by Andre Norton
“Just so. But if all other evidence argued that it had been there since before the era of Terran space flight?”
“Either there was earlier Terran space flight than is known to our records, or Terra had off-world visitors herself.”
Sorenson nodded vigorously. “You see, you cling instinctively to the idea that your bracelet must have come from Terra. Not once have you suggested that an alien developed something of the same design.”
Again Storm laughed appreciatively. “You make out a good case, sir. Perhaps it’s all a matter of native pride –”
“Or perhaps your instinct is entirely right, and there was space travel at an earlier date. So – here we have a similar problem, a design, well known to a very limited section of Altair Three, is found half the galaxy away in ruins attributed by native legend to a nonnative race. May we not assume that others prospected through the star lanes before Terra colony ships and explorers went out to the same paths? If so, why haven’t we met them or their descendants? What ended their empire or their confederacy? War? Decadence? Some plague spread from system to system by their ships? Perhaps our answer lies in the Sealed Caves, if we can find them!”
“You are sure you have a good lead this time?”
“Better than just a lead, we have a guide waiting for us in the Valley of Twisted Horns, a man who says he has found at least one cave. Most of the Norbies avoid that section. But their wizards do go in at certain seasons of the year for ceremonial purposes, and war parties can add to their effectiveness by making magic there against their enemies. They believe that a ritual performed near the Caves can render a warrior twice as impervious and the enemy twice as vulnerable, whether that enemy is within striking distance or three days’ journey away at the time. Youngsters who want to claim warrior status travel to the Peaks. That young Gorgol joined us for that reason. The place has religious significance. And Bokatan, our guide, is a clan wizard. He’s made three such journeys and now he believes that the Sealed Caves people want to issue forth again and that an off-worlder must open the gate for them – hence our expedition has his blessing.”
“Has Bokatan power enough to impress other Norbies with that idea?” questioned Storm. “We could run into trouble if he hasn’t.”
“I believe he has. The alien laws have always frustrated digging here on Arzor. We are not allowed to cultivate the tribes unless they make the first overtures, and we cannot enter their territories unless invited. But this time we’re on safe ground. I had to swear to observe a formidable set of conditions before I received my permit and then Bokatan testified for me. A few off-world men have lived as licensed yoris hunters in Norbie territory, and from them, and the settlers for whom the Norbies will work, we have to pick up all we know about their customs. And there are tribes back in the hills who have had no contact with off-worlders or settlers at all, whose whole way of life may differ radically from those we do know something about –”
“You can’t live in a Norbie camp without government permission?”
“Oh, I guess it has been done, but the invitation has to come from the Norbie clan involved.”
Storm eyed the ranges ahead. He would fulfil his contract with the expedition. But afterwards what was to prevent his cutting loose and striking down south on his own? He had the team and he had learned how to live off the land in far more hostile countries than this one, including some where not only the natives were deadly enemies but also the land itself provided fatal pitfalls for the unwary.
As they travelled, Storm fitted into the wilderness and the duties of a scout as a hand would slip into a well-worn glove. He perfected his finger-talk with Gorgol’s eager aid and the assistance of the other Norbies. But repeated failures taught him the truth of what he had heard – that an off-worlder could not hope to learn and use the vocal speech of the natives. His efforts to imitate their twittering actually seemed to hurt their ears.
In spite of their lack of a common oral speech the Norbies adopted him in a way they did not accept Sorenson or Foyle. The Terran tried their bows, displaying his familiarity with that type of weapon, only he discovered that he could not string one made for an adult Norbie. Gorgol’s was lighter and when Storm’s trial shaft centred in the heart of a deerlike browser, the Norbies ceremoniously presented him with a smaller weapon of his own and a quiver containing five arrows with fire-bright heads, points brilliant enough to have been chipped from gem stone.
“Warrior arrows,” Gorgol told him via fingers. “No use second time after they have been dipped in man-blood. You warrior –you can use.”
