Moon of Three Rings

IX

Two days we traveled so, camping at night in hidden thickets. I became more and more a part of the body I wore, and I learned that there are some compensations, lessons to be learned, by one who travels four-footed and looks upon the world through animal eyes. Maelen fell into moods of abstraction now and then, but between these she talked much, either relating legends or else pointing out features of the country and speaking of her own life as a wanderer there. But, I came to note, she did not often mention her people in the here and now, only as they were in the past. Also there were questions I asked that she adroitly avoided answering. I came to make it something of a business to try to trap her and I think she knew what I would do and as cunningly slipped past me.

On the morning of the third day as we climbed into the van she was frowning slightly.

"From here," she said, "we come into the land of villages and men. And to cloak our purpose we shall call upon the skills of the little people."

"You mean—give shows?"

"Yes. The road to the Valley is such that there are no side ways. Also we may learn of those who have gone before us."

It was almost a shock to think of my body having ridden this road ahead, a sensation difficult to put into words. Maelen continued to promise me that those escorting that mindless thing would be careful to keep the spark of life within it, that, according to their superstitions, any neglect would result in a fate such as they would avoid at all costs.

"And I will be part of your entertainment?"

She smiled slowly. "If you wish. A very great part if you agree. For to my knowledge, and I assure you that is not small, no one has ever shown a barsk before."

"But you had hoped to."

"Yes, I had hoped to."

"What happened to—to—"

"The spirit who were your present body? It was failing. Another day, perhaps two, and I would have out of compassion sent it on the White Road."

"But in my body—now?"

"It is a feeble tenant. It does not suffer, only lingers for a time to keep the lamp lit until you return."

I had come out boldly with what I had tried to discover earlier. She looked at me.

"To each his own secrets, Krip Vorlund. I told you—this burden is mine, you will not be called to account for what has happened."

"But you will?"

"I will. Now let us consider what lies before us, not what may exist behind a mountain range or two. By midday we shall arrive at Yim-Sin, the road to it lies there—" We were coming down a bank to a road into which the kasi turned, heading upward from the plains.

"In Yim-Sin there is a temple of Umphra," Maelen continued. "There we shall be quartered and, if possible, learn of Oskold's men—though they may have taken the other road on the eastern side of the mountains. This night we shall give a performance. So now let us study what a barsk may do to astound the world."

I was willing to fall in with her plans, for this was the case of depending upon a navigator in the deeps. To the one with the proper knowledge one leaves the ordering of the ship. Together we set up a performance, suggesting the act of a well-trained animal. When we came to a place where terraced fields, now mainly cleared by harvest, made steps on the hillsides, Maelen paused and I withdrew from my usual seat beside her to the traveling cage like the rest of the four-footed company.

They drowsed, for two of their species were nocturnal in normal life, and the other, Tantacka, was a lazy animal when well fed with no need to forage. I found that my new body had habits, too, which were emerging. And I curled up nose to tail and slept a little as the van trundled along.

The scents of the open gave way to other odors, acrid, nose-tickling. I heard voices as if people were gathering around the van, running beside it—high shrill voices of children. Maelen must be bringing us into Yim-Sin. It was, she had told me, a farming village, with the addition of two inns and a temple for the accommodation of those bound for the Valley. Oftentimes those who had relatives there made the journey to look upon them. It was also true that the priests of Umphra sometimes wrought miracles and cured certain of their charges, so not all who went there were hopelessly lost.

While the fields of this up-and-down country were not wide or rich, yet they rooted a vine-grown crop which produced wine favored in the cities. The villagers were prosperous enough, at least their overlords were. But hereabouts there were absentee landlords and there would be only bailiffs and overseers in the two castle holdings along the road we traveled.

I tried to understand the cries, but the words were of a country dialect, not the speech of the Yrjar merchants. Yrjar—suddenly I wondered what had happened there after my kidnaping. Had Captain Foss taken his case to the fair authorities? Some of those authorities or their subordinates must have conspired in my disappearance for it to have happened at all. Had they taken Lalfarns too, or killed him?

Why had I been so important to risk so much on my capture? Surely Osokun must have known I could not give him what he wanted. Nor might Foss have traded the price demanded for me. Maelen had provided one small clue to what might be a greater coil—the part Gauk Slafid played. But the life-and-death struggle between Free Trader and Combine had been all in the past. Why this move now? I had read all the tapes of the old days and the struggle had been a bitter one, carried from planet to planet. Now the Combines dealt mainly with the inner-system worlds and sometimes dabbled in politics on those, to their hurt or gain. What could possibly interest them on Yiktor?

The van came to a halt and the smell of the town—or better described for barsk nostrils—the stench of the town was thick. I longed to peer through the curtains and see our surroundings. But I now wore a skin around which far too many legends of peril and death had been woven.

