Enchantress from the Stars

by Sylvia Engdahl

  I had not yet learned the trick when I was untied from the tree and carried into the invaders’ camp; I was so wrapped up in my sensations that I didn’t even get a good look at the “dragon.” Georyn, of course, did not see it either, since he was still unconscious. All in all, our entry to the field of battle was not very heroic.

  When the girl was brought in, Jarel was outraged, not only because it looked as though he would have to deliver a woman to the Research Center after all—which for some reason bothered him even more than taking the men—but because of the circumstances of her capture. He had not expected cruelty on the part of the natives themselves, somehow; it was very disillusioning. What could they have against this unfortunate creature that would make them deliberately turn her over to beings whom they must surely believe to be some sort of demons?

  But this was the smallest part of the mystery. For the girl was of a different race, obviously unrelated to the other natives; an enigma, any way you looked at it. Why hadn’t they known that there was more than one race occupying this part of the planet? Where were all the rest of them? Were they slaves, perhaps? This girl’s ragged garment, plus the fact that she had been a prisoner of the others, might indicate that; yet her hands were smooth, and there wasn’t a mark on her other than those made by the ropes with which she had been bound. And where would the natives have obtained such slaves? She didn’t appear to fit the description of any race that had been spotted elsewhere on this planet, though Dulard hadn’t made much of a survey.

  Moreover, this girl didn’t have the attitude of a slave, Jarel realized as he shooed away the cluster of people that had gathered to gape at her. She had an air of assurance that made him feel not only that she deserved to be treated with respect, but that she expected it. She was frightened, yes; but underneath the fright he saw a glimmer of something else: a kind of poise that he wouldn’t have expected to find in a young girl, not in any girl, let alone in an uncivilized one. Even the stunning didn’t seem to have dented her spirit. He hoped that she would be able to hang onto some remnant of it during the prolonged ordeal to which she would undoubtedly be subjected.

  After a quick examination of the other new captive, the unconscious man, Jarel cut the tight cords from the girl’s arms; they had bruised her wrists badly and even chafed away some skin. Her blistered feet were also in need of medical attention; and he could see that she was suffering from thirst as well as from hunger. He was anxious to get her inside where he could do something about these things, but Dulard showed up just then and Jarel resigned himself to a delay. Though Dulard might not enjoy gloating over the girl in the way someone like Kevan would, he was likely to be totally indifferent to her feelings if he had something more important on his mind.

  The girl’s uniqueness evidently aroused mixed feelings in Dulard. He was disturbed because a doubt had now been raised as to the adequacy of his information about the natives; he hated to divert men from construction to survey work, but it couldn’t be avoided now. Who knew how many more surprises might be lurking out there? But at the same time Jarel knew he was pleased by the obvious scientific value of the find. The scientists at the Research Center would be overjoyed to be presented with not one, but two new species. He stared moodily at the girl and said, “They’ll be glad to get you, all right! They may be so wrapped up in finding out what makes you tick that they’ll get off my back for a while. On the other hand, they may want me to get busy and find some more like you, and that will be a devil of a nuisance. These guys never stick their noses out of that lab of theirs, yet they think the Corps has nothing better to do than scout around collecting more aborigines to ship to them …”

  Dulard rambled on; Jarel didn’t pay much attention, for he was watching the girl’s face. Briefly, her eyes registered an incredulous horror that was different from anything she’d previously shown; he wondered what had triggered it. Within moments she became impassive, almost as if by conscious effort. It surely was merciful that she couldn’t understand anything Dulard was saying.

  He smiled at her, hoping to counteract Dulard’s all-too-evident coldness. “You look as if you’ve got courage. That will come in handy, I’m sure, when you find out what you’ve had the honor to be chosen for. The Research Center people ought to be happy about it, anyway; I should think it would make a specimen more durable. I don’t suppose they’re always so lucky. But then, the things they’ll do to you are painless, so why should any fortitude be required?”

  This last was said with a meaningful glance at Dulard, on whom the irony was not entirely lost. “I wish you’d quit anthropomorphizing these savages,” he told Jarel bluntly. “They don’t mind being studied the way a man would. Nobody’s going to do anything cruel to them. I should think a medic like you would be wild to get started.”

  Jarel didn’t reply; argument, he knew, wouldn’t buy anything. It was quite true that no bodily harm would be inflicted on these specimens. They were much too valuable for that. It was their minds that were to be analyzed. The drugs that would be used in the process were in no way dangerous and would simply serve to open those minds to investigation. It was incomprehensible to most people that to deprive a savage of conscious choice concerning what he revealed might be unkind.

  The electrical storm that had been threatening had not passed directly overhead, but a heavy shower of rain began, putting an end to the discussion. With relief Jarel took the girl into the barracks. He managed to find a small empty cubicle in which to put her, for he was unwilling to throw her in with the male prisoners, though it would never have occurred to either Dulard or Kevan that a thing like that could make any difference to a savage. He also refused to leave her even partially stunned. The building was well enough guarded at the moment so that she couldn’t escape, certainly. She couldn’t even if he were to help her. If he had thought there was a chance, he would have been very much tempted to give it a try.

