Moon of Three Rings m-1

by Norton, Andre

  The names, son or father, meant nothing to me, even the lands they represented were unknown. I remained silent. And I did not see any gesture from Osokun, nor did he give any order. But one of his bully boys leaped at me and slapped my face with his open hand, sending my head thumping back against the wall with a pain so intense that I almost fainted. Only will kept me swaying on my feet, and by will I tried to hold to a halfway clear mind. So it was going to be that way? Whatever they wanted of me they were prepared to gain by force.

  And what they wanted Osokun made clear in a rush of words.

  "You have weapons, knowledge, off-world skulker. Both you will give to me, if not one way, then another."

  For the first time I made answer, my lips swelling from the blow.

  "Did you find such arms on me?" I gave him no title of courtesy.

  He laughed. "No, your captain was too clever. But you have the knowledge. And if he would see you again, we shall have the weapons also, within a short time."

  "If you know anything about the Traders, you also know that we are mind-locked against such disclosures planetside."

  His smile grew wider. "Sol have heard. But each world has its own secrets, as you must also be aware. "We have a few keys to open such locks. If they do not work, a pity. But your captain has a bargain to consider, which he shall be doing shortly. As for the rest—get to it!" His last order had the snap of a riding whip.

  I do not want to remember what happened thereafter in that stone-walled room. Those who took part in the questioning were indeed experts in their line. I do not know whether Osokun really believed that I could, if I would, reveal what he wanted to know, or if some monstrous compulsion drove him to enjoy such an occupation for its own sake. Much of it was afterward gone from me, past recalling. An esper, even to the smaller degree, can shut off parts of consciousness to save the balance of one's mind.

  They could not have learned anything to their value. And they were expert enough in their dirty employment not to maim me permanently. But I was not aware of their going, nor of anything else for a period of time. And when pain again roused me, there was once more wan day beyond the window. The bench was back against the wall, and on it sat once again the jug, and this time with it a plate bearing a mass of something congealed in cold fat.

  I crawled to that sustenance. I drank and felt the restorative of the bitter water, but I sat for a long space before I could make myself try the food. Only the knowledge that I must have strength of body for the future made me choke it down, nauseous as it was.

  This much I knew. I had been kidnapped by Osokun, who hoped to exchange me for weapons and information—doubtless that he might use both in a bid for a kingdom. The boldness of this act meant that he either had backing so powerful as to set aside the laws of the fair, or else that he hoped to make his bid with such rapidity that the authorities would not have time to move against him. The recklessness of his act was so near the borderline of utter folly that I could not believe he meant it. Yet I had only the past hours here to realize that he had already far overstepped all bounds and could only keep on the same dangerous way. There was no turning back.

  That Captain Foss would buy me with the price Osokun asked was impossible. Though the Traders were close knit, and one of their main rules was loyalty to one another, theLydis , her crew, and the whole good fame of the Free Traders could not and would not be risked for the life of a single man. All Foss could do would be to turn to the machinery of the Yiktorian law.

  Did he know where I was? What had the raiders done with Lalfarns? If our tube man had escaped, Foss must have already learned that I had been taken, and could have set in action all countermoves.

  But I must depend not on vain hope but on my own efforts now. I had to think and think clearly.

  VI

  Now was I driven to loose a mind-search, exhausting as that could be. For this was the place and time in which only desperate methods were left. Since thought-seek operates differently between races and species, I could not hope for any open message, perhaps nothing at all. It was as if I tried to monitor a band of communication so high or so low that my pickup caught only an indistinct pattern. No words, no clear thoughts, but what did come was fear. So sharp at times was that emotion that I believed those who broadcast it did so in peril.

  Prick here, prick there, perhaps each prick signaled the emotions of a different defender of this fort. I raised my head to look at the pale window slit, then I crept to it to listen. But there were no sounds without. I pulled myself up to peer through. Day, yes, even a small strip of sunlight on the other wall. All was very quiet.

  Again I closed my eyes to the light, strove-to thought-seek, to fasten on one of those fear-pricks enough to read the source of that unease. Most of them still swam in and out beyond my catching. I found one near to the very door which guarded my prison, however, or so I thought. And into that I probed with all the effort I could summon.

  It was as if I tried to read a fogged tape which was not only overexposed but also composed of alien symbols. Emotion, yes, one could feel that, for basic emotions remain the same from species to species.

  All living creatures know fear, hate, happiness— though the sources or reason for these feelings may be very different. And of the common emotions fear and hate are the strongest, the easiest to pick up.

  The fear that rode minds here was growing, and intermingled with it was anger. But the anger was weak, much overborne by the fear. Why? What?

  My teeth closed upon my underlip, I gave all my remaining strength to the need for discovery. Fear… of something… someone… no present… coming? Need… need to get rid… rid of me! That breakthrough came so sharply that I straightened as if to meet a physical blow. Yet there was no one there to deliver it. But I knew as well as if it had been shouted aloud that my presence here was the cause of fear. Osokun? No, I did not believe that the lord who had tried to impress his will in this cell had had such a forceful change of attitude.