Borba and Vors uncurled from fur balls and came to peer out of their cages. Simmle whined a greeting to which my barsk vocal cords responded at a lower pitch. Their thoughts reached me as broken bits of expression.

"March-march—"

"Thump-thump—" That was Tantacka.

"Up and down."

So did they foresee their parts in the coming performance. They appeared to look upon their stage appearances as amusement to be anticipated and enjoyed.

"Many smells," I tried my own return.

Simmle barked. "Man smell—many men."

"March-march," chorused the glassia, "good —good!"

"Food," grunted Tantacka, "under rocks— food." She snorted and went back to doze.

"Run." Simmle was wistful. "Run out in the fields—good! Hunt—good! Together—we hunt—"

Instinct of my body answered her. "Hunt— good!" I agreed.

Maelen opened the back flap of the van and climbed in. A man of the plainspeople, wearing a black robe which was crosshatched on back and breast with white and yellow, came with her. He was smiling and chatting in the village dialect, but, through Maelen, the sense of his words filtered to me.

"We are indeed fortunate, Freesha, that you have chosen this season for your return! The harvest has been good and the people plan a festival for thanksgiving. The Elder Brother wishes to make a happy time for all. He will open the west court for you and will pay all fees, so that your little people may give joy to all with their cleverness."

"The Elder Brother is indeed a maker of happiness and a force for good in this so-blessed village." Her reply sounded formal. "Does he permit that I loose my little people that they may stretch their legs in freedom?"

" But certainly, Freesha. Aught you may need is at your call—the third-rank brothers will serve you." He raised his hand. Fastened to thumb and forefinger were two flat pieces of wood and these he clicked loudly together. Two more heads crowded into view at the tail of the van. The closely clipped hair, the Hand of Umphra branded into their foreheads, marked them as priests, though they were only boys.

They were smiling broadly, and apparently well pleased to serve as Maelen's assistants. She opened Simmle's cage and the cream-coated venzese came out, swinging her tail eagerly, while Maelen fitted her with a show collar flashing small gems. Borba and Vors were so accoutered and loosed, and then Tantacka, to whose collar was added a kind of frontlet of richly embroidered red cloth, pointed forward between her ears. It would seem that the animals were old friends as the young priests greeted each by name, but with a gravity which suggested that Maelen's little people were far more than mere animals. Then she put her hand to the latch of my cage and the senior priest leaned forward as if to see me better.

"You have a new friend-in-fur, Freesha?"

"I have indeed. Come forth, Jorth."

As I passed around the door she opened, the priest's eyes went wide and his breath hissed between his teeth. "A barsk!"

Maelen was busy putting about my neck the collar she had sewn at our last camp, a strip of black with mirrorlike stars glittering in a scattered trail along it.

"A barsk," she agreed.

"But—" His astonishment had become half protest.

Maelen straightened, her hand still resting lightly on my head.

"You know me, Elder Brother, and my little ones. This is a barsk in truth, but Jorth is no longer a flesh eater and haunter of trails, but our comrade-in-fur, as all others who travel in my shadow."

He looked from her to me and then back again. "Truly you are one who accomplishes strange things, Freesha. But this is yet the strangest of all— that a barsk should come to your call, suffer you to lay hand upon his head, that you should name him and make him of your company. But if you so speak—that it will not give way to the evils of its kind—then shall man believe you. For the gifts of the Thassa are like unto the laws of Umphra, fixed and unchanging."

Then he stood aside and I went with Maelen, leaping down from the tail of the van. The young priests hesitated and drew a bit apart, their amazement more open even than that of their superior.

They allowed us to precede them. The other animals came to join us, Simmle beside me, aiming a quick lick at my cheek as I fell into step with her. We went out of the courtyard in which the van had halted into another walled space through a double-leafed gate, only one half of which was open for us. The inner area was paved with black stone veined with yellow, and empty, save along the walls where trained vines and trees grew from beds of earth bordered by fitted stone. At the far left was a fountain, the water boiling out of a stonehead into a pool.

One of the animals headed for the pool and lapped from its bounty. The water was cool, tasting good. Tantacka dipped in not only her blunt muzzle but also forepaws, flipping them up to send showers of drops flying in all directions.

I sat back on my haunches to look around. At the other end of the area were three broad steps which led to a columned porch, and in that was another door, intricately carved with a sprawling design I could not figure out. That gave entrance to a building which I thought must be the center portion of the temple. There were no windows to break the sweep of wall, only more carved panels, in alternating white and yellow stone, to pattern the black of the walls.

