He forced himself to stop and think finally, while the patient Segi leaned down and snooted at his black hair. Use your head, stupid! Suppose Segi had been killed? Would she leave a note pinned to his right ear for anyone, including the enemy, to read? Think, the way she did for you, you oaf!
Eventually, he found it by sheer patience. It was wrapped in a tiny packet of fine, oiled leather, no bigger than his finger joint and jammed up into the far side of the saddle horn itself.
With trembling fingers, he unwrapped it and, with the sun beating down on his head, began to read. Above him, the hopper’s nostrils flared at intervals, picking up the varied smells eddying past in the light breeze. But none seemed to convey any danger, and the towering figure stayed relaxed on his great haunches while his master read and reread the parchment message from his far-off mate.
“My Love,” it began, “I know you are not dead. Where you are, what they have done, I know not. The Unclean have done something, somehow. If you are not dead and I cannot reach your mind, they must be the ones. I would have sent this by Klootz, but he is gone. The stablemen said he went mad in the night, rearing and bellowing in his stall. When they tried to calm him, he broke the stall gates as if they were matchwood and fled through the stable yards into the night. Some guards say he tore through the northern gate at the hour before dawn, and he has not been seen since. He may follow you, so be alert. An assassin tried to kill Danyale at the end of the ball. The man has not yet spoken. The king is hurt but will live. My cousin Amibale has vanished also, and none can or will say where. The priest Joseato is missing too. The high priest says he knows nothing. The troops seem loyal, and Mitrash is with me. He says to tell you that he has sent messages. God help you, my love. Segi has my message planted in his simple mind. If he can find you, he will. Come back to me.” It was unsigned, save for a single sweeping “L.”
Hiero was glad that none but Segi could see him now. Whoever heard of a Metz Senior Killman, the pick of the woodsrunners of the North, with two runnels of water flowing down his sweaty face?
After a while he could see again, and he marveled at the wonder of his wife. Hardly out of girlhood, but what a woman! She had never lost her head for a second. Hiero was not dead, so send a message. Klootz was gone, so send the next best thing, Segi, the pick of hopperdom and a beast who had already learned to know and love him. He shook his head in admiration. He would be willing to bet that she had issued all the right orders to the guards as well and that she and Danyale and the kingdom were in as good a state of defense as could be managed. And she had found the sudden departure of Duke Amibale and the priest suspicious, that too was clear. They would not find it easier to surprise her, even with her mate gone.
Mitrash had sent messages, had he? A good man. The messages had gone to the Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment, Hiero was sure. Even now, a long way off somewhere, Brother Aldo and his fellow councilors might well know what had happened and be moving in their turn. The Metz felt a tremendous sense of relief. Luchare and her father were safe, as safe as anyone these days, and the kingdom was alerted. He had all the help she could send, and now the rest was up to him. Only Klootz’s fate puzzled him. Where could the morse have gotten to?
He patted Segi again and talked soothingly to him. The big hopper had really done wonders. Hampered by his saddle and harness, he had come hundreds upon hundreds of leagues, somehow patiently following his vanished master. He looked fine, too, hardly gaunted at all. Despite all that Hiero had been taught about the hopper’s capabilities, he was still amazed. Segi must have crossed the dreadful desert, too, going without water for days; and when through it, he had come unflinchingly on, dodging predators, snatching bits of leaf as he hopped, and never ceasing until Hiero was found. How many men, Hiero mused to himself, would have done as much, would have persevered into an unknown wilderness out of pure affection? Do I, does any man, deserve such devotion?
In a few seconds, he had run up the termite mound and secured his few possessions. In another, he freed the stirrup-boots and mounted. His head behind but on a level with his steed’s, he gently urged the hopper on, south and west, their heads pointed into the sunset and at the distant blue line. The calling hills still held Hiero in their grip; unthinking, he urged his strange mount forward to whatever fate lay hidden in their distant folds.
