I looked again at the thing standing splay-footed atop its altar, with one great misshapen foot resting upon what looked like the jutting bonnet of an automobile, the other gripping a second projection on the opposite side of the ice pyramid. As I did so I saw him fling out an arm in my direction, the hand pointing.
His black face with its alien contours and flaring eyes convulsed briefly, then turned to stare in the direction of the pointing hand, towards the plane. His other hand lifted high to the leaden sky and the great fist clenched. He struck himself in the chest with a downward-sweeping, imperious blow.
By that time Whitey had found a second pair of binoculars. He too had seen these last actions of the Wind-Walker. “He’s giving orders,” Whitey said. “Can you get to him telepathically, Hank?”
“I daren’t,” I answered. “Not right now. For the moment he holds all the aces. Later, if the situation improves—then, maybe—”
“In that case I’ll voice a hunch; a pretty safe one, too, I think.”
“Let me take a guess at it,” I said, thinking about what I had just seen. “You think we’ve been sent for—that Ithaqua has told his boys to come and get us, right?”
Whitey frowned, his eyebrows drooping ominously. He handed his binoculars to Jimmy, then looked around to make sure Tracy was out of the way. She had moved up close to the tiny heater and had her nose stuck deep in my file again, seemingly absorbed in it. “Not necessarily us,” Whitey quietly corrected me. “I don’t think Ithaqua gives a hoot for us.” He grimaced. “Except perhaps for our entertainment value. But,” he nodded in Tracy’s direction, “your sister—”
At that same moment she looked up, meeting our gaze. She had been listening in on us after all. “I’ve just been reading all about him,” she said, her face ashen. “About his appetites. You don’t need to whisper.”
“Forget it, Tracy,” I told her, anger roughening my voice. “No harm will come to you. I’ll see to that, no matter what.”
She tried to smile, failed to make it all the way and settled for a tragicomic pose with her hands held up before her against an unseen menace. “A fate worse than death!” she shrilled, much too shrilly.
“You just hang onto those star-stones, Tracy,” Jimmy Franklin told her from the nose of the plane. He had taken the gun off its mountings and now dragged it into position in front of the closed door. “Old Windy will hardly dare to bother you while you have those hanging round your neck.” He sat behind the gun and traversed it left to right and back again on its swivel, squinting down the sights. “Just let us worry about the rest of it, all right?”
III
Children of the Winds
(Recorded through the Medium of Juanita Alvarez)
From that time on our salvage work went ahead full speed, with one brief break when Tracy called us over to look out of a window she had cleared of frost on that side of the plane away from the altar of the Snow-Thing. And if we had needed convincing that indeed we were stranded on a world other than our own Earth, now we were convinced.
Tracy had started on the job of clearing the windows when she saw how quickly the steady increase in temperature in the plane was breaking up the ice and frost. Obviously we were now subject to a “natural” cold as opposed to the preternatural iciness generated by the Wind-Walker. The plane’s batteries were quickly failing, true, but Whitey’s heater had sent the temperature in the plane soaring, however temporarily. That the frost inside the aircraft and the ice on its wings and fuselage were formed initially through the presence of Ithaqua seemed undeniable, but obviously in the Wind-Walker’s absence the frozen inorganic residuum of his passing became subject once more to mundane laws and conditions.
Unfortunately the same was not true for my crew. Tracy appreciated the warmth, of course. That was obvious from the way she had thrown off her parkas. We three men, however, remained in that same cold condition to which we had awakened. Not that we felt physically cold in ourselves; no, though our body temperatures were such as would not normally support human life, we suffered no abnormal discomfort whatever. To further complicate matters our circulatory and respiratory systems, in fact almost the entire scale of our physiological functions, seemed somehow contracted, slowed down. But not, mercifully, the speed of our mental and physical reactions and responses.
A very ironic situation to say the least: Tracy was affected quite normally by low temperatures of natural sources, but protected from the monstrous machineries of the Wind-Walker while the rest out us were impervious to subzero temperatures but incapable of handling the only real weapons we had against our awesome enemy.
