by Andre Norton
Move it did at last, inch by inch, until finally it fitted into its frame. Within the voices continued as I fumbled, my fingers slick with sweat, to push the rod into the hole. It resisted a little and I was ready to leave it. Then it clicked into place and I thrust it up and down as I had seen such rods used before. My faint hope paid off— the rod locked.
From the continued noise within, they had not yet discovered they were prisoners. Twice now I had succeeded, but I must not take too much confidence from that, for such luck was too good to last.
There was another turn in the corridor with a window where once more I paused to look out. My guess as to the time of day was proven, the glow of sunset lay on the pavement and wall out there. And night is ever the friend of the fugitive. As yet I had no thought as to what I would do when I was out of Osokun's stronghold, free in an unknown countryside. One step at a time was all my mind and will could encompass.
Before me was another door wide open on the courtyard. I could still hear the muffled quarreling behind, but now I tried to pick up sounds ahead. There was a sharp, high noise which I recognized as the squeal of a kas—but no man's voice.
I gained the deep recess of this door and peered out, sword once more in hand. To my left was a roofed space in which kasi were stabled, their triangular heads with the stiff, upstanding stocks of black hair tossed now and then. But there were ragged bits of leaves hanging from their jaws and I thought they had just been given their fodder.
For a moment I debated the chance of securing one of those mounts, but regretfully decided against it. Mind-seek worked better with animals, even with alien species, than with humanoids, that was true. But to concentrate upon controlling a beast which might be unruly would require too much of me now. I would be safer, I was sure, depending upon myself.
The bulk of the building from which I had come cast a long shadow ahead. I could not see the outer gate, but I tried to reach a place in deeper shadows between two bales of kasi fodder and succeeded.
Now my field of vision was far better. To my right was the wide gate, well barred. Above that was a kind of cage and in it I detected movement which flattened me low against the bales. There was a sentry there. I waited for the shout, perhaps a crossbow bolt to find me, some sign I had been sighted. For I could not believe that I had escaped notice. When moments passed and no discovery came, I began to think that the sentry on duty there had eyes only for what lay outside these walls, not what chanced within.
I planned out a route which took me well along, first the bales of fodder, and then the end of the stable between me and that lookout. I moved slowly, though every nerve in me screamed for speed, feeling that a scurry might attract attention where creeping would keep me one with the concealing shadows. I counted the beasts in the stable as I passed, hoping to get some inkling as to the size of the present garrison. There were seven riding beasts, four of them used for burden. But that did not help, for this place might have a permanent unmounted garrison. However, the small number of mounts in a stable manifestly built to hold three, maybe four times that number suggested that there might only be a skeleton force in residence. And it also suggested that Osokun and his sword-sworn might well have gone.
There were two more of the high-placed sentry posts. But, though I watched them carefully, I caught no sign that they were manned. Then I ducked behind a half wall as tramping boots sounded loudly on the stones. A man came along. Though he wore the scale jerkin of a foot fighter, his head was bare of helm and he had a yoke across his shoulders supporting slopping buckets of water which he emptied into a stone trough that ran the length of the kasi stalls.
He went out with the yoke and empty buckets. But in my hiding place I fought down a sudden soar of spirit. For in those moments he had been ridden by so strong a desire that it reached me as a distinct message. Fear in him had given away to determination, a determination to act that was so strong I had been able to read it. Perhaps he also varied from his fellows in some quirk of mind which had laid him better open to my esper, for such variations exist, as we well know. And this was the third boon fortune granted me that day.
He was acting a part, I was sure, going about his duties but using them as a screen for his purpose. And the moment had come when immediate action was demanded if he would succeed. Carrying his yoke and the empty buckets, he strode openly along, while I slunk behind him, for what he wanted was my own wish.
There was a well in the yard beyond, and from the center core building extended a wing at a sharp angle about it as if the stone blocks threw out an arm to shelter the source of valued water. In the wing were more of the narrow slit windows and a door. The man I followed did not stop at the well. He gave a quick glance to right and left as he neared it. Apparently reassured, he sped straight to the door of the wing. I gave him a moment or two for lead and then followed.
This was a combined armory and storeroom. Weapon racks on the walls, gear piled in neat heaps, and the distinctive smell of grain and other food for man and beast. Behind one of the piles of supplies I saw the abandoned yoke and buckets. As I kept on the trail the mingled fear and will of my guide was a cord pulling at me. I came to another door half hidden behind a pile of grain bags, and that gave on a narrow stair, steep enough to make a man giddy to look down. There I paused for a space as I heard the boots of the one ahead, lest my own footgear make a noise he could hear. Wild with impatience I had to wait until all sounds had died away. And then I went slowly, aching with the effort of placing each foot, afraid my weakened body would betray me. Luckily that descent was not a long one.
