The Forerunner Factor

  Unlike the mound buildings in the valley, these had openings at ground level where they were not entirely melted into formlessness, and they were closer to those she had always known. A palace, a fortification, a city so built that only narrow paths, rather than broad roads, linked or divided? She did not know what she had chanced upon or—

  Within her was such a strong surge of memory that the Elder One won control before she was prepared for any battle.

  “Yi—Yi Hal . . .” The strange words she uttered echoed from one building to the next, carrying on hollowly from where she faced the wreckage, deeper and deeper into the mass before her, until she almost thought she was being answered by something hidden in the haze.

  “Yyyyiii—Hhhalll . . .”

  But in truth, all she heard was Zass’s scream as the zorsal planed down to sit on the nearest mound of circled rock.

  Pushing against the cry of recognition came another memory. Not—not home—never Yi Hal again. Only this which looked enough like it to deceive at first glance.

  Simsa clasped the rod of power closer to her so that the points of the twin moons pricked her flesh. Never again Yi Hal! Simsa of the Burrows had no site that had ever been truly a safe and happy refuge from the world—but now she wept the Elder One’s tears as memories lived, flickered, died, and she sat alone in the ruin of what was not Yi Hal.

  14

  That abiding trait which all her life had drawn Simsa into adventures and had at last landed her on the present glassy puddle, stirred. She was curious. This was a dead place and still it drew her. Back on Kuxortal, she had grubbed for those finds out of the past that had been hidden in the walls, the roofs, the footpaths of the Burrows. This was like the Burrows, a dead place—waiting—to offer the intruder what? She rubbed the grief tears away from her cheeks with one hand. What did she know of that past? she asked herself fiercely. Nothing! Let the Elder One mourn if she would—Simsa was more intent upon what lay before her.

  She crawled on her hands and knees across the puddle of glass until she could lay hands on stone. The footing was slick and she had no mind to fall.

  Thrusting the rod into her belt, Simsa worked her way along the walls, part of whose substance had bubbled down into such a trap. There was the opening of a dark doorway and, calling on all her boldness, Simsa pulled herself within. Whatever, whoever, had built this massive pile had been not much taller than she. Half-consciously she had been watching for some carving, some runic inscription or sign. The dead city she and Thorn had found on Kuxortal had had such. And there were those ancient eroded markings on the cave wherein she had ventured in the valley. But here were only walls, and a kind of grimness which began to dampen her eagerness.

  The room within was as bare of wall as was the outer husk. Yet, the surface was so smooth to the touch that she could believe that if the melting blast had not licked within, there would have been a metallic surface that resembled the rock without. Dull gray, then—

  Simsa went into a half-crouch, her rod jerked forth and up in threat or warning. That shadow before her aped her own stance. A long moment of tense apprehension passed before the girl realized that what she did see was her own reflection as hazy of outline as if a tendril of the mist outside had been drawn with her.

  She walked forward, ashamed at her reaction to such a thing. Putting out her hand, she touched the surface of a mirror far more accurate in reflection, as she slid her palm along against that other hand raised to meet it, than the polished metal discs so used on her own world.

  She studied the figure she faced. Her hair floated free—a ragged mass of fringed stuff about her head and shoulders. Her black body faded from sight in the dim light of this place. All she could see clearly was that hair, her jeweled kilt, the rod in her hand. Her other palm against the surface slipped slowly to the right, then met nothing. A moment later, she discovered that the mirror was not part of the wall, but rather screened another door behind. The purpose of its setting puzzled her. Could it be that those who had once lived here announced their presence as visitors by such reflections cast on the mirrors?

  She slipped behind that barrier to go on. Oddly enough, though she could not distinguish any source for it, there was light of a sort—enough to show here the blank walls of a passage. Zass croaked and gibbered impatiently from her shoulder perch. Her neck at full length, her antennae weaving back and forth, the zorsal projected a feeling of excitement, as if they were approaching another grove of trees from which she could take her fill of prey. It might be that in this dark gloom, Zass remembered the warehouses on Kuxortal where her kind kept under firm control the destroying vermin that scuttled among the bales.

  Of course—the wuuls—the rod swung in Simsa’s hand before she began to marvel at that snatch of other memory. Something that was gray-white and crept upon its belly, though its weak-looking legs could ensnare and hold with the force of a trap—the wuuls that feasted on both the dead and the living.

  “Wuul?” She questioned aloud the picture that had snapped into her mind.

  She answered herself with an exclamation that was both fear and irritation mingled. Wuuls came from no place or time she, the real Simsa, knew. Yet, the thought of them was so real she found herself straining to hear, slowing her own pace to watch and listen—for what? Something that must have lived elsewhere and long since become dust. This was a memory of the Elder One or that other which intruded now and then—the flyer.

  If traveling through this place was going to release such scraps of alien memory, it would be better now to retrace her steps and leave the ancient pile to its death sleep.

  Only when she had decided that this was the choice to be made, she discovered that she had no means of carrying it out. Simsa was not aware of the Elder One in control, of the haunting of that other exile. To all tests, she was in command—of her thought, perhaps, but not her body. That carried her on into this ruin which was fast becoming a maze.

