‘Very well, Lady Charole,’ War-Lord Torisaki said almost amiably, indicating the three “Terrifiers” which remained after the accidental explosion, and a deliberate experiment he had carried out later the previous night. They, the small bag of “Thunder Powder”, the Protectress of the Quagga God’s ceremonial garments and weapons had been brought into his quarters after the fight. So had the “Earth’s” arrow, overlooked until then because of the more obviously unusual and impressive nature of the other items. ‘How do those things do what they do?’
Bruised, only able to focus through her left eye as the right was still swollen shut and both were blackened, Charole was stiff in every muscle and joint in spite of the ministrations she had received. So she lay back and relaxed upon the comfortable floor-cushions which furnished the dining-room portion of the Cara-Buntes’ large pavilion.
On recovering consciousness the previous evening, Charole had found herself in a soft bed. As always happened when she had emerged victorious from a hand-to-hand conflict with another woman, she had felt sexually stimulated. Nor, despite a general disinclination among the people of Zillikian to have intercourse with members of another race, had her passion been left unsatiated. Although more than an hour had elapsed since her collapse across the defeated body of War-Lady Shushi, Torisaki was still experiencing the erotic stimulus caused by watching two all but naked and shapely women fighting.
Not even the narrow escape he had had when the ‘Terrifier’ detonated was enough to have cooled his ardor. As his wife was still indisposed, he had joined her defeatress in bed and all thoughts of racial antipathy were forgotten. Charole was thoroughly satisfied with the service she had received.
When the Protectress had woken up that morning, she had accepted that she had no hope of escaping in her present condition. The soothing oils and capable manipulations at the hands of Shushi’s personal maid, a skilled masseuse, had done no more than somewhat alleviate her sufferings. It would be several days before she would throw off the effect of the sword and fist fights in which she had participated. Yielding to the inevitable, she was trying to think of a way to liberate herself from captivity once she had recovered.
Relaxing by her husband’s side, Shushi was watching Charole as well as she could with her left eye closed and the right a mere puffy slit. She was not troubled by the knowledge that her husband had spent the night making love to the foreign woman. What rankled was that he had seen her go down in defeat. However, having studied the Protectress’s badly mauled condition and knowing herself to be in even worse shape, she conceded that the time was not ripe for her to seek revenge. Instead, as convention demanded, she had ensured that Charole’s injuries received the same care and attention as her own. With that done, she had settled down and listened to To-risaki’s story of the mysterious devices the other woman had been carrying. She was now waiting eagerly to hear the answer to his question.
‘I don’t know,’ Charole admitted truthfully and, seeing the angry glances exchanged by her captors, she continued hurriedly, ‘I really don’t know. I know what they will do and how to make them do it. But I haven’t the slightest idea, apart from that they are filled with “Thunder Powder”, of how it happens.’
‘“Thunder Powder”?’ Shushi repeated interrogatively.
‘The black dust in the bag there,’ Charole elaborated, then told of the discoveries made by Zongaffa the Herbalist and of the devastation caused when the “Terrifiers” were used. She finished by saying, ‘Whoever has them can be the greatest of all in his, or her, nation.’
‘Do you know how to make the “Thunder Powder”?’ Torisaki inquired, concluding that manufacturing the containers would be simple enough.
‘Do I look like a damned herbalist?’ the Protectress demanded haughtily.
‘You looked like a woman with many enemies and few friends when we first saw you,’ Shushi put in. Why were you riding alone?’
‘There had been serious troubles in Bon-Gatah,’ Char-ole replied, her thoughts mingling with recollections that finally made her decide that speaking the truth might be to her advantage. ‘I considered it was advisable for me to leave until I could gather some support and I was on my way to fetch it when they found me.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ Shushi asked.
‘So those so-called “Terrifiers” didn’t do any good for you after all, ‘Torisaki growled, his disappointment plain, after the Protectress had briefly explained how she had supported the High Priest in a bid for power that failed. She made no mention at this stage of the part Dawn and Bunduki of the “Earths” had played in the debacle.
