"These are yours?"
"Yes."
"Where did you find them?"
"In the ruins near Mekk's fortress when I lived there."
"Then you must be the one the Talents have been waiting for. Rab, isn't it?"
"Yes, but you're not one of us."
"Right." Tlad continued speaking as he flipped through each of the volumes. "But they're not far behind me. They're heading directly for the keep. I suggest you let them know where you are. They should be in range."
Rab looked off into the forest for a moment, then returned his attention to Tlad.
"There. They know we're safe and where we are. Should be here soon. Now, tell me what —"
"Where's Volume Five?" Tlad quickly ran through the four volumes a second time. "Did you lose it?"
With a dumbfounded expression, Rab sat down with a jolt on the other side of the pile of books.
"Who are you? I'm the only one who can read these things. How could you know that Volume Five is missing? This is the only set."
"Wrong." Tlad said, voice low, words hurried. "I come from a fishing village but never had much of a bent for the sea. So as a boy I used to comb the ruins up the coast. I found a similar set and brought it to the village elder who knew how to read some of the ancient writing. He kept the books for a long time, and when he was finally through with them, he made me row him out past the reef. As we sat in the boat, he swore me to secrecy and told me what the books contained. Then he threw all five overboard."
"Then this is not the only set," Rab said.
"No. And there may be others."
"This means you know about the Shapers and the Teratols, and the truth about the Talents and the teries."
"I also know the contents of Volume Five."
"Then you know more than I do," Rab said. "I never got to translate that one."
"Then it's lost?"
"No. One of Kitru's officers is on his way to Mekk's fortress with it now."
Tlad shot to his feet. "No!"
The violence of Tlad's reaction penetrated the mental fog enveloping the tery. He rose and padded toward the pair.
"What's in the fifth volume?" Rab asked.
Tlad hesitated, then seemed to reach a decision.
"Volume Five tells of the final days of the Teratol society and how they gathered all their records, their techniques, and their hardware into a huge underground cache. Among the items they hid were the super weapons they used to keep the underclasses in line. Volume Five gives the location of that cache."
Rab too was on his feet now. "And it's on its way to Mekk!"
"If that madman gets his hands on those weapons, there won't be a forest left to hide in. He'll have everything that doesn't bear True Shape — whatever that happens to mean at the time — hunted down and destroyed. And a lot of other things will get destroyed along the way. Maybe everything. Is there any way we can intercept that officer?"
"No," Rab said with a quick shake of his head. "Dennel told me that the messenger was scheduled to leave during the night. He's long out of reach by now."
"Dennel?" Tlad said. "Where is he?"
Rab explained what had happened inside the keep.
Tlad nodded and glanced the tery's way. "I suspected Dennel was up to no good."
"He's not important now," Rab said. "I must know: Where is the cache?"
"If the maps were accurate, right under Mekk's fortress. The Teratols seemed to think it was pretty safe — you had to go through the Hole to get to it."
Rab started. "The Hole? Then it's unquestionably safe."
Tlad said, "Surely the Hole is empty now."
"No. The offspring of the original inhabitants still dwell there — no one dares to let them out. And no one enters the Hole willingly. Don't worry: The cache is safe."
"I wouldn't count on it. If Mekk learns that the Hole stands between him and the power to destroy anything that displeases him, he'll find a way around it or through it. He'll get to that cache."
"Then we're doomed."
"Not if we get there first."
"And they call me crazy," Rab said with a humorless laugh. "How do we do that?"
Tlad tugged at his beard. "I can't say. I'm from the coast. I don't know much about Mekk's fortress."
"You certainly know your way around the forest."
"I live in the forest now — I'm a potter, not a fisherman. But there must be some way we can get into the fortress and retrieve that book."
"There is none, I assure you. Mekk dwells in mortal fear of assassination — that's why he's postponed his inspection tour of the provinces so many times. The walls of his fortress are sheer and high — not even our tery friend could scale them."
"How about the main gate? There's got to be traffic in and out of the fortress."
"All civilians must have passes to enter the fortress, and all are sent home at dusk. Mekk's tower is surrounded by troopers day and night. There are no chinks in his armor. I'm afraid we're lost."
"No," Tlad said with a certainty that seemed unfounded, "We're not lost. Every stronghold has at least one weak spot. I'll find it."
He turned and hurried off into the trees.
— XVI-
The psi-folk arrived soon after Tlad's departure, and it was a silently joyous event. They all recognized Rab by his Talent and crowded around him, slapping him on the shoulders and back. Adriel was laid on a drag and had regained consciousness by the time they all returned to the camp area that evening. Rab, Komak, Adriel, and the tery sat apart during the celebratory feast that followed.
Rab gestured to the tery, who had not strayed from Adriel's side during the entire journey, and now listened intently to the conversation.
"This is quite a fellow you have here."
"That he is," Komak agreed.
Rab had made sure to impress upon all the importance of the tery's role in Adriel's rescue. He pressed the point again.
"I can't say it often enough: If not for this fellow, Adriel and I would still be locked within the keep, and the rest of you would be dead at the base of the walls."
