The Tery

  "Yes. You both look like you could use a friend. You'll be good for each other."

  Adriel stared into his unreadable face. The insight at the heart of his casual statement was so on-target that she was momentarily speechless. She looked at him closely. His light brown hair hung lankly against the darker brown of his beard. He was dirty and he smelled bad and she had never much liked him. He returned her stare.

  "That was nice of you," she said, finally.

  "Forget it. You and he are running from the same thing – I thought you might want to help him out a little. And he looked like he needed all the help he could get. Do a good job."

  "I don't need you to tell me that," she said sharply, showing her annoyance at his remark. Of course she would take good care of the tortured beast.

  He barked a short laugh and strolled to his wagon. With a single, smooth motion, he bent, grasped the two handles, and started off into the woods, trailing the wagon behind him. A few shards of broken pottery rattled in the back; the left wheel squeaked on its axle.

  She watched until the thicket swallowed him, then returned to her work with a scowl. Tlad had risen in her estimation today by his show of compassion for the poor beast unconscious before her, but she still did not like him. She couldn't pin it down, but something about that man caused her to mistrust him.

  Still, in a way she wished he had stayed longer. At least he was someone to talk to.

  She went back into the hut to get some clean rags to bind the tery's deeper wounds, and when she returned, she saw her father approaching across the clearing.

  "That thing still alive?" Komak said when he reached her side and stood surveying the bulk of the tery.

  Her father was a man huge in height, girth, and spirit. He had clear, pale blue eyes and shaggy red hair and beard that encircled his head like a mane; his skin was the type that never seemed to tan, remaining ever red from the sun despite the fact that he spent all of his time outdoors these days. Adriel shared his coloring in hair, skin, and eyes, but was shorter and had a smaller frame.

  "Of course he's still alive. And I'll keep him that way."

  Didn't anyone have any confidence in her?

  Komak lifted the unconscious creature's upper lip to expose its sharp teeth.

  "So this is Tlad's tery. Ugly brute."

  "He's not so bad. He's just all cut up and his fur's all matted with dried blood. He'll look a lot better when I've had a chance to clean him up."

  "Now that we've got him, what're we going to do with him?"

  "I want to keep him, father. And don't you ever call him ‘Tlad's tery' again," she said with mock severity. "He's mine now."

  "I don't know about that. Look at the size of him – the muscles in those arms. If he should ever turn on you..."

  "He won't," she said, and meant it. "He knows I'm his friend. I could see it in the way he looked at me when I started washing off his wounds."

  "Well, we'll see."

  "Father," she said after a pause while she tied a knot in the bandage, "are Kitru's men hunting and exterminating the forest teries, too?"

  She remembered how all the teries in and around the town had been killed or driven off by the Overlord's decree. That had been awful, but at least the soldiers had not gone hunting through the forests for them. That had changed now, it seemed.

  Komak squatted beside her. "Yes, I'm afraid they are. Overlord Mekk's new decree applies not only to us but to the forest teries and even to some of the more bizarre plants – at least that's what Rab told us."

  "And where is this Rab fellow everybody talks about?"

  "I don't know." He let his body slip back and rested on his buttocks. "But I wish he'd get here."

  With a slow, almost painful motion, he lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. Adriel stopped her ministrations to the tery and watched her father with concern.

  "Tired?"

  "Exhausted. I'm not cut out for this. I didn't want to be leader of the group. When I agreed to the position, I thought it was only for a few days...only until Rab showed up. Now it's been months."

  "Where could he be? Do you think he got caught?"

  "Possibly. When he warned us, he said we didn't have much time to get away from the keep. Maybe he tarried too long trying to make sure everybody got out."