IV
Dark Perils, Dark Counsels
In an underground place, a large screen covered one end of a room. Blue bulbs set in the bleak stone walls shed a pallid light upon a great table of polished black marble. Around the table and under the screen were arranged four black chairs with legs carved into contorted shapes and bearing strange arabesques and flourishes along their broad arms and backs. Pulled away from the head of the table was a fifth chair, larger than the others and more ornate. It alone was unoccupied.
In the four chairs in use sat or lounged four gray-robed men. A stranger entering the room might have thought that he had encountered four offspring of a single birth, so alike were the seated men to one another. All were bald, or with heads and faces so shaven that no hair appeared. All had pale ivory skin. At sight of those faces, a child would have screamed in instant horror. The eyes were dead, gray pools of nothingness, in which there yet glowed a baleful fire. The faces were expressionless, carved in a sickly marble, set in grim lines and yet smooth, seeming ageless and yet old beyond memory. Only the flickering of the awful pairs of eyes to the great screen and back toward each other seemed to betray life, together with the writhing and uncoiling of the long white hands when they rested on the smooth surface of the table. The men’s attentions were fixed on the screen, but occasionally one would mutter to another or inscribe some notes on one or another small square of writing material laid before him. The Great Council of the Unclean, those who called themselves the Chosen Masters, was in session.
Though the men appeared identical at first glance, a further look would have discerned differences. Each bore upon the gray of his breast an embroidered symbol, worked in threads of metallic, glittering stuff. Each had a different color, one being red, one yellow, one blue, and the last of all green. None of the colors seemed normal somehow, being oily and iridescent, at once too pale and too dark, changing constantly but always sickly and abhorrent. The livid green of the fourth man’s mark seemed the worst of all, a ghastly parody of the fresh and limpid hue of spring in the ordinary world. But that world was what these monsters were sworn to destroy or, as they put it, to bring to order. The symbols were spirals and coils worked into mind-bending twists which the eye could not follow, as if they faded in some impossible way into some other and fouler dimension.
The screen itself was covered with a maze of fine metallic wire which, like the symbols of the robed men, was worked into impossible bendings and anglings, back and forth in a weird pattern which changed by the moment. It contorted itself each instant into something new and even more peculiar. Here and there on the wires glowed tiny lights of different colors, like minute bulbs. Yet if they were bulbs, they were as strange as their background, for they also moved, appearing and reappearing at what looked like random, but was not. It was clear that the four could read the board and understand it, as one would read a printed page. None but they and one other could have done so, however. For this was the Great Screen, and all the lore and memory of the Unclean was embedded in it, as were all their plans and contingencies of the future. It would have taken the life of a normal human to learn the basic elements necessary for the interpretation of its easiest and most accessible secrets.
At length, the one who wore the hellish green turned away from the screen and examined his fellows thoughtfully. Just as the one who wore the blue seemed in some indefinable way the youngest, so did the creature of the green seem older than the others, though exactly why, no one could have said.
“I will speak, according to the rules of the Great Council, where no mind can be deemed safe and thoughts cannot be trusted with our deliberations.”
/> It was clear that this was a formula being recited, a formal opening of the meeting. The voice of the speaker was thin yet resonant, toneless and yet vibrant. It was also chill, the timbre gelid and ringing like the slow grinding of ancient glacial ice.
“As the Senior among you, I call on the Lord S’duna, First among the Brotherhood of the Blue Circle. Upon him mainly has fallen the brunt of the most recent events. He and his bear much of the responsibility for them. This is said not in blame, but only is strict accountability. This is also said,” he added as S’duna stirred and shrugged, “under orders.”
As the others looked up in sudden interest, the green-symboled man touched his brow and inclined his head toward the large and empty chair at the head of the table.
