Moonsinger Read online

  There was a storm threatening before dawn, so no real dawn broke the dismal hold upon the hills. We found a small place in the wall of our dell where we could wait under an overhang of stone, and huddled there together while thunder strode drumming from height to height, the lash of lightning urging it on. I have seen such storms in the uplands of the Thassa, but not heretofore so close to the plains.

  In such torments of the sky, time and man are lost, the power to think grows dim. There was the warmth of furred bodies close about me and I crooned to soothe them. For so much I was glad, that I could busy myself so to put aside my own unease.

  At length the worst of that assault from sky upon earth died away. I was moved then by a message of the power, not a clear sending, just a suggestion weaving in and out of mind-pattern. With my little ones I went to the poolside and there rescued the moon globe from a stone now encircled by rising water. I went down the dale to a place where the grass was less thick and there were outcrops of stone. On one of these I set up the moon globe, alight once more as if it could serve as a beacon. But for what, or whom, I was not yet sure. The belief grew in me that he whom I sought would be so drawn, providing such fortune as I had spun for him had been of tight enough thread.

  Simmle growled and rose to her feet, showing her teeth in a snarl. Borba and Vors lifted their heads, crests flattened, ready to do battle, while Tantacka shifted her weight from left to right and back again on her broad pawed forefeet, rumbling deep in her throat so her warning was more vibration than audible sound.

  Down the slope wavered a figure, pulling itself onward by grasping bush and sapling, going to the knees, yet always rising doggedly to advance, until at last it fell and slid limply down into the circle of moon-globe radiance, mud encasing much of its length. I stooped and gripped a shoulder, exerted my strength to turn over that flaccid body.

  The face was mud-spattered, cut, bruised, swollen, yet the one I had expected to see. The off-worlder had won out of Osokun's hold and through the hills. Now I was ready to repay my debt—but how? For it was well like he had come from one danger into another equally as great. We stood on the border of Oskold's land where none would gainsay his orders—or rather I stood, and Krip Vorlund lay in a swound now so deep that I could not probe it. Like the barsk, he slept and perhaps was the better for fleeing the here and now. And so passed much of that day.

  Chapter 8

  There was a singing, low and sweet, a croon which sounded in my ears as the wind which the space-borne so seldom feel on their bodies. And from whatever place Krip Vorlund had gone into hiding, I was pulled back to be one again, body and spirit locked together. When I opened my eyes to look about me, it was upon a strange company. Still, their strangeness did not truly amaze me; it was as if I had expected to see each and every one of them—girl's face with silver hair escaping about it from the hood of a cloak, furred muzzles with bright animal eyes glistening inquisitively about them.

  "You are—Maelen—" My voice surprised me, for it was a hoarse croaking.

  She of the hood nodded. "I am Maelen." But she spoke absently and her head turned as if she stared beyond in search of something she feared to see. All the other heads swung also, and from them came snarls and growls, low and rumbling, each differently pitched. My drowsy content vanished, apprehension awoke.

  Her hand lifted and light glowed along that which she held between her fingers, the wand. She put this with care on the flattened palm of her other hand. I saw, though she did not touch it, the rod stir of itself and turn to point in the same direction her eyes sought.

  As if by a signal, the furred ones vanished into the gloom beyond the borders of the lamplight in which I lay. Now Maelen took up again the wand and pointed with it to the moon globe, which died into nothingness. She leaned closer over me, her weather cloak out in wide wings tenting us both.

  "Quiet!" Her order was a mere puff of breath.

  I found I was listening, straining to hear whatever her ears also sought. There was the sighing of the wind, the splashing of water not too far away, other sounds of the open—nothing more—save the rising pound of my own blood in my ears.

  So we waited for a space I could not measure, save it seemed very long. Then once more she spoke, perhaps to me, perhaps only voicing her thought.

  "So—they hunt."

  "Me?" I whispered.

  "You." I did not need confirmation of that.

  "Listen now," she continued swiftly. "There are more than just Osokun's sword-sworn—these come from before and behind. And— " she hesitated, "I do not see how we can get through the net they weave for our taking."

  "It is not your trouble—"

  Her finger tips pressed upon my lips, cool and strong. "Mine the debt, man of the star lanes, mine the payment, so say the scales of Molaster—the scales of Molaster," she repeated. Then after a pause, she whispered again, "should I give you another skin, Krip Vorlund, for the undoing of the enemy?"

  "What do you mean?" It seemed to me, although the cloak about us cast a dark pool of shadow, I could see her two eyes a little above me as sparks of frosty light, much as a beast's eyes will shine in the night if caught by a torch's ray.