  Adriel remembered the day. Vividly. Her father had hurried home from Kitru's court where he had long served as an advisor on matters of design and construction around the keep. He was in a state of great agitation. An unknown Talent who called himself Rab had whispered to his mind about secrets in old books and about a messenger on his way from Overlord Mekk with a new proclamation – an addition to the old Tery Extermination Decree. It ordered all the local lords to hunt down and slay all teries everywhere. But that was not what had so upset Rab and all the Talents – it was the second part, which included possessors of the Talent as offenders against God. Possessors of the Talent would thereafter be declared teries and summarily condemned to death without trial.

  Word spread rapidly among those with the Talent – Rab, whoever he was, had contacted many of them – and the majority believed him. The Overlord had long been under the spell of a fanatical religious sect which worshipped the True Shape. All deviations from True Shape were considered unholy. Apparently the sect's dogma now included possessors of the Talent as deviants.

  There had been doubters among the Talents, of course. Those who claimed that it went against all existing laws to order their deaths merely because they possessed the Talent. These few stayed behind while Komak, Adriel, and the others packed whatever they could and fled into the woods. If they were wrong in trusting Rab, Komak had told them, all it would cost them was a few days of inconvenience and perhaps a little embarrassment. If they were right...

  The wisdom of their choice became horrifyingly evident on their third night in the woods when the anguish, pain, and terror of the other Talents left behind in the keep leaped through the darkness to wake them from their sleep. The agonized emotions winked out bit by bit as those trusting Talents were systematically captured in their homes and dragged to the burning pit outside town. Only Adriel had slept on, oblivious to it all.

  "I still say it's not fair to call us teries," she said. "We're not! We're people!"

  He smiled at her sadly. "My poor little Adriel. I indulged you and spoiled you, and now I've had to tear you away from all the luxuries I worked so hard to give you. I'd give anything to make things right for you again."

  Adriel fought the tears. She missed her house, her clothes, her room, her bed, her friends, the shops, the marketplace in the square, people who talked.

  Her father sighed and changed the subject. "I don't think Rab is coming."

  "Maybe Rab is right here in this camp and we don't know it," she said, hoping to buoy his spirits.

  Komak opened his eyes and raised himself up on one elbow. "Not possible. I don't know how to explain it to you but...but once you've communicated with someone via the Talent, you'll always recognize him again. Rab isn't here."

  "Maybe he's Tlad, then. We don't know anything about him."

  "But Tlad doesn't have the Talent. You said so yourself. And you should know – you're the Finder."

  Yes, she was the Finder, all right. Sometimes she wished she weren't.

  "Still, there's something about that man I don't like, don't trust."

  "Don't trust? He's never harmed you or any of us. As a matter of fact, he's been a good friend to us."

  "Perhaps ‘don't trust' isn't exactly what I mean. I don't know. He's sneaky. He always seems to be watching us. Maybe he's working for Kitru, spying on us."

  "If that was his plan, my dear, he could have led the troops here long ago. And don't forget how he acted on behalf of the tery here – no man of Kitru's would do that."

  But Adriel would not allow her suspicions to be put to rest.

  "I can't explain what he did today, but –"

  "Don't try to explain Tlad," her father
cut in. "He's not like us. He lives alone out here, makes his pottery, and doesn't bother anyone. Doesn't seem to be much afraid of anyone, either. But forget about him now. We have more pressing matters at hand."

  "Oh?"

  She finished up the last dressing on the tery and looked at him.

  "Yes. It's rumored that Overlord Mekk is planning a personal inspection of all the districts soon and that's probably why Kitru is sending his men out into the bush to kill off the teries: He wants to make a good impression on the Overlord." He paused for a moment, then: "This creature was found much too near the camp for comfort. Kitru's men might stumble on us next. We must move on. And soon."

  Adriel watched him rise to his feet and stand with hands on hips, letting his eyes rove the oppressively silent camp. All motion ceased as everyone turned to face her father. After a short pause, he turned back to her. The camp dissolved into a flurry of activity.

  "As soon as you finish with him, start gathering your things. We move at daybreak tomorrow."

