Morwatz, red-eyed and flushed from his own indulgence in the smoke, turned a reluctant face to the call. “Get your men fed and bedded down; enough of the smoke breathing.”

  Morwatz made a slurred acquiescence, and turning on his men, after a volley of curses, succeeded in bringing order to the camp. A tureen of porridge was prepared— wheat flavored with handfuls of dry meat and fungus.

  Glystra went to squat beside Morwatz, where he ate a little apart from his troops. “What is that stuff?” He gestured toward the rick.

  Morwatz looked a little sheepish. “It’s called zygage— a very potent drug, very valuable.” He puffed himself up. “Generally only the lowest castes inhale smoke—very vulgar, the crudest sensations—”

  “How do you usually take it then?”

  Morwatz breathed heavily. “Normally I do not take it at all. Far too expensive for a warrior. The Mercantils occasionally brew a potion, but its use leads to debility, so I am told. The soldiers will sleep well tonight, so you will observe. Zygage saps much vitality; smoke, potion or nose-salve, the user pays very dearly for his pleasure . . . But look you there, what manner of drug does your man take?”

  Glystra turned his head. Bishop was swallowing his customary handful of vitamins.

  Glystra grinned. “That’s a different kind of drug. It has little effect—makes Bishop think he’s healthy. He’d never know the difference if someone fed him chalk.”

  Morwatz was puzzled. “Another strange and useless Earth custom.”

  Glystra rejoined his companions. Nancy had served Corbus, then went to sit by herself among the zipangotes, as inconspicuous as possible. Glystra had not spoken to her since she had run to his feet from behind the Politburos.

  From the fire came a sudden tumult of hoarse quarrelling. A soldier had quietly cast a new armful of the zygage branches on the flames, and Morwatz had come forward expostulating. The soldier, stumbling and red-eyed, cursed him back.

  Glystra sighed. “Now it’s discipline. Well—” he rose to his feet “—I suppose we’ve got to make an example.”

  Morwatz was pulling the smoking branches from the blaze; the soldier lurched up, kicked him. Morwatz fell face down into the coals.

  Cloyville ran forward to pull at the screaming Morwatz; three soldiers leapt on his back, pulled him down. Pianza aimed the ion-shine, but held his fire for fear of shocking Cloyville. Beaujolains came at him from all directions. He aimed, fired: Snap—snap—snap. Three soldiers fell flat, shrivelled flesh. The others swarmed over him.

  The clearing was suddenly alive with wild-eyed men, screaming and savage. One sprang at Ketch, toppled him. Glystra killed him with his ion-shine, then felt viciously strong arms seize him from behind, hurl him to the ground.

  The Earthmen lay weaponless, arms lashed behind their backs.

  Nearby Morwatz lay moaning from deep in his throat. The soldier who had first kicked him came forward, a tall man with concave cheeks, a pocked forehead, a split nose. He looked down, and Morwatz regarded him with glazing eyes and moans gradually ascending in pitch. The soldier deliberately drew his sword, punctured Morwatz’ neck— once, twice, three times, as if he were prodding a rock. Morwatz, gurgled, died. He turned, came to look at his captives, tapped Glystra’s chin with the reeking sword. He laughed. “Your death will not be at my hands. It’s back to Grosgarth for you, and there’ll be a reward to set us up as noblemen . . . Let Charley Lyssider have his will with you. . . .”

  “The gypsies!” said Glystra in a choked voice. ”They’ll kill us all!“

  “Pah. Dirty animals!” He swung his sword in a wild flourish. “We’ll kill them as they come!” He gave a great exultant roar, a wordless drug-addled cry of pure abandon. Leaping to the rick, he threw armful after armful of branches into the blaze. The smoke poured forth, the Beaujolains inhaled it in tremendous racking gulps. Breaking free to gasp for air, they fell to their hands and knees, crawled back to suck up new lungfuls.

  Glystra tugged at his bonds, but they had been well-tied, cinched up with no fegard for circulation. He craned his neck. Where was Nancy? Nowhere in sight. Had she escaped? Where could she escape to? Glystra ground his teeth. The gypsies would take her and there would be no succor this time . . . Unless she could slip back to the forest during the night. She had clearly fled. The copse was too small to conceal her, and she was nowhere within the range of vision. Twilight was drifting down from the Great Slope—a warm achingly beautiful time of luminous violet air with velvety black and gray shadows below . . . There was a distant sound that he found himself listening to, a far chanting from the steppe, a stave of four notes on a minor scale, punctuated by a rumbling bellow as of a brass horn.

