CHAPTER XXIV
Those next three days in Rax—the three days immediately following our return from the Water of Wild Things—were critical. We did, indeed, have but little time for sleep. We were exhausted when we returned—Nona and I. We played with Boy a little; and then, with him beside us lustily practicing his newly learned swimming strokes, we fell into deep slumber.
Atar awakened us. The city, he said, was seething with excitement. Our return was already known. Rumor of danger—nobody knew just what—was on every tongue.
Atar was pale, but composed. “Strange things are impending, Nemo. Very strange. And ominous—frightening. My father bids me bring you to him now.”
He said it so ceremoniously, so solemnly, that his tone alarmed me more than the words. I sat him down and he waited impatiently while Nona hastily prepared us food. Then—with Nona and Boy—we swam past Caan’s house. Nona and Boy stayed there; I would not again leave them alone. Then Atar and I went on, swimming slowly through the city streets toward the King’s palace.
The city was indeed in turmoil. I wondered how the news of our return had spread so swiftly. To do anything secretly of public interest and importance is difficult. And yet how should the Marinoids know already that danger was all about us in the water? How could they know that war with the Maagogs was impending? The city knew it; rumor of it was everywhere.
The streets had almost a holiday aspect. At every intersection groups of swimmers were gathered. Passersby were hurrying to and fro, aimlessly. Women cluttered the balconies. A holiday aspect, did I say? It was not that. The crowds hung poised, talking in low tones; the swimmers gazed often behind them apprehensively; the women on the balconies stared down with solemn, frightened eyes—and hushed their children with over-stern commands. Terror, not joy, was in the water that morning—a nameless terror, born of the Unknown.
I whispered something of the kind to Atar.
“Soon they will know what the danger is,” he answered. “Then will come enthusiasm, the desire to fight. The terror will be forgotten. Father’s speech to them will fix that.”
“Yes,” I said. “We must give them that, or we are lost.”
As we swam forward through the streets, the people recognized us. Occasionally a few would cheer; but for the most part they stared at us silently. Some followed us; soon there would have been a crowd in line behind us, but Atar dispersed them imperiously.
“Atar! Look there!”
In a doorway a figure was lurking. A man. I recognized him. He had never married; and I remembered that they said no Marinoid girl would take him for mate because of his Maagog origin.
The half-breeds! I have so far mentioned them but casually. With both Marinoid and Maagog blood, they were called Marinogs—a term they resented heartily. I had never given them much thought, had never known nor cared how many of them there might be. But now, as you shall hear, we were soon to deal with them in tragic fashion.
The Marinog in the doorway stood motionless. And as we passed, I felt his inscrutable gaze upon us. Something in it made me shiver, and I turned and looked back to him. He was still staring—his face wholly expressionless.
Atar pulled me on. As we approached the King’s palace, the throngs in the streets grew denser. They cheered us more frequently now. But among them, everywhere, I saw Marinogs—whiter, puffy of flesh, with larger eyes. Those were the real half-breeds. But I wondered how many there might prove to be among us with that unseen, unmarked taint of Maagog blood.
The crowds cheered—but the Marinogs were silent. They swam about furtively; or lurked in doorways; or in tangles of the street vegetation here and there. And always I felt their stolid gaze upon Atar and me.
We entered the upper palace doorway, at the threshold of which the dolphin sleigh lay waiting on the platform. In a broad low room, brightly lighted by rows of pods at its ceiling, the King greeted us. He was seated in a shell, on a throne built of smaller shells cemented together.
Save for him, the apartment was empty. He kept his seat, and we reclined on the platform at his feet. Outside we could hear the murmurs of the gathering crowd.
“You must speak to them soon, my father,” said Atar.
The King nodded. He was very grave, perturbed inwardly I knew; but outwardly solemn and grim. Then, suddenly discarding his reserve, he talked to me as though I were his son. For generations, he said, this secret mingling of Marinoid and Maagog blood had been a source of concern to the Government at Rax. There were no more than a few hundred known half-breeds in each of the Marinoid cities. The Marinoid women were averse to mating with them. Yet, nevertheless, thousands perhaps of the Marinoids were tainted. There were two reasons for this. First: Some of the Maagog men who had smuggled themselves in, looked enough like Marinoids to pass unrecognized. And secondly: There were immoral Marinoid women in all the cities.
“Why, there may be several thousand of these Marinogs—these half-breeds,” I exclaimed. “But why should they all turn against us?”
Prophetic thought! we did not know then that the Marinogs would turn against us. And yet we feared it. They were looked down upon—scorned.
Though we did not know it then, our fears were all too well founded. Og had already sent emissaries from the Water of Wild Things. One by one they had smuggled themselves through the coral barrier and into the Marinoid cities. It was they who were spreading the rumors of coming war. Their insidious talk was inciting the half-breeds. They were telling the half-breeds that this was the beginning of a new era. The Maagogs soon would rule in Rax. The despised half-breeds then would take their place as rightful, honored leaders. The Marinoid women—those beautiful women who always had scorned them—would be their slaves.
The King long had feared such conditions as these which now were coming to pass; and he told his fears to me frankly. Then he smiled.
“You have thought me unprepared, Nemo,” he added. “I am—for this sudden crisis—and yet not wholly so.”
Then he told me that for most of his reign—all Atar’s life, in fact—he had maintained a secret cavern in Marinoid waters, where preparations for war were going forward. I had not known that. Caan even now did not know it. The strictest secrecy was maintained, for above everything the half-breeds and Maagogs had to be kept in ignorance of it. The cavern was not far from Rax. It was well guarded; and no one had ever been in it, or heard of it, save a few of those known to be of full and loyal Marinoid blood.
