Star Gate, page 15
They were talking, Kincar thought bitterly, as if he had no identity or will of his own except as a possession of theirs— which, he was forced to admit bleakly, was at that moment the exact truth. The only concession his captors made to the fact that he was flesh and blood was to throw a cloak over his half-bare body after they had put him aboard the flier, to lie, bound wrist and ankle, by their feet.
Vorken had protested such handling, and, for an instant or two, it appeared that she would be destroyed for her impudence. Then the false Lord Dillan decided that her link with Kincar must be thoroughly explored. She was muffled in another cloak and bundled in beside Kincar, where her constant tries for freedom kept the improvised bag bumping up and down.
To fly through the air was a terrifying experience. Kincar had ranged the mountain heights since he had been large enough to keep his seat on a lamg pad and follow Wurd hunting, in the years before the old lord of Styr had been reduced to level country riding and at last to his bed. And Wurd's acquaintance with sheer ledges, far drops, cliff edges had been wide. But to stand with ones' boots planted on solid rock and look out upon nothingness was far different, Kincar discovered, than to rise into that nothingness knowing that under one was only a flat platform of no great thickness.
He fought his panic, that picture his imagination kept in the forepart of his mind of the platform dissolving, of his helpless body turning over and over as it fell to the ground below. How had the Star men been able to travel the sky and the depths of space? Or were they alien to this fe'ar he knew? He wriggled about, but all he could see of the two were their feet. The Star Lords of his own Gorth had had no such fliers. However, they might well accept such traveling as natural.
There was, a windbreak on the front of the platform, and he was lying behind the control seats. Yet the chill of that journey bit deep, and the cloak was but small protection. As the minutes passed, Kincar's panic subsided, and it seemed to him that from the Tie spread a gentle heat to banish the worst of the cold. He had been afraid on the field when the mord hatch had turned their attention to him, but that was an honest fear to be fully understood. Now he knew a queer apprehension, the same quiver of nerves and tenseness of muscles that a swordman knows before the command to charge is given at a spear-festing. He tried to school himself with the knowledge that for him there would probably be no return from this flight.
Against Gorthian captivity a man could plan, foresee. But among the Star Lords what chance had he? There was but one thing—Sood's amazing experience with the Tie and this Lord Dillan's wariness of that same token. A slim advantage—perhaps. He had listened to talk in the mountain hold. There were unseen powers—"energies" the Lord Dillan he followed called them. Some of these energies had activated the between-worlds gates through which they had come into this Gorth. And during that passage the Tie had also proved to be a conductor of energy, as Kincar could prove by a scar he would carry until he passed into the Forest.
The Tie, in addition, might have its own "energies," which would be inimical to the aliens. That night in the forgotten shrine, the talisman had been recharged with the power native to it. It must carry a full supply. If he only knew more of its potentialities! But he had had no desire to follow the Threefold Way, to train as a Man of Power—for he had understood that he could not have the Way and Styr together and his heart had lain with Styr. So all he had to guide him were the mystical invocations of any believer, the legends and half-whispers. Had he been adept with the Tie, what might he not have accomplished—what could he not do?
The flier swooped, and Kincar fought sickness from the resulting flare of panic. Was it falling, coming apart to crash them to the earth?
But the swift descent slowed. Walls flowed up to cut off the light. They might be dropping down the mouth of a well. The flier came to a stop with less force than that with which a foot is set upon the floor, and both Star men arose. They had reached their destination.
Lord Rud made no move toward the captive. It seemed that he disliked laying hand upon Kincar. But Lord Dillan pulled the half-Gorthian up, cut the thongs about his ankles and, surprisingly enough, those about his wrists also. His arms fell heavily to his sides, his hands swollen. Lord Dillan picked up the bag containing Vorken and thrust it at him. He caught it clumsily, making a silent resolve not to display any sign of the intense pain any movement of hands or arms cost him.
