Hiero Desteen: 01 - Hiero's Journey

by Sterling E. Lanier

  The long, wailing cry. "Land���hooooo," woke him up on the instant. Light, the gray light of dawn, was streaming in through an open cabin porthole. And then, as he sat up, he remembered! The memory was of the compass machine he had destroyed weeks ago, far up in the Palood! It had been a telltale, an Unclean homing device! And, for a dead rat's skin, so too were these damned mind locks!

  In an instant, ignoring Luchare's startled cry, he was on deck, bellowing for the captain, yelling for Brother Aldo. Both appeared instantly and watched in horrified fascination as he smashed both locks on the deck, using a handy belaying pin. As he did so, he gasped out the reason, and the alarm flew in their eyes. Only when the deadly things were powdered metal did he look up and see where Foam Girl was heading.

  The forest of the South! Not a mile away rose a rank of such trees as he had hardly dreamed possible, even though he had been warned what to expect. The actual shore was invisible, screened by rank growth, mostly bushes and shrubs, all of different shades of green. And behind them in turn reared up the giants of the forest, showing black boles, brown trunks, tan bark, and all the hues and permutations of brown to black, with reddish glints here and there. The Metz almost had to arch his back to see their incredible tops. Around some of the great trunks and hanging from the lofty branches, there twisted vines and lianas of every hue, some of whose girth looked greater than that of Foam Girl's hull! Splotches of color, mostly blazing reds and yellows, here and there revealed the presence of giant, flowering plants which clung to the trees far up their enormous lengths. Through Gimp's proffered telescope, Hiero could see a mass of intertwined, smaller plants festooning every vacant space between the boughs. The smells of the titanic forest reached out across the water to them, a medley of strange scents and musky perfumes. Beside Hiero's head, Klootz suddenly bellowed from his pen, as if in greeting to a wood greater than any he had ever known. The answering call of some strange monster, a thunderous roar, echoed back faintly from the distant shore, and a flight of large, white birds rose from the foliage directly in front of them. A physical wave of warmth seemed to reach out to them.

  "Can you get her in quicker?" The priest turned to Gimp in question. "I'm suddenly horribly afraid. We've given someone a constant clue to our position for over two days. And we're not far from Neeyana, which they control." He ignored Luchare, who now came on deck fully dressed and moved up to his side. But she seemed not to mind and bent to adjust her boots.

  "Well, Master Hiero, you can see the sails are half-brailed," the little seaman said. "I don't dare go ramming in at full speed. We've got three good lookouts in the bows and forepeak. But there may be anything from sunken logs to nice, pointed rocks just under the surface. A few moments more should do, though."

  In the sun of early morning, the little ship sailed slowly in to the towering green wall of jungle ahead, a light breeze carrying her smoothly over the gentle swells. The hum of a tiny surf beating on the roots and tangled deadfalls of the shore now came to them.

  Hiero finished a brief and private prayer session, but he was still nervous and inwardly cursing himself. Now he sent out his mind impulses, wishing he had thought to wake up hours before and start doing it to them. Beside him, Brother Aldo stood, eyes shut, seeming merely to breathe in the warm scents of the forest as they grew increasingly strong.

  Hiero clutched the old man's brown sleeve suddenly. Foam Girl was now only a few hundred yards off the tangle of plants which made up the actual edge where forest met sea.

  "There's something coming from the west! I can't probe it! There's a mind guard, a big one, like the one on that Unclean ship you sank! They're coming fast." He felt sudden anguish. What was there he had failed to do?

  Aldo instantly turned and rapped out an order to the captain. "Gimp, put us ashore, the ship too, and get your crew mustered. Hurry, or we're all dead men!" There was no benevolence on his face now, and the high, black cheekbones were ramparts of the decision. His great eyes blazed with imperious will.

  Gimp now volleyed orders in every direction, at the same time aiding in rigging the arrow engine personally. The one-eyed mate, Blutho, took the helm as the two great crescent sails rose and were hauled up full so they filled to the breeze. Foam Girl put her nose into a trough, rose on the next long swell, and rushed headlong for the tree-girt shore.

  Over the hubbub on deck and the swirl of activity, Hiero became aware of Luchare pressed against his side, buckling on his weapons. I failed, he thought to her as he adjusted his battle helmet. It did not occur to him to speak.

