The Towers Of Melnon

The departure of the Leopards was like a signal to the Serpents. In a pandemonium of cheering and screaming all who could walk surged forward. They swarmed around Blade, and he felt dozens of hands clutching at him, lifting him, hoisting him high. For a moment he wondered if he was going to be torn apart by his own friends after surviving all the day's fighting.

Then the crowd spread out. Blade found himself straddling the shoulders of two of the largest warriors, and balanced unright by the hands of a dozen more. The cheering swelled again as he rose into view.

Then Pen-Jerg's booming voice beat down the cheers. «Warriors of the Tower of the Serpent. Hail the new warrior of the First Rank-Blade!»

The cheers this time were loud enough to make Blade want to put his hands over his ears.

Chapter SEVEN

The warriors of the Tower of the Serpent carried Blade on their shoulders all the way back through the Waste Lands to the base of the tower. That was just as well. Exhaustion, release of tension, and loss of blood from his wounded shoulder were making him light-headed. But his head was not so fogged that he wasn't able to do some hasty thinking.

It was hardly more than noon of his first day in the dimension of the Towers of Melnon. Yet he had already won acceptance as a warrior of one of the towers, a warrior of the First Rank in fact. He had a name, a reputation, a status, the friendship or at least the support of two other prominent warriors of the Tower of the Serpent, and the prestige that came from almost single-handedly wi

For the moment. He didn't have any idea of the possible dangers of his situation. Nor could he, until he learned a good deal more about life inside the Tower of the Serpent. And other Towers as well, he added to himself. Particularly the Tower of the Leopard. That Tower of well-drilled warriors looked and sounded worth investigating, if he ever had the opportunity to do so safely. But he didn't even know whether there was any peaceful contact among the Towers on a day-to-day basis. He decided to stop worrying about the future and enjoy the hero's reception that no doubt waited for him in the Tower of the Serpent.

He was not disappointed. Pen-Jerg must have sent messengers on ahead with word of Blade's epic triumph. As the war party lumbered across the Waste Land, Blade could see the balcony on the side toward him turning almost solid green with people. The lifters were going up and down almost continuously as well, lowering others to the ground. More than two hundred warriors were waiting at the base of the tower by the time the war party and Blade arrived. They greeted him with a new outburst of cheering. Blade found that his head was begi

Blade could hear Pen-Jerg bellowing, «What? The wounded man's lifter not down yet? Didn't Queen Mir-Kasa order it? What! You're suggesting that Her Splendor hasn't thought of everything for greeting a hero! Why you-«which led to a very detailed description of somebody's habits, ancestry, and likely fate. It was followed by an equally detailed description of Blade's heroism. No doubt Pen-Jerg intended it to make whoever had interfered with the reception for Blade feel even more like a worm than before. The description went on for nearly five minutes, occasionally interrupted by still more outbursts of cheering. It ended only when Pen-Jerg apparently ran out of breath. Blade had the impression that Pen-Jerg liked to play to a good audience if he could find one. No doubt such nearly perfect occasions were rare.

Red-faced and perspiring, the Commander then pushed his way through the warriors gathered around Blade and stood over him, looking down at him. Blade decided to use the time until the lifter arrived to ask a few more questions.

«What happens now, Pen-Jerg?»

The commander took a deep breath. «The wounded man's lifter will be sent down for you. It should have been here already, but that-«

«I know,» put in Blade. «I heard you describing him. In fact, I suspect they heard you describing him at the top of the Tower of the Eagle.»

Pen-Jerg gri

«Why do you ask that?»

«It is very simple. A man or woman belongs to the family of their mother. Each person has a name of his own-a birth name joined with the name of his mother. I, for example, am birth-named Pen, while my mother's name was Jerga. Thus I am Pen-Jerg. Our queen's mother, queen before her, was Kasa, and named her daughter Mir. So now we are ruled by Queen Mir-Kasa.

Blade nodded, and decided against asking any questions about kings. He doubted if there would be any such thing, and even asking about them might be considered-well, disagreeable. At least in the Tower of the Serpent they were matrilineal-that is, descent was traced through the mother. They might even be completely matriarchal-ruled by women. If that was the case, the warriors might be only a subordinate caste, and their rule-bound wars would make more sense. The Council of Wisdom could be-

Blade reined himself in sharply. He was not an anthropologist, although he had lived and loved and fought among people that any of a thousand anthropologists would have sold their souls to observe. And even anthropologists were not supposed to let their guesses run along ahead of the facts this way. There was a more immediate problem-his name.

«My mother's name was Elizabeth,» he said.

«A terribly long name,» said Pen-Jerg. «No doubt we can arrange to have it written down properly in the Book of Honor and elsewhere that the scribes insist. But to call you by it every moment of your life-can we shorten it to Liza, perhaps?»

«All right.»

«Good. You will be something-Liza. What does the word 'bla-hayd' mean in English?»

Blade gri

Pen-Jerg stared for a moment, then burst out in roars of delighted laughter. «That is almost too perfect to believe. I ca

«I do.»

Blade didn't see that he had much choice in the matter, in any case. And he noted that Pen-Jerg was quietly accepting his story of coming from a strange people called the English. Apparently now that he had proved he could do things according to the War Wisdom, no one was disposed to argue over where he came from. One more point settled in his favor. But there was something else to mention.

«Pen-Jerg, is there going to be such a thing as a doctor to treat me? That eighth man did give me something of a gash in the shoulder. Or hasn't anybody noticed?» There was a sarcastic ring to his voice as he said the last sentence.