Hiero Desteen (Omnibus)

by Sterling E. Lanier

  Solitaire had put the man into a deep sleep, using the hypnotic power of his great eyes, with Hiero unresisting and doing his best to relax. Through the whole night, starting at sunset and going well into the following day, the strange surgeon labored, his rnicrotools the minute extensions of his huge body. Knitting, splicing, mending, and operating only by memory and tactile sensation, Solitaire had labored on and on. At last, convinced that all possible had been done and daring no more, the titan aroused his patient.

  In growing delight, Hiero found that his lost powers were restored. The mental blindness was gone and his awareness of other life was again intact. When Solitaire lured a young buck from far down the slope, the Metz was first able to sense it and then to feel inside its mind as it drew nearer. After that, he could not let the giant eat it. When Solitaire mentioned with some illness of ease that he was hungry and must eat something, Hiero went out of sight down the lake shore. What came in answer to the giant’s call, the priest never knew, but he hoped that it was both large and foul-tempered.

  When Hiero returned, Solitaire still seemed to be worrying over the fact that there was one power that he had been unable to restore to the man. This was the newest of the skills Hiero had won, the ability to seize another mind and compel it to his will. He could “see” and communicate as well as in the past, or perhaps even better. But he could not do mental battle. The medicine of the Unclean had damaged that ability beyond even Solitaire’s skill to repair it.

  Then it was question-and-answer time, and Hiero found himself hard-pressed to satisfy the giant’s need to know. His Abbey school training was put to undreamed-of tests. What was everything and how did it get there? That, in essence, was what the mutant snail wanted to know. Hiero writhed inwardly at what his preceptors in the church would have said about his statements on the nature of the Almighty. Still, he did his honest best, beyond which no one could do more.

  It was not as hard as he had thought it might be, either. Solitaire could pick up a clue from any of a dozen angles. That incredible brain, stuffed with five thousand years of memory and thought, needed few aids in following an explanation.

  It was while they were discussing some of the nature of the Unclean that Hiero learned of what Solitaire called “the Other Mind.”

  It comes rarely, this sending, Solitaire said. It is not as old as I, or at least I never detected it until recently. By the last word, Hiero gathered, Solitaire might mean a thousand years or so; the mutant snail had little idea of lapsed time.

  It seems to change somewhat, this power, at long intervals—at least, by what you and your kind would think of as long. It stays the same, this force, and yet changes as well. What exactly was meant, Solitaire could not explain, but about other aspects of the strange force, he was very emphatic.

  Whenever I felt its presence, I hid my own mind. For it had something I feared about it. Now that you have taught me what rage and evil are, I know what I feared. For I have never felt its presence free of anger. It has black anger against all and everything. And it is strong! You have given me much knowledge of your enemies, the Unclean. This is like them, I feel, but far, far more powerful. It may be of them, for what you tell me makes them seem one and the same. I felt it last not long ago, shortly before you came to my calling. It was very quick, like the bolt of fire from the sky in a storm. I regret that my skill could not have given you back the power to kill with your mind. You will need it. The worry in the great brain was very real.

  Solitaire was quite amazing. Hiero had discovered that the giant, like most snails, was bisexual, capable of producing both eggs and sperm. On learning this fact, the man had suggested that an obvious thing to do was to raise some young, for company if not for anything else. This was surely not beyond its amazing biological powers, was it?

  The reaction to this idea both surprised and amused Hiero. It was not right, not a pleasant thought. It was not—proper! The colossus of the hills was a prude! The more one learned about life, Hiero decided, the more one was amazed.

  The last message from Solitaire came when Hiero was already far from the lake into which the giant had again retired.

  Farewell for now, Hiero, new friend. Remember the direction of the men which I placed in your mind. I cannot reach them, but I know they are there. I can sense them at intervals, though they are not skilled with their minds as you are. Be careful!

