Hiero's Journey

5. ON TO THE EAST

“Look out!” she yelled. “A monster behind you! I saw it! Something black with long teeth! Get up and fight, quick!”

It had been over three weeks since he had even spoken to a woman, Hiero reflected, as he held her warm body tightly and made no effort to move. She smelled sweetly of girl, perspiration, and something else, something wild and fierce.

“That’s my bear,” he said mildly. “He’s a friend and won’t hurt you!” As he spoke, his mouth was pressed against a mass of warm, scented hair and a soft cheek. Hiero had detected Gorm some ten minutes back and sent him a mental order to stay outside the tree’s domed shelter, but the inquisitive young bear had wanted to look at the stranger.

Luchare pushed herself off him and glared down at his smiling face. “So, what they say about priests is true, eh? A bunch of lazy womanizers and sneaking skirt-lifters! Don’t get any clever ideas, priest! I can defend myself and I will, too!”

Hiero sat up and brushed himself off. Next, he carefully threw a few more twigs on the fire, so that it flared up, illuminating his copper skin and high cheekbones.

“Now, listen, young lady,” he said, “let’s get everything straight. I was the one jumped on just now, not the other way around. I’m a healthy, normal man, and regardless of what takes place down south in your peculiar-sounding country, Abbey priests have no vows of celibacy and are, in fact, usually married by my age, at least twice! However we do have rather firm rules against rape and any similar forced consent. Also, I am not in the habit of making love to children and rather think you’re about fifteen. Am I right?” As he spoke, he was patting Gorm, who had now crawled all the way in and was lying with his head in the man’s lap, peering shortsightedly at the girl across the fire.

“I’m seventeen, almost eighteen,” she said in indignant tones, “and priests aren’t supposed to go around with women; at least ours don’t. Who ever heard of a married priest?” In a lower voice, she halfway apologized. “I’m sorry, but how was I to know? You never said anything about that new animal. And how did you know he was there, anyway? I heard nothing and I have good ears.”

“I accept the apology,” the priest said. “And I might as well interrupt your story briefly and spell out a few more things, since we’re apparently going to be traveling together for some time, until I can figure out what to do with you. Does anyone in your country have the ability to speak with his mind? That is, send silent thoughts, so that without using his, or her, voice, another person or perhaps an animal can understand him?”

Luchare drew back, lips parted slightly, her dark brown skin reflecting the firelight in soft, shadowed movements.

“The Unclean, the evil monsters from the days of The Death, are said to do this thing,” she said slowly. “And there are many rumors, which I know now to be true, that they are ruled by the most wicked of men, horrible sorcerers, who also have this power. An old church priest who taught me my lessons, a good man, said that such powers of the mind might not themselves be evil in theory, but that in actual practice only the Unclean and their devils seemed to know how to make use of them.” Her eyes brightened suddenly, “I see! You knew the animal was out there by thinking to him! But you are not one of the—” Her voice failed as she realized that she might be in the presence of one of the nightmares of her childhood, a wizard of the diabolic enemy!

Hiero smiled cheerfully. “Unclean? No, Luchare, I’m not. And neither is Gorm here.” Gorm, go over slowly, lie down, and put your head in her lap. She has (never) seen a bear (I think?) or believed (been taught) in thought/speech/mind sending. We’ll (have to) teach her, like a cub.

The slim, dark brown girl sat, frozen, as the small bear ambled over and did as he had been directed. But when a long, pink tongue came out and gently licked her hand, she relaxed a little.

“You—you told him to do that, didn’t you?” she said in a shaky voice. “You really can talk to him, just as you do to me?”

“Not as easily, no. But he’s very clever; in fact, I’m not sure exactly how clever he is. He’s really something almost as new to me as to you, and we’ve only been together a week. Now Klootz, my bull morse, the big fellow outside, has been my partner for years. I can talk to him easily, but he’s nowhere near as clever as Gorm here. Still, he fools me at times too, and just when I think I know the limits of his brain, he tries something brand new and surprises me.”

“Gorm,” she said softly, stroking the furry, black head. “Will you be my friend, Gorm?”

“He’ll be your friend, don’t worry,” Hiero said. “And he’s also a very effective guide and scout. But now please be quiet for a few moments. I want to ask him how he got here. We parted when I went clumping out in the open to pick you up.” He leaned forward and concentrated on Gorm’s mind.

The bear, it seemed, had drawn back behind the rocky point as soon as he had seen where Klootz was heading. He had tried to make mental contact with the departing priest, but realized that it would be hopeless in all the confusion. He had, however, picked up other telepathic minds, not Hiero’s, although he could not make out what message they were sending.

I think that was our enemies (who were) trying to get people to hunt/stop/attack us from in front, Hiero sent. How did you/Gorm smell/find (us)?

Easy/cub/trick, came the answer. Went (back from) big water, walked along—came down to big water—smelled—went back-swam small water above men’s houses—came down (again), followed and smelled your trail.

By that time, Gorm had come to the hut village of the white savages, most of whom were back from their bird arena and were milling around and all making a fearful racket in the night. He had watched for a while and then, seeing that the villagers had a large pack of yelping dogs, he had quietly swum the little river and gone on east, returning to the beach to pick up Klootz’s tracks and then simply following them until he found their present camp.

The priest decided that pursuit that night sounded very unlikely and that they could relax and trust Klootz and the bear to warn them. Settling himself once again, he recommenced questioning Luchare where he had left off.

“The Elevener? Why, he looked like anyone else, an ordinary man of my people, perhaps fifty or so years old, except for those drab, brown clothes. Why?”

“That’s very interesting,” Hiero said. “In your country, it’s obvious, the people are all as dark-skinned as you and have that curly hair and those dark, dark eyes, right?”

