Star Gate, page 14
"There's good meat on him," Sood remarked. "The sky devils will not pick bare bones after all."
His two followers laughed nervously, as if it were very necessary to keep their officer in a good humor. But neither of them ventured any comment upon Sood's observation.
They went down the stairs and crossed the court. As they went, the majority of the men in sight fell in behind. And they did not re-enter the inner section of the fortress but trudged on through another gate and down a road, past three encircling walls with watchtowers and ramparts.
U-Sippar's fortress had not been built in'the center of the town but straddled the narrow neck of land that extended into the sea bay from the main continent. Apparently those who had first planned the city's defenses had had nothing tc fear from the ocean, but wanted a sturdy barrier between their homes and the interior. Now the party went inland, from the fringes of the town to a wide stretch of open field.
There was snow here, but the drifts had been leveled by the wind. And it was open for the maneuvering of mounted troops or for the staging of a spectacle. Kincar suspected that it was to be the latter use now. There was a gathering of Gorthians about the edges of that expanse, with mounted guards to keep a large center portion free.
As the party with the prisoner approached from the road, there was another arrival. Out from the upper parts of the fortress shot a flying thing. It had no wings, it was not living, but some magic kept it aloft, hovering more than a man's height—a Star Lord's height—overhead. It circled, and as it passed over the natives, they fell face down on the ground. Then it swept up to confront Kincar and his guards. Lord Rud sat in one of the seats upon it and in the other—
Kincar had been warned—but until that moment he had not truly believed! That was Lord Dillan! But not, he told himself fiercely, not the Lord Dillan of the hold. This world's Lord Dillan. if he had not been prepared, he would have betrayed himself in that moment. Lord Rud was smiling down at him, and that smile, gay, charming, was colder than the air in which their breath smoked blue.
"A fit object lesson, brother," Lord Rud said to his companion.
But Lord Dillan leaned forward in his seat to study Kincar with a searching intensity. He spoke, his deep voice a contrast to Lord Rud's.
"He is no Hand."
"He bears their mark—"
"Then it is no proper mark. You!" Lord Dillan spoke to Sood, at the same time tossing to the giant a small box he had taken from his belt pouch. "Use that upon a piece of cloth and see if you can rub away that mark."
Sood ripped loose an end of Kincar's shirt and, dipping it into the paste in the box, scrubbed away with vicious jabs at the mark on the prisoner's forehead. The brand sign, which had resisted the rain and withstood all inadvertent touching since the Lady Asgar had set it on him, yielded. Sood's astonishment became triumph, and Lord Dillan—this Lord Dillan—nodded in satisfaction.
"As I told you, brother, this is no man of ours. Best keep him for questioning. If someone has dared to plant the mark, they will dare other things. And the fault which you hold against him is relatively minor. What if he was found in the company of escaping slaves—do not all outlaws tend to herd together, until we gather them up? Or was there something about these particular slaves?"
He was eying his fellow lord sharply. And there was a dull flush on Lord Rud's face. He flung up his head.
"You rule in Yarth, brother, I in U-Sippar. Nor did I ask you hither; this visit was of your own planning. In another man's lordship one does not ask questions concerning his dealing of justice. This is an outlaw,, come into our land to seek out knowledge to aid that rabble which others seem unable to beat out of their mountain holes, I will deal with him so that there will be few willing to follow him. Sood, make ready!"
Under his control the flier bounded higher into the air, so that Lord Dillan must clutch at his seat to keep erect, and then swerved to one side to hover.
However, Kincar had no attention to spare for the actions of Lord Rud and his brother, for the guards were on him, stripping away his clothing. His jerkin was slashed so that it could be drawn off without unpinioning his arms, and the shirt ripped in shreds to follow. But the man who tore at that paused, his eyes round and questioning, and he drew back hastily.