At the bottom was a passage which ran only in one direction. Dark here, and I saw no gleam of light ahead to suggest that my guide used a lantern or torch. It must have been a way he knew well.
Nor could I hear him any longer. Then, along our mind link there was a burst of relief, as bright in my brain as a lantern would have been in my eyes. He had reached his goal, he was free of the fort to find what he believed to be safety. And I did not think he would linger at that exit.
So I put on what speed I could, staggering on at a half run to find the same gate. In the dark, I came up hard against sharp projections. But I did not fall, and was able after a moment to put out my hands to serve as eyes. Before me, according to touch, was another flight of steep steps, and up these I crawled on hands and knees, not certain I might take them otherwise.
I paused now and then to feel above my head for any sign of exit. At last I found a trap door which gave to my push. There was still not much light as I came out in a cave, or rather a heaping of rocks I did not believe to be natural, cleverly made to resemble nature as a cover for this door. In a land so constantly riven by petty wars such a burrow must have been necessary for each fort. To my mind this was less concealed at the other end than one might have thought needful.
For the time being my full concern was for getting out of sight of any wall sentry. The rocks covering the exit of the passage were, I saw as I edged along belly flat to the ground, only one such outcrop.
And I thought I could trace a pattern in them as if they marked the site of a much older and ruined fortress.
There was no sign of the deserter who had preceded me through the bolt hole, but I continued to move with caution. At last I took cover behind what could be the end of the ruins, much earth sunken and tumbled, and for the first time I surveyed the back trail.
The sky blazed with the particular wild color with which sunset was painted on this planet, sometimes so brilliantly that one dared not closely observe those strident sweeps of clashing shades. Under it the fort was a dark blot, already closed in by shadows which accented its grim aspect. It consisted of one inner building and the outer wall, and was even smaller than it had seemed when I was making my way out. I did not believe it was any holding, but rather a border post, a defense for the land it guarded. For one thing there were no dwellings or any cultivated fields ringing it. This was a camp for soldiers, not a place of refuge for farme
rs and townsfolk as any main castle keep would be.
There was a road by its main entrance, coming from a notch between two lines of hills, extending into the unknown level land. That road must tie it to both the center of the domain and the outer world, perhaps even Yrjar. And it was my guide.
My journey here had been such that I might just as well have been blindfolded all the way. I had no idea whether the port lay north or south from here, but it was certainly to the west. But I could not travel on the road. For the first time I began to think that all my good fortune in winning free from Osokun's keep had ended. I had the sword I had taken, but water, food, protection against any storm were lacking. And the energy which my will had fathered and which had sustained my ill-used body so far, was fast ebbing. Whether I could pull myself on was a question I was afraid to ask myself, because the answer was so plain.
Both the fort and the place of ruins where I emerged crested small hills. The passage which had brought me hither must have run under the gap of low ground between. Once I had put that high ground between me and the sentry post, I was in the clear. Then I got to my feet, determined to keep putting one before the other as long as I could, then to crawl, wriggle, do anything I could to keep moving.
Time became a phantom thing without measurement, save that which comes between one step and the next. I was favored by this much, the methods Osokun's questioners had used had caused great pain but had left muscle and body unimpaired for the effort I must now put forth. But I lapsed into a kind of stupor in which another portion of my mind took control, one which did not consciously know, plan, or live, but lay deep below all that.
Twice I roused enough to discover that I had wandered down to heel and toe along the smoother surface of the road, some hidden warning signal flashing possible danger. Both times I was able to stagger up again into the rough land where bushes and rocks gave me cover. Once I believe I was trailed for a space by some hunter of the night. But if that unseen creature was intrigued by me to considering me prey, it decided again and was gone.
The moon was bright, so bright its Rings were shining fire in the sky. Sotrath, that moon, held always two rings about it. But in a regular cycle of years came a time of three, which was a great portent for the natives. I did not look up to that wonder, and I was only thankful for the rays which made it possible to see the worst of the possible stumbling blocks before me.
It was near dawn when I passed through the gap between the hills, needing there to take to the road. My mouth was dry as if filled with ashes, acrid ashes which burned the tissues of tongue and inner cheek. Only my well-worn will kept me moving, for I feared that if I rested I could not possibly find my feet again, or even crawl. Somehow I must get past this place where the road was the only exit, into the open western country. Then, then I promised my body, I would rest in the first hole I could find.
Somehow I made it, the hills were behind me. I wavered off the open surface into the brush, pushing on until I knew I was indeed finished. There I fell to my knees with a last forward thrust that plunged my scratched and whipped body between two thick bushes. Then I lay still and what occurred immediately after I do not remember.