  Nonsense, came her calm, answer. No one else warned us at all. You've carried all the weight, mostly alone, for weeks. Even as his brain received the answer, he felt wonder at both the ease of her message and the closeness of their combined mental-physical contact. Being completely male, he could not help his mind going further. I wonder if we could yet, he thought, toying with the idea of love-making simultaneously by mind and body, something he had not so far dared attempt.

  Probably, came the prompt answer, but this is no time for it, you clown! Go get Klootz ready. I'll watch the bear. It was like a (friendly) dash of ice water. He blinked and came back to the present.

  The big morse was wild with excitement, and Hiero had to use his own mind hard, like a curb, to quiet him down. Barely was he saddled when they struck.

  Foam Girl nosed straight and hard into a solid mass of outthrust roots and stunted, mangrovelike trees with a prolonged, grating" crunch. Many men on deck, who were concentrating on their tasks, were jolted off their feet, but nothing worse happened. Fortunately, the sea ran deep here, right up to the shore, and this made their crash landing fairly easy.

  "Ashore, everyone!" came Gimp's stentorian shouting. He had conferred with Aldo constantly as they raced in, for, like any really good gambler, he never hesitated a moment to cut his losses, A squad of hardy rascals hurled themselves off the bowsprit, chopping madly with axes and heavy cutlasses at the packed vegetation. Nothing but a rat or small monkey could have got through that tangle of growth unaided. Behind this gang gathered most of the crew, now armed and loaded with hastily snatched-up supplies and emergency gear. Gimp and Blutho led them, and behind them, in turn, were Aldo, the girl, and the priest, who led the morse and the bear, though "led" was not how Gorm saw it. All of the humans, save those using the axes, were watching down coast to the west. As they looked, the black, slim shape they had grown to dread appeared, nosing around a point not a mile away, white foam curling under the sharp prow.

  At the sight, Gimp himself seized a broadaxe and, shoving his men aside, fell upon the green matter before him like a fury, using great hewing strokes which severed foot-thick vines like so much string. Those of the men who could find a footing near him redoubled their own efforts. Brother Aldo noticed the arrow engine crew still stoutly manning the machine on the poop and now ordered them away with the others.

  From the Unclean ship, now coming like a storm, a distant-screech came down the wind. At the same time, a flare of vivid blue light winked from her foredeck.

  "The lightning gun!" Hiero and Luchare cried together. A hundred yards off the stern, a column of steam rose suddenly from a white-capped swell.

  "Come on now," Gimp screamed, now out of sight in the green growth. "We've cut a path for you and it widens. Shake your stumps, you lazy bastard whoresons!" This latter epithet was addressed to his loyal crew, who now scrambled off the bowsprit like so many ants. Behind them, Hiero led and urged Klootz forward, Luchare walking on the other side of the bull's head. Gorm leaped off the deck and followed the men in a second. Brother Aldo, nimble as a cricket, clambered after him.

  Klootz trod warily over the tangle of ropes and discarded gear at the bow. The priest and the girl soothed him with soft words as the great brute cautiously examined the jungle ahead. Only Aldo was yet still in sight, beckoning them eagerly on. For some reason, the forest's warmth struck Hiero only now; it was as if they were entering a furnace, though a damp one. Klootz pau
sed, hindquarters bunching.

  Whoever was aiming the lightning gun finally got his range. There was a ripping crash, and looking back in horror, the humans saw the after half of the little cabin simply vanish in a cloud of white incandescence. The wave of awful, attendant heat almost scorched their back hair.

  The bull morse let out a terrified bawl and sprang straight forward off the ship, dragging the two with him as they clung frantically to the reins. More by luck than anything else, the animal headed straight into the ragged gap cut by the crew in the foliage. Brother Aldo leaped aside just in time to avoid being trampled to death and, picking himself quickly up, scuttled in their wake. In a second, the empty Foam Girl, sails and cordage slatting in the offshore breeze, was the only sign that anyone had been there. The smoke of a brisk fire ascended into the morning sunlight from her blazing cabin and midships. With a sudden rush, the fire ran up the stays to the peak of the main mast, and in another instant, the peaked sail burst into a flaming blossom of orange light. The crackling bolts of the lightning gun continued to strike through the smoke and haze, but the electric charges simply blasted holes at random in. the green curtain of plants on the shore; for the gunners, though now very close, could actually see nothing. At length the order to cease fire was given. The black ship lay hove to, close in; while from her deck, sharp eyes tried in vain to discern through the smoke what had become of their prey. It was a patently useless exercise, and soon the lean hull turned, the hidden engines started, and the Unclean ship swept away back down the wooded coast to the west. In a few minutes she was out of sight. The now furiously burning Foam Girl sent a column of reeking black smoke high in the air, from whence it was bent inland by the wind, over the tops of the enormous trees. Nothing moved on the shore, save a few small birds.

