GOYDEROOCH, HEADROBEING OF THE VILLAGE OF XERXEON, STOOD with Casquedin, the village prayer and beseecher, in front of a huddle of elders and watched apprehensively as the column of royal cavalry filed slowly into the square. The soldiers and their mounts were covered with dust and looked as if they had ridden from Pergassos without stopping, which indicated that their mission was urgent. The colors carried by the pennant-bearer were those of the captain, Horazzorgio, who had passed through Xerxeon over five brights previously in pursuit of Dornvald the outlaw, Bringer-of-Sky-Dragons. Horazzorgio was missing an arm and had one eye covered, Goyderooch saw as the lead riders crossed the square and drew up before him. His synchronizing oscillator missed a pulse. Perhaps Dornvald’s small band had been the bait to lure the King’s soldiers into ambush by a larger force out in the Meracasine. If so, had Horazzorgio interpreted Goyderooch’s readiness to indicate the direction taken by the outlaws as proof of the village’s complicity in the plot and returned now to deliver his retribution? The fear that Goyderooch sensed from behind told him that the thoughts were not his alone.
“May the Lifemaker protect the King,” Horazzorgio pronounced.
“Let it be so,” the villagers returned dutifully.
“We are truly honored to welcome the King’s Guards to our humble village,” Goyderooch said, extending his arms palms-upward. “Whatever services it is within our power to render shall be thine. Thou hast but to name thy need and utter thy request.”
Horazzorgio cast his eye over them with contempt. “Yes,” he said menacingly. “You would do well to remember me with respect, farmers. With great pleasure would I repay the debt that I owe the village of Xerxeon.”
“A twelvefold curse upon Dornvald, the betrayer!” Goyderooch exclaimed, trembling. “Truly were we deceived by his cunning. Oh, had we but known of the fate that awaited thee! Believest thou not that we would have warned thee?”
“Pah! Enough sniveling,” Horazzorgio snorted. “Do you dream for one moment that Dornvald’s rabble of tinplate riveters would be match for a King’s troop? These afflictions that you see were not the work of any mere robeing.”
“Then what manner of—“
“The sky demons that appeared over Xerxeon,” Horazzorgio said. “They are congregating in Carthogia, whither they come to aid Kleippur, servant of the Dark Master.” Eskenderom, the Kroaxian King, did not want it made known to his people that he was treating with the luminous liquid creatures who had come from beyond the sky. It was important that the mystic whom Eskenderom intended to install as High Priest in place of Frennelech—and whom the soldiers had been sent to Xerxeon to find and take back to Pergassos—should be accepted unquestioningly as being possessed of genuinely wondrous powers.
“Thou hast not come hither to wreak thy vengeance upon helpless villagers?” Goyderooch inquired cautiously.
“We are here by the direct bidding of the King,” Horazzorgio told him.” ‘Tis well for you that I heed first my loyalty to His Majesty, and second my private inclinations. There is one, a holy man from Pergassos, who was also at this place five brights since—the brother of Thirg, Asker-of-Questions.”
“Thou speakest of Groork, the hearer, who came hither to commune with the Great Wilderness and prepare himself spiritually for the time of great works which is written as his destiny to perform for the greater glory of the Lifemaker,” Casquedin said from beside Goyderooch.
“The same,” Horazzorgio said. “His destiny has arrived, it appears. We are to conduct him back to Kroaxia, to the palace of Eskenderom, where omens have been witnessed of great things that shall come to pass.”
Goyderooch dispatched Casquedin with the news to the house of Meerkulla, Tamer-of-Endcase-Drillers, on the edge of the village, where Groork was lodging. Casquedin returned alone a few minutes later. “Meerkulla asks forgiveness, but says that the hearer is locked in his cell and attending to his sacred devotions,” he reported. “To intrude would constitute sinfulness of the gravest kind.”
“But this is the King’s command!” Goyderooch blustered. “Return at once to Meerkulla and tell him that—“
Horazzorgio raised a hand wearily. “Our need for haste is not so pressing as that, Headrobeing, for we have ridden without respite from Pergassos. We shall not depart until we have rested awhile and partaken of refreshment and charge. So prepare a repast of your finest lube and filter stations, and leave the hearer to complete his meditations.”
In the room that he had been given for his own use at the rear of Meerkulla’s house, Groork was frantically bundling his belongings into the frame-backed sack that he used when traveling. Horazzorgio could have come for only two reasons: Either Eskenderom had not forgotten his scheme for removing Frennelech, the High Priest, and establishing a new priesthood under Groork, or Horazzorgio wished to settle a personal score over Groork’s having warned Thirg when the writ had been issued for the latter’s arrest. Either way Groork wasn’t interested in staying around to talk about it, and had received a sudden revelation that the Lifemaker’s plans required him to be the chosen instrument of other designs destined to unfold at another place to which the greater powers would in due course guide him.
After checking the room a last time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he pushed open the window, poked his head out, and looked first one way, then the other. No one was in sight. He heaved his pack over the ledge, picked up his staff, and climbed outside. One of Meerkulla’s steeds was tethered at the rear of the house, grazing on slow charge from a domesticated forest transformer and not yet unsaddled. Groork looked at it thoughtfully as he lifted his pack onto his back, and then glanced from side to side and back over his shoulder. Had the animal been left as a temptation to test his honesty at a time of stress, or was it a gift from the Lifemaker to ensure Groork’s preservation for greater things? And then, as he stood waiting for inspiration, he heard in his head the first whisperings of a message from the voices that had begun speaking from the sky of late.
In a control room inside the Orion, a computer display changed to read:
ORBITER FOUR MAPPING RADAR—COARSE SCAN 23-B37 COMPLETE ON SECTOR 19H. COMMENCING HIGH RESOLUTION SCAN. SUBSECTORS 19-22 THROUGH 19-38. MODE 7. FRAME 5. SWEEP PARAMETERS: 03, 12, 08, 23, 00, 00, 42.
Groork turned his face upward and gazed rapturously at the heavens as the meaning of the voices became plain in his mind. “Thy work in Kroaxia is ended, Groork,” they sang. “Take thee forth from this place now, for thy path lies across the Wilderness and unto the lands of Carthogia.”
“Am I, then, to find the Waskorians and join them in their struggle to preserve the true faith in the face of the barbarism wrought upon Carthogia by Kleippur, who serves the Dark Master?” Groork asked himself. “Indeed the ways of the Lifemaker are truly wise and all-seeing, for in that way also shall I find again my lost brother and return his soul yet to the way of righteousness.” He looked again at Meerkulla’s mount. “Could a mere robeing such as I presume to argue with the will of Him who sends thee as His gift to carry me across the Meracasine?” He unplugged the animal’s cord and swung himself up onto the creature’s back. “The Lifemaker gave, and the Lifemaker has taken away,” he told the back of Meerkulla’s house as he began moving off. Then he stopped and stared uncomfortably for a few seconds at the dwelling of the one who had given him shelter and hospitality. Slowly and deliberately he raised his arm and made the motions in the air which would confer blessings upon Meerkulla, his family, his descendants, his crops, and his animals for many twelve-brights to come. “There, my friend, now thou hast more than just compensation,” Groork murmured. Feeling better, he turned his mount about again and slipped quietly out of the village.