‘They would have made all the difference,’ Charole said and could not prevent bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘But that damned Zongaffa and my maid brought us coconuts filled with soil and hid those holding the “Thunder Powder”, except for the few we had already, to be used by themselves.’
‘Are there many of them?’ the war-lady wanted to know, when her husband did not speak.
‘A lot,’ Charole guessed, but so convincingly she might have been certain.
‘Where are they?’ inquired Shushi, showing more eagerness than the war-lord.
Unlike Torisaki, the buxom woman could sense that the Protectress might be concealing some facts, but was neither lying nor exaggerating. So, in spite of suspecting that the other was speaking the truth for her personal ends, Shushi meant to encourage her to continue in the hope of learning something worthwhile.
‘Too far on the plains for you to reach them,’ Charole warned. ‘You don’t have enough warriors to smash your way through and there are too many of you to slip through, especially on foot.’ Striving to hold her tone with a timbre of no more than making a casual request for information, she went on, ‘Are you the leaders of your nation?’
‘No!’ Shushi spat the denial out as if it had a bad taste.
The one word reply confirmed the Protectress’s suspicions with regard to Torisaki and his wife. While making love with him, she had been struck by how closely his behavior and manner resembled that of the late High Priest of the Mun-Gatah nation. Keeping him under observation since waking up, she had been even more convinced of the likeness. So she had felt sure that the warlord was a man of high ambition and craved an even greater position of power than was his present lot. In which case, she had had an inkling of how she might turn his desire for aggrandizement to her advantage. Such a person would see the possibilities offered by the ‘Thunder Powder’ and the Terrifiers’, particularly as he had-according to various comments she had overheard— already been granted a demonstration of what the latter could do. He would certainly want to learn more about them, either with regard to their manufacture, or from whence he might obtain a supply.
While Charole could not help him with the former wish, she felt that she could turn his second aim to her own use. If so, she would be increasing her chances of effecting an escape.
‘Then you could call upon your leader to give you a sufficiently large force to fight your way through,’ the Protectress suggested, almost disinterestedly it seemed, doubting whether such a proposal would be considered acceptable by the Cara-Bunte couple and having no desire that it should be.
Charole’s scheme did not include taking part in an invasion of her homeland, although loyalty to the Mun-Gatah nation had no part in her unwillingness. She was confident that such a venture would be doomed to failure when carried out in the only way Torisaki would regard as suitable for his purposes.
With those thoughts in mind, the Protectress was determined to guide the war-lord’s thoughts away from the possible source of supply left by the dead Zongaffa. If she succeeded in steering him as she wanted, her hopes of regaining her liberty would be greatly improved.
‘The trouble is that with a large force, there are too many people in it for anything to be kept a secret,’ Charole remarked, sounding pensive, when neither the man nor the woman made a comment. ‘And one’s leaders always want to take anything new and useful for themselves.’
‘Is there anybody else who knows how to make the “Thunder Powder’?’ Shushi asked, having been told of Zongaffa’s demise.
‘Not among my people,’ Charole admitted, struggling to conceal her delight at the way in which the conversation was developing. ‘Have you heard of, or met, the “Earths”?’
‘'“Earths”?’ Shushi repeated, fumbling with the unfamiliar word. ‘What are they?’
‘Not “What”, “who”,’ Charole corrected. ‘I’ve only seen two of them, a man and a woman, but those two have weapons the like of which I’ve never seen equaled. They have bows which can drive an arrow so far through one of our breastplates that its head came out at the back. And that is something neither the Cara-Buntes, nor any other people we’ve fought against ever managed to do. That is one of their arrows there.’
‘Huh!’ Shushi grunted, unimpressed, after picking up and giving the missile a cursory examination. ‘I don’t see anything special about it, except that its head has four cutting edges instead of two.’
‘And is made from a far better steel than any of us are given,’ the Protectress pointed out. ‘What’s more, you’ve never seen a tree with “wood” like that from which the shaft it made. I had a broken one in my bundle. If it’s still lying around out there and you have it fetched, you’ll see what I mean.’
‘I’ll take a look at the “wood” in this arrow,’ Shushi stated.
