walked furtively into +the tunnel. No sign of anything—till Rack stumbled over the corpse of a +zanph. Bending, Nirea saw beyond it the sack and draining ichor of a +globe.</p> + +<p>"The rebels have been here!"</p> + +<p>"Aye." He straightened, his white eye shining in the light of a distant +lantern. "How can a god die?" he asked, in a child's puzzled tone. +"Lady, no god ever died before. They don't die—'tis in the Credo. How +can these rebels slay them?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe no one ever tried before. Come on." She hurried to the ladders. +Blue-tinged, mouth agape and eyes upturned without sight, there lay a +priest, half over the lip of the shaft. He had been de-throated by a +pickax.</p> + +<p>"This looks like Revel's ferocious work," said Rack. "I hope he's alive. +Yes, I do hope so."</p> + +<p>"When I last saw him, riding off hell-for-leather on my nag, he was +extremely alive, mother-naked and covered with blood but as alive as I +am this instant." She went down the ladder hand under hand past three +levels, swung off at the fourth. Another dead man lay at her feet; this +was a squire, a youngish man in plum and scarlet, very brutally slain by +a pick-slash in the brain. It was a man she knew, and momentarily she +felt herself a traitor to her kind; then she thought of Ewyo's vices, +corruptions, and she snorted defiantly. His gun, its stock remounted and +a shell rammed home, was in her hand. She went forward, striding like a +man ... and a man who knew what he meant to do.</p> + +<p>The end of the tunnel was illuminated vividly by many blue lanterns, and +presented to their startled eyes an horrific scene of carnage. The dead +lay in piles, in one and twos and fours, their brains splashed on the +walls, their guts smeared across the floor, their skulls cloven and +their bodies rent. Ruckers lay here, miners and gentry-servants. Squires +wallowed lifeless in pools of their highborn blood. Snake-headed zanphs +clawed in their rigor at the dead flesh of priests, of rebels, of +squires. Here and there lay the vacant sacks that had been gods. At +Nirea's feet stretched a man built like Revel, who might <i>be</i> Revel, for +his face was gone, burnt away by the touch of the terrible orb-aura at +full strength. No, she realized even as she swayed back, it was not he, +for this man's body was unscarred, and Revel must be looking like a +skinned hare if he yet lived.</p> + +<p>What a brawl this must have been! She was about to speak to Rack when +she heard a familiar voice, booming brazenly out in the silence of the +mine. It came from the black hole at the end of the tunnel.</p> + +<p>"Then a whole line of them came down at us, faster than a squire can put +a horse over a hurdle, and the forest yet a good half mile away! I had +one dagger left, and my trusty small Jerran up behind me. The squires +were ashooting, but ineffectively, and the roan was carrying us well and +truly; but here came the gods, may they boil in my mother's cook-pot in +Hell!</p> + +<p>"I looked wildly for something to beat 'em off with, for as you've seen, +a touch of their radiance burns your flesh from your bones if they wish +it so. Well! The only thing on the whole cursed nag is the scabbard in +which a squire keeps his long gun. It's a thing some three feet long or +over, of light metal, covered with satin and velvet and silk. I tore it +from its moorings, and as the globes came at me, I stood up in the +stirrups, naked as your hand, and started to swat 'em. Jerran leaning +forward past me, guiding the stallion, for his reach is not half mine."</p> + +<p>"Brag and bounce!" said a voice that was surely Jerran's. Lady Nirea +grinned and walked toward the cavern.</p> + +<p>"So I swatted, I beat at them, I swiped and almost fell, I did the work +of twenty men—don't shake your head, Jerran, you know 'tis not +brag!—for half a mile, and not one globe touched a hair of our heads! +They came at the last from all sides, like a swarm of angered bees, and +one burnt the horse so that he streaked even faster; which saved our +necks, for my arm was nearly dead by then.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, there is one protection only against these things, and that +is quickness: for let one come within a few inches of you, and you are a +dead man."</p> + +<p>Nirea stepped into the cave.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were a dead man, Revel the Mink," she said quietly, still +with the ghost of her grin.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He stared at her, while the men in the place turned and sprang up and +stood uncertainly, looking from her to their leader. He was dressed in +miner's clothing again, and his skin was a perfect fright of scars and +scabs and half-closed wounds. But he was whole, barring part of an ear, +and he was smiling as only he could smile. "Here, men of the ruck, is +the woman you owe my life to. Here is—" he cocked an eyebrow +quizzically—"here is, I think I can say, the Lady of the Mink."</p> + +<p>"Here she is," said Nirea, and was stifled and crushed in a great +bear-hug. "And here's Rack, your brother, who I think may be rebel +material."</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Rack heavily, staring at Revel with his good eye. "If +you want me, brother."</p> + +<p>"Gods, yes! We need every man we can get this night. Did you note the +slaughter beyond?"</p> + +<p>"We did see a corpse or two."</p> + +<p>"I think we kept that secret, for two of my fellows stood on the ladders +and slew the gods who tried to pass. But it will soon be discovered, and +the gods will do to this place what they did to eastern Dolfya, unless +we can fight them some way. I think I have a clue to help us. What that +is I'll show you now."</p> + +<p>"Revel, dearest," she said, "are you all right?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, thanks to you. Now to business."</p> + +<p>"Rack must go to my horse above for things I brought."</p> + +<p>"Go then, Rack. Wait—first give me that pick you've got there. I think +it's mine." Rack handed it over, a little shamefacedly, and Revel gave +him the one tucked in his own belt. "I've missed this girl.... The chest +I want to search is still here, though the gentry have carried off a +great deal from the cavern."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," said Nirea fiercely. "You'd better do a few things +before you start experimenting and searching. You'd better have a plan, +and send men out to spread word of it among your people! There are +thousands of them out there, ready to pounce at your word, to rise +against the squires and priests, and take their chances of gods' +vengeance. You'd better send out the word that the Mink is leading them +to war. Otherwise, you'll have an army that's ineffectual and headless, +that can be cut to pieces in twenty-four hours. For most of them think +you're dead—the gentry spread the word."</p> + +<p>Jerran said, quietly so that only the girl and Revel heard him, "I think +I named the wrong person. I think Lady Nirea is the Mink!"</p> + +<p>Revel laughed grimly, "Haven't I been busy? Haven't I sent a troop for +Dawvys in his hole in the coppice, and another to say in the lanes and +shebeens that I'm alive? Here, Vorl, Sesker, and you three, get out! +Steal horses from the mansions' stables, and spread the news. We rise +tonight! Whether or not I find what I seek, we rise! If we all perish in +a god-blast, still we rise! When you've enough men, attack the gentry's +homes, beginning at Dolfya's center and spreading out. Put every horse +available on the road to Korla and Hakes Town and every village within +knowledge. If they look scared, show 'em a dead god! Take those out +there—stick 'em on the ends of pikes, carry 'em through the streets +with torches to show 'em off! Kill every globe you can reach, send the +corpses out for the ruck to see! There's our banner, our fiery cross—a +dead god on a pike!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The gods have looked upon the Mink,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And felt his mighty hand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They've sought him through the mines and towns,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And in the forest land.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All-wise, all-powerful though they be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Mink they cannot find;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Afar he's wandering o'er the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At war for all mankind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Read it again," said Revel, bending his scarred face beside the girl's +sleek one, staring hard at the printing as if by concentration on it he +could learn to read right there, and drag the hidden meaning from the +words. "Read slowly. Rack, you're no slouch at thought, even though you +have been in the toils of the false gods. Give this your best brainwork. +Jerran, concentrate! You three men, try to cull the sense from these +words. Begin!"</p> + +<p>In the light of half a dozen lanterns she began to read. The Mink +strained all his brains.</p> + +<p>"<i>Man of the 21st century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and leader +of the Ninth Expedition against the Tartarian Forces in the year 2054. +Held in suspended animation.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Ha! I thought that's where you got the phrase," said Revel. "I believe +it means that in this chest, and thank Orbs it was too heavy for the +gentry to move today, in this very chest lies a man of the Ancient +Kingdom, who still lives, though he sleeps!"</p> + +<p>The woman looked up excitedly, then began to read again. Most of the +words were strange. "Placed here 10-5-2084, aged 64 years; this done +voluntarily and as a public service to the men of the future, as part of +the program of living interments inaugurated in 2067."</p> + +<p>"Living interments," repeated Rack heavily. "Buried alive. But you think +he still lives?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. Don't ask me why I simply do. The words burn my brain."</p> + +<p>"What are the numbers?" asked a miner. "2067, the year 2054—what are +they?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Go on, Nirea."</p> + +<p>"Instructions for opening the casket: spring back the locks along each +bottom edge." She felt the chest where it rested on six legs on the +floor. "Here are odd-shaped things—ooh!" She jerked her hand away. +"They leap at me!"</p> + +<p>Revel felt impatiently, said, "Those are the locks." He unsnapped +fourteen altogether. "What next?"</p> + +<p>"Run a knife along the seal two inches below the top."</p> + +<p>"Here's the seal," said Rack. He took his pick, and thrusting the point +of it into a soft metal strip that ran around the chest, tore it away +with one long hard tug. The Mink finished the job on sides and back; +"Read!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Lift off the top." She glanced at Revel. "This is almost exactly like +Orbish," she said. "Only those queer words—"</p> + +<p>"Philosophize in the corner," he said, pushing her aside. "Rack, lend me +your brawn." Together they lifted the top, which was about the weight of +a woods lion, and with much groaning and puffing, hurled it clear.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Below them, within the chest and under a sheet of the transparent stuff +they had seen in other parts of the cave, lay a man. He was +young-looking, though if Revel understood the words on the chest, he had +been sixty-four when he was hidden away here. His skin was brown, +smooth, and his closed eyes were unwrinkled. A short oddly-cut beard of +brindled gray and black fringed his chin. His hands, folded on the +chest, were big and sinewy, fighter's hands.</p> + +<p>"What now?" panted Revel.</p> + +<p>"Provided that the atmosphere is still a mixture of 21 parts oxygen to +78 parts nitrogen, with 1% made of small amounts of the gases neon, +helium, krypton—none of these words make sense."</p> + +<p>"Skip them, then. Find something that does."</p> + +<p>"Let's see ... swing the front of the casket up, and unhinge it so that +it comes off." They figured out what was meant, and did it. The front of +the metal case, very light compared with the top, fell with a clang. +"Insert a crowbar under the glass that covers the man and lift it +carefully away."</p> + +<p>"Crowbar? Glass?"</p> + +<p>"This almost invisible stuff covers him, it must be the 'glass'," said +Jerran. "Let's try to lift it off."</p> + +<p>It took Revel and Rack and two miners, but in a matter of five minutes, +they had removed the plate of glass, the thin curved sheet that had +protected this man of the Ancient Kingdom. "Next?"</p> + +<p>"Provided that it is no later than the year 3284, Doctor Klapham should +revive within an hour. If not, take the hypodermic from the white case +below him and inject 2cc.... Do you understand this at all?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Only that the man, whose name is evidently Doctor Klapham, ought to +wake up shortly." The Mink shook his great brown head. "If only we'd +found this cave in a quiet time! If only the gods and the gentry weren't +to be dealt with! Have we the time?"</p> + +<p>"Your work is going on above-ground," said Jerran, rubbing his chin. "We +can't be of more use anywhere else, it seems to me, than we may be right +here."</p> + +<p>They sat and watched the inert form of Doctorklapham, while two of their +rebels went out into the mine to round up anyone who would join them. In +something over half an hour they were back. "The mine's been cleared; +nothing anywhere except this man, who was on the lowest level and hasn't +heard a thing."</p> + +<p>"They missed me, I guess," said the newcomer. "I was off in an abandoned +tunnel sleeping."</p> + +<p>"We're eight, then." The Mink scratched his head reflectively. "Not a +bad fighting force. Provided they don't smear this whole valley, I think +we can win clear—after we see what this fellow is going to do."</p> + +<p>"I think I see him breathing," said the girl breathlessly. She was +sitting with a book on her lap, trying to decipher the meaning of its +words. "Look at his throat."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Doctorklapham made a strange sound in his chest, a clicking, quite +audible noise, and unfolding his strong hands, sat up.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said clearly, "didn't it work?" Then he took a closer look at +the eight people standing beside him. "Oh, my Lord," he said, "it <i>did</i> +work!"</p> + +<p>"He speaks Orbish," said Rack, "but with a different accent. Could he be +from the far towns?"</p> + +<p>"No, you idiot, from the Ancient Kingdom," said Revel. "Your name is +Doctorklapham, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Roughly, yes." The sleeper worked his jaws and massaged his hands. +"Wonderful stuff, that preservative ... what year is this, my friend?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean."</p> + +<p>"What's the date?"</p> + +<p>"Date?"</p> + +<p>"God, this I wasn't prepared for." He hoisted himself over and jumped +down with boyish energy. "Tell me about the world," he said. "I guess +I've been asleep a long time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you were put here in the time of the Ancient Kingdom." Revel +was trembling with excitement. "Why are you still alive?"</p> + +<p>"Friend, judging from your clothes and those picks, and the primitive +look of those lanterns, which must date from about 2015, I'd say it'd be +pretty useless to tell you how come I'm alive. Just call it science."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Science? Electronics, atomic research, mechanics, what have you—mean +anything?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said the Mink, "no."</p> + +<p>"You speak quite decent English, you know. It's funny it hasn't changed +much, unless I've been asleep a lot shorter a period than I figure."</p> + +<p>"My language is Orbish."</p> + +<p>"It's English to me. What's the name of your country, son?"</p> + +<p>"It has no name. Towns are named, not countries."</p> + +<p>"Who are you, then?"</p> + +<p>"I am Revel, the Mink," he said proudly. "I am the leader of the rebels, +who are even now spreading through the land sending the word that the +gods can die, and that the gentry's day is done. I am the Mink."</p> + +<p>He half-expected the man to know the old ballads, but Doctorklapham +said, "Mink? That was an animal when I was around last.... Call me +John."</p> + +<p>"John. That sounds like a name." Rack nodded. "Yes, this is better than +Doctorklapham."</p> + +<p>"Anybody have a cigarette?" asked John.</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"A fag, boy—tobacco, something to smoke. You drag it in and puff it +out."</p> + +<p>"Your words make no sense," said Revel. "Drag in smoke?"</p> + +<p>"This is going to be worse than I anticipated," said John. "Look, can't +we go somewhere and get comfortable? I have a lot to find out before I +can start getting across to you what I was sent into the future for."</p> + +<p>"We are besieged by the gods. We dare not leave this place."</p> + +<p>"By the gods. Hmm. Let's sit down, boy. I want to know all about things +here. Miss, after you." He waited till Nirea had squatted on the floor, +then folded himself down. "Okay," he said, whatever that meant. "Shoot. +Begin. What are the gods, first?"</p> + +<p>Lady Nirea listened with half an ear to Revel's speeches, but with all +her intellect she tried to follow John's remarks. They were sometimes +fragmentary, sometimes short explanations of things that puzzled Revel, +and sometimes merely grunts and slappings of his thighs. Many words she +did not know....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><i>My God, that sounds like extraterrestrial beings ... globes, +golden aura of energy or force, sure, that's possible; and +tentacles ... zanphs? describe 'em ... they aren't from Earth either; +I'll bet you these god-globes of yours, which must be Martian or +Venusian or Lord-knows-what, brought along those pretty pets when they +hit for Earth....</i></p> + +<p><i>Listen, Mink, those are not gods! They're things from the stars, from +out there beyond the world! You understand that? They came here in those +"buttons" of yours—what we used to call flying saucers—and took over +after ... after whatever happened. Your civilization must have been in a +hell of a decline to accept 'em as gods, because in my day ... oh, well, +go ahead.</i></p> + +<p><i>Priests, sure, there'd be a class of sycophants, bastards who'd sell +out to the extraterrestrials for glory and profit ... yeah, your gentry +sound like another type of sell-out, traitors to their race and their +world ... describe those squires' costumes again, will you?... Holy +cats, eighteenth century to a T! Not a thread changed, from the sound of +it! And a lower class, you call it the ruck, which is downtrodden and +lives in what might as well be hell....</i></p> + +<p><i>Yep, it sure sounds like hell and ashes. The globes; then, as is +natural to a conquered country, the top dogs, priests in your case, who +run things but are run by the globes; then the privileged gentry—I'll +have a look at those books of yours in a minute, honey—who pay some +kind of tax, in money or sweat or produce or</i> <b>something</b>, <i>for being what +they are; then the ruck (I know the word, son, you've just enlarged its +meaning) who have been serfs and peasants and vassals and thralls and +churls and hoi polloi and slaves since the Egyptians crawled out of the +Nile. The great unwashed, the people. Let 'em eat cake. I'm sorry, Mink, +go on.</i></p> + +<p><i>Your gentry sound about as lousy a pack of hellions as the eighteenth +century squires! Too bad you don't know about tobacco, they could carry +snuffboxes and</i> <b>really</b> <i>act the part....</i></p> + +<p><i>My God! Even the fox hunts—with people hunted. Anyone but miners? Open +days, eh? Ho-oly....</i></p> + +<p><i>Glad to know you, Rack. Don't know as I'd care to have you on the other +side, you look like Goliath. So you just saw the light when the gods +started to die? You are lucky you saw it, big man; brother against +brother is the nastiest form of war, especially if mankind's fighting an +alien power....</i></p> + +<p><i>Your rebels sound familiar, Mink. They had 'em about like you in +Ireland, a hundred or so years ago—I mean before I went bye-bye.... +Always romantic, unbelievable, unfindable, foxes with fangs....</i></p> + +<p><i>I wonder what your globes wanted? Power, sure, if they're that humanoid +in concept, but it must have been more. Maybe their own planet blew up. +Maybe they ran out of something. Tell me, do you have to give them +anything? Any metal, say?</i></p> + +<p><i>Diamonds? Are those small hard chunks of—yes, I guess diamond still +means what it did. By gravy, I'll bet I know! They were just starting to +discover the terrific potential of energy of the diamond when I went to +sleep in 2084. I</i> <b>wonder</b> <i>how long ago that was? Anyway, I'll wager these +globes of yours run their damned saucers—buttons—on diamond energy. +Maybe their planet ran out of diamonds. By god! what a yarn!</i></p> + +<p><i>You'll have your hands full, but maybe I can help. There's a way to +bring those saucers down out of the sky in a hurry.... They won't give +up easily. They obviously have atomic bombs, and the lush intoxication +of power won't be a cinch to give up, not for anything that sounds as +egotistic as the globes....</i></p> + +<p><i>Dolfya? We called it Philadelphia. Kamden, Camden, yeah.... Woods +lions, wow! They must be mutants from zoo or circus lions that escaped +during the atom wars; or maybe someone brought 'em to the U.S. The +Tartarians had tame lions, I remember.</i></p> + +<p><i>Six or eight brains? Well, Mink, I wouldn't argue, but I think you are +confusing certain functions of one brain with—oh, do go on!</i></p> + +<p><i>Let me see that gun. My Lord, what a concoction! Blunderbuss muzzle, +shells, yet no breech-loading; ramrods to shove in shells! My sainted +aunt! A fantastic combination....</i></p> + +<p><i>He eats dandelions, parsley, grass, eh ... chlorophyll, obviously. And +the globe rests on his chest and puts tentacles into his mouth and +nostrils. It's feeding, sure; look at the title of this book you've got +here. This is a bastard English but close enough. Certainly your father +wrote it, Miss. Some of your gentry must have preserved the art as a +secret.</i></p> + +<p><i>Look here: I'll make it as plain as I can. The globes are from another +world. They came here for diamonds to run their buttons with. Got that?</i></p> + +<p><i>Now here's what I deduce from the little I've read here. Talk about +Pepy's Diary! Hadn't anything on this chronicle. Your father and the +other gentry have to feed the globes periodically. Evidently they draw +nourishment out of the human bodies—all that chlorophyll makes me think +it's a definitely physical nourishment, rather than a psychic one. +That's what your people pay for being privileged powers in the land. +They stand the disgrace and the pain, if there is any, the draining of +their energies, in return for plain old magnetic</i> <b>power</b>.</p> + +<p><i>So that's the source of life, strength, what-have-you, of the aliens! +They must have gotten pretty frantic out in the space wastes, looking +for a planet that could afford them a life form that was tap-able.</i></p> + +<p><i>Evidently it has to be voluntary, from these books. I guess the +ancestors of the ruck had their crack at the honor and declined, thus +dooming themselves and their offspring to servitude; while those that +assented became the gentry. What a—Judas Priest! What a sordid state of +affairs for poor old Earth!</i></p> + +<p><i>Let me have that line from the Globate Credo again:</i> <b>They came from the +sky before our grandfathers were born, to a world torn by war; they +settled our differences and raised us from the slime</b><i>—there's a bitter +laugh, gentlemen—</i><b>giving us freedom. All we have we owe to the globes.</b> +<i>There's the whole tale in a nutshell. God!</i></p> + +<p><i>Orbish language, Orbuary, Orbsday—nice job they did of infiltrating. I +wonder what books they left you. I'd like a look at your father's +library. Alice in Wonderland, I suppose, or Black Beauty, or something +equally advanced.</i></p> + +<p><i>Now listen, lads, and you, Lady Nirea. I came from a world that may +have had its rugged spots, but it was heaven and Utopia compared with +this one. You disinterred me at the damndest most vital moment of your +history, and probably of Earth's as well—we've had conquerors aplenty, +but always of this world, not from out of it. It seems to me that if +your rebellion fails, you're due for worse treatment than ever. You've +got to win, and win fast. Any entity that has atomic weapons is going to +be no easy mark, and the gentry have guns. How about you people? Ten? +Ten guns altogether? Oohh....</i></p> + +<p><i>See here. That big machine over there is a—well, that's hopeless. I'll +try to break this down in one-syllable words. Orbish words, I hope.</i></p> + +<p><i>That big thing sends up rays like beams of sunlight but of different +intensity, color, wave length, et cetera—it sends up beams that +counteract, I mean work against, destroy, other beams. Now the buttons +are held up there by forces in diamonds, taken out by these globes of +yours and used to hold up their homes, ships, saucers, buttons. The +beams from that big thing will destroy the diamond beams and make the +buttons fall.</i></p> + +<p><i>There's just one thing. We have to get the machine, the thing, out of +this cave and onto the surface of the earth. You catch my meaning? It +has to have sky above it before it can work against the button-beams. +Yes, much like your globes' telepathy (what a word to survive, when +"glass" and "electricity" didn't) and hypnosis fails when rock gets in +the way.</i></p> + +<p><i>Can you get it to the surface? Talk it over, Mink. It can give you +plenty of help ... if you can get it up there. I'll just sit here, if +it's okay with you, and let my imagination boggle at what you've told +me.</i></p> + +<p><i>I have the most confounded urgent feeling that this is a visit I'm +making in a time machine, and that tomorrow I'll go back to good old +2084. Johnnie, Johnnie, wake up! You're here!</i></p> + +<p><i>God!</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink he takes his pick and gun,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He ranges through the towns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His force is miners, trappers, thieves—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a girl in gentry-gown.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The rebels ride on stolen nags,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They travel on shanks' mare;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gore's awash, the heads they roll,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All in the torches' glare.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Revel the Mink and his eight troops crouched in the dark entrance of the +mine. The night was black, clouds had obscured the moon, and only the +occasional pinpoints of globes drifting between the buttons above them +broke the gloom.</p> + +<p>"What are they doing?" hissed Nirea. "Why haven't we been attacked long +since?"</p> + +<p>"The globes move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform," muttered +John Klapham. "I'll wager there's something like that in the Globate +Credo."</p> + +<p>"Almost those words." Revel glanced at him respectfully. This man of the +Ancient Kingdom had great mental powers.</p> + +<p>"Sure. Every time somebody has the upper hand over somebody else, +there's got to be an aura of mystery; and any half-brained action is put +down to 'mysterious ways.'" He spat. "They're so damn confused, son, +that they're probably holding forty conferences up there, because they +don't dare wipe out this valley—coal keeps the gentry warm and happy +for 'em—and they want to inspect the cave down below. So they're tryin' +to think of the best way to squelch you without losing too many priests +and zanphs and gentry."</p> + +<p>"True, they mustn't lose too many servants, or their prestige is hurt," +said Lady Nirea. Now that she'd found her Revel, she had discarded the +rucker's clothing and was dressed in a thigh-hugging sapphire gown. Even +in the dark she was beautiful, he thought.</p> + +<p>The Mink stood. Up and down the valley glowed the lights of god-guards +at the mines, double and treble now, since with the Mink loose not even +a god was safe alone. Plenty of zanphs there too, he thought. Yet he had +a few gentryman's guns, and his old pick slung at his back. Zanphs, +gods, gentry, priests? Let them beware!</p> + +<p>His thinking was done; he would retire his brains—despite the clever +John, Revel knew he had more than one brain—and let his brawn take +over. Only the brawn of the Mink could win through the next hours. +Half-consciously he tensed his whole frame, curled his fingers and toes, +thrust out his great chest. The skin on all parts of his body creaked, +split back from the worse wounds, achily stretched; blood sprang from +shoulder and from other hurt places. Yet he was not only whole, but full +of eager vitality. The small pains of his hide were only incentives to +act violently and forget them. He relaxed and turned to his friends.</p> + +<p>"You two, find the nags of the gentry we slew. I hear stamping nearby. +Nirea, go to your own beast and wait for me. You two, with Rack, Jerran, +John and me, we'll search the mines for men. We need plenty of +them—it's miners' guts and muscles it'll take to move that +beam-throwing thing from the cavern. Let's begin."</p> + +<p>He drew the Lady Nirea up to him, slapped her face lightly, kissed her +open mouth. "Quick, wench, hop when I speak!" A touch of starshine +glistened on his grin-bared teeth. Then he turned and leaped off the +rock shelf.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The nearest mine was guarded by three gods, nervously jiggling up and +down in grotesque little air-dances; below them sat half a dozen +hideous-headed zanphs. Revel crawled up toward the entrance. At the +first touch of an alien mind on his own, he shot forward, pick flailing. +Two gods he caught with one stroke, the third began to rise and his +backswing took it on the underside and tore a gash as if the pick had +struck a rubber bag: yellow gore dropped in a flood. He had no time to +wonder if the third globe had telepathed a distress signal, for the +zanphs were on him.</p> + +<p>Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yet +those were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base, +tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of its +six legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across his +left arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug down +into the flesh and grated on the ulna bone.</p> + +<p>He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupilless +eyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm by +the frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot, +spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. John +appeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengage +the teeth from his bloody arm.</p> + +<p>"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to +dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the +mine.</p> + +<p>"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders."</p> + +<p>There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, +Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His +blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement.</p> + +<p>To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there came +forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at +their posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry.</p> + +<p>Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conquering +general already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley, +and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back.</p> + +<p>"How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roan +on the grass. She glanced at the mass of men, all those in the van +carrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?"</p> + +<p>He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with +circles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white and +flickering yellow. <i>The buttons</i>, murmured his men behind him. <i>The +buttons are awake!