FORERUNNER FORAY Read online

  Part of the way out of the palace they could follow corridors private to the Lord Commander, where none could intrude without invitation -- A fortunate custom, Turan noted to Ziantha as Wamage went ahead to make sure of their clear passage in the public parts of the building.

  “Do you trust him?” Ziantha did not. “He may be more loyal to what he considers best for you than to any order from you. Vintra is too long and bitter an enemy for him to accept otherwise.”

  “We can not lean too heavily on trust, no. But can you see any other way to get us out of this trap? If he is loyal we have won; if he plays a double game, we shall have mind-search to warn us. It is a pity we can not read their patterns better.”

  But it seemed Wamage would prove loyal. He led them through an inconspicuous side entrance to a waiting car.

  “The armsman will meet us at the port, Lord Commander. But we have half the city to cross. And much can happen before we get there.”

  “So let us be on our way!”

  Wamage slipped behind the controls of the vehicle. It was smaller than the one which had brought them there, and Ziantha was cramped tightly in beside Turan. Wamage was immediately in front of her, and she must be instantly alert, she knew, to any sign that he was not carrying out his orders. Half the city to cross—it would be a long time to hold that guard. Turan had raised barriers again, perhaps because he had to retain his talent to aid his own feat of endurance.

  10

  Under other conditions, Ziantha thought fleetingly, she would have watched about her with wondering eyes. She was doing what no other, not even the Zacathans with all their learning, had been able to accomplish, seeing a Forerunner civilization. But all that concerned her now was her own escape from it. It was necessary to concentrate on Wamage throughout this journey.

  It would seem he was faithful to Turan’s trust. At least the car traveled steadily, without hindrance, first along quiet streets and then along those filled with heavier traffic. If their escape had been discovered they were not yet pursued.

  Wamage wove a twisted way from broad avenue to cross street and back. Ziantha had never had too keen a sense of direction; for all she knew they could be heading directly away from their goal. And Vintra’s memory held little of Singakok.

  The lights were bright as they took a last turn coming to a place where many cars were parked. Wamage slowed as he traversed this line of waiting vehicles, heading on past a lighted building.

  To one side was a vast expanse lighted in part by rows of set flood lamps. There Ziantha saw one of the aircraft come into the light, turn rather clumsily, and rush forward, lifting after its run into the air. It was unlike the flitters of her own world, having fixed wings and apparently needing the forward run to make it airborne, rather than rising straight up as was normal.

  Yet the Vintra part of her cringed at the sight of it, projecting to Ziantha a vivid and horrifying memory of death falling in objects that exploded upon impact. Objects that came from such a machine.

  Was Turan a pilot? Vintra had no such knowledge. As Ziantha probed she received the impression that such a skill was difficult to learn and required long tutorage. Or was Wamage to serve them so, accompany them on what might be a vain search? Did Turan plan to take the other fully into his confidence? Or did he propose to put a mind-lock on the alien and so bend him to their aid? That she did not believe could be held for any length of time.

  Wamage drove on. The lights were fewer. They now passed a line of flyers. He circled at the end of this and stopped by one much smaller craft.

  What might have been a torch flashed in the night. Wamage turned off the lights of the ground car and leaned out of the window to call softly:

  “Doramus Su Ganthel?”

  “To answer, Commander!” came swift answer.

  “You have done well.” Turan spoke for the first time since they had left the palace. “My thanks to you, battle comrade.”

  “It is in my mind that perhaps I have done ill,” Wamage replied, a tired, heavy note in his voice. “I do not know why you must do this thing—“ He had half hitched about in his seat. “Lord Commander, this woman is your deadliest enemy. She is Vintra who swore before the Host of Bengaril to have your head on the tri-pole of rebel victory. Yet now—“

  “Now, by the will of Vut, she serves me as no other can. Think you of where I have just come from, Wamage. If she wanted me dead would I not have remained there?”