“Not wholly unprepared, Nemo,” the King repeated. “After the next Time of Sleep I will take you to the cavern. If this Og will only delay a little—”
A noise outside the palace interrupted him. For some moments I had been conscious of a growing murmur, a confusion; which now broke out into cheers.
The King swam from his seat and we followed him across the room. Through a doorway upward, we emerged to the palace roof-top. It was empty, but in the foliage overhead figures were clinging; and I saw that the whole open cube of water before the palace was cluttered with them.
The shaded lights along the parapet were lighted, flinging their greenish beams outward and leaving the roof in shadow. A great cheer rolled out as we appeared. The King advanced to the parapet; and at his low-toned command, Atar turned several of the lights to shine full upon him. He stood there facing the throng; his figure, thrown into bold relief by the light upon it.
The cheering continued. Figures fluttered overhead, seeking places of vantage. Then silence fell; and extending his four arms outward to his people, the King spoke.
Atar and I crouched in the shadows at the King’s feet; but between two of the illuminated pods, I could see plainly the green-glowing water before us, with its silent, expectant throng of faces.
The King spoke slowly, carefully at first. Gradually his voice rose in power; the smile faded from his face. With grim, forceful words, he told of the Maagog peril—bid all his loyal subjects hold themselves ready for his commands.
A burst of cheering interrupted him. The crowd waved its arms; in the confusion many of the spectators overhead lost their holds, or were crowded from their places.
Then again silence fell over the water. And in the silence a single voice shouted two words. A female voice—the shrill voice of some Marinoid girl.
“Loyal subjects!”
She called it out cynically, quoting it from the King’s last sentence. She was directly across the water from me; I saw her plainly—a girl who was considered one of the beauties of Rax. A half-breed man was passing near her, and obviously she was aiming the taunt at him.
“Loyal subjects!”
And then she added: “That does not mean you—Marinog!”
It roused the half-breed to frenzy. He dashed at the girl, struck her in the breast with his arm.
Instantly there was confusion. A dozen swimming figures cut off my view. Out of the melee the Marinog came diving. I saw him escape in the crowd.
The King was trying to cover up the incident by going on with his speech. But they would not listen to him. From everywhere came shouts.
“Down with the Marinogs!”
“Half-breeds! Tainted blood of the Maagogs!”
The King’s speech had precipitated the very thing he had been trying to avoid! In a sudden fervor of patriotism against the Maagogs, the people were openly taunting all of Maagog blood among them.
There were many half-breeds in the crowd—lurking in secluded spots, eying the King with their huge, solemn eyes. They began slinking away; and most of the crowd let them go. Except the Marinoid girls. Perversely feminine, the girls swam around them—taunting, laughing, jeering.
The King looked down anxiously at Atar and me. Then, with sudden dominance, his roaring voice stilled the confusion.
“Silence all! Your King speaks! Are you Maagogs that you defy the majesty of your King? You are unjust to the half-breeds. The half-breeds are loyal. Their Maagog blood is forgotten. Tainted they were by heritage—but their taint is washed clean by our Marinoid Waters. They are your brothers! You must love them! They are loyal to me! I trust them!”
“Loyal!” the King repeated. “And when the war is over and we have defeated our foul enemies from the Water of Wild Things—the loyal half-breeds will be honored among us!”
A crowd is easily swayed for the moment. Soon they were cheering the half-breeds—exhorting them to remain loyal. The girl whose taunting words had started the trouble was swimming toward us across the open cube of water. Some instinct at that moment caused me to glance overhead. A figure was clinging to the foliage directly above the King—a half-breed man. I saw his arms fling something downward. Something long and thin, and gleaming green-white in the glare of lights. It looked like a spear. But it came down more slowly.
And then I saw it was swimming! A needle-fish the length of a man, with a nose two feet long, pointed and stiff as a rapier! With increasing speed it was swimming downward directly at the King!
A second or two of confused thought too rapid for action. The needle-fish was darting downward faster now than a thrown spear. The King was unaware of it. The fish’s rapier nose would run him through from back to chest!
I found myself gripping the King’s legs, trying to pull him down. But another figure from near at hand dove at him. The Marinoid girl who had taunted the half-breed! Her arms went around the King’s neck. . . . A flash of silver as the needle-fish came at them. . . . A choking female cry. . . . The girl’s body sank to the roof-top at the feet of the startled King. On her face, inert, she lay with the fish like a sword-blade buried in her back!
The King was unhurt. He was shouting commands at the excited crowd. Overhead there was a scuffle—a scream of anguish; the half-breed’s body—he who had launched the needle-fish—came slowly down to us. . . . I saw a dozen spears from the enraged crowd sticking in it.
We lifted up the girl—grotesque to my mind with her four arms—but by Marinoid standards one of their greatest beauties. She was still alive. Thoughtlessly, I pulled the fish from her wound, broke its sword-blade nose across my knee—snapped its slim body as one would snap a length of string.
A thoughtless act! From the wound the girl’s blood gushed. It spread like smoke in air; the water all around us was pink.
Atar had his arms about the girl. Then he got to his feet; and with a command to the crowd to disperse, he swam away to fetch the man of medicine.
The King and I knelt by the girl. Atar would be too late; she was dying.
“Child,” said the King gently, “soon you will be healed and strong again. And never shall I forget what you did for me today.” But she shook her head weakly; her lips, twisted with pain, were trying to smile at him. Her words were low, halting; the King and I bent lower to hear them.
“Loyal—subjects! I was loyal. Didn’t—mean to start—any trouble. You—forgive me?”
“Yes,” said the King. “Don’t talk now, child.”
“Loyal,” she repeated. “Everyone should be—loyal to his King. I’m—glad I could show— To die for—”
The blood gushing from her mouth stopped the words; but her eyes were still smiling—smiling as they glazed and the light faded from them.