Vault of the Ages

Chapter 6 TABOO!

following the wild cattle trail, John’s party took only another day and a half to get through the western forest to the point where he had meant to strike east for Dalestown. The wagons lay in the cover of brush at the edge of cultivation, while Tom and Carl rode out to find if the settled lands were still free.

The boys returned jubilantly by sundown. “There’s been no fighting around here,” said Carl. “As far as the people we talked to know, the Lann haven’t gotten farther yet than the northern border.”

“That’s far enough,” said John bleakly. Strain and sorrow had made him gaunt in the last few days. His eyes were hollow and he seldom smiled. But he nodded his unkempt head now. They’d have a safe passage to Dalestown; that was something.

At dawn the caravan stirred, and wagons creaked through long, dew-wet grass until they emerged in open country and found one of the pitted dirt roads of the tribe. There Carl took his leave of them. “You don’t need me any longer,” he said. “There are no enemies here, and the farmers will give you food and shelter. But it will take you perhaps two days to reach the town, and I have news for my father which can scarcely wait.

“Aye, go then—and thank you, Carl,” said John.

“Father, how about letting me go along?” asked Owl. “It’s just driving from here on, no work—and it’s awful slow!”

A tired, lopsided smile crossed the man’s bearded face. “All right, Jim,” he agreed. “And I daresay Tom would like to follow. I’ll meet you in town, boys.”

The red-haired lad flashed a grin. “Thanks,” he said. “I just want to see people’s faces when Carl shows them that magic light.”

The three friends saddled their horses and trotted swiftly down the road. Before long, the wagons were lost to sight and they rode alone.

The country was fair with hills, and valleys green with ripening crops, tall, windy groves of trees, the metal blink of streams and lakes, and shadows sweeping over the sunlit breadth of land. The farms were many, and wooden fences held the sleek livestock grazing in pastures. Most of the homes were the usual log cabins, larger or smaller depending on the wealth of the man and the size of his family, but some of the richer estates had two-story houses of stone and square-cut timbers. Now and again the travelers passed through a hamlet of four or five buildings—a smithy, a trading post, a water-powered mill, a Doctor’s house—but otherwise the Dales lay open. Smoke rose blue and wing-ragged from chimneys, and farmers hailed the boys as they went past.

Carl noticed that workers in the yards and the fields were almost entirely women, children, and old men. Those of fighting age were marshaled at Dalestown. And even these peaceful stay-at-homes carried spears and axes wherever they went. The shadow of war lay dark over the people.

On rested horses, the ride to town took only a day. In the late afternoon, Carl topped a high ridge and saw his goal in the valley below him.

Not much more than a village as the ancients had reckoned such things, it was still the only real town that the tribe had. Here the folk came to barter and make merry; here the Chief and the High Doctor lived, and the tribesmen met to vote on laws and action; here the four great seasonal feasts were held each year; and here the warriors assembled in time of danger. That was the first thing Carl noticed as his eyes swept the scene: tents and wooden booths clustered about the town to house the men, wagons drawn up and horses grazing in the fields, smoke of cooking fires staining the sky. As he rode down the hill, he caught the harsh reflection of sunlight on naked iron.

A twenty-foot stockade rising out of high banks inclosed Dalestown in four walls. At each corner stood a wooden watchtower, with catapults and stone-throwing engines mounted just under the roof. In each wall, gates of heavy timber, reinforced with metal, protected the entrances. The town had fought off enemy attacks before. Carl hoped it would not have to do so again.

He and his friends picked a threading way between the camps of the warriors. It was a brawling, lusty sight, with beardless youths and scarred

old veterans swarming over the trampled grass. Sitting before their tents, they sharpened weapons and polished armor. Some were gathered about a fire and sang to the strum of a banjo while the evening meal bubbled in a great kettle. Others wrestled, laughed and bragged of what they would do, but Carl saw many who sat quiet and moody, thinking of the defeat in the north and wondering how strong the wild horsemen of Lann were.

The main gate, on the south side, stood open, and a restless traffic swirled back and forth between the armed guards. One of them hailed the Chiefs son: “Hi, there, Carl! So you’re back? I thought the devils in the City would have eaten you.”

“Not yet, Ezzef.” Carl smiled at the young pikeman, gay in red cloak and polished iron cuirass. Ezzef was one of the Chief’s regular guardsmen, who ordinarily existed to keep order in the town. Carl and he had long been friends.

“No, you’re too ornery to make a decent meal.” More soberly, Ezzef came over to stand at Carl’s stirrup and look up into his dusty, sun-darkened face. “Did you make the bargain, Carl? Will the witch-men forge for us?”