"You will walk quietly where you are told." Lord Dillan spoke with the exactitude of one giving orders to a slow-witted child. "For if you do not, you shall be burned with this force stick." He had taken from his belt a rod not unlike the one Kincar had used in suard-hunting. "It will not kill, but the pain will be worse than death by mord, and you shall never be free of it. Do you understand?"
Kincar nodded. He could believe that the Dark One meant exactly what he said and uttered no vain bluff. Could he hope for a speedy death if he attempted flight? Would he flee if that were the end? As long as a man was alive, he could nourish hope, and Kincar had not yet reached the point where he would try for death as a hunter tries for an easy thrust at his prey. Carrying Vorken, he obediently followed Lord Rud out of the chamber where the flier rested, down a sideway, while behind tramped Lord Dillan, weapon in hand.
The living quarters of the fortress at U-Sippar had been of alien workmanship and materials. The narrow passage in which they now walked was as unlike that as that had been from the Gorthian architecture upon which it had been based. Here were no flitting rainbow colors, only an even sheen of gray, which, as he brushed against it, gave to Kincar the feel of metal. And the passage ended after a few feet in a stair ascending in a spiral, the steps no wider than a ladder's treads. Kincar grasped the guard rail, Vorken in the crodk of his left arm. He kept his eyes resolutely on the legs of Lord Rud going up and up, refusing to yield to any temptation to look down into the dizzy well beneath them.
They passed through a series of levels from which ran other passages, emerging from the floor of such a level to climb again through its roof. Kincar could not even speculate upon the nature of the building in which so unusual a staircase formed the core. On the third such level Lord Rud stood away from the stair, turning into a side corridor, and Kincar went after him. So far they might have been in a deserted building. Though the noise of their climbing feet echoed hollowly up and down that well, there had been no other sound to break the quiet, no sign of any guardsman or servant on duty. And there was a queer, indefinable odor— not the dank emanation of the hold walls, of U-Sippar's fortress, but in its way as redolent of a remote past, of something long closed against the freshness of wind and cleansing sunlight.
The passage into which Rud had turned was hardly more than a good stride long. He set his palm flat upon a closed door, and under that touch it rolled back into the wall so that they might enter an odd chamber. It was a half circle, a curved wall ending in a straight one—the shape of a strung bow, the door being in the straight wall. Spaced at intervals along the curved surface were round windows covered with a clear substance strange to Kincar.
A padded bench ran along the wall under the level of the windows, and there was an equally padded covering on the floor and over the walls. Otherwise the room was bare of either inhabitants or furnishings. Lord Rud glanced around and then stepped aside to allow Kincar to enter. When the Gorthian had passed through the door, he went out and the portal closed, leaving Kincar alone.
He pulled loose the covering about Vorken and evaded the exasperated snap of her bill, loosing her on the bench where she waddled along with her queer rolling gait, her claws puncturing its padding and having to be pulled out laboriously at every step. Kincar knelt on the same surface to look from one of the windows.
No U-Sippar lay without. The structure he could survey was totally unlike anything he had seen on either Gorth. Beyond were several towers, not the square stone ones he had known all his life. Fashioned of metal, they caught the sun and reflected its beams in a blaze of fire. All were exactly alike, round with pointed tips that stood tall in the sky. Kincar surmised that a similar building harbored him. Linking all of them together—by pressing tight to the transparent pane he could just make them out—were a series of walls-walls thick enough to contain corridors or rooms. But those were of the native stone. Metal towers—pointed—
Kincar's swollen hands closed upon the edge of the window until he felt the pain of that grip. Not towers—no, not towers. Ships! The sky ships of the Star men—here forever earthbound, built into a weird fortress. He had heard them described too many times by men who had visited Terranna on his own Gorth not to recognize them. Was this the Terranna of this Gorth? It could be nothing less than the heart of the Dark Ones' holdings.
On his own Gorth those ships had gone forth again—out to the stars. Here that must be impossible. They had been anchored to the earth. They had rooted their ships, determined to possess Gorth for all time.
