She turned to look back that way which she had come. There would be no barrier there for her now. A honking cry at her feet drew her attention to Zass. Simsa knelt on one knee, pushing aside with a frown of distaste the draggled clothing she had shed. She held out her hand and the zorsal came to her, wing dragging. With the scepter of power Simsa touched that ill-set wing, drawing the rod along its surface. The wing had become partly healed in the pool; now it wholly straightened, and Zass fanned it wide, hooting hoarsely. The power had lasted!
For a moment, she was caught again in that whirl of conflicting memories. Simsa brushed her hand across her forehead. No, she must not push against what held her now. All would come right—she need only wait. Wait and act when she knew that the action was ready. This was a time to bide quiet and wait; there would come what was needed to fill her, to nourish her.
She smiled and held the wand against her between her breasts. No, she was not that one who had been waiting here through time, but she bore the same blood, was a daughter tossed up from the age flow of this world—perhaps by chance—perhaps through some plan long past. This was where she had been called to be, now she would travel on, returning that which she held in her to be once more woven into the affairs of men and worlds.
Zass took to the air, screaming delight and triumph. The two other zorsals flew to join her as Simsa sat back on her heels and watched their dance of joy. Such small ones, so strong in their own ways—a world could be fair—it was only with the coming of another species that anger, hate, fear were made to last the length of a day, draw blackness into dreams by night.
The zorsals winged back toward the doorway. Simsa, without a glance at the skin of she who had not yet been born—the grimy clothing, the pack—followed them. That heady joy in life which had filled her when she had lain in the Pool of Renewing (that which had been wrought by a younger and less people who had understood only a little of true knowledge) was raised, flooded through her.
She threw her arms wide, half expecting to see the light of power flame from each of her wide-spread fingers. Though it did not show, yet it was there. And she was only newly born—there was much to learn, to understand, to be.
Simsa passed under the gate into the open. The sun was low in the sky, hanging over the ruins of the city. If she wished she could call to mind who had dwelt there once for so long, the dusty burden of their history. But that no longer mattered—it was gone past and there was no reason to draw such back. For it was the same history as all men faced, as all intelligent species faded. It had a slow beginning, it arose to pride and triumph, it fell to defeat and decay. It—
Simsa whirled about, the gems of her kilt fringe flashing. She stood, her nostrils expanding as if she could pick up danger by scent. Not scent, no, that alarm had come to her through the very air which pressed now against her body. There was danger . . . there—
Again she half pivoted, as if her body were part of an intricate device—her scepter turned and pointed now into the ruins to her left.
14
A figure moved, came into the open where the declining rays of the sun were already overshadowed, cut by the buildings around. Simsa shook her head, trying to so throw off that mixture of memories. Death had walked so, once.
There was another behind the first, a grotesque creature as if one of the carvings of stone had come to life to clump along on clumsy feet. Simsa’s nostrils expanded again. The three zorsals above her head gave tongue, started to fly towards those two who were coming. Then with a burst of their highest speed, they cut away, even as that clumsy, stumping, second invader sprayed the air with a blast of flame.
Anger was born, cold and clear, in Simsa. Her glow of happiness and freedom was wiped away in an instant. She pointed with the scepter. From the twin horn tips which were a part of that ancient sign of the Great Mother-One shot in return glittering spears of light, no thicker than her finger but potent, drawing briefly from her anger and strength.
Together, those struck full on the weapon, that black, flame caster held by the suited one. There was a burst of white, a flare near blinding in its intensity. He who had fired upon the zorsals stood still. His captive had thrown himself flat even as she had raised the scepter, now he rolled—a maneuver which carried him behind a fallen column broken in its length across the open way.
Simsa, feet braced apart, stood wary and waiting. Now she could see clearly that one who was suited even as had been the dead “guardians,” the men who had been at work in the landing field among the wrecked ships.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. That flare of energy had been drawn from her own reserves of energy of body and mind. She was not yet ready to fight so—she could not summon strength for another such attack. There was so much which she must learn, must practice. She was still too caught by the Simsa she had lately been, fettered in spirit, clouded in mind—not what life had intended her species to be.
Still, that suited one did not advance. While his weapon—the girl saw what he held, a lump melded into his metal-protected hands—a stump, which still radiated heat, a heat she could feel even from this distance. The power of the Horns had turned back upon him the force of his own vicious weapon. So in a manner he had brought his own fate upon himself. She did not know he was dead, only that he was no longer a threat.
The prisoner he had taken appeared to understand this, also. He arose from where he had taken cover during that exchange of energies. For a long moment, he half turned, to view the motionless suited figure, then he looked to Simsa, his eyes once more opened to their widest extent, an expression of complete amazement giving away slowly to a just as astounded recognition.