  Far away, in a crypt deep under the earth and cobbles of old Neeyana, a figure turned away from, an instrument board with an exclamation of disgust. "Is this your vaunted efficiency?" the hooded shape hissed to another standing near. "The Yellow Circle would show the Blue, eh? I'll have a word with your Masters in due season!" S'duna of the Blue Circle, enraged and frustrated, left the chamber, his cold rage going before him like a noxious cloud. All who felt it shrank away and hid themselves, but elsewhere in the Unclean citadel, new orders were given and the servants of the Yellow Circle sprang to new action. Another stroke unaccountably had failed, but the chase would not be given up, not while one of the Dark Brotherhood remained.

  The camp that night, set deep in the canopy of the great trees, was not a cheerful one. The seamen, long used to the open air, felt the dank heat and the smothering darkness as doubly oppressive and frightening, even though Gimp and Blutho maintained a stern discipline and also continually pointed out that no lives had been lost. Both Hiero and Luchare nursed bad bruises from being dragged through the thickets for a hundred yards in Klootz's initial panic. Two small fires kept some of the gloom away, and a low barrier of fallen logs and branches encircled the camp, providing at least some psychological protection, if nothing more.

  But the vast tree trunks rising out of the limit of firelight into the upper dark, the mysterious cries and sounds of the encircling jungle, and the blazing eyes which stared out of the night at the fires, all combined to make the men huddle together and talk in low tones or not at all.

  "We were lucky to find this clearing," Hiero said, stoically trying to avoid noticing his battered arms and legs. He knew Luchare was equally in pain and also saying nothing, and his heart went out to her. They sat a little apart, with the bear and the morse, the latter now peacefully chewing his cud.

  Brother Aldo had vanished earlier, saying only that he would be back before moonrise, "Not that the moon will shed much light down here," he added.

  "I guess he went to find that trail, that is, if anyone can find it," the girl said. Her dark face was drawn and tired in the light of the flames.

  "Listen to that, will you!" Hiero said, springing to his feet, hand on sword. All the others had leaped up, too, as a perfectly appalling racket burst out not far away, hideous, earthshaking screams of rage rising above a deep, hoarse bellowing, as if the father of all cats had attacked the granduncle of all bovines. The bellowing sound alone made Klootz's loudest efforts sound like a baby's squall. As suddenly as they had begun, the frightful sounds died away, leaving everyone half-deafened. The ordinary screeches, yells, and howls of the night resumed, aided by the sounds of countless stridulating insects. The men slowly settled down again.

  A large beast indeed, came a placid thought from Gorm. And it was attacked by one almost as large, which it slew. Now it is very angry, I think I would tell the men to be quiet. Very quiet.

  Hiero dashed to the nearest group, hissing for silence. One look at his face brought compliance. If the bear warned, he had learned, it was as well to listen. Soon all the men were waiting, weapons drawn, not moving, but simply crouched and staring nervously around and outward.

  It comes, was the bear's thought. Be ready.

  The Metz stood next to Klootz, trying to shield Luchare, who faced the same way into the dark as he did. It was to the south, he noted idly, trying to detect the creature's mind as hard as he could. Presently he thought he had found it. The brain was not too unlike that of the morse, but far, far more stupid, and now filled with insensate rage and much pain as well. Hiero tried to probe it, but the animal was simply too new to him. He had not realized previously how alien the minds of the great herbivores really were and how much simple affection and long, mutual training had to do with his control over the big morse. He tried again, but the brute mind was too full of mad rage for any inexperienced hand to take over its control. And Aldo was absent. No, I'm back, came a quick, clear thought. Get one of its mind,

  Hiero, and leave me alone! I'll try to turn it. Hurry!

