The Green Odyssey by Philip José Farmer (love books to read TXT) 📗

its own ten thousand languages. The terrestrial scientist might trace Russian and English and Swedish, and Lithuanian and Persian and Hindustani back to a proto-Indo-European, but he had never found on any other planet a language which he could say had also derived from the Aryan Ursprache.

Green's mind wandered to the two Earthmen now imprisoned in the city of Estorya. He hoped they weren't being treated badly. They could be in horrible pain at this very moment, if the priests felt like subjecting them to a little demon-testing.

Thinking of torture led him to sit up a little straighter and to stretch his arms and legs. In an hour he was supposed to meet the Duchess. To do that he had to go through the supposedly secret door in the wall of the turret at the northern end of the walk, up a stairway through a passage between the walls, and so to the Duchess's apartments. There one of the maids-of-honor would usher him into Zuni's presence and then would try to eavesdrop so she could report to the Duke later on. Zuni and Green weren't supposed to know about this, but were to pretend that she was their trusted confidante.

When the great bell of the Temple of the God of Time, Grooza, struck, Green would rise from his bench and go to what he now thought of as a wearisome chore. If that woman could only be interested in talking of something else besides her complexion or digestion, or idle palace gossip, it wouldn't be so bad. But no, she chattered on and on, and Green would get increasingly sleepy, yet would not dare drop off for fear of irreparably offending her. And to do that....

7

The lesser moon had touched the western horizon and the greater was nearing the zenith when Green awoke and jumped to his feet, swearing in sheer terror. He'd fallen asleep and kept Zuni waiting.

"My God, what'll she say?" he said aloud. "What'll I tell her?"

"You needn't tell me anything," came her angry retort from very close by. He started, and whirled around and saw that she'd been standing behind him. She was wrapped in a robe, but her pale face gleamed from beneath the overhanging hood and her mouth was opened. White teeth flashed as she began accusing him of not loving her, of being bored by her, of loving some other woman, probably a slave girl, a good-for-nothing, lazy, brainless, emptily pretty wench. If his situation hadn't been so serious Green would have smiled at her self-portrayal.

He tried to dam the flood, but to no avail. She screeched at him to shut up, and when he put his fingers to his lips and said, "Shhh!" she replied by raising her voice even more.

"You know you're not supposed to be out of your rooms after dark unless the Duke is along," he said, taking her elbow and attempting to steer her down the walk toward the secret door. "If the guards see you there'll be trouble, bad trouble. Let's go."

Unfortunately the guards did see them. Torches appeared at the foot of the steps below the walk, and iron helmets and cuirasses gleamed. Green tried to urge her on faster, for there was still time to make it to the door. She jerked her arm loose and shouted, "Take your filthy hands off me, you Northern slave! The Duchess of Tropat doesn't allow herself to be pushed around by a blond beast!"

"Damn it," he snarled, and he shoved her. "You stupid kizmaiaz! Get going! You won't be tortured if they find us together!"

Zuni jerked away. Her face twisted and her mouth worked soundlessly. "Kizmaiaz!" she finally gasped. "Kizmaiaz yourself!"

Suddenly she began screaming. Before he could clamp his hand over her mouth, she dashed past him and toward the steps. It was then that he came out of his paralysis and ran, not after her, which he knew was useless, but toward the secret door. All was up. It was absolutely no use trying to explain to the guards. The situation had now entered a conventional phase. She would tell the guards that he had come into her room, through some unknown means—which would be "found out" later—and had dragged her out onto the walk, apparently with the intention of violating her. Why he should pick a public place when he already had the privacy of her rooms would not be asked. And the guards, though they would know what really had happened, would pretend to believe her and would furiously seize him and drag him off to the dungeons. The absurd thing about it was that within a few days the whole city, including Zuni herself, would believe that her story was true. By the time he'd been executed they would hate his guts, and the lot of all the slaves would be miserable for a while because they would share his blame.

Green had no intention of being seized. Flight was an admission of guilt, but it made no difference now.

He ran through the secret door, shut and bolted it and raced up the steps that led to her apartments. The guards would have to take the long way around; he had at least two minutes before they could unlock the two doors of the ante-rooms to her quarters, explain to the guards just outside them what had happened and begin a search for him. As for him, he was running like a rabbit, but he was thinking like a fox. Having known that just such a situation might arise, he had long ago planned in detail several possible courses of action. Now, he chose the likeliest one and began acting efficiently—if not smoothly.

The staircase was a narrow corkscrew with room for only one person at a time to go up. He ran up it so fast that he got dizzy with the ever-winding turns. He reeled and had trouble keeping from falling to his left when he did arrive at its top. Nevertheless he did not pause to catch breath or balance but pulled the lever that would make the door swing out. He burst through it. No one there, thank God. He stopped for a moment, listened to make sure nobody was in the next room, then pushed on a boss set in a pattern of bronze protuberances, which was connected with the mechanism that operated the secret door. The section of wall swung back silently until it was flush with the rest, and quite indistinguishable. He then twisted the knob so the door couldn't be opened from the other side. Green took time to give fervent thanks to the builders of the castle, who had prepared this device for the owners to hide within in case of a successful invasion or revolt. If it had not been there he could not have escaped.

