Dare to Go A-Hunting ft-4

by Andre Norton

  "They freed me—" Farree tried to summon up pictures of Maelen and Vorlund as he had seen them first, when they had rescued Togger, and incidentally himself, from the filth of the Limits.

  "No—" The man straightened in his chair to eye Farree with open surprise. He pointed a finger at Farree as if flesh and bone were a weapon. "No, you cannot be made to hold a lie such as that! Then there are two parties here!" He was out of the chair in one movement, walking at a swift pace away from Farree, out of the captive's range of sight.

  Farree began to test whatever it was which held him so tightly prisoner. He looked along his own body and could see no sign of any bonds. The light particles which had entrapped him were gone, but still he could not move.

  Move, repeated his aching mind, still weak from the force which had been used to try to pluck his past from him. What had Zoror said about glamorie—that it was a weapon, or a trick, which could be used to entice or deceive those who did not understand it? It was true that he could not transmit to another, but did that barrier also keep him from working on himself? There was certainly no reason not to try.

  The flutist on the footstool was playing again. Farree moved his head slowly, trying to shut that music out by concentration, for it seemed to him that the tune filled that very part of his mind that he must use, lulling what was left of its power into uselessness.

  His hands—in his mind he pictured his two hands as he had seen them last—not stiff and straight against his body but free to move in any direction he willed for them. Fingers– curving so! Yes, he could picture that in spite of the drone of the flute.

  Move slow– He had a sudden small rise of triumph. One finger had indeed arched away from tight contact with the rest. Farree fought the euphoria of that triumph and held tightly to his mental picture. He felt the trickle of moisture, summoned by his effort, across his skin. Two fingers now—a hand! He shifted his hand and felt it move against his side.

  Two hands– A snatch of thought—had the flutist noted this? Was he a guard sent to do sentry duty and summon help if it was needed?

  While patches of sweat plastered his clothes to him Farree fought on. The flutist had made no move. But that did not mean that he would allow Farree to win this battle. Feet– Farree rolled over on his stomach and used his hands to lever himself up. He looked over his shoulder as he managed to rise to his knees.

  The sentry no longer played, merely slipped the flute back and forth through its webbed hands, its head cocked a little to one side as it watched Farree's floundering fight to get to his feet. He expected any moment to see the man rushing in to put him once more under restraint—still that had not occurred.

  He was up at last, though his wings were still folded into the narrowest possible bulk. The flutist continued to watch. Farree moved quickly, putting the table between him and the other. From the size of the table as well as that of the now empty chair Farree believed that the room was intended for the use of the large man's own race or species, since all was clearly too big to be easily accepted by one of his own stature.

  The top of the table was crowded with a variety of objects, including a mirror. He hooked his fingers over its edge to study himself in the surface. Near him there were flasks, some of them transparent, so that one could see either liquid or powders inside. These were as rainbow-hued as the flashes from crystals, which were present also. Two had been carven into balls and were positioned on stands—one of them white and carven intricately, the other dark and plain; the ball resting on the latter was also murky in shade. Other crystals remained in their natural forms, holding jagged surfaces aloft. There was also a roll of greyish leather (which resembled those records Zoror consulted from time to time). This had been flattened out and was kept so by smaller chunks of crystal of a greenish shade. A little farther away was a second sheet of the stuff, and a pot of dark color with a pen made of a stiff feather lying beside it.

  A brazier occupied the middle of the board. From its pierced lid there curled a faint coil of smoke, bearing with it the scent of spice. Plainly this was a work place for someone whose interests lay along the same path as those of the Zacanthan. Thinking of Zoror now brought Farree back to the matter at hand.

  He tried to expand his wings, centering in his mind his vivid memories of free flight. However, though he might have freed his body, he was not successful with his wings. They remained cramped, as tightly furled as bones and flesh would allow.