  -III-

  They numbered near fifty, these strange, silent folk. As the predawn glow lightened the western sky, the tery watched their wordless coordination in fascination. They broke camp swiftly, loaded their pack animals, and prepared to start off through the forest toward a new and safer location.

  Still weak from his wounds, the tery suffered blurred vision and nausea every time he tried to raise himself upright. He had passed the night in a deep, exhausted, untroubled sleep to awaken alert and chilled in the dawn.

  Adriel, however, was up before him and ready.

  "There, now," she said softly, pressing his shoulders back against the drag on which he had spent the night. "You don't have to go anywhere and you shouldn't." Her voice was soft and reassuring, its tone meant to convey the meaning of the words she didn't know he could understand. "See if you like this."

  She placed a shallow earthen bowl filled with milk and bits of raw meat before him. With two or three brisk movements, he shoveled all the meat into his mouth, swallowed convulsively, then drained the milk.

  Adriel's mouth hung open.

  "You must be famished. But that's all for now – you'll get sick if I let you eat as much as you want." She poured some cool water into the empty bowl. "Drink this and that'll be all until later."

  When they were all set to go, the tery's drag was bound again to one of the mounts. Adriel covered him with a blanket and walked beside him, a reassuring hand on his shoulder as they began to move.

  The tery considered his benefactrix. She had a clear, open face in which he could read little. She appeared neither happy nor unhappy, neither contented nor frustrated. Lonely, perhaps? He would not have expected the daughter of a chief – at least her father seemed to be the chief – to be lonely. Perhaps she wasn't pretty by human standards.

  As they moved through the trees a young man came up and matched his step to hers. He was well built with curly brown hair and an easy smile. A wispy attempt at a beard mottled his cheeks.

  "How's the Finder today?" he said.

  She sighed. "How do you think, Dennel?"

  "Same old problem?"

  Adriel nodded.

  He grinned. "Won't you ever understand? Speech is such a burden for us: Thoughts flash as entities between us, whole concepts transfer from one to another as a unit, in an instant. We converse in colors and emotions and mixtures I can't even begin to describe. We don't leave you out on purpose. It's just...well, why walk when you can fly?"

  "I know all that, Dennel. We've been over this before, but it doesn't help. It doesn't keep me from feeling left out. Back at the keep I could at least go and find some regular folks to talk to. But here...here I'm the only one who was born without the Talent."

  "But the Talent came out in you in a different way. You're a Finder."

  "I can find possessors of the Talent, sure. But I can't communicate with them. I'm cut off."

  "But your ability to find makes you the most valuable member of the group. Through you we can find new members to add to our ranks. And we need every Talent we can find." He glanced up and down the column of travelers. "Every single one."

  "That still doesn't keep me from feeling like a cripple." She didn’t want to sulk, but couldn’t help it. "And according to Overlord Mekk I'm still just as much a tery as you are. So he wants to kill me, too. I get all the danger but none of the benefits."

  In the silence that followed, the tery had time to ponder what he had just heard. He now understood why these humans were fleeing Kitru. They, like the teries, were now on Mekk's extermination list. His mother had told him that humans had always enjoyed killing each other. This was just another excuse to do more of it. His mother also had spoken of these people once: Talents, or psi-people. That explained the eerie silence of the camp – they spoke with their minds. All except Adriel.

  "Teries." Dennel said, his eyes flashing. "This whole situation is so foolish! We're not teries! Everyone knows that teries are a product of the Great Sickness – dumb, misshapen animals, like this brute here."

  "And you think you're not?" said another voice.

  Adriel and Dennel reacted with surprise, but the tery had heard his approach. His heart warmed at the sight of the human who had caused his rescue yesterday.

  "Oh, hello, Tlad," said Dennel. "And yes, I'm sure our special talents didn't come from the Great sickness."

  "How do you explain them then?" Tlad's eyes danced. He seemed to enjoy challenging Dennel's conceits.

