Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [358]
The first phagor sergeant came up with the first weapon. He held it while an armourer primed it. The sergeant knelt, his lower leg turning forward instead of back, in a posture no human could achieve. At the muzzle end of the piece, a tripod supported part of the weight. The sergeant took aim.
‘Ready, sire,’ said SlanjivalIptrekira, looking anxiously from weapon to majesty. The king gave an almost imperceptible nod.
The striker came down. The powder fizzled. With a mighty explosion, the gun blew to pieces.
The sergeant fell backwards, giving a guttural cry. Yuli ran squealing into the bushes. Lapwing shied. Birds flew screaming from the trees.
JandolAnganol steadied his mare.
‘Try Number Two.’
The sergeant was helped away, his face and chest leaking ichor. He made a small bleating noise. A second sergeant took his place.
The second gun exploded more violently than the first. Splinters of wood struck the king’s chest armour. The sergeant had part of his jaw blown away.
The third gun would not fire. After repeated attempts, the ball rolled from its muzzle to the ground. The Royal Armourer laughed nervously, face ashen. ‘Better luck next time,’ he said.
There was better luck with the fourth gun. It went off as intended, and the ball buried itself near the edge of the target. It was a large target designed for archery and stood only two dozen paces away, but the firing was accounted a success.
The fifth gun cracked dismally along its barrel. The sixth gun fired its ball, although the target was missed.
The amourers stood close together, studying the ground at their feet.
SlanjivalIptrekira came to the king’s horse. He saluted again. His moustache trembled.
‘We make some progress, sire. Our charges are perhaps too strong, sire.’
‘On the contrary, your metals are too weak. Be back here again in a week’s time with six perfect weapons, or I’ll flay every member of your corps, from you downwards, and drive you skinless into the Cosgatt.’
He took one of the ruined guns, whistled up Yuli, and galloped away towards the palace, across the grey sward.
The innermost part of the palace-fortress – its heart, if palace-fortresses have hearts – was stifling. The sky above was overcast, and an echo of it was to be found on the ground, in every corner, on every ledge, cornice, moulding, nook and cranny, where the exhalations of distant Rustyjonnik refused to be swept away. Only when the king had passed through a thick wooden door, and then a second as thick as the first, did he escape the ash.
As the steps wound downwards, dark and cold thickened about him to embrace him like a soaked rug as he entered the subterranean set of chambers reserved for royal guests.
JandolAnganol strode through three interconnecting rooms. The first was the most fearful; it had served as a guard room, a kitchen, a mortuary, and a torture chamber, and still contained equipment relating to those earlier roles. The second was a bedroom, containing merely a bunk, though it too had served as a mortuary, and looked better suited to that purpose. In the end room sat VarpalAnganol.
The old king remained wrapped in a blanket, his feet against a grate in which smouldered a log fire. A high grille in the wall behind him allowed light to filter in and define him as a darkish lump on top of which a wispy skull was perched.
These things JandolAnganol had seen many times. The shape, the blanket, the chair, the grille, the floor, even the log that never burned properly in the dank atmosphere – all these did not alter through the years. It seemed as if only here, throughout his whole kingdom, could he look on enduring