Dare to Go A-Hunting ft-4 Read online

  The creature who had led them showed a row of yellow fangs in what might be a smile.

  "Not so!" That was the lord of the red wings. "Come the inner ways perhaps she did, but it was this one of her own kind who had her go forth." He nodded to Farree who noted that the winged people were edging away from any contact with the strange beings who followed Beast Mask.

  "Have done!" It was not a roar of a voice but one which cut through the mind like a blow, and Farree was sure he was not the only one to receive the force of that order. "This is no time to remember old troubles between our people. Glasrant brought her forth from the first bondage. Sharp Nose sent to him those who served him well. It was a thing done together. It is of more importance that Glasrant tell us what may come from this other ship which brought him– Who are these slave dealers, Son of Langrone? And what new injuries do they think to deliver here?"

  Farree shook his head violently. "No injuries—they brought me—"

  "For bait!" hissed someone among Beast Mask's company.

  "No." It was Farree's turn to sweep his hands across his aching head. That wall within his mind may have been shaken, shattered in places, but still all he could remember came in faded bits and patches as if he looked upon some chronicle in Zoror's collection which had been half destroyed by damp and the nibbling of insects. He knew that it was true he was of the winged people who stood in companies here, and that he had been handed over to smugglers by one of his own people who wished the power Farree, once an adult, might claim. He had an instinctive dislike for Fragon, as if he sniffed now and then some foul odor which puffed from the mist robe. Also he was wary of Selrena and the black-winged ones which made up her escort. But even now he could remember so little—

  Selrena must have been following his thoughts. "What you remember—do!"

  That was an order Farree discovered he must obey. He began with the misty half life he had led in the Limits, coming into clarity only with the death of the spacer who had kept him in bondage and his own escape. The dangerous days which followed were so much alike in the constant peril which they offered that they were a single blur of misery, in which only his tie with Togger made one small patch of light. Then there was the coming of Maelen and Vorlund and the seeming miracle that they cared enough to lift him out of the foul mud of the Limits and admit him into the tight circle of their friendship.

  There came the voyage to Yiktor and the meeting with the Thassa after the Guild had made its move to take them over. When he thought of the Thassa and of Maelen's people there was, for the first time, a stir among those who listened, who read from the pictures in his memory. It was Vestrum who broke through what was nearly a trance in which Farree spilled out the past.

  "These Thassa—of what world are they? From whence do they come? And what powers have they?"

  "Why not ask that of they themselves?" Selrena countered. Those who followed her broke apart to form a pathway and down that came Maelen, the flickering lights of the crystals seeming to center about her slender body in the sober-colored space covering, making it resemble the robe of one who was equal to Selrena or perhaps more than the Darda. At her shoulder walked Vorlund and he, too, appeared kin to the Darda, as powerful in his way as Vestrum. While behind the two was Zoror looking eagerly from right to left as if to crowd into memory every small detail of the scene.

  Maelen and the two with her made a small gesture to Fragon, no more than they would have used in greeting one of their own kind with whom they had little to share. But Maelen smiled at Selrena and raised her two hands before her, her fingers moving in intricate patterns as if she wrote some message on the air.

  For the first time Farree saw an odd expression on the Darda's face—a trace of confusion. Vestrum stepped to her side and his eyes were intent on the off-worlder. One of his small flute-playing creatures made a sudden quick movement, squatting down before his feet between him and Maelen.

  From its pipe there arose a thread, thin, sweet-noted air. Maelen listened for a breath or two. Then from her own lips there came a song without words, note matching the note of the player. Wonderment was on Vestrum's face. Selrena's hands moved of themselves, her fingers lifting and falling to the measure of that wordless song.

  Among those who were winged there was a stirring, a fanning of pinions as if they would take off to the spaces above Fragon's seat, though none of them did. In Farree there was also an answer—a lightness of heart such as he had not felt since they had started this venture. He found a hand slipping into his and he knew that Atra also was making her own answer to the weaving of this spell. Only Fragon, the beast-masked one, and his crooked company did not move. The faces of some of them were screwed up into masks as ugly as that their leader wore.

  "You are—of the Blood!" Vestrum spoke first when the piper was finished and Maelen's own song died away. "Of the lost ones, the far travelers who are apart!"

  "I am Thassa," she answered him. "My people are so old that we have forgotten our far past. Long ago we put aside what we had held to—settled homes, land, save for riding over it, possessions, all which had weighed down our spirits. We cut ties with the past—seeking only that which would give us life with the Little Ones—knowledge which brought good, not harm—"

  "You are of the Blood!" Vestrum repeated. "And of the Lost Ones! We are few here. There only half a hundred of us left. And of those many have withdrawn into worlds they have created where they choose to be gods, or heroes, or"—he looked to Fragon and then away again—"devils. We age with weariness and the knowledge that wherever we go They will follow to bring their deaths and their ills, and, at last, all destruction of what we know. Do you now take to the stars and seek distant kin? If so, you have succeeded—I will say that you are of the Blood!"