</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>"You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old man +was as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not waste +time. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast this +valley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if their +science has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screen +thrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now."</p> + +<p>Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech—"Let's not +waste time"—waved his miners forward.</p> + +<p>They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; when +the Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one another +for the honor of being first to touch it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It stood solidly on the floor, ten feet high, twelve wide, square and +black with twin coils and a thick projection like an enormous gun on the +top. Men jammed around it, bent and gripped a ledge near the bottom, +heaved up. Loath to move, it rocked a bit, then was hoisted off the +ground. They staggered forward with it.</p> + +<p>The hole in the wall was far too small.</p> + +<p>"Miners! The best of you, and I don't want braggarts and second-raters, +but the best! Tear down that wall!" Revel stood on a case and roared his +commands. Men pushed out of the tunnel's throng, big bearded men, small +tough men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and at a word began to swing +their picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rock +away....</p> + +<p>Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into the +tunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distant +ones to go up the shaft to the top.</p> + +<p>"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had a +kind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the big +miner. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind when +John himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he, +the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all his +friends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world had +vanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things as +John?</p> + +<p>There was a man, by—what was the expression he used?—by god!</p> + +<p>"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, there +aren't any worries."</p> + +<p>"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimistic +crack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby."</p> + +<p>Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingness +yawned above for ninety feet, below for over a hundred. The shaft was +twenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea.</p> + +<p>"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft, +and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanism +worked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in small +loads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad it +holds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center; +it's as tough as anything on earth."</p> + +<p>"I see your idea," said John. "I <i>hope</i> that cable's tough. The machine +weighs a couple of tons."</p> + +<p>"Tons?"</p> + +<p>"I mean it's heavy!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly they +heard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward their +level. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, the +Mink let go a yell that halted the men on the windlass like a pickax +blow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto the +bucket!"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicate +thing." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," he +cautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work. +"Easy ... easy ... easy!"</p> + +<p>The great square mysterious box thrust out over the lip, teetered there +as if it would plunge into the bucket. John with a screech of anguish +jumped forward and thrust at it with both hands.</p> + +<p>If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel's chance +to drop the buttons from the sky would be gone forever. Nobody on +earth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as the +<i>antiforcescreenthrower</i> of John.</p> + +<p>The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launched +himself into space, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled over +sideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him.</p> + +<p>The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it and +lowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gave +a lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tipped +gradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall of +the shaft. Revel howled, "Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts! +Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable'll be frayed in half!"</p> + +<p>Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cable +through its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had to +be distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righted +itself, came horizontal again.</p> + +<p>"Up!" roared the Mink. Nothing happened. "More men on the winch!" Then +in a moment they began to rise.</p> + +<p>The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace +with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.</p> + +<p>At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft. +All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the +night, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand +to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the +<i>antiforcescreenthrower</i> was all but out of the mine. Another ten feet +would bring it clear.</p> + +<p>Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of +all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt +his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink he turns his blazing eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Up to the buttoned sky:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"This night I'll tear ye down from there<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To see if gods can die!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The gentry mass in stallioned ranks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The priests have gone amuck;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The orbs and zanphs they now descend,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All-armed against the ruck!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>John staggered to his feet. "Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an +atomic city-buster if I ever heard one—and when the Tartarians were +over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn't so important to your damned orbs +after all." He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were +beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes' +buttons rose another of the dark twin clouds.</p> + +<p>"If they were trying to smack us, they could stand a refresher course in +pin-pointing ... let's get the thrower out here fast. Too many saucers +directly above us for comfort."</p> + +<p>"There went another quarter of Dolfya," said Rack. "What power they +have!"</p> + +<p>"You'll see their power come plummeting to earth if I can work the +machine," said John urgently. "Bring it out!"</p> + +<p>The miners hauled it out, a titanic job even when men pressed tight +against men and uncounted hands lifted the great burden. John showed +them where to put it on the rock shelf. "Hoist me up on top," he +clipped. It was done. "Now watch."</p> + +<p>Revel stared at the sky till his eyes began to ache. At last John +shouted, "I'm ready, but listen—I see a lot of torches coming up the +valley, and the men holding 'em are mounted!"</p> + +<p>"Our rebels, likely," said Jerran.</p> + +<p>"Send men to meet them," yelled Revel. "They might be gentry. Pickmen +and those with guns. Fast!"</p> + +<p>"Okay, son," said John then, "watch the buttons just over us."</p> + +<p>All heads tilted. A strange clanking came from the great box, a beam of +thick-looking purple light lanced upward from the gun-like projection on +top and fingered out toward the buttons. "Be ready," called John from +the top of the machine. "This'll nullify the diamond rays for a few +minutes, but then the things will be able to rise again. Your men must +go out and break into the buttons before the globes can get 'em up!"</p> + +<p>Revel issued his orders quickly. The purple light had now touched a +button, which wavered from its fixed position, then as the beam caught +it fully, dropped like a flung stone. Hundreds of voices bellowed the +rebels' joy. Half a hundred miners leaped off into the night to attack +the fallen ship, which struck the earth some distance up the valley with +a shattering crash.</p> + +<p>Already the beam, more sure now as John's hands grew confident of their +power, was flicking over other buttons. The least play of its purple +glow on the under surface of an alien ship was sufficient to send it +catapulting down. The other buttons were moving, sluggishly, then more +swiftly, coming toward the valley; and John could be heard swearing in a +strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around.</p> + +<p>A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley. +Revel jerked his head up. "They <i>were</i> squires!" he said. "We've got to +get up there to help our men!" Rack motioned to the miners behind him +and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, "Some for the fallen +globes! Some have to stay to—"</p> + +<p>Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. "Little man, are you +the Mink?"</p> + +<p>Jerran struggled ineffectually. "No, damn it, no!"</p> + +<p>"Then shut your mug till you're told to give orders!" Revel dropped him, +and roared out, "Two hundred men—Jerran, count 'em off as they pass +you—to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every +zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o' this hill—spread round in a +ring that circles this ledge, and don't let a squire or enemy through! +We've got to protect John!" He turned, gripped Lady Nirea's wrist +urgently. "Have you quick eyes and hands, love?"</p> + +<p>"Faster than most men's, save your own." Her slatey eyes glowed eerily +in the buttons' light.</p> + +<p>"Then up you go," he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her +hands clenched on the upper edge of John's machine. "Perhaps you can +help him. I can't spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!" He set off toward the +nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the +western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin +and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the +wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been +knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs +were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts. +An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick. +Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs +milled, then spread out to attack.</p> + +<p>He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and +maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a +personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs +and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on, +coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to +kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth +"saucer" as John called it, Revel gave up counting, and slew his way +from button to button, gore of red and yellow spotting and splashing +him, wounds multiplying in his legs and arms and chest, half the hair +burnt off his head by the energy auras of angry orbs.</p> + +<p>His force dwindled. Men died with throats torn out by zanphs, with eyes +singed from the sockets by globe-radiation. Men stood numbed and +useless, hypnotized into immobility. Men sat looking at spilling guts +that fell from zanph-slashed bellies. But still the Mink slew on and on, +a tall dark wild figure in the uncanny light of the still-flying +airships of the alien globes....</p> + +<p>John was bringing them down faster than ever, and Revel must needs split +up his small force even more, sending miners to each wreck to catch as +many entities as possible. Many spheres of gold managed to rise into the +sky, where they found sanctuary in other saucers: some zanphs went +scooting for shelter in the rocks and bushes, but most stayed to fight +and die.</p> + +<p>He yearned to check his forces back on the hill, those protecting John's +machine, and the men who still fought the gunmen in the upper end of the +valley. But he dared not take his encouraging presence from the miners +here. A button came swooping to earth not three yards from him, spraying +him with clods of dirt, unbalancing him by the shock; a zanph gained +purchase on his shoulder and tore flesh and sinew and muscle so that his +left arm lost much of its strength and cunning. He killed it with the +pick handle and struggled on into a mob of the brutes, panting now and +blinking blood from his eyes.</p> + +<p>Of his original two hundred, less than seventy remained. Still he dared +not draw any from the protective ring. Where were the rebels that Vorl +and Sesker and the others had gone to rouse? Probably raiding mansions +miles away. He should have told them ... oh, well. Surely the +concentration of noise and buttons and gods above the valley would bring +them soon.</p> + +<p>A moment's respite allowed him to look at the sky. It was lightening a +little for the early dawn, and the buttons were less bold; most of them +hovered near the horizon, only an occasional one bravely sailing in at a +terrific speed to make a try at bombing the valley. John, perhaps with +Nirea helping him, had managed to bring down every one so far. But John +and Revel would run out of luck some time, as every man does; then John +would miss, Revel's arm would fail, and they would all die.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Even as he lowered his head a gargantuan blast shook the world below +him. He fell into a mob of zanphs, who were fortunately so demoralized +by the explosion that they ignored him till he could gain his feet and +begin to murder them once more. From the tail of his eye he saw a +mushroom cloud lowering just beyond the hill; he flicked his gaze +at the crest where his men had been stationed to guard the +<i>antiforcescreenthrower</i>—no human form showed against the gray sky. The +blast had hurled them to dust, together with every tree on the skyline.</p> + +<p>Finally—the gods knew how long he had fought—he found with amazement +that no more foes were in sight. The buttons that had fallen were all +cleaned out. Zanphs lay thick in heaps and lines, emptied sacks of +globes dotted the bloody grass. He listened for the sound of firing from +the upper valley; yes, there were still isolated shots.</p> + +<p>His forces there still held, then. He glanced again at the sky. No +buttons in range. They were giving John a respite—or was it a trick? +Revel's tired mind wondered if John and Nirea were dead, and the gods +playing with him this way....</p> + +<p>He felt himself, his head, arms, chest, legs. He had been burned a dozen +times by energy auras, only his incredible animal quickness preserving +him, giving him the power to dodge away at first touch of the burning +and slay the golden globes. The zanph bites atop the thorn scratches and +hound gashes were rapidly stiffening his whole torso, his left arm, his +thick-thewed legs. But there were shots in the upper valley, and Revel +the Mink was needed there.</p> + +<p>Wearily he gathered his men—twenty-six of them now, all as tired as +he—and trudged at a broken shuffling lope toward the light.</p> + +<p>As he passed the rocks where the machine of John sat, he scanned it with +blood-shot eyes. A score of miners, perhaps thirty at most, stood around +it, and the man of the Ancient Kingdom sat on its surface, wiping his +face with a white cloth. Lady Nirea stood up beside him and waved her +hand as he passed. He swung his pick in a big arc to show he was still +hale and hearty, though the effort cost him much.</p> + +<p>Through his dulled brain now ran one thought, one hope. It was a chant, +a prayer, a focus for his beaten spirit, for though he had won thus far, +he was so death-weary that he could not conceive victory coming to him +at the last.</p> + +<p><i>Just let me meet Ewyo. Only let me meet Ewyo without his horse. Give me +now one fair fight with Ewyo the Squire of Dolfya.</i></p> + +<p>The first man he met was Rack, engaged in binding up a torn calf with +strips of his shirt.</p> + +<p>"How goes it?"</p> + +<p>Rack turned the walleye toward him, as though he could see out of it. +"We have eight or ten left. All their horses are dead or run away. We +stayed them in hand-to-hand combat, but when they drew back and began to +use their guns long-range, we lost heavily. Now we're dug in along that +rise, and they seem to be waiting for more squires, or horses, or +something. I think they have twenty or thirty left."</p> + +<p>"Then we have thirty-five or so, and outnumbered them."</p> + +<p>Rack let his good eye rest on his brother. "Your voice is the croak of a +dying frog, Revel. You must have lost a quart of blood. Your men are +like sticks and sacks and limp rag bundles. You call this force +thirty-five <i>men</i>?"</p> + +<p>"We are still men, Rack." His voice, croak though it was, rang strong +and fierce. "I can plant this pick in any gnat's eye I desire. Now do +you lead us to the battle front."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mink." Rack turned and hobbled forward. "One of the slugs has +sliced half the tendons of this leg, I swear."</p> + +<p>"That wound is in the fleshy part, and won't trouble you for a week. Is +that a man?"</p> + +<p>"That's Dawvys."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Revel started back, appalled. The man lying behind the rise was red and +brown from short-cropped hair to waist, his back a mass of +blood—sparkling crimson in the light of dawn, where it had freshly +sprung leaks, and dirty mahogany color, where the scabs had dried and +cracked and flaked. It was a back that should have belonged to a dead +man; but Dawvys rolled over on it without a wince and grinned at his +leader.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Revel, bless your soul," said the former servant. "I'm glad to +see you alive."</p> + +<p>"The same to you, Dawvys," said the Mink. "Did you have any trouble in +that pit?"</p> + +<p>"I went to sleep when the hounds had passed, and never awoke till your +men found me tonight." He stretched and grunted with pain; then, "I +think I shall live."</p> + +<p>Revel looked cautiously over the rise. Some fifty yards down the valley +the squires were grouped in a knot, their costumes gaudy in the early +light. A few of them were looking toward him, but most watched the far +end of the valley. They were looking, thought Revel, for reinforcements. +Time might be short.</p> + +<p>He scanned the terrain. Where the squires stood, the valley was narrow, +scarcely more than sixty feet across. Above their knot, to Revel's left, +was the open mouth of a mine; the opposite hillside was bare and rocky, +without break. A familiar voice behind him said, "What's to do, Mink?"</p> + +<p>"Greetings, Jerran. Why did you leave the machine?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing doing there. The gods are sitting on the horizon. Have you a +thought?"</p> + +<p>"See that mine?" He pointed with his gory pick. "Isn't that the western +entrance of the great mine of Rosk?"</p> + +<p>Jerran took his bearings. "It is."</p> + +<p>"Then the other entrance is back yonder, and through it we can traverse +the mine and come out that hole-above the squires."</p> + +<p>Jerran nodded. "The best plan under the circumstances. Let's go."</p> + +<p>Rack said, "I come too."</p> + +<p>"Yes, all of us save four men," agreed Revel. "They must stay here to +create noise and pretend to be forty people. Give us ten minutes, and +the squires will find that mine shaft erupting death all over them!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Mink has fought till nearly blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till almost deaf and dumb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till all his strength is waned away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all his senses numb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At last his foemen give before<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His pick as swift as fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before him now there stands alone<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cruel, and savage squire!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>With thirty men at his back, Revel went down the valley at a crouch; +slipped up the rock shelf to the eastern entrance of the great mine of +Rosk, protected from the gentry's view by a chance outcropping of shale, +and went into the darkness. The tunnel he sought was on the second +level. He dropped down the ladder, unhooked a blue lantern to guide his +way, and followed the narrow tunnel west.</p> + +<p>Behind him the pad-pad of his weary men lifted muffled echoes, and he +tried to set such a pace as would take them swiftly to the hill above +the squires, yet not tire them further nor wind them before the battle. +In the intense gloom he distinguished another lantern far ahead. As he +approached, it appeared to move toward him. Was someone carrying it?</p> + +<p>He tensed himself and swung the pick a little; but when the priest +hurled himself at the Mink, bearing him back against Jerran, the Mink +was caught by surprise. It had been no lantern, but the priest's glowing +robe!</p> + +<p>Revel's reflexes were still, if not hair-trigger, at least very quick. +This was a tough priest, though, a lean hardbitten man, with a fanatical +long face that shoved itself into Revel's and clicked its teeth a +quarter-inch short of his nose. The fellow's arms were tight about him, +as they rolled sideways against the rock, Revel straining to bring his +pick into play, clutching tight to the lantern, while the priest flailed +hands like knobby boulders against the Mink's nape and head. A blow of +his knee, and Revel doubled up, gasping; struck out blindly with the +lantern, caught the fellow in the belly, and made him curl up in his +turn, choking for breath. Jerran and the others were blocked by Revel, +and growled encouragement.</p> + +<p>Revel straightened, nauseated and weak. The priest came at him. Revel +raised his pickax and swung it—pain stabbed into his legs and belly—he +bent involuntarily in the middle of his swing—and what should have been +a neat spitting of the holy man's skull became a messy job of +disemboweling. The fellow died gurgling, picking futilely at his spilt +entrails. Revel crawled over him and went on once more, his troops +behind him.</p> + +<p>At the western entrance to Rosk's mine, he peered out for the first sign +of the highborn enemies. A thrill of panic touched him as he saw they +were not where they had been; then, poking his head into the dawn, he +saw them advancing in a slow line toward the rise where his four men +were raising shouts and taunts.</p> + +<p>Orbs, he thought exultantly, here's a piece of luck! We'll take them in +the back!</p> + +<p>He slipped down the shelf, gesturing his men on. Running silently, he +came within a yard of a squire in green and gold; then halted and +cleared his throat loudly. The squire, startled, looked back.</p> + +<p>"Ewyo!" he shrieked, whirling. "It's the Mink!"</p> + +<p>"Come from Hell to slay you," said Revel between his teeth, and dealt a +blow with his pick that clove the gentryman from brow to breastbone. The +line of men had swiveled, and now shots rang out; at such close range +even their guns could not miss. Half a dozen rebels fell, screaming.</p> + +<p>And now the weary Revel was a brazen-throated fiend, brandishing his +pick, roaring, scalping one and braining the next, destroying with fresh +vigor dredged up from the pits of his free soul. For now he had a +strange certainty that the gods were done, and if he died in this moment +he died emancipated.</p> + +<p>Joy brought him strength such as he had never had. These squires, +running off, loading their guns feverishly, firing, clubbing their +weapons to stand and fight, what chance had they against him? He looked +for Ewyo, but could not find him. <i>Let him not be dead</i>, he prayed. And +then there was Rosk.</p> + +<p>Rosk, red of visage, narrow of jaw, bloody about the thin mean mouth, +facing him over a thrust-out gun. Revel jumped aside, but Rosk did not +fire, only following him with the musket muzzle. "Don't bounce, Mink," +he grated. "Stand and look around you. Your men are falling faster than +autumn leaves."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Revel glanced behind, and at that instant Rosk fired. It was a +treacherous trick, and by poetic justice it was his last. The ancient +gun, overheated by long use, could not take the overcharge of powder in +the shell. It blew up, its barrel twisting into twin spirals of metal, +its stock driving back into the guts of the squire, fragments of hot +iron spraying his face and chest. Rosk had no time to howl, but went +down like a lightning-struck birch. Revel felt the slug, or a piece of +the shattered gun, burn along his cheek.</p> + +<p>What was one more wound atop the uncounted number he had? The Mink +laughed, turning to his men.</p> + +<p>Of the thirty, Rack and Jerran and one other remained. Each was engaged +with a squire, his two friends grappling without weapons, the miner +swinging a pick against a clubbed gun. All the others were dead or +dying. Ewyo must be dead somewhere in the valley, or else he had not +been here at all.</p> + +<p>Revel hurried tiredly to the nearest combatants, let his pick go licking +out over Jerran's small shoulder, tore off half the head of the squire. +Rack crowed triumphantly as he throttled his man. The miner had won his +fight. They were finished.</p> + +<p>The four of them limped toward the hill of John's machine.</p> + +<p>Then there came a pounding of hoofs on greensward behind them. Revel +turned. It was a lone rider, galloping furiously down upon them. He saw, +with an incredulous gasp, that it was Ewyo of Dolfya.</p> + +<p>"Go on," he said urgently. "Leave me, comrades."</p> + +<p>"You young <i>fool</i>," barked Jerran. But he took Rack's arm and pulled the +giant forward, leaving Revel standing alone with his face toward Ewyo.</p> + +<p>The stallion was pulled up short, and Ewyo stared down at him. "I hoped +I would get here in time," he said.</p> + +<p>"You're late. Your world is broken, Ewyo." Revel realized as he said it +that he was fatigued to the point of not giving a damn whether he lived +or not. Still there was a yearning to fight this devil on horseback. +"Shoot, Ewyo. I shall kill you all the same."</p> + +<p>Ewyo raised his gun, hesitated, then said, "Is there only myself, then, +and you, Mink, in all the world?"</p> + +<p>"In all the world, Ewyo."</p> + +<p>"Will you give me a pick?"</p> + +<p>Revel started. "You are no miner. You can't fight with a pickax."</p> + +<p>"I can fight with anything I can hold." He threw the gun on the grass. +"Give me a pick," he commanded, leaping from his nag.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Revel stooped and took up the weapon of a dead man. It was a good pick, +with a longer handle than the Mink's own. He reached it out to Ewyo, +holding it by the head, and the squire took it and stepped back a pace.</p> + +<p>"When you're ready, Mink."</p> + +<p>"Now, Ewyo."</p> + +<p>They circled each other, warily watching the eyes and arms of the enemy. +"Why didn't you shoot me?" asked Revel in wonder.</p> + +<p>"Too unsporting," growled the beefy squire, his pale eyes squinting with +strain. "A gentleman doesn't take advantages."</p> + +<p>Revel laughed. It was too ridiculous a statement to merit an answer. He +made a feint, Ewyo parried skillfully. Then the squire brought his pick +down in a looping arc. His reach was as long as Revel's, and the pick +gave him an advantage. Revel jumped back, slashed sideways and missed. +They circled.</p> + +<p>"The gods will win out," grunted Ewyo.</p> + +<p>"Their day is done. We are aided by the Ancient Kingdom."</p> + +<p>"Superstition! Things have always been as they are."</p> + +<p>Slash, hack, parry and retreat. "Not as they are now, Squire Ewyo."</p> + +<p>Ewyo dropped his guard, Revel came in to gut him. Too late he saw the +trick, and Ewyo's pick sliced across his shin, a shallow cut that nicked +the bone. He jabbed with the flat of the blade, struck Ewyo in the +chest, and jerking his pick sidewise and back, tore velvet coat and +satin weskit and drew blood. Ewyo cried out.</p> + +<p>Revel summoned his strength and began a series of flashing swings, which +Ewyo parried frantically, backing across the grass. Blood spurted from +cheek and hand as the rebel's deadly weapon glinted dully in blurred +movement before the squire's eyes.</p> + +<p>Then the squire rallied, and his power being greater than Revel's now, +if his skill were less, he drove the Mink back in turn.</p> + +<p>There came a blow that turned the pick in Revel's hands, sending its +point down to the side; Revel recovered, but the squire threw up his arm +and brought down his blade with such force that the off-balance Mink +could not turn it wholly. It sliced over his ribs, drove through the +flesh of his hip.</p> + +<p>Pain so hideous as to make him dizzy and ill knifed the Mink. In that +moment he knew if he did not make one superb effort he was done. +Conquering agony, he swung up the pick before Ewyo could recover from +the vicious downswing. With a noise like a rock hurled into a rotten +melon, the pick tore through cloth and flesh to lodge in Ewyo's belly, +half its head buried in the screaming squire.</p> + +<p>Ewyo tore it from the Mink's hands as he fell, and writhed about it, +curled like a stricken serpent.</p> + +<p>The Mink dropped to one knee beside him, head bowed with nausea and +relief. "You were a brave man, you bastard."</p> + +<p>Ewyo, strong in his fashion as Revel in his, stiffened his body so that +he could look straight up at his killer. "Not—especially brave," he +ground out. "You see—Mink—I had no—ammunition—for the gun...."</p> + +<p>His pale eyes filmed over, and Revel staggered off, leaving him for the +crows and worms of the valley.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When he had come, dragging himself like a wounded stag up the rock +shelf, they stared at him in silence for a long minute. Lady Nirea at +last said, "But you are dying, Revel!"</p> + +<p>"Not for a good many years," he grinned.</p> + +<p>Jerran said, "Aye, cut him a thousand times and he'll make fresh blood +from that valiant heart!"</p> + +<p>John called, "Look there, Mink!" Down the dawn wind rode half a dozen +golden orbs, high enough to be out of reach of their picks, low enough +to observe them. Revel gritted, "Blast 'em!"</p> + +<p>"You can always shoot later, son. Let's hear what they want."</p> + +<p>Reluctantly Revel waved a crimsoned hand to stop his gunmen. The globes +halted a few feet above the machine. Fingers of thought pried into the +Mink's head, and automatically up went his screen.</p> + +<p>Then the cerebral prying ceased. John murmured, "They're talking to me."</p> + +<p>Revel watched the silent exchange of thoughts. What if the obscene +things got hold of John's mind. Anxiously he scanned the strong face for +signs of fading will. At last he could stand it no longer, and was about +to order a volley, when John said, "I think that's it, Mink."</p> + +<p>"What happened?" they all asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"The things parleyed. They see they can't get close enough to smash the +machine—that last explosion was a desperate try at crashing a saucer +with a bomb ready to trip, and it didn't work—so they want to talk. I +gave 'em a skinful." He chuckled. "Told 'em there were men of my time +wakening all over the world, with machines to defeat them totally; they +know whom they're dealing with now, and they're going to talk it over. +Mink, that's the end of the gods, with luck! They won't face a force of +twenty-first century scientists. They haven't got it, they just haven't +got it."</p> + +<p>"But they'll discover that you lied," said Nirea. "They'll get the +thrower, sooner or later, and then we're at their mercy again."