  "To my mind has come the answer of Molaster." She sounded bewildered, the confidence I had always seen in her shaken. "But you are not Thassa—not Thassa—" Her voice trailed away into a moment of silence. Then she spoke with her old assurance. "So be it, if you choose, so be it! Hark well now, off-worlder. I do not think we have a chance to elude those who search these hills. By their thought-throws I read they would have your death and that speedily if they come upon you."

  "That I can believe," I told her dryly. "Have you time to get away? I may not be a trained swordsman but—"

  I think she found that amusing, the sound she gave might have been a tiny laugh. "Brave, oh, brave star rover! But we have not come to such straits yet. There is another path, though a very strange one, and you may think being cut down by the blades of Osokun's men better than the walking of it."

  Perhaps I read challenge into what was only warning, but I reacted stubbornly to her words. "Show me this path, if you think it means escape."

  "There is this, you may change bodies—"

  "What!" I struggled to sit up, pushed against her so that we both overbalanced and struck the ground.

  "I am not the enemy!" Her hands thrust against my chest, punishing old bruises and making me wince. "Another body is what I said, and what I meant, Krip Vorlund."

  "And this body I now wear?" I could not believe that she was serious.

  "Let Osokun's men take it and welcome."

  "Thank you!" I retorted. "Either I lose my life in my body, or they kill my body and leave me outside somewhere." The utter folly of what I said made me laugh a little hysterically.

  "No!" Maelen retorted. She had pulled her cloak away and we sat facing each other in the twilight. I could see her face, but it was hard to read her expression, though I believed she was in earnest and meant exactly what she said.

  "They will not harm your body, once you have gone from it. They will believe you under the cloak of Umphra, and to harm such beings brings instant and lasting misfortune on any man. Even at sword-oath no man, lord, or fighter would hurt those touched by Umphra."

  "So they would let my body go?" I decided to humor her. My mind was in an odd state, nothing about this adventure had any reality by the standards I knew. I began to think it was one of those vivid dreams which now and then visit a sleeper, plunging him into an inner state of awareness so that he believes he is awake, not sleeping, as he undertakes impossible feats. It was beginning to seem, in this real dream, that perhaps all things were possible.

  "Your body would not be tenantless, for two spirits will pass from one housing to another. For a space only need this be, as we can then retake your body and once more exchange."

  "Because they would leave it here?" I continued, willing to go along with the fantasy.

  "No, they would take i
t to the Temple of Umphra. And we would have to follow, even to the Valley of the Forgotten." Her head turned away and I had a feeling that what she said had some meaning for her which had nothing to do with me.

  "And where would I be while we went hunting my body?"

  "In another body, perhaps even better fashioned for what might have to be done."

  This was a dream, of course. I no longer questioned that it might be anything else. Perhaps it was all a dream—my escape from the fort which had been so oddly favored by fortune, the nightmare journey through the hills and the storm, my coming here. Perhaps the dream extended even further—I had never been kidnaped from the fair, I lay safely now in my ship bunk and dreamed all this. And an odd curiosity awoke in me. I wanted to know how far this dream would take me and what new and weird action would come next.

  "Let it be as you wish," I said, and I laughed, for I knew that neither this, nor the waking hours of my life were real.

  She looked at me again. Once more I fancied I saw those sparks in her eyes.

  "Truly you come of a strong race, star rover. Perhaps, though, seeing much along the space lanes leaves one with a loss of astonishment and a capacity for accepting what may or must come. But it is not because I wish it so, this must be your desire."

  "Then it is." I humored her in my dream.

  "Stay you here and rest." Her hands on my shoulders pushed me back to lie as I had when first roused to this part of my dream. I lay there wondering what would come next. Would I be waking in my bunk on the Lydis? One's dreams are boring to listeners, but this was so strange a one that if I could remember it once I roused I would tell it. Still I rested on the grass and saw sky above, smelled woodland scents and heard wind and the splash of water.

  I closed my eyes and willed myself to wake. But it was an art beyond me, for the dream continued as vividly as ever. Something stirred beside me, I turned my head and opened my eyes. There was a furred head there, eyes peering at me intently. The fur was dark save for a crest of gray which stood erect, giving the animal the appearance of wearing a helm of dark metal surmounted by a standing plume, not unlike those of the sea rovers of Rankini.

  Sea rovers of Rankini ... my mind strayed, floated ... but surely they had not been part of a dream, this or any other. I had stood with Lidj on one of their floating trade rafts and exchanged steel harpoon points for Aadaa pearls. Rankini, Tyr, Gorth—worlds I had known. I strung them from memory as one would slip beads along a string. Now they were spinning around those worlds ... whirling ... whirling... . No, I was whirling dizzily, memory fled, and close after it all awareness.

  "Ayee, Ayee—run on four feet.

  Scent well the wind's messages—

  Be wise and be fleet—

  Strong and fair.

  Arise and greet the moon.

  By Molaster, and the Law of Qu'eeth,

  By two power, into four power.

