by Andre Norton
16. THIRD PRISONER
"Well, it works as good as new." Shann held his hand and arm out intothe full path of the sun. He had just stripped off the skin-casebandage, to show the raw seam of a half-healed scar, but as he flexedmuscles, bent and twisted his arm, there was only a small residue ofsoreness left.
"Now what, or where?" he asked Thorvald with some eagerness. Severaldays' imprisonment in this room had made him impatient for the outerworld again. Like the officer, he now wore breeches of the green fabric,the only material known to the Wyverns, and his own badly worn boots.Oddly enough, the Terrans' weapons, stunner and knife, had been left tothem, a point which made them uneasy, since it suggested that theWyverns believed they had nothing to fear from clumsy alien arms.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Thorvald answered that double question."But it is you they want to see; they insisted upon it, ratheremphatically in fact."
The Wyvern city existed as a series of cell-like hollows in the interiorof a rock-walled island. Outside there had been no tampering with thenatural rugged features of the escarpment, and within, the silence wasalmost complete. For all the Terrans could learn, the population of thestone-walled hive might have been several thousand, or just the handfulthat they had seen with their own eyes along the passages which had beendeclared open territory for them.
Shann half expected to find again a skull-walled chamber where witchestossed colored sticks to determine his future. But he came with Thorvaldinto an oval room in which most of the outer wall was a window. Andseeing what lay framed in that, Shann halted, again uncertain as towhether he actually saw that, or whether he was willed into visualizinga scene by the choice of his hostesses.
They were lower now than the room in which he had nursed his wound, notfar above water level. And this window faced the sea. Across a stretchof green water was his red-purple skull, the waves lapping its lowerjaw, spreading their foam in between the gaping rock-fringe which formedits teeth. And from the eye hollows flapped the clak-claks of the seacoast, coming and going as if they carried to some imprisoned brainwithin that giant bone case messages from the outer world.
"My dream----" Shann said.
"Your dream." Thorvald had not echoed that; the answer had come in hisbrain.
Shann turned his head and surveyed the Wyvern awaiting them with aconcentration which was close to the rudeness of an outright stare, astare which held no friendship. For by her skin patterns he knew her forthe one who had led that triumvir who had sent him into the cavern ofthe mist. And with her was the younger witch he had trapped on the nightthat all this baffling action had begun.
"We meet again," he said slowly. "To what purpose?"
"To our purpose ... and yours----"
"I do not doubt that it is to yours." The Terran's thoughts fell easilynow into a formal pattern he would not have used with one of his ownkind. "But I do not expect any good to me...."
There was no readable expression on her face; he did not expect to seeany. But in their uneven mind touch he caught a fleeting suggestion ofbewilderment on her part, as if she found his mental processes as hardto understand as a puzzle with few leading clues.
"We mean you no ill, star voyager. You are far more than we firstthought you, for you have dreamed false and have known. Now dream true,and know it also."
"Yet," he challenged, "you would set me a task without my consent."
"We have a task for you, but already it was set in the pattern of yourtrue dreaming. And we do not set such patterns, star man; that is doneby the Greatest Power of all. Each lives within her appointed patternfrom the First Awakening to the Final Dream. So we do not ask of you anymore than that which is already laid for your doing."
She arose with that languid grace which was a part of their delicatejeweled bodies and came to stand beside him, a child in size, making hisTerran flesh and bones awkward, clodlike in contrast. She stretched outher four-digit hand, her slender arm ringed with gemmed circles andbands, measuring it beside his own, bearing that livid scar.
"We are different, star man, yet still are we both dreamers. And dreamshold power. Your dreams brought you across the dark which lies betweensun and distant sun. Our dreams carry us on even stranger roads. Andyonder"--one of her fingers stiffened to a point, indicating theskull--"there is another who dreams with power, a power which willdestroy us all unless the pattern is broken speedily."
"And I must go to seek this dreamer?" His vision of climbing throughthat nose hole was to be realized then.
"You go."
Thorvald stirred and the Wyvern turned her head to him. "Alone," sheadded. "For this is your dream only, as it has been from the beginning.There is for each his own dream, and another cannot walk through it toalter the pattern, even to save a life."