  Prick, prick… I readied my mind, pushed aside amazement, went back to the patient mining of those incomprehensible thoughts. Prisoner—danger— Not my present danger, no—but as a prisoner here I was a danger to the thinker. Perhaps Osokun had so overstepped the laws of Yiktor that those who aided him, or obeyed his orders, had every reason to fear future consequences.

  Dared I try a countersuggestion? Fear pushed too far erupts in violence in many men. If I added to that fear in the mind I had tapped and concentrated upon, I might well bring a sword to my own end. I weighed one thing against another while holding the link between us.

  What I decided upon was perhaps so thin a chance that it already lay under the shadow of failure. For I attempted to set in that wavery mind-pattern the thought that with the prisoner gone there would be no fear, and that the prisoner must fare forth alive not dead. In the simplest pattern I could devise, and the most emphatic, I sent that thought-beam along the linkage.

  At the same time I edged along the wall to the ramp which gave entrance to this place. I stopped only to pick up the jug, drank the remainder of its contents, and then grasped it tightly in my hand. I tried to remember how the door above opened, though my eyes had been dazzled when Osokun had come that way. Outward—surely outward!

  Now I was halfway up the ramp, braced, waiting.

  Free the prisoner… no more fear… free the prisoner…

  Stronger—he must be moving toward me! Now—the rest would depend upon fortune alone. And when one sets his life on such scales it is a fearsome thing.

  I heard the click of metal against metal—the door—I raised the jug— Now!

  The door swung back and I threw outward not only the water container but also a blast of fear, directed down the link between mind and mind. I heard a cry from the figure silhouetted against the light. The jug struck against his head and he staggered back.

  I scrambled up, putting all my weakening force into that dash, reaching and passing the door. The light was dazzling eve
n in this inner corridor, but the man who had unlocked the door was slumped against the opposite wall, his hands to his face, and between his fingers trickled blood. He was moaning.

  My first thought was for his sword. I staggered to him, making his weapon mine. Even to have an unfamiliar weapon in hand bolstered my confidence. He did not fight me. I thought afterward that the blast of fear had struck his mind a far greater and incapacitating blow than the shattered jug had inflicted on his body.

  With a roll of shoulder, a thrust of arm, I sent him down into the pit from which I had climbed. He had most thoughtfully left the lock rod still in the door and that I turned swiftly and withdrew to take along.

  So much I did before I looked around. The light here, while stinging my dark-oriented eyes, was, I thought, after a moment or two of blinking adjustment, perhaps that of late afternoon. How long I had lain below I did not know, the passing of days and nights had escaped me.

  But for the moment, at least, the hall in which I stood was empty. I had made no plans beyond this instant. All I could do was try to reach the open, though I might not have such good fortune in another meeting with any member of the garrison. Mind-seek was too thin to use for scouting. I had tried my esper talent to the full when I had drawn upon it to unlock my cell. What I did now must be accomplished largely by physical means alone, and the weapon I carried was strange to me.

  I staggered along the corridor, ever listening for any sound which might herald the coming of another. There was a sharp bend where another narrow window slit gave light. I paused there to look out. Again I saw a small piece of courtyard bounded by a wall. And this showed me a portion of gate, now shut—such a portal as would serve a large party. If that was the only way out of this place, I tasted defeat indeed.

  At the jog in the corridor the way turned left. Doors opened along it and for the first time I heard voices. However, there was no other way out save this. With my shoulder against the wall, a bared untried sword in my hand, I began my journey.

  The first two doors, recessed in the thickness of the wall, were closed, for which I would have given devout thanks had I been able to spare any relaxation of concentration. Though I knew my esper was at a very low ebb, I tried to use its remnants to feel out any life ahead.

  So faint a flickering. I already knew from the sound of voices that there were at least two in one of those rooms, and mind-seek confirmed this. But there could be a dozen more and I would not pick them up now. I shuffled along. The voices grew louder, I could make out separate words, but in another tongue. By the sharpness of the tone I thought they were quarreling.

  Brighter light, cutting from a half-open door across the corridor. I halted to study the door. Like that of the cell, it opened outward and it was more than half closed. The lock looked the same as that of the prison, some inner system which was made secure by a rod inserted in a hole and turned. My left hand went to the one I carried. Could it be that the same one might be used successfully here?

  First, could the door be entirely closed without arousing those within? I dared not show myself in the open space to see what or who were there. But the voices had reached close to the shouting point, and I hoped they were so engrossed that my next move would go unnoticed.

  I put the sword in my belt, took the rod in my right hand. The left I placed palm-flat against the surface of the door and gave it a gentle push. But no such easy touch would work with this ponderous slab, I discovered. It needed shoulder muscles to move it. I waited tensely for some betraying creak, some lull in the conversation, to tell me that I had made the wrong choice.

  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 'tow 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 way 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 boom 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 m
y 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 combination 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.