  And do not forget the Other Mind, the message went on, the one I have felt over the greatest distance from somewhere far to the south. What it is I cannot tell. But you have taught me well, and I know now that it is a great mind, even greater than mine, I think. Yet it is utterly, horribly wrong. It is evil. It means evil. Beware of it!

  Farewell, once more. I have much to think about. We may meet again, sooner than either of us plans or imagines. I feel it!

  Then the link was dissolved and the final contact was broken. Again, Hiero was alone. But now his mind was alert, and he was well armed, ready for any eventuality, as this last week of travel had proved.

  Now fully rested, Hiero set off northward again at a steady lope, his gear swinging as he ran. The new shield was hooked firmly over the sword scabbard on his back. In addition to the spear in his hand and his belt knife, he bore the small canteen of leather. The bag slung over his shoulder held firestones, his seeing crystal, and the Forty Symbols, all wrapped in oiled leather. It also held a small supply of freshly dried meat and some roots, but they were for emergencies. In this game-filled country, he should feed well. Leather breeches, sandals, and a headband completed his possessions.

  He sped along, his broad chest rising and falling easily. As the miles were eaten up by his steady pace, he rethought what little he had learned about this northward road he was following. He was rapidly leaving all trace of the heights behind, coming down the last gradients to another of the wide savannas once more. Dense clumps of heavy jungle broke the rolling waves of high grasses. Livid scars of green in the distance betrayed patches of marsh—or he had never seen their like before. He knew that he would find lazy rivers trailing here and there across the land as well. He hoped none would be too difficult to cross if one barred his path. The heat was bringing the sweat to his brow, used to the cool of the hills.

  If possible, the animals were even thicker here than in the eastward country he had traversed weeks before. There were great red wolves and spotted cats of various sizes. The stripe-backed saberfang was here, its thunders drowning out all lesser feline noises. The mighty-trunked herbivores were also present in quantity, and the kinds and sheer numbers of antelope and grazing varieties of deer simply defied any coherent description. Hiero saw new things often, his active mind doing its best to catalogue each and every one.

  There were herds, for want of a better word, of monstrous shelled creatures, their armored backs higher than his head. But they had ears and three-toed hooves and were warm-blooded. He entered their dull minds as they grazed and found them mere mountains of sluggish flesh. They saw nothing his size as even a menace. Once for pure fun, he ran up and down over the backs or a whole group of them. They hardly noticed.

  Thousands of birds fluttered and sang. Many kinds followed the herds, feasting on stirred-up insects, while yet others perched on the animals’ backs, searching for ticks and lice. But not all avian life was so harmless.

  His first encounter with another kind of bird nearly ended in disaster. It must have been watching him for some time; when it burst from a clump of tall bushes, it caught him almost off guard. It was twice his height, with a savage, hook-beaked head surmounted by a fan of lurid purple plumes. Its tiny, useless wings beat furiously as its clawed feet pounded down upon him. He parried one furious slash of the beak with his hastily whipped-off shield and then, dodging like a hare, fled for the nearest stand of tall trees. Behind him, overtaking fast, came the bird, now screaming raucously.

  Fortunately for him, the closest tree had a mat of trailing vines, and he swarmed up them like one of his sim
ian ancestors, the last stroke of the awful beak missing his sandaled heels by a hairs-breadth.

  Breathing hard, he looked down at the angry monster, which was still screeching and venting its anger by tearing up large chunks of ground at the base of his refuge. He realized what must have happened and firmly resolved that lack of caution would not occur again. The great bird thought on another wavelength from that of the mammalian predators he had been guarding against. As a result, he had almost been betrayed by carelessness. He decided to monitor not only the mammals in the future but the birds and reptiles as well. In a world filled with mutant life, some of it unrelated to anything coherent or recognizable, all precautions were in order. He remembered that dead horror, the Dweller in the Mist, only too well, and the way it too had stolen on him unperceived.