  He brought her food and water, then went off to tend to the man, who was now regaining consciousness. But he couldn’t get her out of his mind. There was an indefinable quality about her, a quality that just didn’t seem to fit in with his impression of the other captives. It was more than the racial difference, and more, surely, than the fact that she was the first native woman he’d seen. She was just—well, special. He wondered suddenly how old she was. Her face was young and lovely, yet her eyes seemed laden with the weight of years. A witch, he laughed to himself. A wise old witch, the seeress of her tribe, who had discovered the secret of eternal youth? He might not know all there was to know about the natives, at that.

  It was too bad she wasn’t really a witch, a witch who could escape by magic. What had this girl ever done, Jarel thought angrily, that she should end her days thousands of light-years away from home, family, even from the familiar sights and sounds of her world? That she should lose not only her freedom, but the right to the inviolability of her personal thoughts and memories? She was very likely experiencing another sort of anguish, too, he realized, as were all these victims, that of separation from their mates. He remembered the way she had looked at this man, who although not of her own race had apparently shared her mistreatment at the hands of the villagers. Maybe she loved him.

  Well, there was one thing he could do, perhaps, to make things easier for her. He had not yet selected the men to be sent. It would be a difficult choice on whatever basis it was made, but if he were to pick this man, for whom the girl obviously had some feeling, they might be able to comfort each other. Besides, if she did not arrive with a mate, the Center might very well decide to choose one for her, so perhaps this would help to make the best of a bad business. Jarel hoped that if he was wrong, she would understand that he had meant well and would forgive him.

  I wish I could say that I was calm and fearless in the hands of the Imperials—intrepid, the way it seems as if an agent ought to be. But I wasn’t. I’d known beforehand, of course, that I was in for an ordeal. But I hadn’t anticipated just how much of an ordeal
. I had not been in possession of all the facts.

  The Imperials are not bad people. They’re not villains; they’re just—well, they’re Younglings, that’s all. You can’t expect Younglings to know how to act; you can’t condemn them for the way they look at things any more than you can blame a baby for having learned to creep instead of to walk. I told myself that, but it’s hard to be objective when they’re about to do something awful to you, and you’ve no way to stop them short of causing a disclosure.

  I must admit that I was pretty shaken up when I found out about the plans the Imperials had for me. I had assumed that I might be killed as Ilura and Terwyn had been. But not this other business—it would have made any agent’s blood run cold. And it hit me by surprise. I’d had no conception of the sort of thing I might find myself faced with. Georyn came closer to the mark than I did in his expectations; he correctly surmised that his captors’ aim would be to get information from him, and was wrong only in his ideas about how they would go at it. For I later found that Georyn had been fully convinced that he was to be subjected to torture. The Andrecian picture of imprisonment is not a bright one, and he had no reason to suppose that the methods of the dragon’s henchmen would be any less fiendish than those of the King.

  The Imperials, of course, do not do things like that; they are, according to their own lights, humanitarians. They do not torture the natives they capture; they study them scientifically. And they have a research center on their home world for that purpose.

  This center is notorious; anyone who has studied their civilization at all knows of it. It’s a sort of zoo, to put it bluntly. The “animals,” being valuable, are well-treated; the only experimentation done on them is of a psychological nature. The Imperials believe that this is the way to learn about the primitive peoples of the universe. They are very serious about it. They do not think of it as being cruel.

  I now know that Father was aware even before we landed on Andrecia that if we were captured alive by Imperials we would be earmarked for their research center. He did not inform me because he didn’t plan to let me go anywhere near the invaders’ camp; and he felt that the less I knew about the risks he and Evrek were taking, the better off I’d be. Evrek himself, of course, knew all about this center and what it would mean to be sent there before he ever volunteered for the mission. Unfortunately, I had never heard of the place until my guards discussed it at length in front of me, addressing themselves directly to me in such a manner that I was able to pick up their thoughts. It was not the ideal way to find out.

  Have you ever imagined what it would feel like to spend the rest of your life as an inmate of a zoo run by Younglings whose civilization was nowhere near to the level of yours—and to have to pretend, always, that you could not communicate with them? To know that you could never again show any evidence of having any mental life at all, lest they discover you for what you really were? It is not an inviting prospect. Although Evrek had promised to rescue me, I had no real hope that either he or Father would be able to do so. They were sworn; they could not risk disclosure to save me, no matter how much they might want to. So I didn’t doubt that I was going to have to accept my fate, and to report that I was panic-stricken is putting it mildly, to say the least.

  I was almost hysterical for a while, I’m afraid. I was alone, for they had me in a small room inside one of their unsealed barracks, separated from the other prisoners. You can snap out of it when you have to, though. Soon one of the guards came in, one of the few colonists who wore no helmet, being apparently immune to Andrecian bacteria. With great effort I arranged my features into some semblance of innocent fright; an authentic native would not have known what was going on.