Shann grinned crookedly, without humor. "It seems that I'm elected," hesaid as much to himself as to Thorvald. "But what do I do with thisother dreamer?"
"What your pattern moves you to do. Save that you do not slay him----"
"Throg!" Thorvald started forward. "You can't just walk in on a Throgbarehanded and be bound by orders such as that!"
The Wyvern must have caught the sense of that vocal protest, for hercommunication touched them both. "We cannot deal with that one as hismind is closed to us. Yet he is an elder among his kind and his peoplehave been searching land and sea for him since his air rider broke uponthe rocks and he entered into hiding over there. Make your peace withhim if you can, and also take him hence, for his dreams are not ours,and he brings confusion to the Reachers when they retire to run theTrails of Seeking."
"Must be an important Throg," Shann deduced. "They could have an officerof the beetle-heads under wraps over there. Could we use him to bargainwith the rest?"
Thorvald's frown did not lighten. "We've never been able to establishany form of contact in the past, though our best qualified minds,reinforced by training, have tried...."
Shann did not take fire at that rather delicate estimate of his own lackof preparation for the carrying out of diplomatic negotiations with theenemy; he knew it was true. But there was one thing he could try--if theWyverns permitted.
"Will you give a disk of power to this star man?" He pointed toThorvald. "For he is my Elder One and a Reacher for Knowledge. With sucha focus his dream could march with mine when I go to the Throg, andperhaps that can aid in my doing what I could not accomplish alone. Forthat is the secret of _my_ people, Elder One. We link our powerstogether to make a shield against our enemies, a common tool for thework we must do."
"And so it is with us also, star voyager. We are not so unlike as thefoolish might think. We learned much of you while you both wandered inthe Place of False Dreams. But our power disks are our own and can notbe given to a stranger while their owners live. However...." She turnedagain with an abruptness foreign to the usual Wyvern manner and facedthe older Terran.
The officer might have been obeying an unvoiced order as he put out hishands and laid them palm to palm on those she held up to him, bendinghis head so gray eyes met golden ones. The web of communication whichhad held all three of them snapped. Thorvald and the Wyvern were linkedin a tight circuit which excluded Shann.
Then the latter became conscious of movement beside him. The youngerWyvern had joined him to watch the clak-claks in their circling of thebare dome of the skull island.
"Why do they fly so?" Shann asked her.
"Within they nest, care for their young. Also they hunt the rockcreatures that swarm in the lower darkness."
"The rock creatures?" If the skull's interior was infested by some othernative fauna, he wanted to know it.
By some method of her own the young Wyvern conveyed a strong impressionof revulsion, which was her personal reaction to the "rock creatures."
"Yet you imprison the Throg there----" he remarked.
"Not so!" Her denial was instantaneous and vehement. "The other worlderfled into that place in spite of our calling. There he stays in hiding.Once we drew him out to th
e sea, but he broke the power and fled insideagain."
"Broke free----" Shann pounced upon that. "From disk control?"
"But surely." Her reply held something of wonder. "Why do you ask, starvoyager? Did you not also break free from the power of the disk when Iled you by the underground ways, awaking in the river? Do you then ratethis other one as less than your own breed that you think him incapableof the same action?"
"Of Throgs I know as much as this...." He held up his hand, measuringoff a fraction of space between thumb and forefinger.
"Yet you knew them before you came to this world."
"My people have known them for long. We have met and fought many timesamong the stars."
"And never have you talked mind to mind?"
"Never. We have sought for that, but there has been no communicationbetween us, neither of mind nor of voice."
"This one you name Throg is truly not as you," she assented. "And we arenot as you, being alien and female. Yet, star man, you and I have shareda dream."
Shann stared at her, startled, not so much by what she said as the humanshading of those words in his mind. Or had that also been illusion?
"In the veil ...that creature which came to you on wings when youremembered that. A good dream, though it came out of the past and so wasfalse in the present. But I have gathered it into my own store: such afine dream, one that you have cherished."
