A World Divided

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  A degree or two wouldn’t matter—not with a range of mountains hundreds of miles long, that they couldn’t miss if they tried—but the nearer they came out to the pass itself, the sooner they would be home. And the sooner Kennard’s father would be out of trouble. He was amazed at how responsible he felt.

  The compass would steady, he realized, if he let it swing freely without his hand moving. All they had to do was take a rough bearing, follow it, checking it again and again every few miles.

  Once again, he realized, he had taken the lead in the expedition, and Kennard, reluctantly, was forced to follow. It bothered him, and he knew Kennard didn’t like it. He hoped, at least, that it wouldn’t bring on another outburst of rage.

  He stood up, looking at the muddy mess of their improvised map. He was cold and drenched, but he assumed an air of confidence which, in reality, he was far from feeling.

  “Well, if we’re going to risk it,” he said, “west is that way. So let’s start walking. I’m ready if you are.”

  It was hard, slow going, scrambling into canyons and up slopes, stopping every hour to swing the compass free and wait for it to steady and point, re-drawing the improvised compass card in the mud. Larry finally shortened this step by drawing one on a page of his battered notebook. The rain went on, remorselessly, not hard, never soaking, but always there—a thin, fine, chilling drizzle that eventually seemed worse than the worst and hardest downpour. His arm, the one the bandits had harnessed behind his back, felt both numb and sore, but there wasn’t a thing he could do but set his teeth and try to think about something else. That night they literally dug themselves into a bank of dead leaves, in a vain attempt to keep some of the worst of the rain off. Their clothes were wet. Their skin was wet. Their boots and socks were wet. The food they munched was wet—berries, nuts, fruits and a sort of root like a raw potato. Kennard could easily enough have snared small game, but they tacitly agreed that even cold raw sour berries and mushrooms were preferable to raw wet meat. And Kennard swore that in this drizzle, at this season, in this kind of country, not even a kyrri could strike enough spark to kindle a fire!

  But toward nightfall of the next day—Larry had lost count of time, nothing existed now but the trudging through wet gulleys and slopes and thorny brushwood—Kennard stopped and turned to him.

  “I owe you an apology. This toy of yours is working and I know it now.”

  “How?” Larry was almost too exhausted to care.

  “The air is thinner and the rain is colder. Don’t you find it harder to breathe? We must be rising very rapidly now toward the mountain ranges—must have come up several thousand feet in the last few hours alone. Didn’t you notice that the western edge of every new gully was higher and harder to climb than the last?”

  Larry had thought it was just his own tiredness that had made it seem so; but now that Kennard confirmed it, it seemed indeed that the land had somehow changed character. It was barer; the ridges were longer and steeper, and the abundant berries and nuts and mushrooms had dwindled to a few of the sparser, sourer kind.

  “We’re getting into the mountains, all right,” Kennard said, “and that means we’d better stop early, tonight, and find all the food we can carry. There’s nothing in the passes except snow and ice and a few wild birds that nest in the crags and live on the berries up there—berries which happen to be poisonous to humans.”

  Larry knew he might have found a way out of a couple of serious dilemmas with Terran science, but without Kennard’s woodcraft they would both have died many times over.

  Food was far from easy to find; they spent hours gathering enough for a sparse supper and a few more meager meals, and during the next day, vegetation diminished almost to nothing. However, Kennard was almost jubilant. If they were actually that near to the mountains, they must be nearing the pass. And that evening, for a little while, like an unexpected gift, the fog and drizzle cleared briefly, and they saw the high peak and the pass that lay below it, shining with the mauve and violet glare of the red sun on the snow, clear before their eyes and less than ten miles away. The brief flash of sun lasted only five minutes or so, but it was long enough for Larry to adjust and check his improvised compass card, take an exact bearing on the pass, and lay out a proper course. After that, whenever any steep slope or rock-ledge forced them to deviate from a chosen direction, he marked it and could correct for it; so that now, instead of going in roughly the right direction, he knew they were going direct for their destination.