  The corridor she followed split and split again. Never did she hesitate at such a branching. As if someone far stronger than she held her by the shoulders, she was turned briskly right or left to march on.

  There were openings along the sides which might indicate rooms, even as in the underground ways the valley dwellers had traveled. But none of those did this pressure allow her to explore.

  Twice, she was out-of-doors for the space of a stride or two, always sent ahead into another door across that narrow way, until she began to believe that this compulsion was carrying her directly into the center of the city, fort, palace, or whatever this pile had once been.

  There were no relics of its earlier inhabitants—just the smooth corridors down which she was marched, some straight, a few curved. Then the way began to slope upward, not by means of any stair, but rather at a gentle incline until, at last, Simsa emerged into one large room without a ceiling. There was no sign of metal above—perhaps this had always lain open to the haze of the sky.

  In the center, was a pool—an oval with a raised rim about it. And even though there was no sun to bring out their glitter to the fullest, Simsa could see that it was encrusted with a pattern of brilliant stones, gems to which she could not give names.

  Making a half-circle about the rim of the pool were seven chairs—or thrones, for they possessed such adornment of jewels as to be the seats for great nobles. And inlaid on the back of each was a symbol.

  Simsa’s rod swung up, the horns of the moons pointing.

  “Rhotgard.” She signed to the first in line. Then—

  “Mazil, Gurret, Desak, Xytl, Tammyt, and Ummano—”

  She threw herself down on the pavement before those thrones, the rod falling with a clatter across the stone, as she folded her arms over her breasts and weaved back and forth in the age-old way of one who mourns. Within her, fear swelled to panic—to such terror as left her weak.

  She could not control that which was in her. Never again would she be what she was. These others—the Elder One, that other faint sh
adow who had done the naming of names—they were taking her over, tearing at the small part of her that had kept an imperiled freedom. Once she had welcomed knowledge, now she would flee it—rip the encroaching others from her own flesh if she could.

  Instead, that which used her to ride into life was making her crawl in her debasement, reach out hands to the water of the pool—for there was water there, though dark and turgid so that one could not see what lay below it. This liquid which lay in that place—her skin was roughed by the breath of her terror—still she could not draw back.

  Her fingers forced themselves into a cup, swooped to break the quiet surface of the pool. Somehow, she had expected the water to be night black as it lingered in the hollow of her palm. But it was green like that of the valley, cool but not cold.

  Her mouth opened against her will as her hand rose to her lips and she drank. That liquid which seemed so cool in her hand—as she sucked it up from her palm it was bitter, warm. She might have been lapping from some muddy-bottomed footprint left on a trail or from one of the ill-smelling, stagnant seepages in the Burrows. Still, she swallowed, unable to reject what she mouthed, not only that but two palmfuls more.

  Bitter and hot in her mouth, growing hotter in her throat, pain spreading into her middle, until she bent over, both hands pressed to the place between her breasts where that pain seemed to eat the worst—dully at first and then with quick thrusts. Poison! A safeguard that had been placed here and to which her own disturbed inner struggle had treacherously guided her. She would die. She fought to raise a hand, ran her finger into her mouth, her throat, that her own muscles could eject this torment. But her hands were no longer hers—they betrayed her, too, though they continued to nurse her middle.

  The High Cup! Memory warred with memory. It was as if her own trick with Thorn had certainly been forced back against her again. Of old this was—not to show pain, to sit unbowed, serene as the poisonous fire ate, until her own talent—power—could render it harmless.

  She uncoiled from her huddle of anguish on the floor. Even what was left of Simsa of the Burrows understood this. She had been struck, perhaps past any defense, but the girl who had made her way through all of Kuxortal’s fetid trails unmarked, cunningly, able to face down any opponent—save Ferwar—that girl came out of hiding to give her the pride to stand straight and tall fronting the chairs of the missing. She seized upon another trail of memory. An initiation of sorts, though the reason for such had long ago disappeared and what she had to offer might be worthless now. If she had been tricked and trapped . . . well, she would play it through! Fight what gnawed within her, not by the rubbing of hands, the voicing of any pain cries—fight with the mind! Just as she had wrought with Thorn, overlaying true with what was false, so must she work here. There was pain, but it was fading. By concentration, she forced her trembling hands away from her body and held them before her as they shook, and the fingers writhed with the torment. No—that was growing less. Think it off! Instead of the poisonous draft she had swallowed, she forced into her mind the memory of the drink from the pool in the valley, sweet, cool, refreshing. That was what she had drunk.

  Hands, be still—fingers, together; no more trembling, no clawing at the air. Coolness within her. Sweat gathered on her forehead, dripped down like the first of a spring rain from her chin and cheeks to her breasts and shoulders. The effort wrenched at her almost as much as the pain had done. And, behind it all, those two others waiting—the Elder One, the flyer, waiting for her failure.

  Which would not come!

  Do not think pain—think something else. What was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her, which made all the rest of her life small and mean and of no account? That moment when she had stood before the statue that might have been her own likeness, when she had first known the Elder One and—welcomed her! When she had first believed that she could rise to greater heights, before the seed of doubt had been planted, before she had known what she might represent to others.