"Trav was to be cherished," he agreed soberly. "I found her in a brokensleep cage at a spaceport when I was a child. We were both cold andhungry, alone and hurt. So I stole and was glad that I stole Trav. For alittle space we both were very happy...." Forcibly he stifled memory.
"So, though we are unlike in body and in mind, yet we find beautytogether if only in a dream. Therefore, between your people and minethere can _be_ a common speech. And I may show you my dream store foryour enjoyment, star voyager."
A flickering of pictures, some weird, some beautiful, all a littledistorted--not only by haste, but also by the haze of alienness whichwas a part of her memory pattern--crossed Shann's mind.
"Such a sharing would be a rich feast," he agreed.
"All right!" Those crisp words in his own tongue brought Shann away fromthe window to Thorvald. The Survey officer was no longer locked hand tohand with the Wyvern witch, but his features were alive with a neweagerness.
"We are going to try your idea, Lantee. They'll provide me with a new,unmarked disk, show me how to use it. And I'll do what I can to back youwith it. But they insist that you go today."
"What do they really want me to do? Just rout out that Throg? Or try totalk him into being a go-between with his people? That _does_ come underthe heading of dreaming!"
"They want him out of there, back with his own kind if possible.Apparently he's a disruptive influence for them; he causes some kind ofa mental foul up which interferes drastically with their 'power.' Theyhaven't been able to get him to make any contact with them. This ElderOne is firm about your being the one ordained for the job, and thatyou'll know what action to take when you get there."
"Must have thrown the sticks for me again," Shann commented.
"Well, they've definitely picked you to smoke out the Throg, and theycan't be talked into changing their minds about that."
"I'll be the smoked one if he has a blaster."
"They say he's unarmed----"
"What do they know about our weapons or a Throg's?"
"The other one has no arms." Wyvern words in his mind again. "This factgives him great fear. That which he has depended upon is broken. Andsince he has no weapon, he is shut into a prison of his own terrors."
But an adult Throg, even unarmed, was not to be considered easy meat,Shann thought. Armored with horny skin, armed with claws and thosecrushing mandibles of the beetle mouth ... a third again as tall as hehimself was. No, even unarmed, the Throg had to be considered a menace.
Shann was still thinking along that line as he splashed through the surfwhich broke about the lower jaw of the skull island, climbed up one ofthe pointed rocks which masqueraded as a tooth, and reached for a higherhold to lead him to the nose slit, the gateway to the alien's hidingplace.
The clak-claks screamed and dived about him, highly resentful of hisintrusion. And when they grew so bold as to buffet him with their wings,threaten him with their tearing beaks, he was glad to reach the brokenrock edging his chosen door and duck inside. Once there, Shann lookedback. There was no sighting the cliff window where Thorvald stood, norwas he aware in any way of mental contact with the Survey officer; theirhope of such a linkage might be futile.
Shann was reluctant to venture farther. His eyes had sufficientlyadjusted to the limited supply of light, and now the Terran brought outthe one aid the Wyverns had granted him, a green crystal such as thosewhich had played the role of stars on the cavern roof. He clipped itssimple loop setting to the front of his belt, leaving his hands free.Then, having filled his lungs for the last time with clean, sea-washedair, he started into the dome of the skull.
There was a fetid thickness to this air only a few feet away from theouter world. The odor of clak-clak droppings and refuse from their nestswas strong, but there was an added staleness, as if no breeze everscooped out the old atmosphere to replace it with new. Fragile bonescrunched under Shann's boots, but as he drew away from the entrance, thepale glow of the crystal increased its radiance, emitting a light notunlike that of the phosphorescent bushes, so that he was not swallowedup by dark.
The cave behind the nose hole narrowed quickly into a cleft, a narrowcleft which pierced into the bowl of the skull. Shann proceeded withcaution, pausing every few steps. There came a murmur rising now andagain to a shriek, issuing, he guessed, from the clak-clak rookeryabove. And the pound of sea waves was also a vibration carrying throughthe rock. He was listening for something else, at the same time testingthe ill-smelling air for that betraying muskiness which spelled Throg.
When a twist in the narrow passage cut off the splotch of daylight,Shann drew his stunner. The strongest bolt from that could not jolt aThrog into complete paralysis, but it would slow up any attack.