  But, vindicated though he was in Kennard’s eyes, the going was rough now, and getting rougher. There were steep rock-slopes on which they had to scramble on all fours, clutching for handholds on slippery ledges; and once they had to traverse a two-inch-wide track above a cliff-face that left Larry pale and sweating with terror. Kennard took these rock-scrambles quite in stride, and was getting back some of his old arrogant assurance of leadership, and it bothered Larry. Damn it, it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t been trained to climb rock-faces, nor did it make him a passive follower, just because heights of this sort made him sick and dizzy. He gritted his teeth, vowing to himself that anywhere Kennard led, he’d follow—even though it seemed that Kennard could often have chosen easier paths, and was trying to reestablish his own leadership of the expedition by showing off his own superior mountain-craft.

  Their provisions ran out that night; they slept, hungry, cold and wet, on a frost-rimed slope a little more level than most—or rather, Kennard slept; Larry had trouble even in breathing. The morning dawned, and long before it was full light, Kennard stirred. He said, “I know you’re not asleep. We may as well start. If we’re lucky we’ll reach the pass before noon.” In the bleak morning dimness Larry could not see his friend’s face, but he did not need to see. The emotions there were as clear to him as if he were inside Kennard’s mind: On the other side of the passes, there is food, and inhabited country, and warmth, and people to turn to for help. But the pass is going to be hard going. I wouldn’t like doing it even with a couple of experienced guides to help. If it doesn’t snow, we might get through—if the snow’s not already too deep. Can the Terran boy hold out? He’s already about exhausted. If he gives in now . . .

  And the despair in that thought suddenly overwhelmed Larry; Kennard was thinking, If he gives out now, I’ll be alone . . . and it will all be for nothing. . . .

  Larry wondered suddenly if he were imagining all this, if the height and the hardship were affecting his own mind. This sort of mental eavesdropping didn’t make sense. Also, it embarrassed him. He tried, desperately, to close his mind against it, but Kennard’s misgivings were leaking through all barriers:

  Can Larry hold out? Can he make it? Have I got strength enough for both of us?

  Silently, grimly, Larry resolved that if one of them gave out, it would not be himself. He was cold, hungry and wet, but by damn, he’d show this arrogant Darkovan aristocrat something.

  Damn it! He was sick of being helped along and treated like the burden and the weaker one!

  Terrans weak? Hadn’t the Terrans been the first to cross space! Hadn’t they taken the blind leap in the dark, before the stardrives, traveling years and years between the stars, ships disappearing and never being heard of again, and yet the race from Terra had spread through all inhabited worlds! Kennard could be proud of his Darkovan heritage and bravery. But there was something to be proud of in the Terrans, too! They had, in a way, their own arrogance, and it was just as reasonable as the Darkovan arrogance.

  Here he had assumed, all along, that he was somehow inferior because, on a Darkovan world and in a Darkovan society, he was a burden to Kennard. Suppose it was reversed? Kennard did not understand the workings of a compass. He would be utterly baffled at the drives of a spaceship or a surface-car.

  But even if he died here in the mountain passes, he was going to show Kennard that where a Darkovan could lead a Terran could follow! And then, damn it, when they got back to his world, he’d challenge Kennard to try
following him a while in the world of the Terrans—and see if a Darkovan could follow where a Terran led!

  He got up, grinned wryly, turned his pockets inside out in the hope of a stray crumb of food—there wasn’t one—and said, “The sooner the better.”

  The grade was steeper now, and there began to be snow underfoot; they went very carefully, guarding against a sideslip that could have meant a ghastly fall. His injured arm felt numbed and twice it slipped on handholds, but he proudly refused Kennard’s offers of help.

  “I’ll manage,” he said, tight-mouthed.