Gripping the ends of the shaft in her hands, as Charole had done on first making contact with a similar missile, the war-lady began to bend it. She soon learned, again as the Protectress had, that the ‘wood’ had exceptional strength and resisted a pressure that would have snapped any Cara-Bunte arrow.
‘Here, you!’ Torisaki barked, paying more attention and addressing a male Yung-Lib who had been squatting on his heels in the corner showing not the slightest interest in what was going on. Telling what was wanted, the war-lord concluded, ‘Go and fetch it here. And don’t take all day about it, damn you!’
‘Tell us more about these “Earths”, or whatever you call them,’ Shushi requested, as the Yung-Lib slouched out of the pavilion. ‘Nobody has ever brought any of them back to Cara-Bunte and our people have raided all around the mainland.’
‘We’ve not had many of them ourselves,’ Charole answered, trying not to grit out the words as she remembered how much of her present misfortune was attributable to Dawn Drummond-Clayton and Bunduki. ‘In fact, I personally have only seen two of them.’
‘What did they look like?’ the war-lady demanded with a touch of impatience, and her one-eyed gaze kept returning to the arrow, studying its points of difference from those to which she was accustomed.
‘The man was the biggest, strongest, most handsome male I’ve ever seen,’ Charole began, ‘for all of his white hair.’
‘White hair?’ echoed Shushi, who had the habit of repetition when puzzled or disbelieving some statement. ‘How old was he?’
‘Not out of his twenties,’ the Protectress estimated. ‘His hair wasn’t the white of an old man’s, but more golden in color. The woman was about the same age and—’ On the point of describing Dawn in unflattering terms, she saw how doing so would not help her to achieve her purpose. ‘Well, not bad looking and fairly well formed. In fact, the Lord Dryaka found her all too attractive the first time w—he had her as his prisoner. That was how she came to escape.’ Again she paused just in time to avoid a possible indiscretion and decided to distort the next facts. We’ve never had the man, but he followed us to our hunting camp. It was he who prevented us from chasing her after she’d escaped.’
‘How?’ asked Shushi.
‘According to our warriors who started after her, they have magic powers,’ Charole explained, speaking slowly and trying to avoid any emotion as she approached one of the vital portions of her scheme. ‘She and the man changed themselves into a couple of those “Hairy People” that live in the jungle.’
‘Rubbish!’ the war-lady snorted, having seen a few of the very occasional Australopithecus who had fallen into raiding parties’ hands and reached Cara-Bunte.
‘That’s what the warriors told us,’ Charole insisted, her brows knitting in annoyance at the buxom woman’s curt interjection. ‘All I know personally is that I heard first a female and then a male of the “Hairy People” give one of those damned cries, or bellows in his case, that you hear them making in the jungle. Only these sounded close to the camp and we were miles from the nearest woodland, much less the real jungle.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Shushi stated, before she could stop herself.
‘Have a care, damn you!’ Charole warned, forcing herself into a sitting position and glaring as best she could with her features so battered. ‘Have you forgotten already what happened the last time you called me a liar?’
‘Stop that, damn you, or I’ll crack your heads together and knock some sense into you!’ Torisaki thundered, as his wife spat out a Cara-Bunte obscenity and grasped the arrow in the manner of a knife. In the face of his obvious determination to prevent a resumption of hostilities and also appreciating how little either of them was capable of fighting, the women relaxed. Satisfied that he had kept the peace, he continued, ‘Are the Mun-Gatahs so frightened of the dark, or the “Hairy People”, that hearing what might have been no more than somebody making noises would prevent you from chasing an escaped prisoner?’
‘We are not afraid!’ the Protectress contradicted indignantly, still having pride in her nation for all that she would have been willing to help plan and participate in any invasion that might prove successful, providing it offered her the means to return to power. ‘We’d have gone after them, but that blasted “Hairy Man’s” bellow terrified our mounts so much they stampeded through the camp. By the time we’d rounded them up, the “Earths” had disappeared.’
‘Never to be seen ag—?’ Shushi commenced in a mocking voice, but subsided into silence as her husband directed a furious and prohibitive glare at her.