Sood, too, had sighted the talisman on Kincar's breast. The big man stood, his mouth working curiously, as if he must suddenly have a double supply of air for laboring lungs, and a dull stain crept up his thick throat to darken his weathered cheeks. These men wore a brand that divorced them utterly from the Tie, but the awe of that talisman held them as much, if not more, than it would a true believer. Perhaps, Kincar had a flash of insight then, perhaps it was because they had ritually denied all that the Tie represented that it now possessed the greater power over them.
The giant was tough-fibered, far more so than the man who had pulled off the last of Kincar's shirt, for that guard's retreat turned into panic flight. He threw the rag he was holding from him as he ran blindly down the field.
His comrade was not quite so moved, though he took his hands from the prisoner—Kincar might have been a fire coal—and shuffled back, his terrified eyes watching the captive as if he expected the latter to assume some monstrous guise. And he cried out as Sood's hand came up slowly, his fingers reaching to pluck away that round stone.
Sood had his brand of courage. He had to have an extra measure of self-confidence to hold his leadership among the bullies of U-Sippar's fortress. It was not by size and weight of arm alone that he had won his under-officership in Lord Rud's service. Now he forced himself to a task not one Gor-thian in a hundred—in a thousand—would have had the will power, the hardened fiber, to attempt. Wearing that mark, proclaiming himself so to be what he was, yet he was prepared to set hand upon the Tie. From a barracks bully he was growing to a far more dangerous man.
"By Lor, by Loi, by Lys," Kincar said, "think what you do, Sood."
The gentle warmth that had answered his invocation of the Names told him that the stone was alive. What it might do to a branded one he could not guess, for to his knowledge such a happening had never occurred in the Gorth of his birth.
There were oily drops gathering along the edge of Sood's helm; his mouth was twisted into a skull's grin of tortured resolve. His fingers came closer. About the two there was a great silence. The wind had died; there was not even the plop of a larng's foot in the snow. The men of U-Sippar were frozen by something other than the cold of the season.
Sood made his last effort. He clutched at the stone, tugging at it so Kincar was dragged forward, the chain cutting into his neck. But that chain did not break, and the stone fell back against Kincar's skin, a blot of searing fire, to cool instantly.
Rud's under-bfficer stood still, his hand outstretched, the fingers bent as if they still held the Tie. For a second longer than normal time he stood so; then, holding that hand before him, he began to roar with pain and the terror of a wounded beast, for the fingers were shriveled, blackened—it was no longer a human hand. Being Sood, he was moved to kill as he suffered. His left hand brought out a knife clumsily; he stabbed blindly with tears of pain blurring his sight.
The sting of a slash crossed Kincar's shoulder; then the point of the blade caught on the Tie. Sood screamed this time, a high, thin sound, too high and thin to issue naturally from that thick throat. The knife fell from a hand that could no longer hold it, and the giant swayed back and forth on his feet, shaking his head, his hands before him—the one shriveled and black, the other red as if scalded.
Wounded he might be, but the blind hatred of the thing— of the man who y wore the thing—that had blasted him, possessed all his senses. Kincar, his hands bound so that he could move only stiffly, was forced into a weird circling dance as the giant lurched after him to accomplish by weight alone what he had not been able to do with steel. Sood might lack the use of his hands, but to his slighter opponent he was still formidable.
The fate of the giant must have bewildered the rest of the guard. None of them moved to interfere with the two on the field: Kincar was so intent upon keeping away from the other that he heard a whistle only as a distant sound without meaning.
But the answer to that whistle had a great deal of meaning for both circling men. Lord Rud, baffled by the happenings of the past moments, but in no mind to lose control, had chosen ruthlessly to sacrifice the crippled Sood in company with this captive who knew too much. Where it had been planned that one naked prisoner would be exposed to certain death, two men moved. But the death was already in the air, and it would strike. Perhaps it would be all to the good. Sood was something of a legend in U-Sippar arid should he be struck by a supernatural vengeance and the tale of it spread, it would put the countryside aflame. Let him die quickly, by a familiar means, and all that went before could be forgotten.