  They came to one dreadful stretch where frost-sheathed stones littered a high ledge without a sign of a track; Kennard, who was leading, set his foot tentatively on the ledge, and it crumbled beneath him, sending pebbles crashing down in a miniature rockslide whitened with powdery snow. He staggered and reeled at the edge of the abyss, but even before he swayed Larry had moved, catching the flash of fear at the touch, and grabbed and held him, hard—the older boy’s weight jerking his hurt arm almost from the socket—until Kennard could recover his balance. They clung together, gasping, Kennard with fear and relief and Larry with mingled fright and pain; something had snapped in the injured shoulder and his arm hung stiff and immovable at his side, sending shudders of agony down his side when he as much as moved a finger.

  Kennard finally wiped his brow. “Zandru’s hells, I thought I was gone,” he muttered. “Thanks, Lerrys. I’m all right now. You—” He noted Larry’s immobility. “What’s the trouble?”

  “My arm,” Larry managed to get out, shakily.

  Kennard touched it with careful fingers, drew a deep whistle. He moved his fingertips over it, his face intent and concentrated. Larry felt a most strange, burning itch deep in his bones under the touch; then Kennard, without a word of warning, suddenly seized the shoulder and gave it a violent, agonizing twist. Larry yelled in pain; he couldn’t help it. But as the pain subsided, he realized what Kennard had done.

  Kennard nodded. “I had to slip the damned thing back into the socket before it froze the muscles around it. Or it would have taken three men to hold you down while they worked it back into place,” he said.

  “How did you know—?”

  “Deep-probed,” Kennard said briefly. “I can’t do it often, or very long. But I—” he hesitated, did not finish his sentence. Larry heard it anyhow: I owed you that much. But damn it, now we’re both exhausted!

  “And we’ve still got that devilish ledge to cross,” he said aloud. He began unfastening his belt; tugged briefly at Larry’s. Larry, curiously, watched him buckle them together and slip the ends around their waists.

  “Shame you can’t use your left hand,” he said tersely. “Too bad they found out you were left-handed. Now we’ll start across. Let me lead. This is a hell of a place for your first lesson in climbing this kind of a rock-ledge, but here it is. Always have at least three things all together hanging on. Never move one foot without the other foot and both hands anchored. And the same with either hand.” His unfinished sentence again was perfectly clear to Larry: Both our lives are in his hands, because he’s the weakest.

  For the rest of his life, Larry remembered the agonizing hour and a half it took them to cross the twenty-foot stretch of rock-strewn ledge. There were places where the least movement started showers of rocks and snow; yet they could only cling together like limpets to their handholds and to the face of the rock. Above and below was sheer cliff; there was no help there, and if they retraced their steps, to find an easier way, they would never get across. Half a dozen times, Larry slipped and the belt jerking them back together saved him from a very long drop into what looked like nothingness and fog below. Halfway across a thin fine powdery snow began to fall, and Kennard swore in words Larry couldn’t even begin to follow.

  “That was all we needed!” Suddenly he seemed to brighten up, and placed his next foot more cautiously. “Well, Larry, this is it—this has got to be the worst. Nothing worse than this could possibly happen. From now, things can only get better. Come on—left foot this time. Try that greyish hunk of rock. It looks solid enough.”

  But at last they were on firm ground again, dropping down as they were in the snow, exhausted, to breathe deep and slow and gasp like runners just finished with a ten-mile race. Kennard, accustomed to the mountains, was as usual the first to recover, and stood up, his voice jubilant.

  “I told you it would get better! Look, Larry!”

  He pointed. Above them the pallid and snowy light showed them the pass, less than a hundred feet away, leading between rock-sheltered banks—a natural walkway, deeply banked with the falling snow, but sloping only gradually so that they could walk erect.

  “And on the other side of that pass, Larry, there are people—my people—friends, who will help us. Warmth and food and fire and—” he broke off. “It seems too good to be true.”

  “I’d settle for dry feet and something hot to eat,” Larry said, then froze, while Kennard still moved toward the pass. The terrible creeping tension he had felt just before their capture by the trailmen was with him again. It gripped him by the throat; forced him to run after Kennard, grabbing at him with his good arm, holding him back by main force. He couldn’t speak; he could hardly breathe with the force of it. The wave surged and crested, the precognition, the fore-knowing of terrible danger....