As he studied that strange mating of ship and stone, Kin-car could spot no signs of life. Nothing moved along those walls, showed at any of the round ports that now served as windows. And there was a sense of long absence of tenantry about it all. A storehouse—Kincar could not have told why that particular thought took possession of him nor why the conviction grew that he was right. This must be a storehouse for the aliens. As that it would be well guarded, if not by warriors, then by the magic the Star men controlled. A race who flew through the air without wonder would have weapons mightier than any sword swung by a Hand to protect their secret place.
The age-old thirst that arises in any man at the thought of treasure tempted Kincar. This whole city, fortress, whatever it was, must be thinly populated. If he could get free of his present lodging and explore—I But the door was sealed tightly. Vorken hissed from the bench. She was uneasy in this closed room as she had never been in the hold. Kincar went from one window to another. Three merely showed him other aspects of the tower-ship building, but the other two gave him a view of the countryside.
There were no trees, but odd twisted rocks. Some, with a puff crown of snow, were vaguely familiar. He had certainly seen their like before. Then the vivid memory of their ride through the wasteland desert to the first gate returned. There were no signs of vegetation here, unless its withered remnants lay under the snow. But in the distance was the bluish line of hills, the mark of mountains. And seeing those, Kincar's hopes rose illogically.
Vorken's head bumped against him. She raised a forefoot to scrape his arm and draw his attention. Though none of his race had ever believed the mords lacked intelligence, it was generally conceded that their mental mazes were so alien to that of mankind that communication between the two species was strictly limited to the recognition of a few simple suggestions, mostly dealing with food and hunting. But it was plain that now Vorken was trying to convey something in her own way. And he did what otherwise he would have hesitated to try, since mords were notoriously averse to handling. He sat down on the bench and lifted her to his knees.
She complained with a hiss or two. Then she squatted, her red eyes fastened upon his as if she would force upon him some message. She flapped her wings and mouthed the shrill whistle she gave when sighting game.
Kincar's preoccupation with Vorken was broken by the sudden heat on his breast. The Tie was glowing. Somewhere within the ship-tower an energy was being loosed to which that highly sensitive talisman responded. He hesitated. Should he take it off lest he risk a bad bum and incapacitate himself—or should he continue to wear it?
To his overwhelming surprise, Vorken stretched her skinny neck and butted her head against him, directly over the Tie, before he could fend her away. She pressed tightly to it, lifting her claws in warning when he would have moved her, giving voice to the guttural battle croaks of her kind.
The warmth of the Tie increased as the mord pressed it tightly against him. But that did not appear to disconcert Vorken. Her battle cries stopped. Now she chuckled, the little sound she made when she was very content with her world. And Kincar himself felt relaxed, confident, fast losing his awe of both surroundings and captors.
TRIAL OF STRENGTHS
That sense of well-being persisted. Vorken's beak gaped in a yawn. Her eyes closed as she huddled close, her grotesque head still resting against him. But Kincar felt far from sleepy. Instead he was alert mentally and physically, as he had never been before that he could remember. The feeling that there was no task beyond his accomplishing grew. Was this how the full blood of the Star breed lived? It must bel This supreme confidence in one's self, the certainty that no difficulty was too great—
Kincar laughed softly. And something in that sound struck below the surface of his present well-being, brought a tinge of doubt. Perhaps because of the Tie he was doubly alert to any hint of danger. Did that emotion, the self-confidence, stem from the energy in the talisman, or was it more magic of an alien sort? It would be very easy to work upon a man's mind—if you had the Star resources—to give him an elevated belief in his own powers until he was rendered careless. So very easy.
There was one way of testing that. Kincar lifted the Tie by its chain, slipped the chain over his head, and put down the stone at a short distance from him on the bench. The warmth on his flesh was gone. Vorken stirred. Her head arose as she regarded Kincar with an open question. But he was too preoccupied to watch the mord.