  “The High Consort speaks of sorcery—“

  “For her own ends, and that you also know, Wamage. Was it not you who warned me of her, not once, but twice and more? I tell you that when I return all which puzzles you now will be resolved. But if I do not go—then between the High Consort and the priests I will indeed be returned to whence I came and that with haste.”

  Wamage sighed so heavily Ziantha could hear him. “That I cannot doubt, Lord Commander, having heard what I have heard. But if there is a third choice—“

  “For my safety, Wamage, in this hour there is not! And above all what I must do now must be speedily done. The longer I waste here—the more chances there are for failure—“

  He stepped out of the vehicle, and Ziantha made speed to follow him. The waiting armsman came to them.

  “At your service, Lord Commander. What is your will?”

  “To fly to the south coast where there is a place we may not be seen. This is of high importance, and it must be done with speed. You are a pilot?”

  “Of my father’s personal craft, Lord Commander. But a scout—I have not flown one—“ He was beginning when Turan interrupted him.

  “Then you shall gather air time in one tonight. Battle comrade”—he turned now to Wamage—“for what you have done this night I can never give thanks enough. You have indeed saved my life, or at least lengthened it. Let that always be remembered between us.”

  “Let me go with you—“ Wamage put out a hand as if to clutch Turan’s arm.

  “I leave you for a rear guard, one to cover me. It is a hard thing I ask of you—“

  “But nothing that I will not do. Guard your back, Lord Commander!”

  Ziantha was aware he watched her as he delivered that warning.

  “Be sure I do,” Turan answered.

  They climbed aboard the strange flyer, and with the armsman for pilot the machine came to vibrating life, swung around, and ran along the field, until Ziantha was sure there was trouble and it would not lift.

  With a bounce it did, and she felt queasy as she never had in a flitter. In the cramped cabin she could feel the vibration through her body. And it seemed to her that flying in this Forerunner world was a more rigorous experience than she had been accustomed to.

  “It is fortunate, Lord Commander,” their pilot said, “that these scouts have instant clearance from the field with no questioning by the control tower. Else—“

  “Else we would have had a story for them,” Turan said. “Now we can rather plan on landing. Listen well, for much depends upon this. You must set us down in a place as near to the sea as you can take this flyer. And it must be done with as little chance of discovery as possible. We are seeking a source of power, something which lies on an island and to which we have a single pointer. With this—with this—“ Turan had hesitated and then began again, “I can promise the future will be changed.”

  But he did not say whose future. Ziantha smiled in the dark. Turan’s—the real Turan’s influence must be great—or had been great that he could bind these two men to his purposes. Though Wamage had had his doubts. Perhaps a sensitive in this civilization where the power was apparently so little known could apply pressure without even realizing it. Though she knew that if there was need she could control the armsman for a short time as she had Wamage.

  “There is the Plateau of Xuth, Lord Commander. It—it has such an evil reputation that not many seek it out, not since the days of Lord Commander Rolphri, though that is all countryman’s talk—“

  Countryman’s talk, may
be—Ziantha caught a hint or two of what lay in his mind as he spoke—but he believes it holds a threat. I pick up fear which is not of other men but of something strange. If Turan caught that also he would seem to discount it, for he replied promptly:

  “Xuth is to our purpose. You can pilot us there?”

  “I believe so, Lord Commander.”

  “Well enough.” Turan had edged a little forward in his place. He was intent upon what the armsman was doing, and Ziantha knew that he was striving to pick up from the other the art of flying this ancient machine.

  Had the alien mind-patterns been easier to contact he would have had no difficulty. But having to make allowances for constant disruption of mind-touch, his concentration must be forced to a higher level. Without his asking she began to feed him power, give him extra energy. Nor did she cease to marvel at his great endurance.

  They did not speak again. Perhaps their pilot thought they slept. Once or twice they saw the riding lights of what must be other aircraft, but none came near, nor did there appear to be any pursuit. However, doubt nibbled at Ziantha’s confidence. Surely they could not have got away from Singakok and the High Consort as easily as this!