"I know," Komak said. "I never thought he would amount to much when Tlad convinced me to bring him into the camp, but he's certainly proved me wrong. He's a smart one — smarter than some humans I've known."
"Is that so?" Rab’s his eyes danced as a smile showed through his freshly washed and trimmed beard. "And you say Tlad was responsible for bringing him into camp?"
"You know Tlad?"
"We've met. A most interesting man. I'm anxious to meet him again. We've many things to discuss. But getting back to our friend here — do you have a name for him, Adriel?"
The girl shook her head carefully; she had complained of a throbbing pain in both temples since awakening.
"No. I was waiting to find a name I like for him but never got around to deciding. He's always been just ‘the tery.’ "
"Then I shall take the liberty of naming him for you. Do you object?"
Adriel did not appear to be in a condition to object to much of anything.
"No. Go ahead," she said. "I could never make up my mind what to call him."
"Good," Rab said, seizing the opportunity. "Then I shall name him Jon."
"Jon is a man's name," Komak said. It was more of an observation than an objection.
"He shall be Jon, nonetheless."
Jon, the tery thought. He liked that name.
— XVII-
Two days later, when Adriel was well enough to travel, Rab assumed the role of leader with Komak’s grateful blessing.
"Which way shall we move?" As always, Komak spoke aloud when Adriel was present.
Jon, the tery, hovered nearby, listening.
"Eastward. That will take us further away from Kitru's realm."
"But it will also bring us closer to Mekk's fortress."
"I know," Rab said.
"Is that safe?"
"Don't worry, Komak. I fully intend to keep a respectful dista
nce between our people and the Overlord's legions. But I'm formulating a plan. It's not fully developed yet. When it is, I'll let you know all the details. Trust me."
"You know I do. We all do."
Later, when Rab wandered off to a secluded spot where they could meet and talk, Jon asked him why he hadn't told the Talents about the cache under Mekk's fortress.
"I don't want to frighten them. Some of them may panic and scatter. That will serve no purpose. We must stick together…and we must have a purpose. Our days of blind flight are over. Our future is tied to what lies hidden under that fortress. So we've got to deal with the problem of Mekk now or spend the rest of our lives on the run."
"How?"
"I don't know…yet. But I sense that our enigmatic friend Tlad will find that elusive weak spot in Mekk's defenses. And when he does, he'll need help. I want us to be nearby to supply that help."
"Why does Tlad want to help Talents and teries?" Jon asked. The question had been troubling him.
"I don't know. Do you trust him?"
Jon nodded. "I owe him my life."
"Then you have good reason to trust him. I have no such reason, yet something within tells me that the fate of the Talents is in some way tied to Tlad and — stranger still — to you, Jon."
Jon was startled. "What can I do?"
"I don't know. But I feel constrained to keep all the pieces at hand until the puzzle can be solved. But as to the here and now," he said, shifting the subject, "I notice you've been avoiding Adriel."
"Yes," was all Jon could say.
Once he had assured himself that she was fully recovered from the drugs, he had kept his distance.
Rab shook his head. "She doesn't understand. I believe she's a little hurt."
"She will recover."
He turned back toward the camp.
The tery stayed with the tribe during its leisurely eastward trek. He continued to avoid Adriel, however, forcing himself to ignore her hurt and spread his company among the rest of the psi-folk. He did so not only because Rab suggested it, but because proximity to Adriel had become so achingly painful.
He would walk beside one of the Talents for a while and pretend that he was practicing his speech. He'd point to an object and call it by name, or point and pretend he didn't know what to call it and induce the Talent to tell him. He was fully accepted by everyone now because of his heroic rescue of Rab and Adriel, and within a matter of days the psi-folk seemed to be subconsciously convinced that he was more of a burly aborigine than an animal. Everyone delighted in working with Jon to increase his vocabulary.
Jon hated it.
Before he had met Rab it had been almost amusing to play the dumb animal. Now things were different. Now he found the role degrading. He wanted to belong, to be accepted as the thinking, feeling, rational being he was. He too awaited Tlad's return to give the psi-folk — and himself — a direction other than flight, a goal beyond survival.
Rab drilled the archers daily. The march would be stopped in mid-afternoon; after camp was set, targets would be raised. Some were suspended on rope with pulleys for practice against moving targets. Simultaneous volleys were rehearsed time and time again.
Jon often heard grumbling over sore fingers, arms, and shoulders, but he saw significant improvement in coordination and accuracy.
At sunset on the eighth day, Tlad walked into the camp.
Rab immediately drew him aside. Jon the tery followed. He wanted to hear what was being planned and, as ever, knew that he liked being near Tlad.
"Well?" Rab said expectantly when they were out of earshot of the rest of the tribe. "Did you find anything?"
"Yes and no." Tlad looked tired and his voice was strained, as if he recently had been under great stress. "There seems to be no way to get into Mekk's fortress other than a full frontal assault, and you haven't anywhere near the numbers for that. Also, there's no way to get to the weapons cache other than through the Hole."
Rab's face showed his disappointment. "So far you haven't told us anything we don't already know."
"Have patience. I have something."
