Andre Norton - Ice Crown

VIP免费

2024-12-24 0 0 1.64MB 89 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

closing her eyes, tensed her slight body until it ached. One could argue

intelligently (she could hear Uncle Offlas now with that odious patience which

always colored his voice when making any explanation to her) that such

discomfort was all mental. If you fastened your mind on something else, the

sensation of being entombed alive while in the express bolt would disappear.

But she lay now in the padded interior of the speeding bullet and tried to

endure. Though she did fight her fear—the thought of smothering here —Roane

clenched her fists, bit hard on her under lip. The pain of that helped.

According to Uncle Offlas you could overcome anything if you willed it.

Unfortunately, she fell far below his standards. Now that she bad a chance to

prove she was worth something to his plans, she must not spoil it. Why, even

the department head at Cram-brief had envied her this chance. And it was only

because she was Offlas Keil's niece that she had it. The expedition to Clio

would be a family affair —Project Director Keil, his son Sandar, and Roane.

She tried to breathe evenly and slowly, to keep her eyes shut, forget where

she was now, and think only of the goal before her. Maybe once in a hundred,

no, closer to a thousand times, did something like this happen. And she was so

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

lucky to be a part of it. Only right now, even her brain felt tired. All that

cramming! She— Well, it was like being an osbper sponge set in a pool and

given the command to absorb. Only she could not swell the way those did; she

had to pack it all behind bone and flesh which was not able to expand. By

rights her head ought to be so heavy with all that the briefing computers had

hammered into it that she could not hold it upright. Clio was one of the

sealed planets. Yet because of the circumstances Uncle Offlas had definite

orders to land there, to stay as long as it would take them to locate the

treasure. Treasure! The very word gave one a shiver-though this treasure was

nothing that anyone but a member of the Service would want. Real

treasure—precious, beautiful things—would not interest Offlas Keil at all. He

might glance over it to classify it by historical period, but to him such

would be toys. However, knowledge of the Forerunners—that was something else.

And this treasure had been pinpointed by a hint there, a clue here, stretching

over years of sifting, to a single general area on Clio. Because Clio was a

sealed world, the final stages of their search must be conducted in complete

secrecy, as quickly as possible, using Service devices. And the Project

demanded as small a task force as was necessary. Which had sent Roane to

Cram-brief to learn as much of Clio as she might need to know. She wondered

what it would be like to live on a closed planet (not for the period of days

they would set down there but for a lifetime). Of course, the whole theory

which had established the closed planets was wrong; such manipulation of human

beings broke the Four Laws. Clio had been settled two, maybe three hundred

years ago when the Psychocrats dominated the Confederation, before the

Overturn of 1404. It was the third such experimental planet rediscovered,

though there were rumors that there had been more, no one knew how many. The

blasting of the Forqual Center during the revolt of the Overturn had destroyed

most records. All those worlds had been chosen as sites for projects which

were the particular interest of one of the Hierarchy of the Psychocrats. The

original colonists, braincleared, given false implanted memories, were settled

in communities which to their briefed minds seemed natural to their new

worlds. They were then left to work out new types of civilization, or a lack

of civilization—to be watched secretly at intervals. When such inhabited test

planets were now rediscovered, they were declared closed. For none of the

authorities could be sure what the impact of the truth might do to their

peoples. Less advanced they were, as well as mutated on at least one planet.

But on Clio the inhabitants were entirely human, though they were living in an

archaic way, much as Roane's ancestors had lived several hundred years before

space flight What the Psychocrat who had established Clio had been aiming for

was now not certain. But the Service thought he had set up something akin to

the old Europa plan known on Terra. The large eastern continent had been

divided into an irregular pattern of small kingdoms. The two western

continents had been otherwise "seeded" with "natives" at a far more primitive

level of culture—wandering tribes of hunters. And then they had all been left

to their own devices. On the eastern continent a series of wars for

territorial expansion had ended with the establishment of two large nations,

fronting each other uneasily across a border of small buffer states which

still possessed their freedom, mainly because the two great powers were as yet

unready to strike at each other. Intrigues, minor skirmishes, the rise and

fall of dynasties were all a part of life on Clio. It was, to an onlooker from

the stars, a giant game, though one in which lives were lost by a badly

managed stroke of play. In the west the tribesmen, too, fought each other;