“The Chief has to know first. It’s a long story,” said the boy, turning his eyes away. He didn’t want to start panic among the men by rumors of the City people’s refusal, or premature hopes by tales of magic powers.

Ezzef nodded gravely and went back to his post, and Carl began to realize the loneliness of a leader. He couldn’t share his journey with this old comrade—the tribe had to come before any one man—but it was hard.

He clicked his tongue, and the pony moved forward again, shoving slowly through the crowds.

Within the stockade, Dalestown was a jumble of wooden houses through which muddy streets wound a narrow way. It had its own wells and cisterns, and Ralph had, several years before, caused others to be made so that fire fighters would always have water close at hand. One bit of ancient wisdom which the Doctors told the people was that filth meant plague, so there were public baths and the Chief paid men to haul away wastes. But with all those who had crowded in since the first threat of war, that system was in danger of breakdown.

As Carl rode down High Street, between the tall, overhanging walls of buildings gaudily painted under splashes of mud, he saw the same confusion of people he had known and loved all his life. Here, a rich merchant passed by, dressed in furs and gold chains, borne in a litter by four half-naked servants. There, a group of children tumbled and rolled in the dust; a mongrel yapped at their play. Yonder came a housewife, her long skirts lifted above the littered street, a baby strapped into a carrying-cradle on her back. A wandering juggler, his lean body clad in fantastically colored rags, a banjo slung next to his ribs, brushed shoulders with a sober-faced young Doctor in the long blue robe of his order, carrying a bag of magical instruments. Circled by the perpetual bustle, a tall, black-skinned trader in clothes of foreign cut, come from the southern tribes to barter his cotton or fruit or tobacco for the furs and leather of the Dales, was talking to a white-bearded old farmer who stood unmoving in his wooden shoes, puffing a long-stemmed pipe. A bulky guard was warning two drunken warriors to behave themselves; a wagonload of fine timber moved slowly toward some carpenter’s shop; and a horse tamer edged his half-broken mount carefully through the swarm.

Open doors, and shingled booths, where the work of the town went on, lined the sides of the street. A smith, muscled and sooty, hammered out a plowshare in the ruddy glow of his fire. Across the way, a fat baker gave two round loaves of coarse black bread, new and warm and fragrant, to a boy. And a weaver had his cloths and rugs spread out for sale, next door to a tailor who sat cross-legged making complete garments. On the corner, a dark and smoky tavern rang with noisy life and beside the tavern, a trader’s store was massed with foreign goods and delicate jewelry for sale. Even now, Dalestown tried to live as it had always done. But many newcomers filled the streets, leaning from the windows and jamming into the crowd. Refugees, thought Carl, men and women and children from outlying farms who had fled here for safety when news of the invaders came. Some could stay with friends and relatives, some could pay for a bed in one of the few inns—but most had to sleep outside, in tents or under their wagons, ready to flee inside the walls if danger threatened. Their eyes were filled with fear and a deep, hopeless longing, their voices shrill or else hushed to an unnatural quiet. It was not a good thing to see, and Carl touched the saddlebag where he had the magic light as if groping for comfort.

The boys came out on the open market square in the center of town and forced a slow path across its packed width. The Hall loomed on the farther side, a great building of dark oak with painted gables and the heads of animals carved along the eaves and ridgepole. Here was the place of meeting for the tribe. On its right was the smaller house of the Chief, squarely and solidly built of wood and stone, the banner of the Dales —a green fir tree on a background of gold—floating above it. Toward this Carl directed his horse.

An old servant stood on the porch, looking unhappily over the restless throng. When he saw Carl, he shouted. “Master Carl! Oh, Master Carl, you’re back! Thank the gods, you’re back!”

“You never doubted it, did you, Rob?” smiled Carl, touched at the welcome. He swung stiffly to the ground, and the old man patted his shoulder with a thin, blue-veined hand.

“Oh, but it’s been so long, Master Carl—”

“Only a few days. Is my father inside?”

“Yes, he’s talking with the High Doctor. Go right in, Master Carl, go in and make him glad. I’ll take your horse.”

“And my friends’ horses too, please.” Carl frowned. He wasn’t overly happy at having to confront Donn before he had talked with his father. The High Doctor meant well, and was kindly enough when no one crossed him, but he was overbearing and tightly bound by the ancient laws.

Well, it would have to be faced sometime. “Come on, boys,” said Carl, mounting the steps.

“Maybe we should wait,” hedged Tom.

“Nonsense. You’re the guests of the house, as your folks’ll be when they arrive. Follow me.”