  Still holding onto the table Farree surveyed the room carefully. The haze which he remembered had now vanished, although all the corners of the chamber were dark and shadowy. Walls were cloaked with stiff panels which bore both dim pictures and lines of runes. There was another chair and a smaller table by the far wall, and, beyond the large table, a piece of furniture which he also had seen in Zoror's rooms: This was a tall standing rack, each shelf divided into a number of small cubbies, many holding rolls which matched that one outspread upon the table. Zoror had very ancient rolls fashioned from the skins of beasts (from many worlds and scores of years) which he stored so. Farree had seen some of them—those the Zacanthan had consulted in his search for the People.

  To his left there was one wall bare of any drapery and broken by a large window, now curtained, though that curtain stirred as if wind plucked at it. Here was a bench fitted into place. Farree drew away from the table, testing his ability to walk alone. He staggered, grasped again at the table, and then, taking steps with care, he made for that promise of an opening beyond. If there was a door to the room it was hidden somewhere behind those lengths of stiff folds.

  He reached the bench, ever listening for any cry of alarm from the flutist. However, when he edged partly around to see, the creature had not stirred, though it was watching him. The sill of the window was high, again not suited to one of Farree's small stature. He pulled himself up on the bench and then got to his feet, one hand to the wall to steady himself while with the other he tugged at the curtain, dragging it a little aside.

  There was darkness beyond, the gloom of night, perhaps even a storm-summoning one. In spite of the fact he could not see much or clearly, Farree believed that this room was well above the ground and that there was no way out. For upon the moving of the curtains he sighted a barrier which was a web of silvery metal patterned in the form of entwined vines, the leaves of which glimmered as if drawing some light from beyond.

  He shook the web, or tried to, but none of the metal shifted, being too well rooted in the stone about it. Then he flinched back, nearly falling from his perch. For driving straight at the window was one of the flying lizards such as had escorted him back to the valley where his ship had finned in. It uttered a grating cry and swerved just as it appeared that it was going to hurl itself against the bars of the vine. At its full-lunged screech Farree hurriedly loosed his hold on the curtain and dropped back to the bench.

  The fluttering notes of the flute sounded. But the creature had left its perch upon the footstool and was moving in a queer way which was not a walk but a skittering kind of dance.

  It was not coming towards him but rather was headed toward the wall behind the chair. And before it quite reached that goal it shimmered, its outlines becoming unclear. Then it was gone. Farree rubbed his hand across his eyes and drew a deep breath.

  Of course this might all be a dream, as his other venture among these people had been. Perhaps they had indeed taken over his mind and he saw only what they desired to show him. Had he fought that battle which had freed him from what he believed was a trance—or had they only allowed him to do so in order to test him in some way? Was he waking or asleep?

  He hunkered down on the bench, leaning well forward to accommodate his furled wings. Could one dream such reality? He clipped a good pinch of skin on one wrist between his fingers and applied full pressure. Pain—

  Still Farree huddled where he was and fear such as he had never known, even in the worst days in the Limits, stirred within him. Who was he? Was he here at all or had s
ome other mind taken over, putting all this into his mind? Perhaps he was even back at the ship bodily—and here in another form, no matter how real this seemed!

  Sliding down from the bench he once more approached that crowded table. Deliberately he leaned forward and cupped his hands about the clouded globe, which was nearest. He had to draw closer to the edge in order to hold it.

  There was an answer to his touch. Within the globe there burst a fiery circle. Then the flames died. He was looking straight at Zoror, but companied with the Zacanthan was the Lady Maelen. Her eyes widened and Zoror blinked. Farree was sure that even as he viewed them they could also see him. Then the Zacanthan edged aside, and only Maelen stood there. She raised a hand and from each fingertip there flashed a light which darted straight toward Farree. The globe trembled in his hold and such a heat seared him that he had to jerk back. But the flames continued to coil about in the crystal globe, slipping along the inner surface as if that fire fought for a way to reach him.