  After a long while, during which he composed himself in the tree with all the patience he could, the bird wandered away. When he could see, with his mind, that its presence was far off, he descended and resumed his journey. There were no more ambushes during that day. He stayed close to the trees, or to the tall termite mounds, which had also reappeared. This plan had its own hazards, since many of the carnivores lay up in the tree borders, but with his mind alert, he could usually make wide enough arcs to avoid any such. And he always selected a good crotch in some wide-limbed giant well before sunset loosed the main packs of night prowlers on the land. Still, he spent a lot of time in hiding.

  Without his mental alerts, crossing this land on foot might have been impossible, except for an army.

  As the days passed, sunny and clear with occasional violent thunderstorms, he fixed his mind on the area to the north. There, if Solitaire could be trusted, were human beings of some sort, though of what kind the titan had not known, beyond a vague feeling that they were not like Hiero. Each evening, then, the Metz first said his prayers and next tried to reach out with his mind, seeking contact. He was very, very careful. He had no real idea what he was searching for, and the last thing that he wanted was an unlooked-for encounter with the Unclean.

  Hiero had deliberately not tried to use the crystal, which would perhaps enable him. to see far ahead in a purely physical sense. By staring into it and concentrating, he often could enter the brain of some bird, miles aloft in the blue heavens. Using that creature’s own vision, it was possible to spy out the land beneath. But in this strange country, he simply dared not. The process was too random and sweeping. Who knew what other mind he might encounter? Once before, in the distant North, he had tried this kind of viewing and had ended up in the brain of an Unclean adept, aloft in a winged craft in the sky! Once was enough. It was simply too risky at this time.

  There were the Forty Symbols, though, each carved with a different sign. Although he had not used them for many months, and though they were not one of his own special talents, they had been some help in the past. The workings of the tiny precognition markers were not entirely understood, even by the Abbey servants, since their origin was lost in the past. Using them with any certitude was a highly individual skill, and it was not something that Hiero had ever excelled in. Still, there was no harm in an attempt.

  One evening, therefore, a week after quitting the southern foothills, he arranged the little things in a loose pile on a slab of bark in his lap. He had previously strapped himself high in the branches of a forest lord, so that he could not fail, even if disturbed in a trance state. He had not seen his priest’s stole for months, but that was merely an external and not a vital element in what followed. He prayed for guidance and for help in discerning the future. Then he threw himself into a self-induced cataleptic state, now oblivious to all externals. His mental guard still protected him and, in this condition, no one could either read or control his mind. Before blanking himself out, he laid his open left hand on the pile of wooden markers.

  It was fully dark when he awoke, stiff and cramped. The moon shone down on the savannas below, and the night was hideous with the sounds of both hunters and prey.

  As he had expected and hoped, his left fist was clenched tight around a number of the little symbols. He freed himself from the thongs which held his body to the branch and, putting the remainder away, moved out into the full moonlight on an open limb. Only there did he open his palm and examine the three tiny pieces of ebon wood.

  The Spear he knew well. It meant battle or hunting, sometimes both. Nothing new there. The next was another old friend, the tiny, stylized Boots. This too was familiar to him from the past. It meant a long journey ahead, another thing he had no trouble anticipating without aid. The last one was a bit of a puzzle, though. It was a leaf, and across it was superimposed a sword! Moreover, as he looked closely, he saw that the sword actually pierced the leaf, in and out again, as a pin does a robe.

  He put the little things away and sat for a long time, trying to remember the possible meanings of the last marker. They each had several alternates and, when taken in conjunction with others, each could assume still newer meanings. What a pity he was not better at this! He had once had a classmate who could draw as many as twelve and get really complicated predictions from them.

  Peace and war! That was it. But since the two signs were interwoven, it seemed there must be a choice. Peace or war, journeys and battles, or maybe hunts. He laughed quietly. When had his life contained much else? At least it seemed that things would go on as usual. In some distant future, perhaps he would awaken from the trance to discover signs which meant only peace and quiet. What a hope! He laughed again and then made his preparations for slumber, still chuckling. The nightly uproar all about and below he simply shut out of his mind, and he fell happily asleep, eager for what tomorrow would bring.