but since they remained on a more primitive level, the cost in blood had not

yet been so great. However, Roane need not consider them. It was on the

eastern land mass that her party would make their secret landing, in one of

those small buffer states between the great powers. "Reveny," she said aloud

now, "the Kingdom of Reveny." It was a strange word and she had had difficulty

at first in pronouncing it. But no stranger than a lot of otherworld names,

some of them so utterly alien they could not be shaped or voiced by human

vocal cords. She had viewed the tri-dees of the site where they would do

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

their prospecting, often enough to make the countryside familiar. But this was

an old duty, part of her wandering life. Uncle Offlas had taken her along,

sometimes like excess baggage, from world to world during his own wanderings

as an expert on Forerunner archaeology. Roane liked what she had been shown

of Reveny. The district they must comb for their purposes was, luckily,

sparsely settled, being mountainous and forested. Part was a hunting preserve

for the royal family. The only settlement was one of verderers and keepers.

The rest of the inhabitants were shepherds who moved their charges seasonally

from range to range. If the off-worlders had luck and were cautious, as they

must be, they would have no contact with any of these. In the tri-dees it

seemed a story tape come to life. There were actual castles with sky-pointing

towers, colorful towns with crooked streets (so unlike the ordered dwelling

blocks of her own people), and—But she must remember that it was very

primitive. Wars were still fought across those fields. Roane shuddered,

remembering a couple of tapes which had revolted both her mind and her queasy

stomach. The people of Reveny were, as far as could be determined, still

under some type of conditioning process. Or else the initial training had been

so complete as to repersonalize their descendants as well. She would

undoubtedly find them as alien emotionally and metally, as they were akin to

her bodily. That if she had any meeting with them at all. The sway of the

bullet holding her slackened. She opened her eyes as it came to a stop. With a

sigh of thanksgiving that that ordeal was behind her, Roane disembarked to

look around. "You're late-" She turned eagerly, instinctively smoothing down

the flare of her overtunic. Not that it would matter to Sandar whether she

looked as rumpled as a wart skin, as she well knew. But it would be nice if he

saw her, just once, as a girl and not an encumbrance. "There was a delay at

the Metro thrust," she said quickly and then felt provoked. Why was she always

in the wrong with Sandar and his father? If there was any delay, any

difficulty, it always involved her, never them. She tried to put aside the

need for apology as she looked at her cousin. He had not changed, not fallen

from his normal superiority. Though why should he in a matter of only two

months? There was no reason why he should have shrunk from the height he

carried so well, grown irregular features in place of those almost-

too-handsome ones, been denuded of the charm he was willing to exert for

everyone but her. Sandar could wear the grimed coverall of a tubeman and still

look like a tri-dee hero. In the Service tunic he was still Sandar the Great.

She had heard him named that once by a girl she had met back on Varch. The

fact that she was his cousin sometimes made her temporarily popular, just long

enough for it to take other girls to learn how little influence she had with

him. "Come on!" He was already walking away and she had to trot to catch up.

"We have just half an hour to reach the field before countdown." He kept to

that long stride and she had to hop-skip to match it. Resentment began to stir

in her. When she was away from Sandar, Roane always hoped they could be

friends. But when they were face to face again she knew how stupid that hope

was. "My kit-" she cried. "It came through. I stashed it in a holder." "But

we have to get it. Which way—" He was heading for the outside door. Now he

reached out and his fingers closed firmly, and none too gently, about her arm

above the elbow. "We haven't time, I told you. If you're late you'll have to

take the consequences. And you won't need what's in it. There are full

supplies on board ship." "But—" Roane wanted to dig in her heels, pull back

from his highhandedness. Only she knew he was perfectly capable of dragging

her along by force. She saw the set of his mouth—Sandar was in a rage about

something and he would make her the target of that anger if she gave him a

chance. Her shoulders sagged. Once more she was caught in the old pattern.