  "Of the Blood," Selrena echoed him, "but, I think of a different path. You have power but never have you used it to the full—" Her head was up and her dark eyes seemed to grow ever the larger. "You have chosen another way. And"—she hesitated—"perhaps your choice has brought greater content than we have known. What do you with Them when they come?"

  "We live apart, and because we have no treasure and because we walk another road, we have lived without darkness for long and long. Now there are others who have set up laws that none may be troubled if they live in peace." Maelen looked to Fragon. "What is your peace, my lord? Rule by your order alone? And you"—she turned her head slowly that her gaze could go around the half circle—"until those from off-world came was there peace here?"

  Farree remembered the skeletons of the dark ways and that room of shadowy horror through which he had gone.

  "We have had our disputes." Fragon made answer first. "Of such ploys there always comes an end. One tires even of power. This I shall say first, I of whom much ill has been said and perhaps with truth. There comes a time when one has fulfilled every wish, answered every desire. Then"—his grasp of the skull-piercing sword must have shaken a fraction for there was a clatter from it—"one is as nothing." Now he deliberately rattled the skull by twisting the hilt of the sword back and forth. "They have found us and with us they have played games—setting one against another as they have done countless times before. There are old hatreds which they aroused on their coming. Why not"—it was plain that he spoke to the others behind Maelen—"give them what they want—we are done—"

  "That is not the truth." Zoror's slightly lower mind band came alive. "Never yet has one door been closed that another does not wait the unlocking—"

  "So?" Fragon asked. "You are not of them, nor of the Blood, or else our records are not complete. What part of this do your people play?"

  "We gather knowledge, hunt for the beginnings—"

  "On the belief that the ends may be better marked?" Vestrum locked eyes with the Zacanthan and stood still as if they were now bound together. Then he added: "What are you that you can see so far into others? You are—"

  "A Zacanthan."

  Farree knew that these were claiming him, and t
hat perhaps those he had been comrades with were acknowledging that claim. However, at this moment, he felt no comradeship with those others with wings, though he had sought such ever since his own had broken out of their casing.

  "We search for knowledge."

  "Knowledge can cut two ways—" began Selrena when, for the first time, Fragon loosed hold on the sword hilt. His talon-fingered hand arose to make a small gesture which ended Selrena's speech almost in midword. "Knowledge is never to be neglected. Tell us, hunter of the lost, what do we face now? For out of past roots grow present troubles."

  "What you and your kin have faced before." Zoror nodded. "You have said here that, though you have not been friends in the past, you have now drawn together—"

  "Drawn together?" Atra said, her voice high, almost shrill, as she interrupted. "Ask those who winged out of Burdenholm at a sending for an ingathering how that drawing followed! Well did the Earlier Ones name you in-cursed, Fragon!"

  "You see"—the ancient Darda did not reply to her challenge, rather he continued to speak to the Zacanthan– "there is little upon which we may build anything which approaches true comradeship. The Langrone are near wiped from our history as we make it now. It is true that there was treachery and ill dealing which began that. This one"—now that free hand pointed to Farree himself—"can be witness to that, even though the memory was near burned from his mind. He is in truth Glasrant and right lord to those same Langrone who are near gone. All happened to him because there was a settling of blood between two who held false honor above the good of all. And Atra who speaks so plainly now, she also has been used as a weapon against her own kind—but not by any will of ours, wingling, earthling, or Darda.

  "These Cursed Sky-Riding Ones who have made near a quarter of our world a place of blood and killing—always have they followed after us from world to world. They turn against us the metal which burns and various powers of their own, born in turn of artifacts they make of that same iron. Our wits they can rift from us—Atra can witness that. They fight with fire and all we can do is to call on skills such as we have long known and make what defenses we can. At this hour we do stand together, power with power, that we may not be mown down apart and have no defense at all.

  "Now you come also from the star ways and you are not as They, for you have that in you which is far nearer kin to us. You brought hither Glasrant and him we have read—to know that in you is found none of the poison that They use to besoil all they touch. There are three of you and you are of different races– You, Lady"—he spoke now to Maelen—"are of a people we can call kin after a fashion. And he"—now Vorlund was indicated—"is also of a mind with you, though he is not born of your blood, and within might be one of Them. And you, Zacanthan, have no malice in you toward us, only wonder and pleasure at finding our kind. So we are not enemies, though we may not be friends—"

  Vestrum shifted a little. "Words upon words, Fragon! You summoned us hither for deeds. We had Selrena and her winglings go up against these enemies by mind will alone, impressing upon These who slay without mercy the phantoms which can be summoned by mind—"

  "True," Selrena cut in. "Have we not spent too long a time on words? While Atra was with them we had no chance to attack, for she would have known and by their trickery must have given us away. So when that one"—she nodded at Farree—"was near within our hands we had no trouble closing fingers upon him, and using him as a key to open Atra's prison—as he did very well. Now what do we next? Once more summon up ghosts of ourselves to ride the sky? There is little ghosts can do and already we know that They have doubts about us. So, I say again, Fragon, Vestrum, and also"—she indicated the Beast Mask,"what do we do?"