Maelen directed the boy priests who carried some boxes from the van to set them along the steps, and I noted that they continued to glance at me with some awe. When they had done, Maelen dismissed them with thanks and sat down on the lowest step. I lost no time in joining her.

"Well?" There was only one thing I wanted to know—had she gained any news of Oskold's men and that which they were transporting.

"They have not passed this way," she answered me. "Nor was I sure they would. If they needed to appraise their lord of what had happened they would have gone eastward and thus come on the other road which leads to the V alley."

"You seem very sure they want to get to this Valley."

Maelen put her hands to either side of my barsk head and raised it so she could better look into my eyes.

"Accept this, star rover: of the ways of the people of Yiktor I do know much. They are set to patterns which they do not break, not when there is naught to endanger them. Rest assured Oskold or his men will not alterthis pattern. One way or another they shall bring that which belongs to you to the Valley."

"Ah, Freesha, so it is true."

The voice behind us rang in my ears as if Maelen spoke and I was startled, for this was the first time I had "heard" so as to understand except through her intermediacy. I jerked out of her hold and snarled involuntarily as I looked up the steps.

A man in priestly robes stood there. He was old, bent a little, leaning on a support which was more staff of office than cane, for it was almost as tall as his age-bared skull. His face was open, yet that of a man who had seen so much of sorrow that he would be colored with its gray wash to the end of his days. Only now he smiled, and in his smile was the sweetness of one to whom compassion was the greatest of virtues.

"You have brought a marvel indeed." He came down a step and in turn Maelen sped to join him, setting her arm under his in support. That aloofness which stood always between her and the plainsmen vanished and there was respect in her tone as she made answer.

"I bring a barsk, yes, Eldest Brother. Jorth, show your manners!"

Thus the first of the tricks we had worked out together was shown to the guardian of the temple as I bowed my head thrice and then barked my deepest. And gently, with the same smile, the priest inclined his head to me in answer.

"Go with the love and care of Umphra, brother of the upper ways," he said.

The beliefs of the Free Traders are few, and we seldom express them, even among ourselves. At ship's swearing, or when taking a permanent life companion, or when accepting a foster child into one's household—yes, we have oaths and powers we call upon as witness.I think that all living things with intelligence recognize that which lies above and beyond. They must or be ever lost and driven by their inner fears and doubts beyond the endurance of their spirit. We give respect to gods of other worlds, for they are but man-distorted images of that which stands ever behind such faulty windows into the unknown. Now, in this man who had given his life to the service of such a god, I saw one who walked closely to the Great Truth as he saw it, and perhaps it was indeed a truth, if not one in which my people believed. Thus, forgetting the skin which covered me, I bowed my head as I would to those who have my respect.

And when I raised it to look once more in his face, I saw that his smile was gone; rather did he look at me very intently, as one might view some new thing which caught the full attention.

"What we know of the barsk," he said as if he spoke to himself, "is very little, and most of that, ill, having been sifted through the screen of fear. Perhaps there is much we should learn."

"My little people are not quite like those of their wild kin." Maelen spoke swiftly and I read both unease and warning in the half-thought she shot at me, a warning that this was one who had some of the inner sight and whose suspicions must not be aroused.

Thus I barked and snapped at an insect buzzing overhead and then went to join the others at the pool, hoping I had done my best to cover any lapse I had unwittingly made.

Maelen lingered with the priest and they spoke together in a murmur which did not reach my ears. Also she had shut off mind-communication with me and this I did not like. But I dared not try to listen in that manner either.

In the early evening we gave our show to all the villagers who could crowd into the court, repeating it twice so that all could see, using the porch of the temple for our stage, the boy priests helping Maelen arrange the few properties we used. They did this with such practiced skill that I guessed this was not the first time this had happened, though why Maelen would have come this way before, I did not know.

The acts were less elaborate than those which her other troop had presented at the fair. Now Tantacka sat on her haunches and thumped a drum to which Borba and Vors danced and marched. Simmle leaped over a series of ascending bars, prancing on her hind legs, answered questions from the audience with barks, played a small musical instrument by pressing on large keys with her forepaws. And I sat up, bowed, and did the other small tricks we had planned. I think my appearance alone would have been enough, for the villagers were startled. I wondered more and more at the fearsome reputation my host body held in this country.

When we had done we went back to our cages, and for once I did not demur at being so housed. I was as thoroughly weary as if I had labored man-fashion throughout a day.

But I had discovered that a barsk's sleep was not like that of a man. It did not last the night through, but was a series of short naps, between which I lay awake and alert, keenly aware through nose and ear of all that went on outside the curtains of the van. During one such wakeful spell I heard a stir in the fore part where Maelen had a couch she used in bad weather or when it was not possible to sleep in the open.