</p> + +<p>"I didn't lie, girl. All over this hemisphere there are caves like the +one I came from, with scientists held in suspension, plenty of machines +from our time, and knowledge that will bring your world out of these +Dark Ages into another Renaissance! I have the locations in the papers +that were interred in the casket under me, and we'll send parties out +today to find 'em. This is a new world dawning this morning." He leaned +over and kissed her enthusiastically, and Revel, who would have split +another man down the brisket for that, did not mind at all. "Your globes +are done, Mink. The gentry and the priests will be easy prey. You can +probably scare them into surrender after last night."</p> + +<p>Jerran said, "Here be men on horses, Mink." Revel turned and saw a great +cavalcade of stallioned men sweep down the valley, and in a moment of +great joy saw that they were all ruckers, carrying dead gods on pikes +and singing the Ballad of the Mink as they came.</p> + +<p>The Lady Nirea was in his arms, kissing his lips that were caked with +three kinds of blood; and Revel the Mink forgot the pain in his torn +body, the utter weariness of brain and muscle, and everything else +except what was good and sweet and wonderful.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Three months had passed, and the leaders of the successful rebellion of +Earth were sitting in a drinking-house (legal now) downing toasts to +various people and events. Revel and his wife Nirea sat at the head of +the board, and down the sides ranged their friends and lieutenants: the +giant Rack and the tiny Jerran, Dawvys and a dozen others, with John +Klapham at the foot.</p> + +<p>"To the end of the globes," said John, his tongue a trifle thick by now. +"By gad, you brew potent stuff in these times! To the gods' finish!"</p> + +<p>They drank that standing, roaring it out gleefully.</p> + +<p>Revel said, "It was a sight to see, that—thousands upon thousands of +buttons, all sweeping into the sky and vanishing into dots and then +nothing ... and here's to the gentry they took with 'em!"</p> + +<p>"How many went?" asked Nirea, though she knew as well as he.</p> + +<p>"Seven thousand and four hundred and ten, squires and their ladies, +electing to travel out of the world for promised power in another!" +Revel grinned wolfishly. "And here's to the priests who weren't allowed +to go, and so have become miners and know what it is to sweat!"</p> + +<p>Rack stood up, looming gigantic above them. "Here's to the men awakening +now all over this country—the men of the Ancient Kingdom!"</p> + +<p>"And the things they can teach us," added Jerran.</p> + +<p>"And a toast to the most important of those things—the art of tobacco +growing!" shouted John gaily.</p> + +<p>They sat down after that, and Revel said to John affectionately, "If it +hadn't been for you, friend, we'd still be ruckers and worse. You gave +us a new world."</p> + +<p>"Rot. I gave you a technical skill—you furnished the brains, brawn and +motivating force, a legend come to life. I was only one more weapon in +your hand."</p> + +<p>Lady Nirea touched the Mink's arm tenderly. "We'll all be weapons in +your hands now, Revel. Tools to make a civilization again—to make the +last verse of the old song come true."</p> + +<p>"Let's sing it," said Dawvys, a little in his cups by now. "Let's all +sing it loud."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The gods have flown beyond the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The priests toil underground;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gentry's curse is lifted free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all our foes are downed....<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now over all the Mink he reigns,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And gone are rank and caste;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ruck is lifted from the mire—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And we are free at last!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They finished the rousing song and looked expectantly at the Mink; but +he had borne back Lady Nirea on the bench and was kissing her with +enormous warmth, so that even a prophetic song, written about him ages +before he was born, could not tear loose from him the only chains that +would ever bind him again—the wrought-steel, invisible, shatter-proof +shackles of Nirea's love.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Buttoned Sky, by Geoff St. Reynard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUTTONED SKY *** + +***** This file should be named 32473-h.htm or 32473-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/7/32473/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Buttoned Sky + +Author: Geoff St. Reynard + +Release Date: May 21, 2010 [EBook #32473] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUTTONED SKY *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE BUTTONED SKY + + By Geoff St. Reynard + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of +Science and Fantasy August 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + Legends spoke of Earth's glorious past, of freedom and greatness. + But this was the future, ruled by god-globes, as men gazed + fearfully at--THE BUTTONED SKY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + The squire he sat in Dolfya Town, + He swilled the blood-dark wine: + "O who can blight my happiness, + Or face the power that's mine?" + + Then up there spoke his daughter fair: + "The priest can end your joy; + The globe can sap your might away, + And the Mink can you destroy!" + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +The day that Revel killed a god, he woke early. There was a bitter taste +in his mouth, and a pain in his ear where somebody'd hit him during a +shebeen brawl the night before. He rolled over on his back. The bed was +a hollowed place in the earth floor, filled with leaves and dried grass +and spread with yellow-brown mink skins sewn into a big blanket; he'd +slept on it every night of his twenty-eight years, but this morning it +felt hard and uncomfortable. + +The water gourd was empty. In the cold gray mists of dawn he groped his +way sleepily to the well behind the hut, and drew up the bucket. + +"Damn the gentry!" he burst out. The bucket, an ancient thing made of +oak slats pegged together with wooden dowels, was half filled with dirt +and rotten brush. "Curse their lousy carcasses to hell!" he yelled, and, +suddenly scared, looked around to see if perhaps a god was floating +somewhere near him. But no yellow glimmering showed in the mists. + +Laboriously he cleaned out the well, dropping the bucket time after time +and dragging up loads of trash. Some roving band of gentry had fouled +the water for sport. Anything that hurt the ruck, made them more work or +injured them in any way, was sport for the squirarchy. + +At last he got a bucket of cold and almost clean water, filled the big +gourd and carried it back to the one-room hut. The morning that had +begun badly was getting worse; his mother's limp was painful to see; she +must have had a hard night. Bent and gray and as juiceless as the grass +of their beds, she slept more lightly and fretfully with every passing +month. Many years before a squire had ridden her down in the lanes of +Dolfya Town, as she scurried out of the path of his great stallion, and +her broken leg had mended crookedly. A few hours on the mink-covered bed +crippled her up so that moving was an agony. + +With the impious brain at the center of his skull--Revel had long before +decided that he had a number of brains, one obedient, one rebellious, +one dull, one keen and inquisitive, and so on--with the impious brain he +now cursed the gods and the gentry and the priests, and everyone above +the ruck who preyed on them and made their lives so stinking awful. If +he had thought then of killing a god, the idea would have seemed +pleasant indeed. But quite impossible, of course, for a man of the ruck +did not touch a god, much less slay one. + +He did not think of such a thing, but cursed the gods briefly and then +turned off his impious brain and began to wolf down his food. He paid no +attention to what he ate--it was the same old bread of wild barley +seeds, the same old boiled rabbit. + +When he finished, he glanced at his mother, feeling sorry for her, +wishing that she would go to the shebeens with him and have at least a +little happiness before she died. He wondered if she had ever known any +joy, any hope such as he had in drunken flashes now and then of belief +that life might some day be better for the ruck. He shook his head, +grabbed his miner's pick, booted his brother in the ribs to waken him, +and left the miserable hut to walk to the mine for his day's work. + +The day was brightening, and above him in concentric circles to the +horizon and beyond hovered the eternal red and blue buttons. He looked +up grimly. Always there, in all the spoken history of man, stretched +above the world to keep watch on every action of the ruck. The buttons +were full of gods, omnipotent, omnipresent. + +The mine was a mile from his hut, which lay on the outskirts of Dolfya. +It was halfway down a long valley, a gut between hills pitted with many +other mines. There coal was dug for the gentry and the priests. He +walked up to the entrance, gave his name telepathically to the god-guard +at the top of the shaft, and went down the ladders until he'd reached +his level. Another god passed him there, its aura of energy just +touching his skin and tingling it into small bumps. + + * * * * * + +Shutting off the thoughts of his various brains from any probing mind +that might be eavesdropping, he said to himself, Always, always they're +near a man! You go out of your hut and there's a god, a big golden globe +hanging in the air shoving its tentacles at you and reading your mind. +You come down the mine shaft and every hundred feet or so you see the +yellow luminosity. Why can't they leave us alone! Why can't they stick +to their temples, and exact their worship on Orbsday, instead of all +week long, all day long, every day in the year! + +He came to his work place, a dead-end tunnel. Jerran was there before +him, as usual. Revel grinned at him. Jerran was a runty wisp of a man, +with a face the color of old straw, and he had been Revel's friend since +the day he came to the mine from distant Hakes Town by the sea. A +wonderful drinking companion, Jerran, but he wouldn't brawl ... strange! +He was forever pulling Revel out of fights and trying to teach him +serenity. + +As Revel greeted him, he involuntarily glanced at the end of the tunnel. +There, behind a carefully casual erection of boulders, lay their secret +cave. They'd broken into it the morning before, and after no more than a +hasty glimpse of unknown wonders, and a check to see that no globes were +in sight, they'd walled up the opening and begun to dig along the +shaft's sides. Revel wasn't quite sure why he had followed Jerran's lead +in keeping it secret, but the brain which had decided to do it must be +the rebellious one. All secrets were taboo to the ruck, who were +required to report all finds to the gentry or the god-guards. + +Now a globe came drifting down the corridor, and Revel got quickly to +work, prying coal from a vein with his pick. The thing passed him, +flicking his mind lightly with its own, and went on to the end of the +tunnel. He watched it from the tail of his eye. Its glow brightened with +interest; it shifted back and forth before the rampart of rocks. + +They hadn't kept a tight enough check on their excitement yesterday! The +globes could sense emotions long after the man who'd had them left a +spot, and if the emotion were anger or grief or strong excitement, the +globes could detect their residue as much as forty-eight hours later. + +The thing floated back to them, briskly now, and ordered Revel +telepathically to pull down some of the rocks at the end. + +He eyed it coolly, his various brains walled with the protective screen +that he had learned to erect between his thoughts and the outside world. +This screen was made of shallow ideas, humdrum speculations on prosaic +things--the last woman he'd had, the good feeling he got from working +this rich vein of coal after some days of poor luck, even (to make the +god think it was hearing secret desires) a wish that he might taste the +wine that the gentry drank. He could throw up the screen and forget it, +using his core of brains for serious plans. + +A dozen rocks displaced, he thought, and we're doomed. For not telling +the gods about the cave, he and Jerran would be given to the squires for +the next big hunt. + +So, without much hope of living through the next minute, but believing +it was the only thing he could do now, he shoved Jerran to one side, +raised his pick and slammed it with all his might into the center of the +small, gold, eight-tentacled sphere. + +And Revel had killed a god! + +The feel of the pick slashing through it told him that: it was like +hitting an overripe melon. The globe recoiled, dragged itself off the +pick, and sank toward the floor, wobbling and dripping yellow ooze, with +its aura of energy fading quickly into air. Jerran said quietly, "No +others in sight. We're lucky!" and began to make a hole in a pile of +discarded rocks. "Help me hide it, Revel." + +"You can't hide it," he said dully. "They're telepathic, after all. It +must have signaled its consorts." + +"They can't hear or send messages through rock," said Jerran, working +away. Revel automatically started to help him. + +"How do you know?" + +"We've proved it." + +Revel heard the phrase, wondered who "we" might be; but so much had +happened in the last seconds that he did not question Jerran. He +couldn't absorb all the shattering facts. A man could not only touch a +god, he could murder it! The gods were not all-powerful, for they could +not perform telepathy if rock were in the way. Truly it was a morning of +wonders. The world was falling around him. + + * * * * * + +He stared at the limp corpse of the globe. The tentacles were already +shriveling up, the emanation of energy that surrounded the living orbs +was gone. He bent, sniffed; no odor. He peered at it keenly, in the soft +blue light of the mine's lanterns, then straightened. + +A hand fell on his shoulder. + +He spun on one heel, the pick arcing round to gut whoever was behind +him. He had a glimpse of a short red beard and a popping walleye, and +stopped his whirl by an instantaneous checking of his whole muscular +system. The pick's point, still splattered with god's gore, was nudging +his brother's belly. + +"Nobody could have halted such a swing but you, Revel," said Rack +absently. His good eye, ice blue and sharp as a bone needle, was fixed +on the dead globe. "What happened?" + +"An accident," said Jerran. "The god interposed itself between your +brother's pick and the coal." + +"That's right," said Revel. He had been lying to his brother for years, +but he never grew reconciled to it; still, Rack was a man with but one +brain, and that one servile and obedient to every whim of the gentry, +the priests, the gods. So he had to be lied to. + +Rack brought his gaze to Revel's tense face. "I got in the way of your +pick," he said heavily. "You have the keenest nerves, the strongest body +in the mines. This was no accident." + +Revel began to grow cold in the head and the bowels. If Rack was +convinced that he'd slain the god on purpose, then he'd report him. The +religion that held the world so tightly was greater than any family +bonds. He looked up at Rack. The man was a giant towering four inches +over Revel's six feet one, and sixty pounds heavier. Rack's eyes were +blue and white, Revel's lustrous brown; the elder's hair and beard were +flame-colored, the younger had a sleek chocolate-brown thatch with a +hint of rich black in its sheen, and was clean-shaven. + +I'd hate to kill you, big man, thought Revel, but if I must, to save my +neck, I will. + +Jerran thrust his pick under the flaccid corpse and tossed it with one +quick motion into the hole. He piled rocks on it, as Revel stamped the +yellow ichor out thin and stringy, spread rock dust and jetty coal +fragments over it till no sign of the murder remained. + +"I'll report it," said Rack, apparently making up his mind. + +"Then I'll say you did it," snapped Jerran, turning on him like a mouse +baiting a bear. "What chance would you stand in the temple against me, +whose cousin serves in the mansion of Ewyo of Dolfya?" + +It was true, Jerran was slightly higher in the ruck than the brothers, +being related to a servant of the gentry. Revel hoped Rack would be +scared off by the threat. He had become perfectly cold now and could in +the blinking of an eyelash bury his pick in Rack's head, but he didn't +want to do it. + +When Rack said nothing, Revel spoke. "Brother, agree to hold your +tongue, or by Orb, I'll cut you down where you stand!" + +Rack glanced at his own pick. "You could do it," he acknowledged. +"You're fast enough. All right. I promise." He turned to his work +stolidly; only Revel could see that he was blazing with anger. + +The three began to dig coal from the wall. Revel kept glancing at the +small Jerran. What was there to the man that he had never suspected? How +did he know that globes were stymied by rock? Why had he taken the death +of the god so lightly? + +_What was Jerran, anyhow?_ + + + + +CHAPTER II + + The squire has gathered all his kin, + To hunt the fox so sly; + 'Tis not a beast with paws and brush, + But a man like you or I! + + They hunt him down the thorny glen, + And up the hillside dark; + "O hear him gasp and hear him sob, + Whenas our hounds do bark!" + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +When Revel was due for a rest space, he went through the blue-tinged +dusk of the mine, cleaned his arms and face at the washers, scrubbing +the coal dust from his big hands, and climbed the ladders, up and up, +till day shone in his face. + +He stood beneath the cross-beam of the entrance, sucking in clean air. +The red and blue buttons shone in the sun; far down the valley a globe +passed between trees, bent on some private business. Another floated by +him into the mine; under it trotted a zanph, one of the ugly beasts, +six-legged and furry with the head of a great snake, that followed the +globes and sometimes attacked men on orders from the hovering gods. + +Would the deities discover that one was missing? If they found the +corpse, he and Jerran would be foxes for the gentry.... + +Revel was a man of the ruck. The ruck was millions and millions of +souls, faceless, without rights; Revel had some little protection, more +than most others, being a miner and therefore important to the gentry. +The gentry numbered thousands, and they had many rights--owning great +estates, lighting their homes with candles, drinking wine legally, +keeping fierce dogs and going where they pleased on big wild horses. No +man of the ruck could touch one of the gentry and live. The gentry, the +squires who owned guns and hunted men three times a week, men called +"foxes"--it was whispered in the illegal drinking huts, the shebeens, +that the squires had once been members of the ruck. Above there were the +priests, who had always from the dawn of time been of the priestcraft, +being born a notch lower than the gods themselves, who were the golden +globes. + +"Our Orbs who dwell in the buttoned sky," said Revel aloud, and spat. +Before that day he wouldn't have dared to think of such an action. + +He walked out on the shelf of rock before the mine. Something moved at +the far end of the valley, a brown and silver speck that swiftly became +a horse and rider, rocketing toward him. + +It was a girl, her silver gown pulled up to the tops of her thighs so +she could sit astride; she appeared to be having trouble with her mount. +Passing beneath Revel, swearing loudly at the plunging horse, she +continued for a hundred feet, then fell in a swirl of silver cloth as +the brute reared. + +Revel leaped down the rock shelf as the horse cantered away. He ran to +the girl, who lay flat on her back, long white legs bared below the +disordered gown. She was blonde, tall, beautifully slicked. No rucker +wore such clothing, or rode a bay stallion, much less looked so groomed +and cleanly; she was a squire's daughter. + +As he bent down she opened eyes the shade of sunlight on gray slate. + +"Lie still," he said, "you may have broken something, Lady." + +Her face was scornful. "Stand back, miner," she said, recognizing his +trade from the distinctive clothing he wore "Death to you if you touch +me." + + * * * * * + +A confusion of emotions was rioting in him. So much had happened +today--too much for sanity. He surrendered to madness gladly. This was +the most perfect wench he had ever seen. "Shut up," he said, and ran his +fingers over her body. "We of the ruck are expert at mending things, +Lady: bones, pots, and lives. Orbs know, you gentry have busted enough +of 'em for us. That hurt?" + +She sat up, brushing her gown to her ankles as Revel took a last wistful +look at her legs. Evidently she was quite unhurt. "You'll play fox for +my father's hunt," she said coldly. "What made you do it?" + +"You took a bad fall," he said lightly, wondering at his lack of fear. +Never before had he touched a squire's woman. She felt as all women +feel, her high caste couldn't be sensed in her body. "I'd sit still a +moment, if I were you." It must be the killing of the globe, he thought; +after that, any crime is possible. + +"Who are you?" + +"A miner," he mocked, standing. His pick was in his hand, as ever. He +thought, Should I kill her too? No sense to that, when I was only trying +to help. Or was it her body I wanted to touch? "Who's your father?" + +"Ewyo of Dolfya, and his hounds will eat you for breakfast tomorrow." + +Ewyo was one of the richest squires in this part of the world, and +Jerran's cousin served him. "You're Lady Nirea, then. A fine-looking +wench." + +"My Orbs," she gasped, her scorn rattled by his incredible insolence. +"My Orbs above, who are you?" + +"A dirty miner, who puts coal into your father's hearth but must warm +himself over smoldering peat. Why would you report me?" + +"You _scum_," she said, the snarling hiss of a zanph in her voice. "Do +you remember when a brewer fell over a dog in Dolfya last year and +bumped my sister Jann? He was hunted over twelve miles before the pack +tore him to blood and rags! What do you think _you_ deserve, who dares +address me in that way, and--and fondle me?" + +"Lady Nirea, if I fondled you, you'd know it," Revel said. Then, seeing +the hint of a smile on her sensuous lips, he looked up, for she seemed +to be staring over his shoulder. + +From the button above them a line of globes dropped, golden globules +radiating bright energy. + +_Whom the gods destroy, they first madden._ That was part of the Globate +Credo, wasn't it? Well, Revel had been gradually made mad that day, and +now, by Orbs, he'd show them something before he was destroyed! + +As the first descended past him, and wrapped two tentacles under the +girl's armpits to lift her, he lifted his pick to smack it as he had the +supervising deity in the mine. He felt a tug; another globe had a +whiplash arm around his pick. Gritting teeth, he threw his tremendous +brawn into a swing, and the pick tore loose from the tentacle and +sprayed the guts out of the sphere before him. It fell on the grass +beside Nirea, an emptying sack. He slashed a second and a third, +laughing between set lips. What a way to go down--killing gods! + +Then he felt a searing pain, a sudden spasm of the flesh, as though a +sword had been heated in a bonfire and laid alongside his ear. +Reflectively he ducked to earth, sprang two steps forward and spun, +rising to his full height again. One of the bulbous brutes had touched +the side of his head, its energy aura so strong at that close contact +that the hair was burned to a char and the flesh scorched. + +So they could really hurt a man! He grinned with pain and defiance. If +his pick wasn't as fast as any damned floating ball, let them kill him! +He waited, crouched, keeping his eyes on them; and then they were rising +again, leaving him there in the valley with a screaming girl in a silver +gown. + + * * * * * + +Jerran, who had just started his own rest space, evidently, appeared on +the rock shelf and came down, walking faster than Revel had ever seen +him go. The little man came to him and, hardly glancing at Lady Nirea, +said, "Were you attacked, lad?" + +"I did the attacking, when they objected to my touching this wench." + +Jerran gazed up. "They're spreading out. The gentry will soon be on you, +Revel. You've got to hide." + +"Where can you hide from a god?" It wasn't a hopeless tone he used, but +a kind of laughing, bantering acceptance of his doom. + +"Come off it," said Jerran urgently. "You're still thinking like a +rucker." + +"I am of the ruck." + +"You're a rebel now, you fool! Think like one! Listen: _a man cannot +kill a god_." + +"The Globate Credo," grunted Revel. "_Our Orbs are everlasting, +untouchable._ Crud! I've killed four today." + +"Right. So stop fearing them and thinking they're omnipotent. _Our Orbs +see all we do._ More crud, lad! They're telepathic, adept at hypnosis, +but rock stops 'em. Get rock above you and you are safe for a while, +till I can think this over and get you some help." + +"The mine!" Revel barked; to his madness, his exhilaration, was added +hope. "The secret cave, Jerran!" + +"And of course," said Jerran wryly, "you have to take the woman." + +Revel's jaw dropped. "Why?" + +"You idiot, she just heard you say about six words too many. She'd lead +her father's pack straight to us!" Jerran evidently knew the Lady Nirea +by sight. "She knows our names, too. It's either take her or kill her." +His flinty eyes creased up. "Better kill her, at that. Less danger." + +Revel looked at her. The talk of murder didn't turn a hair of that +flawlessly-wrought coiffure: she was either too sure of the gentry's +power, or too stunned by the gods' death, to be consciously frightened. + +She was not stunned, for now she said, "You rabbit-brains, you filthy +grubbers, you must have lost whatever wits a rucker has. My father will +really think up something f--" + +"Damn your father," said Jerran. "He eats dandelions." + +"He doesn't!" + +"My cousin gathers them for the old hellion," nodded Jerran. "I ought to +know. Revel, have any of those bulbous bubbles gone into the mine, that +you noticed?" + +"Not yet, I've been watching." + +"Good. Then get going. I'll take care of the wench." + +Revel saw her lips curl slightly; she didn't believe she could be hurt, +even though she had a moment before been screaming at the death of her +gods. She was brave, or stupid, or very confident of her untouchability. +He glanced down over her body, squeezed tight by the silver gown. Her +breasts were fuller and higher than a ruck girl's, her limbs unbunched +with muscles, smooth and lovely. + +"No, she doesn't die," he said. "Not unless I do." He bent and picked +her up and ran with her toward the entrance of the mine. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + The Mink he couches underground, + Beneath the earth he lies; + He hears the fox's mournful yell, + And knows he must arise. + + "Too many lads have hunted been, + Too many women slain!" + The Mink he takes his pick in hand + To end the gentry's reign. + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +The Lady Nirea thought a moment--she never attacked any new problem +without thinking beforehand--and then she began to struggle. This rucker +who had her over his shoulder, with a death-grip on her legs and her +head hanging down his back, was plainly insane. No man of his low +position was _ever_ insane enough to actually harm a squire's daughter; +so if she kicked and bit, he would either drop her or-- + +Well, it was the "or." He reached up and slapped her on the rear. Hard. +She opened her eyes wide. No one had ever before dared to touch her +there. She thought again, and bit him on the side. + +He was carrying her up the rocks toward the mine now. Surely there would +be a god-guard on duty there? She had often seen one in place at the +entrance, as she rode through the valley. Yes, peering upside-down under +his arm, she saw the golden glow. Then he was shifting her a little, +setting his muscles, and--great Orbs! He struck the god full in the +middle with his miner's pick. This man, this astounding brute with +chocolate-colored hair and a body like a wild woods lion, had dared kill +four gods in as many minutes. Perhaps she shouldn't be as certain of her +inviolability as she'd been till now. + +"You triple-damn fool," she said, making her voice husky so it wouldn't +squeak, "the globes are watching." + +"They always are." What a strong voice the beast had. + +"They see you going into the mine. D'you think you're safe here?" + +"Where I'm going, there's a chance," he said. His body moved lithely +beneath her. She clutched him around the ribs as they began to descend a +ladder. Blackness, tinged with blue, lay below. She felt her scalp +prickle with terror. + +The little man, Jerran, said from somewhere above, "Kill all the gods we +meet, lad; I'll hide or bring the bodies. And keep your emotions +controlled, or they'll follow our scent like zanphs on the trail of a +runaway." + +"Did the globes follow us?" asked the big man, whose name was Rebel or +something like it. + +"They were coming down again as I ducked in. Hurry it up." + +The swift plunge into the mine speeded. She deliberately worked herself +up to silent panic, giving the gods a spoor to chase. + +Now they were traveling on the level, and from the reflection of yellow, +the brisk jerk of his arm, and the pulpy squish, she knew he had met and +slain another globe. Was he inhuman, a visitor from beyond the world, +such as were told of in the ancient ballads? Certainly no man was ever +this bold! + +"Here's the end," said Jerran. "Set the wench down, she can't get away. +Hurry!" + +She was rudely plumped onto a pile of coal. She looked at her silver +gown and shuddered. Her flailing legs had ripped it from hem to +midthigh; the coal was staining it irrevocably. + +"When I catch that horse," she thought, half aloud, "I'll beat him. +Tossing me into all this!" + + * * * * * + +They were pulling down rocks from the wall; now a black hole appeared. +The small man jumped up to a boulder and snatched down a blue mine +lantern. "Take this, Revel." That was it, Revel. An odd name, a rather +nice one. The ruck ordinarily had such awful names, Jark and Dack and +Orp. Revel. Not bad. It fitted the big lusty-looking brute. + +He came over. "Never mind picking me up," she said icily. "I can walk." +She peered into the hole, winced, and clambering over the rocks, losing +a heel from one of her slippers, she entered their secret cavern. + +Revel climbed in after her. Jerran was already piling rocks back into +the breach. The lantern looked faint and incapable of lighting a chimney +corner, but its blue radiance was deceptive, for the farthest reaches of +the place were cast into a moonlight sort of glow. She gazed around, +unable to take it in, seeing nothing at first but giant shapes of +mystery, unknown things in stacks and in tumbled heaps, figures like +grotesque statues, all lined in rows the length and breadth of the giant +cavern. + +The cave itself was square, perhaps a hundred feet to a side. It must +have taken scores of miners months of work to hew it out of the rock. +Unwilling to show interest, she still had to ask, "When did you make +this?" + +"We didn't make it, Lady. We found it. No man alive made this place." + +"How do you know?" + +"The miners would know it. We broke through the wall only yesterday." + +"What are these things?" + +"You know as much as I do." He was looking at her in the way her father +sometimes looked at rucker serving women, as though she had no clothes +on at all. She had little modesty, society was lax when it came to such +things as clothing, and frequently she had ridden the streets of Dolfya +Town in a suit of transparent silk that made the ruck gape and blush; +but this very personal scrutiny made her shield her breasts with one arm +as she stared back at him. + +"I've changed my mind about you," she said pleasantly. + +"Yes?" Did the swine look eager? + +"I have ... you won't be hunted by the pack. You'll be flayed alive, +inch by inch, with white-hot needles of iron, starting with your feet +and working upward. And I'll watch." + +He laughed. "You _are_ a wench," he said admiringly. Then he turned and +appeared to forget her as he began to inspect the contents of the +cavern. After a moment she wandered off to look at them herself. + +Nearest lay a long wooden chest, on which were arranged certain +contrivances that looked like guns, except that they were short, no more +than a foot long; they had triggers and barrels and small curved stocks, +so they must be guns! No one had ever seen a gun under four