Simsa walked forward, drawing into her by will alone, after a manner which she could not yet understand but which was as natural as breathing, energy from the air about. Perhaps even the dregs of that which had been expended in combat here came to feed her at her need. For with each step, her strength increased. There was no sound, even the zorsals held silence, no sound but the faint musical ring of the gemmed strings she wore.
“Simsa—?” Thorn had fully turned from his captor. His calling of her name was not quite recognition, rather his tone held a note of question, as if he knew that he saw her, still was not sure of the truth of what came towards him.
“Simsa.” She made answer of her name. That was not a name out of that far dim past. However, that did not matter. In this time and place, she was Simsa and was willing that that should be so.
He came slowly towards her, still studying her with that intent stare. She pointed over his shoulder, to the suited one. “This is one of the looters? They know what you would do?”
He gave a start, as if she had shaken him abruptly from one line of thought to another. “They had a persona detect working—it picked up radiation from the signal when I brought that within their range. Also it proclaimed I was a stranger, not coded into their company. Having that they can hunt us down—”
“That one—” she tilted the scepter a fraction towards the motionless, suited invader, “is he dead?”
“With such a back lash he may be. What did you use on him?” Thorn demanded eagerly. She guessed that he would have liked to have taken the scepter into his own hands, to have sought to discover the secret. But that was not for him. He was a man—also he was of another race—a one whose blood flow, whose mind and body, could never feed the right form of energy.
“I used the Power,” she said serenely. “Will there be more like this one to come ahunting?”
That question brought his attention back to the here and now. He looked over his shoulder. This much closer she could see that, not only was the weapon that invader had carried reduced to a fused mass of metal, but the whole forefront of his protective suit was blackened. Various other blobs which must have hung from just such a belt as Thorn wore were also sealed as useless knobs to the suit itself.
“Yes.”
Simsa considered what might lay before them. She had u
sed the Power this time without truly realizing what it might cost. Now she instinctively knew that she could not bring it into battle again until she had regained more of the life force upon which it drew. This thing out of time was not meant for sustained battle—for the defeat of men. Rather for healing—for . . . she did not yet know just all it might do. That, too, was part of what she must learn by very careful experimentation, drawing upon a part within herself which had just been born into life, a kind of life she might have never conceived existed before this had happened to her.
“I cannot defeat such again.” She must make that fact plain to him. “There is a limit placed upon this. What would you do?”
He was versed in weapons and battle; this problem was to be solved by his kind of knowledge, not hers.
Thorn moved closer, still eyeing her as if he sought to learn some secret from the way her hair moved slightly at the tug of the evening breeze, from the way she met him eye to eye. She could sense the need in him for the asking of questions, but also there was the greater need for action.
“I have—I had—the signal,” he spoke rapidly, breaking that bond of gaze between them, as if he must free himself in so little, in order to return to the pressure put upon him by what he considered his duty. “But I do not think that they know of the upper way we found to see the landing fields. Perhaps that one,” he nodded at the suited figure, “is a scout who picked up the signal, so came to investigate. He took me before I reached the building—”
“And the signal?”
“Back there in the bushes. It must be planted. If they take off before it is—”
“Yes,” it was her turn to understand. “Death will follow—not only on this world, but spreading outward, as do rings when a stone is dropped into a pool. Save that this stone is potent poison and an ending for all. There have been such endings before, doubtless there will be more to come. For their species is cursed with this greed, for domination, for the dealing of death.”
Simsa spoke out of another stir of broken memory—then sealed it quickly from her mind. She must rather think clearly of what faced them.
“Will there be time to do as you have planned?” she asked then.
Thorn shrugged. “Who knows? But one must try.”
“Always one tries,” she echoed as memory also echoed, far and faint.
She whistled to the zorsals, softly. Zass wheeled, came to her, the two males flanking their dam on either side. When all three were just overhead, circling above Simsa and Thorn, she spoke again:
“Let us go there to where you left the signal.”
She did not look at the suited one again. If the Power had added a third dead guardian to this city of the long dead, she did not want to know or remember her part in that act.
“Where did you get that?” Thorn pointed to the scepter. His strides were no longer difficult for her to match, as they sped down the wide avenue between the vine shrouded buildings.
“I found Simsa,” she returned briefly. “I am now—whole.” That was the surprising truth. She had been empty before, part of her missing, her mind stunted, narrow, unable to perceive what was of importance, though there had been an unrecognized ache in her ever for what was missing. How such as she had come into this world—what chance of birth had brought her body to match that of the Forgotten, that she might never know. However, she did understand that at last, her mind, her inner self, was now united with that body, fitting one part to another as it should always have been.
She knew he still eyed her, waiting for her to say more. Only there was no desire in her to share what had happened to her. Still, it was because of him—or his brother—that this wonder, this fulfillment had come to her. Perhaps so she owed him no small debt.
“I found other ‘pictures’ which your brother left. They led me to Simsa.”