Her two months at Cram-brief had given her a false confidence in herself. Just

how false she now realized. She would have to leave her kit locked somewhere

in this hateful building. That she would not be bereft of necessities she

knew. Uncle Offlas traveled with the highest degree of comfort any project

allowed. But there were personal things—some which had been a part of her for

a long time. It was hateful of Sandar, a bad start for the trip. She stood

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

quietly, still captive in his hold, as he hailed a transport flitter. Captive,

yes; resigned, no. Somehow she was going to get the better of Sandar—somehow,

someday. She stared down at her hands as the flitter spiraled up with them.

They were small and brown; her skin was several shades darker than Sandar's.

That both he and her uncle resented her mixed blood, she knew. Sometimes

Sandar acted as if he did not even want to look at her. The port was busy

with four ships on the pads—one a stellar liner embarking a number of

passengers. They swooped past its tall column to settle by a much smaller

ship, which bore the insignia of Survey. Roane managed to avoid Sandar's hand

and made for the ramp, trotting up it as she had so many times before. She

fed her ident into the port checker, saw the welcome light flash. A crewman

stood a little beyond., "Gentle Fem Hume." He consulted a ship map. "Third

level, Cabin 6, ten minutes to countdown," She made for the ladder hurriedly,

wanting to reach the privacy of her own cabin with no more interference from

Sandar. And she did, throwing herself on the bunk, although the warning bell

had not yet sounded, snapping the protective take-off webbing into place. The

cabin was the standard one of a junior officer. There were cupboards in every

possible section of wall space, plus a narrow slit of curtained door which

must give on a cramped sliver of a stand-fresher. The bunk she lay on was

comfortable enough, but the furnishings were all regulation. There was no sign

of personal possessions about the dreary cell. If someone had been shifted for

her, he had taken all his belongings with him. Once more she wondered what it

would be like to have a real, set-on-a-planet, immovable home where one dared

accumulate things one fancied and enjoyed to look upon just because they were

beautiful, or reminded one of some happy time, or were fun to own. If Uncle

Offlas had ever had such desires, they were long since lost. And Sandar seemed

not to care. She hoped what he had said of complete equipment on board was

true. Of course, on a dig one wore Service dress—a one-piece coverall of

material suited to the climate, fashioned for hard use. And she had long known

that any of the luxuries of feminine life, such as scents or the cosmetics

that planet-rooted women dared to use, were not for her. There was a warning

clang overhead, the signal for last countdown. Roane snuggled deeper into the

bunk's protective cocoon. Here they went again, for the—she was not sure she

could even reckon now the number of times she had gone through the same

procedure. Would there ever be an end to such wayfaring for her? It was a

voyage like any other. As soon as they were in hyper Uncle Offas sent for her

to put her through a searching examination of what she had learned. He did

not signify at the end any more than that she would do, providing she kept her

mind strictly on her work. He then gave her a load of tapes and a reader and

ordered her to make the best use of space time she could. She dared not

protest, since she knew that sooner or later he would demand an accounting

from her. The voyage was as dull as most. On a liner, where there were many

pastimes to amuse passengers, travel might be fun. But certainly Uncle Offlas

thought that such intervals between jobs were for study only. They made

landfall at last—that is, their ship went into orbit well above Clio, and they

packed themselves and their gear into an LB, the standard type of small

lifesaving craft, which had been specially modified for a directed landing. It

was twilight when their meticulously planned descent brought them to the

surface of the planet. All three of them hurried to unload the supplies and

instruments, for the LB had a time setting to return it to the parent ship.

