*5*
FOUR VIRGINS
(Hey, kids! This chapter is scored! For extra jollies, when the mysterious voices quit talking and the narrative starts up again, put on The Doors’ "People Are Strange.")
/Notice the lack of conversation between the subjects, even though they are alone in the vehicle and can speak freely. They are undoubtedly reflecting upon what they will find at the conquerors’ castle, especially whether they will encounter another of their race. Del Tarf noted that reaction in ‘Class 32-B-27 Humanoid Response to Alien Environments Introduced Suddenly’ in Volume 3 Number 27 of Humanoid Psychology./
+Or maybe they don’t want to talk because the carriage bounces so much they might bite their tongues off.+
/Varx, I fail to see why you are even in this class. Alien Psychology seems... outside your sphere of competence./
+Borl the diplomat. You’re right; I took it because Shag took it. Don’t swish your tail at me like that! If we hadn’t been nice, you wouldn’t be part of a group at all.+
/It is hardly my fault I got Orange Spots and missed the whole second third of class! Besides, if I had known - /
[Borl, Varx, stop fighting right now. Thank you. Varx, I know you’re just saying these things to bother Borl—yes, you are, who’s the psych minor here?—so please either just think them or mutter them into a pillow. Borl, I know it’s trying for you to be placed with sophomores, but we do know what we’re doing, and - ]
KNOCK KNOCK!
{Curly tails, students.}
/+[Hello, Coordinator.]+/
{Let’s see, this is group, um, 56-B. Shag Gen, Varx Mal, and... Borl Ard? Frankly, Borl, I’m surprised to see you here. I would have thought you’d work with... well, older students.}
/If you will recall, Coordinator, I was ill during the second third and barely managed to join a Final Project at all./
{Ah, yes, I remember. Well, I’m sure you’ll contribute a great deal to the success of this experiment. Now, let me see... you’re doing a Different World Project.}
/[+Yessir.+]/
{Which of you is group leader?}
+Sir, the project was Shag’s idea, but we’re a democracy.+
{A democracy? Well, good luck to you. I’ve never known a committee to get much done, but I suppose there’s always a first time. Student Gen, as you have been designated originator of this experiment, why don’t you explain it to me?}
[Of course, sir. A year ago Varx and I discovered the keyworld Earth in Basic Universe Finding 101. Since it was nonmagical, we observed it to see what kind of civilizations had developed in the absence of magic. When it was time to start our Final Project, we decided to see how beings from Earth would react to being transported to another planet.]
{Indeed. And the psychology of these "Eartians" is close enough to that of a documented race to permit understanding of their reactions?}
+Oh, yessir! If you’ll just look at our references here -+
{Just include it with your final report, Student Mal. Student Gen, you selected the subjects impartially, as per the rules?}
[Uh, yes, of course we did. Strictly random draws from a homogenous population, to facilitate mutual understanding among them.]
{Student Ard, are you feeling all right? You look pale.}
+Oh, he’s fine, he just swallowed a bug.+
[Anyway, they come from a level ten alltech culture, and - ]
*****
They didn’t want to look out the windows. They wanted to sit and let the fancy-cart jounce their brains into oatmeal so they wouldn’t have to think about where they were and why they were there and whether they were there for the rest of their lives.
But the scenery was too interesting.
Not at first, while they wound through hills that flattened into countryside, with the sea to the right and thatched-roofed farms to the left; nothing they hadn’t seen in England. The traffic, carts and wagons, riders and pedestrians, had a slight rustic charm, and everyone craned their necks to see a young girl herding a gaggle of geese with a long feather. But nothing really interested them—until they caught sight of the city of Focan.
Actually, they smelled Focan before they saw it. A haze that any old Londoner would have recognized blended an industrial stink with human waste while hiding the city until the fancy-cart drew near. The four promptly started breathing through their mouths.
As spires and towers faded into view through the brown cloud, the fancy-cart slowed considerably as it entered a huge shantytown surrounding the city: shacks, wattle-and-daub hovels, and even tents and lean-tos. For so many dwellings, the shantytown was surprisingly unoccupied. The only people that the four saw over the course of at least a mile were a handful of old people sitting in a tight circle, a group of mothers with babies at their breasts, and one bored Idri woman trudging around, kicking at stones or bits of wood in the ground. Most everything was brown or gray; even the weeds were covered with mud churned up by the incessant traffic. However, in front of all the dwellings dangled lengths of pinkish rope.
