Children of the Gates

  She moistened her lips and launched the one appeal she had thought upon during that dusty journey to reach this place. To do this before a Raski went against all her conditioning from birth—Yurth affairs were theirs only. Still she must break through to these of her kin; that need had become the most important thing in her whole world.

  Again she ran her tongue over her lips; her mouth, in spite of the water she had drunk, felt bone dry, as if she could not shape any words.

  But this must be done—she had to know. So she began the chant in words so old that even their meaning was now forgotten. Out of some very dim past had those words come, and their birth must have been of abiding importance to all which was Yurth for the fact still remained that they must learn them, intelligible or no.

  “In the beginning,” she said in that tongue now forgotten, “was created Heaven and Yurth,” (that last was the only understandable word in her chant), “and there man took being and. . . .”

  On sped the words, faster now and uttered with more power and authority. And—yes! One of the Yurth, one wearing the clothing like her own, had turned his head to look at her. There was the faint trace of puzzlement dawning in his blank face. She saw his lips move. Then his voice joined hers in the chant, lower, less strong, halting at times.

  But when she had done he saw her, really saw her! It was as if she had shaken out of sleep this one, if not the others. His eyes swept from her face down to the wrists again bound, the end of that cording looping out to twist about the arm of another of the guards. The attention in his expression became hopelessness.

  “To Yurth the burden of the Sin.” He spoke harshly as might a man who had not used his voice for a long time. “We pay, Yurth, we pay.”

  She leaned forward. None of the others had appeared to note that he had spoken.

  “To whom does Yurth pay?” She tried to keep her voice as level as might one carrying on a usual conversation.

  “To Atturn.” His last faint trace of interest flickered out. Now he turned away and got to his feet.

  She sent a mind-probe with all the force she could summon, determined to break through the barrier she had found, to reach the real man within the shell. Maybe she troubled him a fraction, for his head did turn once more in her direction. Then he strode off into the growing dusk.

  “So Yurth pays,” commented Stans.

  “To Atturn,” she snapped in return, desolated at her failure when she had begun to think that she might have actually learned more. “Perhaps to your Karn.” She ended, not because she believed what she said. “But if Atturn rules, why does a Raski go in bonds?” she flung at him in conclusion.

  “Perhaps we shall soon have a chance to learn.” He showed heat to match her own.

  With the dark the Yurth settled themselves for sleep, each captive placed carefully between two of their guards, cords looping them in contact so that Elossa guessed that the least move on her part would alert either one or the other, or both, of the men who boxed her in. He who had spoken to her was across the fire and settled early, his eyes closed, as if the last thing he wanted to see was Elossa herself.

  She slept at last, rousing once to see one of the Yurth feeding the fire from a pile of sticks which had been stacked there waiting for their coming. Stans was only a dark form nearly engulfed in the shadows and she could not tell whether he waked or slept.

  There was an uneasiness in her now which made her adverse to any casting of mind-seek. That these Yurth were perhaps bound to another’s will was the only explanation which made sense to her. The “Burden” which the ship had loosed on her had ridden her people heavily for generations, that was true. But that it had reduced any to this state was not normal—Yurth normal. He and the others who had worn the clothing like her own—were they those who had earlier made the Pilgrimage and had never returned? Instead of death in the mountains they had found this life-in-death.

  But there were the others who wore the ship’s clothing. It had certainly been too many years since the crash of their spacer and the death of Kal-Hath-Tan for any of them to have lived to this time—again, unless someone had found the secret of prolonging life far past any scale of years known to Elossa’s reckoning. Had there been another ship, a later one?

  There was such a surge of excitement through her at that thought that she had to will herself fiercely to lie still. It was the same excitement and racing of the blood which had visited her when she had watched in the wrecked ship the scenes taken in space before the crash.

  Another ship—a later one—perhaps sent to find Yurth, to take them home. Home? Where was home then? Lying here she could see the stars strewn across the sky. Was one of them the sun which warmed the fields and hills of Yurth Home?