And even that would then withdraw into a longer orbit. Though any sky

watchers on Clio would not recognize a star ship, yet there might be talk of

any strange appearance in their sky. The first thing Roane was aware of as she

manhandled out the boxes and containers was the wonderful freshness of the

air. After the stale, recirculated atmosphere of the ship this was like

breathing a subtle scent. She drew it deeply into her lungs. They had no time

really to look about until the last of the equipment was out. Uncle Offlas

slammed the hatch and jumped back as the LB bounded up. Even during the short

time of the unloading, twilight had deepened into night. Roane sat back on a

box and brought out from the inner pocket of her coveralls a pair of night

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

lenses. With these on she looked around. They were in a glade surrounded by

tall trees. Several bushes had been squashed by the LB, splintered and

flattened, and the boxes they had tumbled out had torh and gouged up chunks of

moss. Uncle Offlas had a small map and was glancing from it to the right and

left as if he hunted landmarks. Meanwhile Sandar forced open one of the padded

containers and brought out a box which he balanced on his knees, bending close

to read the dials on its top. He set two of these, then reached for another

twin box to do the same. "Good enough. Put it about twelve—no, perhaps twenty

paces in that direction." Uncle Offlas pointed left. Til do the same with

this." He picked up the second box. Once those distorts were working they

could set up camp. The distorts would prevent any unauthorized invasion of

either man or beast native to this planet. Each member of their own party

wore, clipped to the front of his belt, the broadcast which would nullify the

effect for him. By midnight they were settled in. Under Uncle Offlas's expert

handling a working laser had cut a pit as deep in the ground as Sandar was

tall. Over this arose, for more than an arm's length, a weather dome, which in

turn was concealed by greenery which had been stass-sprayed not to wither for

days. Their equipment, moved within, formed narrow partitions for three small

cubbies and one larger one. And they dared to turn on a camp-sized beamer

there while each prowled in turn around the clearing to inspect for any

betraying light. For a time they must work by night, sleep by day. Roane was

tired enough to yawn her way to sleep as soon as she was free to curl up in

her own cubby. Near by were the detects and as soon as it became dusk again

she would take one in hand and begin her first sweep of the area. Sandar would

go in the opposite direction, while his father was in charge of assembling the

com, setting out the other tools they would need as soon as a detect gave them

a lead. It was apparent that Offlas seemed very sure they would find what they

sought. In the past his confidence had never been so high. It was as if he had

complete assurance they would make their find shortly. Such belief was

infectious. Roane almost expected to be able to report success on her first

scouting trip. But she did not; neither did Sandar. And the third night they

ranged farther afield, guided back to camp by distort signals. While it was

impossible to get lost, Roane found that venturing alone into the wilderness

made her slightly uneasy. She had never been completely by herself before. On

board ship there was the cramped feeling, even in a private cabin, of other

lives close by, just as the lifeless air one breathed had, as one well knew,

been recycled many times. But here—with the night lenses to give her clear

vision, she began to feel at last oddly free. Midway through the fourth night

she climbed a ridge, swinging the detect on its strap over her shoulder, using

both hands to pull herself up. It had rained earlier and the grass tufts and

the branches which slapped at her were moisture-laden. But the waterproofing

of her clothing kept her body dry, and she relished the feel of the droplets

on her face and hands, even though they plastered her short hair lankly to her

skull. Roane had passed by a road earlier, in fact had tumbled into it when a

sleek clay surface made her slip. It had been an odd hollow, boring through

greenery which grew on grassy banks taller than her head, and it was

overarched with a lacing of boughs which roofed it. Whether this had been done

by purpose to make a tunnel hidden from sight or was merely the result of

unchecked growth she did not know. But the surface was rutted and scored with

hoofprints to tell her it was in good use. And she had hurried to climb out,

using a broken branch to sweep away her own tracks there. This ridge lay at

right angles to that road and well above it. She did not get to her feet as

she reached its crest, but squirmed along so that she would not be silhouetted

against the sky. The moon was now well up and bright. Thus her sight of what

lay below was very plain. Roane substituted distance lenses for the night ones

to study the scene carefully. For there was a village-sized collection of

buildings. Almost directly below was the major one. It consisted of two

square towers about five stories high, connected by a building looking to be

no more than one room wide but rising three stories. The towers and the roof

of the smaller portion were all parapeted and there was a tall outer wall

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

completely encircling the building. Two or three of the very narrow windows

showed faint gleams of light, late as the hour was. The tower nearest her had

a gate giving on a garden which ran to the very foot of the ridge. The garden

itself was cut by walks gleaming white-bright in the moonlight and there were

beds of flowers formally arranged. But what kept Roane from withdrawing at

once was that there were men busy in the garden. They worked in pairs, six in

all, and the couples were setting up in the ground posts which supported large

grotesque figures. Each one of these weird effigies bore on one forelimb an

oval shield painted with a complicated sign, while the other forepaw, or claw,

gripped the pole of a small banner. These were being placed in line to face

the lower story of the tower, and the work seemed to be no light task. The

effigies were of animals or birds, or in one case a crowned and shrouded

human-oid thing. But all were strange to Roane and she wondered if they had

some allegorical significance. Why they must be put in place in the middle of

the night was the puzzle, and she watched until the last was braced in place.