Then the fancy-cart entered the city proper, and nothing short of a nuclear blast could have made the four close their eyes. Narrow cobblestone streets choked with mud and garbage; a man in rich purple clothes trimmed with white fur, brushing off a young man, all in brown, trying to hand him a leaflet; a woman in shoes almost a foot high picking her way through the litter and steadying herself with an ivory-topped black cane; wooden buildings crowded together; a temple covered in gold leaf and twined about with pinkish ivy; a mansion barely visible behind high stone walls; men and women crowding into a tavern, shouting for beer; fine shops with rugs and spices for sale; shabby shops peddling clay pots and coarse gray cloth; horses and dung everywhere; a team of men shoveling shit into a refuse cart drawn by a horse wearing a bandanna around its neck; beggars with oozing sores; a drunkard lying in an alley clutching a blue bottle; a dandy in a feathered hat and blue-and-black silk clothing, swaggering through the streets as he walked on clean wooden planks laid down for him by servants swarming around him; children shrieking as they pelted one another with clods of dirt; a small terrier trotting along with a big brown rat in its mouth; a fat merchant with huge silver hoop earrings, languidly showing a bottle of wine to an interested woman; scattered small groups of people in pink or faded red clothes, many clutching pieces of pink rope; and numerous red-armed, black-garbed Idris, male and female, strolling round or watching sternly from horseback.
George stared hard at a procession of droning men and women wearing what looked like short pink bathrobes. Each person had at least one braid, and the men had long braided beards. Two held black staffs, twisting them so that pink ropes coiled and uncoiled around the poles. George leaned out the window to better hear what they chanted, but too many people were shouting and laughing and arguing next to the fancy-cart; he couldn’t make anything out.
"Why couldn’t they’ve sent along a camera while they were at it?" Ringo complained excitedly, watching an old man gesture and make faces as he told a story to a circle of people. The man paused dramatically, and three or four people tossed coins into a hat in the center of the circle. The man grinned and resumed speaking.
They passed a woman selling straw dolls and what looked like windup toys from a tray on straps around her neck. "This is like a ride at Disneyland," said Paul.
John rolled his eyes. "No it ain’t, you can leave Disneyland." But the others didn’t hear him over the general hubbub. Then he jerked back with a curse as several passersby shoved their heads through the window, tried to touch him. One of the male Idri escorts saw this, shouted "Ha! Away, streetfodder!" and drew his pistol. The intruders squealed and melted into the crowd.
"Could’ve used him during Beatlemania," said Ringo, which earned him a narrow-eyed glare from John.
Then they entered a very wide, unusually clean street that seemed to be all inns and taverns and places to stable horses and carriages. The pedestrian traffic was thick here, but a large contingent of Idris kept them on the sidewalks and the street free of jaywalkers. About half the crowd was dressed in pink and moving in the same direction as the fancy-cart.
At the end of the wide street, the buildings fell away to reveal an amazing sight. In the center of an enormous paved open area was a tall pink granite statue that depicted what looked like three snakes entwined together and stuck into a square of stone by their tails. Ten particularly muscular Idris ringed the statue, watching the throng of pink-garbed people that ringed them. These pilgrims, for that was what they had to be, stared hungrily at the statue from about 50 feet away, behind the line of a thick pink circle drawn on the cobblestones. Behind them was a third ring of stalls and tents, all perpendicular to the pilgrims, that sold food and drink and small replicas of the statue, although it appeared that the patrons of these establishments were mostly people from the stream of traffic that wound behind the third ring. At the far end of the open area was a wall, behind which appeared to be a castle.
After the noisy city, the open area was eerily quiet. A vague crowd murmur arose from the pilgrims, but mostly one could hear horse-drawn wagons rattling and squeaking and clop-clopping across the stones. The air of the place was expectant, as if everyone was waiting for the first shoe to drop.
"Is that the Vasyn?" Paul wondered, giving voice to the question that had entered everyone’s minds.