  Up, runner of the high places!

  Greet the sun after night,

  For this be the dawn of your birthing!"

  I opened my eyes. Then I screamed, for the world I looked upon was distorted, a matter of odd shapes, shades—so altered that terror walked there for me. But no scream did my ears record, rather a howl with naked fear in it.

  "Fear not, the change is good, good! I had hoped only, but it is good! In all parts did you travel and arrive."

  Did I hear that with my ears, or did it form only in my brain?

  "No—no!" I tried to shriek, which I had not done when Osokun's men had worked to bring cries from me. But again came only a kind of barking.

  "Why do you fear?" The voice sounded puzzled, even annoyed. "I tell you, it is even as I have said, the exchange went well. And just in time. Simmle says that they come. Lie you still."

  Lie still? Exchange? I tried to put my hand to my head which still whirled. But no hand moved, though flesh and muscle obeyed the commands of my brain. I looked again. There was a paw covered with red fur, attached to a long thin leg, and that leg to a body—and the body—I was in that body! But no, this was not true, it could not be! I struggled wildly as in a nightmare. Awake, just let me awake! A man could go mad in such a dream. Awake!

  "Let me out!" I might have been a child shut into a terrifyingly dark cupboard. But no words, only a yip-ping came from my jaws. I realized dimly that this panic was indeed driving me into a darkness from which there might not be any return at all. I fought then, as I have never had reason to fight before—not any outward enemy, but the terror which was imprisoned with me in this alien body.

  I felt a touch on my head and jerked away, looked into animal eyes set in a cream-tan animal face. From sharply pointed jaws a tongue issued to lick me.

  Reassurance was relayed by my heightened senses from that touch. And somehow it drew me back from the brink of madness. I blinked, tried the better to see the face of my companion, and found that this small concentration did make a difference. The distortion was fading, adjusting. I could see clearer with every second. The licking went on and the comfort soaked into me.

  Stand up—I wanted to stand up. I wavered, staggered. To rise to four feet was not the same as standing upon two. I lifted my head. Scents, my nose drowned in scents; so thickly did they assault my nostrils that it was as if all possible odors had been sprayed into one ship's cabin and I was locked therein. I choked, thought that I could not breathe. But I did and the scents began to carry messages which I only partially understood. I tried to creep as a man would go on all fours, and tottered a step or two. The animal that had licked my head shouldered against me in support until I managed to stand without wavering. To look about me from this new angle was another thing to be learned, and I had by no means mastered it when there was a disturbance behind me.

  The animal at my shoulder snarled, and I heard answering rumbles from the bushes a little beyond. Menace and danger read so sharply in those growls that I pushed around and raised my head to the highest to see who came.

  Distortion remained, changes in size bewildered me. Again the scents were overpowering. But I was able to make out Maelen, her back to us, the long folds of her cloak sweeping the ground, confronting a group of men. Two were mounted and held the reins of riderless kasi, three advanced on foot, swords sharp and bright in their hands.

  I felt lips wrinkle back from the teeth now mine, an unconscious reaction to the odor of men. For I now discovered that emotions were part of some scents, and here were to be felt anger, cruel triumph, and danger. The snarl of the animal that flanked me grew

  louder.

  "—come for him—"

  What had been a gargle of meaningless sounds sorted out into words. Or was it that I read those words as they filtered through the mind of Maelen, who displayed no surprise or dismay.

  "What you have made of him, that is here."

  She turned her head as if to point out what they sought with her eyes. Someone sat, or rather lolled, upon the ground. Slack lips hung loose with a thread of spittle spinning from the lower. I blinked, closed my eyes tight, and willed not to see what was there. But when I opened them again, it remained the same.

  How many men ever look upon themselves, not in a mirror's surface, but as if their bodies have a life apart from their intelligence—their essence? To my belief such was impossible. Yet I stood now on four legs and looked through alien eyes to see and scent what was—me!

  Maelen went to that sprawling body, put her hands to its shoulders, urged it up. But it seemed that my husk was just that, a husk which had naught left to animate it. It lived, yes, for I could see the breast through the ragged tunic rise and fall with great shuddering breaths. As she pulled and tugged to get it up it moaned and whined. I howled and one of the swordbearers started, swung around to eye me.

  "Be quiet, Jorth!" Maelen's words were in my head, and I guessed she spoke to me, not to the shambling thing which she had at last standing, though she had to support it, for it appeared to want to drop to earth again.

  Her
order was enforced by the beast beside me, who nipped delicately at my ear and from whom came a telepathic warning.

  Maelen led the body—somehow I could no longer think of it as my body—a few stumbling steps forward. And the men stared at the drooling, witless thing, stirring uneasily.

  "Your work, sword-sworn?" Maelen demanded of them. "So did this one come to me, and you know who I am."