CHAPTER III

CHAOS IN YELLOWDUST


	Never before had Martin Balwin seen a night like this: the stars stabbing like brilliant 
points in low relief against a background of the deepest black and the profoundest mystery.  The 
moon was a cold circle, spreading over the earth her merciless, all-seeing light.  None on the 
ground would escape the lunar glare as the night progressed steadily into the much dreaded late 
hours.  

	It was already very late and he had stayed longer than was wisely necessary.  He hastily 
gathered his instruments and as swiftly as his arthritic legs would permit him, Martin hurried 
across the plains towards the protective shelter of a wood.  The wood would not offer him 
protection if hunters had already sighted him, but at least it contained pockets of concealment 
where he could hide from prying eyes.  He would never be completely safe until he reached the 
haven of his cave.  

	He ducked under the branches of thick bushes as he heard the rumbling of approaching 
traffic in the distance.  His panic was rising and he could hardly restrain the heavy puffs of his 
breathing.  He fell on his stomach and huddled under the foliage, feeling small, cold and naked 
like a snail without a shell. 

	He silently counted the pieces of convoy rolling in a ragged line towards a southerly 
direction.  Four out of the usual formation of ten.  A handful of troopers straggling in the rear.  
An across the boundary skirmish or an encounter with starving deserters?  Or both?  

	Martin breathed easier when the darkness of the Plains had swallowed up the last foot 
soldier.  He was sure they would not be returning; those soldiers had taken a beating and 
appeared to have had enough for the rest of the night.  Their next objective would be shelter and 
a meal rather than going after a lonely man who had broken the curfew on the Hungry Plains. 

	As soon the night grew still again, Martin scrambled to his feet and crept out of the 
bushes.  The trees of the wood grew sparser as he approached the outer fringe but he was not 
unduly worried.  From the thicket borderline the Mountains of the Great Divide were not a long 
hike away.  He halted and once more looked up at the sky.  What is causing the stars to glitter so 
violently tonight, and so ominously close?  Was this not a repetition of an earlier phenomenon?  
He shook his head thoughtfully and plodded forward, clutching the telescope under his armpit 
like a precious object.  

	Before a massive jutting shelf of rock which concealed a path worming up a steep slope, 
he stopped again and listened.  The night was perfectly quiet.  If there were any deserters or 
mountain men on the prowl, they were keeping to themselves.  Martin did not fear these two 
breeds of people; they would mostly be hunting for food or weapons and he had none.  

	He was surprised that the lights were still burning in the cavern.  "Ralph," he called 
softly, almost fearfully, "are you there?" 

	His son appeared from behind a corner of a rocky wall.  "I am here."

	With a heavy sigh Martin deposited his telescope on the makeshift table and his bag of 
paraphernalia on the rough cotton rugs covering the stone floor.  "Why aren't you in bed?" he 
asked wearily.  

	Ralph limped to the sofa.  "I couldn't sleep.  There is too much traffic outside.  The 
mountain hordes are unusually restless this evening.  One troop after the other went past.  I 
haven't heard any sounds of battle though." 

	"There was one," Martin informed while he struggled on his aching feet to the stove in 
the corner, "at least I've escaped within a hair's breadth a company of retreating border soldiers 
and it looks like as if they have met with stiff resistance.  They have nearly lost half of their 
equipment."  

	"I wish," his son said plaintively, "that you wouldn't venture out so much into the Plains 
at night."  

	Martin shrugged while he stooped over the stove, heating up a saucepan of milk.  "I can't 
help it.  I have to know what I want to know, what is written in the stars.  And I can only do so 
on the Plains when the night is bright, like tonight."  He continued energetically, as if struck with 
sudden inspiration: "I'm going to Yellowdust tomorrow.  I have to speak with Shagg, exchange 
views, listen to what he has to say.  He may know much more what is going on around here 
lately."  Holding the mug of foaming milk, he walked back to the table with a new spring in his 
steps. 

	Ralph regarded him with a resigned look.  "I'm going to bed now, father.  Wake me up 
when you're ready to go in the morning.  I'm going with you.  I need to buy some more 
provisions."  