“Of course. Why? Until I ran away, I never saw anyone of another color, except once or twice a white-skinned slave from the North, from around here, I guess. But the few Eleveners I’ve seen have all been of my own people.”

“Well,” the man said thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on the tiny fire, “up my way, they all look like my people, that is, with bronze or the Inyan reddish skin, straight black hair, high cheekbones, and so on. Which, I think, tells us something interesting about the Eleveners that the Abbeys hadn’t known before. Now, before you go on with your own story, tell me one more thing about them. In our areas, they carry no weapons, teach children in school, serve as animal doctors, work on farms, eat no meat, and never take any pay, except mere subsistence. Also, they hate the Unclean, but never seem to do much about fighting them. Is all that true down in D’alwah?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said. “The church doesn’t care much for them, but the poor people get very angry when there’s any talk of bothering them, so they’re generally let alone. You see,” she added naively, “the peasants have so much to get angry about as it is, why stir them up over something that makes no real difference? That’s what my—a teacher I knew told me. They don’t really mean anything one way or the other, just like the Davids.”

“Who are the Davids?” Hiero asked.

“Oh, a funny group of traders who call themselves People of David, who live in our big city and in some of the others, I guess. They actually don’t believe in the church, they won’t eat lots of ordinary things, and they don’t marry anyone but another David. But no one bothers them either, because they pay their taxes promptly and always trade honestly. Also, they can fight like wildcats if anyone tries to molest either them or their church. They have a funny one with no cross and no Dead God at all, and at school once, one of them told me it’s much older than ours! They’re really peculiar!”

“Humph,” Hiero grunted, thinking, at school, eh? and trying to assimilate all he had learned. “Must be an odd heresy of some ancient kind we never got up our way. The last one in Kanda, a group called Prostan, I believe, reunited with our church over two thousand years ago. Since then, it’s all been one Church Universal. You certainly have a lot of strange survivals in the far South. But go on with your own story now, and I’ll try not to interrupt.”

He fed the wee fire to provide a light, and as the faintest haze of smoke rose to the highest level of shiny leaves under the round dome of the tent-tree, the girl talked on, her matter-of-fact tones seeming to emphasize her extraordinary story. Hiero had lived through many strange adventures, including the most recent ones, but he was spellbound just the same. The bear lay dozing, head in her lap.

The Elevener, a quiet, elderly man, had set Luchare’s leg and helped carry her to a shelter. He had then gone away, but soon had come back with a large draft animal, something like Klootz, apparently, but striped and light in color, with short, straight horns, which stayed on all year, unlike antlers. It was commonly called a kaw. Both of them had ridden the kaw away on a trail to the northwest. The Elevener, whose name was Jone, had told the girl that he was going to try and take her to a place of safety run by his order, but that it was a long way off and that they would have to be very careful. He had asked no questions of her at all.

They had traveled for many days through the great, tropical forest, avoiding the main roads between the warring city-states, but using game trails and village paths where they could. The peasants and woodsmen were always glad to see them, gave them food and shelter, and warned them of migrating herds, rumored appearances of Leemutes, and other signs of the Unclean. In return, Jone had helped the village sick, sat with the dying, and distributed sets of little carved wooden letters he had made, so that the children could learn to read and write. This idea, Luchare interjected, was one of the tricks that really annoyed her church about the Eleveners, since the priests did not believe, and still less did the nobles, in giving the peasants new ideas.

“Some of my own church don’t like them any better,” Hiero admitted, “though everyone can read and write in our country. But conservatives dislike them as a rival religious group. I guess they are in a way, but if we’re not doing the job properly, then they should take over, as better men, that’s what my abbot says. But go on.”

After some three weeks of traveling, in a generally western direction, tragedy struck. They were now far beyond the limits of any of the city-states and their appendaged villages. Jone had told her that another week or so would bring them to a place of safety.

Actually, she had never felt more safe than with the gentle Elevener. Dangerous animals almost never came near them, and if they did, snorted for a moment and then went away. Once, she said, a herd of giant snakeheads, the lords of the forest, had simply parted to one side while the patient kaw had carried his twin burden down a lane in the middle of the huge beasts. Jone simply had smiled when she expressed awe.

Hiero thought to himself that the Eleveners must long have been in control of mental powers he now felt burgeoning in himself, though his were drawn out by the two savage battles he had fought with his mind. And the broad extent of their society, in physical terms, was also news of the first magnitude. He listened intently.

They had been ambling down a game trail in the jungle, Luchare said, no different from a dozen others they had seen and exactly where, she had no faint idea, when suddenly a man had stepped into the trail ahead of them and stood with his arms folded, facing them. At the same time, a score of hideous, hair-covered Leemutes, things like enormous, upright rats, naked tails and all, but far more intelligent and armed with spears and clubs, had come from the jungle on both sides of the trail. (Man-rats, Hiero said to himself.) They were totally surrounded, though none had come closer than a few feet.

Luchare had been terrified, but Jone’s gentle face had not lost its impassivity. The man in front of them was ivory-skinned, totally hairless, and wore a gray robe and hood, the latter thrown back. His pale eyes had been cold and evil beyond description. She knew that a master wizard of the Unclean held them fast and she tried not to panic. There was a moment of silence, during which she had simply shut her eyes and hugged Jone around the waist. Then she heard his calm voice speaking in D’alwah.

“Let us speak aloud. There is no need to frighten the child. I offer a bargain.”

“What bargain, Nature-lover, Tree-worshipper? I grip you both tight in my hand.”

“True enough, o Dweller in the Dark. But I can slay many of your allies, and even you yourself could be injured, or at least drained of power for days by the struggle. I am an Ascended One, as I think you are well aware. This trap was set with some care, and in an unlikely place.”