‘We saw them again all right,’ Charole corrected, appreciating the futility of allowing herself to be provoked and promising herself that she would have a reckoning with the war-lady if a more suitable opportunity was presented. ‘Both of them.’
With that, delighted by the way in which the two Cara-Buntes were taking in every word, the Protectress told the story of Dawn’s recapture and its aftermath. She noticed how they exchanged glances on hearing of the People-Taker’s fate, which suggested that they were aware of the Telonga population’s normally pacific and cowardly nature, but not even Shushi showed skepticism. Basing her story on what she had seen, learned from Elder Eokan on the night of her flight from Bon-Gatah and deduced during the lonely hours that had followed, she went on to describe what Bunduki had achieved.
‘Not only did he bring together three of our District Administrators who had always hated each others’ guts, but he formed an alliance with the captain of the Amazon’s Black Panther Regiment to help rescue his woman. Have you ever known anybody else who could do so much, or of any man who could make friends with those hell-cats?’
‘I haven’t,’ Torisaki conceded without hesitation, but the return of the Yung-Lib with the two segments of the broken arrow brought the conversation to a temporary halt.
While the war-lord was examining the pieces, paying particular attention to the point at which Charole had cut through them with her sword after trying to break the shaft by hand, the Yung-Lib bent and whispered something to Shushi. Darting a glance at the left side wall, which was on the outside of the pavilion, she made an equally quiet reply. Alert for any kind of hostility or treachery on the war-lady’s part, Charole was watching the by-play. She felt a surge of alarm as the servant went to collect one of the disc-like halakas which lay with the other’s weapons. However, Shushi did no more than accept and place the deadly device on the pillow beside her without making any reference to why she was doing so. Instead, she gave a jerk of her head and the Yung-Lib turned to go into the kitchen at the rear of the pavilion.
‘You’re right, Charole,’ Torisaki admitted, too engrossed to have noticed what his wife was doing and passing the arrow to her. ‘I’ve never come across wood of that kind.’ He paused for a few seconds, then asked the question that the Protectress was hoping to hear, ‘How can we find the “Earths”?’
‘They can ride very well,’ Charole replied, thinking of the occasion when her life had depended upon the blond giant’s ability while riding a fast-moving gatah. lvii ‘But, in spite of that, I believe they are jungle dwellers.’
‘Huh!’ Shushi put in, turning her gaze briefly from the left side wall. ‘Much that tells us. The jungle covers all the southern end of the mainland.’
‘Yes,’ Charole conceded, knowing that she was approaching the crux of her efforts and controlling her asperity over the war-lady’s comment. ‘But, vast though it might be, is it large enough to hide a complete nation, which we were told had five cities, so completely that nobody has ever come across any of its people until these two appeared?’
‘It doesn’t seem likely, or even possible,’ Torisaki admitted, so interested now—as was his wife—that neither of them noticed a slight inconsistency between the Protectress’s last comment and an earlier statement with regard to the “Earths”.
‘Either way, it doesn’t make things any easier,’ Shushi declared, without looking away from the left side wall. ‘Finding just two people in the jungle would be even more impossible than locating a whole nation. Even if we had any reason for wanting to find them.’
‘Would you say that the “Earths” knowing how to make the “Thunder Powder” is reason enough?’ Charole challenged.
‘Do they know that?9 Torisaki demanded, and his wife was so impressed with the possibility that she turned her attention from the wall.
‘They do,’ the Protectress bluffed, having no concrete evidence upon which to base the statement. She explained why she believed that the “Earths” possessed the requisite knowledge, concluding with, ‘Bunduki certainly recognized it as soon as he saw it—.’
‘You’ve had him as your prisoner?’ Shushi asked.
‘I did!’
‘And let him escape?’
‘Yes!’
‘You never mentioned that before,’ the war-lady reminded the Protectress.
‘Would you have?’ Charole countered, showing annoyance.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Torisaki put in, before his wife could make any reply. ‘If they know how to make it, we’ll have to try and find them.’
Which was exactly what Charole had been leading up to.