  She drew a deep breath and then that excitement changed.

  Those around her, she knew they were not free. If they had come to save, then they in turn had been caught in some trap and made captive. Yet they could not have been conditioned by the machines in the ship as all those of her own blood and kin had been. She longed to be able to crawl over to Stans, to shake him awake if he did indeed sleep, force him somehow to tell her more of Atturn, of the Karn who had stood wearing Atturn’s face and who had launched the fire bolt at them, who might have set upon them the monstrous creatures who had pulled them down. There was too much she did not know, could not know when the mind-seek refused to serve her.

  Shortly after dawn, having eaten meagerly again of the dry stuff and been allowed to drink, they were marched on steadily across the plains. Stans walked well ahead of her. He seemed unsteady on his feet and now and then the Yurth beside him put out a hand to aid him with the impersonal manner of a machine doing some set duty.

  They halted at intervals to rest, and were offered water at each such halt. The dry grass grew long here, sweeping to their knees and Elossa could trace no path in it. Still the party certainly moved as if they trod some well known trail and did not have to fear getting lost.

  There was something about the horizon ahead, a kind of haziness she could not account for. But shortly before noon, or so she judged it to be by the sun, they reached the explanation for that. The plain ended almost abruptly in a cliff. It would seem that this level country was really a large plateau and to proceed they must descend to a country lying below, a far different country.

  Whereas the plain forecast the swift coming of winter, the growth they now looked down on was lush, thick with leaves as it might be at the height of a good growing summer. Trees stood so close together that all one could really see for the most part was their tops, the leaves ruffled by gentle winds.

  The leading guard went to the left a little and stepped onto the beginning of a stairway which had been cut back into the stone of the cliff. They followed single file, going down into that waiting lower land.

  17

  The luxuriant growth of vegetation in this lower land was beyond anything Elossa had ever known. Those valleys and plains in the east which the Raski cultivated to the best of their ability would seem desert borders compared to this. As the stair down the cliff side gave way to a road wide enough for six such guards as surrounded them now to walk abreast Elossa continued to wonder at the difference in this country.

  Overhead trees arched, completely, she guessed, cloaking the road under their canopy. While the trees themselves were of new species. Between their trunks and lower branches climbed and looped thick vines which branched into stems so heavy with a bright purple fruit that they drooped downward near to breaking.

  Around the fruit flew and climbed countless feasters—some feathered, some furred. Their squawks and cries led to a continual rise of sound. Yet none of the guard marching below glanced upward or seemed to notice any part of what lay on either hand.

  There was a dank lushness to the very air of this woodland, scents both rank and fragrant hung as heavy as the fruit, clogged the nostrils and made the breath come faster as if one labored to catch lungfuls of the keener and more sterile air of
the heights. The road underfoot was well laid and Elossa noted that, for some reason, none of the thick undergrowth so much as hung out above it. Those blocks might in themselves generate some warn-off quality which kept the forest from intruding on the work of the builders who so challenged nature.

  But the way did not run straight. There were some trees of such a girth that it appeared their rooting could not be disturbed, so the road curled east or west about their bulk. When this was so and one glanced back it seemed that the road itself had disappeared from sight beyond each such curve.

  Beads of sweat gathered along the edge of Elossa’s hair, trickled down her face. This heat reached out to wrap her around until it seemed that every place her clothing touched her body the coarse fabric fretted and chafed her skin. Still the Yurth guard, having set on this path, did not pause or in any way abate their pace.

  But all roads must in time have an end and this one came as they rounded an isle of earth which gave root space to three giant trees, so smothered in vines and towering ferns that the whole looked as solid as a rock wall.

  The crook in the road ended in an open space, also paved with the firmly laid stone blocks. Set flat in the surface of the center was an opening, square and without doors. Now they came to more stairs but this time the descent ran into depths below the surface of the ground.