But there I go, straying from the point again.
Let me show you the scene as we viewed it once the windows of our aircraft were back to their normal state of transparency. To one side of us, sloping almost imperceptibly down and away from our crippled machine, stretched a great white expanse that reached to a distant and gray horizon, an expanse dotted here and there with strange piles of snow whose often fascinatingly familiar shapes kept drawing my eyes to them more and more frequently as time passed.
To the other side, topping a very gradually rising slope, a vast, sheer-sided hump of rock sat at a distance of some four to five miles. This solitary feature in the otherwise featureless white expanse was a relief to the eyes, though I admit we speculated rather morbidly about the black tunnel entrances that could be seen in the base of the massive, plateau-like formation. There was life there too, showing especially in an increasing amount of activity about the mouths of the tunnels and behind turrets cut into the icy roof of the ominous stone face, but our binoculars were not strong enough to show just who or what was responsible for this activity, or to what end it was directed.
And how did all of this tell us that we were no longer on Mother Earth? Couldn’t we have been somewhere in Canada, in Greenland or Baffin Island, or maybe even Siberia? Well, perhaps we could have been—but not with those three great moons hanging in the sky behind the plateau!
All gray and green, those moons, completely awe-inspiring in the grandeur they lent the otherwise desolate scene. These were the Moons of Borea, though we were not to know what this place was called until later; and those moons moved across the heavens not at all but hung immobile and unchanging always over the horizon. Even the most distant of the three orbs, its disc three-quarters hidden by that of the second, was bigger than the moon of Earth as we had known it.
And it was as I stood there in awe of this scene that Tracy, whose fearful interest was firmly and not surprisingly centered in Ithaqua rather than in this alien planet and its moons, called out to me from the other side of the plane. Two short strides took me to her side; Jimmy and Whitey crowded a second window.
For the better part of an hour while we had worked in the plane the Wind-Walker had simply stood, arms folded across his chest, atop the distant pyramid. His worshippers had remained kneeling during that period, while their lord and master stared out through partly lidded eyes over their heads and across the white plains. Now, however. he was expanding, raising his arms up to the skies, growing upward and outward faster and faster until, billowing skyward like some djinn from an Arabian bottle, he bent his legs and thrust himself up.
Then his great webbed feet spread wide and he walked the wind that suddenly came rushing out of nowhere. Rising up and up, he turned, headed toward the Moons of Borea and, passing high over our plane in an instant, finally seemed to dwindle to a dot and vanish over the distant horizon. Only once did he pause; that was when he passed over the plateau. Then his gravity-defying steps seemed to falter momentarily and his great head inclined toward the world below. His eyes turned almost sulphurous as he gazed intently down; his great arms seemed to reach toward the plateau, about which no single sign of life could now be seen. But then he checked himself and was off again, striding into the heavens. From the time he left his position atop the pyramid, he passed completely out of sight in less than twenty seconds.
Tha
t strange wind the Snow-Thing had called up carried now to the plane, flurrying the loose snow in white wind-devils and bringing with it the cries and ululations of Ithaqua’s worshippers as they voiced their songs of praise. Eerily they reached out to us on the lessening squalls that shook the frozen blanket where I had fastened it up, filling the plane with an ominous foreboding.
“Batteries are nearly dead,” Whitey said. cocking an ear at the dying whir of the heater.
“Yes, I think it’s pretty near time we were leaving,” I told him. “Tracy, you’d better get back into your parka. Wrap yourself up as much as you can.”
Standing at the window as before, with a pair of binoculars lifted to her eyes, she answered, “His worshippers are leaving the altar. They—they seem to be—disappearing!”
Again I moved to her side, taking the binoculars from her. For half a minute I gazed. “They’re leaving, yes, but not disappearing. They have white cloaks or pelts; when they use them to cover their bodies they seem to vanish against the snow.” Then I repeated my words of a few seconds earlier, this time with more urgency. “I think we’d better be getting on our way.”