Carl entered a hallway paneled in wood and carpeted with skins. Light from the windows was getting dim, and candles burned in their brackets on the wall. It was a large, well-furnished house, but there were grander places in town. The Chief’s power did not lie in trade goods.

A small thunderbolt came shouting down the stairs and threw itself into Carl’s arms, squealing and shouting.

“Hello, brat,” said the boy gruffly. “Get down—the Lann don’t do as much damage as you.”

It was his young sister Betty, five years old, who clung to him and stared with wide eyes. There were only these two left—Ralph’s other children, and then his wife, had died, of some disease which the ancients could have cured but which was too strong for the drums and prayers and herbs of the Doctors, and the Chief had not married again. The three were a happy family, but there were dark memories among them.

“What’s ’at?” Betty pointed to the flashlight, wrapped in a piece from his tattered cloak, that Carl bore in one hand.

“Magic, brat, magic. Now where’s Daddy?”

“In’a living room. Can I come?”

“Well—” Carl hesitated. It might not be wise for a child to know of this and prattle the news all over town. If the Lann were as smart as he thought, they had a few spies mingled with the refugees. “Not just now. This is man-talk. Later, huh?”

Betty made fewer objections than he had thought-she was growing up enough to learn that men ruled the tribes, under the law if not always in fact—and he sent her trotting back up the stairs. Then he led Tom and Owl down the hall to the living-room door. He opened it softly and looked in.

The room was long and low, furnished with a dark richness of carved wood and thick skins and the trophies of war and hunt. Light from many candles and the broad stone fireplace filled the farther end with radiance and shadows, glimmering off shields and swords hung above the mantel, off wrought brass candlesticks and silver plates. Windows between heavy draperies showed the last gleam of day.

Ralph stood before the hearth. He was a tall and powerful man of thirty-seven, his eyes blue in a grave bronzed face, his hair and close-cropped beard the color of gold. His dress was, as usual, simple: plain shirt and breeches of linen, a green wool cloak swinging from broad shoulders, a dagger at his tooled leather belt. His big hands were calloused with labor, for he worked his own farm outside the walls, but his look was calm and strong, and Carl’s heart quickened at the sight of him.

Old Donn sat in a chair by the hearth, blue robe drawn tight around his gaunt frame. Like the other Doctors, he was clean-shaven, and only a thin, white halo of hair fringed his high skull. With his hooked nose and sunken cheeks and smoldering, steady eyes, he resembled an aged eagle. One bony hand rested on the serpent-wreathed wand of his authority where it was laid across his knees; he rested his chin in his other, as he looked across at the third man.

This was a stranger, a lean young warrior of about twenty, weaponless and clad in garments obviously borrowed from Ralph. His hair was raven black, and a dark mustache crossed his sharp face. He was seated at ease, legs crossed, a hard and hostile smile on his mouth.

“It makes no difference,” he was saying. “Whether you hold me or not, Raymon will come. He has other sons—”

“Carl!” Ralph saw the boy and took a long stride forward across the tiger-skin, his arms opening and sudden gladness lighting in his face. “Carl—you’re back!”

They shook hands, father and son, and Ralph checked himself, putting on the mask of coolness expected from a man. Perhaps only Carl saw the candlelight glisten off a tear. It must have been cruel to hear that the enemy had been in the very region where he had sent his only son, the only hope of his race.

“Yes—Father.” The boy cleared his throat, trying to get the thickness out of his voice.

“Yes—I’m back, well and sound. And these are my friends, Tom and Owl-Jim, sons of John in the north—”

“Be welcome, friends of Carl and friends of mine,” said Ralph gravely. He lifted his voice in a yell for a servant. “Margo, Margo, you human turtle, bring food and drink! Carl is back!”

Donn looked keenly at the boys. “And how did the trip to the City go?” he murmured.

“Both well and ill, sir,” answered Carl uneasily. “But, Father—who is this?”

Ralph smiled with pride. “Carl, meet Lenard—eldest son of Raymon, Chief of the Lann!”

“What?” Tom’s hand dropped unthinking to his knife.

“Aye, aye. There have been skirmishes in the north between our scouting parties and vanguard Lann troops.” Ralph paced back to the hearth. “The other day our men brought back some prisoners taken in one of those fights, and among them was Lenard here. A valuable captive!”

Lenard grinned. “I was just explaining that my hostage value is small,” he said in the harsh accents of the north. “We believe that the souls of dead warriors are reunited in Sky-Home, so—as long as my father has other brave sons—he will not betray our people to get me back.” He waved a sinewy hand. “But I must say my host Ralph has treated me well.”