The young native tried to persuade Storm to follow the Norbie custom of tattooing a bright scarlet band about the old scar on his shoulder, urging that any warrior would be proud to display such marks at the evening fire when Norbie men stripped off their corselets, showing for the awe of their untried fellows their marks of valour.
It was usual that Gorgol and Storm were paired as scouts, Baku circling overhead, and Surra ranging in a crisscross pattern to cover both flanks. The meerkats rode in skin bags slung across Rain’s back, scrambling out at every halt to go exploring on their own, but returning readily to Storm’s call, usually dragging some prize – a succulent root or brightly coloured stone – which had taken their fancy, as loot.
This acquisitive habit of theirs was a never-ending source of amusement for the whole party, and there was a demand at each evening’s camp for Storm to turn out the bags where the meerkats stored their treasures and reveal what Ho and Hing had thought worth retrieving that day.
Twice they turned up worthwhile items. Once it was an “eye” stone – an odd gem sometimes found in dried river beds. It was shaped like a golden drop, the colour of dark honey, with a slitted line of red fire through its middle, not unlike one of Surra’s eyes – save for the colour. And it changed shades when moved from light to dark – the red slit lightening to yellow, the honey becoming greenish.
But it was the other find, made on the tenth day after they had left Irrawady Crossing, that excited the Norbies. Emptied out of Ho’s bag, among other gleanings, was an arrowhead. It was barbed and unlike the others Storm had seen in use by the expedition scouts, for the crystal from which it was fashioned was a milky white. Since the natives would not personally handle any of the meerkats’ plunder, the Terran picked it up, balancing it on his hand. Hunting points were always of green-gold stone, war arrows clear crystal with a blue cast – at least those carried by the camp Norbies were. This one’s delicate point had been snapped off, but otherwise it was a beautiful piece of fletcher’s art.
Dagotag, the leader of the Norbies, examined it carefully as Storm held it out, but he did not offer to touch it. He sucked in his breath loudly, a Norbie preliminary to serious pronouncement, and then made fast finger-talk.
That be Nitra – over-the-mountains-men. Warrior – this be war arrow. Come to collect honours for Nitra warrior talk – kill strangers –”
They be enemy you?” Storm signed.
Dagotag nodded. “Enemy us – we Shosonna people. Maybeso enemy you faraway men. Nitra never see faraway men – big trophy bow hand –”
The Nitra eat THE MEAT?” Sorenson shaped a sign forbidden save in times of stress, and punctuated his question by spitting ritually into the fire three times.
“Not so!” Dagotag’s fingers flew. Take trophy – hang bow hand of enemy in wizard house. But no eat THE MEAT. Only evil men do so. Nitra – good fighters – not evil ones who listen to black spirits in the night!”
“But they might fight us?” Storm persisted.
“Yes – if they track us. But this point – it may be old – of another season. Only we must watch –”
Every Norbie had reached for his skin bedroll and was bringing out his well-protected package of personal war arrows to place the customary five such shafts in their quivers beside the ordinary hunting points.
Storm spoke to Sorenson. “We’ll have plenty of. warning if they do try to scout us. I ha
ve yet to see any living thing creep by Surra undetected.” He tossed the enemy arrowhead into the air and caught it. Dragged out of a man’s flesh, those cruel, brittle barbs were clearly meant to be left in the wound on the way. It was as wicked a thing as a blaster. Where Ho had found it and how long it had lain there were the important questions. Was it truly the relic of some long-ago raid, or had its owner discarded it that very day because it was broken?
He ordered the dune cat on guard, certain that no scout of the Nitra could win past her. And tomorrow Baku would comb the wastes ahead of them with better eyes than any human or humanoid possessed. The party was reasonably safe from a surprise attack, but there was the matter of an ambush, which could be so easily staged in this country, where the trail threaded through canyons and narrow defiles, along twisted traces where it was sometimes necessary to dismount and lead one’s horse. And the farther they bored into the mountains, the worse the going became. He could well understand that only a strong lure could drag anyone into this desolate country.
