Chapter Two
Ran-Del awoke suddenly, to find himself lying on his back, staring up at a pale green sky. He frowned. The sky should be golden, not green. He became aware of walls around him—not hide walls, like in a normal house, but pale green, solid-looking walls. He sat up abruptly. He was on a bed, and the bed covering was a smooth, shiny blue cloth, smoother than any cloth had a right to be if it had been made on a loom. Two large chairs and a small table stood across the room, and a large window filled most of the opposite wall.
Ran-Del dashed to the window and tried to climb out, but he hit his head hard. An invisible something covered the window! He could see out quite clearly, but he couldn’t put his hand through the opening. Panicked, he pounded on the transparent surface and ran his hands over all of it. Finally, he noticed when he tilted his head, he could see a glare, like water reflecting the sun. He turned his attention to the view.
The window looked out on a flower garden, laid out with a stone pathway and two stone benches, and surrounded by a tall wall. It troubled Ran-Del not to recognize the spikes of blue and yellow flowers that grew near the wall, or the feathery multi-colored blossoms that lined the walkways. The stems and leaves were a familiar russet brown, but the blooms themselves were unknown to him. Above the tall garden walls, the late afternoon sun had dipped low in the pale yellow sky, the only familiar thing in sight.
Ran-Del looked down at himself. He still wore the loose breeches and open vest that a man of the Sansoussy would wear in the summertime. He still had the supple moccasins his grandmother had made for him, but his dirk was gone from its sheath on his belt, and his bow and quiver of arrows were nowhere in sight.
Ran-Del turned back to the room in which he stood. There were two areas that might be doorways, one in the far wall across from the window, and one to his right. Neither one had a curtain; instead each was a smooth featureless white rectangle with a gray square on the wall next to it. Ran-Del prowled the room looking for something that would tell him where he was or who his captors were, and found nothing. Even the space under the bed was empty.
Suddenly, he felt an impending presence, much as he did when Great-grandfather came into a room. He waited expectantly, and then the rectangle across from the window slid into the wall without any sign that anyone was manipulating it. Ran-Del got over his surprise to find that three men had come into the room. The door slid closed behind them. A little under average height, the man in the middle had a stocky build and angular features. His black hair was just going gray, and his brown eyes studied Ran-Del intently.
As soon as he spoke, Ran-Del recognized him as the Baron. “Good afternoon. I’m impressed that you recovered consciousness so quickly.”
Ran-Del began formulating ways that he could kill without weapons. The other two men were taller, but less powerfully built. One of them carried something in his hand that looked as if it might be a weapon. The other had an identical device in a sheath on his right thigh.
“In case you’re harboring thoughts of mayhem,” the Baron said, “I should warn you that my companions are well armed. I would advise against any attempt at either escape or vengeance.”
Ran-Del knew the stranger spoke truthfully. Oddly, Ran-Del still sensed no hostility from him, no anger, only an eagerness that approached elation.
The Baron smiled. “Well? Don’t you have any questions?”
Ran-Del hesitated, unwilling to cooperate even that much. Still, he needed information. “Where am I, and why have you brought me here?”
His captor nodded approval. “Very good. Straight to the point.” He moved a little more into the room and gestured at the window. “Out there is the city of Shangri-La. My home is near the outskirts of the city, and you’re in a room in my house.”
Ran-Del had heard of Shangri-La. The largest city on Haven, it was more than two hundred kilometers away from the forest of the Sansoussy. How long had he been unconscious? He hid his apprehension and tried for a stern countenance. “Why have you brought me here?”
The Baron smiled again. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that completely. For now, I’ll just say that I have a use for you.”
Ran-Del felt a growing unease as the other man spoke. He might never see his home again—might end his life here within the walls of this city. His breathing and his pulse quickened.
The Baron’s forehead wrinkled in concern. “Are you all right?”
“Let me go!” Ran-Del's anger boiled to the surface. “I never harmed you—I never even saw you before.”
The Baron’s alarm melted into a guilty expression, and indeed, Ran-Del sensed regret. “You’re quite right that you had never seen me before this morning. And from your point of view, I had no right to steal you away. But in Shangri-La I have many rights, and you have none.”
“The others called you Baron. Are you a leader of this city?”
“You heard that, did you?” His captor didn’t seem pleased. Remorse faded to irritation. “Well, we might as well finish the introductions. I’m Stefan Hayden, Baron of the House of Hayden. By what name are you called, my young friend?”
This claim of friendship by someone who held him prisoner made Ran-Del seethe. “I am not your friend. And I don’t make a gift of my name to thieves.”
“You think I’m a thief?”
The man’s amusement grated on Ran-Del like a metal scraper on a fresh hide. “I had a dirk, a bow, and seventeen arrows. Where are they?”
“I’m sorry, but it didn’t seem advisable to leave your weapons within reach. You’ll get them back, eventually. Now, what is your name, young man?”