feet long. +She looked for the ramrods, but there were none on the chest. Possibly +they were cached inside it. + +Over the chest in an arch that covered the entire top was a sheet of +almost invisible stuff that she touched fearfully. She had never seen +anything like it--like frozen water! Hard and cold ... She thought of +the oiled paper in her father's windows. A sheet of this substance in a +window would be a magnificent possession, the envy of every squire in +Dolfya. Oiled paper was semi-transparent, while this stuff was like a +piece of air. + + * * * * * + +There was a white square lying beside the tiny guns, with black printing +on it. She was deciphering it, painfully, for not only did she read very +slowly, even in the priceless old books of her father's library, but +this print was in a language slightly different from Orbish, when she +felt two hard hands on her waist. + +"Get your stinking paws off me," she said, without moving. + +She was picked up and set down gently on one side. Revel bent over the +chest. + +"What are they?" + +She thought fast. She had deciphered enough of the card to know they +_were_ guns: _American handguns of 1940-1975 period_, it said. She +couldn't let him know it. The rucker must not get hold of a gun, or he'd +attack the gentry themselves, for hadn't he slain innumerable gods +already? + +"They are children's toys," she said. "I don't know what sort of +children would be interested in such weird-looking things." + +"Did you ever hear of the Ancient Kingdom?" + +She shook her head; the term was new to her. + +"The ruck knows of it; the ballad-singers have many sagas of the Ancient +Kingdom, but I imagine the gentry have forgotten. It was the world and +people of a long time ago. I think these things were walled up here +then." His face, really a handsome face if you forgot he was a rucker, +screwed up in thought. Then he started to chant something. + + "The people of that far-off time, + They carried little guns; + They had so much more freedom + Than we who are their sons." + +He stared at the weapons. She thought fast. "These are toy guns, yes. +The writing says they are guns for children." + +"Maybe the toys of those children worked," he said looking at her. + +"You talk nonsense." + +He felt the transparent stuff over the chest, pushed on it hard, then +raised his pick and struck the stuff a heavy blow. It shattered into +bright daggers and fell on the guns and on the floor. Picking one of the +small things from its place, he examined it closely. + +"No toy, Lady Nirea," he grunted. "You lied to me." + +"I didn't! Can _you_ read the writing?" she asked sourly. + +"No rucker reads, as you know. But this is no toy, and you knew it." He +tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, took three more. "You can +show me how to use them later." + +She laughed in his face and was given a rough slap on the cheek. Skin +tingling, she said, "Play the squire, miner, you don't have long to do +it!" + +"They won't find this hole." + +"I left a trail of emotion that a globe could follow after a week!" she +told him. + + * * * * * + +Slowly his brown face turned pale. Then he struck her again, but very +hard, so that she staggered back and fell. Without a word he grasped her +wrist and hauled her after him on a swift tour of the cavern. + +A huge intricate mechanism sat like a grotesque idol on the floor. "What +is it?" he said. "Read for me." + +She looked at the printing on the front. _Dynamo_ she spelt out, and +shrugged. "A name I don't know." + +"If you lie to me again, I'll rip that gown off and strangle you with +it." He obviously meant it. She said sullenly, "I'm not lying." + +"I know you aren't, now. I have an instinct for lies." He dragged her +on. "What's this?" + +The language was very like Orbish, yet subtly different, and the words +were mostly strange. She said aloud, in syllables, "_Man of the 21st +century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and--_" + +"Never mind." He left the big shining case, which was oblong and +featureless and seemed made of metal, to pass to something else. Her +gaze caught another line on the card as she was pulled away: _Held in +suspended animation._ What could the words mean? + +They covered the big cave, finding almost nothing they could understand. +Here and there were ordinary objects--plates, hides of animals under the +near-invisible arches of wondrous material, arrows such as the ruck +vagabonds used for shooting birds, candles--but in the main it was a +place of mystery. + +"The people of the Ancient Kingdom," he said, rubbing his square chin, +"put these things into the earth for a purpose. I don't know what it +could have been, but I want Jerran to look at them. He's got any number +of keen brains." + +"Nobody has more than one brain," she snapped. + +He grinned. "I have six or eight myself," he said. The creature was +totally crazy. He was staring at her again in that lewd way. Now he put +a hand on her shoulder. The touch sent hot tingling sensations through +her body. The fact that he was of the ruck and no higher than an animal, +that he was a god-killer, paled before the desire his great body roused +in her. She moved a step toward him, all-but-voluntarily. + +His brown eyes lit up. His arm was around her waist, and his lips came +near her own. Deep-bred habit made her draw back, but she could not +fight the instinct that racked her. + +It's a strange place for passion, she thought dazedly; an unknown +cavern, full of antique wonders never heard of on earth, filled with a +blue haze, and only she and the tall fierce rucker.... + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + The Mink has come to the bright sun's light, + His pick is lifted high; + He hears the gentry's whooping yell, + And sees them gallop by. + + "Now all too long we've felt the yoke, + And cringed and fawned and died! + 'Tis time we turned upon the squire, + To skin his rotten hide!" + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +Revel was sitting beside the hole in the wall, now filled with rocks, of +course; he had replaced the four small guns in his belt and found, by +breaking open the chest they'd lain on, a number of boxes of ammunition, +with which he'd stuffed his pockets. Experiment had shown him how to +load, and tradition of the ruck told him that to shoot, one pointed the +end at something (or someone, he told himself grimly) and pulled the +small curved projection. The woman should have helped him, but she was +sulking in a corner, weeping. She had not wept an hour before! + +He wondered if he were the first rucker to hold a gun. Surely the first +to have four such tiny weapons, at least. + +He heard voices from beyond the wall, filtering in, oddly distorted, +through the air spaces between rocks. That was Jerran. + +"Yes, he came down here, and threatened me with his pick all dripping +yellow, said he'd killed a lot of gods. Crazy, that's what he was!" +Jerran's voice broke, a neat bit of acting. "Sure there's an emotion +trail! You think I wasn't scared of that maniac? Wasn't he excited? He +stayed here a minute and then left again." + +That was clever. Jerran had explained away the psychic scent left by the +Lady Nirea. He must be talking to a god. But another voice spoke now, +and Revel sat up, thinking, The gods don't make sounds! + +"Was there a girl with him, a girl of the gentry in a silver gown?" + +"No, Lord Ewyo--" it was her father, then!--"he was alone." + +"He may have hidden her body somewhere," said a heavy voice. Rack, by +the Orbs, Revel's brother Rack! "He's turned violent today." + +"I understand he's your brother?" said Ewyo. + +"Aye. A strong violent man, but worse today than ever he's been." + +"No rucker would dare harm Lady Nirea," whined Jerran. + +"No rucker should dared have touched her," barked the squire. Then, his +voice respectful, he asked, "Can you tell me if she's dead, priest?" + +There was a croak like a bull-frog's, a chugarum with words in it. "She +lives." + +"Where?" + +Revel sucked in his breath. If the priest could see all, as they'd been +taught, he was doomed. Then, before any other voices beyond the wall +could speak, Nirea--he had been a muddleheaded and drooling fool not to +seal her mouth--Nirea screamed. "In here, father! Tear down the +barricades!" + +Revel was on her in two bounds and hit her a crack on the jaw, a vicious +blow that sprawled her into a pile of clay tablets (inscribed with +writing she had refused to read to him), dead to the world. Then Revel +was at the hole, waiting tensely with a gun in his hand. + +"What can lie in the rocks?" he heard Jerran say. "The voice was a +ghost's." + +"Hold your tongue," roared Ewyo. "You'll make a fox for the hunt, small +yellow man!" + + * * * * * + +A gap appeared. "Look in there," said Ewyo, and a head came thrusting +in, the head of a squire's servant topped with the distinctive peaked +cap and green ear flaps. Revel could not shoot a rucker. He hit the man +full in the mouth, and the head disappeared with a howl. + +"Tear them down, he's in there. We'll let the zanphs harry him a bit," +said Ewyo. "Hear that, rebel?" + +"Send in your zanphs," yelled Revel, grinning. "Let 'em come in, +squire!" + +The gap grew. Up over the rocks charged a zanph, its six legs scrabbling +frantically, its snake's head darting back and forth to search him out. +He let it see him and utter its war cry, a hiss that became a growl. +Then he pointed the gun's muzzle at its face and calmly pulled the +curved metal below the barrel. There was a crash as of a mountain +falling; dust rained on him from the roof, echoes raged together; and +the zanph, its skull fragmented all over four yards of floor, sank to +the furred belly and slowly rolled over. + +[Illustration] + +"Send me a globe!" roared Revel, delirious with glee. "Send me a god, +Ewyo!" + +There was silence beyond the wall; then the priest croaked, "He has a +gun. Certainly this is more than a matter of a kidnapped daughter, +Ewyo!" + +Jerran's voice rose in a laugh. "It is, Lord Ewyo, it is!" + +What the hell did the old fellow mean? Revel shrugged. He'd learn later. +Now was the time for action. + +Going to the prostrate girl, he slung her over his shoulder, a limp +light weight. The tattered silver gown flapped as he walked to the hole. + +"Stand back," he cried. "I'm bringing your daughter to you, Squire!" + +Another zanph showed its horrible reptilian head; he blasted it out of +existence with another shot. There were outcries from the squire and his +servants, and the priest rumbled, "Sacrilege!" + +Rack's head showed between the rocks. "Calm down, boy," he said, his +staring walleye gleaming in the lantern light. "You've been living too +fast--" + +"Not fast enough, Redbeard. Out of the way!" + +Rack slowly withdrew, and after kicking a few more boulders from his +path, Revel stooped and went out into the tunnel. + +"At him!" croaked the priest, a thin man in a radiant blue-green robe, +the double scalp lock waving like twin plumes on his shaven head. "Pull +him down!" + +"Ewyo dies if I'm touched," said Revel coolly, pointing the handgun at +the squire's belly. + +"Kill him--with that little thing?" said the priest. His voice seemed to +come out of the ground, not from such a gaunt frame as his. "You bluff, +rucker." + +"Look at your zanphs if you think so." He glared at them. There was +Ewyo, burly in peach satin and white silk, his long-skirted coat pushed +back from a lace shirt, skin-tight pants held by knee-high black boots, +a cabbage rose thrust into his cocked hat. There was the priest, lean +and savage beneath two hovering globes. Three servants of the squire, +Jerran and Rack made up the rest. + +"Come here, Jerran," he ordered. Smiling lazily, the little man ambled +over. "Take a couple of these miniature guns from my belt. They're +loaded. You point them--" + +"I can use a gun," said Jerran, "though I never had my hands on one this +size." + +"They came to us from the Ancient Kingdom," Revel told him. + +"Ah," said Jerran, nodding as he pulled two guns from the big man's +waistband. "I thought they might have. The ballads say they used such +weapons. Everyone carried 'em." He faced the squire, and his small body +appeared to swell and toughen as he went on. "Lord Ewyo, please to +precede us with your servants and that feather-brained priest. We'll go +to the ladders." + + * * * * * + +Ewyo grunted. Orders from a rucker, to him, _him_, the greatest +landholder in Dolfya! But after another glance at the mutilated zanph, +he turned and walked down the tunnel. + +"Wait a minute," said Revel, but Jerran turned to him with a face as +hard and ruthless as a woods lion's. "Shut up, lad," he said. "I'll +handle 'em. You just tend to the wench. She's awake, in case you didn't +know." + +He knew now, for she had just bitten him on the rump. He hoisted her a +little higher and absently smacked her buttocks. "Lie quiet, damn you." +She lay quiet. He went on marveling at Jerran's commanding new presence, +but said nothing. He was behind a born leader now. + +Jerran said, "Priest, tell your gods to stop trying to get at my mind. +I've shut it off from 'em. You follow Ewyo." + +The priest turned on his heel. The servants scuttled after their lord, +and Rack sat down on a rock and pulled at his beard, looking thoughtful. + +"I don't think it'd be overstating it," he said mildly, "to tell you two +you're in trouble." + +"So are the gentry, brother," Revel answered. + +"That'll be seen. Well," Rack said, squinting his good eye, "I'll be +seeing you. Or not, as the case may be." + +"Come along," said Jerran, and walked off, followed by Revel with the +Lady Nirea. + +Ewyo had vanished. His servants, uncertain, were grouped under the +ladder, and the priest was mounting up, his radiant robe billowing to +show scrawny, hairless legs. The two gods lifted through the murk. + +"Ewyo," said Revel, and Jerran interrupted. "Is gone. Did you expect to +hold him captive, lad?" He shook his yellow skull. "Too much trouble for +two men. Up you go." + +Revel sprang at the ladder and was soon crowding the heels of the +priest. That worshipful man reached the top of the ladder, turned and +knelt and thrust his face into Revel's. It was a vicious face, +hawk-nosed and mean. Now it barred his way, gloating openly. + +"You're dog-meat, rebel. A shame to kill the Lady Nirea with you, but +the gods order it." He reached out a hand and planted it firmly on +Revel's face. + +Hanging to the rung with his left hand, balancing the girl on the left +shoulder, Revel shot up his right and gripped the priest's wrist and +heaved up and back, ducking his head at the same time. + +The robed man flew into space with a screech. + +"Look out below!" roared Revel, and, chuckling, he finished his climb +and gave a hand to Jerran. "Where now?" From far below came the crunch +of a carcass landing at the foot of the ladders, on the lowest level of +the mine shaft. "One less priest!" + +"Follow me, lad," said Jerran, and dashed for the entrance. There was no +god on duty there, but the two that had accompanied the priest were +mounting into the buttoned sky. + +The girl was light on his shoulder, a delicious burden, he thought. He +hoped he could keep her. Just how, or where, he did not bother to +consider. Things were moving too fast for plans, at least plans about +women. + + * * * * * + +Jerran led him up over the crest of the hill above the mine. Beyond lay +the uncharted forests of Kamden. He had hunted mink and set rabbit +snares on the edges of it since boyhood, but had never seen its depths. +So far as he knew, no man had. + +As they started toward the wood, the beat of hoofs became audible in the +quiet countryside. Revel couldn't see the horses, but he began to run, +easily and fast, with Lady Nirea bobbing and swearing on his shoulder. +Jerran kept pace. + +Then they came up over the rim of the hill behind him, a pack of the +gentry on their huge fierce stallions, with a couple of hundred-pound +hunting dogs in advance, baying and yapping. The old terrifying viewing +call rose: "Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo allo-allo!" Thousands of the ruck +had heard the whooping cry moments before their grisly deaths. Revel +tightened his grip on the perfect legs of Nirea, and pounded on. He'd +ditch her if need be, but as long as he could hang on to her, by +Orbs.... + +The forest was closer. He could pick out individual trees, oak and +silver birch and poplar, standing thick in the matted carpet of thicket +and trash. A broad trail opened to the left. + +"That way," gasped Jerran, pointing. + +"The horses can follow down that road!" + +"Don't argue--damn you--lad--just run!" + +The gentry came yelling in their wake. A gun banged. Were they shooting +at him? Not with the woman slung down his back. The priests might +sacrifice a squire's daughter without a murmur, but no gentryman ever +harmed a gentrywoman under any circumstances. It was likely a warning. +That was why they kept whistling the dogs back, too, for the enormous +brutes could rip a human to scarlet rags in twenty seconds, and not even +a squire's command stopped them once they'd tasted blood. + +He had reached the trees and the wide path. He plunged into it, Jerran +beside him; the older man was panting heavily now, but running as +strongly as ever. "A little behind me, Revel," he husked out. "See you +follow me close." + +Jerran knew where he was headed ... Revel surrendered all initiative to +him. The ground thundered beneath him to the pounding of the horses. He +looked back as he ran. They were almost upon him, gay and gaudy in their +scarlet, green, fawn and purple hunting clothes; their faces were +bloodless, malevolent, and entirely without pity. Several of them +carried guns, the long clumsy weapons handed down to them by their +grandfathers from the time, a hundred years past, when gun-making was +still a known art. Ramrods were fitted below the barrels and the muzzles +flared like lilies. He'd back his new-found little guns of the Ancient +Kingdom against any such heavy instrument. + +Jerran dived into what seemed a solid mass of brambles. Revel shifted +the girl and bent to follow; at that instant she grabbed the back of his +thigh and wrenched with all her might. He had been carrying her too low +again. The tug was just enough to throw him off balance, and rucker and +lady sprawled on the forest pathway, entangled together, struggling +frantically to rise, as the giant stallions of the gentry bore down upon +them. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + The pretty daughter of the squire, + She came a-riding by; + Of sunlight was her fine long hair, + Of gray flint was her eye. + + The Mink he takes her by the arm: + "Now you must come with me! + We'll dwell a space in the wild wild woods + Beneath the great oak tree!" + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets, +coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane +whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward. + +He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save +himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of +the wench and try to preserve them both. + +He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady +Nirea. + +At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her +sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for +that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving +too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx. +He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body. +As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between +them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force +of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute. + +Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him +while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he'd +ever done. As the squires' legs came abreast, one blink later, he took +hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled +down. Then he leaped forward between the horses' tails, twitching the +woman after him with a jerk that almost tore the arm from her body. + +The squire in the blue breeches toppled over, howling, and fell on the +path. Revel yanked the Lady Nirea to one side as the mass of them swept +by, and saw with satisfaction a stallion, trying not to step on the +fallen squire, take a nasty tumble itself, flinging its rider ten feet +ahead, where he was trampled by a couple of less cautious nags. + +Other horses fell over the first one, and the gentry milled about, +roaring bloody hell and death on everybody. The two hounds smelled blood +and attacked the fallen squires, and Blue Breeches raced off into the +woods, one of the ravening dogs at his heels. + +Revel made for the other side, the brambles where Jerran had +disappeared. He was hauling the girl behind him. A beef-faced squire on +a pirouetting horse loosed off his gun at Revel, who snatched a handgun +from his belt and fired back. Both of them missed. A gentryman in tan +and gold long-skirted coat leaped in front of the miner, the flared +muzzle of his gun coming up toward Revel's breast. + +Revel shot by instinct, without aiming. The man's face turned into a +mess that looked like squashed raspberries. Revel stepped over his body +and tried to plunge into the brambles, but he had lost the exact spot, +and thorns barred the way. + +Then, four feet down the road, Jerran's yellow face popped into view. +"Here, lad!" + + * * * * * + +At that instant Lady Nirea gave a wrench and freed herself from Revel's +grip. He whirled and leaped and snatched down, catching the collar of +the silver gown. Her momentum carried her forward, but the dress stayed +in his hand ripped completely off. He went after her--she was falling +now--and caught her, though the atmosphere seemed to be composed equally +of gentry and rearing stallions. + +Then he turned, carrying her slung over one arm, and managing to reach +Jerran's anxious-looking head by knocking down one squire and kicking +another in the groin, he dived into the bushes. The Lady Nirea squalled +shrilly as the thorns gashed at her soft skin. But Revel blundered on +into the bramble patch. + +Jerran led him through what seemed impenetrable thickets, following a +route that must have been marked, though Revel could not see how. Behind +them, the gentry howled and loosed off their guns, but the brambles +defeated them, for Revel caught no sounds of pursuit. A scream that +thrilled up and choked off must have been the unfortunate Blue Breeches. + +Revel looked up, thinking of the globes; he could see the sky in many +places through the tangle, but realized that it was probably a thick +green solid floor to a watcher from above. A god would have to come very +low to see anything moving beneath it. + +The woman said bitterly, "For Orbs' sake, at least carry me in some +fashion that won't expose _quite_ so much of me to the thorns!" She +paused and added as an after-thought, "You mudhead!" + +He hitched her around and held her curled to his chest, faintly +conscious of the smooth body, but concentrating on protecting her from +harm; he thought suddenly that he was treating her as if she'd been a +ruck woman, instead of one of the gentry, the loathed and feared +squirarchy. Was he putting too much importance on the physical +attractions that had made him take her? + +Jerran was leading him now along a tunnel-like passage of twined, arched +shrubbery that made them stoop low. "It'd help if you walked, Lady," he +said. + +"You may not have noticed it, miner, but I have on just one slipper, and +it doesn't have a heel." She scowled up at him. "And when I say one +slipper, I mean that's _all_." + +"You look fine," he grinned. "No silk and satin looks as attractive as +your own pelt, my lady." + +They traveled for upwards of half an hour, sometimes down forest lanes +that allowed free passage, other times through thickets that ripped +their flesh and slowed them to a swearing, sweating crawl. Always there +was a screen above them of natural growth, shielding them from the +buttoned sky. + +At last before them there opened a huge amphitheater of the forest, a +hollow with gently sloping sides, covered by a gigantic roof of twined +willow wands and twigs. Jerran said, gesturing upward, "That's the +biggest piece of camouflage we ever did! The top of it is planted with +grass and scrub, rooted in square sods of earth cut from the woods' +floor in many places. From above it looks like a round hill rising out +of the trees. Took us a year to perfect it." + +"Jerran, who is 'us' and--" + +"Why, lad, the rebels." + +Revel stared at the little man. Could Jerran, the straw-colored stringy +fellow he'd worked beside all these years, the quiet one who'd preached +serenity and dragged him out of a hundred brawls, could he be a rebel? +Fantastic.... + +The rebels were the anonymous elite of the ruck. They were the +malcontents of their society, men whose intellects could not swallow the +dreary bromides of the priests, who felt savage indignation against the +cruel gentry and the bright, all-mighty globes. It was said that they +formed an organization in Dolfya and other cities, these rebels, and +that to them could be laid the sabotaging of the coal and diamond mines, +the gentry slain in accidents that looked too pat, and the constant aura +of uneasy discontent that pervaded the shebeens and all such illegal +gathering places of the ruck. + +The rebels were highly romantic figures, but Revel had always considered +them mythical, for who could think of resisting the condition of Things +As They Are? Songs were sung about them over the turf fires, in the +squat little huts of the people, and by vagabonds who roamed the +countryside by night. The rebels went by fanciful names, as rebels of +the people always do; and the one most sung of, most whispered about, in +Dolfya at least, was the Mink, who seemed to be a kind of promised +savior who would come (soon, always soon) with punishments for the +gentry and liberation for the ruck. + + * * * * * + +So Revel stared at Jerran, mouth agape, and repeated stupidly, "The +rebels?" + +"Aye, lad! Didn't you ever guess?" + +"Orbs, no!" + +"Why'd you think I kept stopping your fights in the shebeen?" + +"Because you were a pacifist." + +The small man shook with laughter. "One, there's nothing I love so much +as a good brawl. Two, a brawl might bring the orbs or the gentry to our +hidden drink-house, and that'd be bad. Three, a man who's a rebel must +appear _not_ to be one, even to men he believes he can trust. Four, I've +had my eye on you ever since I came from Hakes Town, and didn't want you +murdered in a drunken scrimmage. So five, though I hated to do it, I had +to preserve you from raging and quarreling until all that brute force +and honest fury could be turned to real account for us." + +"I can't take it in," Revel said helplessly. "It's as though the heroes +of the Ancient Kingdom that we sing about, Rob-'em-Good and Jonenry and +Lynka, had met me here. I never believed in rebels, truly, Jerran." + +"Why should you? We haven't done anything big yet. We've been searching +and waiting for a leader." + +Revel snapped his fingers. "The Mink!" + +"Yes, the Mink." Jerran looked at him oddly, head cocked like a small +yellow bird. "He hasn't come yet, but he will." + +Revel looked around him. The amphitheater was dim, lit only by the +sunlight that managed to creep in from the forest around it; for no +illumination fell from the sodded roof. It must be capable of holding +hundreds of men. "How many are you?" he asked. + +"Some four thousand and three hundred." There was pride in the man's +voice. "After today, Revel, we shall be uncountable thousands. Now the +gods have been torn down." + +"Not torn down." + +"Torn down," repeated Jerran firmly, "from their false 'untouchable' +eminence. You've shown the world that the globes can be slain as easily +as hares." + +"They can still rise into the buttoned sky, and rule from there." + +"We'll find ways," grunted Jerran impatiently. "False gods that can die +can be lured down by trickery--or we can find a way to go up to the +buttons." + +"That's insane," said Revel, and would have amplified it, but at that +moment the girl spoke. + +"When you are quite ready, _Squire_ Revel, I wonder if you'd kindly set +me down?" + +He had forgotten her, slung over his shoulder like a slain doe. Hastily +he slipped her off and set her on her feet. She was like a forest nymph, +one of those legendary wild women who haunted the trees near towns and +lured men to their death; tall and whitely lovely, her stark naked body +shone against the greensward with a perfection that made Revel's throat +constrict. + +Then she doubled up a fist and hit him in the eye. + +"You lout!" said the gorgeous creature. "Can't you at least get me +something to wear?" + +"I can have clothes for you in two minutes, Lady Nirea," said Jerran. +"Man's clothes, I'm afraid. No woman has ever seen the meeting place +before you." + +"Man's clothes--rucker's clothes," she said caustically. "If I'd known +what--" + +Then her words were muffled by a terrible sound, a noise as of the earth +exploding beneath them. Nothing moved, yet they had the sensation of +being shaken intolerably by a giant blast of wind. The roar dwindled +away, reluctant to cease, and Revel said, "What is it?" + +"Come on," said Jerran urgently, "we'll go to the dome and see." + +"The dome?" + +"The roof of the sanctuary," barked Jerran impatiently. "It holds the +weight of a score of men without quivering. We build slowly, but well." +He sprinted away. + +"The girl!" yelled Revel. + +Jerran called over his shoulder, "If she's fool enough to risk woods +lions and the bears, let her go!" + +Revel stared at Nirea. Then he chuckled. "No gentrywoman could find her +way home from this maze-center. You'll wait." He followed his friend. + +They shinned up a tree on the edge of the clearing, and jumped to the +rim of the dome, which never even swayed beneath their impact. Revel saw +it stretch up before him like a grassy hill, and marveled at the rebels' +artistry. Shortly they were standing on the crest, and he was clutching +at Jerran's arm. + +"Orbs above! Look there!" + +On the horizon lay a tremendous cloud of gray-black smoke, like the +reeking smudge of a forest fire; above it rose another and more ominous +cloud, this tinged with red and of mushroom shape. + +Revel was speechless, but Jerran ripped out a curse that would have +curled the hair of a squire's neck. + +"The Globate Credo," he said. "You've proved it wrong in one respect, +but there's terrible proof of its truth in another." He spat. "If I +figure right, that cloud's hanging over the eastern quarter of Dolfya +Town, where none but the ruck lives; and every soul that lived there is +dead as last week's dinner." + +"The Credo?" said Revel haltingly. + +"Sure. _Vengeance of the gods comes swift and without warning, below the +twin clouds, with a sound of volcanoes._ Nobody ever knew what that +meant ... till now." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + The pretty daughter of the squire, + She mourned and would not eat; + The Mink he tried to tempt her + With barley bread and meat. + + "O no, O no, you rebel cur, + I'll never eat nor drink, + Till father's hall I see again! + Till death has trapped the Mink!" + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +There were seven hundred silent men in the amphitheater of the forest, +and more came in each minute, slipping from the trees without a sound, +taking seats on the sloping grass. Miner's lanterns, the marvelous +contraptions that hung in the shafts beside the veins of coal or pockets +of diamonds, glowing with a dull penetrating radiance, had been filched +from the mines one by one over years, and now illumined the strange hall +like blue glowworms spaced around a pit. + +Revel sat, uneasy, on the sward in the center, at the bottom of the +bowl; beside him were Jerran and Dawvys, the small rebel's cousin who +served in the house of Ewyo the squire. There also was the Lady Nirea, +dressed in a miner's plain short-sleeved shirt and unornamented pants, +but looking as delectable to Revel as she had in the silver gown. She +had not spoken to him since the great bang and the twin clouds, but his +mind was so full that he didn't care. + +He had killed gods. This had brought his whole world down in ruins, +shaken his belief in all he had ever been taught by the priests. + +He had killed gentrymen, squires whom no breath of trouble from the ruck +had ever disturbed. This had made the myths of rebellion very real to +him, very possible; and then Jerran had admitted to being a rebel +himself. + +The east quarter of Dolfya had been wiped out, as Jerran had guessed; +men from the town, coming in after dusk, had confirmed it. The place for +a square mile was level, featureless, without sign that thousands of +people, women and shopkeepers, brewers and doctors, shebeen hosts and +small craftsmen and thieves and vegetable-growers, had lived there just +this morning. They were all gone into the smoke of the double cloud. + +His own mother was dead, then, and perhaps Rack, if the big red man had +gone home. + +He had taken a squire's daughter and made love to her, love that was +returned if only for a brief time; and afterwards he had shot down +zanphs with his new-found guns and plummeted a priest to destruction. + +So now where was he? Among rebels, certainly, but mentally, where did he +stand? Did he espouse the cause of the rebels? He nodded to himself. Of +course. Their cause was the ruck's, and Revel was a man of the ruck. He +had given the rebels a terrific boost with his god-killing, too. As word +went round of it, he could see faces turn toward him, marveling, +awe-struck, respectful. + +And what was he to do? Become a vagabond, probably, living by night, +skulking in the forest edges, passing from town to town hoping he could +find a place where the gods had not heard of him, so he might settle +down and eventually become a miner again. Mining was all he knew. + +He felt for his pick, tucked into his trousers at the back. For all the +new handguns, with their ammunition that made hash of a head or a belly, +he still preferred his pick. It was the weapon of a man. + +He took out a gun from his belt and stared at it. Then he asked Nirea, +"What is this called, the curved metal you pull to shoot?" + +She glanced over haughtily. "The trigger. Any dolt knows that." + +"I wish you'd be nicer. I don't mean to harm you." + +"You touched me, and more. I'm dreaming of your torture. Leave me +alone." + +Jerran stood up. The rebels, who had been buzzing and talking in low +tones, quieted until Revel could hear the rabbits hopping in the +underbrush beyond the amphitheater. + +Jerran began to speak. He told them the whole story of the day, of the +gods' death and all. Murmurs and exclamations arose, and he hushed them +with a gesture. + +"Many of us," he said, "though rebels, have owed allegiance to the gods. +Our quarrel has been only with the gentry, whose useless existence and +awful power over us are a constant irritation. They who hunt us as +'foxes'--who kill us if we touch them--we have seen are only men like +ourselves, women like our women." He pointed to Nirea. "There's a +gentrywoman; is she different in body from our wives? Not by so much as +a mole!" + +"I didn't see any moles," whispered Revel to the girl. She turned red in +the face and clamped her teeth together. + +"Is her mind different, superior? It's eviller, cruder, more ferocious, +maybe, but no whit better than our own! Why then should her kind have +power over us?" + + * * * * * + +The amphitheater roared to the angry yells of rebels. Jerran waved his +hand again. "That's been our quarrel with the established way of things +in the world. We've hoped for weapons to fight the gentry, and prayed +for guidance from the gods. Now we know that the gods are mortal too! +They can die! Then they aren't gods, not if gods are the supreme beings +we've all been taught! They flee from a miner's pick? Then, by Orbs, +they're craven cowards, not fit to be worshipped!" + +A hush, then another roar. + +"I said we'd waited. The biggest need was a leader, a man of brains and +guts and power. We've sung of him for centuries, made up stories of him, +songs about him." Jerran paused dramatically. He flung out a finger at +the mob. "Who will he be?" + +The answer almost broke Revel's eardrums. + +_The Mink! The Mink! The Mink! The Mink!_ + +"He's here! He's come, from the bowels of the ruck, from the mines, from +the people, as he was to come! Already he's done some of the acts the +saga-makers put into the Ballad of the Mink!" + +Revel frowned. Jerran hadn't told him that the Mink had come at last. +The small yellow-faced man went on. + +"He's the greatest trapper of mink in Dolfya--his family sleeps under +blankets of the little beasts' hides. His own hair is the shade of a +mink's pelt, as was foretold. He's as swift and deadly and cunning as +the oldest mink alive. He's slain gods and priests, and taken toll of +the gentry. I've worked beside him for years, and know his mind and +heart have always been ours, though he lived in ignorance of us." + +The light, a lurid incredible light, began to dawn on Revel. + +Jerran's voice rose to a shriek as the rebels muttered stupefaction. "I +tell you I know this is the man we've waited for, us and our fathers and +their father's fathers before them! Rebels of Dolfya, I show +you--_Revel, the Mink!_" + +The shouts that had come before were murmurs to the chorus of stentorian +bellows which assaulted Revel's ears now. The woman turned and said +something to him, her fine face disdainful, but the words were lost in +the tumult. A dozen men surged down and lifted him to their shoulders +and paraded him round, while hands reached up to touch him and wave +greeting to him. + +It was the beginning of a celebration he had never seen the like of, a +festival occasion that included a great dinner of boar and deer meat and +stolen gentry's wine, over which much vague planning was done; and it +ended only when the last rebel had left to sneak homeward, and he and +the girl were left alone with Jerran. + +"Sleep now, lad," Jerran said, grinning. "You're exhausted. It isn't +every day a man finds himself a savior." + +"But the Mink--I, the Mink?" He still had not entirely accepted it. + +"I think so ... and if I care to call you the Mink, no one can +contradict me." + +"All the while I was doing those things this morning," muttered Revel, +"I had the feeling I'd done them before. I must have been remembering +the old ballad, for by Orbs, the acts do fit!" + +"That minor blasphemy begins to annoy me," said Jerran seriously. "It's +like saying 'by the man I killed yesterday.' We've got to revise our +swearing habits." + +"Why not substitute _Revel_ or _Mink_ for _Orb_?" asked the girl +harshly. "Our Revel who dwells in the buttoned sky," she added, with a +malevolent sneer. + +"Ah, go to sleep, both of you," said Jerran. "Tomorrow we start to +plan--really plan--to overthrow the gentry." + +"And the priests," said Revel fiercely, "and the gods!" He almost +believed that somehow they could climb into the air and destroy the gods +in their red and blue buttons. He lay down, one hand vised on the +woman's wrist, and though he felt he should never sleep that night, +being far too excited, in three minutes he was snoring mightily. + + * * * * * + +He woke some time later with the prickling feeling of danger on his +skin. He opened his eyes and saw red, literally a red mist that obscured +the world. Then his head began to open and shut, open and shut, and he +knew he had been hit a hell of a blow on the forehead, and there was +blood in his eyes. + +Groping for his pick, that had lain next his left hand, he missed it; +then he recalled the girl, reached out for her, found she was gone too. +He drew the back of his arm over his eyes and cleared the gore a trifle. +"Jerran?" he said quietly. No answer. + +Blinking, he saw the vast meeting place empty, lit by the blue lanterns. +He rolled his head and there, its point buried deep in the sward an inch +from his right ear, was his pick. He sat up. Jerran lay a dozen feet +off, looking very dead indeed, with his thin hair matted with blackening +blood. + +Instinctively he tore the pick out of the ground. It was buried so deep +that only a very strong hand could have sent it in; not the girl, he +thought, somehow relieved that she hadn't done it. No, a miner's blow +alone might have done it, for the earth was packed solid as oak's wood +by untold multitudes of rebels' feet. + +Wait a minute, he said to himself: this is all wrong. That blow should +have opened my skull like a walnut. It missed me by a fraction--either +the aim was poor, or else damned good. I could have struck such a blow, +sure to miss where I wished to, but not even many miners could duplicate +it. + +Had the enemy missed, then walloped him with another weapon and left him +for dead? Gingerly he felt the wound on his head. It was healing +already, a tap that might have laid him out for a few hours, but would +never have slain him. + +He glared at the pick in his hand. Then he brought it up and in the +combined light of the blue lanterns and the dawn filtering in from the +woods, he squinted at the handle. + +Where his own pick bore the crude carving of a mink (he had taken the +beast as his symbol a long time ago, another sign of his identity), this +one had a jumble of grooves meant to represent a woods lion. + +This wasn't Revel's pick--it was his brother Rack's! + +Caught in an appalling dream that was the hardest reality he'd ever +faced, he pored over the pickax, scanned the motionless form of his +friend Jerran, then goggled foolishly at nothing in particular as he +thought of his situation, stranded in a place he could not escape from +alone, with many half-formed plots in his head but no way to carry them +out. Between him and Dolfya, and the other rebels, lay miles of tangled +forest no man, be he ever so skillful at woodscraft, could penetrate +without the knowledge of a route; thousands of the ruck were depending +on him to lead them, and he couldn't even lead himself home. + +"If you're the Mink, Revel m'lad," he said aloud, "it's time you came up +with a brilliant idea!" + +And there wasn't a scheme in his head. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + The haughty maid has left the Mink, + She finds her father's place; + The squire has looked her in the eye: + "Now what a fox to chase!" + + He's called in all his friends and kin, + And dealt out guns and shells; + He's sworn an oath to catch the Mink + By all the seven hells! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +Lady Nirea was puffing and blowing and clawing her way through endless +miles of creepers, thorns, and brushwood. She wished Revel were carrying +her now, even if it meant the loss of her clothing again. Now she +appreciated what a job he'd done, for naked though she'd been, not half +as many scratches had marred her skin on their first journey. + +Ahead of her, the giant called Rack was doing his best to break trail +for her; and in front of him, with a rope under his arms which the +red-bearded man held tightly, went Dawvys, her father's servant. + +As she understood the tale from Rack's few sentences, growled out in a +voice that reeked with hatred of somebody, whether herself or Revel or +whom she couldn't tell, he had caught Dawvys just emerging from the +forest and made him lead the way back to the domed glade. Ewyo the +squire had sent Rack out for her, and Rack was evidently all a rucker +should be--faithful, reverent, and obedient to the least command of the +gentry. + +She remembered waking, Revel's strong hand still clamped on her wrist, +and seeing this walleyed brute just aiming a swing of a pick at his +brother's head. She had screamed, and Rack had missed. She wondered +whether he had meant to hit at all. There was already a bloody gash on +Revel's scalp, and the little yellow man, Jerran, lay quite still with +red trickling out of his head. + +Then Rack had picked up Revel's pick and disengaged the grip of his hand +(was it as cold and lifeless as she'd thought? could the Mink be dead?) +from her wrist, and booted Dawvys out on the trail. + +That had been hours ago. They were still bumbling through the forest, +although the sun was high. + +"He's leading us wrong," she panted. "Don't trust him. He's an important +rebel." + +"He wants to live as badly as we do, Lady. He'll take us home." + +And sure enough, they had come shortly to the rim of the woodland. She +swayed and nearly collapsed. "Give me your arm, rucker," she said. "I +give you permission to touch me." + +His arm was like stone, supporting her along the road to Dolfya's +outskirts where her father's mansion lay. After a few minutes he dropped +the rope that held Dawvys. "Damn," he said loudly, "he will get away!" +and bent to retrieve it. Dawvys leaped off like a pinched frog, and Rack +said grimly, "No use to chase that one, he can sprint faster than a +dozen hulks like me." + +"You let him go," said Nirea. + +He turned his blue eye on her. "That is as you see fit to believe, +Lady." + +She would turn him over to her father's huntsman, she thought. Or would +she? He'd saved her ... was this gratitude in her mind? It was a foreign +emotion. Wait and see, she told herself; don't fret now. She was very +tired. + +They came to the house of Ewyo, a sprawling erection of field stone and +ancient brick dug from distant ruins of another time. No one could make +bricks like that now. She touched the gate in the wall and instantly a +dozen hounds, gaunt and savage, came leaping from the lawns. Recognizing +her, they fawned, and she opened the gate. "Come in," she said. He +grunted and obeyed, eyeing the dogs. + +In the library of the house, which contained more than twenty priceless +books allowed her ancestors by the gods, she met her father, the squire +Ewyo. He scowled up at Rack. + +"You bring this rucker, this miner, into the library, Nirea?" + +Not a word of greeting, she thought, not a single expression of relief +at her safety. For the first time she began to contrast the manners of +the gentry with those of Revel. He was rough, true, and crude and +inclined to glory in his animal strength, and he had made love to her, +to boot; but if he had found her after thinking her dead, by the Orbs! +he wouldn't have snarled out something about an unimportant convention! + +"The man saved me at great risk, and killed his own brother doing it," +she said coldly. She would not mention Dawvys at all. Not now! "He +deserves a reward, Ewyo, and not harsh words from you." + + * * * * * + +He slapped his high sleek boots with a hunting crop. He was a burly, +beefy-looking man, nothing like the lean tough Mink. She felt a sense of +revulsion. She turned to Rack and stared at the big face, scarred by +whipping branches, firm and fearless, as hard as the heart of a +mountain. "Go home and get some sleep, Rack," she said kindly. "You'll +hear from me later." + +"I have no home, Lady," he answered. "The gods destroyed our part of the +town yesterday." + +Ewyo snorted, "Dawvys can give him a bed for now in the servants' huts. +Dawvys!" + +It was on her tongue to say that Dawvys wouldn't be likely to answer his +bawl, but the man appeared in the doorway, spruce and clean, with only a +few scratches to tell of his activities. "Yes, Lord Ewyo?" + +"Take this rucker and find a bed for him. Jump!" + +"Yessir." Dawvys, a plump fellow with no hint of his enormous endurance +in his look, motioned Rack out of the library. + +Ewyo said, "Well! How are you, Nirea? Your sister Jann and I have been +worrying." + +"I'm all right." + +"Did you suffer indignities at the hands of that crazy miner?" + +He looked like a damned red-faced bear, she thought, and surprised +herself by saying, "Revel treated me with--with much consideration." + +"Huh! Wouldn't have thought it. You want to sleep?" + +"Don't bother about me," she said, turning. "Get on with your pressing +business, father." She went to her room and lay down on the +satin-sheeted bed without even removing the tattered rucker's clothes. +For a long while she lay there, thinking. Then she did a thing that no +one could ever have convinced her she'd do till that day. She changed +into a sheer black gown, after bathing of course, and slipped downstairs +to her father's private room. + +She had never been in it, no one but Ewyo had; she had no clear notion +of what she was looking for. But an army of questions warred in her +mind, and it seemed to her that there were secrets she must discover: +answers which she had never looked for, explanations for things she had +always taken for granted. + +For instance, she thought, turning the handle slowly and without noise, +why were the gentry the gentry? Why did the gods allow almost anything +to her kind, when the ruck had no rights? She shook her head. All her +breeding said she was mad, yet she opened the door of the private room +and walked in. + +Dawvys whirled from where he had been bending over a huge leather-bound +book on a table. His face was white, but it cleared of panic when he saw +her. + +"The Lady Nirea moves silently." + +"What are you doing here?" she asked sharply. + +"The same thing you mean to do, Lady. I'm seeking the answers to certain +problems." + +"Can a rucker read minds like a globe?" + +He laughed. "It was an obvious guess, Lady." + +"And have you found answers, Dawvys?" + +He sighed. "I cannot read, as the Lady knows. No rucker reads." + +She watched his face a moment. "Stay here," she said. "_I_ can read." + +"The Lady of the Mink is kind," he said, bowing. The title did not shock +her. Strangeness on strangeness! + + * * * * * + +The book was full of queer writing, like none she had ever seen. Instead +of letters that each stood alone, the letters were joined, each word +being a unit without a break; and they seemed to stand up a little from +the page, not being sunken into the paper as all printing was that she +had seen. + +With difficulty she read a few sentences. + +"This day the third in the month of Orbuary I did feed the gods, more +than forty of them in the morning and twenty after eating. I am so weak +I can hardly hold this pen." + +"What does it mean?" asked Dawvys. + +"I don't know." She flipped a page. "This day did hunt the fox, he being +a strong untiring trapper who was found with forbidden ale cached in his +house, and chased him over eight mile before he went to earth in a +spinney, where the dogs found him and tore him to bits. Afterwards did +feed nine gods, who have drained me so I cannot see but in a fog," she +read aloud. + +"That's your father speaking," whispered Dawvys, "He hunted a trapper +last month." + +"But how is it down here, if it was Ewyo? The books were made many years +before my grandfather was born. No one makes books now. The art is +lost." + +"Nevertheless, I think Ewyo made this one himself. Unless it's a +prophecy of the gods." He turned the book over. "What does it say on the +outside?" + +She read it with cold grue inching up her back. "Ewyo of Dolfya, His +Ledger and Record Book." + +"Then he did make it." + +"How? How could he? The art is lost!" + +"Many things the ruck believed have been proved false in these last +hours," Dawvys said. "Perhaps the gentry's beliefs are equally wrong." + +She left the book and went to a desk by the oiled-paper window. A drawer +was partly open. Inside was a big heap of dandelions, thick grasses, and +wild parsley. She remembered Jerran's taunt, "Your father eats +dandelions!" + +"Dawvys, why are these here?" + +"I don't know, Lady. I gather them and the squire eats them, but why, I +can't say." + +There was a sound at the door. Dawvys sprang toward the brocaded +hangings, too late; Ewyo thrust in his head, black rage on his features. + +"What in the seven hells are you doing here, Nirea?" + +The habits of a lifetime couldn't be overcome by a day in the presence +of the Mink. She said quickly, "I saw Dawvys come in, father, and +followed him." + +"Oh. Good for you. Dawvys, report yourself to the huntsman for a fox!" + + * * * * * + +Dawvys bowed and went out. She breathed freely; he would escape, and +still she'd saved herself. What Ewyo might have done to her, she didn't +know, but she feared him when he was roused. + +She yearned to ask him about the book and the weeds, but didn't dare. +She passed him and went to the resting room, where she occupied a chair +for an hour, blankly pondering the tottering of her universe. + +At last she stood up. She was a gentrywoman, she had guts in her belly. +Why shouldn't she ask her father questions? Before she could think about +it and grow scared, she went searching, and ran across her sister Jann. + +Jann was twenty-four, a tall ash-blonde woman with snaky amber eyes and +pointed ears who lorded it over the household. + +"Have you seen Ewyo?" + +"He's in the private room." + +She headed for it, and Jann ran to catch at her arm. "You can't disturb +him there!" + +"I've been in it before." + +Jann clawed at her. "You haven't! Even I was only there once...." + +"Even you. My, my." Nirea walked on, Jann tugging at her futilely. "I +have to talk to him." + +"Stop! Damn you, you whelp, you can't--" + +With precision and force, Nirea socked her sister in the left eye. Then +she strode down the hall and knocked on the door of the private room and +immediately went in. + +The sight that greeted her, completely incomprehensible, was still as +revolting and horrifying a thing as she had ever seen. Her father lay +back in a big armchair, relaxed and half-asleep to judge from his +hanging arms and barely open eyes. A curious sound, a kind of brrm-brrm, +came from his chest. + +Resting on his throat was a golden globe. Two of its tentacles were +pushed almost out of sight into his nostrils, two more dipped into his +gaping mouth. The remaining four waved slowly above the squire's face. + +Nirea screamed. + +The globe floated upward, slowly, grudgingly. Its tentacles withdrew +from the squire. Ewyo stirred and opened his pale eyes to glare at her. +A flush of hideous fury spread up his cheeks. He struggled to his feet +and lurched over and slapped her face, so that she ceased to scream and +fell against the wall, moaning. The squire stood over her. + +"You meddlesome bitch, I ought to have you cut up for the hounds!" + +"In the name of the Orbs," she said, whimpering, "what were you doing?" + +He grimaced at her like a madman. "You're not supposed to be told till +you're twenty, and you don't do it yourself till you reach +twenty-eight." + +"_Do it myself._" + +"Certainly." He gave a humorless snort of laughter. "D'you think we +don't pay for the privilege of being gentry, you fool? Now leave me +alone!" He lifted her and flung her at the door. The golden sphere +hovered motionless in the air. "Never speak of what you saw, and never +ask another question of me till your twentieth birthday ... if you live +to reach it!" + +She fumbled the door open and staggered into the hall, and wept there +with awful tearing sobs, while her sister Jann looked at her and giggled +hysterically. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + The Mink he seeks the gentrylass; + He eyes the gods above; + He laughs their might to scorn, the while + He hunts his highborn love. + + A fearsome lion bars the way, + The Mink he cannot pass; + He lifts his pick with fearful rage, + And blood besmears the grass! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +Revel was plowing through the brush like a wound-crazed bear. Jerran +came behind, shouting directions, for Revel's impatience would not be +stilled enough for him to follow anyone, especially the small Jerran, +whose head rang, he said, from the skull-cracking blow he'd been given +by Rack, and who was slowed as a consequence. + +Revel got farther and farther in advance, tearing with his pick at vines +and creepers, trampling small trees, making enough noise for seven men. +Dimly he remembered much of the trail hereabouts, and at last he was so +far ahead of Jerran that he couldn't hear him. + +He came into a tiny glade, ceilinged with branches of the oaks. Across +its width, some twenty feet from him, a huge woods lion lay above the +torn corpse of a man. One of the rebels from the meeting, thought Revel, +who wasn't so lucky as most. The lion looked up and growled. + +Its mane was long and bur-tangled, black as sin; its body seven hundred +pounds of muscle and bone, was longer than Revel was tall. He greeted it +joyously, a foe to grapple with at last! + +It came to its feet, challenge on challenge rumbling in its massive +chest. He drew a gun, then stuck it back. His hands ached for work, more +work than the pulling of a trigger. He ported his pickax. "Come along, +old monster," he said. "We'll see how a mink and a lion can mix it!" + +It stalked two steps, gathered itself for a leap; he didn't wait, but +sprang forward to meet it. The lion rose, checking its pounce with +surprise, for surely no man had ever charged _it_ before. The pick swung +down as it struck sideways at Revel, catching it in one shoulder, +tearing the flesh like dough. It screeched, clawing for him. + +One of the scimitar claws caught his side, gashing shirt and skin. Revel +whirled, yelling, flung himself on the animal's back, grabbed a handful +of mane with his left hand, and buried the pick in the center of the +woods lion's skull. The carcass lost its stiffness, sagged and fell, leg +bones cracking like gun shots as the tremendous body came down upon +them. Revel sprang to one side, lighting on his feet. + +"Not bad," said Jerran drily, coming into the glade. "If you're quite +through, Revel, we might be going along?" + +"I had to find out if I'm really the Mink," explained Revel, retrieving +his pick from the splintered bone of the lion's head. "The Mink could +slay a woods lion with one blow, it says in the ballads. This fellow +took me two blows." + +Jerran said, his face twisted, "Damn you, don't get cocky on me! You're +important now, no dirty miner, but a leader! If you haven't got the +brains to lead, at least keep still, follow my orders, and be a +figurehead. But don't take chances for the fun of it, because your lousy +hulk may be the salvation of man, despite yourself!" + +Revel hung his head. Jerran looked at him a moment. "Nerves, that's it, +and excitement, and eagerness to do something with your big hands. +You're young, and I shouldn't expect strict attention to duty of you. +But I _do_, blast it! Now march!" + +When they had traversed the forest, they emerged a little west of +Dolfya, on a stretch of dirt road bordered by maples. The lane seemed +deserted. Here and there in the buttoned sky were the bright dots of +gods passing back and forth between their abodes. Jerran led him +purposefully down the road. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly a man came bursting out from the maples and ran headlong into +them, knocking the small man back into Revel's arms. It was Dawvys, +clothing disheveled, mouth agape with running. "They are after me!" he +panted. "Ewyo sentenced me to the hounds. I ran, but they're after me!" + +Revel hauled out his pick. "Look there," he said, jerking his head +upward. "Concentration of orbs above us." + +"They point the way for the squires," grunted Jerran. "I don't hear the +dogs, though." + +"Ewyo wants me alive." + +"He won't get you!" + +"Will I not?" Ewyo himself had stepped quietly out from the trees, +directly in their path. In puce velvet, a great trumpet-mouthed gun in +his hands, he stood beefy and menacing before them. "Do you tell me I +won't, Revel the Mink?" He chuckled icily at the looks of amazement. +"D'you think I wouldn't have rucker spies? D'you think we don't know +about your foolish hideaway in the forest, and couldn't clap our hands +down on all of you in an hour if we wished to?" Two more squires, tall +and red-faced and prominently armed, came out behind him, "Gentles," +said Ewyo with mock politeness, "I give you Revel, the Mink, and two +minor henchmen." + +Revel lifted his pick and came forward, roaring defiance. Ewyo's gun +thrust out at his belly. "Don't die now," said the big squire +pleadingly. "I want you for a fox, Revel." + +Jerran snatched a handgun from his belt. One of the squires loosed off +at him instantly, the slug striking the handgun more by accident than +design, sending it spinning as Jerran howled and gripped his numbed +fingers. + +"Nice shooting, Rosk," said Ewyo. Revel still stood with his pick +raised, wondering what his chances of a swipe at Ewyo would be. "Put it +down," said the squire. "Drop it!" + +"Drop it, Revel," said Jerran. The Mink did so, and Rosk picked it up. + +"Come along," said Ewyo then. "I have some excellent torture rooms I'd +like you to inspect. Personally!" With a grin like a weasel's, he +motioned them through the maples. Several others of the gentry came up, +and the three rebels were surrounded and marched off to the great house +of Ewyo of Dolfya. + + * * * * * + +The room was large, of field stone, set below the house like a mole's +den; portions of the walls were black with age-old soot, from what +hellish fires Revel did not like to guess, and the rafters were grimed +and looked like axe-blades, darkened with dry blood, ready to fall upon +him. One wall had thongs hanging from it, beside a nine-lashed whip +hanging on a post. Candles illumined other instruments, the purpose of +all of which was torture. + +"Strap him to the wall," said Ewyo. Two of his servants did so; they +were evil-faced ruckers, fat with good living in the squire's huts. +Rosk, the lean-jawed, red-cheeked squire who was Ewyo's closest friend, +said, "Shall I flay a part of him? The left hand, say, or one foot so +he'll be slow in the hunt?" + +"No. I want him hale and hearty." Revel breathed easier. "The gods want +to do something, though. I'm not sure what. I have my orders." Ewyo took +a seat by the wall, gestured his servants out. As the door closed behind +them, a hideous yell echoed in the vault. + +Ewyo said comfortably, "They are taking the hide off the back of Dawvys, +in the next chamber. They'll split his fingernails, too, and perhaps +take off an ear. He's the least important of you upstarts, and I don't +care if he's as slow as a slug tomorrow." + +Revel thrashed impotently in the leather straps. + +Rosk studied the face of the Mink. He opened his gash of a mouth to say +something, and Revel spat accurately into it. "I wish it were my pick," +he said, as the squire sputtered and backed off. + +"Let be, Rosk," said Ewyo, smiling a little. "He'll pay for it +tomorrow." Rosk wiped his lips as the burly squire cocked his head, +listening to an unseen command. Then he walked over, opened the door, +and let in another yelp of agony, followed by a pair of golden orbs, +with their attendant zanphs. + +The globes floated down to the level of the Mink's face, and his skin +prickled at the nearness of the energy aura. What now? The long feelers +came darting out, touching his eyelids, his cheeks, and Revel winced, +expecting a searing burn. There was only the tingle. They could regulate +the energy, then, burning an opponent only when necessary. But how +loathsome their nearness was, to a sane and enlightened man who had +discarded the creed of their god-hood! + + * * * * * + +Now their minds came probing into his. Automatically he erected the +rampart of innocuous thoughts. Yet the probing continued; he could feel +it as a tangible finger of force, needling here, thrusting in there, +pressing aside the thoughts that meant nothing, feeling out not only his +true thoughts, but his memories, his unconscious hopes, the very traits +of character which made him what he was and of which he was scarcely +aware. + +[Illustration] + +This was no casually suspicious probing, such as an orb might give a man +as it passed him in the mine. This was a brutal wrenching of brain-stuff +that would not be denied. He felt it go into his rebellious brain, poke +and pry, ferret out all he remembered and believed. All the conceit +washed out of Revel the Mink. All the scorn he had felt for these +creatures turned to fear, and the bitter hatred increased a +thousandfold. And he knew that they felt it as it happened. + +At last the feelers drew back, and the orbs lifted toward the rafters. +Their zanphs lay watching them, and the two squires stood up +uncertainly. Then Rosk said in a hollow, unreal voice, "This man is to +be guarded closely. He must not be allowed to escape. It would be better +if he were killed now, rather than kept for the hunt. He is the most +dangerous rebel we have ever found." + +The Mink realized that the gods were using Rosk as a dummy, speaking +through his lips. + +Ewyo said, looking at the globes, that burnt with a dull golden radiance +in the upper gloom, "It would be better if he were hunted down. He is +the 'Savior' the ruck has been waiting for all these years, they think, +and if we slew him in this chamber, his death would never be believed. +He should be hunted before the whole town, and torn to pieces by the +dogs." + +The globes, through Rosk's lips, said, "That is so. Hunt him, then; but +if he escapes, you die and your family's status is reduced to that of +the lowest rucker's." They floated toward the door, which Ewyo hastened +to open for them. The sound of Dawvys' groans came in, and Revel +strained again at his bonds. + + * * * * * + +Ewyo's pale eyes darted toward him. "What a fox you'll make," he +gloated. "We'll run you in my own lands, which are the best for the game +in all this country. We'll run you naked, I think, and allow the ruck to +gather on the hills and watch you scuttle from afar. Their precious +savior! A naked, frightened, harried rabbit, instead of a bold fighting +mink! How'll they like _that_? How much talk of treason will there be +for the next ten years, after _that_? Precious little, Revel of the +Ruck!" + +He called his servants. "Take him and bind him with two dozen thick +thongs, and have twenty men sit in a circle round him all night. Give +him plenty of food and water--by Orbs, give him a beaker of my wine! +We'll have a fox tomorrow to remember for a lifetime!