“The image! But T’seng reported on his tape there was an energy barrier of some sort—that he could not get close. Even that picture you claimed first had to be taken with a distant vision charger—”
He spoke of off-world things which did not matter. So perhaps that Simsa had been guarded until the proper time came. The girl remembered dimly how she had had to force her way through an invisible web to reach the place she had been meant to stand. But then she had been unknowing, another person. So the web guarded until the time was ripe, until the true blood returned to claim—
Once more the confusion of too-full memory struck at her. She resolutely broke that train of thought quickly.
“There was something. Yes. I could not see, though it tried to hold me back. But still I went on—to her.”
“T’seng believed that place to be Forerunner, older than the city. The statue—you are now wearing—” He glanced at her meager adornment, then quickly away as if she might resent his eyes so upon her. Why should she? Her body was a part of her, even as was her speech, her thoughts. There was no reason to hide behind such grimed shells as she had worn before. Simsa thought with fleeting distaste of having such once more covering her own skin.
“There was no statue,” she replied remotely. “There was Simsa and I am Simsa. She waited until I came. Now we are free.”
He smiled ruefully. “Not for long if these Jacks have more trackers out. Though this is a good place to hide,” he glanced about at the ruins. “Still we have no time for such games.” Now his voice and face were both grim.
They had set a good pace and had rounded the curve of the avenue which led away from the castle-keep which was like her ring. The girl could see ahead the wall of that place where there were so many seats, and this side of that was the building where Thorn’s brother had left his trail markers.
“Wait!” Thorn flung up his arm, but she had already caught that movement in the green beyond. No evening wind had stirred as vigorously as that! There was an ambush—
Simsa raised her hand, drew the zorsals to a tight formation just above her with a gesture. Together with Thorn she darted swiftly to the left, where they crouched together now in cover, seeking a hunt of what waited beyond.
“How many?” the girl wondered aloud.
“Can your zorsals discover that?” Thorn asked. “I no longer have the beamer. We cannot stand up to any weapon of theirs. This stuff—” He moved his hand slowly so as not to cause any betraying quiver of the vegetation around them, “is too thick for us to force a path through.”
Simsa held out one hand, the other still clutched the scepter which was the most precious thing on this world she realized without being told. Zass slipped between two vines, coasted down, to alight on the girl’s shoulder.
She turned her head a fraction so she might stare straight into the huge eyes of the zorsal. Almost she cried out. It was as if she had suddenly opened a book such as the Guild Lords were known to treasure. She was looking in. Before her lay an alien mind. Thought paths would clear for an instant or two, and then haze over, so that Simsa lost touch. Still in its way this other mind was complete, keen, knowing—
She had no time for exploration, all she could do was to look into those eyes and think. Zass uttered a very low, guttural agreement to that thought, before slipping away on four feet, wings furled, held tight to her body.
“What she can learn,” Simsa reported to the off-worlder, “she will. Only I shall not let my small people be caught in that death-fire!”
He was watching her again with that wide-eyed astonishment. “What happened? You—you are—”
“I am Simsa,” she told him firmly for the second time. “Your brother was right in this. Those of my blood once knew the stars—this world but one among many. Time is not to be counted by those who voyage so. A sleep, an awakening, a coming, a going, a lapping out, a drawing in. Once such voyaging was for us—now it is for you.” She slipped the scepter from hand to hand. “Memory is a burden to which I cannot now submit. I am Simsa and I live. I do not care to know the why of that. Ah.”
It was not Zass who returned in the same devious way that his dam
had left, but one of the males. He squatted down before Simsa, staring up into her face. She reached out with the wand and touched him, where the wings joined his shoulders, with the two horn tips. He gave a small croon.
His mind was not so open. She could only read small, distorted fragments, but enough.
“There are four who wait. They have found that which you brought, but they have left it as bait. They are very sure of capturing you—us.”
“Four,” he repeated wryly. Her mind took another path, disregarding the strength of the opposition.
“This signal of yours, how large is it?”
He stretched forth his hands to measure a space as long as the zorsal before her was tall.
“How heavy?” she demanded next.
“About—well, I can lift it with one hand. They were made compact, you see. Sometimes they had to be set by men who were injured or who otherwise could not manage to shift heavy weights.”
Simsa caught her lower lip between her teeth, thinking, easily and quickly, as if she saw exactly what must be done laid out before her as one of those “pictures” which had led her to Simsa.
“The box that you say nullified the pull of the earth.” Fleetingly, she realized that she now understood exactly what he had meant, though her new flash of understanding was of no matter. “That lies still on the carrier?”
“No,” he opened a distended pouch at his belt to show her the box. “I thought it was not wise to leave it.”
“This thing can be in some way attached to your signal?” She was groping as well as hoping; the plan which seemed so clear to her would fail for just such a lack.
“Yes.” He turned the box around to show her a small indentation in its surface. “Put this against what must be raised, press this, and the force is activated.”