  The night sky grayed; they were coming into day. Dawn and then the full sunrise caught them. For the first time in hours the armsman spoke:

  “The sea, Lord Commander. We turn south now to Xuth.”

  Turan was half collapsed in his seat. Ziantha regarded him with rising concern. His look of fatal illness was heightened by the sunlight. Could he last? And this was so faint a hope they followed -- She fought the fear that uncoiled within her, began to seep coldly through her body.

  “Xuth, Lord Commander. I can set down, I think, along this line.”

  In spite of her resolution Ziantha closed her eyes as the nose of the flyer tilted downward and the machine began a descent. It seemed so vulnerable, so dangerous, compared to the flitters that she could only hope the pilot knew what he was doing and they were not about to crash against some unyielding stretch of rock.

  The machine touched ground, bounced, touched again with a jar that nearly shook Ziantha from her seat. She heard a gasp from Turan and looked to him. The gray cast on his face was more pronounced; his mouth was open as if he were gasping for breath. Although the flyer ran forward, the pilot’s tension suggested he was fearing some further peril.

  They stopped and the pilot exhaled so loudly she could hear him. “Fortune has favored us, Lord Commander.”

  Ziantha looked out. Ahead was only emptiness, as if they were close to the edge of some cliff, a deduction which proved true as they climbed out into a brisk, whipping breeze and the full sun of midmorning.

  Beyond, Ziantha could hear the wash of sea surf, though there was more distance between the shore and the flyer than she had earlier believed. The pilot had landed on what was an amazingly level stretch of rock running like an avenue between tall monoliths and crags of rock.

  There was no vegetation to be seen, and those standing stones were of an unrelieved black, though the surface on which they stood was of a red-veined gray rock. A sudden sobbing wail brought an answering cry from her, as she whirled about to face the direction from which that had come.

  “Wind—in the rocks,” Turan’s voice, strained but no longer only a gasp.

  But she wondered. Her sensitive’s reaction to this place was sharp. As the armsman had hinted—there was evil here. She would not want to touch any of those strange black rocks, read what they held imprisoned in them. For there was such a sense of the past here—an alien past—as one might gather from the walls of a tomb, entirely inimical to all her life force. Those were not just rocks, standing upright because wind and erosion had whittled them so. No, they were alien, had been placed there for a purpose. Ruins—a long vanished city—a temple—Ziantha did not want to know which.

  There were birds with brilliant yellow wings flashing in the sunlight out over the sea. But none approached the cliff edge, nor were there any droppings from roosts among the near stones, as if living things shunned Xuth. Ziantha probed Vintra’s memory and received a troubled response. Xuth—yes, it had been known to the rebel. But only as a legend, a haunted place wherein some defeat of the past had overturned all rule and order and from which had sprung many of the ills of this world, ills which had festered until this latter-day rebellion had burst in turn.

  Now she tested not Vintra’s memory but her own talent. So much could influence that. Not only the weather, emotions, the very geography of the site, but also subtle emanations of her surroundings. Would that very ancient evil, which was like a faint, sickening odor in the nostrils, work to combat what she must do?

  Keeping well away from any contact with the rocks, Ziantha went on toward the sound of the sea, coming out on a ledge that projected like the beginning of a long-lost bridge over the surf which constantly assaulted the wall below. There was no sign of any beach; the meeting of cliff and water displayed wicked teeth of smaller rocks, around which the sea washed with intimidating force.

  But here, on this prong, she was free of the darkness the black monoliths radiated. If there was any place from which she could search the sea it was here where the spray rose high enough in the air to be borne inland, leaving a spattering of moisture along the ledge.

  Having won freedom from that other influence, Ziantha felt she dared not return to it. Here and now she must make her attempt to find their guide.

  “Here,” she mind-sent. “There is too much residue of some old ill among the stones. I can only do this thing free of them.”