  Now everyone could hear the monster. A footfall, so ponderous it actually shook the forest floor, began to echo at a steadily increasing beat. Great snorts and grunts sounded.

  Get away from the fires! came the old man's thought.

  Hastily Hiero passed it on, and Gimp and the men began to scurry away to either side. Luchare pulled Klootz's head around, and the two tugged him off behind the buttress root of a great tree, clearing the flimsy camp barrier as they did.

  Now the incredible steps broke into a crashing run, and almost at the same time, the creature gave voice. Its fight with the slain attacker must have been further away than he realized, the priest thought, as that awful, ringing bellow almost shattered his eardrums.

  Out of the dark it came, perhaps just such a titanic bulk as must have peopled the earth for millions of years in the past, before the coming of man. Now, due to incredible hard radiation and consequent forced mutation, the same conditions of life had once again given such creatures another, second chance. Its great, brown head, short-trunked on a heavy, columnar neck and carrying upper and lower pairs of ivory tusks, towered up at least twenty feet above the terrified men. The close-furred giant body sloped from pillarlike front legs to shorter ones in the rear, and as it passed, the Metz saw its tiny tail, a mere afterthought, flapping in the air. Fresh wounds on its flanks gleamed red in the firelight, and the small, ruby eyes gleamed also as it sought for fresh enemies. But the fires seemed to distract it. It charged straight and hard at the nearest and careened right through it, sending burning logs spinning in every direction. Its voice rising to a new volume, it charged the next fire and scattered that also. Without ceasing its incredible rush, it blundered across the little clearing, through the barrier, and into a gap between two monster trees. Even as the light died, it vanished from sight. Everyone stood, appalled, in the gathering gloom, listening as it lumbered on and away, crashing a course off into the distance, still roaring hideously as the pain of its burned feet, added to the previous wounds, reached the tiny brain. Almost before one realized it, the sound had died away in the distance and the "normal" noises of the night forest once again resumed.

  "All right, m
en," Brother Aldo's voice came cheerfully. "Let's get those fires going again and build up the barrier. It won't be back, but other things may. Hurry up now; no time for idling." The old Elevener, appearing out of nowhere, stood in the middle of the clearing, helping Gimp and Hiero direct the work, until all was as before, except that the barrier was now chest-high at least. When new watches had been set, he told Gimp to turn over command to Blutho and join them. At this point they discovered that three men were missing, all ordinary seamen.

  "Probably ran off in a panic and got lost or ate by something," Gimp said philosophically. "If people won't listen, what can you do? I tell them no-good swipes a thousand times, 'Stay here with us,' but they know better!"

  "I'm afraid you're right," Aldo said. "Let us be glad it's not worse. At least I can detect no Unclean activity, only the Poros, that poor, simple beast which blundered into us."

  "Poor beast!" Luchare burst out. "That great horror!"

  "Well, yes, I think so," was the gentle answer. "This is his forest, you know, princess, not yours. He had just been in a terrible fight and he thought he saw more enemies in us. I sent him to bathe his burned feet in the Inland Sea," he added, "and now he'll feel better." His tone was exactly that of a nurse whose spoiled charge had been soothed.

  Hiero smiled to himself. The Eleveners were indeed the guardians of all life! He rather approved, he realized, though it would take a long time for him to see the Brobdingnagian Poros as the simple-minded child that Brother Aldo obviously did.

  "Now that that's over, I think I can keep us from being bothered by any more of the forest people, at least tonight. And I have found the trail, you'll be glad to know." The old fellow beamed at them in pleasure and stroked his curly beard affectionately.

  "I'll be glad to know a lot of things," Gimp said aggressively, "such as who's going to pay me for a new ship, not that there's another like old Foam Girl, mind. And all her cargo, too, gone in a wink, plus the juicy plunder I claimed from Roke's ship, and hard-won that was. All in all, Brother, I could have retired on that lot, and my men too. Who's to pay us, eh, and when and also where? Are you going to wander about in this wood until we're all ate by something like that walking mountain we just missed?" Despite his gloomy words, Hiero noted that the little seaman's eyes were still bright and his ridiculous pigtail still perky. Though he would have died rather than admit it, Gimp was a pure romantic, actually one of those people who revel in constant excitement and new ventures. He liked pay, of course, if he could get it, but it was only secondary, and so was his grumbling. Now he cocked an eye from Hiero to the old man in question.