by Andre Norton
Not as bright as the mound candles, in fact tenuous enough to be only ghosts of those flames, there were pale lights. As his eyes adjusted he could count them—nine– They were too faint in color to be camp fires, and from each streamed a thread of grey unnatural mist. Outward to the south they were reaching over the valley, waving as might banners. The first of these now dipped down, as if to lap them out of their refuge, but it came no farther than the foot of the ramp. There it wavered and clung, sweeping back and forth, joined and fed by those other traces of vapor, which made it more visible.
It was trying hard to get to them but it was walled away. Farree heard an exclamation from behind him. A stunner clicked, aimed at that wavering tongue of mist. It did not vanish, no, instead it appeared to draw energy from the power sent against it, so that the tongue of mist spread wider, its movements becoming more energetic and threatening, though it still did not reach beyond the foot of the ramp.
"No—!" He heard Zoror's voice. "Cold iron—your boot knife—let that feel iron!"
His cry might have been for Vorlund but it was Farree who heeded the order first. He grabbed at his own boot top, caught the hilt of the weapon which Vorlund had taught him to use, though he had never done so except in practice. The hilt was warm in his hand, the warmth growing into real heat as he raised it. Then, as the Zacanthan had done before him, Farree threw, aiming at the tongue of mist. He saw the black spot that was the speeding knife, and then the whip back of the mist. It broke into tatters which waved wildly in the air. A moment later he was aware that Vorlund had joined him loosing the infighting weapon of the spacers.
That mist fluttered, a thing now of ragged, dissolving wisps. It drew back to the mound which had been crowned, but no farther than that, changing the direction of its advance, pointing rather to the ground than to the ship beyond. Once more it was rebuilding in shape and strength.
"Cold iron! That is truth then!" Zoror's hand fell upon Farree's right shoulder. The Zacanthan may have yielded to the strike of the original beam but now his voice was full and deep again. He was, to all appearances, his old self as he leaned past Farree to blink out into the night.
"Cold iron?" Vorlund demanded. "What do you mean?"
"Mean?" Zoror's voice carried all the force of one who has chanced upon a long-hunted treasure. "That once more there is a kernel of truth lying snug within legend, brother. It was said many times of the Little People that the one weapon they could not circumvent nor withstand was iron itself—iron which made man the master of the worlds where, one after another, they disputed his lordship."
There was a moan which was closer to a sigh. Farree swung around. Vorlund was down on his knees now, supporting Maelen. By the ship's lights her face was pale and drawn. She might have lain for long in the hold of some illness. Then her eyes opened and she looked up at the Zacanthan.
"They have power—such as even a Singer cannot summon—"
Zoror nodded. "It was always said of them that they were not to be easily overcome. There is something here, though, which we do not know—why should they attack without warning when we mean no harm?"
"Because of me!" Farree said bitterly. "And I do not have the knowledge to be able to discover the why of that either." Once more that ache in his head strengthened. There was something—something to be done—and the need for doing it gnawed within him; only he knew not what it was or why he must do that unknown act.
"We are safe within here," Zoror glanced around at them, his gaze lingering a moment on each as if he measured their strength and abilities. "Let us rest the night in iron-governed safety and see what the morning will bring."
Farree, half blind again from the pain in his head, lurched obediently into the corridor beyond the port. Somehow he got down to the level of his own cabin and there collapsed into his hammock, aware of nothing more than that his body rested and perhaps his head might follow. One hand moved restlessly. His palm felt sticky and not knowing nor caring what he was doing he brought up his hand and licked at it, so gathering into his mouth what was left of the bruised leaves and berries of ill-bane. He chewed and swallowed that harvest. The pain which had been a tight band about his head eased. He slid, as he might have on the ramp had he lost his footing, down into darkness.
There was a great hall, and panels in its walls were a-glitter with light, cold light, in spite of the fact that some of the colors were the red and yellow of flames. The pavement underfoot was silver, perhaps even true blocks of that metal. He did not tread there so much as waft above it, yet he did not feel any expansion of his wings.