Then the men disappeared toward the buildings along a single cobbled street

running to the main gate in the wall. Outside the fortress-like wall there

were two lines of houses built of the same stone as the keep, but they were

much smaller, the largest only two stories high. Their roofs were slabs of

stone slanting sharply from the peaks, the ends of those turning up to be

carved into heads of beasts. It was a keep, a village, in miniature. And

though it looked different from the tri-dee she had been shown, she knew it

for Hitherhow—the principal royal hunting lodge of Reveny. Did the setting up

of the figures mean that the King was coming? If so, what would such activity

in the forest mean to her own party? Of course the distorts would protect

them. But if there were many hunters abroad, they would have to hide until

tiie chase was over, and Uncle Offlas was not going to take kindly to that

loss of time. *2* "What did they say in briefing?" Uncle Offlas was pacing

up and down, chewing at his thumbnail, an old sign of deep thought. Now he

rounded on Roane with that question. "Who might be coming—the King?" "King

Niklas is an old man, judging by planet years—would he be hunting?" "I am

asking you. You saw the tri-dees the snooper robots brought in." "They

weren't sure about anything. If it isn't the King—" Roane thought of the

possibilities. "His children are all dead. He has one granddaughter—Princess

Ludorica—" Sandar laughed. "Now that's a mouth filler! How do they think up

such names?" "Be quiet! A princess—who else?" Uncle Offlas demanded. "Why

does it matter?" His son refused to be subdued. "It matters a great deal, you

fool! The rank of the hunter can govern the number of followers he brings

along." Sandar flushed. Uncle Offlas was really upset or he would never have

been so short with his son. She hurried to tell the rest she knew.

,, "There's a Duke Reddick, a distant cousin of the King but a lot younger.

That's all the snoops picked up." "With all the preparations you saw"—Uncle

Offlas fretted his lower lip with the nail he had been chewing on earlier—"it

has to be one of the royal line. If it's the Princess we may be a fraction

safer—she might be less keen on hunting. But I don't like such activity so

close. It might be well to take day watches until we do know who comes. Time!"

He balled his right hand into a fist and brought it down forcibly into the

palm of the left. "We have to make the best time we can. The longer we remain

planet-planted, the better chance of discovery—" Sandar's head was up, he was

sniffing the rising wind. "There'll be cover today; storm coming. But it won't

be good to be out in it-" His father had swung around in the same direction.

The thin gray of dawn did seem to be more dusky than usual. And they could all

see massing clouds. "Several hours before that breaks. Roane," he said to

her, "you take first watch, before the storm. Report in with this if it is

needful." He handed her a wrist com. "And work your way in from the north;

these foresters are trained trackers. Sandar, you set out the extra distorts.

I didn't want to use up the charges so fast, but now there is a need. Ill put

a repell as well as a distort into working order." Roane sighed but not

audibly. She did not relish crawling the long way back to the ridge. But in

spite of being tired, and chancing discovery by storm, the thought of watching

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the pocket castle was exciting. And inwardly she was surprised that Uncle

Offlas had set her to it. Except that Sandar knew more about setting

distorts. She slipped inside the camp and crammed some of the sustaining, if

tasteless, E rations into her coverall. There was no reason to go hungry, and

her stomach already felt empty. Circling north brought her into new

territory. She could waste no time in exploration, but she did all she could

to wipe out traces of her passing, being careful to snap no branch and to

smear out any boot track in the forest muck. This delayed her, so that the

gray was lighter when she again reached the ridge. She had made one discovery

during her travels, a second tower set in the woods, brush growing so high

about it that it was almost masked. There was no door closing the opening in

its side and the place had the appearance of long disuse. Perhaps it was an

abandoned ruin. She would have liked to explore it and promised herself she

would when she had the chance. Now she watched both village and castle. There

were lights in plenty at the windows. And she could see people moving about.