"Must be," said John, peering over Paul’s head. As he spoke, a woman broke from the pink crowd and sprinted toward the statue. The pilgrims’ noise rose dramatically into whistling and rhythmic clapping. The Idri guards nearest the runner tensed like defensive ends. As the woman drew close, one of them darted at her, trying to grab her. She swerved wide to avoid him but ran right into the arms of a second guard, who lifted her into the air, spanked her twice for all to see, and carried her back to the line. The whistles died into a collective groan as the woman squirmed frantically in the man’s grasp. She reached out to the Vasyn as if beseeching it to free her, crying "Let me touch! Let me touch!" Meanwhile, the other Idris drew their guns and pointed them at the mob to keep them from taking advantage of the gap created by the out-of-position guard, who dumped the woman on the ground behind the line and marched back to his post. As the woman shakily got up and brushed herself off, all extra noise faded back into that expectant silence.
"Jesus," said Ringo. He squinted at the statue. "D’ye think they think it’ll heal them or something?"
"Something useful, anyway," said Paul. Softly: "I wonder if they won’t let them touch it because it’s fake and they’ll know it’s fake if they touch it?"
No one could answer that, of course, and then they had something else to think about, because the fancy-cart passed through a huge gate in the far wall, and the castle became fully visible to the four. For better or worse it brought the word Disneyland back to mind. A beautiful and delicate example of the castle-builder’s art, it seemed more a token of leadership than a stronghold, with its large windows. Many wooden buildings lined the interior walls, some obviously barracks, one a smithy, others mysterious at the moment. Many townspeople were making their way up to the main entrance of the castle. Idris strutted around looking important, or drilled with wooden swords, or just lounged as the fancy-cart passed them.
*****
/You lied to me! The subjects were supposed to have been randomly selected!/
[Borl, it doesn’t matter to the experiment. The end result will be the same, and they’ll keep each other from going crazy.]
+You didn’t make a fuss when we bent the rules and youthed them. Why are you suddenly getting picky now?+
/First of all, Varx, the youthing experience is a perfectly acceptable measure of alien responses. Second, Shag lied to the Coordinator! Do you know how much trouble that could cause me?/
+Just you, huh? Look, he won’t find out unless someone tells him. He doesn’t care enough about underclass projects to look for all the stuff that’s been fudged. If he did, every project in school’d be thrown out. He just checks the upperclass stuff.+
/But with me unfortunately in your group, he is likely to take more of an interest./
[Please, Borl, don’t worry about it. Varx is right—our work is so meaningless that the only people who get caught are the ones who make blatant changes. And even though you’re here, it’s still a sophomore project. Ultimately the Coordinator will ignore us.]
+And if you drop out now, you’ll never find another group, and you’ll miss the whole project and flunk.+
/Gods above and below curse my illness! I have no choice. But if we are caught and my grades drop, I am holding you responsible./
*****
The main hall of the castle was huge, drafty, and dark; sputtering oil lanterns made more shadows than light. Along the right wall stretched two long, narrow, parallel rugs whose original color had been obscured by thousands of muddy footprints. The rug nearest the wall bore a short line of townspeople entering the castle. Every so often someone walked down the outer rug to leave the castle. Several Idris oversaw the rugs and ensured that the crowd stayed off the marble floor.
There had been some conversation amongst the townspeople, but it died away when the four appeared, trailing after Fi’ar, so that the click of Fi’ar’s boot heels as she strode down the center of the hall was the loudest noise in that huge place. Squinting in the poor light, the four were still fascinated by their surroundings and only peripherally noticed how the townspeople, and the other Idris, stared at them: their height, their white shirts, the guitars slung over their shoulders, the tambourine in Ringo’s hand. (Being in this castle was a lot stranger for the four than being stared at!)
"The air’s breathable in here," Ringo muttered to John. "Kind of stale, but it won’t kill us."
"You sniffed? You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Ring." John nodded at tapestries on the left wall. "Can you tell what’s in those?"
Ringo tried, but since they were dusty and he was moving, they were just a blur in the flickering light. "They’re colorful," was all he could offer. "I think that’s a horse."
"What’s on the tapestries?" Paul asked Fi’ar politely.