  Chapter Twelve

  There was a burst of the flame within the globe, and all sight of Maelen was seared away. From somewhere sounded a piercing note, sharp and jarring, bearing no resemblance to the tinkling music of the flute; this was an alarm. The globe moved in Farree's hold, seeming almost to twist itself into freedom. It forced itself between his fingers and fell, not to the top of the table but to the floor beneath.

  A thunderous sound followed. The ball had splintered at impact, shards flying. The light it had held vanished and the pieces on the floor turned a dull black as if a real fire had burned within it. Only for a moment or two they lay so, then crumbled, becoming a pile of dust. There puffed from those last remains a strong odor of burnt meat. Then that, too, was gone. Farree stood, his smarting hands to his mouth as he blew upon them, trying to abate the pain, though there was no sign of any burns on his flesh.

  Suddenly there was more light, this time snapping into life in the clear crystal which had accompanied the murky one. This pulsed irregularly as once more sounded that piercing note. Farree dared not try to take the other one into his hands, but he leaned forward, staring into its flutter of light, striving with all his might somehow to summon again Maelen or the Zacanthan—to no avail.

  However, the light began to take on form. He was again looking into eyes, but, though they were in a woman's face, they were not Maelen's. There was no age to her; she might have been young or old, for her skin was as fair as it was unmarked. What he could see of her hair was part of a dull brown braid which formed a crown above her wide brow. Her eyes were dark, so dark Farree could not have named their true color, while her lips were a brown-red, thin and tight at the corners. There was no brightness of welcome in her, only something of a faint expression which spoke of cold curiosity. Inwardly, Farree shivered. Even if he could not read her thoughts, there was a strangeness there. She was so alien he could not even think of a meeting mind to mind.

  Still that was what followed, shaking him as if each word was a blow aimed at rocking him. Once more he saw only through a haze which clouded sight, and even cloaked his mind.

  "You are not Langrone—" It was not a question but a statement. "Throstle?" That was a question but he had no time to answer it if indeed he could. Instead he felt as if he had been gathered up bodily and hurled through time and space in an instant.

  Again he crouched in all his filth and rags against the wall in an alley of the Limits, suffering the hurt of Togger as the smux was disciplined by the master of that unsavory show of pitiful wild things beaten into submission. Once more Maelen and Vorlund came to him. Memory spun on—he was reliving in a series of flashes his life with those to whom compassion of the heart was abiding. He was in Yiktor seeking out some needful thing. There was Maelen about to fall from the mountain trail. His hand went forth once more, just as it had on that real moment in the past. He felt the split of that thick growth on his shoulders which had pressed him forward through all the time he could remember as one who went hump backed. He had a flashing moment of wonder once again, as that tightened, itching skin broke, releasing the wings he had never known he carried.

  Once more he crouched in the stinking alley and now he was shot backwards from his meeting with the space people into the days before. He endured blows, starvation, all the evils one who was small and handicapped might know in the Limits. Now he arrived with a rush at the earliest memory of all—of looking out from his hiding place in Land's tent to watch the renegade spacer killed, which freed him from the first of his bonds.

  Perhaps he screamed then—if so he did not hear his own cries. It was as if a great force was pushing him back against a wall which would not give, that he was about to be crushed, flattened against that hard surface. The force which inexorably thrust him so hard was crushing– He screamed again as pain burst in his head. Then, mercifully, he was in the dark—he was nothing within nothing and there was nothing—

  "—Throstle?" Far away that sounded. "Selrena—"

  "Tricks again. Do you doubt he should be dragon meat? Where is the globe of storms?"

  Memory stirred, willing him back once again. There was an urgency to the attack upon him.

  "He is empty—gone. It is of these others we must think now. In him there is no thought of harm—"

  "You grow simple, Vestrum. Thoughts can be erased; they might also be inspired to confuse. We have learned much; through the same generations they have also. He is of the blood, yes. That could not be faked. But of what clan– Langrone? We can account for all of that kin."