Ran-Del returned only a scornful look for an answer.
“See here,” Baron Hayden said, “we can’t keep calling you ‘young man.’ If you don’t answer my questions, then Toth will break out his medkit, and we’ll force the answers from you with a truth drug.”
Ran-Del remembered the dart that had made him unable to move. Much as it pained him to cooperate with this despotic city dweller, it would be better not to be made helpless again. “I’m called Ran-Del.”
Baron Hayden looked pleased at his compliance. “What family and what clan?”
“My family name is Jahanpur, and I was born to the Falling Water Clan.”
“And how many brothers do you have?”
“Two.” Ran-Del didn’t mention that they were half-brothers, born after his mother’s remarriage. He remembered the Baron’s interpretation of his caste bracelet. How had this stranger learned so much about Sansoussy customs?
Baron Hayden seemed satisfied. “All right, Ran-Del. That’s enough questions for the moment. Let me show you your new home.”
Ran-Del suppressed an exclamation of rage; a display of anger would give warning of his intention to act.
The Baron waved a hand around the room. “This is your bedroom. The lights will come on when it gets dark, so long as you’re in the room and awake. There are drawers over here.” He stepped over to one wall and indicated a column of rectangular panels, each a darker shade of green than the rest of the wall. When Stefan Hayden put his hand in the middle of a panel and pressed firmly, a drawer popped open. “Once we get you some new clothes, you’ll have somewhere to put them.”
Ran-Del said nothing, but the idea that he would be here long enough to wear out his clothes distressed him.
“Through here,” Stefan Hayden went on, placing his hand on a small gray square at waist height near the other door, “is the bathroom.”
Ran-Del stared as the door opened, revealing another, smaller room. Ran-Del stepped into it reluctantly, and was taken aback to be confronted with the life-size image of a frowning Sansoussy warrior, his brown hair just brushing his shoulders, wearing a leather vest and breeches, and a caste bracelet on the wrong wrist. In a heartbeat, Ran-Del recognized his own image. The wall in front of him must be the largest mirror he had ever seen. His mother had a small hand-mirror made of polished silver, and his grandmother a slightly larger one, but Ran-Del had never dreamed o
f a mirror this size.
Stefan Hayden was demonstrating how to use the appliances. Ran-Del watched him but made no comment, not even when the thing called a toilet swirled noisily and the shower spewed a small waterfall. Impressed, in spite of himself, that these people could make immense quantities of hot water flow at the touch of a button, Ran-Del wondered what would happen to the waste that would be flushed away so neatly.
Stefan grew gregarious, offering brushes and other toilet articles, including a tube of creamy paste that he explained to an incredulous Ran-Del would leave him clean-shaven within seconds of putting it on his face and washing it off.
“I’m sorry I can’t let you have a razor,” Stefan said, “but I really don’t want anyone to get his throat slit.”
Ran-Del made no reply to this or any other of Stefan’s many comments. Anger and fear struggled for control of his emotions, and Ran-Del wanted neither of them in charge of his actions. He wished desperately that his grandfather’s voice would awaken him from this terrible dream, but he knew that was a vain hope. All his senses told him this experience was real.
The two other men had waited in the bedroom. Now one of them opened the door through which they had entered and Ran-Del could see a larger room beyond it.
Stefan Hayden led the way. “This is your sitting room, Ran-Del. I hope you find it comfortable.”
Dazed, Ran-Del looked around. The sitting room—bigger than the great room of his great-grandfather’s house—was furnished with more chairs than he had ever seen in one place. Among the Sansoussy, chairs were reserved for the elderly; everyone else sat on stools or benches. Instead of being plain, carved wood, these chairs were well padded and covered with fabric. Two of them looked large enough for three or four people, more like benches than chairs. Several tables had been placed around the room, and shelves set into one wall contained all manner of things that Ran-Del couldn’t identify.
One thing that caught his eye immediately was that the sitting room had a door to the outside. Except for a frame that looked more substantial, the door was every bit as transparent as the windows. Through it and the windows on either side of it, Ran-Del could see more of the walled garden. He judged the wall to be only about twenty or thirty centimeters taller than he was. He could scale it with no difficulty.
“You can go outside whenever you like,” Stefan Hayden said, as he pressed his hand to the gray square by the door. “The door will open when you touch the access panel—”
He broke off his directions as Ran-Del raced across the room through the now open doorway and sprinted into the garden at top speed. Ran-Del paid no attention as Stefan shouted a warning. He lunged at the wall, still moving fast, with his hands raised to grab the top edge. Just as he expected to grasp the stone, his hands slammed into an unseen barrier.
Ran-Del dropped to the ground, stunned by the pain. He lay on his side and invoked the Fourth Discipline to deal with the agony in his wrists. He could feel the reassuring sensation of calmness, the creeping relaxation of his muscles as he achieved samad state and restored control. He shut out the alien sights and sounds around him and concentrated only on his own body.