The Idri woman seemed surprised that he was interested, but walked to the nearest tapestry. "How the Idri’en Tagen did free Ketafa twenty-five years ago." Her hand swept down the cloth, raising a cloud of dust and revealing a man with an eyepatch on a horse. The colors were rich, the artistry was crude. "This do be my grandfather, Dagarno Silver-clouds-in-the-sky, who led the attack on Focan. Focan was the last city to grow into the kapse‘s landbody. It was a city-state, and stubborn."
She dusted the next tapestry: Dagarno Silver-clouds-in-the-sky held a huge sword over the necks of a dozen kneeling men. "Focan’s leaders did surrender without fighting. Hoped they that we would spare them, and we did, but the Raleka—may the gods burn their hearts!—did murder them before the year ended." The ferocity on the woman’s face was startling in its intensity, and the four decided not to ask any more questions for a while.
They continued down the hall, passing several open doors on the left, dark wood that led to even darker passageways. One door bore a flat copper symbol that resembled the Vasyn. As they drew near it, Fi’ar reached in and ran her fingertips down the symbol, murmuring "The gods and the Vasyn shield us from the Raleka."
George made a mental note to go through that door.
In the center of the hall, two archways spilled light into the castle. The one on the left led into a windowed dining area with long wooden tables and benches. A number of Idris were already seated and waiting to eat, and their laughter and conversation seemed surprisingly loud after the nearly silent hall.
The archway on the right, which was where the line in the hall was going, opened onto a short corridor that widened into a large room. What the room held was a mystery because of all the townfolk packed into the corridor, most on tiptoe trying to see over their neighbors. A man in the room was speaking, but the words were lost in the murmur of the crowd.
"Wait," Fi’ar said to the four, and she pushed her way into the corridor, mashing civilians into the walls.
Suddenly a cry split the air.
"No...no! Please! The Vasyn shield me, I didn’t! I swear! Nooo!"
The crowd in the corridor moaned as if experiencing simultaneous orgasm. Several licked their lips.
Something whistled—crack! The unfortunate villain screamed, the audience cheered, and the authoritative voice bellowed,
"You will not use magic!" The whip cracked. "Only Lyndess be permitted to use magic!" Crack! "Do it again and you’ll die!" Crack! Crack! The screams reverberated down the hall, then mercifully faded into a whimper.
Fi’ar struggled back out, looking mildly annoyed. "The scum did faint. Terdan should—be you sick?" she asked, noticing that the four had gone white. John in particular looked like he was going to faint. Unexpectedly, the woman’s expression softened into one of genuine concern; she almost seemed likable as she put her head close to theirs and murmured, "Fear not. Never would the Favorites of the Gods be criminals for magic use. Still, use magic behind doors and walls, so to not scare the city fodder." More quietly: "My door does have a lock."
She then resumed her air of superiority and brushed some black hair out of her face. "Come. Meet you Grynun in her rooms."
The much subdued (and rudely awakened) four followed.
Fi’ar led them up a wide, curling flight of stairs and along a narrow corridor to a door with a red circle on it. As they approached, a guard sprang up from his chair, sword at the ready, but he relaxed when he saw it was official business. He opened the door a crack and called, "Visitors, Grynun!"
"Let them in," called a hoarse voice. The guard opened the door all the way, and the smell of perfume wafted into the hall.
The room was a long, large bedroom, well lit by many unflickering lanterns. The far end of the room was dominated by a canopy bed. Wooden chests lined the walls; an open one had red clothes stuffed in it, while others were piled with books and scrolls. Numerous tables and display cabinets held knickknacks that glittered in the bright light. Most eye-catching were a pair of oil paintings. One was of a broad-shouldered, craggy-faced man with an eyepatch, probably Dagarno Silver-clouds-in-the-sky. The other depicted a thin man of Polynesian hue who looked a lot like Fi’ar, with his heavy eyebrows and narrow face.
At the far end of the room was a desk where an old woman was typing on a surprisingly Earthlike manual typewriter. She glanced over her shoulder at the visitors, then typed a final rapid entry and swept her arms up theatrically, very much like she had been playing on the piano. She chuckled hoarsely. Her left hand swooped into an ivory box and emerged with a pinch of powder between her thumb and index finger, which she snorted long and hard. Then she hiked her chair around to squint at the newcomers through bloodshot, watering eyes. "What’s this fodder, Fi’ar?" she murmured. With her long gray hair, red headband, silver chain, and stained red robe, she looked like a withered flower child.