Kincar had not understood his fate at the whistle, but seconds later he knew it well. There was no mistaking the cry of a mord sighting meat—alive and moving meat—but yet meat for a hungry belly. And he guessed the type of death to which he had been condemned. Had his arms been free, had he a sword in his hands, he could have delayed that death—for a short space. But he could not have kept it away long. Against one well-trained mord an armed man, providing he was mounted and had a cloak, had a bare chance. Against a full hatch of them, that mounted warrior was lost, picked to the bones before blood had time enough to flow to the ground.
Sood was deaf, blind, unheeding of everything but Kincar. All the pain and shock of his hurts had crystallized into the urge to kill. He moved ponderously with deadly purpose. But, because he tried to use his hands time and time again, Kincar managed to elude his hold. The giant cried aloud, a wordless noise that was half plaint from pain, half demented rage at his inability to come to grips with his prey.
Perhaps it was that sound that drew the mords to him first. By rights the scent of the blood welling from the cut on Kin-car's shoulder should have brought them down upon the younger man. However, the rushing wings centered on Sood, and they struck.
The giant's cry swelled into a roar once more as, still only half aware of his peril, he beat at the swarming flesh-eaters. First he tried only to brush them aside so that he might attack Kincar. Then some spark of self-preservation awoke, and he flailed his arms vainly, his face already a gory mask.
Kincar, backing away from that horror, caught his boot heel on a turf and went down. His fall attracted several of the wheeling mords, and they swooped upon him. Claws bit into his upper arm, a beak stabbed at his eyes, and he could not restrain the scream torn out by his repulsion and fear.
But that beak did not strike him; the claws were sharp but they did not open gashes. There was the hiss of an aroused and angry mord, and the one on his body struck upward with open bill at another come to dispute her perch.
"Vorkenl"
She chirruped in answer to her name. Vorken who had sought her kind in the mating season had found them—in the fortress hatchery of U-Sipparl And, knowing Vorken, Kincar could also believe that during her stay there she had with the greatest possible speed assumed rulership of the perches. Now it was only necessary for Cim to come trotting onto the field to make this truly an adventure of a song-smith's devising.
Only it was not: Cim who came to take him away from the murderous, horrible heap of twisting, fighting mords. It was the flier of the Dark Lords. And the false Lord Dillan with his own hands dragged Kincar onto its platform before it flew back to the fortress.
xrv
THE PLACE OF TOWERS
Thebe was the crackle of speech in the alien tongue of the Star Lords. Kincar, seemingly forgotten for the moment, pulled himself up against a pillar, while Vorken chuckled throatily and waddled in a half circle about his feet, very proud of herself.
The wrangle continued. Lord Rud sat on a bench spitting out angry answers to a stream of questions Lord Dillan shot at him as he paced up and down that end of the hall, sometimes bringing his hands together with a sharp clap to emphasize a point. At first Kincar was so bemused by the wonder of his own escape from a particularly grisly death that he did not speculate as to why he had been lifted from the field. Now, from the gestures, from the sullen attitude of Lord Rud, the aroused state of this Lord Dillan, he guessed that his rescue had been made against Rud's will.
And this was borne out as the false Lord Dillan came striding away from his brother to stand before Kincar, looking him up and down.
"You are a priest of demons, fellow?"
Kincar shook his head. "I have not followed the Threefold Way," he replied as he would in his own Gorth.
That face—he knew every line of it, had believed that he could recognize every expression its muscles could shape! Yet to look upon it and know that the man who wore it was not -the one to whom he had given his alle'giance was a mind-wrenching thing, much harder than he had imagined such a meeting could be.
"So—we have not yet stamped out that foolishness!" Lord Dillan whirled and shouted a stream of angry words at Lord
Rud. The other did not register only sullen denial this time. He walked toward them alertly.