Trembling, Luchare had heard the enemy’s harsh voice ask again what bargain was proposed.

“Let the child and the animal go. If so, on my word and soul I will make no resistance to you and will submit myself to your wishes. Speak quickly, or I will force you to kill us at once, and it will not be an easy struggle.”

“So be it, Tree-man. One of your rank, even in your weakling order, is a rare captive in all truth, since usually you skulk in safety in holes and corners. Let the child and the beast go, then, and come with us.”

“In all your thoughts and deeds there are lies,” was Jone’s calm answer. “I will send her away, unfollowed by any of your dirty pack, and I can easily tell if that is so. I will remain here for an hour, and after that time has passed, will go with you. That is the unalterable bargain.”

Luchare could almost feel the terrible rage of the Unclean adept, but in the end, as Jone apparently had known he would, he agreed.

Blessing her gently in an unknown tongue, the Elevener had also spoken to the kaw, and the creature had at once moved rapidly away down the trail, now carrying her alone on its saddle. Her last sight of her friend had been of the slim, brown-clad figure standing patiently, facing the gray devil and his horrid crew of attendant monsters. Then a curve of the jungle wall of green had hid them all from sight. At the remembrance of how Jone had saved her, Hiero could see that Luchare was close to tears.

“He must have been a very good man,” the priest said quietly. “I have met one of those wizards of the enemy myself, indeed a man so like your own description that it might have been the same foul being, were the distance not so great. And he almost slew, or worse yet, captured me. Had it not been for the fat, clever one there, with his head in your lap, he would have done so.” As he had hoped, the girl was distracted and forgot her sorrow in her interest. He gave her a brief sketch of his encounter with S’nerg, and when he was through, encouraged her to resume her own story.

The poor, faithful kaw had been the first casualty a few days later. She had slept in a great tree one night, and some prowling monster had fallen on the kaw as he stood underneath and killed him. In the morning she had descended, avoided the bloody remains on which scavengers were feeding, and fled on foot, in which direction she hardly knew.

Great beasts, many of them things she had never seen before, constantly snuffed on her trail, and she escaped death only by inches on more than one occasion. Several times she had thought of suicide, but some tough strain or other had forced her on. She still had her spear and knife and had managed to feed herself, though mostly by watching what the birds and small monkeys ate. This had hazards, though, and she had got very ill on two occasions.

Exhausted, her clothes in rags, and close to starvation, one day she had heard human voices. Stealing close to investigate, she had found herself looking at a camp of traders, swarthy, black-haired men, not unlike Hiero, she said, whose kaw-drawn wagon caravan was parked in a large clearing. Moreover, the clearing was athwart a broad trail, almost a dirt road, which entered one side of it and left by the other.

While lurking in the brush, hoping for a chance to steal food and clothing, she had been surprised by an alert sentry who had with him a big watchdog on leash. She had tried to fight but had been knocked cold. When she woke up, she had been brought before the master trader, who had examined her carefully. She would tell them nothing, although they spoke some bits of her language. The trader chief had ordered some of his women (it was a big wagon train) to examine her physically, and on finding out that she was a virgin, had treated her well, but had her heavily guarded. It was made plain that she was valuable property, to be sold to the highest bidder.

She had ridden for several more weeks with them, always watched, but treated well enough. She had learned to speak batwah then, she said, and was soon able to talk to the other women, who were not unkind, though making it plain that she was not on their social level. But she was not beaten or raped, and was allowed cloth to wear and given a riding kaw, though it was led by another.

They had crossed several wide expanses of open grassland, and once had avoided what they said was one of the deserts of The Death. One day they came to the Inland Sea, of which Luchare had only heard vague legends, and there found a walled harbor town and many ships, traders and merchants, inns and market places. Quite a large permanent population lived there, some of them farming the fertile land on the port’s outskirts and selling grain and produce to the passing ships and caravans. There were people of all skin, colors, including both whites, dark browns, like her own, and the traders, most of whom looked more like Hiero than anything else. She even saw some battered-looking churches, though none of the traders she saw were Christians, and she was not allowed to go near the buildings or speak to a priest. She thought she had seen only one at a distance.

The town was called Neeyana and was said to be very old. Luchare did not much care for it. The people were apt to be sullen, and she saw faces in the shadows which reminded her of the Unclean wizard. The Unclean were not ever mentioned there, except under one’s breath and after looking over one’s shoulder first. She had the feeling that somehow the Unclean were in the town, woven into its fabric in some evil way, so that they both tolerated it and influenced it at the same time. The girl found this difficult to explain, but Hiero thought he caught her meaning. It was obvious that just as the Eleveners’ order extended far beyond his previous conception of their scope, so too did the power of the enemy.

Luchare had been sold, after several weeks in guarded seclusion, to yet another merchant, a man who was embarking on a ship with his company and his trade goods.

He had also had her well guarded, apparently also appraising her maidenhood at a high price, which made the Metz smile inwardly. What on earth was so valuable to these strange southerners about female virginity? he wondered.

She had never been on anything larger than a rowboat or canoe before, Luchare went on. The ship had great, pointed sails and seemed immense to her, But a storm came up after three days’ fast, smooth sailing, and there was a wreck. The ship was driven on to a small island of rocky precipices and cliffs at night. The following morning they had been discovered by a white, savage tribe who came out in canoes, the same ones from whom Hiero had rescued her. They seemed friendly enough to the merchants, and their chief priest had had a conference alone with the shipmaster. But in return for saving the traders and their goods, such as were not lost or ruined, they had wanted Luchare, whose skin color they had never before glimpsed, to sacrifice to the huge birds they worshipped.