Fi’ar gave the woman the head-heart-gun butt-hand salute. "Bards, Grynun," she announced. "From cross-Chasm."
The four goggled. This was Grynun the Idri-Head? Leader of a barbaric conquering army and absolute dictator of Focan? Stal had left a few things out when he told them about the Idri.
Grynun started to return the salute but turned it into an aimless flutter. "Yes, yes, I remember. I suppose luck deserves a reward. What do you want?"
With a fierce grin, the tall woman clapped a hand on George’s shoulder, startling him into dropping his guitar. "Him. First. I do want to deflower this Castle Virgin. I do burn for him."
"Y’what?" George stammered, not quite absorbing what he’d heard.
"Hm." A sour smile flickered across the Idri-head’s face, to be replaced by an expression of long-suffering disapproval. "No."
Fi’ar jerked back, mouth working, and George quickly scooped up his guitar and moved away from her. Some of the rage that had evidenced itself in the main hall reappeared. Her hands began to crook, her body tensed, and for a moment it seemed she would leap on the tiny old woman and scratch her eyes out. "Four bards don’t be enough?" she hissed. "What must I do for you, mother?"
"Save my life," the old woman rasped, sounding like a four-pack-a-day smoker. "Find the Raleka leader. Kill a Hiddenwizard. Then I’ll give up a Castle Virgin. But four lucky bards doesn’t prompt me to share the deflowering… daughter."
Half a minute of deep breathing was Fi’ar’s response. Then, sullenly: "What do they be worth, then?"
A small pouch came flying through the air. Fi’ar caught it automatically, with a soft clink. "Twenty gold dags and a thousand points good jan," said her mother. "Buy some whores if your belly burns—but that’s not why you wanted him, is it?" The old woman grinned, showing gappy teeth. "Knuckle-Wrist! But jump you to Joint or even Nail with a Castle Virgin’s sword in your sheath."
A blush spread across the Wrist’s face, or she may have been flushing with rage.
"Not for luck, Fi’ar. I want skill. Earn your Virgin. Leave."
Quivering with anger—and with a long look at George, who tried to hide behind the other three—Fi’ar tossed off a salute and stomped out of the room, pushing past the guard, who moved to stand in the door frame, watchful and wary.
A hoarse chuckle escaped the old woman. "Holehead. Just like her uncle. She’ll never understand." To the four: "Bards, you are Castle Virgins? You’ve never sexed within these walls?"
As the phrase had sparked all sorts of nasty ideas in their minds—maybe only virgins could enter the castle, maybe the Idris castrated all the new arrivals, maybe men could get pregnant here—they were enthusiastic in their denials.
"Sharp! Come here."
They came, and Grynun peered blearily up at them. She smelled so strongly of perfume—and under that, urine—that if the windows hadn’t been open, the four would have gagged. Perhaps significantly, her right arm had not been dyed red.
She pushed aside her chain to scratch under her right breast. "Name yourselves."
Before any of the other three could speak Paul made a sweeping bow and said, "I’m Paul, this’s John, this’s George, that’s Ringo, glad to meet you madam."
"Nice manners, funny-voice," the old woman grinned. "My name be Grynun, not Madam. Grynun Silver-clouds-in-the-sky. So! you big white funny-voices came cross-Chasm? Not a hard guess, from your size and smell. Be you traders or exiles?"
"Exiles, ma—Grynun."
"Ah. Know you Lyndess Groundburner?"
Paul hesitated before replying. "We’ve heard of her, but no, we don’t know her."
"I thought not, as you sound and look different than her. What magic know you?"
All sorts of silly things flashed through Paul’s mind—the magic of music, photographs, safety matches—but he prudently just said "None."
Grynun looked surprised. "I thought all Baravadans knew magic."
Paul didn’t know how to reply to this, but luckily John chimed in with, "Not us, we’re stupid. That’s why we got into music."