  It was darker as they went; still there was enough light to see about them. The stair curled around, leading ever down but following the walls of this well-like space in a spiral pattern. The lower they went the more the lush rich air of the forest thinned, though there was a current which Elossa could feel and it was fresh.

  She tried to count the steps, hoping so to gain some idea of how deep this burrow went. But it was easy to lose count. And she disliked the atmosphere of the place more and more. Yurth life was mainly led in the open, under the sky, and with fresh winds about one.

  They reached the end of that descent to face a passage running straight from the foot of the stairs. Along it at intervals torches set in rings fastened to the walls smoked and flared, the acrid scent of their burning strong.

  That hall ended in another arch and Elossa near missed a step. Once again they fronted the same—or twin—stone face of Atturn, its open mouth stretched wide awaiting them.

  Two of the Yurth dropped to hands and knees and crawled through. Then pressure on Elossa’s shoulders forced her down into the same humble position, indicating that she must follow suit. Angrily she obeyed, shrinking as far as she could from any contact with the walls of that mouth opening.

  There was a wide chamber beyond, walled as well as floored with stone. As she scrambled to her feet she saw that there was a dais at the other end of the room and on it a seat high of back, wide of arm. Yet as large as that throne was it in no way dwarfed or belittled the man seated on it.

  Red and black, crest of roached hair held high, this was he who had fronted them before the attack of the misshapen creatures. He was smiling as Elossa’s guards dragged her forward, watching her as a sargon, had it more than rudimentary intelligence, might watch helpless prey advance within paw-crushing distance.

  The girl held her head high, something in her responded with instant defiance to that smile, to the arrogant confidence the lord exuded, though to meet him stare for measuring stare was all she might do now.

  The Yurth who had brought her there were as blank faced as ever. They were—maybe they were only now extensions of this Karn’s will, his things, in truth swallowed up by Atturn.

  “Lord.” It was Stans who broke that silence. He elbowed past Elossa as if she were invisible, taking a stand Immediately below the single tall step of the dais. “Lord King. . . .”

  The dark eyes of the man broke contact with Elossa, turned to the Raski, so like him in body. That smile did not fade.

  “You make common cause with Yurth. . . .” In Karn’s voice that last word took on the sound of some degraded and degrading obscenity.

  “I am Stans of the House of Philbur.” The Raski had not knelt, save for the address of courtesy, he stood as one addressing an equal. “The House of Philbur—” he repeated as if those four words were in some manner a talisman which would admit him to the dominate company of Karn. “Is it thus that the Lord of Kal-Hath-Tan speaks with his kin?” He jerked his shoulders as if to point home that he went bound as a prisoner.

  “You company with Yurth filth.”

  “I bring you Yurth for you to do as you will. Your servants took no time to ask.”

  So! Her vague distrust of Raski, in spite of all their seeming need of one another had been right! Lies—lies ran behind him to the very moments on board the wrecked ship when he had apparently agreed that they had common cause in questioning all tradition had built in the past of their two peoples.

  Karn’s probing stare was sharp. Elossa felt another probe—not Yurth contact clean and clear, no. This was a furtive nibbling at the outer defense of her mind, a desire to violate her inner being without the power to force the rape.

  “Interesting,” Karn remarked. “And how knew you of the Kal-Hath-Tan which is, Raski?”

  “It was—is—that laid upon the House of Philbur, that we take blood price for Kal-Hath-Tan. In each age we take it.”

  “There is a blood price for Kal-Hath-Tan of a different sort, Raski.” Karn made a slight gesture to indicate the two vacant-eyed Yurth before him. “Yurth filth here is slave. More bitter is this than death—is that not so, Yurth?” Now he spoke directly to Elossa.

  She made no answer. Still Karn—or some alien power in this place—was seeking a way past her mind shield. She found such fumbling feeble so far, but that did not necessarily mean that it could not build in force, perhaps without warning.