A river, a precious river of water wetting me, giving my parched body new life. But there was the thunder, the beat of rapids in the river. I dared not allow myself to drift on into a wild stretch of water, be beaten against rocks—Water—thunder—
I was not in any stream, rather did I rest on a hard surface which was secure and unmoving under me. I was wet, but the moisture came from above, falling in fierce curtains of rain. And thunder cracked indeed, but in the sky.
When I levered myself up from the ground, my tongue licking at the rain which spattered my face, I saw the flash of lightning along the hill crowns. It must be day again, but so dark a day that there was hardly more visibility than existed at twilight. For the moment I only raised my face to the rain, opened my mouth to it, sought to drink it in.
A thunderous rumble reached across the curtained sky, a wild split of lightning, almost as bright as a ship's tail flames—I looked through a small opening in the bushes at a party of mounted men riding as if driven by some storm whip eastward. They were cloaked and hooded and strung well out, with the mounts of the laggers laboring, threads of foam strung from their jaws. The whole aspect of the company was one of some overwhelming need for speed. As they passed my hiding place emotion washed over me from them— fear, anger, desperation—so strong that it was a blow for an esper mind. Under the muffling cloaks I could not see color or heraldic design, nor did any lord's travel banner crack over their heads. But I was certain this was Osokun riding to his den. And if it were not already, now the hunt would be up for me.
So stiff and sore was my body that I could barely get to my feet. My first wavering steps racked and pained me. I had thought that I was tough and so honed by the life of a Free Trader that I was not to be easily worn by bodily discomfort. But now I moved again in a haze which wrapped me as close as if I were caught in the hunting web of a Tiditi spider-crab.
The storm creviced the ground with runnels of fast-running water, as if so much rain now fell from the skies that it could not sink into the soil but spun away on the surface. From these I drank from time to time, far past caring if they carried any alien element to injure me. But if I had water I lacked food, and the memory of the greasy mess I had so reluctantly eaten—when? a night ago, two nights?—haunted me, to assume the proportions of an Awakiian banquet with all the five-and-twenty dishes of ceremony. After a while I pulled leaves from the bushes and chewed upon them, spitting forth their pulp.
Time again had no meaning. How much of the day lay behind, I neither knew nor cared. The fury of the rain slackened. There was some slight clearing of sky, but not enough to dim the light—
Light? Suddenly I was aware that I marched steadfastly toward a light. Not the yellow of the lanterns I had seen in the fort or in Yrjar—no—
Moon globe—silver—beckoning—Once before there had been such a globe. A last wisp of warning in my mind faded quickly— moon globe ...
Chapter 7
By the will of Molaster I have Singer's power, and having it so am I also bound to other things—the far sight, the long sight, the spinning of the Rings. And these be hard things to live with at times since the will within one can be set crosswise to all of them, and if that is done then the will of Maelen is always the loser. I, who desired only to remain at the great fair with my little people, rose from the first sleep of night knowing that a call had come, though I did not reckon the why and the wherefore. And in the cages I heard the whimpering cries of my little people, who are sensitive to the power, for its compulsion strongly touched also upon them, bringing uneasiness and fear.
My first thought was of them, putting my cloak about me, going to walk wand in hand up and down so that they could look upon me and forget fear. But when I came to the place wherein we had put the barsk, I saw that beast on its feet, with head down a little as if to spring, while its eyes were yellow fire and in them dwelt madness.
"There is a sending—" Malec came to me.
"There is a sending," I agreed. "But not from the tongues or the minds of the Old Ones. Unless they have called upon the power and that has answered not them but me!"
He looked to me gravely and made a gesture which in part denied my words. We are blood kin, though not to the second closeness,
and Malec does not always see as I see. He acts many times to keep me from what he believes folly.
However, he could not deny a Singer who says she has caught a sending. So now he waited. And I took my wand between my hands and turned it slowly. For, now that my little people were soothed and their fear rose no more as a wall to bar the waves of power, I could so direct it. North, west, south—the wand did not move in my light grasp. But as I wheeled to the east did it right itself, pointing straight outward. In my fingers it was warm, demanding, so that I said to Malec:
"This is a deb
t-sending, and for me. Payment is required."
At a debt-sending one does not hesitate, for giving and taking must ever be equal on the scales of Molaster. This is even more true for a Singer than others, for only so is the power nourished and kept flaring bright.
Then I asked of him, "What of the off-worlder? And of Osokun, who has been planning plans of darkness?"
Malec shifted his feet upon the ground before he spoke. "Osokun can claim blood-kin to the second degree with Oslaph who—"
"Who has been chosen by temple lot this year to represent the lords upon the tribunal of the fair. And also, did not the off-worlder Slafid say his other kin, Ocorr, captains the guard. But surely neither can break all law and custom."
Then my certainty faded, for Malec did not speedily agree with me. I saw that he was troubled, though his eyes did not fall from mine, for he is of the Thassa and between us always there is truth and open dealing. So that I now said:
"There is that I do not know."