  "Atra has been brought to serve them. Why could this one not be shaped anew as she was?"

  "His memories say that is not so. But you are right. Many things have been learned by those, our ancient enemies. We cannot count this one as any but a danger.

  "He can be taken by the Hoads—"

  There came a sense of outrage or strong denial.

  "We do not waste the blood. What has come to you, Vestrum, that you would suggest that? Is it that the old blood has run so thin that we can think even as those do—to slay for safety? Do we not know of old that that would be a deed to break us forever apart?

  "Are we then so great again that we can move mountains and roll up seas to confuse our enemies? If they have learned through the centuries, have we been in exchange dull of mind? Should he be their proposed key to our gate, then since he is in our hands let us study how they would use him. But he is not part of those in Dakar's Valley."

  "True. So what do you make of this other ship?"

  "Have you not read the answer to that, wrung out of this one?"

  "They trouble the inner sight. There is among them such power as we have not found in the enemy for ages. They seek him now, their thoughts running here and there until they are a torment to all Listeners. It is true that they are not openly akin to the dark ones, and so far they remain a puzzle. It may be they who placed this one among us—"

  "And he broke the Globe of Ummar."

  There was a pause. In vain Farree tried to trace the thought pattern back to the last speaker, only to face a wall once more. There was a coldness in these words which shifted through to him—mind words. If they realized he could hear them, they did not care.

  "You think then that that is what he was ordered to do?"

  The asking came to him again, growing easier and easier to understand with every mind touch.

  "There is no shadow of the Restless One on him. It might have been chance only—"

  "If there is only a small doubt that it was not– Yes, you are right. Let him be prisoned—near the Hoad Ways. If he receives enough of their probing he will be weakened, the better for our purpose. Let it be done!"

  That last was a sharp command. Farree expected some action on it, only he was aware of nothing at all. The darkness held him as tightly as if he were the meat within an uncracked nut shell. He was, however, gaining some strength of mind and that he hoarded. He could not understand the nature of the bonds which they had laid upon him.
Yet it was plain he was again a helpless captive.

  He was once more able to see by physical means, but dark first met his eyes. About him was a sourish smell, combined with that of fresh turned earth. For one moment of heart-thumping fear he thought he had been buried. Then, putting his body to the test, he strove to sit up and was able to do so. His upper wing curves scraped painfully along a rough surface and soil shifted down on his face from the hands he had put out to judge the size of his cell—if cell this was.

  When the fingers of his left hand rubbed an uneven surface, he used that point as an anchorage, drawing near to it. It marked a wall right enough. Sweeps along that surface told him it was of stone, but sometimes he felt the ridges of what could be bunches of roots depending from above. The smell became foul once as his nails scraped across something slimy. From that spread a faint glimmer of light, enough for him to see a tuber clinging with hairlike roots to the stone—now oozing viscid stuff from a hole his fingertip had punched in it. He wriggled the tuber back and forth until the hair-thick supports were torn free, so he could carry it with him as he went on—though the light was very dim, showing him no more than the patch of wail immediately around his improvised candle.

  It was twenty strides from the place where he had awakened to a corner where wall met wall. Halfway up the new barrier was a dark hole and from that trickled some liquid, which coursed down the stones to collect in a runnel at the wall's foot.

  Seeing this suddenly awoke in him a raging thirst. How long it had been since he had eaten or drunk he had no way of knowing. Did he dare to touch this oily-appearing streamlet? He was not sure. Debating the safety of that he turned and edged along the side of the stream, using that now for a better guide.

  In the end that disappeared in a round hole in the floor. His torch was failing him and he tried to find another such. Only here the growth from above looked more like ends of stout vines. There came a sudden sound. The stream had flowed silently, and the silence itself had pressed in upon him. He had not realized the full depth of that quiet until it was broken.