“The traders agreed, the dirty lice,” Luchare said. “They even came and watched. Did you see them, all sitting on one end? They were dressed a bit like you, but had hats.” And the following afternoon, she had been stripped and tied to the stake where the priest had first seen her, while the flock had come from afar, drawn by the summons of the tall drums. Those drums, which Hiero had heard the previous day, had heralded the previous death of a male prisoner, a captive from another tribe down the coast.

Exhausted suddenly as the events of the last few days caught up with her, and with her tale finally done, Luchare fought to stay awake. Hiero got up and gave her a blanket and a spare coat of his own from the saddlebags. She smiled drowsily in thanks, curled up, and was sound asleep in seconds, the sleep of healthy youth, able to shrug off worry in a matter of seconds. A faint buzzing noise from her pretty mouth, her rescuer decided, was altogether too feminine to qualify as a snore. What a beautiful thing she was, even with that weird hair, like bunches of great, loose springs!

Hiero realized at this point that he was yawning so continuously his mouth was unable to shut, and hastily gathering up the other blanket, he fell asleep, quite as quickly as had Luchare.

Outside the shelter of the tree, the big morse browsed under the stars, the warm, scented air bringing him many messages from far and near. Presently the bear emerged and touched noses with the bull, then turned and set off into the night on a hunting expedition of his own, while inside the tree’s shelter the two humans slept, knowing they were guarded.

In the morning, Hiero awoke with a start. A strange sound caught his subconscious and made him sit up and reach for his knife in one and the same movement.

But a second later he stopped the motion and grinned sheepishly. The sound was a soft voice singing a little tuneless song over and over, in a refrain that wavered up and down in an odd but pleasant way. It was enough like a lullaby in his own language for him to feel that it probably was one in Luchare’s too.

When he pushed the branches aside and squinted at the sun, he knew it was mid-morning. He had slept over ten hours and must have needed it. A few feet away, with her dark back to him, the girl sat sewing something, using his own repair and mending kit, which she had discovered in the pack. Her gentle singing masked his approach, and realizing this, he coughed politely.

Luchare looked up and smiled. “You’re a late sleeper, Per Hiero. See what I’ve made?” She stood up and, before he could say or do anything, had slipped off her ragged skirt. For a second she stood revealed, a slim, nude statue in polished mahogany, then slipped on the garment she had been working on. In another second she was laughing at him from a leather one-piece suit, with elbow-length sleeves and shorts that came to mid-thigh.

“Well,” he managed, “that’s very neat. My spare clothes, I gather.”

“Only part,” she answered. “I left you the extra pants and underthings, so this is only your other long leather shirt. You don’t mind, do you?” Her face grew long at the thought of disapproval.

“Not a bit. You’re a marvelous needlewoman. If I get any more holes in things, I’m going to have you fix them up for me.”

“I only learned, well—after I ran away. I’d never sewn anything before. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” She pirouetted, arms held out, a pretty picture in. the sunlight. Behind her, the big morse looked on, blinking, and Gorm, as usual when there was nothing else to do, slept under a small bush.

The water he had not wanted to ford the previous night lay a hundred yards off. In the glare of the day, he could see it was nothing but a small bay, not a river mouth, and that they could walk around it in half an hour.

They ate a brief meal from the pack. The grouse even Gorm now disdained, and it was hurled away, but antelope steak, pemeekan, and biscuit were a whole lot better than nothing, and five of the great snapper eggs were yet unbroken in their packing. The bear and each human ate one. Then Hiero and the girl cleaned the saddlebags, washed out the squashed egg, and aired the rest of the contents. A little before noon, they were on their way again.

All the rest of the day, they followed the shore eastward. Occasionally, a rocky outcrop would make them turn inland, but they seldom deviated much from their course.

Hiero was pleased with his capture, though at intervals his mind would grapple with the gloomy realization that he had no idea what to do with her and that she was in no sense supposed to be a part of his mission. In fact, he thought in one of these moments of clarity, by distracting him, she was probably a positive danger! Still, she was from the very area to which he had been sent, she was a mine of information on the people, customs, and political makeup of her land, and besides—there was no obvious alternative!

Once they came to a place where a series of long sandbars, strewn with logs and other storm wrack, lay in the sea, just off the mouth of a small creek. On these bars, some of the great snappers, their dark gray shells crusted with growth and algae, lay basking and sunning themselves. They hardly blinked their evil eyes, however, as the little party went on by along the beach and splashed their way across the stream.

“Do you have those in your country?” the priest asked as they watched the comatose monsters warily.

“Yes, and much worse things,” was the answer. It seemed that the very sewers had to be screened with great iron bars and grills of massive stonework, even in her own proud city. Otherwise, foul things, water-borne and avid, emerged at night to devour whatever and whomever they could. Bridges, too, had to be covered with strong barriers and roads near streams strongly stockaded when possible. Even with all that, heavily armed, mounted patrols went continually about on regular beats, looking for intrusive jungle creatures and repelling incursions of Leemutes. Hiero was used to a life of fairly constant strife, but he began to feel that he had always lived in peace and quiet after hearing about everyday existence in distant D’alwah.

That night they camped on a high, rocky knoll, from which, at early evening, Hiero could see well inland to the beginning of the Palood, its night mists rising in the still air. Far on the distant air, as he watched, came the faint bellow of one of the monster amphibians, a grim warning not to venture back into the great marsh.

As they sat talking after their evening meal, which consisted of one of the last snapper eggs and some chunks of the cooked antelope which they had carried along, the Metz priest suddenly fell silent.

Very faintly, out at the edge of his mind, his psychic consciousness, he had felt something, a touch, a thought, plucking. It was hardly enough even to notice, but he was becoming more and more aware of his widening powers in this area. He now could “hear,” without even thinking about it, the “voices” of little birds and small, hiding animals they passed as they rode along. Luchare he did not probe, out of courtesy and decency, but he felt sure that he could do so if it should become necessary.