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + And now the squire has trapped the Mink, + And now he sets him free, + And now the Mink is hunted down + On hill and vale and lea. + + He pants and gasps, his legs grow weak, + His eyes with sweat are blind; + In squire's halloo and hound's mad bark + He hears his death behind! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mind + + +They took Revel to the top of a hill just behind Ewyo's mansion. He was +stripped to the buff, but on his feet were stout sandals of horsehide in +triple thickness, so that he could run well and give them a good hunt. +On the crest they untied him, and he stood naked in a ring of the horsed +gentry, rubbing his wrists and glaring at them. Beside him were Jerran +and the mutilated Dawvys, who both wore their customary shirts and +trousers. + +Running his eyes over the squirachy, Revel saw with a strange thrill of +horror the Lady Nirea, on a deep-chested roan stallion, as cool and +distant as the moon ... and as beautiful, he thought bitterly. Well, but +hadn't he had her? He, a rucker born had loved this woman of the gentry! +Let her watch him die--small compensation that would be! + +He bowed to her. "May you be in at the death," he said clearly, and had +the satisfaction of seeing her face go white. + +"Give the Mink his fangs," said Ewyo. The burly squire was all in +scarlet silk and purple velvet, with white calfskin boots on his thick +legs. At his command, Rosk threw the tall rebel a belt with two +holsters, in which were thrust two short iron daggers. "By rights you +should go without, Mink," said Ewyo, "but it's more sport to chivvy a +fox with a bite in him. Now, you have till the count of three hundred." + +"Five hundred is customary," interrupted Nirea. + +"Three is plenty for the savior of the ruck. Hold your tongue, Lady." He +leaned over his steed's head. "Three hundred, Mink, and then we come +after you. Your course is down this hill and straight away toward the +sea. Don't try to escape the straight, either, because the hills are +rimmed with guards who'll blow your guts out if you cross the line; and +some thousands of your slimy kin are clustered on those hills to watch +their hero die." He nodded to the woman beside him, a blonde wench with +vicious amber eyes. "Begin the count, Jann." + +The blonde said loudly, "One, two, three--" and at the third word Revel +was off, running like a slim brown stag down the slope of the hill. +Behind him came Dawvys and Jerran. The little man cried, "Don't wait, +Revel lad. Save yourself if you can. Remember you're the Mink!" + +"I wish to Orbs I wasn't," he growled, and hit the bottom, skimmed over +a patch of raw rocks and struck the green beyond. As he ran he buckled +the belt around his waist, with a knife hanging on each hip. He had not +expected these, and though Ewyo thought he'd lose only a hound or two, +Revel intended to take at least a pair of squires with him into the +unknown.... + +He was a fine runner. By the time Lady Jann had counted two hundred and +fifty, he was half a mile down the straight, which was a belt of land +some quarter of a mile wide and twenty long, ending above the sea on a +cliff's edge. As the squire had said, he would not be able to break off +the straight, for guards and packed mobs lined it and a naked man would +be far too conspicuous heading toward them. + +Now he thought of his two comrades in ill fortune. Neither of them was a +runner of any caliber. Should he wait and help them? + +Selfishness said _no_--and unselfishness said _no_, for wasn't his first +duty to the ruck, not to his friends? Didn't he owe it to humanity to +save himself? And besides, he was a lusty young buck, and didn't want to +die. + +But he glanced back, slowed, waited till the two had come panting up to +him, and thrusting an arm around each waist, ran them forward with him, +ignoring their protests. + + * * * * * + +They came to a coppice of elms, grown thick with brambles and cluttered +with deadwood. It covered perhaps an acre. Revel ploughed into it, +cursing as the thorns stabbed his naked hide. Too late he realized he +should have skirted it. In the rare quarter-seconds when the branches +were not snapping or the brush whipping noisily aside from their +progress, he could hear the faint barking of the great hounds; even, he +thought, the whoops of the excited gentry as they started down the hill +on their fiery stallions. He pictured Nirea, her slate-hued eyes +gleaming, her creamy skin aflush as she leaned forward eagerly for the +first sight of the Mink. Damn her! + +Abruptly the earth slanted off to the right, so that Revel, who was +still pushing Dawvys and Jerran, went headlong into a patch of nettles, +losing his balance at the unexpected dip and shoving both companions +down on their faces. Dawvys rolled, yelping at the pain of scratches on +fresh wounds, then vanished with a howl. Revel crouched, staring, +unbelieving. In a moment the head of the plump rucker came up out of the +earth. + +"What in Orbs' names--" + +"It's a pit," said Dawvys. "It was covered with trash." His eyes were +wide and frightened. "Go on, Revel. I can't run another step." + +The Mink thought swiftly. Dawvys was right, he could run no longer. +Quickly Revel shoved the man's head down, threw several branches and +bushes across the mouth of the pit, began to disguise it, talking as he +worked. + +"Lie down and be very still, old fellow. Jerran and I will make enough +of a trail for the hounds to follow, and only bad luck will discover you +to them. If we escape, we'll come back tonight for you." The pit was +camouflaged, looked like a mound of trash beside the trail. Revel +murmured a good-bye, and went plunging on through the coppice to the +other side, Jerran following him nimbly with the strength of second +wind. + +Now they could truly run, for Jerran, though forty-two, was no antique; +and Revel had the thews of a woods lion. The way before them was smooth, +grass cropped close by the sheep of Ewyo, gently rolling mounds one +after another so that skimming down one slope gave them impetus to dash +up the next. A faint cheer came to them from the left. The ruck was on +their side. + +Perhaps if I die well enough, thought Revel, my death may spark a +revolt, and so count for something. He felt at the hilt of the iron +daggers. Just give me Ewyo, he prayed to whatever higher powers there +might be; just let me have one thrust at Ewyo the Squire! + +From the crest of the highest hill he looked back, as Jerran sucked for +breath. The gentry were just topping a rise some half mile behind. Not +bad! But the dogs were much closer. They had gone through the coppice +without discovering Dawvys; now, with any luck, they never would. + +Revel ran on. His feet thudded on rock, slithered on grass, shuffled +through the mire of a narrow swampland. Here trees slashed at him, there +a woodchuck sprang out of his path and made him stumble with sudden +panic. His chest labored, drawing in air; his legs pumped and ached. +Then he came to a river. + +It was some ten yards broad, with a swift current. He said to Jerran, +"If we can make headway against that current, land up-stream on the +other side, we may have a chance." + +The runty yellow man shook his head. "Look up," he gasped. Above them +soared a score of globes, plainly marking their position for the gentry. + +"The filthy schemers," growled Revel. "The foul cheats! They call this a +game, yet 'tis as easy for them as it would be to shoot at us in a small +sealed room!" He bent down. "Get on my back, little one." Jerran climbed +on, and Revel grasped his legs, told him to hang tight around his neck, +and leaped into the river. + +Only thirty feet across, it was yet quite deep, and Revel sank like a +dropped rock. When the water above his head was so opaque that he could +not distinguish anything save a dull mirky lightness, he struck out +downstream. For a full minute he swam with the current, then began to +rise, Jerran clinging weakly to his neck. The Mink thanked his Orbs--no, +not them, but whatever brought him luck--that he was one of the few +ruckers who had taught himself to swim.... + + * * * * * + +He had gone farther by swimming than he might have running, for the +current was like a demon with a thousand legs, all speeding it on and +carrying him with it. His head lifted clear of the waters in the center +of the stream, and Jerran behind him broke into coughs and gurgles. +Revel looked for globes, and saw them upriver, lifting and falling +uncertainly. He said, "Take a breath!" did so himself, and sank again. +This time he stayed under for the space he could have counted fifty, +then rose again near the far bank. + +He was among trees, birch and poplar and evergreen, that grew to the +water's brink. He struggled ashore, carrying a limp Jerran, and fell +with his burden beneath a single giant oak, which sheltered him from the +buttoned, all-seeing sky. + +"Rest a while, Jerran. We've put plenty of distance behind us." + +Yet when he stood up and gave his friend a hand, five minutes later, he +could already hear the baying of hounds. + +A touch of panic threaded down his spine--not the panic that flared and +died when a woodchuck startled him, but the panic of any hunted creature +who, do what he may, still hears the pursuers close behind him. The +sound of the howls told him the dogs had crossed the river. He looked +up, but saw no orbs. No dog scents a man two miles off. Who had betrayed +them? Or were the gentry presuming that they must have crossed? + +He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have +found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk +beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network +of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood. + +He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at +best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was +open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted +him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and +high in the distance. + +At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his +skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had +been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured. + +"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind +him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill to the side of the +patch of bad ground. + +Then it dawned on him how they had been followed; for behind the +stallioned squires rose the hills, which bordered the straight hunting +course, and on them showed small dots of color, the keen-eyed watchers +of the gentry. No matter where he ran on this long narrow coursing +ground, there would be eyes upon him. + +At least the ravening dogs were not nearby. He picked up Jerran, tucked +him under one arm, and dashed for the shelter of the evergreen woods +before him. The hoofs of the horses pounded behind. He dodged in among +the pines, and the mournful call lifted--"Gone to earth! Go-ho-hon to +earth!" + +"Damn you, put me down!" rasped Jerran. "Am I a child, to be carted like +this?" Revel dropped him. They skittered from tree to tree, and then a +charging horse was on them, and Jerran was rolling aside, bleating with +fear of the hoofs, while Revel turned and stood foursquare in the path. +As the stallion all but touched him, he jumped aside, jumped back, so +that the head of the beast passed him but the rider was struck and +clutched and hurled from his saddle, losing his trumpet-gun as he fell. +The Mink was sitting astride him before he could bounce up, and two +ruthless hands took him by the throat and tore out his jugular. The +second rider at that instant drew rein behind them, and lifted his own +gun for a quick shot. + +Jerran hurled a rock. It took the squire on the head, spilled him out of +his saddle, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. + +"Two guns, by Orbs!" crowed Revel, gathering them up. "And two horses!" +He put a foot into the stirrup of the second one, but it shied madly at +the touch of a bloody, naked man; dashed forward, startling the other, +and together they vanished among the trees. "Hell!" said Jerran, taking +one of the guns; "nothing gained but two bullets, Mink." + +"Two bullets is two more slain squires. Come on!" + + * * * * * + +The evergreens gave out shortly, and they were in a valley channeled by +sluggish rivulets and grown with noxious weeds and clumps of coarse +grass. Some distance away, a priest walked slowly, head bent, his double +scalp lock flopping down over the radiant blue-green robe. Above him, +apparently in communion with him, hung a golden globe. + +Revel shifted his gun up and took aim at the orb. He must risk a shot, +rather than a god's exposure of his whereabouts. The priest looked up, +saw him, yipped in surprise, and the orb shot up ten feet just as Revel +fired. + +One bullet wasted. Jerran fired as the echoes of the Mink's shot +racketed away, and the priest crumpled in on himself, a glittering sack +of dead meat. + +"You fool!" said Revel, with a brief, pithy anger. "The man I could have +stabbed or broken in two. The sphere is beyond us now." It was slanting +up an invisible incline, faster than he had ever seen one travel before. +"Come on," he snarled. "We've got to travel!" He threw away the useless +gun and ran for his life. + +Behind him, to left and then to right, rose the calls. Hoofs thundered, +dogs baying out afresh as they sighted their quarry, and the valley +filled with sound and horses, dogs and men. Over and over the calls +rang, and the air above the fugitives was filled with watching gods. +Revel ran as he had never believed he could run, and the calls, the +calls, the calls beat upon his eardrums.... + + + + +CHAPTER X + + The pretty daughter of the squire, + She gallops down the hill; + The blood of gentry pounds so fierce, + 'Tis like to make her ill! + + Thinks she, I've come to see his death, + The man who did me shame! + And then she spies him limping there, + All stripped and torn and lame.... + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +The squire was clad in a sky-blue velvet coat, long and loose with a row +of big silver buttons down the front, a cabbage rose on each flared +lapel, a thick fall of silver lace over an olive-green weskit, lime +breeches in white calf boots. His blunderbuss was tilted carelessly up +over one crooked elbow, for he trusted to the iron-shod hoofs of his +hunting stallion to smash the rebel into the muck of the valley. He was +a portly, floridly handsome man of some thirty summers, and he would not +live to see the sun rise again. + +Revel turned at bay. He was just under the overhang of a short cliff, on +his right hand a swamp, on his left a pack of approaching hounds, and +before him the squire on his upreared horse. He had just boosted Jerran +up to the cliff's edge, and the little man was scrambling away, calling +to him to follow; but there was no purchase for his fingers, and the +thing was too high to jump, at least in the brief moment he had. So he +was brought to bay. + +The Mink drew his daggers, his fangs of Ewyo's more or less generous +bestowal. The horse poised an instant before bringing its mallet-hoofs +down on his head, and Revel leaped in and thrust--hands together, +knuckles pressed tight, so that the blades drove deep into the flesh +just below the rib cage of the stallion, their points not two inches +apart. Revel jerked them apart and out, and the horse contorted and +writhed together in a thrashing heap and came down, its blood hissing +out from a foot-long gash. The squire, unable to realize what was +happening, fell sideways on top of the Mink, who stabbed upward blindly +as he rolled away from the dying horse. The squire took one dagger in +the groin of his spotless lime breeches, the other just under a silver +button above his heart. The world shut out for him in pain and terror +and a loud, broken screech. + +Revel fought out of the tangle of limbs and crumpled corpse, shot to his +feet in time to meet the charge of a pair of slavering hounds. He knew +he was done now, there was no more running for the Mink, and he cursed +his fate even as he blessed whatever power had sent him so many gentry +to be pulled down with him. The dogs leaped, one died in mid-air and the +other carried him down once more, its lean teeth snapping off a patch of +hide and muscle from his shoulder as its guts poured free of its body +through a frantically-given wound. Revel was up again, shaking himself, +grappling with a third hound whose knowledge of men made it wary of his +blades. It hauled away as he slashed at it, lunged for his throat, +caught an ear instead, and coughed out its life as it was flung over his +shoulder in time for him to run the next dog through the skull as it +sailed at him. + +He was bleeding like a punctured sack of wine, though the wounds were +far from mortal. One ear lobe was gone, his left shoulder felt as though +it had been scalded by boiling pitch, and his whole frame was stiffening +somewhat from the myriad tiny cuts it had received. Revel was in his +glory, although he counted his life in seconds now. The whole pack was +not in the valley, these four dogs had not run with it, and only men +remained. Yet above were the orbs, to take a hand if he should prove too +mighty for the gentry's handling. + +A squire galloped up, jumped from his saddle and came at the Mink. Revel +blinked blood from his eyes. + +"Rosk!" he said, grinning. Now the gods were kind! + +The lean-jawed squire halted twenty feet away, presenting his gun to the +Mink's breast. "A fine fox," he said admiringly, "a damned fine fox, but +too vicious for the hounds. Die, Mink!" + +"Damned if I will," said Revel, flinging himself forward and down. The +gun roared harmlessly as Rosk, startled, tugged on the trigger. Revel +went up to stab for the man's belly, but a warning tremor of the ground +gave him pause; a stallion was thundering down on him from the left. He +flicked a glance at it. A great roan, with the Lady Nirea up, and coming +straight for him. + +She would run him down? He bared angry teeth--but she was going to miss +him! She was galloping between him and Rosk! She was.... + +_She was stretching down a hand to him, her face twisted with hope and +fear and--friendship!_ + + * * * * * + +Instinctively he slapped her wrist with his palm as she hurtled past, +jerked his legs up and was carried off by the rocketing roan. As he +writhed into the saddle behind her, she screamed. + +"Help, oh help! He has attacked me!" + +The bi--no, the clever girl, by Orbs! Helping him, she was yet saving +her own reputation and life, making it seem that he had leaped astride +her mount as she was carried by him. No squire could have seen that +helping hand, for they were all on the opposite side of her. A vast +hullabaloo went up from their ranks. + +"Throw me off, you fool," she hissed at him, twisting round and +pretending to strike him. "Throw me off!" + +He reached past her, hauled on the reins, brought the animal back on its +heels, pitched her off unceremoniously, winked broadly at her and found +time for a leer as her riding skirt hoisted unladylike as she sat up; +then he rammed heels to the brute and was off on a run for his life. +Guns banged behind him, slugs tore the air inches from his bowed back. +Let 'em shoot, curse them, he had a chance now! + +The cliff of reed-laced muck dwindled, and he turned the roan and leaped +him up to the higher level of ground. Then he turned and went charging +back the way he had come, quick eyes searching for his comrade. + +"Jerran! Jerran, you scuttling mouse, where are you?" + +_Bang_ went a musket. + +"Here, Revel!" The little straw-colored man popped out of a bush in his +path. He bent as Nirea had, gave the rebel a hand up behind him. Then he +swerved the horse and went off through the oaks, while the gentry cursed +and raved and came after as best they could. + +"Discomfortable riding, this, without pants. Ouch! Where shall we head, +ancient one?" Revel asked grimly. + +"The way we're going. There, see that hill? Up and over that, and we're +on a straight path for the forests of Kamden." + +Revel was jolted nearly out of his battered hide by the unfamiliar +jounce and rock of the steed; but he knew he could stick on it till +night if he had to. The only enemies that fretted him now were the +golden spheres. You could not distance a god simply by mounting a horse. + +"Look up," he said, watching the path. "Are there gods?" + +"Yes, but high, following us. They mark our way." + +"Let them! Jerran, at nightfall we head for the mine. Our mine, and our +cavern." + +"You can't go there, you drooling baby, you'd find an army of globes, +priests, gentry, and zanphs. They'll be crawling all over the things in +that cave, especially after you took guns from it! What is it that draws +you there?" + +"A metal chest--ouch--I've been thinking of for a long time. Jerran, +what's 'suspended animation'?" + +"Why?" + +"Nirea kept muttering it to herself in the cave. I think she read it on +the chest." + +"Suspended," mused Jerran. "Temporarily halted. Animation, life. Life +held in check? Movement stopped for a time?" + +"That's it." + +"Love of freedom, lad, what's it?" + + * * * * * + +Revel, glancing up at the soaring spheres, said half to himself, "Man of +the 21st century. Century's a hundred years. Twenty-first? John R. +Klapham, atomic something ... suspended animation. John sounds like a +name. Rest of it, enigmas, but...." + +"Watch out!" yelled Jerran, turning against his back. "A god comes at +us." + +"How good are you at throwing knives?" + +"As good as the next rebel. Damned good." + +"Take one from my belt, and see if you can spit it in the air. If it +touches you, you'll be a frizzled-up cinder in a wink." + +He felt the knife leave his holster, there was a pause, then Jerran said +under her breath, "Blast this horse--ugh--got it!" + +They were almost at the crest of the hill now. None of the ruck watched +the chase from here, for it was far from Ewyo's house and none had +expected Revel and Company to come so far. There were guards, though: +three squires sitting their quiet horses on the brow of the hills, a +hundred yards apart. They watched the roan with its double burden beat +up toward them, then blinked and peered as they saw that the foremost +rider was naked. + +"Va-yoo," said one uncertainly, then, realization hitting him, "va-yoo +hallo! Here he comes!" + +He came, and the squires bunched to meet him; he aimed his horse's head +for their center, they split off wildly at the last instant, and he was +through them before they could draw guns from the saddle boots. A crack +behind him was the first one speaking tardily, and the roan leaped +forward, touched into fury by the slug's creasing its withers. Jerran +said calmly, "I'm hit in the leg. Let me see. A flesh wound, no matter. +Ride, lad!" + +"The globes are our only worries now," said Revel exultantly. + +"And they're some worries, for they descend even now at us." + +He looked up, and saw that it was true. A multitude of the radiant gods +were dropping from their buttons, and the forest of Kamden with its +sprawling borders and its secret, protective darknesses lay half a mile +before the Mink. + +Almost he would rather have died by a squire's bullet than a +pseudo-god's fierce energy blast. He recalled the feelers that had +touched his face yesterday, the searing heat of the aura that before +that had crisped off the hair above his ear. It was a filthy way to die. + +The roan, strongest of all the gentry's horses, was easily distancing +them all. But it could not distance a down-slanting globe. + +Revel the Mink committed his soul to whatever might receive it, and dug +in his heels for a last desperate gallop. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + The ruckers all have heard the call + The Mink has sounded clear; + They come from near, they come from far, + To fight the squire and sphere. + + He arms them all with stolen guns, + With horses, pikes, and fire; + He sends them all abroad to hunt + The savage-stallioned squire! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +As night fell, Lady Nirea left her father's house by the servants' door. +She was dressed in the miner's clothes she had worn the previous day, +and carried a gigantic portmanteau, so heavy she could scarcely lift it. + +In the bag were her favorite gowns, numbering sixteen; two coats she +especially loved; some bracelets set with diamonds--the rarest gem of +any, for though they were mined extensively throughout the country, the +globes took all but a very few for their own mysterious purposes--and an +antique golden chain she'd inherited from her grandmother; some personal +effects, paint for her lips and such frivolities; a trumpet-mouthed gun +with the stock unmounted, together with as much ammunition as she could +find; and lastly, four books from her father's secret chamber. + +These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of them +labelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "God-Feeding" on +its cover. The fourth was far older than the others, indeed, the oldest +book Nirea had ever seen. + +Ewyo lay drunk in a deep chair in his library; he would sleep now till +nearly the middle of the night, when he'd wake up and howl for another +bottle. Jann she had not seen for hours. The servants, being ruckers, +did not count. Her escape from the mansion was going to be simple. + +In the stables, Lady Nirea ordered her second best horse, another roan +stallion, saddled and laden with the portmanteau on a special rack +attached to the rear of the cantle. The usual trappings, the fancy reins +and broidered saddlecloths, she had the stableman leave off; she didn't +want to call attention to the fact that she was Ewyo's daughter. + +When the roan was ready, she mounted, and turning to the stableman, a +young rucker with shifty eyes and a shy, retiring chin, she asked +steadily, "Are you a rebel?" + +"Me? No, Lady! Do I look crazy?" + +"You look sneaky, but smart enough." She leaned over the saddlebow +toward him. "Tell me the truth. Don't be afraid, you fool. I am the +Lady of the Mink." It was a title she uttered proudly now. Nirea of +Dolfya had been forced to think this day, and it had changed her +greatly. + +The stableman backed off a little, his pasty face writhing with tics. +"My Orb, Lady, I don't know what you're thinking of! You, Ewyo's girl, +calling yourself such a name--" + +Her roan was trained to the work she now put him to; a number of times +she'd used him for it in the streets of Dolfya, just for sport, out of +boredom. Now she pricked his ribs with the point of her sharp-toed +shoes, just behind the foreleg joints, and said, "At 'em, boy!" The tall +beast reared up and danced forward, hoofs thrashing the air. The +stableman shrieked, took a step back, and threw up his arms as one +iron-shod hoof smashed into his face. Then the roan was doing a kind of +quick little hop on his body, and red blood ran out over the +packed-earth floor. + +"If you were a rebel, you were too craven about it to be much good to +your people," Nirea said, looking at the body. "If you weren't, then +your mouth is shut concerning me." She wheeled the roan and trotted out +of the stable. + +By the gate in the wall a tall figure waited, white in the early moon's +light. + +"Jann!" said Nirea, with surprise and fear. Her older sister had always +bullied her; Nirea was unable to wholly conquer the dread of this +amber-eyed, sharp-eared woman. Jann stood with one hand on the gate, her +high breasts and lean aristocrat's profile outlined against the dark +black-green of the woods behind her. Now she turned her head to look up +at Nirea. + +"What in the seven hells are you doing in that rucker's outfit? Where +are you going?" + +"None of your business. Get out of my way." + +Jann stepped forward and grasped the bridle at the roan's mouth. "Get +down here, you young whelp. I'm going to beat you--and then hand you +over to Ewyo to see what's to be done with you." + + * * * * * + +Nirea never knew, though afterwards she thought of it often, whether she +touched her horse's ribs deliberately or by accident. All she knew was +that suddenly he had thrown his forequarters up into the air, that Jann +was screaming, twisting aside, that the roan was smashing down.... + +[Illustration] + +Jann lay on the grass, and her profile was no longer aristocratic; nor +were her breasts smooth and sleek and inviolate. + +Nirea sobbed, dry-eyed, turned the roan away, leaned over to push open +the gate, and cantered off down the silent road, numb with horror, yet +conscious of a small thrill of gratification, somewhere deep in her +feral gentrywoman's soul. Nineteen years of knuckling under to Jann, of +taking insults and cuffs and belittling, were wiped out under the +flashing hoofs of her roan stallion. + +Now where should she ride? She was a rebel herself, molded into one by +her father's actions and her memories of the Mink. If he were dead, that +great chocolate-haired brute, then she would simply ride straight away +from Dolfya until she found a place to live, and there plan at leisure. +But if he were alive, then she would be his woman. + +She touched the horse to a gallop, and sped toward the only place she +could think of where she might get news of him: the mines. + +Someone scuttled off the road before her; she reined in, peered +unsuccessfully into the darkness, and called softly, insistently, "If +you're a rucker, please come out! Please come here!" + +A rustle in dry brush was her answer. She tried a bolder tack. "It's the +Lady of the Mink who commands it!" + +After a moment a man stepped onto the road from a clump of bracken. Red +were his hair and beard in the moon, and the white walleye stared +blindly. Fate, chance, the gods--no, not the false, horrible globes, but +whatever gods there might be elsewhere--had crossed her path with Rack, +the giant whom she trusted more than any other rucker. + +"Rack!" she called quietly. "Come here, man." + +He was at her stirrup. "What are you doing, Lady?" His voice was +anxious: + +"I'm joining the rebels, big man. Where can I find the Mink?" + +"I don't know. Lady, are you mad? The rebels are saying that the gods +are overthrown and there will be gentry blood running all over Dolfya by +noon tomorrow. They're out of their heads." + +"No, Rack, they're honest men fighting a hideous corruption." She told +him rapidly what she'd seen in her father's room. "I don't know exactly +what it means, 'but it's bad--degrading, horrible! I don't want to be a +gentrywoman any longer. I--I'm the Mink's girl. Listen," she said, +leaning over to him, "he took me two days ago, and Revel is my man, hell +or orbs notwithstanding. Now where is he?" + +"I've heard he's alive," said Rack slowly. "I thought he would be; he's +too tough to kill. Where he is, no one knows." + +"Do the rebels trust you?" + +"No." His face turned up to hers, honest and bewildered. "I'm of two +minds.... I serve the gods, as any sane man must, but I have seen +things...." + +"So have I. Rack, come with me. We must find the Mink." + +He bit his lip. Then he took hold of her stirrup. She thought he was +going to pull her off, and edged her toes forward toward the signal +points of her roan; but he merely said, "I'll hang on to this and run. +Go ahead, Lady." + +She tapped the horse to a canter, feeling better than she had in hours. +Rack was a servant (say rather an ally) worth four other men. + +"Head for the mines," grunted Rack. Her own idea. Surely it must be +worth something. Soon they were coming into the coal valley. God-guards +shone with an eerie and now-abominable golden light at the various +entrances. "Which is Revel's?" she asked. + +"Up there. He wouldn't be there, but if I can get past the guard, and +there's no reason I should be stopped, there are men on our level, the +fourth down, who might know about him. There's no other place to check. +I don't know the meeting places. I have never been a rebel." He seemed +to brood darkly for a minute, then added, "Before!" + + * * * * * + +They hobbled the horse in a nook of upended rocks, and she hid the +portmanteau under some brush. They walked to the mine, she now +remembering the location by certain landmarks, and Rack said, "There's +no god showing. That's strange." + +"I'll go with you as far as I can. If we do meet a god, I can explain +myself mentally; after all, I'm of the gentry. I'm not in danger." + +"I hope not." He helped her up the shelf, and they walked furtively into +the tunnel. No sign of anything--till Rack stumbled over the corpse of a +zanph. Bending, Nirea saw beyond it the sack and draining ichor of a +globe. + +"The rebels have been here!" + +"Aye." He straightened, his white eye shining in the light of a distant +lantern. "How can a god die?" he asked, in a child's puzzled tone. +"Lady, no god ever died before. They don't die--'tis in the Credo. How +can these rebels slay them?" + +"Maybe no one ever tried before. Come on." She hurried to the ladders. +Blue-tinged, mouth agape and eyes upturned without sight, there lay a +priest, half over the lip of the shaft. He had been de-throated by a +pickax. + +"This looks like Revel's ferocious work," said Rack. "I hope he's alive. +Yes, I do hope so." + +"When I last saw him, riding off hell-for-leather on my nag, he was +extremely alive, mother-naked and covered with blood but as alive as I +am this instant." She went down the ladder hand under hand past three +levels, swung off at the fourth. Another dead man lay at her feet; this +was a squire, a youngish man in plum and scarlet, very brutally slain by +a pick-slash in the brain. It was a man she knew, and momentarily she +felt herself a traitor to her kind; then she thought of Ewyo's vices, +corruptions, and she snorted defiantly. His gun, its stock remounted and +a shell rammed home, was in her hand. She went forward, striding like a +man ... and a man who knew what he meant to do. + +The end of the tunnel was illuminated vividly by many blue lanterns, and +presented to their startled eyes an horrific scene of carnage. The dead +lay in piles, in one and twos and fours, their brains splashed on the +walls, their guts smeared across the floor, their skulls cloven and +their bodies rent. Ruckers lay here, miners and gentry-servants. Squires +wallowed lifeless in pools of their highborn blood. Snake-headed zanphs +clawed in their rigor at the dead flesh of priests, of rebels, of +squires. Here and there lay the vacant sacks that had been gods. At +Nirea's feet stretched a man built like Revel, who might _be_ Revel, for +his face was gone, burnt away by the touch of the terrible orb-aura at +full strength. No, she realized even as she swayed back, it was not he, +for this man's body was unscarred, and Revel must be looking like a +skinned hare if he yet lived. + +What a brawl this must have been! She was about to speak to Rack when +she heard a familiar voice, booming brazenly out in the silence of the +mine. It came from the black hole at the end of the tunnel. + +"Then a whole line of them came down at us, faster than a squire can put +a horse over a hurdle, and the forest yet a good half mile away! I had +one dagger left, and my trusty small Jerran up behind me. The squires +were ashooting, but ineffectively, and the roan was carrying us well and +truly; but here came the gods, may they boil in my mother's cook-pot in +Hell! + +"I looked wildly for something to beat 'em off with, for as you've seen, +a touch of their radiance burns your flesh from your bones if they wish +it so. Well! The only thing on the whole cursed nag is the scabbard in +which a squire keeps his long gun. It's a thing some three feet long or +over, of light metal, covered with satin and velvet and silk. I tore it +from its moorings, and as the globes came at me, I stood up in the +stirrups, naked as your hand, and started to swat 'em. Jerran leaning +forward past me, guiding the stallion, for his reach is not half mine." + +"Brag and bounce!" said a voice that was surely Jerran's. Lady Nirea +grinned and walked toward the cavern. + +"So I swatted, I beat at them, I swiped and almost fell, I did the work +of twenty men--don't shake your head, Jerran, you know 'tis not +brag!