“All right,” Jimmy Franklin said, standing up as he finished securing his load of packs and equipment. “I’m all ready.”
“Me too,” Whitey agreed, heading for the door. “I’ll get down outside. You two can lift the door off its hinges and pass it down to me, or simply let it fall. Then you can toss down the extra supplies and I’ll stow them on our sledge. With three of us to do the hauling, Tracy might like to ride.”
“Oh, no!” she cried. “I’m not going to be an extra weight for you three. Besides, I would probably freeze to death sitting still. I’ll walk. And I’ll do my share of the carrying. Which way are we going?”.
Before I could answer her Whitey said, “Toward the plateau.” He managed a grin and his eyebrows lifted momentarily from their accustomed droop. “Sorry to anticipate you Hank, but we are heading for the plateau, aren’t we?”
I nodded. “Yes, there’s something there that Ithaqua doesn’t like, and what’s bad for him is good enough for me!”
Whitey unbolted and threw open the damaged door of the aircraft, making as if to jump down—then froze as he stared out at our immediate surroundings. An instant later he stepped back and slammed the door shut behind him. I, too, had seen what waited for us outside, and suddenly the flesh crawled on my back with a life of its own. Obviously not all of Ithaqua’s followers had stayed to see the end of his ceremonies, to watch him take his departure. They were waiting on the frozen snows of the plain outside even now, encircling the aircraft in a single row, having approached unnoticed in their white robes.
It was as I had suspected when I saw them through the binoculars; they were of an ancient Eskimo breed, the majority of them, although here and there in the surrounding circle I had seen white faces, too. But it was not the sight of these squat, flat-featured men that filled me with dread and set my flesh to creeping—they were, after all, only men. No, it was their mounts.
Wolves! Great white wolves as big as ponies, fanged and fire-eyed. pawed the snow with heavy pads, tongues lolling redly and hot breath condensing as it left flaring nostrils. And their silent riders sat these lupine mounts surely and with authority, arrogantly. Well, we would see about their arrogance; despite the initial dread that had filled me, we were not without weapons.
“Whitey, get the gun set up again in front of the door here,” I snapped. “Jimmy, you’re a good shot. Get into the nose with the rifle. Pull down that blanket so you can see what you’re doing. Tracy, you’d better keep out of sight in the tail of the plane.”
I carefully shot out a window in the wall opposite the door, then knocked the remaining fragments of laminated glass loose from the frame. For a minute or so there was frantic activity in the confines of the plane, then an unnerving quiet. Our breathing began to form plumes, especially Tracy’s, and of course she was the only one to actually suffer from the falling temperature. We waited, not wanting to precipitate matters.
From the door. which he had opened just a fraction. Whitey suddenly called out to me, “Hank, one of the white men is making his way to the plane on foot. He’s holding his hands up in the air. Doesn’t appear to be armed. I think he wants to talk.”
“Let him in,” I answered. “But watch him closely.”
Whitey swung the door open, pivoting his gun in an arc that covered a quarter of the surrounding circle. In the center of his are a thin-featured white man stepped forward. He was dressed in a snowy pelt that covered him head to toe. He was tall. He moved right up to the door and his head and shoulders came level with the lower sill. I kept him covered while Whitey stood up to slide the metal steps into position.
The stranger climbed the steps, lowering his head to enter, then threw back the hood of his robe and shook loose his hair. It was long and white, complimenting the glacial paleness of his face in which, in complete contrast, huge dark eyes blazed with mad fervor. This was that priest I had seen at the foot of Ithaqua’s altar.
As Whitey slid the steps back into their recess, closing the door again to its previous crack of an opening, I asked the stranger, “Do you speak English?”