The wooden figures were bright with color, and the flags they held snapped in

the wind. Roane was so intent on the scene that she was startled by a rising

call, saw a man on the castle parapet wearing a brightly colored overtunic

raise a horn to his lips to answer that. Riders were coming down into the

village, led by a man who managed his reins with one hand while he blew a horn

for a series of calls. Behind him rode another in the same fantastic clothing,

the tunic overlaid on the breast in an intricate design. There was a small

troop of six then, riding in military formation, wearing metal helmets and

carrying bared swords in formal salute. Behind them came two riders, followed

by a longer train of armed men. One of the riders was a woman, her long skirt

flapping on either side of her mount as if it were slit. The skirt was of a

deep forest-green, and her tight jacket was of the same shade, though it bore

braiding of silver in spirals across the breast. From this height Roane could

not see her face, for she had the collar of a cloak turned up about her

throat, though the rest of its folds had been pushed well back on her

shoulders. And on her head was a broad-brimmed hat ornamented with a cockade

of long yellow feathers. Her companion was in the same green from the boots on

his feet to the narrow-brimmed, high-crowned hat on his head. Roane could see

little of his face either, though-by his dress he must be of the high

nobility. The villagers had turned out to greet the company. Men waved their

caps, women curtsied. And the woman rider raised one hand in salute. All the

mounts were Astrian duocorns and thus the fact was brought home to Roane that

this was indeed a settlers' culture, established at the whim of a mind half

the galaxy away, with the resources of many planets to call upon. These beasts

were smaller and lighter than those Roane had seen before. But there was no

mistaking their curved sets of horns as they tossed their heads, even danced a

little. Roane watched the party enter the courtyard of the keep, the woman

and the green-clad man dismounting before the main door. He bowed from the

waist and offered her his wrist, she touching her fingers to it formally. It

was like watching a living story tape and Roane was enthralled. The brilliant

colors, the people did not seem real, rather story-inspired, and she could not

believe in them. It was one thing to have such reported on snooper tape,

another to see it in action. She slipped away from her post reasonably sure of

one thing, that it was the Princess Ludorica who had just arrived. Who the

man might be, Roane could not guess; any member of the Revenian nobility from

Duke Reddick down. She held to caution in her retreat, knowing she must take

the roundabout way back. And the time so spent brought the storm upon

her. Suddenly it was night-dark, so that if she had not had her night lenses

she would have been lost. Wind caught the crowns of the trees with a fury

which frightened her. Roane had been on many worlds; she had known storms of

wind, of drenching rain, of whirling sand, wind-driven grit to scrape the skin

raw. But then she had been in such cover as their camps afforded, sheltered

from the full force of such gales. Now, caught in the open, her nerve almost

broke. She must find shelter. And for that there was only the ruined tower.