If the theory which the Protectress had been formulating was correct and accepted by the Cara-Buntes, it could prove beneficial to her in three ways. Firstly, it would prolong the time before her captors set off for their island home; from which she would have not the remotest chance of escaping. Secondly, if she achieved all she wanted, she had the means by which she could avenge herself upon Dawn and Bunduki of the ‘Earths’ as well as being given the opportunity to try and extract whatever knowledge they possessed with regards to the “Thunder Powder”. Thirdly, and not the least important of the considerations, even if the search of the jungle should prove abortive, there would be a far greater chance of her regaining her liberty there than here, on the banks of, or while being taken across, the ‘Lake With Only One Shore.
‘Then I may be able to help you,’ Charole said, sounding more casual than she felt.
‘You?’ Shushi snorted. Why should you?’
‘To gain my liberty,’ Charole answered. ‘I would have to be given your sacred oath to the Dragon God that, if you find the “Earths” with my help, you will set me free and let me share the secret of how to make the “Thunder Powder”.’
‘We can make you talk without needing to give any promises,’ Shushi warned.
‘You could try,’ the Protectress corrected. ‘But you wouldn’t know for sure whether I’d told you the truth— And you daren’t take too much time in making sure, or your ruler will get suspicious and start trying to find out what’s delaying you. I’m sure that you don t want that to happen, Lord Torisaki.’
‘You can have what you wish,’ the Cara-Bunte promised, standing up and raising his right hand. He recited an oath sufficiently like the one used by the Mun-Gatahs, with a dragon instead of a quagga as the deity to whom it was directed, for Charole to be both satisfied that it was genuine, and confident that it would be equally binding once uttered. At the end, sitting again, he asked impatiently, ‘Well, where are they?’
‘At the Jey-Mat Telonga village,’ the Protectress guessed and elaborated with, although she did not realize it, valid reasons for the assumption. She finished, ‘So I think the “Suppliers” have sent them to look after those cowards.’
‘That could be correct,’ Torisaki agreed. ‘If the rest of their weapons are as fine and different as their arrows, the “Earths” must be well favored by the “Suppliers”.’
‘Or they might even be “Suppliers” themselves,’ Charole suggested, in a voice that throbbed with excitement.
‘They might at that!’ Torisaki ejaculated, sounding equally thrilled by the possibility of being able to lay hands on one or more of their mysterious benefactors. It had always been his ambition to do so. He yearned to attain the position of Emperor of the Cara-Bunte nation and, without being aware of them, he shared the late High Priest of the Mun-Gatahs’ dreams of conquering the other races with whom his people had come into contact.
‘How soon can we march to Jey-Mat?’ Charole inquired, deciding that she had been correct in comparing the war-lord with Dryaka.
‘March?’ Torisaki barked. ‘You mean go across country?’
‘Yes,’ Charole confirmed. ‘It’s a pity that you can’t ride—’
‘We can ride,’ Shushi protested. As their homeland was roughly the size and shape of Madagascar, the “Suppliers” had allocated small ponies as a means of transport around it. ‘But we never bring our mounts on raids. What we’ll do is go by sea and, although we’ve never bothered to try it before, lviii we’ll find a way through the swamplands to a village. Even if it isn’t Jey-Mat, we can make the people there take us to it.’
While she was speaking, the war-lady picked up the halaka. At the end of her words, she propelled it across the pavilion. Slicing through the left wall, its disappearance was followed almost instantaneously by the scream of a woman in mortal agony.
‘That was Muchkio,’ Shushi announced, as Charole and her husband stared from the wall to her and back. ‘The Yung-Lib told me she was eavesdropping and I’ve been watching to find out where she was standing.’
‘If you’ve killed her—!’ Torisaki began.
‘Not even the second cousin of the Empress is allowed to spy on a war-lord and war-lady,’ Shushi pointed out. ‘But I know what you mean, my husband. If I’ve killed her—and, from the way she screamed, I probably have— we’ve got to know how to make “Thunder Powder” and “Terrifiers” before we go back to Tahsha-Bunte.’
‘Only the “Earths” can tell you,’ Charole warned. ‘That means you’ll have to find them to learn how to do it.’