“Yes,” he went on, “to me, S’lorn, First of the Green, in my fortress in the South there came in the night, on the One Circuit, a message. The Unknown One, That Which Is Not To Be Named, that which is not, but was and will be, sent a message. Any of us could have received it. Why I was chosen, save for age, I know not, but can perhaps guess.” He paused. “I think, and I have spent much thought on this matter as I journeyed, that I received the message to summon the Council because I am the farthest away in the body. My thought, and it is no more, reads thus: In many, many lives of the outer world, we four, or they who taught and preceded us, have seldom found it necessary to meet in the flesh. Now, I think, the matter grows urgent, and thus the importance is stressed that I who live the farthest off should summon us together. The Nameless One, the Chosen of the Chosen, has many secrets. There may be other explanations, but I think mine will suffice.” He folded the pale hands in the lap of his robe. “Let the Lord S’duna speak to us and unfold his reading of the recent past.”
The Master of the Blue Circle did not flinch. While he was not on trial, still the others were watching and judging. All were equals, the Great Council having been devised to still the ceaseless internecine warfare which had so long crippled the Unclean plans in the past. All were equal, but it was not in the nature of such beings to spare another pain, nor was it the way they had all been taught since birth. The troubles of the recent past had involved S’duna far more than the others. So they would watch, not being hostile, but if there were any sign of weakness, or indecision …
And then there was the Nameless One, their unknown ruler, who had sent instructions. Could those instructions have to do with the failures of this time, and might they also carry orders on dealing with faulty leadership?
If a shudder ran through the Blue Master’s frame, it was not detectable. He began. “First, we had warning that all was not well from the death of S’nerg of the Red Circle. For long, his body was not found, though we knew that he must be dead or somehow taken, for his self-seeker was moving away from us. We loosed followers, mere animals, on the track. They too were slain. That was the second warning, though the death of a high Brother was more than that, surely.” No one said anything, no features moved, but the point had been taken. The Blue Circle was not the first to be struck.
“Next, the creature or creatures vanished into the Palood, the great marsh where even we do not go. Yet we alerted something which had dwelt there from time out of mind, a thing we feared and scarcely understood, yet thought could be used for our purposes. And it too was slain.” The level voice paused. Another point made.
“Now we began somewhat to worry. The thing or things had entered the area. I control. It or they had managed to pass through the marsh, no mean feat in itself, as all here know. I estimated the track it might take, for it had discovered and destroyed the self-seeker it bore and we could no longer follow it. And, as all know, I trapped it.
“Surprise upon surprise and wonder upon wonder! What had we caught but one of the despised Abbey priests of the soft religion of the past, the cross worshippers. One of the vagabond pack of woodsrunners, half soldier, half hunter, whom they send about on their stupid errands. For allies, it had two animals and a slave girl, the latter seized from savages on the coast as they were about to eat her. And this motley crew was what had shaken the North and frightened our Councils to their depths!” He stared at each of the others in turn, as if weighing his next words before continuing.
“And there I erred, I freely admit. And if the Great Plan has suffered for it since, I accept my full share of responsibility. For I simply could not believe that this very ordinary human, however brave and skilled in the combat of the forests, could be the thing he was. I felt, as did all who studied the matter, that the Abbeys, or perhaps this man alone, had found a secret in a Dead City of the past, something to enhance the mind powers, some machine, perhaps, or even some strange drug. This secret we would extract at leisure on Manoon, the Dead Isle, whence none had ever gone, save at our bidding and direction. We completely ignored the escape of the slave girl and the two animals; let them perish in the wastes, we thought. They meant nothing.” His ivory skull wagged slowly as he shook his head.
“Mistake upon mistake, error upon error. The man had inborn or somehow inbred powers locked in his skull, some of which, with training, might have brought him here, into this chamber, my Brothers, even as we. That was the sum of our greatest error—not ( to realize the appalling strength that this seeming woodsrunner, this half priest, masked and kept hidden in the inner part of his mind!” The emphasis, even the passion which had crept into his voice, drew a faint hiss of incredulity from S’lorn, but the older man suppressed it when he saw the expressions of the Masters of the Red and Yellow Circles. For they seemed in total agreement.