	Martin, too preoccupied with the questions he was asking himself, only nodded.  
Generally, he would scarcely notice how much milk was left in the jar, the number of dwindling 
eggs or the state of the sagging bag of flour.  Ralph usually took care of the mundane matters of 
day-to-day survival.  It was a task his son took upon himself without complaining.  And while 
there was food on the table and no intruder had bothered them for years, Martin had no 
complaints.  The trauma had steadily worn off over the years and he had secretively turned back 
to his studies. 

	He waited until Ralph was in bed and securely asleep.  He stole through the passage into 
the open air again and walked to the rim of the gorge that wound around the ridge of their cave.  
With his back leaning against a boulder he gazed upwards at the nightsky, silver sheen on black 
like rippling oceans of the brightest starshine.   

	So radiant and yet so dangerous, palpitating with numerous legends of honour and 
bravery which were forbidden by law.  His ceaseless study of the stars had led to his downfall 
and flight to the Great Divide, but once more their mysteries drew him back to them with 
magnetic force.  And Martin knew his renewed interest would inevitably lead him, and Ralph, 
into peril.  

	'But tonight's phenomenon is so startling,' he told himself over and over again.  'It is 
telling us something.'  He had to know.  He had to know whether a change had come over the 
world.  

	He had heard rumours that indeed a faint breeze of change was stirring in the air.  It had 
blown westwards across the Atlantic Main from the Continent of Aseur: the formation of the 
Dominion of Aseur and the emergence of the new southern Sovereignty of Vespar, that, as the 
haphazard newsmongers told the curious, had re-opened the doors of science and knowledge to 
the common public.  

	Nevertheless, here in Carmel study of the science of the stars, astronomy, as well as 
astrology, was still punishable by death and Martin contemplated as he returned into the cave 
that there was still a price on his head for daring to hold a secret seminar on the long forgotten 
Legend of the Lords Laris.  

* * *

	Martin awoke from a troubled sleep as beams of sunlight rising from the eastern peak 
poured through the open mouth of the cave and yellow dappled the walls of the narrow passage.  
He pushed himself up from the drooping sofa and heard the creaking of the water pump outside.  
Needless to say, restful sleep had not blessed Ralph for he was not habitually an early riser.  

	Surprisingly, Ralph was as eager as his father to go down into the Town of Yellowdust 
and he had already prepared a spartan breakfast of weak tea and buttered biscuits.  While Martin 
refreshed himself at the wooden trough that stood at the rim of the hole of clear mountain water, 
Ralph put together a food package of brown bread and salted meat for lunch and dinner in his 
knapsack.  Since they had to go on foot, it would be a long hike, taking their meals on the road.  

	Martin was anxious to go at once and since it was broad daylight they took to the Plains 
with no qualms.  It was midsummer.  There was little wind and strips of yellow mist were curling 
over the bare stretches of the Plains.  In the far distance, up north, a dark cloud of carrion birds 
swirled in the sky but since they were walking southeastwards they took no notice and they 
would soon leave that spot of horror far behind them.  

	It was already late in the afternoon when they had crossed the boundary of the Plains and 
came upon a rugged stretch of grit road where they were joined by an unusually large number of 
other travellers, refugees fleeing from the northern borders of Carmel.  Ralph leant against his 
crutch and his brown eyes moodily observed the bands of people streaming across the Plains into 
distant Yellowdust.  

	"Father," he said aloud, "it seems that the battle you mentioned last night was worst than 
we thought." 

	"Damn right you are!" a voice boomed at them from the road.  "Xandian troops 
bombarded a border town last night.  Not a wall was left standing.  What you see before you are 
the pitiful remnants of its citizenry." 

	A horse-drawn cart had pulled up beside them on the edge of the road and a shirtless 
giant was studying them with half-closed eyes under bushy eyebrows.  Two young children, a 
boy and a girl, sat beside him on the box and studied them with hunger on their faces.  