  Karn’s lips, so like those of Atturn’s mouth, moved in what might be silent laughter. His gaze on her was worse than any blow which he might have dealt physically.

  “Yurth breaks—yes, Yurth breaks. And I find it good that this, your gift to me, kinsman, is female. Breeding of our humble slaves is slow—we lack many females. Yes, I find your gift good.” He raised his hand again and the Yurth to Stans’ right took a step backward and freed the Raski’s hands with a quick slash of his bonds. “You claim House Blood of Philbur, kinsman. That also interests me. I thought that all our blood was gone.

  “As for the Yurth—take it to the pens.”

  Elossa did not need the jerk on the cord about her wrists to bring her around. The hidden evil of this place was like a stinking mud rising about her feet, seeking to drag her down. She was willing enough to see the last of Karn and his “kinsman.”

  They left the audience chamber by a second door and traveled through such a maze of shorter and narrower passages that, though she tried to set each turn and twist in memory, she despaired of ever finding her way through them again.

  At length she was shoved through a door into a room where there were more Yurth—women. None of them raised eyes to look at her as she half fell forward, being unable to help herself as her hands had not been freed. Instead those half dozen females of her own race stared blank-eyed before them. Two, she noted with horror, Karn’s threat returning, had the big bellies of the pregnant. But they were all slack faced, as if empty of mind.

  None of these wore the suits of the ship people; rather their robes could be the journey dress of the Pilgrims. But she recognized none of them as missing members of her clan. And she had no way of telling how long they might have been here.

  Then the woman nearest her slowly turned her head. Her gaze fastened dully on Elossa’s face and the horror of the mindlessness it suggested made the girl hurriedly edge away as the woman arose sluggishly to her feet and advanced toward her. To be touched by this—this thing wearing the guise of Yurth brought a scream very close to her lips.

  But the woman passed behind her and a moment later Elossa felt a fumbling on the cords which bound her. Those fell away. Still blank of face the woman shuffled back to the pile of unsavory, stained c
ouch pillows where she had first crouched and subsided again in the same position. Elossa, rubbing her wrists, moved back until her shoulders touched the wall and there dropped down to sit cross-legged.

  Her gaze kept returning to the woman who had freed her. To look at this fellow prisoner suggested that the stranger was no different from her companions. Still, something had led her to come to Elossa’s aid. Letting her head fall back against the support of the wall, Elossa closed her eyes.

  That fretting at the edge of her mind-shield was gone. Very tentatively she released a small questing probe of her own. Nothing close to hand. If these here in this room and the other Yurth she had seen in the common dress were captured during the Pilgrimage then they had come here with powers equal to her own. Still those had seemingly been drained from them, leaving them empty and useless.

  But the Raski had no such power. At least those of the outer world had not. They could be manipulated by Yurth hallucinations should just cause for such arise. What was Karn that he had been able to enslave those with gifts none of his race could claim?

  “Karn is Atturn. . . .”

  Only discipline of mind kept Elossa quiet. Who had sent that thought?

  “You—where?” she shot out.

  “Here. But be warned. Karn has his ways. . . .”

  “How?”

  “Atturn was a god. Karn is Atturn,” came the not clear response. “He has ways of breaking minds—but not all. Some of us were warned in time . . . retreated. . . .”

  Elossa opened her eyes slowly, looked to the woman who had freed her. This must be the one.

  “Thank you. But what can we do?”

  “I am not Danna.” The correction came quickly. “She is broken. But still she can respond—a little. We work—we who still are true Yurth—to repair. But there are so few of us. No, do not look for me—we meet as mind speaking mind—we do not know each other otherwise lest in some ill chance the truth be riven from us. That death which came to Kal-Hath-Tan had strange, evil results. You have seen the twisted creatures who obey Karn in the first valley, those who trap all that wander into the inner lands.