  The breeze shifted. Smoke from the smouldering zygage drifted through the rapt soldiers to float across the bound Earthmen. Twist, turn as they might, avoiding the smoke was impossible. Pungent and sweet, it blossomed up through their nostrils directly into their brains. For a moment they felt nothing; then as one man they lay back, succumbing to the irresistible power of the drug.

  The first sensation was double, triple vitality, a thousandfold perceptiveness that saw, heard, felt, smelt with minuscule and catholic exactness. Each leaf on the tree became an identity, each pulse a singular and unique experience. Flitting swarms of pleasant experiences crowded into the mind: triumphs of love, zest of skiing, sailing, space-boating, diving; the joy of colors, the freedom of clouds. At the same time another part of the mind was furiously active; problems beame simplicities; hardships—such as the bonds and the prospect of death at the hands of Charley Lysidder—were details hardly worth attention. And off in the distance the chanting waxed louder. Glystra heard it; surely the Beaujolains must hear it likewise . . . But if they heard it they heeded it not at all.

  The breeze shifted again; the smoke drifted away. Glystra felt an instant resentment; he fought his bonds, looked enviously to the Beaujolains standing quiet, quivering slightly in the rapturous smoke.

  The chanting was loud, close at hand. The Beaujolains at last heeded. They stumbled away from the fire, black hats askew, eyes bulging, bloodshot, faces distended, mouths gaping and gasping for air.

  The leader raised his head like a wolf, screamed.

  The cry pleased the Beaujolains. Each one threw back his head and echoed it. Scream after scream of furious challenge rang out toward the gypsies. Now laughing, crying, they loaded themselves with darts, ran out of the copse toward the gypsy horde.

  The leader called out; the soldiers, without halting, ordered themselves into a loose formation, and shrilling the eager challenge, charged into the afterglow.

  The copse was quiet. Glystra rolled to his knees, struggled to his feet, looked around for means to loosen his bonds. Pianza called in a husky voice, “Stand still; I’ll see if I can pull the ropes loose.” He rose to his own knees, raised to his feet. He backed against Glystra’s hand, fumbled with the thongs.

  He gasped in frustration. “My fingers are numb ... I can’t move my hands . . .”

  The Beaujolains had crossed the twilight; now the gypsy chanting came to a halt, and only the deep bellow of the horn sounded. Detail was blurred in the evening; Glystra could see men falling, then a convulsive Beaujolain charge which plunged into the gypsies like a knife.

  The battle was lost in the dusk.

  8. A Matter of Vitamins

  Glystra tried to break loose the knots on Pianza’s wrists, without success. His fingers were like sausages, without sensation. He was suddenly weak, lax; his brain felt inert. The aftermath of the drug.

  The lid to the gypsy still quivered, raised. Dripping, sodden, Nancy looked out—wide-eyed, white-faced.

  “Nancy!” cried Glystra. “Come here, quick!”

  She looked at him as if dazed, moved uncertainly forward, paused, looked out across the steppe toward the melee.

  The Beaujolain ululations rose shrill, keen, triumphant.

  “Nancy!” cried Glystra. “Cut us loose—before they come back and kill us!”

  Nancy looked at him with a strange contemplative expression, as if lost in thought. Glystra felt hopelessly silent. The drugged smoke or the fumes of the still had dulled her reason,

  A throbbing chorus of bellows, deep-voiced, rich, rang like bells across the air. There was an intermittent thudding sound, and the Beaujolain yelling choked off, ceased. A voice rose above all others: Heinzelman the Hell-horse. “I kill, I eat your lives! ... I kill, kill, kill. . . .”

  “Nancy!” cried Glystra. “Come here? Untie us! They’ll be here any minute. Don’t you want to live?”

  She sprang forward, took a knife from her sash, cut, cut, cut. Earthmen stood about, rubbing their wrists, grimacing at the pain of restored circulation, torpid with zygage hangover.