	"Are you going to Yellowdust?" the big man asked, "I can drive you there in exchange 
for some food.  We haven't eaten for two days." 

	Ralph glanced at his father and Martin shrugged.  They climbed into the backseat of the 
cart and Ralph opened his knapsack and distributed the food around.  Their meagre rations for 
dinner disappeared in a blink of an eye.  

	Martin heaved a sigh. "Perhaps Shagg can provide us with more nutriments," he 
consolingly told Ralph.  Afterwards he withdrew into himself and spoke no further word other 
than keeping his eyes on the road.  He was still a marked man but at present the authorities of the 
Hungry Plains had their hands full with other pressing matters.  The duty to bring an erring 
university lecturer to justice paled beside the need to counter the aggressive hordes of Xandia 
across the border. 

	The two children had snuggled into the backseat for some sleep and Ralph took their 
place on the box.  "Can our soldiers do nothing to stop the Xandians?" he asked their father.  

	"Nah!" the big man burst out. "Our soldiers are children compared to the Black-Clads.  
They were completely taken by surprise.  The Xandians came crashing in with cavalry, gliders 
and rumblers.  Our own feeble army hasn't got a hope in hell!  They were obliterated."  

	"Gliders and rumblers" Ralph mused, "isn't it rather a somewhat excessive punitive 
expedition against a border town." 

	"There are rumours," the driver hissed from the corner of his mouth, "that this is only a 
precursor of a much larger action."  The bristles on his chin tickled Ralph's ear as he whispered, 
"An invasion, they say. The Xandians have become Magnificent Xandians.  But of course we are 
not permitted to discuss things like this."  

	Ralph was astonished.  "Why?  Why suddenly all this activity?"  

	"Put up your best smile, boy," the driver bellowed, "here come the Deputies!" 

	Ralph made a spasmodic movement towards his father but Martin had already noticed the 
the yellow-brown uniforms amongst the multitude.  He remained absolutely calm; the Deputies 
seemed only to cursorily inspect the throngs of people streaming into Yellowdust.  One with gun 
in hand and dark rings under his eyes came closer.  

	"What have we here?  No horses in town.  Leave your cart outside if you want to enter.  
Refugees?  All of you?  Papers burnt in the assault?  OK, move on!" 

	The Deputy swaggered threateningly towards the next group in line as the big driver 
clicked his tongue and broke clear from the crowd, manoeuvering his cart onto the fields.  On the 
outskirts of Yellowdust, Martin and Ralph parted from the driver and his family.

	The streets of the town were cluttered with worried citizenry.  The atmosphere crackled 
with the buzz of approaching bloodshed.  People sticking together in whispering bands and 
unsticking like maddened wasps when some person of authority approached, merchants 
nervously measuring their inventory, shoppers hauling in as many goods as they could, others 
nailing wooden boards across their windows.  Fearfully Martin looked upon the drawn curtains 
of Shagg's house and knocked upon the door.  

	He knocked for a second time when no answer was received, and persistently a third and 
a fourth time.  A bloodshot eye appeared from behind one fringe of a curtain and the next 
moment the front door grated ajar.  

	"Come in, quick!" a voice hissed from the other side of the door. 

	They stumbled into a darkened room and Ralph yelped when his lame leg caught at a low 
stool.  "Quiet!" the voice ordered and impatient hands pulled them to a small room at the back of 
the house where the windows were already boarded up completely and a kerosene lamp was 
struggling to keep up a diminutive flame.  Martin threw a glance at his friend and was astonished 
to see that he was dressed as if he was going on a long journey.  

	"Well Balwin," Shagg said with a welcoming grin, "were your knocks less polite and less 
persistent I would have left you standing on the street.  An easy prey for the Deputies.  And 
eventually you would have led them back to me while I want them to believe that I have cleared 
out but I haven't yet."  

	Martin stood forlornly with arms hanging at his sides, the creases deepening in his tired 
face.  "You, Shagg, going away?  Why all this suddenness?" 