The dark girl noticed his intent look and started to speak, only to have him wave her into silence with a peremptory hand.

Concentrating very hard, he tried his best, using all his newfound (and hard-won) knowledge to pinpoint and identify what he was “hearing,” but it was useless. Yet he had a more than strong feeling that whatever it was, it was finding him, albeit very gently and subtly!

Hiero got quickly up and went over to the packs. Coming back, face set, he carried the strange metal antenna-spear of the dead S’nerg and, sitting down, opened the thing out to its fullest length and drew out the two forehead contact rods. With these on his head, he felt the power he possessed within himself expand suddenly, and almost felt something else!

Greeting, Enemy! came a surge of evil force. The priest felt at the same time a wave of power as the person or entity on the “sending end” tried to use his strength to pinion Hiero and enclose his mind with an intangible, yet very real, block. He had been incredibly lucky, he now knew, when he had first activated this thing. If the power on the other end of the communication band had then tried this trick at once, he would probably have been caught. But now, armed with his new-won strength and knowledge, it was easy to fend the other off, as a fencer wards a sword stroke, and at the same time keep open, the message level so that he could either listen, or talk.

You are strong, Enemy, came the next grudging thought. Are you a renegade brother of ours or perhaps a new mutation we know nothing about? We have continuously watched and guarded this wavelength since we realized that you had slain our brother and stolen his (indecipherable name or symbol) communicator.

Hiero sent no answering thought. The other knew he was listening, however, and he had a feeling that the Unclean, almost certainly one of their wizard lords, would not be able to stop talking. It was obvious that they had no idea who or what he might be. They were arrogantly sure, though, that he must have their kind of twisted, sick mind, whatever he was, and the idea that one of their despised foes, an Abbey priest, had such power was obviously alien to them.

You are not one of the disciples of the tree-worshippers, the soft Earth lovers, who call themselves the Eleventh Commandment Seekers, that is plain, came the thought. We know their mind patterns, and you are far more like us in power and cunning.

A dubious compliment, another section of Hiero’s mind recorded, at the same time making note of the fact that the Eleveners, while implacable foes of the Unclean, yet apparently were also in some kind of communication with them.

We lost you in the great marsh, came the cruel thought. And we sent an uncertain ally, now also seemingly lost, so that perhaps, though he is very strange, even to such as we, you slew him as well In an case, you found, the (undecipherable), which you also took from our brother’s body, And you silenced it. There came a pause.

Will you not speak? The thought was sweet now, with the evil, persuasive sweetness of uncatalogued sin. We, our great Brotherhood, acknowledge you as a full equal. We wish you to join us, be one of us, share our power and our purposes. Do not fear. We cannot find you unless you wish us to. We wish only to exchange thoughts with a mind of such power as yours, and one so different. The thought was soft and honey, sickly, sweet. Speak to us, our Enemy, whom we wish to make a friend.

The priest held his mental barrier raised high, as a gladiator secutor once held a shield against the deadly net of the retiarius. He remembered the Elevener, Jone, who had died to save Lu-chare and his remark, “In all your thoughts and deeds there are lies.” Further, Hiero was by no means sure that the other and his crew could not locate him, should he try and speak to them as they asked. In fact, he decided, maybe they can even trace me now, while I just listen to them. Who knows what they can do?

He tore the contacts off his head and slammed the antenna back in and telescoped the main rod shut, all in one motion. The alien voice stopped abruptly. Yet at the very edge of his mind once more, he could feel the faint (and irritating) plucking and twisting as it still attempted contact.

He concentrated, thinking hard. Perhaps if he altered the basic mind shield he had been taught at the Abbey, so—then, using his new powers, next activated another, different mental shield, causing that one to overlie the other, thus.

It worked. As his new barrier fitted over the old, the voice or mind touch ceased abruptly, like the light of a snuffed-out candle. He was no longer conscious of any contact at all, and he was sure he had shaken off the enemy.

He looked up. It was full dark again, but the moon was bright, and Luchare and Gorm sat together a few feet away, in silent companionship, waiting for him to return to them. The morse could be heard as he fed himself down at the bottom of the rock, as usual keeping an unsleeping guard.

Hiero rubbed his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The Unclean were just trying a few games. They can’t do it any more, and I’ll be all the more ready next time.”

“Are they following us? Are they able to—to talk with your mind?” the girl asked hesitantly.

“No, not now. They don’t know where or, for that matter, what I really am, and I think they are getting a bit worried about me. Anyway, they’ve been sending out a constant wide-band signal, somehow tuned to what they had learned of my personal brain pattern, trying to get into contact. I felt it, took out this thing—” he kicked the communicator—“which belonged to one of them, the one we killed, and talked to them. You see,” he went on, “they think I’m a Leemute or something, some new kind of evil mutation, or just a naturally evil human like themselves. My mind seems to be changing somewhat, and they can’t figure me out.

“Well, I got worried and cut them off, and then I fixed their probe so that they can’t annoy me either. I don’t think they have a hope of locating us that way any longer.”

He next repeated what he had said, only this time to the bear, using a short-range band he felt no one could pick up or home in on.

Gorm understood remarkably well and even drew a surprising conclusion. You are strong now, friend/Hiero. It will be difficult/ impossible for most (of the) enemy, except for the strongest/oldest/ most senior, to overcome you.

This was more of a statement than a query, and it made Hiero feel sure that the bear actually understood something of his, the priest’s, new mental development.

They slept the night peacefully away, and after breakfast down on the beach the next morning, Hiero decided to cast the symbols and use the glass. He was almost certain that none of the Unclean were close by, and it seemed worth a small risk.