"This one is from the mountains," he said in the Gorthian speech. "Look closely, Dillan. Has he the appearance of a lowlander? Without a doubt a creeper from some one of those outlaw pockets, trying to spy upon his betters. He should have been left as mord food—"
"Mord food, you fool!" Lord Dillan's exasperation was so open that Kincar looked to see him strike the other. "After what he did to Sood in the face of all this city? We have gone to great trouble to rout out this pestilent worship. Do you not see that the tale of what happened out there is going to spread and grow with the telling? Within days we shall have secret altars sprouting up again, spells being mouthed against us, all the other things to tie rebels together! You cannot erase from a thousand minds the manner of Sood's death. No, this one must be handled by the council. We must have out of him every scrap of knowledge, and then he must be reduced to groveling slavery before the eyes of his own kind. Abject life, not a martyr's death—can't you see the sense of that? Or, Rud, is it—" His speech slipped once more into the off-world language, and brother glared blackly at brother.
"We shall take him ourselves," Dillan stated. "We want no more natives seeing what was not meant for their eyes, hearing things certainly not intended for their ears. Send a message that we are coming by flier—"
Lord Rud's jaw jutted forward. "You are mighty free with your orders in another man's hold, Dillan. Suppose I do not choose to leave U-Sippar at this moment. As you pointed out, that scene on the field will doubtless provide fuel for rebellion. And my place is here to stamp such fires to ashes before they can spread."
"Well enough. Remain and put out your fires, though if U-Sippar was under proper control, I should think there was no need for such careful wardenship." Lord Dillan smiled slyly. "I shall take the prisoner in for questioning—"
It was very plain that that was not to Lord Rud's taste either.
"He is my prisoner, taken by my men."
"True enough. But you did not assess his importance until it was driven home to you. And your reluctance now to turn him over to the authorities argues that you may have some hidden reason to wish him quickly dead." Lord Dillan fell to studying Kincar once more. "What is this great secret, fellow, for which your lips must be permanently sealed? I wonder—" His hand closed about Kincar's upper arm, bringing the younger man up to stand under a clear shaft of light. He eyed him with an intensity that had something deadly and malignant in it.
"The Great Law, Rud," Dillan spoke very softly. "I wonder how many times it has been broken and by whom among us. The Great Law— Usually the fruits of its breaking can be early detected. But perhaps now and again such cannot. Who are you, fellow?"
"Kincar of Styr—"
"Kincar of Styr," the other repeated. "Now that can mean anything at all. What is Styr, and where does it lie? Should it not rather be Kincar s'Rud?"
He had guessed the truth, but in the wrong way. Perhaps some shade of surprise in Kincar's eyes convinced his questioner he was on the right track, for Lord Dillan laughed softly.
"Another matter for the council to inquire into—" Lord Rud's face was a mask of rage. "For that you shall answer to me, Dillan, even though we be brothers! He is not of my fathering, and you cannot pin law-breaking on me! I have enemies enough, perhaps of close kin"—he eyed his brother hotly—"who would be willing to set up a tool, well coached, to drag me into trouble by such a story. Look to yourself, Dillan, on the day, in that hour, when you bring such an accusation before the council!"
"In any event, he needs be shaken free of all information. And the sooner the better. It is to your own advantage, Rud, that he tells the full and complete truth before all of us. if he is not the fruit of law-breaking, let us be sure of that and speedily."
As if to draw his brother away from a dangerous line of investigation, Lord Rud asked, "But why did Sood suffer? Let us have a closer look at that thing he is wearing—"
He reached for the Tie. Kincar pulled back, the only defensive movement he could make. But before those fingers closed upon the stone, Lord Dillan had slapped down that questing hand.
"If you value your skin, you'll leave that alone!" he warned.
"Do you think that I'll be burnt as was Sood? Why—I'm no ignorant native—"
"Sood's fate was aggravated because he wore the mark," Lord Dillan explained almost absently. "But we have no inkling as to the power of these things or how they can be used against alien bodies. And until we do know more, it is wisest not to meddle. I have only seen one before, and that was just for an instant before its destruction by the witch doctor who had been wearing it. We'd overrun his shrine at night and caught him unawares. We'll have plenty of time to deal with this—and its wearer—when we get them to the towers. And that is where we should go at once."
