"I saw Krip Vorlund when he was brought in—what was left of him. Now you arrive and tell me this. What do you want?"
"Get in touch with the Lydis, let me send a message. I can provide details which will prove the truth."
He smiled then, and it was the type of smile to dry up any flow of speech.
"You have my permission to signal off-world anything you wish, Vorlund, if you can."
"If I can?"
"I am, as you might have guessed from your welcome, no longer a free agent on Yiktor. There is a blanket satellite operating on short orbit up there—" He pointed to the ceiling over our heads.
"Blanket satellite! But—"
"Yes, but—and but—and but! A hundred planet years ago this might have been a reasonably normal situation. Now—it comes as somewhat of a shock, does it not? The Korburg Combine, or at least some agents stating they represent that Combine, have landed and believe they have the situation well in hand. I tried to get off a courier last night and was warned there was a stop-circuit set up. Because I have seen other evidences of their ruthlessness in operation here, I did not take the chance."
"But what do they want?" I demanded. As he had said, a hundred years ago such piracy would have been usual, but now! The appetites of the big Combines and Companies had long been curbed by the Patrol; there were drastic answers to such action.
"Something," Alcey returned. "Just what has not been made entirely clear. So your problem"—he shook his head—"now becomes a relatively minor one, except of course for you. There is this—" he hesitated. "I may not be doing right to tell you this, but you should be prepared. I saw your body when it was returned here. Your medico, he was not sure you could make it, but the Lydis had been warned out privately by one of their local merchant contacts. They agreed to carry a message from me to the nearest Patrol post. We had only hints and rumors then, but enough to know they must lift ahead of time. And you—or your body—could well not have survived that lift. The medico protested it on your behalf."
I glanced down from meeting his eyes to the hands resting before me on the table top. Long thin fingers, ivory skin, strange hands— but they did my will, moved at my command. What if—if he was right in his foreboding that the Krip Vorlund taken away in the Lydis was dead, now perhaps spaced in a coffin suit after the manner of my people, so to lie among the stars for all eternity?
Beside me Maelen stirred. "I must be going," she said, and her voice was faint, very weary. So she recalled my thoughts—the change between her and her sister could not last much longer. With every passing moment their danger grew.
"But you do not know what Korburg wants here?"
"This much. There have been recent changes in the Council, especially as it touches the government of some inner planets. This world might provide a refuge or way station—temporary, of course, but perhaps necessary for some Veep when a coup on his home world has failed, a place from which he could come back with an army trained here.
It sounded unlikely, but his preparation for guessing right was better than mine. It remained clear that there was no hope at present of reaching the Lydis. If Captain Foss had made it to the nearest Patrol post—Then it would only be a matter of time before they would visit Yiktor. On the other hand Maelen had very little time left. And we would be safer to return to her people to wait out the struggle. I asked for a recorder, and with both of them listening taped a message which I thought would identify me to all on board the Lydis. Then I told Alcey what I would do and he agreed.
The consul furnished us with fresh mounts, though they were not as wiry and mountain-trained as the two who had carried us to Yrjar. At nightfall we rode from the port. This time we were not so lucky in escaping notice, for we were trailed and only Maelen's power acting on the mounts of the pursuers let us pull ahead. The singing left her further drained and she urged us to greater speed, lest she fail before we found the camp.
Toward the end of that nightmare journey I carried her before me in my arms, since she could no longer sit on her animal. We put on a last burst to come to the secluded ravine between two steep hills where we had left the others. The tent was there, rent and crumpled on the ground. And half entangled in the folds lay one of the Thassa.
"Monstans!" Maelen broke from my hold and stumbled toward him, falling to the ground by his side, yet struggling up to look into his still, white face. She caught his head between her hands, bent to set her lips to his, sharing her breath with him.
I saw the tremor of his eyelids. The whole front of his tunic was stained scarlet, but somehow he had held on to the last dregs of his life force until our coming.
"Merlay"—it was a whisper in our minds, not any words shaped by those pallid lips—"they have taken her—think she—is—you—"
"Where?" Our demand was as if in one voice.
"East—" So much had he done in our service, but no more. The life he had held to swept out of him in one small sigh.
Maelen looked to me. "They seek my life. If they believe that they now have me—"
"We can follow." I had to promise that. And, for good or ill, I knew I would keep my word.
Chapter 19
I saw thereafter how determination of will can carry one beyond the limits of body strength. For she whom I had brought before me drew upon such will to send her on from the destroyed camp.
"Mathan?" I searched about for some trace of the other Thassa before I left the body I had wrapped in the tattered tent. Maelen sat on her saddle pad, both hands pressed to her face. Now she spoke, her voice muffled by her fingers.
"He has gone ahead."
"A prisoner also?"