He explained the process, got his equipment, robed himself, said the brief invocation, and waited for events. The girl, the bear, and the morse waited quietly on the sand a little way off. Luchare was fascinated, but wise enough to realize that there must be no distraction and that questions could always be asked later.

Hiero’s first view in the crystal was precisely what he wanted. A large bird, probably a sea bird, with white wings (he could see them flash) and excellent eyes, was flying along the coast to the east, going exactly the way the man wanted to go himself. The view was superb.

He could see that the seacoast sand ran, uninterrupted by river mouths or even small streamlets, for many, many leagues. The great Palood followed the coast only a few miles inland, but was separated from it by a more or less constant barrier of higher ground on which grew rank scrub and palmettos. Fair off, in one place only, the marsh touched the coast.

Far away too, in the remotest distance, Hiero could see what appeared to be many islands, but they were hard to make out. As the bird dipped and wheeled, using the air currents to plane, he also saw plumes of smoke rising from a stockaded village on a small river far back in the West. Obviously this was the camp of their erstwhile foes, the pale-skinned bird worshippers. Nothing else stirred, except that, well out to sea, on the distant horizon, some great dark thing made a stir on the water as it swam. If it was a fish, it certainly stayed curiously high out of the water, but he could make out no details.

He willed the sight to end and opened his eyes to examine next what he held in his closed left fist. First, before looking, he called Luchare and Gorm over. There was nothing really secret, or, for that matter, sacred, about the symbols. The prayer which preceded the casting in the bowl was simply to ask God’s help in making the choice, but the things themselves were not like a piece of Communion bread or a cup of sacramental cider.

The girl was eager to know more and the bear appeared interested too, although Hiero wondered how much of the abstract thought he actually grasped. The amount of brain in that fur-covered skull was still a mystery.

What now lay in the priest’s brown hand were some already familiar signs and also some not yet utilized on this particular venture. There were five symbols altogether.

The Spear and the Fish were both back. “War and water, battle and ships, fishing and hunting,” Hiero said to Luchare as he set those two aside. Next he looked at the Clasped Hands.

“That sign means a friend in need.” He smiled at her. “A good sign, one of the best. It can also mean an old friend will appear soon, or that I will make a new one, one whom I can trust. There’s another symbol quite like it, this Open Hand.” He showed it to her. “That one showed up when Gorm appeared first. But the Clasped Hands are a little different.” They meant a friend for life, among other things, but he somehow did not mention that fact.

“Could it mean me?” she asked. “I mean, I have so few friends of my own, and I wondered… P”

“It almost certainly does mean you. I doubt if we’re going to see many other people very soon, and those we do are most unlikely to prove friends. Let’s assume we each have a new friend.” They both smiled this time, the copper face and the dark brown one displaying twin sets of perfect white teeth.

“Let’s see,” Hiero went on, “what else have we? Two more? Well, first the Lightning. That has three meanings, of which two are very uncommon. First, I could be hit, that is, actually struck by lightning. I take leave to doubt that. Next, I could grow very, very angry. It sometimes means beware of anger. Possible, but I never felt less angry.” He laughed and turned the little thing over on his palm. “No, I think the usual thing, the commonest of all its meanings, is meant again. Just plain, very bad weather; in fact, a big storm. We’d better keep our eyes open for it.” He placed the Lightning with the other three.

“Last, what have we? The Boots, or Shoes, as some call them. A long journey, and one which hardly needed an appearance, since I knew that before I set out. I guess it means that as long as I thought it would be, it will end up being even longer still.” He stared at the tiny, fringed boots in his hand and then gathered up all five symbols and replaced them in the bag with the other thirty-five.

“Can you really make more sense out of it?” the girl asked. “It seems, well, a bit vague. Most of the stuff could almost be guessed, if you think about where we are, who we are, and what we’re doing.”

“First,” the priest said as he finished unrobing and packing, “you’re absolutely right. It is a bit vague. But I’m not a good talent at this particular form of foreseeing. I know men, friends of mine, who could get a lot more out of it, maybe draw ten symbols or even fifteen at one time, and make an extraordinary and detailed prediction. I’ve never got more than six myself, and I feel I’ve done well if I get even a modest clue as to what’s coming.”

They both mounted, Luchare in front as usual, and with Gorm ranging in front, he continued to lecture. “Now, we do have something to go on. The symbols are an odd mixture of forces, you know. Part of it is genuine prediction, part wish fulfillment, and part a subconscious—I’ll explain that later—attempt to influence future events.

“So—we have the Spear, the Fish, the Clasped Hands, the Lightning, and the Boots. A reading of the obvious answers might, I stress might, run as follows: a long journey, filled with battle, impends upon us, or me. A true friend will help, and the journey, or perhaps the next part, will be on, in, or over water. Now there are lots of other permutations possible. Oh, yes, the journey will start with a bad storm, or in one or something. That’s what I get, anyway. And I feel pretty certain that the storm is coming. That’s the surest of all of the signs.”

The prospect did not look much as if a storm were in view. The sun shone brightly, as it had for the past few days. The blue sea danced and sparkled, the tiny whitecaps not even indicating a stiff breeze. Rafts of small ducks and other waterfowl whirled out on the water offshore, rising in clouds and then settling as they fed and played.

Gorm, Hiero sent, what weather is coming? The animals could usually sense weather a day or two ahead, especially if the change were going to be drastic.

To his surprise, the priest received a negative answer from the bear. No bad wind, water, coming. Sun, moon, quiet air is all (that) comes.

“It may be,” he said to Luchare, when he had explained his silent question, “that the weather is still too far away. The symbols are apt to be pretty uncertain about time, at least when I use them.”