Escaped? He'd only put off his inevitable capture. But he intended to run as long as he could and then fight until they were forced to kill him.

The first thing to do was to find a weapon. As a matter of fact, he was so familiar with Zuni's rooms that he knew exactly where he could get what he wanted. He walked through two large rooms, making his way easily even through the feeble duskish light that the few oil lamps and candles furnished. Hanging from the wall of the third room was a saber made of the best steel obtainable on this planet and fashioned by the greatest smiths, the swordwrights of faraway and almost legendary Talamasko. The blade was a gift from Zuni's father on the occasion of her wedding to the Duke. It was supposed to be given by Zuni to her eldest son when he came of weapon-carrying age. The hilt had a guard on which was inscribed in gold the motto: Sooner hell than dishonor. He fastened sword and scabbard to an iron ring on his broad leather belt, went to a luxurious dressing table, pulled open a drawer and took out a stiletto. This he stuck through his belt, also a huge flintlock pistol with a gold-and-ivory-chased butt. He loaded it with powder and an iron ball he found in a compartment and put ammunition in a bag, which he also hung from his belt. Then, well armed, he walked out onto the balcony to take a quick view of the situation.

Three stories below him was the walk which he had left a few minutes before. Many soldiers, and Zuni, were standing there, all looking up. As his face came into sight, visible in the moonlight and the up-reaching flares of their torches, a shout arose. Several of the musket men raised their long-barreled weapons, but Zuni cried out for them to hold their fire, she wanted him alive. Green's skin prickled at the vindictiveness in her voice and at the vision of what she was probably planning for him. He'd been forced to see too many tortures and public executions not to know exactly what she designed for him. Suddenly overcome with rage that she could be so treacherous and brutal, a rage perhaps flavored with self-disgust because he had made love to her, he aimed his pistol at her. There was a click as the hammer struck the flint, a spark, a whoosh as the powder burnt in the pan, a loud bang and a cloud of black smoke. When the fumes cleared away, he saw that everybody, including the Duchess, was running for cover. Naturally, he'd missed, for he'd had almost no practice with the pistols, being a slave. Even if he'd been well trained, he probably would not have struck his mark, so inaccurate were the weapons.

While Green was reloading he heard a shout from above. Looking up, he saw the Duke's round face, pale in the moonlight, hanging over the railing of the balcony above. He raised his empty pistol, and the Duke, squalling with fear, ran back into his quarters. Green laughed and said to himself that even if he was killed now he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had shamed the Duke, who was always boasting about his bravery in battle. Of course, his action had also made it absolutely necessary for the Duke to have him killed at once, so that Green could not tell others that he'd put him to flight.

He grinned crookedly. What would happen when the soldiers received the Duke's orders, directly contradicting the Duchess's? The poor fellows would scarcely know what to do. The man's commands would of course supersede the woman's. But the woman would be furious and she would later on find some means of punishing those who did succeed in killing Green.

It was at that moment that he lost his smile and paled with fright. A loud deep-chested barking nearby. Not outside the apartment's door, but inside!

He cursed and whirled around just in time to see the large body launched toward his throat, the white fangs flashing and the green fire shining from its eyes as the moonlight struck them.

Even in that moment of panic he realized that he'd forgotten the small door set inside the larger one so that Alzo could have admittance at any time. And if the big dog could get through, then soldiers could also crawl through!

Instinctively he thrust out the pistol and squeezed the trigger. It did not go off, for there was no powder in the pan. But the barrel did jam into the great mouth and deflect Alzo from his target, Green's throat. Even so, Green was knocked backward by the impact, and he felt the sharp teeth clamping down on his wrist. Those jaws were capable of biting through his arm, and though he felt no pain, he was sickened by the thought that he'd see a bloody stump when Alzo danced away from him. However, his arm, though dripping blood from large gashes, was not hurt badly. The dog had been deterred by the barrel shoved down his throat, choking him so that he could think of nothing for the moment but getting clear of it.

The pistol clattered on the iron floor of the balcony. Alzo shook his head, unaware in his frenzy that he was rid of the weapon. Green leaped up from the sitting position into which Alzo's charge had flung him against the railing. Snarling as viciously as the dog, he braced his feet against the juncture of the floor and railing and launched himself straight out. At the same time, the canine jumped. They met head on, Green's skull driving into the open mouth and knocking the dog backward because his impetus was greater. Though the huge jaws bit down at his scalp, they snapped on air, and the animal fell to one side, growling. Green seized hold of the long tail, rolled away from the teeth now snapping at his ankles, and jerked at the tail so