  Fragon spoke directly now to Maelen. "What do we do?" He repeated the question.

  Chapter Seventeen

  What do we do?" Fragon had asked of Maelen. Perhaps he had not expected her to produce an answer, but she did.

  Farree—he could not yet think of himself under that other name they had called him, nor even wholly accept that he was a part of their race—lay belly down on a rock ledge. His outspread wings were the same color as the lichen which grew in patches among the stones here, and now served him as disguise. Togger squatted just under the edge of the right wing. The smux's sight could not reach as far as his own, but Farree was aware that Togger was using all his own senses to the highest alertness.

  Behind the two were others of the winglings whose natural pinions were of a color to blend in with the rocks– there grey patched with silver, and the darker ones who had accompanied Selrena. What they spied upon was the off-world ship and the small temporary settlement by its fins.

  It was well into afternoon and there had been a great deal of activity down there to be observed. Three days ago several of the spacers had tried to take the path underground in search of their freed captives, only to discover that most of it had fallen in; after a few feet not even its course could be traced.

  They had taken to the air also. The repairs on their flitter had been speeded up so that it could continue to carry laser-armed patrols out over the surrounding country in a gradually widening circle. Twice those Farree had met in the crystal cavern had summoned up the haze which was their most constant defense, only to have the flitter bore directly through it, seemingly unaware that there had been any blinding fog projected. They had not attempted another mass hallucination such as they had used to cover Atra's rescue.

  It was plain from the probing Fragon and Maelen, two unlikely partners-in-arms, had used, that those in the camp were well guarded by devices which protected against either mind search or lasting illusions—the two ancient and tolerably efficient weapons of the People.

  Nor could they compete physically. Swords and force-charged wands, the other arms which were theirs and had been for untold generations, could not stand against lasers, tanglers, even discordant sound. When the latter had blasted out of the camp earlier that day most of the winglings, the Darda, and several others of the old stock had been rendered helpless for awhile. Only those born of the earth who had immediately retreated underground kept their full senses. Then Zoror had loosed a small shape like a winged tube. That, arching up above the waiting ship and its camp, had blasted back, as a mirror might return a reflection, the same ear-piercing sound, drawing it up the scale as if each note were threaded on a cord and jerked out of reach.

  In answer they had seen the men spill out into the opening, staggering here and there, hands pressed over their ears, some stumbling to their knees and then falling forward to roll across the ground, plainly in agony. At length some one of the enemy regained sense long enough to shut off their own broadcast and the ensuing silence was like that of death, so complete was it.

  The spying party, in hiding along the upper reaches of the great valley in which the ship had set down, revived sooner than the opposition. While Farree and his companions stirred and came back to themselves, at least three limp bodies had been toted into the largest of the ground shelters and several others had made a difficult business of getting back to the ship itself.

  It was not much later that the flitter had taken off and began to fly its spy circles around and around, each one farther than the one before. That the invader might be equipped with detectors was a point Farree considered when he had witnessed the first flight. They had had Atra long enough to run a sensor on her, set her pattern as part of the "memory" of such a machine. Thus any of her own species could be instantly detected when caught on the flitter screen. That the enemy did not coast down the wind and spray them all with laser fire as they lay in hiding was something which Farree himself could not understand. He cringed flatter to the ground—his fingers digging deep into the soil as if he were an earthling used to disappearing quickly from sight into that sanctuary.

  Atra herself was up in the heights with Maelen and Fragon, submitting to their examination of her mind sense as they sought any traces of future attack which might have been placed within her, as a buried and
unpleasant form of weapon, providing she did execute an impossible escape. Farree did not envy her that; he had too many times in the past undergone such delving into what was a sealed portion of his own mind.

  If the invaders had taken a reading of Atra, it must have been too closely turned to her own personality to serve now to locate any of her own species. The flitter was already on a much farther circling out and had not slackened flight speed when it had crossed the place of concealment where his own party lay in wait.

  Those three giants who had come into the crystal cave in the company of Beast Mask had left hours ago to tramp back with Vorlund to his ship, their supply of strength meant to transport certain equipment which both Krip and Zoror had selected for this voyage. Nothing had been chosen which would not be permitted for use on a primitive world—if this, which the first comers had named Elothian, might be termed primitive. The People had long ago set up their own defenses, recalled lessons from their history, to make as secure as possible this new world. Their inability to handle heavy metals, especially iron (Farree need only look at the bandages on his own hands covering burns the chain of Atra's captivity had left to understand what damage even that could cause) had handicapped them always when facing off-worlders.

  The crystals of the caverns they had uncovered here had provided an array of weapons as deadly as lasers. Only lasers could kill at a distance far beyond that which any of the people could send elfshot, small needle-shaped and sharp fragments of the dusky spikes, which buried themselves within flesh, eventually causing clouded and diseased minds. There were other weapons, mostly mind linked. Those again required a careful assessing of the mental strength of the enemy; but Atra had been under such control while in the off-worlders' hands that now she brought her people a clear picture of their powers.