“Could I learn to use them, do you think?” she asked. They were so close, she riding only an inch in front of him, that she did not even have to turn her head. When the morse moved quickly, the scented, corkscrew curls blew in Hiero’s face, and he kept resolving to ask her to tie them up. Curiously, he never seemed to get around to doing it.

“Can’t see why not. There are children, back in my country, who can use them more effectively than I. It’s a talent, that’s all. My own are a little different. I can do a good job of farseeing, I can talk to animals pretty well, and now, just lately, I seem to be learning some new tricks, mostly about how to fight with my mind. But using the Forty Symbols to forelook just doesn’t seem to be my best attribute. You might be a whole lot better. We’ll try it out later on.”

“What about using my own mind, the way you do? It would be wonderful to talk the way you and the bear do. Could I learn that too?”

“Well,” Hiero said, “you could, I’m sure. It’s just a talent and not a particularly uncommon one, either. But, unlike casting the Forty, which is more or less instinctive, mind speech and the other mind attributes, up to and including telekinesis, the manipulation of solids by mental force—that’s a rare gift, incidentally—all have to be taught. And, once taught, practiced, practiced constantly. I started at the age of ten, and many of the Abbey scholars started earlier still. Some actually get selected when they can barely talk, on the basis of some very complicated tests. So, you see, it’s not all that easy.”

They rode in silence along the beach for a little way, and then in a small voice, she asked, “Do you mean I can’t learn at all, that I’m already too old?”

“Good Lord, no,” the surprised Hiero said. “I’ll try to teach you myself when we have a moment. I simply meant it takes training, discipline, practice, and time. You may be a marvel at it and go extra fast.”

Before he could even move, she had whipped around, eyes gleaming, and given him a tremendous hug. “Wonderful! Can we start now, right away?”

“Well, I, uh, well, that is, I hadn’t…”

Most of the day passed quickly, in doing lessons. Actually, Hiero thought to himself, it was probably a damned good idea to have to recall all the basics he had learned in the Abbey schools. Luchare was very clever and she was also willing to work. The one thing she apparently wanted above all else in the world was to talk to Gorm and Klootz, and this was the goal Hiero held out to her as a reward. But he spoke bluntly first.

“Now listen to me, carefully. The shield for your own thoughts is the most important thing you can learn, and it has to be learned first.”

When she wondered why, he explained that, with a decent mind shield, a child could evade the grip of the most skilled adept alive, as long as the two were not either very close physically to one another or linked by an emotional bond of some kind.

“But if you start sending messages without any ability to defend yourself, why, the Unclean could actually grab your mind, take control of it, and force you either to go to them or else to do whatever they wanted, commit murder, maybe, or anything! Even with a conscious shield, or the ability to create one, if you use the powers of your mind too widely, then another mind can home in on you, as if you were a target. That’s what they’ve been trying to do to me for the last week, and it took quite a while to stop them completely from annoying me. Now do you understand why what I say is important?”

“I’m sorry, Per Hiero. I’ll let you be the guide. Only,” she burst out, “please hurry, that’s all. Somehow, I feel it’s very important! Why,” she added, “don’t the Unclean control everybody’s mind, if so many are unshielded?”

He laughed. “I’m sure it is important, at least to you. Now let’s review what I just taught you. But first, the Unclean can’t control an unconscious mind, one that isn’t sending at all, unless they have the person in their physical power or in close contact. Now, to begin, the shield is to be conceived by your mind as an arc, surmounted by the Cross. Visualize this and then practice, with your eyes open, making it appear in your physical vision, so that the picture blocks out the horizon. Next—” He droned on, using his superb memory simply to repeat what old Per Hadena used to use as the basis for his lectures. This allowed Hiero to think of other things and to keep watch. He kept an eye out for the enemy flier, but no trace of it appeared. Many hawks were in the sky, though, and he saw them diving on the countless water birds. Once they came to a place where a small herd of the great water pigs lay floating near the shore. At the sight of the travelers, the big, shiny-creatures submerged in a welter of foam and vanished.

At another time they had to cross the marsh, previously-glimpsed, where a long, skinny finger of the Palood thrust south and caused an oozing stream to drain into the Inland Sea. Hiero had Klootz and the bear gallop across the dirty shallows at the juncture of marsh and sea, while he watched the giant reeds carefully. Nothing appeared, however, and the whole area was only a quarter of a mile wide. Once through it, the pleasant sandy shore began again.

They camped that night under a rock overhang, and Hiero allowed a tiny fire, first bringing a rock over to screen it even from the water, which the girl thought amusing.

“There are ships out there, you know,” he reminded her. “Probably very few contain anyone or anything friendly. You ought to remember; you were on one. And a fire might draw other unpleasant things too, not human at all.” Having silenced her, he relented, and after supper (the last snapper egg), he allowed the lessons to continue.

“I want you to realize something,” he said next. “I could speed those lessons up considerably. The way to do it, and it’s sometimes done in an emergency, is to go into your mind and do the teaching there. But I’m not going to.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I don’t mind, and if it will help make things go fester—”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He threw a tiny stick on the fire and poked it gently. The soft night breeze brought them many sounds. The muffled grunting from down the beach to the west was probably the water pigs they had passed earlier. The squawking from offshore, which rose and fell, came from the sleeping flocks of waterfowl. Far away, so far as to be almost inaudible, a big cat screamed once. Little waves broke on the beach in front of their camp, a gentle splashing which never ceased.

Hiero went on gently. “To do what would have to be done, I would need to get into your mind almost completely. Do you want me to know your innermost thoughts, dreams, hopes, and fears, many of which are in what the ancients knew as the subconscious? That means the part of your mind which doesn’t think so much as it does feel. Just reflect on that idea for a minute.”