"My power fades so fast. I cannot say." She dropped her hands to look upon me. Her eyes were dull. It was as if even as I watched, life ebbed from her. "Tie me," she begged. "I do not know how much longer I can ride."
I did as she wished before we left the ravine, following a trail the raiders had made no effort to conceal. There were many kasi tracks and, while I could not be sure, I thought that more than a dozen riders had passed this way.
The way we took was not a road, yet it had been used before, and it pointed through the hills ever westward toward Oskold's hold. Maelen made no effort to guide her mount, which nevertheless followed closely the one I rode. She once more shaded her face with her hands, and I thought that now she shut out the world both physically and mentally, so she could either reach or hold some tie which would pull us to what we now sought.
Night became day and we found a camp where there were embers of a fire still warm to the touch. Maelen's head now hung forward heavily on her breast, her arms limp at her sides. She roused only to much urging from me. But I got water between her lips, saw her swallow as if that act were both painful and difficult. More than a little liquid she refused.
It was strange to see one I had come to accept as having more than human powers become so dependent. But her half-open eyes focused on me after I had made her drink, and there was knowledge and recognition in them.
"Merlay still lives—they take her to some overlord—" Her voice was the merest thread of whisper.
"And Mathan?" I held to the hope that the other Thassa had escaped death or injury, that he might eventually join us in whatever frail attempt we must make to free Maelen's body from the raiders.
"He is—gone—"
"Dead!"
"Not—so. He has gone to call—" Her head fell forward again and her too slender body swayed in the bonds which held her on the kas. I could not rouse her again. Thus I stood in the deserted camp of the enemy and wondered what was to be done. Manifestly Maelen could not continue, and to go on alone was rank folly. Yet neither could I abandon the trail.
"Ahhhhhh—" Half sigh, half crooning cry from Maelen. I hurried to her again. But, though that sound continued from between her lips, still she did not come out of the stupor.
There was a rustling in the bushes. I whirled, the Thassa sword-knife fitting in my hand awkwardly, since it was a w
eapon new to me. From the branches, down-drooping and still hung with leaves, came an animal—an animal? No—more than one, and not from just one side. Nor was the beast that had first pushed a fang-fringed muzzle through the vegetation a pattern for the rest. No, here were the Borba and Vors, and their like Tantacka, here was the like of— Simmle—More and more of them!
And the beast who led that silent, purposeful advance was one new to me, long and lithe of body, feline in its movements, with a prick-eared head, and—and eyes with the spark of human intelligence in them!
"What? Who?" I tried to beam an inquiry at their leader.
"Mathan!" The identification was sure.
Those others, were they also Thassa? Or some of those whom Maelen had sent into the wilderness? Or companions of other beast masters and mistresses?
"Part and part," Mathan gave me answer.
He loped soft-footed to Maelen's kas, stood upon his hind legs to look upon her.
"Ahhhhh—" Again that cry from her. But she did not open her eyes or look at him and that company. For a company—no, a regiment!—it was.
More and more rustling in the brush, heads out into the open, animal eyes regarded me narrowly.
"She cannot ride any farther," I told Mathan.
Furred head turned, round eyes met mine. "She must!" With his teeth he caught one of the ties which kept her on the pad, gave it a sharp tug. "This will hold. She must come!"
If he had passed some command to that army, I did not hear it. Now they flowed past Maelen and went westward and were swallowed up in the cover. Of their number I could not be sure, save there were more of them than I had ever seen gathered together before. But the feline Mathan paced just before us as we rode on. I tried to stay beside Maelen to steady her. She slumped forward now, lying against the kas's neck, wholly oblivious of us and the road.
There was a coming and going of animals, occasionally some would return and look to Mathan. I was sure that messages passed between them, but I could not pick up any information. We had progressed well into the hills, taking a way which did not lead to any gap but up steep ascents, where I dismounted and walked beside Maelen. There was no sign of any trail here, and several times we inched along a knife-edge advance. I dared not raise my eyes from the footing, lest I turn giddy.
At last we came out on a level space. Snow lay here, and fine flakes of it stung my nostrils, were glitter points in the air. If the plains had not yet quite felt the last of autumn, here winter already licked at the land. I fastened the cloak tighter around Maelen; she stirred beneath my hand. I felt a shudder run through her thin frame, heard her gasp and then cry out. She struggled against my hold, sitting up as she had not for hours, to look at me, at the rocks and snow, with eyes which were first wild and unseeing, then had recognition in them.
"Maelen!" The voice she used was shrill, carrying enough to bring an echo. There was a deep growl from the beast with Mathan's eyes. And too late she put her hands to her lips as if to stifle that cry.
She who had been so drained and helpless was now erect, as if strength flowed into her in great waves. There was even a delicate flush on her cheeks, more color than I had ever seen on Maelen.