Between the glittering panels were others of the same silver as was underfoot. Those were wrought with patterns in high relief. Some depicted strange creatures such as the fire-breathing snake which had hunted him back to the valley. Others were humanoid in form, yet differed one from the other. There were bodies like his own, winged and plainly traveling aloft. But there were also other things, grotesque, some monstrously so, and more merely strange, exuding no menace, as did a few.
There were no torches or lamps within the room—the radiance seemed to flow from the flooring beneath. Then he became aware of swirls of a milky mist which was coiling and recoiling, reaching every time farther out into the middle of the chamber. From somewhere there sounded a single trilling note. Two of the pictured wall blocks vanished sidewise into the flanking wall and there entered two whose wings were furled about them like colorful capes, even as he himself went where he trod the earth.
One was slightly taller than the other; since the wings sprang from the shoulders, they concealed most of the body, and were of a deep crimson shading into a silver as glinting as the pavement. His head (for the features on that calm and nearly expressionless face were ruggedly masculine, with a seam of scar across one cheek) was held high and there seemed to be flickers of fire in his large eyes.
His companion was just as plainly female. Her enclosing wings were the delicate ivory of the ill-bane flower, but they were also touched with silver which glinted gem-bright as she moved. Her long hair was braided about her head and woven in among the pale yellow of those coils were gem-set threads. Once in the room she loosed the tight covering of her wings to show that she wore a short, form-clinging robe of pure silver, girded by a wide belt of gold and brown gems. To the first glance she might look like a girl only on the verge of womanhood, but when one saw more closely, especially her eyes, there were signs of years of knowledge.
The man moved on into the center of that hall, his wings, too, now rising. While his body, even to arms and legs, was hidden in a glossy red mesh, he wore about his narrow waist a wide belt of silver scales which supported a weapon; Farree recognized it from pictures in Zoror's collection: it was known as a sword. The man's hands played with the buckle of the belt and he was frowning, his eyebrows near drawn together by a scowl. Now he stood staring down at the pavement as if he might find on the surface some answer to a problem which troubled him.
His companion did not come so far into the room. She held up her head as might one who was searching the sky and it was plain that her attention was caught by something which she sought aloft. Before either of them moved farther or spoke, if they did speak aloud, there sounded another note of summons, this time a double one which might come from within the earth. Two more of the panels opened, but those who entered thus were very different from the first comers.
They were small and they were wingless. Their shoulders were hunched a little forward, almost as if they were used to walking ways where the roofs pressed closer to the footing.
Both arms and legs to the knees were bare, showing rough brown skin, wrinkled and pocked with small dark splotches. Their bodies were covered with clothing almost the same shade as their flesh. And, far from being beardless, the faces of both were covered from the cheek bones down with mats of crinkled yellow-white hair, thatches of the same apparently covering their heads, as tufts appeared under the edges of dingy, rust-red caps. Their features—large ho
oked noses and deep-set eyes—were nearly masked, and as they drew nearer together and came forward a few steps, there was the air of suspicion about them, as if they were far from easy in this place or with such company.
The winged man looked about and jerked his head in a nod which both the gnarled creatures echoed. However, the woman continued to look aloft, now turning her head as if so to view the whole of the large chamber. She took no note of the newcomers.
A third sound followed speedily on those which had brought the bearded ones. A last panel opened and there came through a masked figure who, because of its muffling, could not be clearly named man or woman. The mask has been made to cover the whole head, fastened at the shoulders on either side of the throat with dull brown brooches. It had been fashioned to resemble the head of a beast, even to a covering of bristles, like needle spikes, planted along the large pointed ears and across the back, as well as along the drooping jowls, which helped to form the face (if one might term it that). There was no true nose, only a snout above a half open mouth. Small eyes were dark pits on either side of that snout, and there had been set in place within the jaw a full showing of greenish-yellow teeth with a rounded fore-fang sprouting out both to the right and the left.