“I speak it,” he answered, in what I recognized as a Russian accent. “I used to teach it, at the College of Cultural Sciences at Kiev. I also speak the languages of the Canadian Indians and the Eskimos. I am versed, too, in the tongues of Greenland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland—in all of the tongues of the lands that encroach upon the Wind-Walker’s domain on Earth. Besides all these, I speak Ithaqua’s tongue, which is not a tongue at all. The Snow-Thing knew this when he called me to Igarka. There I went, ostensibly to ski in the mountains, and there Ithaqua found me. Now I am the most powerful of all his priests!”
“You’re a telepath, then,” I said, making it more a statement of fact than a question.
He turned to face me more fully and raised one white eyebrow. “What would you know of telepathy?” he asked, in a voice which told me that my own talents were less than important. “What I am—who I am—is of no consequence.” He looked round the interior of the plane. In profile, the hook of his nose gave him the look of some strange white bird of prey. His eyes became slits staring at Tracy where she huddled down in the narrow tail section. “What I have been sent to do, however,” he continued, “is all important!”
He pointed imperiously at Tracy: “You, girl. You are to come with me—now!”
Before I could deny him, before I could even recover from the shock of his words, which had choked me with astonishment and rage, he turned again to me. “You are the leader here, yes? I see that it is so. The rest of your party—the three of you—all are invited to join the Brotherhood of Ithaqua.”
His black eyes seemed to burn into mine as he scrutinized me intently; then they narrowed. “The Wind-Walker is particularly interested in your welfare. We are his people here on Borea, the Children of the Winds, and I am his messenger. You will have a short time to think about his offer. Consider it carefully; the alternative is terrible. Now I will take the girl, whom Ithaqua has found fair, and then I will return for your answer. You have three hours.”
He turned back to Tracy, a devilish smile twisting the line of his cold mouth. “Come, girl. We go to prepare you for Ithaqua!”
Moving closer to him, I jammed my pistol into the hollow under his chin. “What’s your name, you dog?” I choked, no longer fully able to control my voice.
He drew himself up to his full height, an inch or two greater even than my own, and his eyes were like dark marbles as he answered: “My name was Boris Zchakow, which is meaningless. Now I am High Priest of Ithaqua, who is not to be denied. Do you refuse to let the girl accompany me?”
“Listen, Boris Zchakow,” I answered, my mind seething with murderous thoughts. “This girl is my sister. Neither you nor any other man—or monster—may take her where she will not go. Not while I live. You came here unarmed, so
I won’t kill you, not now. But if we ever meet again—”
“Then the pleasure will be mine!” he cut me off.
For a moment longer we stood face to face, then with a contemptuous gesture he turned once more to Tracy. “Well, girl, do you want to see your brother and his friends dead, and perhaps yourself with them? Or would you not prefer to be one with Ithaqua, bride of the Snow-Thing, and live in wonder and glory forever?” His black eves blazed insanely.
Tracy had come forward. Before I could make a move to stop her she reached out a trembling hand to the Russian, a peculiar, half-amazed, bemused expression on her face. He took her hand in his own pale claw—then threw back his head and screamed as though pierced through with a whitehot spike!
For a long moment his outstretched arm seemed to vibrate, as if he had taken hold of a naked high-tension cable; then he snatched back his hand and, cradling it, fell to his knees. His eyes were no longer imperious and huge but sunken black holes in a dead white face. As Tracy stepped nearer still he held up his hands before him, cringing away from her like a whipped dog. And then I understood, for the hand with which he had taken hold on her was black as pitch; the flesh curled crisply from the little finger, exposing white bone!
Tracy’s face, too, had changed. Gone the bemused, hypnotized look that had fooled me, her own brother, no less than it had fooled the Russian. She again held out her hand, this time palm up, to show him one of the star-stones. Then she dangled it at the end of its chain, swinging it before Zchakow’s contorted face.
“You tell Ithaqua that if he wants Tracy Silberhutte, he’ll have to take these, too!” she said.
Gasping, sobbing in his pain, terror and rage, with the madness in his eyes beginning to shine out as blackly as before, the Russian slowly climbed to his feet. He held his roasted hand close to him, averting his mad eyes from the star-stone, seeking only Tracy’s face as he backed toward the door.