  It broke. He could breathe again. He gasped and caught at Kennard and pointed and heard the older boy shriek aloud, but the shriek was lost in the siren screaming wail that rose and echoed in the rocky pass. Above them, a huge and ugly craning head, bare of feathers, eyeless and groping, snaked upward, followed by a huge, ungainly body, dimly shining with phosphorescent light. It bore down upon them, clumsily but with alarming speed, cutting off their approach to the pass. The siren-like wailing scream rose and rose until it seemed to fill the air and all the world.

  It had been too good to be true.

  The pass was a nest of one of the evil banshee-birds.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  For an instant, in blind panic, Larry whirled, turning to run. The speed with which the banshee caught the change in direction of movement paralyzed him again with terror; but during that split second of immobility, he felt a flash of hope. Kennard had begun to run, stumbling in helpless panic; Larry took one leap after him, wrenching him back, hard.

  “Freeze,” he whispered, urgently. “It senses movement and warmth! Keep perfectly still!”

  As Kennard struggled to free himself, he muttered swiftly, “Sorry, pal,” swung back his fist and socked Kennard, hard, on the point of the chin. The boy—exhausted, worn, defenseless—collapsed into the snowbank and lay there, motionless, too stunned to rise or to do more than stare, resentfully, at Larry. Larry flung himself down, too, and lay without moving so much as a muscle.

  The bird stopped in mid-rush, turning its blind head confusedly from side to side. It blundered back and forth for a moment, its trundling walk and the trailing wings giving it the ungainly look of a huge fat cloaked man. It raised its head and gave forth that terrible, paralyzing wail again.

  That’s it, Larry thought, resisting the impulse to stuff his hands over his ears. Things hear that awful noise and they run—and the thing feels them moving! It’s got something like the electrostatic fields of the kyrri—only what it senses is their movement, and their smell.

  In this snowbank ...

  Very slowly, moving a fraction of an inch at a time, fearing that even the slightest rapid motion might alert the banshee again, he scrabbled slowly in his pocket for his medical kit. It was almost empty, but there might just be enough of the strongly chemical-smelling antiseptic so that they would not smell like anything alive—or, he thought grimly, good to eat.

  “Kennard,” he whispered, “can you hear me? Don’t move a muscle now. But when I slop this stuff around, dive into that snowbank—and burrow as if your life depended on it.” It probably does, he was thinking.

  “Now!”

&nb
sp; The smell of the chemical was pungent and sharp; the banshee, moving its phosphorescent head against the wind, made strange jolting motions of distaste. It turned and blundered away, and in that moment Larry and Kennard began to dig frantically into the snowbank, throwing up snow behind them, scrabbling it back over their bodies.

  They were safe—for the moment. But how would they get across the pass?

  Then he remembered Kennard’s earlier words about the banshees. They’re night-birds, torpid in the sunlight. The phosphorescence of their heads proved that they were no creatures of normal sunlight.

  If they could live through the night ...

  If they didn’t freeze to death ...

  If some other banshee couldn’t feel their warmth through the snow around them ...

  If the sun shone tomorrow, brightly enough to quiet the great birds ...

  If all these things happened, then they just might live through their last hurdle.

  If not ...

  Suddenly all these ifs, coming at him like blasts of fear from Kennard, stirred fury in him. Damn it, there had to be a way through! And Kennard seemed to have given up; he was just lying there in the snow, silent, apparently ready for death.

  But they hadn’t come so far together to die here, at the last. Damn it, he’d get them over that pass if he had to burrow through the damned snowbank with his bare hands....

  The banshee seemed to have gone; cautiously, he lifted his head, ever so slightly, from the snowbank. Then, thinking better of it, he plastered the freezing stuff over his head before lifting it up, quickly surveying the pass above them. Less than a hundred feet. If they could somehow crawl through the snow ...