	"Not at all so sudden, no, I don't think so.  I have seen this coming for weeks, and I have 
no stomach to witness the final debacle.  But of course you, up there in your cave, are absolutely 
cut off from the rest of the world.  Here is the latest news, Martin.  There is a new Paramountcy 
in Xandia and it has broken the treaty with Carmel.  It has every intention of annexing Carmel, 
and all the other states of the Southern Belt into the new Dominion of Magnificent Xandia.  And 
do you know why?  Because the Southern Belt controls the harbours along the Main which have 
access to Aseur.  Even as we speak, the Magni-Xandians are trampling all over the Hungry 
Plains into Yellowdust.  No man, woman or child will be safe.  They will make a clean sweep of 
everything and everyone!" 

	Shagg sank down on a chair and zipped open his coat.  His eyes were seeking Martin's.  
"Carmel is calling up all its reservists, and many others.  They want engineers, scientists.  I was 
an engineer in the past, so I am one at the top of the list.  How they manage to trail me to this 
hellhole really beats me.  But I am not going to fight a losing battle, Martin, and I have enough 
of skullduggery.  I am leaving the sinking ship."  He paused for breath.  "Come with me, 
Martin."

	"Where can we go?" Martin asked hopelessly.  

	"To Aseur.  The new Dominion appears to be strong.  The future is there."  

	"I don't know."  

	Shagg jumped to his feet and furiously grabbed Martin's thin shoulders.  "You must 
come, Martin.  What is there to stay for now?  A cave in the mountains?  A man in disgrace, 
running from the authorities?  Aseur is opening up, the people there may have need of you, your 
expertise.  Think of the opportunities for you, and Ralph.  Don't worry about funds.   I have 
withdrawn all my savings from the bank.  We have enough to share until we arrive in Aseur.  
What do you say, eh?"

	"Father, I think he is right," Ralph said.  

	Martin said hesitantly:  "I--"

	His words were cut off by a furious banging on the front door.  Shagg, wheezing an oath, 
doused the kerosene lamp with a flick of his fingers and they were smothered up by instant total 
darkness.  The flimsy wooden walls of the house clattered under the persistent drumming and it 
seemed to them, crouching in the little airless room, as if a platoon was trying to break through 
the door.  Then it ceased, plunging them into a deafening silence. 

	Slowly Shagg groped to his feet and whispered to his companions:  "They are looking for 
me.  It will be dark in an hour.  We have to stay here and wait.  There is no other way."  

	Martin and Ralph could not think of any other way, or how and why Shagg had managed 
to so dramatically increase his popularity with the Carmel Paramountcy and they agreed with 
him to wait until nightfall.  They huddled together in the dark, not daring to rekindle the 
kerosene lamp, or to move freely, least of all to speak.  They listened as throughout Yellowdust 
chaos held sway: men shouting with anger and fear, children screeching for their near and dear, 
the rumbling of vehicles, the tramping of frantic feet.  It lasted unabated into the first hours of 
dusk.  By then individual cries of panic had crescendoed into a chorus of mass hysteria. 

	"It is time for us to move," Shagg said.

	With a grateful sigh Martin pushed to his feet, with one hand supporting Ralph who made 
clumsy movements to retrieve his crutch.  They could hear Shagg moving about gathering his 
things and presently they felt his hands guiding them through the narrow interior of the 
ramshackle house to the backdoor.  

	Outside it was as dark as it was inside, all the streetlamps had been extinguished, all the 
houses in the vicinity reduced to liveless, blackened squares but the streets were alive with wave 
upon wave of agitated people spilling in various directions.  A pale moon peered through fleets 
of clouds, observing passively the breaking up of Yellowdust.  The stars were no longer fully 
visible. 

	Gazing upwards Shagg shook his head: "The storm clouds are coming fast and furious!" 

	He roughly pushed his two companions forward.  "We don't have a moment to lose.  I 
have a gut feeling that a stampede is soon to be unleashed."

	"Where are we going?" Ralph asked in an uncertain voice. 

	"My notion," Shagg replied, "is to walk or attempt to hitch a ride with one of the cart 
drivers towards the east coast.  Once we reach the harbour we will book passage on a ship."