--for half a mile, and not one globe touched a hair of our heads! +They came at the last from all sides, like a swarm of angered bees, and +one burnt the horse so that he streaked even faster; which saved our +necks, for my arm was nearly dead by then. + +"I tell you, there is one protection only against these things, and that +is quickness: for let one come within a few inches of you, and you are a +dead man." + +Nirea stepped into the cave. + +"I thought you were a dead man, Revel the Mink," she said quietly, still +with the ghost of her grin. + + * * * * * + +He stared at her, while the men in the place turned and sprang up and +stood uncertainly, looking from her to their leader. He was dressed in +miner's clothing again, and his skin was a perfect fright of scars and +scabs and half-closed wounds. But he was whole, barring part of an ear, +and he was smiling as only he could smile. "Here, men of the ruck, is +the woman you owe my life to. Here is--" he cocked an eyebrow +quizzically--"here is, I think I can say, the Lady of the Mink." + +"Here she is," said Nirea, and was stifled and crushed in a great +bear-hug. "And here's Rack, your brother, who I think may be rebel +material." + +"I think so," said Rack heavily, staring at Revel with his good eye. "If +you want me, brother." + +"Gods, yes! We need every man we can get this night. Did you note the +slaughter beyond?" + +"We did see a corpse or two." + +"I think we kept that secret, for two of my fellows stood on the ladders +and slew the gods who tried to pass. But it will soon be discovered, and +the gods will do to this place what they did to eastern Dolfya, unless +we can fight them some way. I think I have a clue to help us. What that +is I'll show you now." + +"Revel, dearest," she said, "are you all right?" + +"Of course, thanks to you. Now to business." + +"Rack must go to my horse above for things I brought." + +"Go then, Rack. Wait--first give me that pick you've got there. I think +it's mine." Rack handed it over, a little shamefacedly, and Revel gave +him the one tucked in his own belt. "I've missed this girl.... The chest +I want to search is still here, though the gentry have carried off a +great deal from the cavern." + +"Wait a minute," said Nirea fiercely. "You'd better do a few things +before you start experimenting and searching. You'd better have a plan, +and send men out to spread word of it among your people! There are +thousands of them out there, ready to pounce at your word, to rise +against the squires and priests, and take their chances of gods' +vengeance. You'd better send out the word that the Mink is leading them +to war. Otherwise, you'll have an army that's ineffectual and headless, +that can be cut to pieces in twenty-four hours. For most of them think +you're dead--the gentry spread the word." + +Jerran said, quietly so that only the girl and Revel heard him, "I think +I named the wrong person. I think Lady Nirea is the Mink!" + +Revel laughed grimly, "Haven't I been busy? Haven't I sent a troop for +Dawvys in his hole in the coppice, and another to say in the lanes and +shebeens that I'm alive? Here, Vorl, Sesker, and you three, get out! +Steal horses from the mansions' stables, and spread the news. We rise +tonight! Whether or not I find what I seek, we rise! If we all perish in +a god-blast, still we rise! When you've enough men, attack the gentry's +homes, beginning at Dolfya's center and spreading out. Put every horse +available on the road to Korla and Hakes Town and every village within +knowledge. If they look scared, show 'em a dead god! Take those out +there--stick 'em on the ends of pikes, carry 'em through the streets +with torches to show 'em off! Kill every globe you can reach, send the +corpses out for the ruck to see! There's our banner, our fiery cross--a +dead god on a pike!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + The gods have looked upon the Mink, + And felt his mighty hand; + They've sought him through the mines and towns, + And in the forest land. + + All-wise, all-powerful though they be, + The Mink they cannot find; + Afar he's wandering o'er the earth, + At war for all mankind. + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +"Read it again," said Revel, bending his scarred face beside the girl's +sleek one, staring hard at the printing as if by concentration on it he +could learn to read right there, and drag the hidden meaning from the +words. "Read slowly. Rack, you're no slouch at thought, even though you +have been in the toils of the false gods. Give this your best brainwork. +Jerran, concentrate! You three men, try to cull the sense from these +words. Begin!" + +In the light of half a dozen lanterns she began to read. The Mink +strained all his brains. + +"_Man of the 21st century: John R. Klapham, atomic physicist and leader +of the Ninth Expedition against the Tartarian Forces in the year 2054. +Held in suspended animation._" + +"Ha! I thought that's where you got the phrase," said Revel. "I believe +it means that in this chest, and thank Orbs it was too heavy for the +gentry to move today, in this very chest lies a man of the Ancient +Kingdom, who still lives, though he sleeps!" + +The woman looked up excitedly, then began to read again. Most of the +words were strange. "Placed here 10-5-2084, aged 64 years; this done +voluntarily and as a public service to the men of the future, as part of +the program of living interments inaugurated in 2067." + +"Living interments," repeated Rack heavily. "Buried alive. But you think +he still lives?" + +"I think so. Don't ask me why I simply do. The words burn my brain." + +"What are the numbers?" asked a miner. "2067, the year 2054--what are +they?" + +"I don't know. Go on, Nirea." + +"Instructions for opening the casket: spring back the locks along each +bottom edge." She felt the chest where it rested on six legs on the +floor. "Here are odd-shaped things--ooh!" She jerked her hand away. +"They leap at me!" + +Revel felt impatiently, said, "Those are the locks." He unsnapped +fourteen altogether. "What next?" + +"Run a knife along the seal two inches below the top." + +"Here's the seal," said Rack. He took his pick, and thrusting the point +of it into a soft metal strip that ran around the chest, tore it away +with one long hard tug. The Mink finished the job on sides and back; +"Read!" he said. + +"Lift off the top." She glanced at Revel. "This is almost exactly like +Orbish," she said. "Only those queer words--" + +"Philosophize in the corner," he said, pushing her aside. "Rack, lend me +your brawn." Together they lifted the top, which was about the weight of +a woods lion, and with much groaning and puffing, hurled it clear. + + * * * * * + +Below them, within the chest and under a sheet of the transparent stuff +they had seen in other parts of the cave, lay a man. He was +young-looking, though if Revel understood the words on the chest, he had +been sixty-four when he was hidden away here. His skin was brown, +smooth, and his closed eyes were unwrinkled. A short oddly-cut beard of +brindled gray and black fringed his chin. His hands, folded on the +chest, were big and sinewy, fighter's hands. + +"What now?" panted Revel. + +"Provided that the atmosphere is still a mixture of 21 parts oxygen to +78 parts nitrogen, with 1% made of small amounts of the gases neon, +helium, krypton--none of these words make sense." + +"Skip them, then. Find something that does." + +"Let's see ... swing the front of the casket up, and unhinge it so that +it comes off." They figured out what was meant, and did it. The front of +the metal case, very light compared with the top, fell with a clang. +"Insert a crowbar under the glass that covers the man and lift it +carefully away." + +"Crowbar? Glass?" + +"This almost invisible stuff covers him, it must be the 'glass'," said +Jerran. "Let's try to lift it off." + +It took Revel and Rack and two miners, but in a matter of five minutes, +they had removed the plate of glass, the thin curved sheet that had +protected this man of the Ancient Kingdom. "Next?" + +"Provided that it is no later than the year 3284, Doctor Klapham should +revive within an hour. If not, take the hypodermic from the white case +below him and inject 2cc.... Do you understand this at all?" she asked. + +"Only that the man, whose name is evidently Doctor Klapham, ought to +wake up shortly." The Mink shook his great brown head. "If only we'd +found this cave in a quiet time! If only the gods and the gentry weren't +to be dealt with! Have we the time?" + +"Your work is going on above-ground," said Jerran, rubbing his chin. "We +can't be of more use anywhere else, it seems to me, than we may be right +here." + +They sat and watched the inert form of Doctorklapham, while two of their +rebels went out into the mine to round up anyone who would join them. In +something over half an hour they were back. "The mine's been cleared; +nothing anywhere except this man, who was on the lowest level and hasn't +heard a thing." + +"They missed me, I guess," said the newcomer. "I was off in an abandoned +tunnel sleeping." + +"We're eight, then." The Mink scratched his head reflectively. "Not a +bad fighting force. Provided they don't smear this whole valley, I think +we can win clear--after we see what this fellow is going to do." + +"I think I see him breathing," said the girl breathlessly. She was +sitting with a book on her lap, trying to decipher the meaning of its +words. "Look at his throat." + + * * * * * + +Doctorklapham made a strange sound in his chest, a clicking, quite +audible noise, and unfolding his strong hands, sat up. + +"Well," he said clearly, "didn't it work?" Then he took a closer look at +the eight people standing beside him. "Oh, my Lord," he said, "it _did_ +work!" + +"He speaks Orbish," said Rack, "but with a different accent. Could he be +from the far towns?" + +"No, you idiot, from the Ancient Kingdom," said Revel. "Your name is +Doctorklapham, isn't it?" + +"Roughly, yes." The sleeper worked his jaws and massaged his hands. +"Wonderful stuff, that preservative ... what year is this, my friend?" + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"What's the date?" + +"Date?" + +"God, this I wasn't prepared for." He hoisted himself over and jumped +down with boyish energy. "Tell me about the world," he said. "I guess +I've been asleep a long time." + +"Yes, if you were put here in the time of the Ancient Kingdom." Revel +was trembling with excitement. "Why are you still alive?" + +"Friend, judging from your clothes and those picks, and the primitive +look of those lanterns, which must date from about 2015, I'd say it'd be +pretty useless to tell you how come I'm alive. Just call it science." + +"What's that?" + +"Science? Electronics, atomic research, mechanics, what have you--mean +anything?" + +"I'm sorry," said the Mink, "no." + +"You speak quite decent English, you know. It's funny it hasn't changed +much, unless I've been asleep a lot shorter a period than I figure." + +"My language is Orbish." + +"It's English to me. What's the name of your country, son?" + +"It has no name. Towns are named, not countries." + +"Who are you, then?" + +"I am Revel, the Mink," he said proudly. "I am the leader of the rebels, +who are even now spreading through the land sending the word that the +gods can die, and that the gentry's day is done. I am the Mink." + +He half-expected the man to know the old ballads, but Doctorklapham +said, "Mink? That was an animal when I was around last.... Call me +John." + +"John. That sounds like a name." Rack nodded. "Yes, this is better than +Doctorklapham." + +"Anybody have a cigarette?" asked John. + +"What's that?" + +"A fag, boy--tobacco, something to smoke. You drag it in and puff it +out." + +"Your words make no sense," said Revel. "Drag in smoke?" + +"This is going to be worse than I anticipated," said John. "Look, can't +we go somewhere and get comfortable? I have a lot to find out before I +can start getting across to you what I was sent into the future for." + +"We are besieged by the gods. We dare not leave this place." + +"By the gods. Hmm. Let's sit down, boy. I want to know all about things +here. Miss, after you." He waited till Nirea had squatted on the floor, +then folded himself down. "Okay," he said, whatever that meant. "Shoot. +Begin. What are the gods, first?" + +Lady Nirea listened with half an ear to Revel's speeches, but with all +her intellect she tried to follow John's remarks. They were sometimes +fragmentary, sometimes short explanations of things that puzzled Revel, +and sometimes merely grunts and slappings of his thighs. Many words she +did not know.... + + * * * * * + +_My God, that sounds like extraterrestrial beings ... globes, +golden aura of energy or force, sure, that's possible; and +tentacles ... zanphs? describe 'em ... they aren't from Earth either; +I'll bet you these god-globes of yours, which must be Martian or +Venusian or Lord-knows-what, brought along those pretty pets when they +hit for Earth...._ + +_Listen, Mink, those are not gods! They're things from the stars, from +out there beyond the world! You understand that? They came here in those +"buttons" of yours--what we used to call flying saucers--and took over +after ... after whatever happened. Your civilization must have been in a +hell of a decline to accept 'em as gods, because in my day ... oh, well, +go ahead._ + +_Priests, sure, there'd be a class of sycophants, bastards who'd sell +out to the extraterrestrials for glory and profit ... yeah, your gentry +sound like another type of sell-out, traitors to their race and their +world ... describe those squires' costumes again, will you?... Holy +cats, eighteenth century to a T! Not a thread changed, from the sound of +it! And a lower class, you call it the ruck, which is downtrodden and +lives in what might as well be hell...._ + +_Yep, it sure sounds like hell and ashes. The globes; then, as is +natural to a conquered country, the top dogs, priests in your case, who +run things but are run by the globes; then the privileged gentry--I'll +have a look at those books of yours in a minute, honey--who pay some +kind of tax, in money or sweat or produce or_ something, _for being what +they are; then the ruck (I know the word, son, you've just enlarged its +meaning) who have been serfs and peasants and vassals and thralls and +churls and hoi polloi and slaves since the Egyptians crawled out of the +Nile. The great unwashed, the people. Let 'em eat cake. I'm sorry, Mink, +go on._ + +_Your gentry sound about as lousy a pack of hellions as the eighteenth +century squires! Too bad you don't know about tobacco, they could carry +snuffboxes and_ really _act the part...._ + +_My God! Even the fox hunts--with people hunted. Anyone but miners? Open +days, eh? Ho-oly...._ + +_Glad to know you, Rack. Don't know as I'd care to have you on the other +side, you look like Goliath. So you just saw the light when the gods +started to die? You are lucky you saw it, big man; brother against +brother is the nastiest form of war, especially if mankind's fighting an +alien power...._ + +_Your rebels sound familiar, Mink. They had 'em about like you in +Ireland, a hundred or so years ago--I mean before I went bye-bye.... +Always romantic, unbelievable, unfindable, foxes with fangs...._ + +_I wonder what your globes wanted? Power, sure, if they're that humanoid +in concept, but it must have been more. Maybe their own planet blew up. +Maybe they ran out of something. Tell me, do you have to give them +anything? Any metal, say?_ + +_Diamonds? Are those small hard chunks of--yes, I guess diamond still +means what it did. By gravy, I'll bet I know! They were just starting to +discover the terrific potential of energy of the diamond when I went to +sleep in 2084. I_ wonder _how long ago that was? Anyway, I'll wager these +globes of yours run their damned saucers--buttons--on diamond energy. +Maybe their planet ran out of diamonds. By god! what a yarn!_ + +_You'll have your hands full, but maybe I can help. There's a way to +bring those saucers down out of the sky in a hurry.... They won't give +up easily. They obviously have atomic bombs, and the lush intoxication +of power won't be a cinch to give up, not for anything that sounds as +egotistic as the globes...._ + +_Dolfya? We called it Philadelphia. Kamden, Camden, yeah.... Woods +lions, wow! They must be mutants from zoo or circus lions that escaped +during the atom wars; or maybe someone brought 'em to the U.S. The +Tartarians had tame lions, I remember._ + +_Six or eight brains? Well, Mink, I wouldn't argue, but I think you are +confusing certain functions of one brain with--oh, do go on!_ + +_Let me see that gun. My Lord, what a concoction! Blunderbuss muzzle, +shells, yet no breech-loading; ramrods to shove in shells! My sainted +aunt! A fantastic combination...._ + +_He eats dandelions, parsley, grass, eh ... chlorophyll, obviously. And +the globe rests on his chest and puts tentacles into his mouth and +nostrils. It's feeding, sure; look at the title of this book you've got +here. This is a bastard English but close enough. Certainly your father +wrote it, Miss. Some of your gentry must have preserved the art as a +secret._ + +_Look here: I'll make it as plain as I can. The globes are from another +world. They came here for diamonds to run their buttons with. Got that?_ + +_Now here's what I deduce from the little I've read here. Talk about +Pepy's Diary! Hadn't anything on this chronicle. Your father and the +other gentry have to feed the globes periodically. Evidently they draw +nourishment out of the human bodies--all that chlorophyll makes me think +it's a definitely physical nourishment, rather than a psychic one. +That's what your people pay for being privileged powers in the land. +They stand the disgrace and the pain, if there is any, the draining of +their energies, in return for plain old magnetic_ power. + +_So that's the source of life, strength, what-have-you, of the aliens! +They must have gotten pretty frantic out in the space wastes, looking +for a planet that could afford them a life form that was tap-able._ + +_Evidently it has to be voluntary, from these books. I guess the +ancestors of the ruck had their crack at the honor and declined, thus +dooming themselves and their offspring to servitude; while those that +assented became the gentry. What a--Judas Priest! What a sordid state of +affairs for poor old Earth!_ + +_Let me have that line from the Globate Credo again:_ They came from the +sky before our grandfathers were born, to a world torn by war; they +settled our differences and raised us from the slime_--there's a bitter +laugh, gentlemen_--giving us freedom. All we have we owe to the globes. +_There's the whole tale in a nutshell. God!_ + +_Orbish language, Orbuary, Orbsday--nice job they did of infiltrating. I +wonder what books they left you. I'd like a look at your father's +library. Alice in Wonderland, I suppose, or Black Beauty, or something +equally advanced._ + +_Now listen, lads, and you, Lady Nirea. I came from a world that may +have had its rugged spots, but it was heaven and Utopia compared with +this one. You disinterred me at the damndest most vital moment of your +history, and probably of Earth's as well--we've had conquerors aplenty, +but always of this world, not from out of it. It seems to me that if +your rebellion fails, you're due for worse treatment than ever. You've +got to win, and win fast. Any entity that has atomic weapons is going to +be no easy mark, and the gentry have guns. How about you people? Ten? +Ten guns altogether? Oohh...._ + +_See here. That big machine over there is a--well, that's hopeless. I'll +try to break this down in one-syllable words. Orbish words, I hope._ + +_That big thing sends up rays like beams of sunlight but of different +intensity, color, wave length, et cetera--it sends up beams that +counteract, I mean work against, destroy, other beams. Now the buttons +are held up there by forces in diamonds, taken out by these globes of +yours and used to hold up their homes, ships, saucers, buttons. The +beams from that big thing will destroy the diamond beams and make the +buttons fall._ + +_There's just one thing. We have to get the machine, the thing, out of +this cave and onto the surface of the earth. You catch my meaning? It +has to have sky above it before it can work against the button-beams. +Yes, much like your globes' telepathy (what a word to survive, when +"glass" and "electricity" didn't) and hypnosis fails when rock gets in +the way._ + +_Can you get it to the surface? Talk it over, Mink. It can give you +plenty of help ... if you can get it up there. I'll just sit here, if +it's okay with you, and let my imagination boggle at what you've told +me._ + +_I have the most confounded urgent feeling that this is a visit I'm +making in a time machine, and that tomorrow I'll go back to good old +2084. Johnnie, Johnnie, wake up! You're here!_ + +_God!_ + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + The Mink he takes his pick and gun, + He ranges through the towns; + His force is miners, trappers, thieves-- + And a girl in gentry-gown. + + The rebels ride on stolen nags, + They travel on shanks' mare; + The gore's awash, the heads they roll, + All in the torches' glare. + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +Revel the Mink and his eight troops crouched in the dark entrance of the +mine. The night was black, clouds had obscured the moon, and only the +occasional pinpoints of globes drifting between the buttons above them +broke the gloom. + +"What are they doing?" hissed Nirea. "Why haven't we been attacked long +since?" + +"The globes move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform," muttered +John Klapham. "I'll wager there's something like that in the Globate +Credo." + +"Almost those words." Revel glanced at him respectfully. This man of the +Ancient Kingdom had great mental powers. + +"Sure. Every time somebody has the upper hand over somebody else, +there's got to be an aura of mystery; and any half-brained action is put +down to 'mysterious ways.'" He spat. "They're so damn confused, son, +that they're probably holding forty conferences up there, because they +don't dare wipe out this valley--coal keeps the gentry warm and happy +for 'em--and they want to inspect the cave down below. So they're tryin' +to think of the best way to squelch you without losing too many priests +and zanphs and gentry." + +"True, they mustn't lose too many servants, or their prestige is hurt," +said Lady Nirea. Now that she'd found her Revel, she had discarded the +rucker's clothing and was dressed in a thigh-hugging sapphire gown. Even +in the dark she was beautiful, he thought. + +The Mink stood. Up and down the valley glowed the lights of god-guards +at the mines, double and treble now, since with the Mink loose not even +a god was safe alone. Plenty of zanphs there too, he thought. Yet he had +a few gentryman's guns, and his old pick slung at his back. Zanphs, +gods, gentry, priests? Let them beware! + +His thinking was done; he would retire his brains--despite the clever +John, Revel knew he had more than one brain--and let his brawn take +over. Only the brawn of the Mink could win through the next hours. +Half-consciously he tensed his whole frame, curled his fingers and toes, +thrust out his great chest. The skin on all parts of his body creaked, +split back from the worse wounds, achily stretched; blood sprang from +shoulder and from other hurt places. Yet he was not only whole, but full +of eager vitality. The small pains of his hide were only incentives to +act violently and forget them. He relaxed and turned to his friends. + +"You two, find the nags of the gentry we slew. I hear stamping nearby. +Nirea, go to your own beast and wait for me. You two, with Rack, Jerran, +John and me, we'll search the mines for men. We need plenty of +them--it's miners' guts and muscles it'll take to move that +beam-throwing thing from the cavern. Let's begin." + +He drew the Lady Nirea up to him, slapped her face lightly, kissed her +open mouth. "Quick, wench, hop when I speak!" A touch of starshine +glistened on his grin-bared teeth. Then he turned and leaped off the +rock shelf. + + * * * * * + +The nearest mine was guarded by three gods, nervously jiggling up and +down in grotesque little air-dances; below them sat half a dozen +hideous-headed zanphs. Revel crawled up toward the entrance. At the +first touch of an alien mind on his own, he shot forward, pick flailing. +Two gods he caught with one stroke, the third began to rise and his +backswing took it on the underside and tore a gash as if the pick had +struck a rubber bag: yellow gore dropped in a flood. He had no time to +wonder if the third globe had telepathed a distress signal, for the +zanphs were on him. + +Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yet +those were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base, +tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of its +six legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across his +left arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug down +into the flesh and grated on the ulna bone. + +He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupilless +eyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm by +the frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot, +spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. John +appeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengage +the teeth from his bloody arm. + +"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to +dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the +mine. + +"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders." + +There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, +Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His +blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement. + +To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there came +forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at +their posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry. + +Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conquering +general already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley, +and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back. + +"How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roan +on the grass. She glanced at the mass of men, all those in the van +carrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?" + +He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with +circles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white and +flickering yellow. _The buttons_, murmured his men behind him. _The +buttons are awake!_ + +[Illustration] + +"You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old man +was as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not waste +time. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast this +valley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if their +science has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screen +thrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now." + +Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech--"Let's not +waste time"--waved his miners forward. + +They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; when +the Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one another +for the honor of being first to touch it. + + * * * * * + +It stood solidly on the floor, ten feet high, twelve wide, square and +black with twin coils and a thick projection like an enormous gun on the +top. Men jammed around it, bent and gripped a ledge near the bottom, +heaved up. Loath to move, it rocked a bit, then was hoisted off the +ground. They staggered forward with it. + +The hole in the wall was far too small. + +"Miners! The best of you, and I don't want braggarts and second-raters, +but the best! Tear down that wall!" Revel stood on a case and roared his +commands. Men pushed out of the tunnel's throng, big bearded men, small +tough men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and at a word began to swing +their picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rock +away.... + +Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into the +tunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distant +ones to go up the shaft to the top. + +"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had a +kind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the big +miner. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind when +John himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he, +the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all his +friends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world had +vanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things as +John? + +There was a man, by--what was the expression he used?