  In a lamplit chamber, somewhere in Sask City, capital of the Metz Republic, two old men sat on oak benches and eyed each other alertly across a narrow wooden table. Each held a large foaming mug in his gnarled fist and each was robed and bearded. There the outer resemblance ended.

  Abbot Demero’s aged face was the color of burnished copper, and the white beard and mustache under the hawk nose were straight and wiry. Over his angular frame, he wore a snowy robe, and on his chest was a heavy cross of hammered silver, suspended from a chain of massive silver links. On his left ring finger, he wore a great ring of plain gold. His dark eyes, over high cheekbones, were lit with intelligence and an air of command.

  Brother Aldo had a longer beard; it and the mustache which flowed into it were curled, rippling and waving down over his plain brown robe. He wore no jewelry or mark of any kind. His nose, though not snub, was rounded at the tip, and his skin was far darker, almost the color of the oak slab on which his elbows rested. Wisdom and a dancing humor sparkled in his every glance.

  Both men had the lines of many strenuous years engraved on their brows, but their strength had not been sapped, and the vigor of their movements, while not that of youth, was neither that of senescence.

  Now the Most Reverend Father Demero spoke, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “A health, your Majesty, and welcome once again to the North. I only wish this meeting didn’t have to be held in secret. I’m tired of this damned skulking around.”

  “Demero, you old fool, I curse the sorry day I ever told you what I once had been. So they lost a king in D’alwah a few generations back. They long ago forgot the crazy creature. Quit calling me that, will you, Most Reverend Abbot?”

  “As you wish, Brother Aldo. Perhaps a republic always likes kings, having got rid of its own. We had a king here once, you know, before The Death. 1 don’t remember who he was, or even if he lived here. I have a feeling that he lived far away and only visited now and again. The Abbey archivists could probably tell you.”

  The sage in the brown robe laughed. “That’s the way kings, or queens for that matter, ought to be, frequently absent.” His face sobered at another thought, and he straightened on his backless bench.

  “We should be talking about a prince, not a king, Demero. We have a lot to go through. I have to be on
my way tomorrow, you know. So let’s get to present business. I have bad news from the South, and you won’t be happy.”

  Abbot Kulase Demero, Senior Priest of the Abbeys of the Metz Republic, Hierarch, First Gonfalonier of the Church Universal, and leader of the Republic’s Upper House, bent a piercing gaze on his friend, “It’s Hiero, isn’t it? I’ve been uneasy all week. He’s so far away and so alone. What’s the news? Out with it, man!”

  “He’s gone. Maybe missing, maybe—worse!” Brother Aldo, who had once borne a very different name and title, had lost all the humor in his voice. “The Order sent me the news only this morning, filtered through many strange routes from the South. I gather there has been a rebellion, led by a young hellion of a duke with a fair claim to the throne, if Luchare and her father were dead. That sounds like old D’alwahn history so far. But there’s more. The pretender has Unclean help. Danyale is badly wounded, but alive. Luchare is running things, and her husband has simply disappeared from the face of the earth!”

  There was nothing slow about the Father Abbot. “If he were dead, she would know, right?”

  “Ye-es,” Aldo said slowly. “She swears he isn’t. That’s our best hope, as far as he is concerned. I pray to God she is right. I’m fond of him. But we have other things to think about. I trust Luchare. She’ll hold D’alwah, if it’s humanly possible. Danyale can help, if he gets better in a hurry. He’s not so dumb that he can’t see through a blanket. But the Order says the Unclean are moving fast, too. And they seem to be heading in your direction, toward the Republic. We, the Council of the Order, think you need help fast. How is the work coming on what we brought you from the underground place?” Despite himself, he glanced at one corner, where a small, ivory pendulum hung motionless from wooden crossbars.