	"We have no papers," Martin patiently reminded him.  

	"I think of something once we're there," Shagg impatiently retorted.  

	He was almost knocked off his feet by a harried looking family of five.  At the same time 
a wave of intensified alarm and terror seemed to grip the crowd on the streets and pockets of 
people started a riot.  

	"What is going on?" Shagg growled, taking hold of the patriarchal looking member of the 
group of five. 

	"Haven't you heard?" the patriarch panted. "All roads to the east coast have been taken 
by gliders.  The route to the harbour is cut off!" 

	Shagg's little group backed out from the main streets into an isolated alley.  The 
stampede which Shagg had predicted materialized within minutes, but in the opposite direction, 
westwards, onto the Plains.  

	"What do we do now?"  Ralph asked. 

	Shagg frowned at them grimly. "What else is there to do.  There is no longer a safe place 
under the sun.  Except of course," he hesitated before continuing, "your cave up in the 
mountains." 

	Martin was instantly stung into energy and his eyes brightened up.  The mountains were 
his familiar stamping ground, not so the East Coast from where he had fled in mortal fear for his 
life, or even Aseur with its promises of new liberties.  He needed time to reflect, to plot the next 
course of his destiny.  

	"Come," he said, "let's not waste another minute.  The Plains are usually out of bounds 
after dark but I don't think it matters now.  Nevertheless, let's not waste time."  

	Shagg and Ralph followed him, pushing and elbowing their way through an increasingly 
violent crowd.  In a dark corner of a street Deputies were stringing a twitching body up a 
lamppost and Shagg dragged the two of them roughly into an abandoned house.  Coming out 
again from a side door they continued their flight out of Yellowdust.  They only stopped along 
their way when they were passing a ransacked shop or a vandalized foodstand, to help 
themselves with what was left, and only permitting themselves to do so because Ralph asked 
them to.  Both Martin and Shagg were anxious and impatient to cross the Plains as soon as 
possible but they could see the wisdom of pilfering as much food as circumstances permitted 
before their final escape.  In the end, Shagg even broke into a warehouse, hauling away three 
pairs of furlined hunting outfits and a couple of flannel shirts.  

	"Might come in handy," he grinned, "a pity they don't have weapons lying around to help 
ourselves to."  

	Yellowdust disgorged its fleeing citizens in one ragged wave, which then scattered into 
clumps and packs across the fields and over the grit road.  Some of them collided with the gush 
of refugees still pouring in from the north.  The crackling of rifle fire mingled with the screaming 
of horses and the bellows of men and the squirming confusion ultimately spread out like a dark 
spill over the Plains.  

	The Hungry Plains absorbed the whole lot of them like a polluted sea and the spill 
fragmented further as it trickled deeper into the weedlands until men and beasts were totally 
consumed by the yellow spires of the fangweed.  The sky along the northwestern horizon was 
tinted with a dark red as if a new dawn was about to rise in alien glory. 

	Martin and his companions were still plodding through the heartland of the Plains when 
the colours of the true dawn were unfurling along the eastern rim.  They had lost sight of the 
other refugees.  A steady wind had stuck up and a chill replaced the heat of the previous day.  
They reached the fringe of the small wood when the sun had risen high in the sky and splashed 
the fallow weed with hues of a darker gold.  

	Ralph halted and said:  "I need to collect some more wood for the stove.  I can manage, 
you two go ahead."  

	"Right," his father nodded, "hand over your knapsack and the other bag.  We will take 
them to the cave."  

	Left alone, Ralph took a rest and settled down beneath a tree, scraping out of his pocket 
some biscuits he had saved.  He nibbled on them with half-closed eyes, leaning his head against 
a branch and stretching his weary legs.  Their flight across the Plains had been punishing, 
particularly for him.  None of them savoured the thought of bringing other, unwanted guests to 
the sanctuary of the cave and they were anxious to break free of the milling crowd and leave it 
far behind them.  Fortunately stories of atrocities, real or imagined, committed by deserters or 
mountain dwellers, had stigmatized this area as forbidding territory.  Unfamiliars did not have 
the heart to venture further and deeper.  