The robe about the body of the newcomer was masklike also, falling in many folds. In color it was red, and over its surface were black lines which appeared to move with each step the creature took, sometimes forming patterns, only to dissolve at the next forward movement.
As the masked one advanced, ponderously, as if the robe covered a large bulk, the two capped men drew back hurriedly and shifted to one side so that the winged man was between them and Beast Head. Again the woman paid no attention to latest addition to their company, her head remaining up, her eyes searching.
It was Beast Mask who broke the silence. He spoke gutturally, almost as if he found speech difficult for his tongue and lips to shape. The words he spoke were slurred into a monotone.
"Why the summons?"
It was the man who answered him, though somehow Farree was surprised that he did so in audible speech:
"They have come in greater force. Also they have more bait—one who has been turned to their service—"
"Where?" the Beast wanted to know.
"They have landed their hunting cage in the Valley of Vore," the woman replied, never looking away from whatever she must be seeking.
One of the small men laughed and the sound was like a rusty bolt grating in a long disused lock. "Ah, and them what sleep—they have stirred!"
There was a moment of silence. Farree believed that perhaps of them all he could read the greatest surprise in the attitude of Beast Mask.
"There cannot be an answer." That voice came even more harshly. "The dead have long since returned their substance to the earth. That which was the real part of them fled upon the coming of the strokes which separated them from life—"
"Ho." Again the dwarf laughed. "Good teaching that. So we can lie snug and not think of old ill acts and the payment thereof. The earth hides much—but its doors lie open to us!" He held his head back and as far above his bowed shoulders as he might. "Bind the dead down with wand—even with iron"—Farree noted the small start of the winged man at that word—"and there comes a day when ties will break, for even iron is eaten by rust. Do not think that you are rid of the Hunters and the Shield men because they were planted with the best of your spelling. Time may also wear that thin—"
He was interrupted by the woman. Her head had moved down and now it seemed to Farree that she was looking directly at him: her eyes widened with surprise and she held out one hand towards him, her fingers crooked in what he guessed was a warning sign.
"There is one here!" Her words came as sharp as a knife thrust.
All the others stared in his direction now. The man had drawn the sword, the blade of which looked like a flame stiffened into a slightly curving length. Had Farree been able he would have fled. However, that which had brought him here did not release its hold on him.
"Who?" the man demanded of the woman. Beast Mask had moved up beside her, snout seeming to expand, as if its wearer could indeed pick up an alien scent.
"Atra—" The gross voice within the mask pronounced that word as if it were a loathsome oath.
The woman answered with a decided shake of her head. "Not her, no. They may have made her their tool, but she would carry then the stench of them with her. This one comes not in body—"
Beast Mask brought out of body wrappings a hand which was long and thin in contrast to the rest. This was turned palm upward. Farree caught a suggestion of gutter from a round disk which appeared fixed to the hollow frame of flesh and bone.
A finger of color, or colors, for it was rainbow hued, corkscrewed about, aiming in Farree's direction. The woman uttered a single word and that hand shook, while Beast Mask gave a short cry as from pain. The man was beside the woman with one stride, his wings fanning out so the tip of one came near to buffeting Beast Mask.
"Fool!"
"Fool, thrice fool yourself!" spat back the masked one. "How do we know what weapons the Hunters have made for themselves through the centuries of time? Can it not be that they have projected a defense to cover the incoming of a spy? What have we done? Gone behind our cloud walls, sealed ourselves in as a way of escape. I tell you that this will never rid us of these vermin who have trailed us on through space for more than five lifetimes of the Star!"
The upward gesture of that muffled head drew Farree's sight even though he felt as if he must be fastened there, easy food for the killing. The ceiling of this great hall was again silver—but it was a setting for something else. There depended a huge crystal on a single chain, as Farree had seen in miniature made into amulets favored by those who believed in the power of luck. This one was divided into three points—the two on the sides jutting out from the middle one as branches might grow from the trunk of a great tree.