Red--pinpoints of red--were edging a break in the rock wall. They weregone in a flash. Eyes? Perhaps of the rock dwellers which the Wyvernshated? More red dots, farther ahead. Shann listened for a sound he couldidentify.
But smell came before sound. That trace of effluvia which in force couldsicken a Terran, was his guide. The cleft ended in a space to which thelimited gleam of the crystal could not provide a far wall. But thatfaint light did show him his quarry.
The Throg was not on his feet, ready for trouble, but hunched close tothe wall. And the alien did not move at Shann's coming. Did thebeetle-head sight him? Shann wondered. He moved cautiously. And theround head, with its bulbous eyes, turned a fraction; the mandiblesabout the the ugly mouth opening quivered. Yes, the Throg could see him.
But still the alien made no move to rise out of his crouch, to come atthe Terran. Then Shann saw the fall of rock, the stone which pinned adouble-kneed leg to the floor. And in a circle about the prisoner werethe small, crushed, furred things which had come to prey on the helplessto be slain themselves by the well-aimed stones which were the Throg'sonly weapons of defense.
Shann sheathed his stunner. It was plain the Throg was helpless andcould not reach him. He tried to concentrate mentally on a picture ofthe scene before him, hoping that Thorvald or one of the Wyverns couldpick it up. There was no answer, no direction. Choice of action remainedsolely his.
The Terran made the oldest friendly gesture of his kind; his empty handsheld up, palm out. There was no answering move from the Throg. Neitherof the other's upper limbs stirred, their claws still gripping the smallrocks in readiness for throwing. All Shann's knowledge of the alien'shistory argued against an unarmed advance. The Throg's marksmanship, asborne out by the circle of small bodies, was excellent. And one of thoserocks might well thud against his own head, with fatal results. Yet hehad been sent there to get the Throg
free and out of Wyvern territory.
So rank was the beetle smell of the other that Shann coughed. What heneeded now was the aid of the wolverines, a diversion to keep the alienbusy. But this time there was no disk working to produce Taggi and Togiout of thin air. And he could not continue to just stand there staringat the Throg. There remained the stunner. Life on the Dumps tended tomake a man a fast draw, a matter of survival for the fastest and mostaccurate marksman. And now one of Shann's hands swept down with a speedwhich, learned early, was never really to be forgotten.
He had the rod out and was spraying on tight beam straight at theThrog's head before the first stone struck his shoulder and his weaponfell from a numbed hand. But a second stone tumbled out of the Throg'sclaw. The alien tried to reach for it, his movements slow, uncertain.
Shann, his arm dangling, went in fast, bracing his good shoulder againstthe boulder which pinned the Throg. The alien aimed a blow at theTerran's head, but again so slowly Shann had no difficulty in evadingit. The boulder gave, rolled, and Shann cleared out of range, back tothe opening of the cleft, pausing only to scoop up his stunner.
For a long moment the Throg made no move; his dazed wits must have beenworking at very slow speed. Then the alien heaved up his body to standerect, favoring the leg which had been trapped. Shann tensed, waitingfor a rush. What now? Would the Throg refuse to move? If so, what couldhe do about it?
With the impact of a blow, the message Shann had hoped for struck intohis mind. But his initial joy at that contact was wiped out with thesame speed.
"Throg ship ... overhead."
The Throg stood away from the wall, limped out, heading for Shann, orperhaps only the cleft in which he stood. Swinging the stunner awkwardlyin his left hand, the Terran retreated, mentally trying to contactThorvald once more. There was no answer. He was well up into the cleft,moving crabwise, unwilling to turn his back on the Throg. The alien wascoming as steadily as his injured limb would allow, trying for the exitto the outer world.
A Throg ship overhead.... Had the castaway somehow managed to call hisown kind? And what if he, Shann Lantee, were to be trapped between thealien and a landing party from the flyer? He did not expect anyassistance from the Wyverns, and what could Thorvald possibly do? Frombehind him, at the entrance of the nose slit, he heard a sound--a soundwhich was neither the scolding of a clak-clak nor the eternal growl ofthe sea.