After Sorenson and Mac turned in, Storm brought out his own bow and arrows. The fire had not yet died down and he held those glittering points in its glow. One by one he touched each to his wrist and pressed, saw the answering drop of blood cloud the crystal tip. Then, when all had been so painted, Storm let the blood fall in a thick dollop to the ground. The age-old offering to secure strong ‘medicine” for a new war weapon was made. Why did he offer it now – and to what spirit of the Arzoran wilderness?
“Why you do so?” The slender hand in the firelight sketched that inquiry.
He did not know the Norbie word for fortune or luck – but he used the finger vocabulary he did have and tried clumsily to explain:
“Give blood – arrow shoot straight – enemy feel. Blood pay for good arrow –”
That is true! You faraway man – but you think Norbie. Maybeso Norbie inside man – he fly far – far – be caught faraway – want to get back to his own clan – enter in faraway baby – so come back now. True – true –” The yellow-red fingers tapped lightly on the back of Storm’s hand close to that tiny wound. “Here – outside – you be faraway man. Inside, you Norbie come home again!”
“Perhaps –” Storm agreed lest he give offence.
“The sealed ones will know. They came far – far – too. Maybeso they like you –”
Gorgol spoke with the confidence of one who was acquainted with the mysterious, legendary people, and Storm asked another question:
“Gorgol knows the sealed ones?”
His question loosed a flood of story. Gorgol – three seasons back as far as Storm could determine – had left his tribe on his man-trip, to prove himself a lone hunter able to stand with the adult males of Krotag’s following. After Norbie custom he had either to engage an enemy tribesman on his own – if he were lucky enough to find a roving warrior of some clan traditionally at war with his people – or kill without aid one of the four dangerous forms of wildlife. Since his “inside man” had suggested such a path in a dream, Gorgol had headed to the eastern mountains, working his way along the same general direction the expedition was now travelling.
There he had come across the spoor of an “evil flyer”, the giant bird-thing the Norbies regarded with a wholesome aversion for its unclean habits and respect for its ferocious fighting spirit. Since he could hope for no better kill to establish himself among the men, Gorgol had spent the better part of five days tracking the creature to its nesting ledge high in the mountains. But he had been too eager at his first shot and had wounded it only.
The bird, after the manner of its species, had attacked him, and there had followed a running fight down the side of the nesting peak into a valley where Gorgol had laid an ambush that had successfully finished the flyer. Though he had been injured in the final encounter, he was not too badly wounded.
He thrust his leg out into the firelight now, tracing for Storm the blue line of a ragged scar fully ten inches long.
Disabled by his hurt, Gorgol had been forced to stay in the valley of the ambush. Luckily the season was still one of rains and the big dry had not yet begun so there was a trickle of water from the heights. And during his imprisonment in the narrow cut he had discovered a walled-up cave opening, together with other objects made by intelligent beings who were neither Norbie nor settler.
He had left those finds behind him when at last he could hobble, not wishing to vex the sealed ones. But since that day he had remained certain that he had chanced upon one of the doors of the Sealed Caves.
“The sealed ones – they good to men who keep their laws. Put in Gorgol’s head how to kill flyer – send water drip to drink while leg bad. Old stories say sealed ones good to Norbies long, long ago. I say this too. Maybeso I die there did not their magic help me! Their magic big –” His hand expanded in the large sign. “They do much – sealed away from sun they sleep – but still they do much!”
“Could you find this valley again?”
“Yes. But not go there unless sealed ones allow. I follow bird. Sealed ones know I come not to disturb them, not to dig them up. They excuse. Go to wake them – maybeso they not like. Must call – then we go.”
Storm heard the conviction in that and respected it. Each man had a right to his own beliefs. But this did back up Soren-son’s story that the wizard Bokatan had offered to guide them because he believed that the sealed ones themselves were in favour of it. And since the country of Gorgol’s hunting adventures was in the same general direction as the territory into which the expedition was heading, perhaps they were going to find the mysterious Sealed Caves after all.