“What occurred next, alas, is too well known,” S’duna went on. “He escaped. Escaped from the Dead Isle, taking his weapons and slaying still another Brother! A dumb brute, the captain of my Howler pack, sensed the escape on some level we could not and he too was slain, though a doughty fighter trained by me for many years. Now, think on this matter, Brothers, and think hard. We have not yet discovered how or by what powers this was done! All of our science, all of our records, which we thought the entire sum of knowledge here today—all of these tell us nothing useful. Oh, yes, the man used his mind. He slew the Brother with it. That was obvious. But without weapons or machines and hardly even with them, could we do the same? No, you all know we could not.
“What next? More by guesswork than by anything concrete, we traced him again, this stupid priest-assassin, this Per Hiero Desteen, of whom we now know so much. And what occurred this time to the band of ragged wanderers? For he had found the girl and the animals by mind touch, though again we do not know how. What next? This time a whole shipload, one of the very few new ships, driven by the powers of The Death itself, ship, crew, and yet another high Brother, S’carn, third under me in rank and no weak foe, all vanished!” This time his pause was both unstudied and longer. Nor was he taking such trouble to conceal his rage and bafflement. The others listened soberly, their own faces now eager as they digested all the meaning of his words. S’lorn of the Green was as attentive as any.
“We did what we could. We issued as many of the hand-wrought, personal mind screens as we had and warned all those that had dealings with us or were under our control on or near the Inland Sea. We alerted our Brothers of the Yellow Circle to the south. And now, too, I went southward myself. For I was convinced at last of our terrible danger from this man who had such strength that he could throw his mental force about like careless bolts of lightning, Oh, yes, by now I had become thoroughly convinced!
“What follows next is not certain, but we have some clues, painfully assembled and collated. The reading seems thus;
“Somehow, the priest crossed the Inland Sea. During this crossing, he again fought, having a ship and crew under his command, found how and where we know not. He fought a pirate long under our control, slew him in personal combat, and with him a Glith, newest and most powerful of what the enemy call Leemutes, the animal slaves we long have bred as our servants. The pirate crew surrendered. Not even fear of us could break their Sea L
aw, that to the victor goes the spoil. We have interrogated such as we could catch since and have learned a good deal, but gaining information has been slow and tedious.
“This battle,” he said, “caused mental storm. Also, there were self-seekers taken. We detected the area, plotted a course, and again sent one of the new ships, this time from a hidden harbor of the sea, near Neeyana on the south coast. It found the enemy and destroyed his ship, homed in on the self-seekers, the mind screens he had captured and forgotten. But we were too late! We gained nothing but the ashes of the paltry boat. All those aboard escaped into the deep forest, a place we go not and know little of. So now, at last, we know, from, the sea scum we captured later, much we did not and could not know then.
“Listen well, Brothers!” His voice, never pleasant, had become a susurration, a hissing of pure venom. “Eleveners! Into this comes the so-called Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment, our most ancient enemies, the animal and plant lovers, the grubbers in the dirt, the beast minders, the midwives of all that creep and crawl, the adorers of useless life, the pitiers of the weak, the tenders of the helpless and soft! Arrgh! Eleveners!” His rage seemed almost to choke him for a moment, but he mastered himself.
“One of these vermin was on that ship with the priest, his woman, and the two animals. He was seen. An old man, he must have been one of weight in their rotted hierarchy, for he could control the great sea beasts. Mayhap he had something to do with the lost ship in the North.
“I was in Neeyana then and I called upon Brother S’ryath, my fellow and Master of the Yellow Circle here, for aid and counsel. And since I had abandoned direct control to him, I would that he tell of what we devised and what transpired as a result of it.”
S’duna leaned back, as if glad to be done with his part. His anger had brought unaccustomed beads of sweat to his pallid brow.
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