"Ah." The old woman took a shiny thing from a drawer in the desk, fiddled with it, and put it down. Her hand came away to reveal a tiny golden dog with ruby eyes, which walked stiff-legged across the wood for a few seconds, then stopped. "Some fodder would consider that magic," she said with a sour grin. "Need you no magic to fool the fodder." Then she swept the dog back into the drawer and looked up at the four with bright eyes. "Now. Play your music and I’ll decide whether I want to hire you."
So they sat around the room, on the bed and the chests, and played "Yesterday," then "I’ve Just Seen a Face" and a few others they’d worked on at Stal’s house. By now they were pretty good together, and Grynun seemed suitably impressed. (The guard certainly was; he folded his arms and relaxed against the wall.)
"You be hired," the old woman said after their fourth song. "You’ll be paid one silver gry each day. You’ll have a room in the castle. You’ll be fed." Her hand brushed Paul’s thigh. "As Castle Virgins, you’ll sex with me before you sex with anyone else here—one of the only rewards of being Idri-head," she murmured, mostly to herself.
Oh well, there’s worse things could happen, Paul thought so he could keep his smile up as he thanked Grynun.
The old woman made a dismissive gesture, but she smiled. "As you came not through Tradertown, I must tell you how to behave. Understand you the word forbidden? I know it be not in your vocabulary…."
Surprised, Paul nodded.
"Sharp. Speaking to fodder about the gods or about Baravada be forbidden. (It be wise not to speak to fodder at all.) Teaching magic to the fodder be forbidden. Touching the Vasyn when the fodder can see you be forbidden unless you be part of a ceremony. It be forbidden to take fodder to Baravada, but do as you please with them otherwise. If leave you the castle grounds, go with an Idri escort. Harm no Idri in public, and it be forbidden to harm an Idri above Wrist rank." Grynun furrowed her brow. "Have I forgotten anything? I think not. But ask Lyndess. If you do any of the forbidden things, you’ll be killed." She smiled at the four as if she’d just invited them to tea. "I’ve never known a Baravadan to break these laws (know you what "break the law" means? Sharp.) Don’t be the first."
"Castle Virgins," grunted the guard.
"Oh! Many thanks, Ralin. Castle Virgins. If sex you with anyone, male or female, inside the castle walls before I deflower you, you’ll be castrated."
Boy, Paul was having a tough time keeping that smile up.
With a grunt the old woman heaved herself out of the chair, then turned and took a huge sniff of powder. She reeled and grabbed the edge of the desk; the four could almost see little stars and planets orbiting her head. Then she straightened up, tears streaming down her face, and rubbed fiercely at her eyes. "It be darkmeal," she muttered between her fingers. "I want food. Come with me and play for the Idri-body in the foodhall." Then she noticed the condition of the guitarists’ hands, fingers bleeding, being sucked on. "Play only three songs."
She pushed past them, wiping her nose on her sleeve, and they dutifully trooped after her. As they left the room, Ralin the guard fell into step behind John, the last in line.
Grynun stopped short, whirled around, and pointed at the guard. "Stay! Your task be guarding my room!"
"But Grynun," Ralin began, greatly distressed. "Dey could be Raleka—dey might - "
"They be not Raleka! Heard you only pretty tunes? Saw you only weaponless fodder? Came they cross-Chasm. There be no Raleka cross-Chasm. There be Raleka in Ketafa. My room be less safe from them than I. Stay."
But the guard was a proper sort of guard and persisted: "But—but if you be attacked, can dey protect you?"
Red cloth rustled, something whipped through the air, and a slender dagger quivered in the door. "They need not. Stay. Come, bards!"
All the way to the stairs the little old woman muttered to herself. "He presumes to protect me. Me! As do the others. Think they that my brain be as faded as my hair? That because I cannot lift a sword any longer, I be helpless? Have my eyes fallen out among my teeth? I should have him flogged!"
"Don’t flog him!" Paul protested. "He just wanted to protect you. You’re his leader and he doesn’t want to see you hurt. He’d want to come along no matter how old you were."
"Hmmm," the old woman grumbled. They reached the top of the stairs, and Grynun paused to look back down the corridor, where Ralin was watching them anxiously, holding the dagger he had pried out of the door. She sighed. "Perhaps you be right, Paul. Still, don’t age. It makes others stupid. Come, bards."
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