7
The sun was a warm hand pressing on his bared shoulders as Storm lay on top of an outcrop, his long-vision glasses trained on the pass ahead. He had shed his easily sighted frawn shirt many days ago, having discovered that his own brown skin was hard to distinguish from the rocks.
Now the path of the expedition had narrowed to one choice, a defile leading between climbing walls, a perfect country for ambush. Properly they should travel it by night, except that the footing was none too good and they dared not risk a fall for either man or horse. Already the party followed well-tried Terran precautions for advance into enemy territory, stopping in the early afternoon to graze their horses and feed themselves, and then moving on for an hour after sunset, so that their night camp site was far from the place where they had first – to any spy-scout – bedded down. Whether such elementary tactics would mislead experienced native raiders was another matter.
Storm was certain that they were under observation, though he had no real proof except the alert uneasiness of the team. And he depended upon bird and cat for his first warning against any attack.
Now Baku did come in, voicing a harsh scream, to send winging out of the brush below a whole covey of panic-stricken grass hens. There was someone coming through the defile, a Norbie riding alone on a vividly spotted black and white horse. And the white star on its forehead was dabbed with red, a circle centred by a double dot – If this newcomer was not the wizard Bokatan, then he had acquired Bokatan’s favourite mount, which had been described to Storm in advance. This would not be too impossible. Storm remained where he was, his bow ready.
“Hoooooooooo!” The call was the twitter of Norbie speech prolonged into a high-pitched hoot. Out of the rock, seemingly, Dagotag arose to meet the wizard. At least the party now had their promised guide.
Before nightfall they had crossed the invisible border of the taboo land, to camp that night on the banks of a swollen stream. The water was red with silt, whirling along uprooted bushes and even small trees. Sorenson surveyed it critically.
“You can have too much of a good thing. We have to depend upon the mountain rains for water. But, on the other hand, flash floods in these narrow gorges can wipe out a party such as ours in a matter of seconds. Tomorrow we’ll have to parallel this as long as we can to water the horses. Let us hope the level begins to drop instead of to rise –
”
Before noon the next day, not only was the flood dwindling but Bokatan pointed them away from it, using as a guide for their new direction something that excited them all. There was no mistaking the artificial origin of that low black ridge, running at right angles to the north-east.
Storm measured it roughly with his hand, finding it about a foot wide, though raised only a few inches from the ground. It was wedge-shaped with the narrower edge straight up. To the touch it was not stone, nor metal, at least no stone nor metal he had ever seen before. And its purpose remained a mystery. A knife blade made no impression, but under prodding fingers the substance had a faintly greasy feel, though neither dry soil nor leaves clung to its surface. Nor would Surra put paw on it. She sniffed dubiously at the ridge, plainly avoiding contact, sneezing twice and shaking her head in her gesture of distaste.
“Like a rail,” Mac commented, and whacked the first pack horse on, though that animal, too, picked a way that did not bring it close to the black ridge.
Sorenson stopped to snap tri-dee prints of the thing though Bokatan urged the party to hurry. “Up!” his fingers counselled. “Up and through the hole in the earth before sun sets – then you may look upon the valley of the sealed ones –”
Already the cliffs rose so high that the light of the sun did not penetrate to the floor of the canyon through which they passed, and gathering shadows thickened almost to dusk as they rode along by the black rail.
Death defiles, that old belief of his people haunted Storm, while his modern training denied it. A man who touched the dead, or their possessions, dwelt under a roof where death had been, was unclean, accursed. This black ridge was like a thread wrought by the dead to draw others into the house of the dead – He blinked, shrugged the blanket about his shoulders, dropping a little behind the rest as he fumbled in his belt pouch for an object he had fashioned during their noon halt.
The Terran did not dismount, but leaned far from his riding pad, holding that small sliver of wood plumed at one end with two of Baku’s feathers. It had been shaped with the aid of one of his war arrows after immemorial custom, and now he aimed its point at the alien rail – if rail it was. The prayer stick caught and held in some infinitesimal crack of the substance, standing unwavering, its feathers triumphantly erect.