  Glystra muttered, “At least we need worry no further about guarding the Beaujolains ... A load off our minds. ...”

  “The gypsies will eat well tonight,” said Bishop. Alone in the group he appeared alert. Indeed, he was more than alert; he evidently retained the mental edge and physical tone which the others had felt under influence of the zygage. Glystra wonderingly watched him prance up and down, like a boxer loosening his muscles. His own frame felt like a sack of damp rags.

  Ketch bent with the effort of an old man, picked up a shining piece of metal. “Somebody’s ion-shine.”

  Glystra searched the clearing, found his own weapon where it had been carelessly flung. “Here’s mine . . . They were too steamed up to care about anything.” The breeze brought a wisp of smoke into his face; new fingers of delight searched into his brain. “Whew! That stuff is powerful. ...”

  Bishop had flung himself to the turf and was doing pushups. Feeling the stares of the others he jumped to his feet. “I just feel good,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “That smoke did me good.”

  There was silence from the steppes. Overhead in the pale blue-black sky, stars flickered.

  The gypsy war-chant rose up, loud, close at hand. Something whickered overhead, slashing through the leaves.

  “Down!” hissed Glystra. “Arrows . . . Move away from the fire.”

  Loud came the chant: four notes on a querulous quavering scale, sung with syllables that carried no meaning.

  Loud came Heinzelman’s voice. “Come forth, you strange men, you miserable intruders, come forth. Come crouch at my feet while I kill you, while I drink your blood; come forth ... I am Heinzelman the Hell-horse, Heinzelman the life-eater, I eat your life, I am the It, the Pain-maker, Heinzelman. . . .”

  They saw his shape silhouetted, and behind him were a string of zipangotes. Glystra sighted along his ion-shine, then hesitated. It was like felling an ancient tree. He called, “You’d do better leaving us alone, Heinzelman.”

  “Bah!” A sound of immeasurable disdain. “You dare not face me higher than your knees. Now I come to kill you; put down your electrical tricks, bow your neck, I come to kill.”

  Glystra numbly started to lay down the ion-shine, then blinked, fought off the man’s magnetism. He pushed the button. Purple sparks flashed at Heinzelman, buried into his chest, absorbed, defeated. “He’s grounded!” thought Glystra in sudden panic.

  Heinzelman loomed on the afterglow, a heroic figure, larger than life . . . Bishop ran forward, closed with him. Heinzelman bellowed, a ringing bull-sound. He bent, Bishop twisted, rose up beneath. Heinzelman performed a majestic cartwheel, struck earth with a ponderous jar. Bishop sat casually on him, made play with his hands a moment, then stood up. Glystra approached, still numb. “What did you do?”

  “Tried out a few judo tricks,” said Bishop modestly. “I had an idea the fellow won his battles with his voice, his hypnotic suggestion. Sure enough he was soft; no muscle around his major chord. I killed him dead as a mackerel, one tap in the right place.”

  “I never knew you were a judo expert.”

  “I’m not ... I read a book on the subject a few years back, and it came to me all at once—my word, all those zipangotes!”

  “They must have belonged to the other Politburos, that the Beaujolains killed. They’re ours now.”

  “Where are the other gypsies?”

  Glystra listened. There was not a sound to be heard across the steppes. A far bray of the horn? He could not be sure.

  “They’ve gone. Melted away.”

  They returned to the copse leading the zipangotes. Glystra said, “We’d better get going.”

  Cloyville stared. “Now?”

  “Now!” Glystra snapped. He was taut with weariness. “Three Beaujolain soldiers got away last night. They’ll take the news to Montmarchy. A new column will be sent out. They’ll be mounted on zipangotes, they’ll carry metal weapons. We can’t take chances. I don’t like it any more than you do but—” he pointed to the zipangotes “—at least we can ride.”

  Morning, midday, afternoon—the Earthmen slumped on the curved backs of the zipangotes, half-dazed with fatigue. The gait was a smooth rocking pitch, not conducive to sleep. Evening came with a slow dimming of the sky.

  A fire was built in a hollow, a pot of wheat porridge boiled and eaten, two-hour sentry watches set, and the column bedded down.