Her face was serious in the firelight. “I see what you mean,” she said. “Thanks for being so patient. It’s hard not to want to do everything quickly, because it all sounds so marvelous. It’s a new world to me. But I see what you mean. No one would want someone else to know everything. Unless they were—or maybe not even then. I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he said in a firm voice. “And the answer is no, not even then. If two people in love open their minds to one another, they always shield something of the conscious mind and all of the subconscious. Now let’s go back and review the techniques I told you to use in practicing. First…”

The next morning, Hiero felt a bit tired, but Luchare was as bright as ever. She wanted to work all day, and he finally had to call a halt, as much to give himself a rest as anything else. But when they rested at noon, he allowed her to try and call Gorm. To her inexpressible delight, the bear actually “heard” her mind voice and, as Hiero observed, seemed pleased too, almost as pleased as the girl herself.

The day was bright and clear again, and neither bear nor morse could feel the tingle of any coming weather change in their sensitive bodies. This made Hiero worry a little, though he said nothing as they journeyed on. The Lightning was about as close to being an infallible sign as existed in the whole Forty, While the priest felt himself to be only a mediocre artist in the use of the symbols, still he was not that bad. Or was he? Still, perhaps the time element was the key. He turned to thoughts of other matters and allowed himself to forget his puzzlement.

Another night and day passed. Once they saw a flock of huge, running birds, apparently flightless, racing up the beach far ahead, but beyond noting that they were a dark green in color, could see nothing more. Whatever they were, they had excellent eyesight and were extremely alert and wary.

The next night, by the light of the now full moon, Hiero hooked a huge, round-bodied fish, weighing over a hundred pounds, he believed. Everyone helped, and once, when they thought its thrashing would break the line, Gorm waded into the water and walloped at it with an expert paw, which tamed it enough for Hiero and Luchare to haul it out. Even Klootz pranced around in excitement, although when they began to clean it, he snorted and went back to his fodder of bushes and his sentry go.

Everyone else fell asleep full of fried fish, the bear so round the priest thought he would burst. Lots of fish were smoked and packed for the future, something which always pleased Hiero, who had the true woodsman’s feeling of not wasting the almost imperishable trail rations, the pemeekan and biscuit.

The next day dawned cloudy. As they set off, a very gentle rain, hardly more than a heavy mist, began to fall, and Hiero got out his spare waterproof hood for Luchare. But it was not really uncomfortable, and the weather remained very warm, even at night.

The mild rain continued all night and into the next day. It was much too misty to see far. They paused briefly at noon and ate, then went on as usual. The sea was calm, but the fog had increased and a vague malaise was growing in Hiero’s mind. He now wished he had used another bird the last time it had been clear and that he had looked ahead. Once again the thought of the Lightning came to him. A mild drizzle and a mist were hardly bad weather, at least in the sense of that particular symbol. It was most peculiar.

Luchare had been practicing her exercises very hard, which had made her unwontedly silent for the previous two days. She was now good enough to exchange mental “baby talk” with the bear, and Gorm also seemed to enjoy being told to stop and go, to pick (up) that stick, and in general to be ordered about like a not-very-intelligent dog. But as the afternoon passed, Hiero grew more and more uncomfortable and he finally told them both to stop using their minds, even at this close range. He could not see why he was disturbed, yet he trusted his instincts enough to believe there was a reason. Klootz and the bear seemed conscious of nothing out of the way, however.

Nevertheless, when disaster struck, the priest knew that it was his fault and that he had not been prepared or even alert, for that matter. In retrospect, the enemy had laid the trap with great care.

But if only Gorm had not been walking next to Klootz, if Hiero had not been laughing at the girl’s mental effort to make the bear pick up a dead fish. If—if—if!

At first glance, the little bay looked utterly empty. They had rounded another of the innumerable rocky points which thrust through the sand and out into the water when they came upon it. The mist partly shrouded some small islets just offshore. On the shore itself, a few hummocks of gray stone, their feet circled by olive-colored scrub palmetto, reared about the lighter sand of the beach. Only the lapping of tiny wavelets broke the silence of early evening as Hiero checked the morse, some evanescent doubt troubling his mind.

He urged Klootz forward just as Gorm suddenly ran ahead of them, nose lifted high as he caught a rank scent. Luchare, unaware of any tension, laughed happily as she watched, finding the bear’s pose ridiculous.

The rocks and bushes on the beach erupted leaping figures. A horde of fur-covered, bounding Leemute horrors, stub-tailed and with glistening fangs, resembling giant, distorted monkeys seen in a nightmare, came at them from all sides but the rear. As they came, their ululating, echoing cry, long familiar to Hiero on the northern marches, rang out in hideous familiarity. In their hands the Hairy Howlers bore long spears and clubs and brandished great knives.

Yet this was not the chief menace, bad as it appeared. From behind a small island of granite, a long, black vessel, bare of any mast, glided smoothly only a few hundred feet offshore. On its foredeck, hooded figures bent over a shining metal mechanism whose short-pointed, solid barrel was aimed at the morse and his riders.

The priest reacted by instinct, the unconscious, trained Killman taking over. His reflexes were thus even faster than either those of the bear or of his own great steed.

Get back out! was his savage message to Klootz and Gorm as, thrower in hand, he slipped from the saddle. The girl, frozen in surprise, simply stayed fixed desperately in her place as the morse turned about on his own rear end, so to speak, almost squatting in his effort to obey the command he had been given. He was already twenty paces away in the first of a series of great bounds when his master fell.

Hiero had been bringing the thrower into aim, determined not to miss the boat and its menacing weapon, when the Unclean gunner fired first.

There was a streak of blue fire and the stink of ozone. Hiero felt a terrible blow on’ his chest and a moment of intense cold as he blacked out. His last thought as he slid into darkness was, So this is what the Lightning meant!

Then—nothingness.