	Reluctantly Ralph pulled to his feet.  He needed to soak himself in a hot bath tonight; it 
would soothe his tired lame leg.  The bath would do the same for his father's arthritis, long 
deprived of medical care, although in the last twenty-four hours no complaint had passed through 
his father's lips.  

	"He would suffer doubly tonight, you can be sure of that, after all this excitement has 
died down," Ralph muttered as he bent low over his task, collecting the brushwood they needed 
to stoke a roaring fire for their tub of bathwater.  He had looked forward to being alone for a 
while, occupying his mind with the necessities of down-to-earth household duties.  The 
preoccupation relaxed his muscles, unwound his tensions and he felt almost happy when he 
looked at the heap of dry wood he had managed to assemble.  Fastening the pile with his belt, he 
swung it onto his back and started on his way homewards. 

	He immediately became aware that something was terribly amiss ten steps before he 
cleared the snake path below the sloping shelf.  The dirt and the undergrowth before him was 
trampled and violated by, it seemed, a hundred struggling feet.  Creeping closer to the end of the 
path he saw what he feared:  the scattered remains of a desperate battle before the mouth of their 
cave.  Even as he was still breathlessly summing up the situation and uncertain what to do next, 
two black-clad men emerged from the cave, nonchalantly balancing their weapons on the crooks 
of their arms and enthusiastically munching food, evidently the same he, his father and Shagg 
had looted from Yellowdust.  

	Ralph slid backwards down the path, holding his breath fearfully.  Only when he reached 
the foot of the Great Divide did he dare to stand up and hobble madly back into the wood, where 
he threw down his burden.  He went up the slopes through another path, which wound along the 
edge of a deep ravine and brought him to a ridge that overlooked a sprawling forest of cedars.  
He went on, scrambling up, then scrambling down, limping with his heart pounding in his chest.  
Finally he came down to the valley, to a strip of woodland from where he could see the waters of 
the lake twinkling through the ranks of cedars.  

	He collapsed behind a bush, his throat choking with sobs.  He shed no tears; tears had 
long since been squeezed dry.  He expressed his sorrow through the spasmodic heaving of his 
chest, the hopeless pumping of a grief valve which gave no relief.  The intruders had been total 
strangers.  Their gleaming arms, unfamiliar apparel and grim exterior made them far more 
sinister than the fierce tribes habitually roaming the slopes of the mountains and no mercy could 
be expected from them.  

	Gradually he calmed down, lying prostrate on the grass, trying to think, to find a way 
how to live on.  The sound of laughter winged down on him from afar.  

	Ralph shot up on his knees, still crouching low behind the bush.  He was no longer alone 
for on the shores of the lake he saw another group of intruders and he nearly forgot to breathe as 
he watched their strange antics in fascination. 

	His breathing became more stertorous as he kept watching that odd little band making 
merry on the beach of the lake and he feared his curiosity would give him away sooner or later.  
His clammy hands clutched at the roots of the bushes as he heard how their laughter changed to 
gasps of horror when a still body drifted to the shore.  It was still too far for Ralph to hear exactly 
what they were saying, speaking in a very strange tongue which he had never heard before, as 
the three of them pulled the body onto the beach and crowded around it in obvious consternation. 

	"WHO are those people and what are they doing here?" Ralph hoarsely whispered.  

	"And who are YOU?" a voice asked behind his ear.  

	Startled Ralph quickly rolled on his back and with equal swiftness the point of a dagger 
was thrust against his throat.  

	"Don't move," the attacker warned, speaking with a strangely crisp accent that sounded 
oddly metallic, "or even speak."  

	Ralph lay back on the grass as if paralyzed.  He was sure that he had come face to face 
with another intruder and the commanding glint in those extraordinary, wondrously vivid eyes 
that looked deep into his own was a more effective deterrent than that bright long, slim dagger at 
his throat, sparkling like a string of diamonds beneath the undergrowth.