Pressing in upon him, with the force of a blow from a giant's fist, was an overwhelming and devastating panic, a fear so abject and complete that he dared not move, could only get air into his cramped and aching lungs in short gasps. His hands were wet and slippery, his mouth dry, a sickness ate him up inwardly. In all his life he had never known such terror. It was crushing all identity from him, turning him from Kincar into a mindless, whimpering thing! And the worst of it was that he could not put name to the reason for that fear. It was inside him, not from without, and it was filling all of his burnt-out body shell—
Vorken squalled, a scream that tore at his ears. Then the mord struck, raking him with her claws. The pain of her attack broke the spell momentarily. He made a supreme effort, and by its chain drew the Tie back into his hands. In those sweating palms he cupped it tight as Vorken ripped at him. But once he had it, the panic was gone, and when the chain was again over his head, the Tie resting in its old place, he sat weak and shaken, but whole and sane once more—so whole and sane he could not quite believe in what had struck him as viciously as the mord.
Blood trickled from the scratches Vorken had given him. Luckily she had not torn deeply. Now she crouched once more on his knees, turning her head from side to side, giving voice to a whimpering complaint as one of her punishing forefeet raised to the Tie. It was that talisman that had saved them both from utter madness—the why and wherefore of that deliverance being more than Kincar could understand. He could only accept rescue with gratitude.
Kincar had left Styr with no more training than any youth who could confidently aspire to the lordship of a holding, and a small, mountain holding at that. He had ridden away under the shock of the abrupt revelation of his half-blood, unable to quite accept that heritage. Wurd's secret gift of the Tie, with all that meant, had been an additional push along a new path of life. His painful experience at the gates, and his acceptance thereafter by Lord Dillan and the Lady Asgar as one who had rightful guardianship of a power they respected, had tempered him yet more. Perhaps his volunteering for the expedition into the lowlands had been born of a spirit of adventure, rooted in the quality that sent any young warrior to a spear-festing. But with it had gone the knowledge that he alone of the hold was fitted for that journey—
What had happened that night in the forest shrine he did not understand. He was no adept to be able to recall the work of the Three. But now he believed that he had ridden away from there subtly altered from the Kincar who had taken shelter. This last ordeal might be another milepost on his road. He would not be as the Star Lords, nor as the ruler of Styr that he might have been had Jord not taken from him that future—but a person he was not yet able to recognize.
Kincar was sure he was no mystic, no seeker of visions, or wielder of strange powers. What he was—now—he did not know. Nor did he have the time to become acquainted. It was better to accept the ancient beliefs of his people—his mother's people—and think that he was a tool, mayhap a weapon, for the use of the Three, that all he did was in Their service.
There was a security in that belief. And just now more than anything else he desired security, to trust in something outside his own shaken mind and body.
He had been right in his surmise that he would be allowed scant time for self-examination. The door of the chamber rolled back into the wall. Vorken hissed, flapped her wings, and would have taken to the air in attack had not Kincar, fearing for her life, made a hasty grab for her feet.
Lord Dillan stood there. He did not speak at once, but, though he did not display surprise by any sign readable to Kincar, the latter thought his alertness astonished the other.
"Slave—" The harsh grate of the Star Lord's voice was meant to sting, as the whips of the Hands had stung their miserable captives.
Kincar stared as steadily back. Did the Dark One expect from him a cringing plea for nonexistent mercy?
Now the wand of power was in Dillan's hands as he spoke again.
"We have underestimated you it seems, fellow!"
"It appears that you did, Lord." The words came to Kincar as if someone else who stood apart and watched this scene selected them for his saying.
"Rud's offspring in truth!" Lord Dillan laughed. "Only our own kin could stand up against a conditioner set at that leveL Let him try to deny this to the council. Come—you!"
He gestured and Kincar went. Vorken had struggled free of his grip and now balanced on his shoulder, a process made painful by her claws. Yet he was glad to have her with him, a steadying reminder of that other Gorth where a man could not be so beset by magic.