  “I am coming—“

  She turned to watch him moving slowly, with such care as if he must plan and then enforce each movement of his body, none of which were instinctive now. He had waved back the pilot who remained by the flyer. And when he reached her his head was up, his eyes steady and clear.

  “You are ready?”

  “As much as I shall ever be.” Now that the final moment before carrying out her decision had come she wanted to flee it. She had used the focus-stone to its full power before, and it had brought her here. When she used it again—where would it take her? And would the change be as entire, as binding, as it now was? She had the gem in her hand, but before she looked into it, surrendered to the talent, Ziantha made a last appeal.

  “Anchor me. Do not let me be lost. For if I am—“

  “We both are.” He nodded. “I shall give you all I have to give, be sure of that.”

  “Then—“ she cupped the stone between her hands, raised it to her forehead—

  The sea, the pound of the sea—wild, raging—the devouring sea! Around her the tower room trembled, the air was filled with the thunder of the waters. The anger of the sea against Nornoch. Would these walls stand through this storm? And if they did—what of the next and the next -- ?

  Ziantha—no, who was Ziantha? A name—a faint flash of memory to which she tried to cling even as it vanished, as a dream vanishes upon waking. D’Eyree!

  “D’Eyree!” her voice rang above the clamor of the storm, as if she summoned herself from sleep to face what must come.

  She raised her hands uncertainly before her. Surely she should have been holding something—on the floor—look! The urgency, the fear of loss gripped her, sent her to her knees, her hands groping across the thick carpet.

  Her every movement brought a clash, a jangling from the strings of polished shells which formed her skirt, just as they fashioned the tight, scant bodice which barely covered her flat breasts. Her skin—green, pale green, or gold—or blue—no, that color came from the scales which covered her, like small dim jewels laid edge to edge.

  She was D’Eyree of the Eyes. The Eyes!

  No longer did she run her hands across the floor in vain search. She had had such a foolish thought. Where would the Eyes be but where they had always rested since the Choosing made her what she was? She raised her fingers now to touch that band about her forehead with the two gems she could not see, only fe
el, one above each temple, just as they should be. How could she have thought them lost?

  She was D’Eyree and—

  She was—Ziantha! A flooding of memory, like a fire to cleanse the mist in her mind. Her head snapped up and she looked around at strangeness.

  The walls of the oval room were opaline, with many soft colors playing across them, and they were very smooth as might be a shell’s interior. The carpet on the floor was rusty red, soft and springy with a strange life of its own.

  There were two windows, long and narrow slits. She went hastily to the nearest. She was Ziantha—no, D’Eyree! The Eyes—they fought to make her D’Eyree. She willed her hands to pull at the band that bound them to her head. Her fingers combed coarse hair like thick seaweed but could not move that band.

  Ziantha must hold to Ziantha—learn where Nornoch might be.

  She looked out, ducking as spray from the storm-driven waves fell salty on her face. But she glimpsed the other towers; this portion of Nornoch was guardian to the land behind, where she was warden.

  Only, the sea was winning; after all these centuries it was winning. Her people held this outpost, and when the Three Walls were breached, when the sea came again—they would be swept away, back and down, to become, if any survived, what they had once been; mindless living things of the under-ooze. But that—that would not be! Not while the Eyes had a voice, a mind! Six eyes and their wearers—one for each wall still.

  She leaned against the slit, a hand to each side of it, fighting for calm. Bringing all the power which was D’Eyree’s by both inheritance and training to subdue this stranger in her mind, she put her—it—away and concentrated on that which was her mission, to will the walls to hold, to be one with the defense.

  Think of her wall, of how the creatures, the Lurla, had built it and the two others from secretions of their own bodies over the centuries, of how those creatures had been fed and tended, bred and cherished by the people of Nornoch to create defenses against the sea. Will the Lurla to work, now—will! -- will! She was no longer even D’Eyree; she was a will, a call to action so that creatures stirred sluggishly began to respond. Ah, so slowly! Yet they could not be prodded to any greater efforts or speed.