Maelen? It was clear to me now—this was not Maelen. Merlay had returned to her own body. But before I could say that, or ask the reason, she nodded to me.
"Merlay." She gave me the answer I had guessed. Maelen's time had run out, the exchange had been made without any ceremony or outward sign.
"And Maelen?" My words, Mathan's thought sped together.
"With them." She shivered and I knew it was not from cold, though the wind was a breath of frost.
She looked about, from peak to peak, as if searching for some landmark. Then she pointed to one to the right, yet well ahead.
"They camp on the far slope there."
"For how long?" Mathan demanded.
"I do not know. They wait for someone, or some message. They hold Maelen by the orders of a leader I never saw. But I do not think we have much time."
Again a growl from Mathan's throat. He was gone in a flash of gray-tawny fur, and I knew that all those others he commanded in his strange regiment were running with him. Merlay looked to me.
"I am no Singer. I have no power to aid us now, save that I may be your guide."
She urged the kasi on in Mathan's wake, and I after her. For these few moments I wished I had again the barsk body, that I might run behind the Thassa warrior. The lope of a sure-footed animal in this maze of rock and fall would have been far swifter than our constrained walk. My impatience was a goad. I had to exert full control or I might have overridden her.
Now and then she glanced at me, and each time she looked quickly away again. It was as if something drew her eyes, searching ever for what was not there, and each time being met by loss. I thought I could guess what pulled and then repelled her.
"I am not Maquad."
"No. Eyes can deceive, they are the gateways for illusion. You are not Maquad. Yet am I glad in this hour you wear what was once his.
Maelen is caught in coils not altogether of her spinning, the heart can betray the mind many times over."
I did not really understand her words, but it did not matter. For I had one bit of knowledge. I might be Thassa only in outward appearance, yet I did not believe at this moment I could follow any other road, to any other end, than that which lay before me. Was I still Krip Vorlund, asked a doubting thought not far buried? As I had partaken of the nature of Jorth the barsk, sometimes losing man within the animal, so might I not also join with the residue of Maquad lingering in his husk? And if I actually returned to take on the body of Krip Vorlund once again—though that seemed remote now—would I be only Krip Vorlund thereafter?
"Why do they want Maelen? And how did they find you?"
The second question she answered first. "Not by chance—they trailed us. But whether they first came upon our tracks by chance and followed—that I do not know. As to why they want Maelen— that, too, is hard to read. They wish to lay upon her, as we heard, a measure of blame for what they have done. I think that they plan to use her somehow to win Oskold to them, or to open some door in the western lands where he may still be paramount lord. This much I can tell you: those who hold her have their orders to do just that, no more. He who comes will decide—"
Once more we climbed, and slipped, and climbed again where no trail ran, but where the kasi appeared able to pick footage. We were under the shadow of the peak she had indicated. Around us there was no rustling of brush, no sign any animal army marched with us, save that here and there a paw print left a sharp signature.
Merlay left her saddle pad. "The kasi can go no farther. We make our own road from here."
And a steep and perilous way that was. At times we had mere holds for fingertips and toes, but still we fought for inches of advance. We rounded a rocky outcrop and so came to the other side of the rise. The snow had stopped, but it was followed by a still cold which bit at a man's lungs with every breath he drew. And we came together in a niche to look down into the purplish depths of the eastern foothills of Oskold's land.
Night was coming fast. I wished I had Jorth's eyes to read through shadows. The ground before us was as rough as that we had just covered. And to descend it in the dark promised trouble. But we had no time to linger. Merlay pointed.
"There!"
No tents or vans, but a fire, yes. It would appear that those there did not care if they attracted attention. I tried to pick out a spot on the slope where they could have stationed a picket to scout pursuit. Shadow slipped from shadow—mind-touch—This was Borba coming up to us.
"Come—" His head swung to indicate a path and we crept behind him. Thus we came down as silently as we could. And in that coming we passed a pool of dark. A hand, lax-fingered and very still, protruded from it, palm up and empty. Borba's lips wrinkled and he snarled as he passed that hand and what lay behind it.
We came off rock and into soil rooting
small trees of a ragged timber line. From here we could not see the beacon of the campfire, must depend upon the small furred guide. I no longer possessed Jorth's sense of smell, but perhaps the Thassa were better equipped with noses than my own race. For I picked up whiffs of animal odor, enough to tell me that though we neither saw nor heard them, Mathan's force lay in waiting about us. Then a larger shape rose out of the ground at our feet and I caught the thought of the Thassa leader:
"A party comes to the camp. Hasten!"
We moved to the dark side of a rock. Beyond, the fire shot higher, gave more light, as it was fed energetically by two men. I counted eight in plain sight. They were all, to my eyes, like any sword-sworn I had seen in Yrjar. I could not read the emblems on their cloaks or surcoats.