“He gave oaths not to try to escape before battle is joined, and my guards wouldn’t let him get out of the house in any event,” said Ralph. “I still think we can use him…. or at least learn from him.” His eyes held a brief, desperate appeal. “And if we treat our captives well, the Lann should do likewise—if they have honor.”

“We have honor,” said Lenard stiffly, “though it may not always be the same as yours.”

Carl folded his legs under him and sat down on the rug. He could not help a certain uneasiness at having Lenard so close. Lenard, the heir to the mastery over that savage horde which had chased him down the ways of night and laid the northern marches in ruin.

“But what of your journey, Carl?” persisted Donn. “What did the witch-folk say?”

Carl glanced at Lenard. The prisoner sat quietly leaning back, half in shadow, not even seeming to listen. And neither Ralph nor Donn seemed to care what he might learn.

Slowly, Carl told the story of his trip. There was stillness as he talked, under the thin dry crackle of flames. Once Donn stiffened and leaned forward, once Ralph whispered an oath and clenched his fists with a sudden blaze in his eyes—but both leaned away again, clamping the mask back over their faces, hooding eyes in the weaving shadow.

Night closed down outside, darkening the windows, stilling a little the babble of the aimless crowds. Wordlessly, the servant Margo came in with a tray of refreshment, set it on a table, and stole out again. Beyond the little ring of light at this end, the long room grew thick with a creeping darkness.

Under the light, Carl unwrapped the bundle in his hands. The ancient metal was smooth and cool; it seemed to vibrate with unknown powers. “And this is the light,” he said, his voice shaking ever so faintly. “Look!”

He spun the crank, and the pure white beam sprang forth, searching out corners, flashing back from metal and darkly gleaming wood, a whisper of gears and a lance of cold, colorless fire.

Ralph gasped, Lenard gripped the arms of his chair with sudden white-knuckled force—only Donn sat unmoving, unblinking, like the graven image of some eagle god.

It was to the Doctor that Carl first looked when he let the light die, for he knew that the real decision lay there. The class of the Doctors existed in all known tribes, men who handed down a fragment of the ancient wisdom and guarded the mysteries. A Doctor was many tilings: public scribe and record-keeper, teacher of the young, priest of the gods, medicine man in time of sickness, counselor and sorcerer and preserver of knowledge. Much of what they did was good —they knew some medicine and other things beneath all the magical rites, and their shrewd advice had helped many. But Carl thought that they were, in their hidebound beliefs and their fear of the Doom, the greatest reason why life had hardly changed in these hundreds of years. And the fountainhead of the Doctors was their grand master, Donn.

The old man was still very quiet. He had lifted his serpent wand, as if to ward off powers of evil, but his face did not move at all, he did not even seem to breathe.

“Carl—Carl—let me see that light!” Ralph stooped over his son, shaking with excitement, holding forth an eager hand. “Let me see it!” Stop.

Donn spoke softly. Little more than a whisper came from his thin lips, but it seemed to fill that room of tall shadows. He held out his own gaunt fingers. “Give it to me, Carl.”

Slowly, as if moved by a power outside himself, Carl laid the metal tube in the hand of Donn.

“Taboo! Taboo!” The old pagan word rustled and murmured in dark corners, hooted mockingly up the chimney to hunt the wind. “It is forbidden.”

“But it is good!” cried Carl, with a wrench in his soul. “It is the power which can save us from the Lann and—”

“It is one of the powers which brought the Doom.” The High Doctor touched the flashlight with his wand and muttered some spell. “Would you unchain that wrath and fire again? Would you see the earth laid waste and the demons of Atmik raging over the sky and folk falling dead of fire and hunger and plague and the blue glow—cursing your name as they died? Taboo, taboo!”

Carl sat numbly, hardly aware of the stern words snapping from that suddenly grim face:

“You have broken the law. You entered the accursed City and consorted with witches. You opened a door on the powers of the Doom, and you brought one of those very devils home with you. Fools! You wanted to help the Dalesmen? Be glad you haven’t destroyed them!”

After a moment, Donn spoke a little more gently. “Still, it is plain that some god protected you, for no harm that I can see has been done. I shall offer this light as a sacrifice to appease any anger in heaven. I shall throw it into the sacred well. And tomorrow you must come to the temple and have the sin taken off you— but that need only be marking your foreheads in the blood of a calf which you must bring. You meant well, and for that you shall be forgiven.”

The sternness came back like the clash of iron chains: “But there shall be no more of this.

Ralph, you know the law as well as I do, and we have both been lax about enforcing it. This is certainly not the first time a trader to the City went inside the taboo circle. But it shall be the last. From now on, the law of the Dales shall be carried out to the full. And that law says—for breaking the taboo on ancient works and magic, the penalty is death!”