--by god! + +"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, there +aren't any worries." + +"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimistic +crack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby." + +Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingness +yawned above for ninety feet, below for over a hundred. The shaft was +twenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea. + +"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft, +and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanism +worked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in small +loads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad it +holds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center; +it's as tough as anything on earth." + +"I see your idea," said John. "I _hope_ that cable's tough. The machine +weighs a couple of tons." + +"Tons?" + +"I mean it's heavy!" + + * * * * * + +Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly they +heard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward their +level. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, the +Mink let go a yell that halted the men on the windlass like a pickax +blow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto the +bucket!" + +"For God's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicate +thing." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," he +cautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work. +"Easy ... easy ... easy!" + +The great square mysterious box thrust out over the lip, teetered there +as if it would plunge into the bucket. John with a screech of anguish +jumped forward and thrust at it with both hands. + +If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel's chance +to drop the buttons from the sky would be gone forever. Nobody on +earth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as the +_antiforcescreenthrower_ of John. + +The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launched +himself into space, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled over +sideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him. + +The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it and +lowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gave +a lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tipped +gradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall of +the shaft. Revel howled, "Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts! +Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable'll be frayed in half!" + +Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cable +through its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had to +be distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righted +itself, came horizontal again. + +"Up!" roared the Mink. Nothing happened. "More men on the winch!" Then +in a moment they began to rise. + +The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace +with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John. + +At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft. +All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the +night, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand +to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the +_antiforcescreenthrower_ was all but out of the mine. Another ten feet +would bring it clear. + +Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of +all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt +his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + The Mink he turns his blazing eyes + Up to the buttoned sky: + "This night I'll tear ye down from there + To see if gods can die!" + + The gentry mass in stallioned ranks, + The priests have gone amuck; + The orbs and zanphs they now descend, + All-armed against the ruck! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +John staggered to his feet. "Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an +atomic city-buster if I ever heard one--and when the Tartarians were +over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn't so important to your damned orbs +after all." He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were +beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes' +buttons rose another of the dark twin clouds. + +"If they were trying to smack us, they could stand a refresher course in +pin-pointing ... let's get the thrower out here fast. Too many saucers +directly above us for comfort." + +"There went another quarter of Dolfya," said Rack. "What power they +have!" + +"You'll see their power come plummeting to earth if I can work the +machine," said John urgently. "Bring it out!" + +The miners hauled it out, a titanic job even when men pressed tight +against men and uncounted hands lifted the great burden. John showed +them where to put it on the rock shelf. "Hoist me up on top," he +clipped. It was done. "Now watch." + +Revel stared at the sky till his eyes began to ache. At last John +shouted, "I'm ready, but listen--I see a lot of torches coming up the +valley, and the men holding 'em are mounted!" + +"Our rebels, likely," said Jerran. + +"Send men to meet them," yelled Revel. "They might be gentry. Pickmen +and those with guns. Fast!" + +"Okay, son," said John then, "watch the buttons just over us." + +All heads tilted. A strange clanking came from the great box, a beam of +thick-looking purple light lanced upward from the gun-like projection on +top and fingered out toward the buttons. "Be ready," called John from +the top of the machine. "This'll nullify the diamond rays for a few +minutes, but then the things will be able to rise again. Your men must +go out and break into the buttons before the globes can get 'em up!" + +Revel issued his orders quickly. The purple light had now touched a +button, which wavered from its fixed position, then as the beam caught +it fully, dropped like a flung stone. Hundreds of voices bellowed the +rebels' joy. Half a hundred miners leaped off into the night to attack +the fallen ship, which struck the earth some distance up the valley with +a shattering crash. + +Already the beam, more sure now as John's hands grew confident of their +power, was flicking over other buttons. The least play of its purple +glow on the under surface of an alien ship was sufficient to send it +catapulting down. The other buttons were moving, sluggishly, then more +swiftly, coming toward the valley; and John could be heard swearing in a +strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around. + +A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley. +Revel jerked his head up. "They _were_ squires!" he said. "We've got to +get up there to help our men!" Rack motioned to the miners behind him +and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, "Some for the fallen +globes! Some have to stay to--" + +Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. "Little man, are you +the Mink?" + +Jerran struggled ineffectually. "No, damn it, no!" + +"Then shut your mug till you're told to give orders!" Revel dropped him, +and roared out, "Two hundred men--Jerran, count 'em off as they pass +you--to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every +zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o' this hill--spread round in a +ring that circles this ledge, and don't let a squire or enemy through! +We've got to protect John!" He turned, gripped Lady Nirea's wrist +urgently. "Have you quick eyes and hands, love?" + +"Faster than most men's, save your own." Her slatey eyes glowed eerily +in the buttons' light. + +"Then up you go," he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her +hands clenched on the upper edge of John's machine. "Perhaps you can +help him. I can't spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!" He set off toward the +nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the +western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin +and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the +wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight. + + * * * * * + +The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been +knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs +were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts. +An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick. +Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs +milled, then spread out to attack. + +He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and +maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a +personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs +and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on, +coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to +kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth +"saucer" as John called it, Revel gave up counting, and slew his way +from button to button, gore of red and yellow spotting and splashing +him, wounds multiplying in his legs and arms and chest, half the hair +burnt off his head by the energy auras of angry orbs. + +His force dwindled. Men died with throats torn out by zanphs, with eyes +singed from the sockets by globe-radiation. Men stood numbed and +useless, hypnotized into immobility. Men sat looking at spilling guts +that fell from zanph-slashed bellies. But still the Mink slew on and on, +a tall dark wild figure in the uncanny light of the still-flying +airships of the alien globes.... + +John was bringing them down faster than ever, and Revel must needs split +up his small force even more, sending miners to each wreck to catch as +many entities as possible. Many spheres of gold managed to rise into the +sky, where they found sanctuary in other saucers: some zanphs went +scooting for shelter in the rocks and bushes, but most stayed to fight +and die. + +He yearned to check his forces back on the hill, those protecting John's +machine, and the men who still fought the gunmen in the upper end of the +valley. But he dared not take his encouraging presence from the miners +here. A button came swooping to earth not three yards from him, spraying +him with clods of dirt, unbalancing him by the shock; a zanph gained +purchase on his shoulder and tore flesh and sinew and muscle so that his +left arm lost much of its strength and cunning. He killed it with the +pick handle and struggled on into a mob of the brutes, panting now and +blinking blood from his eyes. + +Of his original two hundred, less than seventy remained. Still he dared +not draw any from the protective ring. Where were the rebels that Vorl +and Sesker and the others had gone to rouse? Probably raiding mansions +miles away. He should have told them ... oh, well. Surely the +concentration of noise and buttons and gods above the valley would bring +them soon. + +A moment's respite allowed him to look at the sky. It was lightening a +little for the early dawn, and the buttons were less bold; most of them +hovered near the horizon, only an occasional one bravely sailing in at a +terrific speed to make a try at bombing the valley. John, perhaps with +Nirea helping him, had managed to bring down every one so far. But John +and Revel would run out of luck some time, as every man does; then John +would miss, Revel's arm would fail, and they would all die. + + * * * * * + +Even as he lowered his head a gargantuan blast shook the world below +him. He fell into a mob of zanphs, who were fortunately so demoralized +by the explosion that they ignored him till he could gain his feet and +begin to murder them once more. From the tail of his eye he saw a +mushroom cloud lowering just beyond the hill; he flicked his gaze +at the crest where his men had been stationed to guard the +_antiforcescreenthrower_--no human form showed against the gray sky. The +blast had hurled them to dust, together with every tree on the skyline. + +Finally--the gods knew how long he had fought--he found with amazement +that no more foes were in sight. The buttons that had fallen were all +cleaned out. Zanphs lay thick in heaps and lines, emptied sacks of +globes dotted the bloody grass. He listened for the sound of firing from +the upper valley; yes, there were still isolated shots. + +His forces there still held, then. He glanced again at the sky. No +buttons in range. They were giving John a respite--or was it a trick? +Revel's tired mind wondered if John and Nirea were dead, and the gods +playing with him this way.... + +He felt himself, his head, arms, chest, legs. He had been burned a dozen +times by energy auras, only his incredible animal quickness preserving +him, giving him the power to dodge away at first touch of the burning +and slay the golden globes. The zanph bites atop the thorn scratches and +hound gashes were rapidly stiffening his whole torso, his left arm, his +thick-thewed legs. But there were shots in the upper valley, and Revel +the Mink was needed there. + +Wearily he gathered his men--twenty-six of them now, all as tired as +he--and trudged at a broken shuffling lope toward the light. + +As he passed the rocks where the machine of John sat, he scanned it with +blood-shot eyes. A score of miners, perhaps thirty at most, stood around +it, and the man of the Ancient Kingdom sat on its surface, wiping his +face with a white cloth. Lady Nirea stood up beside him and waved her +hand as he passed. He swung his pick in a big arc to show he was still +hale and hearty, though the effort cost him much. + +Through his dulled brain now ran one thought, one hope. It was a chant, +a prayer, a focus for his beaten spirit, for though he had won thus far, +he was so death-weary that he could not conceive victory coming to him +at the last. + +_Just let me meet Ewyo. Only let me meet Ewyo without his horse. Give me +now one fair fight with Ewyo the Squire of Dolfya._ + +The first man he met was Rack, engaged in binding up a torn calf with +strips of his shirt. + +"How goes it?" + +Rack turned the walleye toward him, as though he could see out of it. +"We have eight or ten left. All their horses are dead or run away. We +stayed them in hand-to-hand combat, but when they drew back and began to +use their guns long-range, we lost heavily. Now we're dug in along that +rise, and they seem to be waiting for more squires, or horses, or +something. I think they have twenty or thirty left." + +"Then we have thirty-five or so, and outnumbered them." + +Rack let his good eye rest on his brother. "Your voice is the croak of a +dying frog, Revel. You must have lost a quart of blood. Your men are +like sticks and sacks and limp rag bundles. You call this force +thirty-five _men_?" + +"We are still men, Rack." His voice, croak though it was, rang strong +and fierce. "I can plant this pick in any gnat's eye I desire. Now do +you lead us to the battle front." + +"Yes, Mink." Rack turned and hobbled forward. "One of the slugs has +sliced half the tendons of this leg, I swear." + +"That wound is in the fleshy part, and won't trouble you for a week. Is +that a man?" + +"That's Dawvys." + + * * * * * + +Revel started back, appalled. The man lying behind the rise was red and +brown from short-cropped hair to waist, his back a mass of +blood--sparkling crimson in the light of dawn, where it had freshly +sprung leaks, and dirty mahogany color, where the scabs had dried and +cracked and flaked. It was a back that should have belonged to a dead +man; but Dawvys rolled over on it without a wince and grinned at his +leader. + +"Hallo, Revel, bless your soul," said the former servant. "I'm glad to +see you alive." + +"The same to you, Dawvys," said the Mink. "Did you have any trouble in +that pit?" + +"I went to sleep when the hounds had passed, and never awoke till your +men found me tonight." He stretched and grunted with pain; then, "I +think I shall live." + +Revel looked cautiously over the rise. Some fifty yards down the valley +the squires were grouped in a knot, their costumes gaudy in the early +light. A few of them were looking toward him, but most watched the far +end of the valley. They were looking, thought Revel, for reinforcements. +Time might be short. + +He scanned the terrain. Where the squires stood, the valley was narrow, +scarcely more than sixty feet across. Above their knot, to Revel's left, +was the open mouth of a mine; the opposite hillside was bare and rocky, +without break. A familiar voice behind him said, "What's to do, Mink?" + +"Greetings, Jerran. Why did you leave the machine?" + +"Nothing doing there. The gods are sitting on the horizon. Have you a +thought?" + +"See that mine?" He pointed with his gory pick. "Isn't that the western +entrance of the great mine of Rosk?" + +Jerran took his bearings. "It is." + +"Then the other entrance is back yonder, and through it we can traverse +the mine and come out that hole-above the squires." + +Jerran nodded. "The best plan under the circumstances. Let's go." + +Rack said, "I come too." + +"Yes, all of us save four men," agreed Revel. "They must stay here to +create noise and pretend to be forty people. Give us ten minutes, and +the squires will find that mine shaft erupting death all over them!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + The Mink has fought till nearly blind, + Till almost deaf and dumb; + Till all his strength is waned away, + And all his senses numb. + + At last his foemen give before + His pick as swift as fire; + Before him now there stands alone + The cruel, and savage squire! + + --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink + + +With thirty men at his back, Revel went down the valley at a crouch; +slipped up the rock shelf to the eastern entrance of the great mine of +Rosk, protected from the gentry's view by a chance outcropping of shale, +and went into the darkness. The tunnel he sought was on the second +level. He dropped down the ladder, unhooked a blue lantern to guide his +way, and followed the narrow tunnel west. + +Behind him the pad-pad of his weary men lifted muffled echoes, and he +tried to set such a pace as would take them swiftly to the hill above +the squires, yet not tire them further nor wind them before the battle. +In the intense gloom he distinguished another lantern far ahead. As he +approached, it appeared to move toward him. Was someone carrying it? + +He tensed himself and swung the pick a little; but when the priest +hurled himself at the Mink, bearing him back against Jerran, the Mink +was caught by surprise. It had been no lantern, but the priest's glowing +robe! + +Revel's reflexes were still, if not hair-trigger, at least very quick. +This was a tough priest, though, a lean hardbitten man, with a fanatical +long face that shoved itself into Revel's and clicked its teeth a +quarter-inch short of his nose. The fellow's arms were tight about him, +as they rolled sideways against the rock, Revel straining to bring his +pick into play, clutching tight to the lantern, while the priest flailed +hands like knobby boulders against the Mink's nape and head. A blow of +his knee, and Revel doubled up, gasping; struck out blindly with the +lantern, caught the fellow in the belly, and made him curl up in his +turn, choking for breath. Jerran and the others were blocked by Revel, +and growled encouragement. + +Revel straightened, nauseated and weak. The priest came at him. Revel +raised his pickax and swung it--pain stabbed into his legs and belly--he +bent involuntarily in the middle of his swing--and what should have been +a neat spitting of the holy man's skull became a messy job of +disemboweling. The fellow died gurgling, picking futilely at his spilt +entrails. Revel crawled over him and went on once more, his troops +behind him. + +At the western entrance to Rosk's mine, he peered out for the first sign +of the highborn enemies. A thrill of panic touched him as he saw they +were not where they had been; then, poking his head into the dawn, he +saw them advancing in a slow line toward the rise where his four men +were raising shouts and taunts. + +Orbs, he thought exultantly, here's a piece of luck! We'll take them in +the back! + +He slipped down the shelf, gesturing his men on. Running silently, he +came within a yard of a squire in green and gold; then halted and +cleared his throat loudly. The squire, startled, looked back. + +"Ewyo!" he shrieked, whirling. "It's the Mink!" + +"Come from Hell to slay you," said Revel between his teeth, and dealt a +blow with his pick that clove the gentryman from brow to breastbone. The +line of men had swiveled, and now shots rang out; at such close range +even their guns could not miss. Half a dozen rebels fell, screaming. + +And now the weary Revel was a brazen-throated fiend, brandishing his +pick, roaring, scalping one and braining the next, destroying with fresh +vigor dredged up from the pits of his free soul. For now he had a +strange certainty that the gods were done, and if he died in this moment +he died emancipated. + +Joy brought him strength such as he had never had. These squires, +running off, loading their guns feverishly, firing, clubbing their +weapons to stand and fight, what chance had they against him? He looked +for Ewyo, but could not find him. _Let him not be dead_, he prayed. And +then there was Rosk. + +Rosk, red of visage, narrow of jaw, bloody about the thin mean mouth, +facing him over a thrust-out gun. Revel jumped aside, but Rosk did not +fire, only following him with the musket muzzle. "Don't bounce, Mink," +he grated. "Stand and look around you. Your men are falling faster than +autumn leaves." + + * * * * * + +Revel glanced behind, and at that instant Rosk fired. It was a +treacherous trick, and by poetic justice it was his last. The ancient +gun, overheated by long use, could not take the overcharge of powder in +the shell. It blew up, its barrel twisting into twin spirals of metal, +its stock driving back into the guts of the squire, fragments of hot +iron spraying his face and chest. Rosk had no time to howl, but went +down like a lightning-struck birch. Revel felt the slug, or a piece of +the shattered gun, burn along his cheek. + +What was one more wound atop the uncounted number he had? The Mink +laughed, turning to his men. + +Of the thirty, Rack and Jerran and one other remained. Each was engaged +with a squire, his two friends grappling without weapons, the miner +swinging a pick against a clubbed gun. All the others were dead or +dying. Ewyo must be dead somewhere in the valley, or else he had not +been here at all. + +Revel hurried tiredly to the nearest combatants, let his pick go licking +out over Jerran's small shoulder, tore off half the head of the squire. +Rack crowed triumphantly as he throttled his man. The miner had won his +fight. They were finished. + +The four of them limped toward the hill of John's machine. + +Then there came a pounding of hoofs on greensward behind them. Revel +turned. It was a lone rider, galloping furiously down upon them. He saw, +with an incredulous gasp, that it was Ewyo of Dolfya. + +"Go on," he said urgently. "Leave me, comrades." + +"You young _fool_," barked Jerran. But he took Rack's arm and pulled the +giant forward, leaving Revel standing alone with his face toward Ewyo. + +The stallion was pulled up short, and Ewyo stared down at him. "I hoped +I would get here in time," he said. + +"You're late. Your world is broken, Ewyo." Revel realized as he said it +that he was fatigued to the point of not giving a damn whether he lived +or not. Still there was a yearning to fight this devil on horseback. +"Shoot, Ewyo. I shall kill you all the same." + +Ewyo raised his gun, hesitated, then said, "Is there only myself, then, +and you, Mink, in all the world?" + +"In all the world, Ewyo." + +"Will you give me a pick?" + +Revel started. "You are no miner. You can't fight with a pickax." + +"I can fight with anything I can hold." He threw the gun on the grass. +"Give me a pick," he commanded, leaping from his nag. + + * * * * * + +Revel stooped and took up the weapon of a dead man. It was a good pick, +with a longer handle than the Mink's own. He reached it out to Ewyo, +holding it by the head, and the squire took it and stepped back a pace. + +"When you're ready, Mink." + +"Now, Ewyo." + +They circled each other, warily watching the eyes and arms of the enemy. +"Why didn't you shoot me?" asked Revel in wonder. + +"Too unsporting," growled the beefy squire, his pale eyes squinting with +strain. "A gentleman doesn't take advantages." + +Revel laughed. It was too ridiculous a statement to merit an answer. He +made a feint, Ewyo parried skillfully. Then the squire brought his pick +down in a looping arc. His reach was as long as Revel's, and the pick +gave him an advantage. Revel jumped back, slashed sideways and missed. +They circled. + +"The gods will win out," grunted Ewyo. + +"Their day is done. We are aided by the Ancient Kingdom." + +"Superstition! Things have always been as they are." + +Slash, hack, parry and retreat. "Not as they are now, Squire Ewyo." + +Ewyo dropped his guard, Revel came in to gut him. Too late he saw the +trick, and Ewyo's pick sliced across his shin, a shallow cut that nicked +the bone. He jabbed with the flat of the blade, struck Ewyo in the +chest, and jerking his pick sidewise and back, tore velvet coat and +satin weskit and drew blood. Ewyo cried out. + +Revel summoned his strength and began a series of flashing swings, which +Ewyo parried frantically, backing across the grass. Blood spurted from +cheek and hand as the rebel's deadly weapon glinted dully in blurred +movement before the squire's eyes. + +Then the squire rallied, and his power being greater than Revel's now, +if his skill were less, he drove the Mink back in turn. + +There came a blow that turned the pick in Revel's hands, sending its +point down to the side; Revel recovered, but the squire threw up his arm +and brought down his blade with such force that the off-balance Mink +could not turn it wholly. It sliced over his ribs, drove through the +flesh of his hip. + +Pain so hideous as to make him dizzy and ill knifed the Mink. In that +moment he knew if he did not make one superb effort he was done. +Conquering agony, he swung up the pick before Ewyo could recover from +the vicious downswing. With a noise like a rock hurled into a rotten +melon, the pick tore through cloth and flesh to lodge in Ewyo's belly, +half its head buried in the screaming squire. + +Ewyo tore it from the Mink's hands as he fell, and writhed about it, +curled like a stricken serpent. + +The Mink dropped to one knee beside him, head bowed with nausea and +relief. "You were a brave man, you bastard." + +Ewyo, strong in his fashion as Revel in his, stiffened his body so that +he could look straight up at his killer. "Not--especially brave," he +ground out. "You see--Mink--I had no--ammunition--for the gun...." + +His pale eyes filmed over, and Revel staggered off, leaving him for the +crows and worms of the valley. + + * * * * * + +When he had come, dragging himself like a wounded stag up the rock +shelf, they stared at him in silence for a long minute. Lady Nirea at +last said, "But you are dying, Revel!" + +"Not for a good many years," he grinned. + +Jerran said, "Aye, cut him a thousand times and he'll make fresh blood +from that valiant heart!" + +John called, "Look there, Mink!" Down the dawn wind rode half a dozen +golden orbs, high enough to be out of reach of their picks, low enough +to observe them. Revel gritted, "Blast 'em!" + +"You can always shoot later, son. Let's hear what they want." + +Reluctantly Revel waved a crimsoned hand to stop his gunmen. The globes +halted a few feet above the machine. Fingers of thought pried into the +Mink's head, and automatically up went his screen. + +Then the cerebral prying ceased. John murmured, "They're talking to me." + +Revel watched the silent exchange of thoughts. What if the obscene +things got hold of John's mind. Anxiously he scanned the strong face for +signs of fading will. At last he could stand it no longer, and was about +to order a volley, when John said, "I think that's it, Mink." + +"What happened?" they all asked eagerly. + +"The things parleyed. They see they can't get close enough to smash the +machine--that last explosion was a desperate try at crashing a saucer +with a bomb ready to trip, and it didn't work--so they want to talk. I +gave 'em a skinful." He chuckled. "Told 'em there were men of my time +wakening all over the world, with machines to defeat them totally; they +know whom they're dealing with now, and they're going to talk it over. +Mink, that's the end of the gods, with luck! They won't face a force of +twenty-first century scientists. They haven't got it, they just haven't +got it." + +"But they'll discover that you lied," said Nirea. "They'll get the +thrower, sooner or later, and then we're at their mercy again." + +"I didn't lie, girl. All over this hemisphere there are caves like the +one I came from, with scientists held in suspension, plenty of machines +from our time, and knowledge that will bring your world out of these +Dark Ages into another Renaissance! I have the locations in the papers +that were interred in the casket under me, and we'll send parties out +today to find 'em. This is a new world dawning this morning." He leaned +over and kissed her enthusiastically, and Revel, who would have split +another man down the brisket for that, did not mind at all. "Your globes +are done, Mink. The gentry and the priests will be easy prey. You can +probably scare them into surrender after last night." + +Jerran said, "Here be men on horses, Mink." Revel turned and saw a great +cavalcade of stallioned men sweep down the valley, and in a moment of +great joy saw that they were all ruckers, carrying dead gods on pikes +and singing the Ballad of the Mink as they came. + +The Lady Nirea was in his arms, kissing his lips that were caked with +three kinds of blood; and Revel the Mink forgot the pain in his torn +body, the utter weariness of brain and muscle, and everything else +except what was good and sweet and wonderful. + + * * * * * + +Three months had passed, and the leaders of the successful rebellion of +Earth were sitting in a drinking-house (legal now) downing toasts to +various people and events. Revel and his wife Nirea sat at the head of +the board, and down the sides ranged their friends and lieutenants: the +giant Rack and the tiny Jerran, Dawvys and a dozen others, with John +Klapham at the foot. + +"To the end of the globes," said John, his tongue a trifle thick by now. +"By gad, you brew potent stuff in these times! To the gods' finish!" + +They drank that standing, roaring it out gleefully. + +Revel said, "It was a sight to see, that--thousands upon thousands of +buttons, all sweeping into the sky and vanishing into dots and then +nothing ... and here's to the gentry they took with 'em!" + +"How many went?" asked Nirea, though she knew as well as he. + +"Seven thousand and four hundred and ten, squires and their ladies, +electing to travel out of the world for promised power in another!" +Revel grinned wolfishly. "And here's to the priests who weren't allowed +to go, and so have become miners and know what it is to sweat!" + +Rack stood up, looming gigantic above them. "Here's to the men awakening +now all over this country--the men of the Ancient Kingdom!" + +"And the things they can teach us," added Jerran. + +"And a toast to the most important of those things--the art of tobacco +growing!" shouted John gaily. + +They sat down after that, and Revel said to John affectionately, "If it +hadn't been for you, friend, we'd still be ruckers and worse. You gave +us a new world." + +"Rot. I gave you a technical skill--you furnished the brains, brawn and +motivating force, a legend come to life. I was only one more weapon in +your hand." + +Lady Nirea touched the Mink's arm tenderly. "We'll all be weapons in +your hands now, Revel. Tools to make a civilization again--to make the +last verse of the old song come true." + +"Let's sing it," said Dawvys, a little in his cups by now. "Let's all +sing it loud." + + "The gods have flown beyond the sky, + The priests toil underground; + The gentry's curse is lifted free, + And all our foes are downed.... + + "Now over all the Mink he reigns, + And gone are rank and caste; + The ruck is lifted from the mire-- + And we are free at last!" + + * * * * * + +They finished the rousing song and looked expectantly at the Mink; but +he had borne back Lady Nirea on the bench and was kissing her with +enormous warmth, so that even a prophetic song, written about him ages +before he was born, could not tear loose from him the only chains that +would ever bind him again--the wrought-steel, invisible, shatter-proof +shackles of Nirea's love. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Buttoned Sky, by Geoff St. Reynard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUTTONED SKY *** + +***** This file should be named 32473.txt or 32473.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/7/32473/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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