  Glystra was too tired to fall asleep. He twisted and turned. He thought of Nancy, raised to his elbow. Her eyes were on him. Sweating, he sank back into the couch. It would be hard indulging what he felt to be a mutual passion without making themselves ridiculous. It would also be inconsiderate . . . Sighing, Glystra slumped back into his blankets.

  The next morning Glystra opened his eyes to observe Bishop running lightly back and forth along the side of the slope. Glystra rubbed his eyes, yawned, hauled himself to his feet. Feeling dull and liverish he called irritably to Bishop, “What in the world’s come over you? I never knew you to go in for early morning exercise before.”

  A flush mounted Bishop’s long homely face. “I can’t understand it myself. I just feel good. I’ve never felt so well in my life. Perhaps my vitamins are taking hold.”

  “They never took hold before we got all doped up with that zygage. Then they took hold like ice-tongs, and you ran out and played hell with Heinzelman.”

  “I can’t understand it,” said Bishop, now half-worried. “Do you think that drug has permanently affected me?”

  Glystra rubbed his chin. “If it has it seems to be a good thing—but why did it give the rest of us hangovers? We all ate the same, drank the same . . . Except—” he eyed Bishop speculatively. “I wish we had more of those branches; I’d make some experiments.”

  “What kind of experiments?”

  “It occurred to me that you’d crammed yourself with vitamins—just before the smoke hit us.”

  “Well, yes. That’s true. So I did. I wonder if possibly there’s a connection . . . Interesting thought . . .”

  “If I ever lay my hands on any more of that zygage,” muttered Glystra, watching Bishop absent-mindedly flexing his arms. “I’ll find out for sure.”

  Four days of steady travel passed, from dawn till sunset. They saw no human being until on the afternoon of the fourth day they came upon a pair of young gypsy girls, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, tending a score of sluggish animals, yellow-furred, the size of sheep— pechavies. They wore tattered gray smocks and their feet were tied in rags. The freshness of youth was still theirs, and they had a wild prettiness in no way diminished by their complete fearlessness when they found that the men of the column were not gypsies.

  They deserted their animals and ran forward. “Are you slavers,” asked the first happily. “We wish to be slaves.”

  “Sorry,” said Glystra dryly. “We’re just travellers. Why are you so anxious?”

  The girls giggled, eyeing Glystra as if his question were obtuse. “Slaves are fed often and eat from dishes. Slaves may step under a roof when the rain comes, and I’ve heard it said that slaves are eaten only if no other food is available . . . We are to be eaten this winter, unless the pechavies fatten past expectation.”

  Glystra looked at them irresolutely. If he set about righting the wrongs of everyone they meet, they would never arrive at Earth Enclave. On the other hand—a stealthy thought—if the other men in the column were provided with women, it would be possible for him to advance his own desires. Of course, camp-followers would slow up the column. There would be added supply problems, emotional flare-ups . . . He looked over his shoulder. Corbus caught his eyes as if divining his thoughts.

  “I could use a good slave” he said easily. “You—what’s your name?”

  “I’m Motta. She’s Wailie.”

  Glystra said weakly, “Anyone else?”

  Pianza shook his head. “I’m much too old. Too old.”

  Cloyville snorted, turned away.

  This was embarrassing thought Glystra. Here is where he should display firmness, leadership . . . He passed over Ketch, who gloried in his misogyny, and would suffer the pangs of Saint Anthony before yielding so eaily.

  Bishop said tentatively, “I’ll take her.”

  Glystra felt quick relief, vindication of a sort. And the problems of the future could be met as they arose. Now was the present, now was the time containing that sweet union of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, spirit, will and imagination named Nancy. He met her eyes, as if there had been a signal. She colored faintly, gave an enigmatic jerk of the shoulder, looked away.

  Three more days of riding the steppe, each exactly alike. On the fourth day the land changed. The bracken grew taller and harder to ride through, almost like Earthly manzanita. There were occasional flamboyant shrubs six feet tall, with leaves like peacock fans. Ahead appeared a low black blur, which the gypsy girls identified as the bank of the River Oust.

  At noon they came upon a fetish post driven into the earth—a round timber eight feet tall, topped by a spherical gourd painted to represent a face.

  The gypsy girls made a wide circuit of the post. Wailie said in a hushed voice, “The Magickers of Edelweiss put that there, and only just now, to warn us away from the river.”