  This particular guard was evidently a doctor, for he proceeded to treat the raw rope burns on my wrists as well as my blistered feet. As he did so he talked to me, not unkindly, trying very hard to get me to respond; naturally he had no suspicion that I could understand him. He was a young man, and his face showed more decency and compassion than I would have expected somehow, though of course there was no reason to think that Imperials would not be good men as individuals.

  “You needn’t be afraid of me,” he told me repeatedly. “I’m on your side. My name is Jarel. Jarel. Can you say that?” He pointed to himself and, if I had not been so overwrought, I would have been hard put to it not to burst out laughing. “I won’t hurt you. Poor girl, I’m sorry for you. Why can’t they leave well enough alone? It’s bad enough confining the natives to reservations, as they’ll be doing soon enough; do they have to drag you away from your own world, lock you up to be exhibited like some peculiar insect? Pardon me, I’m bitter, I guess. I’ll let you in on a secret: as soon as I get home I’m going to resign. I’m going back with the ship tomorrow, and I’m glad of it. I only wish you and your friend weren’t coming, or any natives for that matter.”

  It was all I could do not to show my shock. Tomorrow? My friend? Who could that be but Georyn, who was captured with me? Georyn to be taken, too? He must have regained consciousness, then. That was some comfort; but perhaps he’d be better off if he hadn’t.

  The doctor was not insensitive; he noted my concern and made a surprisingly accurate guess as to its cause, considering that he thought his words meaningless to me. “He’s all right,” he assured me. “Do you want to see him? I think I can fix it, though it’ll be only for a minute or two. I know you’ve got no idea what I’m saying, but I’ll fix it anyway.” Purposefully, he left the room.

  I must pull myself together, I thought, if I am to see Georyn. I must behave like an enchantress. No, not that; I must tell him the truth, the way I started to. The plan was definitely in ruins now; if the colonists’ ship, their only means of quick retreat, was to leave tomorrow and if Georyn was to be kept in isolation until liftoff, there would be no opportunity for him to impress them before it was too late. Or for him to be led into any rash moves by his trust in the Stone, either. Still, we were in for some horrible experiences; wasn’t it best that he face them realistically?

  And yet, perhaps I was thinking less of him than of myself. If I told Georyn the facts, there would be no more mystery between us, no sham, no deception. But would there really be more of truth? He might take me off the pedestal and love me simply as a girl; he might kiss me, even, if we were ever allowed any privacy. Yet wouldn’t I be taking from him the one thing that was in my power to give? Under the present circumstances it might be cruel to disillusion him. Absurd as it seemed, perhaps his belief in my nonexistent magic powers was the only solace he now had.

  I decided to keep quiet; maybe I was as obligated to that as to the role I must play for the Imperials. Yet what does an enchantress say when she has no more magic to offer?

  That he should be cast into prison without ever having set eyes upon the Dragon was a grievous blow to Georyn. Well did he know that he was in the power of the monster’s dread henchmen, for it could not be doubted that the surroundings in which he found himself were manifestations of some evil enchantment. Moreover, he could hear a fearsome clamor from without that could be naught but the roaring of the beast. Yet he was apparently to face a time of waiting before the final confrontation, and the thought of what might easily occur during that time chilled him to the marrow.

  Since he had so far been neither fed to the Dragon nor killed in any other fashion, it was evident that his captors were planning some torment for him; and Georyn had seen and heard too much of such things not to be very frightened indeed. His greatest fear, however, was not so much of pain itself as of what he might be forced to say under its influence. Torment usually had some purpose, and it was reasonable to suppose that it would be so in this case also. Only too well could he guess what that purpose would be, for had not the Lady impressed upon him that he must under no circumstances reveal that she was an enchantress, warning him that the servants of the Dragon would do their best to learn her identity? If the quest was doomed, as seemed likely, it was probable that the world would
end in dragon’s fire very soon now; and it did not matter very much what happened to him. But the Lady had implied that for her to be discovered would bring an evil fate upon herself as well as upon the world, and to prevent this he must now find strength to endure whatever was about to befall him. He hoped that the Stone would offer some measure of protection.

  When the guard, who had not the form of a demon but rather a face resembling that of an ordinary man, came to him and beckoned, Georyn did not resist. He knew that it would not do any good, and was it not better to walk than to be carried? So he followed resolutely, expecting to enter some fell dungeon. The place to which he was taken was not a dungeon, however; rather, it was a small room where, to his joy, the Enchantress awaited him. So far, at least, she was unharmed. She still wore the ragged shift in which her original captors had clothed her; her dark hair was lustrous no longer, but bedraggled; weary and pale was her countenance. Yet to Georyn she was no less beautiful than on the day he had first beheld her. To see her thus at the mercy of the Dragon’s slaves was a thing past bearing.

  “You do not wear the Emblem!” he exclaimed. “They—they have not taken it?”

  “No,” she said, “they have not touched it, nor seen it either; it is hidden.” Her voice was low and sounded almost as if she had been weeping.

  “Lady,” said Georyn urgently, “tell me what is now before me, that I may prepare myself for it.”

  She hesitated. “It is not a cheering prospect, I fear.”

  “As you know, I am loath to walk in the dark. Tell me at least whether an attempt will be made to learn anything from me.”