To Conquer Chaos Read Free Page A

less colour and detail by several other people in Esberg to be true memories? Yet it seemed they must be. When Duke Paul decided to base experiments on some of these fantastic tales even Yanderman, whose admiration for the duke was boundless, wondered whether he was wasting his time. He was not; many useful instruments, such as the searchlights guarding the campsite, and even the guns which armed the troops, were derived from old wives’ tales. You might say, of course, that this was a subconscious fitting-together of available facts which any inventor of new devices applied more systematically. You might. The Duke didn’t.
    Encouraged, Duke Paul selected another kind of tale for investigation—the tale of a great city three days’ journey north of Esberg, with a million people in it. A ludicrous fantasy!
    Yet three days’ journey north the men he sent out came upon mounds and hillocks clothed with greenery, gnawed by time, and dug into them. And there they found, true enough, pieces of worked metal, shards of strong glass, corroded household utensils, and more objects than anyone could have imagined.
    And indeed now the proofs were beyond arguing. For ever since they set out on this greatest expedition of all, to see whether the legendary barrenland was real, Granny Jassy had been able to tell them of the terrain ahead—not as it was today, but as it might have been in the weird but consistent world of the old tales, when men lived in the gigantic cities of which the ruins had been discovered, when they flew through the air and even … no, that was imagination, surely! To fly in the air was vaguely conceivable; birds and insects did it. But to fly beyond the air, to other worlds, was ridiculous. And even that absurdity paled beside the ultimate: the story of walking to other worlds than this.
    “You look solemn, Yan!” Duke Paul boomed, and Yanderman came back from his musing with a start. Granny Jassy was getting off the couch. The crystal ball on its length of chain had vanished into the Duke’s pouch again. Kesford was going over his notes, correcting his writing so he could read it back tomorrow.
    “I am,” Yanderman agreed. “I grow confused with the mixture of certainty and fancy which confronts us—as though somehow a little nightmare had leaked into the waking world.”
    “Assuredly a beast such as attacked Ampier smacks of some playful god’s whimsy,” the Duke said. He rubbed his hands together. “Nonetheless he killed it, and lives—or will, providing that green horror on his shirt doesn’t take root in his blood. I confess I held the tales of monsters from the barrenland too lightly, or I’d not have sent out scouts singly. Tomorrow we’ll do otherwise. We’ll send a party of a dozen, fully-armed.”
    Yanderman nodded. “I do take it as heartening,” he said, “that men manage to live almost on the edge of the barrenland.”
    Duke Paul chuckled. “You noted that! Good, good! Yes, we must gain all the information we can from those best fitted to tell us. Get the exactest details of Ampier’s route, and make straight for this smudge of smoke he fancied he saw. If it proves to be other than a village, go beyond it till you find people.”
    Well, that was how one usually received orders from Duke Paul. Yanderman shrugged. “I’ll do so,” he agreed. “I’ll leave directly after dawn.”
    He paused, expecting something further. But as far as Duke Paul was concerned the matter was settled. Already he had gone back to his maps, and his head was bowed as though tilted forward by the weight of his enormous beard.

III

    Since the army from Esberg was on a peaceful mission—so long as everyone else was willing to let them go through—and since they were also in a hurry, they moved quickly and without trying to be inconspicuous. They were a most impressive sight on the road, covering their steady three miles an hour: two thousand men with four hundred and ten animals, red and black banners