  That was the hour, the endless moment in which she had been really whole, when she had been born anew into a different world. Here was a place that was also one of birth—

  The thrones were empty. They had long been so. There were none in this hall to judge her endurance, her talent, only herself. Simsa held her body tensely erect as the gnawing within her twisted and tore afresh. Do not think of what might have been, what once had been. Think of now and the next moment and the next. Pit all her strength against the pain and that which was meant to finish her if she did not fight it.

  Her hands—they no longer trembled. She willed them to spread fingers, contract them again. Her arms next—the scarlet thread of torment which ran like the blood in her veins. That was not greater than she could bear. This she had done before and came out the victor.

  She? The other she. Who was she now—the thief from the Burrows or that much greater one? Both—they must be fitted together or she was left with death. No! Keep her mind free from such a thought. This was the place of trial. She did not shrink from what it would bring her.

  Arms—the hot pain was less, surely it was less. Feet—the heat within them that seemed to char its way outward . . . There was no heat! She would walk where she willed and there was none who could say her nay! Not now, not ever!

  The twisting pain within her, coil upon cramping coil . . .

  She stood, she breathed, lived, and she would continue so. Simsa drew upon that pain, surveyed it as she would a new road opening before her. Simsa! Not the Elder One, not the thin shadow of the flyer—no, she herself. She was one!

  “One—one—against you!” She shouted aloud her defiance to the empty thrones, to the shadows who had once been seated there. “I am Simsa!”

  Even as she turned, all the power she possessed to hold on that thought, using it as both shield and sword, the dark roared in upon her. Nor was she aware anymore of her body, which held the pain, of anything save that she was Simsa and so she would be unto death itself.

  There was no pool, the thrones were gone, she moved through a place of drifting shadows. They might have been those cast by others like herself, wanderers in a place that was meant for searching—and which she must best not by aimless hunting but by finding!

  Some were like trails of silver smoke with no hint of form about them. Others were faceless men and women floating. The shadows of shadows that clothed them were strange and varied from one drifter to the next. Twice, she was sure that she had sighted figures in spacer clothes, a woman in a robe of the desert people, and others—so many others. But she refused to be a shadow, refused even to look down along her own form to see whether she matched these lost and wandering ones.

  Rather, she put purpose to her own drifting, forged ahead as if to some goal. She had come here to hunt. Therefore, to be about that task as speedily as possible was what she must do.

  Beyond, the shadow people arose—and then became tenuous wraiths of their own—buildings, tall towers, squat blocks, things of vivid beauty, darker structures which in their way threatened . . . The people, the kingdoms, the worlds—

  Her hands moved and still she would not watch them, only fasten her mind on what they did. For in the air of this place of shadows, her fingers moved with a purpose. On the air itself she sketched it—the rod with the sun, the horned moons in protection on either side.

  That was no shadow; rather, it was light, dazzling light that did not hang there. It was moving, her guide through this place to whatever lay beyond. Perhaps, this was the world of the dead. She had heard many beliefs and fragments of beliefs in the past. There were temples aplenty in Kuxortal and Simsa had shunned them all in her time—finding in none of them any stronger will than her own.

  What lord ruled here—or what lady? She need not ask. The answer was ready in her thoughts: Soahanna.

  Again at the thinking of that name, the orb before her sped the faster and she urged that which was left of her to course behind it. It appeared now that the dark i
n which all those mist figures moved was thicker, was attempting to slow her, hold her back.

  All her will concentrated on the one thing, that there was a power, a will, a force here which she must front and upon that fronting meant all that would save her from becoming one with the other drifters.

  The dark thickened. The other shadows were very few now and only the thinnest trails of mist were visible. Yet the orb pointed her on. And she would go—the stubborn will that had been born in her from the beginning held her to that.

  The last of the searching shadows was gone, dark pressed tight on her in another form of pain. But that dark could not hide the orbed light nor stay in its forward flight. Perhaps that symbol in some manner cleared the way also for her. She continued to concentrate upon it fiercely.

  There was no more dark. Here was the arid, scraped plain; the river of sand; the fissures that hid death. She was back; yet there was a kind of lifelessness—if rock and sand ever held life—and the orb swept ahead.

  Was she going back? That fleeting thought nipped at her concentration. She expelled it firmly.

  No more rocks and whirled sand—this was the ship cabin in which she had known, being spied upon, that she must take charge of her own life again. Only a flash of that—

  The spaceport at Kuxortal where the whole of her story had started, where she had seen Thorn and marked him down as the perfect customer for her bits and pieces dug out of the past.

  That, too, was gone in a rippling as if it had all been painted upon some curtain which was now yielding to a rising wind. Here was that other city, ancient beyond the counting of Kuxortal, the city in which she and Thorn had found the smugglers, and that field of spaceships which would never lift again—the city in which she would discover, on her own, the Elder One.

  The hall now, the very place where she had made that discovery. Only she did not see it as one who entered but rather from the dais as one who had waited and waited for years out of time’s flow. She was the Elder One!