Rainbows of light not unlike those imprisoned in Maelen's fingers played along its surface, and there were flashes from the pointed tips of the three branches. Inside Farree there was a sudden mighty surge of feeling. What had filled him on the hillocks of the valley—that sensation that he was a part of something he did not understand, that ignorantly he might lose that which none could control, was back a hundredfold.
"Atra!" He had certainly never spoken that. It was only a reaching thought which made him try to raise hands pleadingly to that triune of crystal.
"Here!" The woman's voice arose in what was close to a shout. "One of the blood here!" She ran forward before Farree could attempt to move and swung her hand as if she would seize him. He saw the flash of fingers close to his eyes but he felt nothing. So real had this all seemed that he could not believe for a moment that he was NOT there.
"Not Atra—" The man joined her again. He had reversed the sword which he held and was now prodding with the hilt, passing through the very space Farree seemed to occupy.
"No." The woman's hand had fallen by her side. "If it is not Atra—then who would be so spying? None else has been captured alive by the death dwellers.
"And none of those has the inner power to enable them to come here!" the woman added. "Who else or"—now her expression changed from one of astonishment and wonder to a smooth mask in which only her eyes seemed alive. Yellow those were like the ones which Farree faced when confronting a mirror—"has there perhaps been some greater folly—some attempt to bring forth Atra? Someone of the Icarkin may have gone against the oath. A second capture—"
"So oaths do not hold you flutterers—" one of the small men growled. "Are you then foresworn?"
"Aye," his mate echoed. "Is not Atra of the High Blood? Mighty close do you stick together, you flitterers! Did they not set the trap with her as bait as speedily as she fell into their hands? These 'men' are not fools and they are all sick with greed. If they have caught another such as Atra and set him or her to watching– Did not Sorwin here say that they may have new w
eapons to bring against us? You!" He swung his head toward Farree or towards where Farree would be if he had invaded this centermost defense in person. "By rock and rap, by thunderclap, by sword and stone, and voice alone—"
"By heart and eye," intoned his fellow, "earth and sky."
"Show you must!" Beast Mask's voice, more than half snarl, ended the chant.
It was as if he were one of the candles' flames on the crests of the hummocks back in the valley; Farree felt a pull from one side to another. He might be clasped in giant hands and so shaken back and forth—
Shaken back and forth. There was no more hall of silver and crystal—no more winged ones, no dwarfish workers of spells, no beast-headed monstrosity. Instead it was as dark as if a cloak had been flung over him. Then Farree opened his eyes.
He lay on his hammock in the ship and he was blinking into the eyes of Maelen, who was regarding him with concern. Behind her stood Vorlund, and the taller Zacanthan was in the doorway of the cabin. Under one of Farree's hands there was movement and he felt the well-known contour of Togger's spiky body. Dreaming—he must have been dreaming! Only the memory of all he had seen and heard remained as clear as the ceiling crystals of his vision.
"You have been—elsewhere." It was Maelen who spoke, and she did not ask a question, she stated a fact.
Farree licked dry lips. Part of him was still Farree the outcast of the Limits who had been given new life and hope, but another part was stirring into wakefulness, an awareness which was born in the familiar pain within his skull.
"Under the crystal—" That part of the memory suddenly seemed the most important. "They—they have fear—of us– No," he corrected himself, "of men." For the first time another thought came into his mind and with it a spurt of excitement. "Great One," he spoke directly to the Zacanthan, "are we—men?"
Zoror blinked. "Each of us has a name for our own kind, a measurement against which we rank others. 'Men– women'—to a fellow of my blood I am 'man.' To other Thassa"—now he nodded to Maelen—"she is 'woman.' To Thassa and perhaps Terran also, because he held once Terran identity to come by chance and fate within a Thassa body, Krip here is 'man' to those two species. Yes, to ourselves, our kind are 'man—woman.' What we may be to others—" He stroked his jaw with a taloned finger. "To those others we may be different. Extees is one word that is used. We have intelligence in common, and perhaps some extra natural gifts of mind or body—but we are not 'man—woman' in one meaning of the word with each other and his or her kin."