Light, so thin it seemed only a very pallid and weak reflection of her moon globe, filtered through a curtain slit. The latch of my cage had not been dropped. I was free to come and go, though I knew the danger of doing so in the village. Now I nosed open the door and moved to set my eyes to that slit.

On her bed place Maelen sat cross-legged, her eyes closed. One might have thought she slept, but her body moved from the waist slowly back and forth, as if in time to music I could not hear. Nor could I reach her mind, for when I strove to do so, I came against a tight barrier with the force of one running headlong into a fort wall.

Her lips were slightly parted and I caught a sound, the faintest whisper of sound issuing from them. She was singing—or was she? I could not be sure whether it was song, or some muttered invocation, even some plaint. Her hands rested on her knees, but between forefinger and forefinger her silver rod made a taut bridge, and it was from that the faint light beamed.

Around me, as I watched, the air held a kind of electric charge. My mane roughened and raised, there was a tingling along my hide, a prickling in my nose. We men of the ships have our kind of power and energies, but we never deny the fact that there are others elsewhere whom we do not understand and cannot control. For the art of controlling such may be a matter of birth and not of learning.

This was power, but whether she called it to her or whether she sent it forth, I did not know. And in that moment of my watching I was strongly aware she was alien, far more alien than I had believed.

She was silent after a space, and the tingling in the air began to ebb. Then with a sigh her head fell forward, and she jerked as one awakening, to place the now dim rod under her head as she stretched herself on the couch. The light was gone and I was sure she slept.

In the morning we left Yim-Sin, with the villagers cheering us out, shouting their desire for our return. We took a road which climbed and climbed. These were not hills we faced now, but rather mountains. The air was chill and Maelen wore her cloak, but when I took my place beside her on the seat I found my thick pelt needed no cover. The scents here were exciting and I found awaking in me time and again the strong desire to leap from my perch and run to the timbered slopes, in search of I know not what.

"We come now into barsk country," she told me with a laugh. "But I would not advise you to take advantage of your wish to see it better, Jorth. For, though some part of you is native here, you would speedily be at a disadvantage."

"Why do all look upon a barsk in your company as so strange and rare?" I asked.

"Because, though the barsk is known, in another way it is not. If that sounds to be a riddle, perhaps it is. Men of the high slopes, of whom there are few— though the Thassa haunt the mountain-caught clouds by choice—have slain the barsk, which in turn hunts them with cunning and patience. There are many legends about the barsk, Jorth, and it is credited with almost as much power as men set into the hands of the Thassa. Many lords have coveted a caged barsk, only to discover—if they are able to find one—it either gains its freedom and then takes dire vengeance upon man and herd, or else it wills itself to death. For it does not accept any curtailment of its freedom. The spirit which wore your body was so willing itself when the exchange was made."

I shivered. "And if that will succeeds?" I demanded.

Maelen hastened to reassure me. "It will not, there was a limit set upon it in exchange. Your body will not die, Krip Vorlund—it will not be a discarded husk when you find it."

"Now," she shifted to another subject, "there is the watch post of Yultravan. But most of the people must be in harvest on the slopes. We shall not stop. But before the sentries see you, it would be well for you to be caged."

Reluctantly I climbed back and found my cage. Maelen exchanged greetings with two armored men who came from a small shelter beside the road. One of them lifted the curtain at the tail of the van to glance within, so I kept well in the back of the cage to escape notice. Again I thought they knew her as if she had made this journey before.

That night we camped in the open once more, and Maelen brewed a pot of liquid which gave forth such enticing odor that we all gathered around the fire to sniff longingly. I admit that I gulped my portion with no more manners than the real barsk might have displayed under the circumstances. Anticipation had ridden me during the day's journeying, for I knew that we were very close to our goal. But when I settled in my cage that night—Maelen deeming it safer for some reason that we all rest inside the van—I went immediately to sleep and this time did not waken.

We roused in the first of the dawn light and broke our fast on some crumbled cakes which were a mingling of grain and dried bits of meat. Then once more the van started upward. This time the slope was steeper, so that the kasi bent their shoulders to the yoke with visible effort. We stopped now and then to let them breathe, Maelen putting small weights she carried to block the backward roll of the wheels.

But we did not pause for a regular nooning, again sharing out cakes and lapping from bowls filled from Maelen's water bottle. It was midafternoon when we reached the top of the grade. Now the road descended through a cut between two heights. But what lay below was veiled by drifting mists, which only now and then parted to give a blurred hint of the depths.

"The Valley," Maelen said, and her voice was flat, wrung dry of emotion. "Stay with the van, we must keep strictly to the road. There are barriers and safeguards here which cannot be seen."

She gave the command to the kasi, and the van crawled on down into that place of mists and mystery.