He unrolled sheets of paper covered with incomprehensible wavering lines.
"What are those?"
"Maps. I've been wracking my brain to remember the maps I'd seen in Volume Five, and finally managed to come up with some crude copies from memory. They give us some idea of what the area around Mekk's fortress looked like before everything fell apart during the Great Sickness."
"But that's all changed now."
"Right. But it shows us a way to get into the Hole without going through the fortress.
"The Hole? Who'd want to get into the Hole?"
"We do. So we can get to the weapons."
"Go through the Hole?" Rab said in an awed whisper. "No one goes through the Hole."
"We have to. There's no other way."
"But it's impossible. We'll be torn to pieces."
Jon broke his silence. "What is this Hole?"
He remembered his mother mentioning it from time to time, but she would never explain anything about it.
"Mekk's fortress is built on the ruins of what used to be the headquarters of the old Teratol regime," Tlad said. "That was where they performed most of their shaping experiments. From what I can gather, all their failures, along with their special experiments, the ones they couldn't risk setting free, went into a sealed cavern below. The special teries were the ones they had shaped inside and out — deformed their bodies without, and drained off all decency, mercy, empathy and compassion from within. They let monstrosity mate with monstrosity in the Hole to form new and even more monstrous offspring. It's concentrated depravity down there."
"It's full of teries?" Jon said. "Why doesn't Mekk eradicate them?"
Rab laughed. "I'm sure he'd like to. And I'd wish he'd try. But he can't risk it. His troops won't go near the Hole and he'd risk a mutiny if he tried to force them. So he's left them alone."
Jon was struck by the irony of it: Mekk the tery-killer forced to live over a huge nest of teries.
"It's hell pure and simple in there," Rab said, visibly shuddering. "I once had a glimpse of its denizens through one of the grates that provide ventilation for the Hole."
"Apparently the Teratols enjoyed watching them," Tlad said, pointing to one of his maps. "And this is where they did it."
Rab and the tery crowded around. Rab seemed to understand the squiggles on the map, but they meant nothing to Jon.
"What's that?" Rab asked.
"A viewing chamber. They built an underground corridor with a transparent wall through which they could safely watch the goings-on in the Hole. That corridor is our way to get to the Hole without Mekk's or his troopers’ knowledge. From there it shouldn't be far to the cache."
Rab shook his head. "Do you know what you're asking? I don't care how near or far it is, it can't be done. The foulest, most depraved teries in existence live down there in constant warfare. The only thing that can bring them together is the sight of a normal human — they will act in concert to pull that human to pieces, then resume fighting over the remains." He lowered his voice. "That is how vagrants and petty criminals in this region are executed — dropped through one of the grates into the Hole."
Tlad grimaced. "They throw people into the Hole?"
"Only those not important enough to crucify."
"Still," Tlad insisted, "it's a risk that must be taken."
"Forget it. I can't ask anyone to go in there."
"Then I can't help you," Tlad said angrily and turned to go.
Jon placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Wait. Perhaps a tery could reach these weapons through the Hole."
"No," Rab said. "Not even you could survive in there, Jon."
"I want to try."
He realized that he wanted very badly to do this.
"Why? You're risking your life."
"It is my life."
Rab waited a long time before ans
wering.
"It could work," he said finally. "But how could one man accomplish anything?"
"He could bring back a few weapons," Tlad replied, "and with those at hand, we could clear a path through the Hole — nothing could stand in our way — and get the rest."
Rab's eyes lit with growing enthusiasm. He put his arm around Jon's hulking shoulders.
"Brother tery, you're about to save the Talents once again." — XVIII-
Later that night, Jon sat by the central fire with Rab and Tlad after the rest of the camp had drifted off to bed.
"Why must it be like this, Tlad?" Rab said softly. He had a pile of small pebbles in his hand and was throwing them into the fire one by one.
"You mean war?" Tlad shrugged. "It seems to be part of the human condition."
"Think so? I wonder. Why must we be out here in the forests struggling to stay alive while Mekk and his priests and his troops are in their fortress scouring their brains for ways to find and kill us?"
"The True Shape sect seems to be at the root of your problem."
"Ah, religion. I could think of a better way to use religion, I assure you. Besides numbers, our greatest disadvantage is that all our religious myths have been turned against us. The True Shape faith says that the Great Sickness was an act of God through which He branded all those who displeased Him. Therefore all those bearing the mark of the Great Sickness are offensive to God and must be eradicated."
"We're all afraid of the strange, the misshapen," Tlad said. "Even you aren't sure your fellow Talents won't reject Jon once you tell them he's human."
"I know. But it used to be considered wrong to hurt or kill others. Then the True Shape priests wormed their way into Mekk's brain and convinced him to order the extermination of all teries. I guess it was inevitable that Talents would be added to the list. So it's now an act of devotion to go out and kill a tery or a Talent. Everything is twisted."
"I'm sure Talents were included in the extermination order for political reasons as well," Tlad said. "If Mekk is as suspicious and fearful as you say, he probably wanted to eliminate those subjects who could plot against him without ever saying a word."
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