  "Talents are a refinement of humanity, an advancement. I should think that is quite obvious. We can do things no one else can do."

  "That doesn't necessarily make you popular with the rest of us who have to communicate by noisier means."

  "Nevertheless, we should be courted rather than persecuted. We're the next step up the ladder."

  "Maybe so," Adriel said softly. "But maybe Mekk doesn't like the idea of being left on a lower rung."

  "By the way," Tlad said. "How's the tery?"

  Adriel immediately brightened.

  "Coming along, poor thing. He heals fast. Some of his smaller cuts are almost closed up already."

  "Thanks to you, I'm sure." Tlad waved. "I'm going ahead to find your father."

  Dennel watched Tlad leave. "I'm not sure I like the way he comes and goes. He always seems to know where we are."

  "Lucky for the tery that he knew where we were yesterday," Adriel said.

  Dennel leaned over to get a better look at the wounds, then quickly turned away.

  "What's wrong?" she said.

  "Just thinking: That could be you or I some day if the troopers ever catch up with us."

  "But they won't," Adriel told him, her optimism bright and genuine. "My father can keep us one step ahead of Kitru's men without even trying. But let's not worry about it – it's too early in the day for that."

  "All right," he laughed, and looked at the tery again, this time from a greater distance. "At least he's not a talker and not too ugly. Looks like a cross between a big monkey and some wiry breed of bear."

  The tery disliked Dennel's tone but had to agree with the comparison. He was about the height of a man when he walked upright, although he much preferred to go on all fours. His hands were large, twice the size of a man's, and he was covered from head to toe with coarse black fur, short and curly everywhere except the genital area, where it grew long and straight.

  "Talker?" Adriel said, glancing between Dennel and the tery.

  "Sure. Some teries can be taught to speak, you know. I saw some with a traveling music troupe that came through the keep a few years ago. Some of them sang, some of them danced, and one even gave dramatic readings of poetry. But that was before Mekk declared them ‘unholy.'

  "

  "Really? Do you think maybe I could teach this one to talk?"

  Dennel shook his head. "I doubt it. First of all, I've been told that you've got to start them young if you're going to have any success. And secondly, you have to be
lucky and get one who can be taught. The degree of intelligence varies greatly from one to another."

  "Oh," she said with obvious disappointment. "I thought I might have someone to talk to."

  "They can't think, Adriel. At the very most, all they can do is mimic sounds. And I'm not so sure you'd want a talker around anyway. Some of them are so good you'd actually think they had a mind."

  "I guess it would be a little frightening at that."

  The tery could have destroyed Dennel's misinformed theories in an instant, for he was a "talker" and had no doubts about his ability to think. But he kept to himself. If these humans found the thought of a talking tery repugnant, how would they feel if they knew that this animal was listening in on their conversation and understanding every word? He needed them now – especially now – while he was wounded, alone, and helpless. He couldn't risk alienating them, so he remained silent.

  Adriel sighed. "By the way, where does the word ‘tery' come from?

  Now that she was considered one, she supposed she should know.

  Dennel shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea. As far as I know, they've always been called teries. The name probably originated during the Great Sickness."

  Dennel excused himself and walked toward the front of the train. As the tery scrutinized the psi-folk around him, he began to understand Adriel's predicament. Glances would pass between individuals, someone would smile, another would laugh, but speech was used only on the pack animals to keep them moving.

  A lonely girl indeed, this Adriel.

  -IV-

  When the train halted at dusk, the tery was freed from the drag and allowed to take a few painful steps. At first his joints were stiff, his muscles tight and inelastic, but they gradually loosened. He walked in slow circles. It was good to be up and about again. His spirits rose, but not too far.

  When he stopped moving, he noticed that only two of the larger wounds had started bleeding again, and those very little. Adriel had done an excellent job of cleaning and binding the wounds; his animal vitality would do the rest.

  She appeared carrying two bowls. The sight of her smiling face warmed him.