With what strength she had left she headed for it. Rain added to the hammer

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

blows of the wind. Branches splintered and fell. Roane cowered away from one

jagged club. The whip of lightning lashed across the dark, to be followed by a

crack of deafening thunder. And the tree to which she now clung, thick and

sturdy as it seemed, swayed under the pull of the gale. She could not stay

there, but dared she try to go on? There was another bolt of lightning, which

found a target not too far away. Roane screamed, her voice swallowed by the

thunder, and tried to run, beating at the bushes to force a path. Then she saw

ahead the mouthlike doorway of the tower. Once she gained that, she held

tight, panting and gasping. Her clothing, meant to be waterproof, had kept her

body dry. But her hair was plastered to her head; water dribbled across her

face and into her half-open mouth. For a moment or two out there she had felt

as if the force of the storm had torn away her breath. Now she recovered

enough to move on in, and then dared to use the beamer, set on its lowest

power, to inspect what lay about her. To her surprise there was furniture

here. But as she went closer she could see that its presence was probably due

only to the fact that it could not have been moved except by the greatest of

effort. There was a table hewn from a single thick slab of dark-red stone

which was veined with thin lines of gold that glittered even in the weak light

when she smeared away a deposit of dust. Inset in the top of this was a series

of squares, alternating red and white, perhaps to form a playing board for

some game. Facing each other across this slab, which was mounted on round

balls of legs, were two chairs lacking legs at all, the seats being square

boxes with the high backs and wide arms. Both arms and backs were carved, the

gray dust filling the hollows of the patterns until they could hardly be

distinguished. Against one wall was a massive chest, also carved. And beyond

it was a stair set against the wall, the outer edge unguarded by any rail,

fashioned of the same stone as the walls, not quite as ted as that of the

table, but a dull rust shade. There were, in addition, two tall standards of

rust-encrusted metal, the tops of which were level with Roane's shoulder. Each

of these held a lamp, a bowl with a support for a wick. A drift of leaves and

soil spread inward from the doorless entrance. Roane went to the stair and

began to climb, pointing the beamer to where the steps disappeared into a dark

opening above. It was when she came out on the second level that she

discovered that the tower, which had appeared three stories high from without,

was really only two. If there had ever been a third floor above, it either had

been wood and rotted away or had been removed. She flashed the beamer up there

to see only stone and mighty beams. This second room had furnishings also:

two more of the lamp standards, plus a chest, and on a step dais a wide bed

frame of the same wood which formed the massive chairs below. It was in the

form of an oblong box, full of an evil-smelling layer of what might have been

rotted fabric, perhaps the remains of bed linen left to molder away. There

were windows, narrow slits, without any protection against the wind and rain

which now drove spears of damp across the floor. Another bolt of lightning

made the whole room brilliant. And then followed such a burst of thunder that

Roane dropped the beamer and cowered against the chest, her eyes squeezed

shut, hands over her ears. It seemed to her the thunder filled the tower,

which shook from the blast. Even when it had gone she was too weak with sheer

terror to move. She had never known such natural fury before and it made her a

prisoner. How long that panic lasted—it could well have been more than one

hour, even two—she never knew, but finally she began to think again. Uncle

Offlas—Sandar—they were in the woods. Could the camp stand up to such a storm

as this? What if the lightning hit—or a tree crashed down? She fumbled with

her wrist com, tried to tap a code call. But she listened in vain for any

reply. The storm must be cutting off reception. If there was any longer a

receiver— Although the wind still moaned around the tower and now and then

she heard a crash as if some branch or even tree fell, the very worst of the

storm seemed spent. Roane brushed off the top of the chest, testing it

gingerly lest it splinter under her weight, and then sat there, bringing out

an E-ration tube and making a meal from its contents. So heartened, she used

the beamer once more and made a careful examination of the room. That the

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

tower had ever been a dwelling place she doubted, in spite of the bed. Perhaps

it had been intended for just the use she was now putting it to, a shelter for

storm-stayed hunters. The evil smell of the bed, which was growing stronger

in the dank air, had kept her away from that portion of the room. But finally

she ventured to approach it. The bed itself was like a box without a lid, the

cavity holding the rotten stuffs. At the four corners stood carven posts,

matched as well as tools could sculpture to the bark of trees, vines twined

about in high relief, now much masked by thick spider webs which held dust and

mummified insects to form a nasty draping. But there was a small open space

between the tall head (also much carven and possessing several niches in which

were set miniatures of the bigger lamps) and the wall of the tower. The beamer

there showed Roane something odd, a series of holes hollowed into the stone,

as if they were a ladder by which one might mount to the rafters overhead.

Turning the beamer on to full, she traced those as high as she could and found

that they did lead to one of the great crossbeams. This had the suggestion of

a secret way, which it would have been in truth had the walls been covered

with any form of tapestry or hanging. She was tempted to take that climb. But

prudence argued that she had better be on her way again, ready to leave the

tower as soon as the storm slackened a little more. And she knew she must go

when the lightning, which she feared the most, ceased. Only she was too late.

Hovering at the door, watching the rain, debating whether or not she dared

chance it, Roane saw a flash of color, heard the high nicker of a duocorn.

Some hunters storm-stayed like herself? She jerked back, looked at the floor

where the pattern of her tracks had been only a little blurred by her restless

coming and going. She jerked open the seal of her coverall and brought out a

scarf mask. Using that as best she could, whisk-fashion, she retreated to the

stair and the only hiding place she could think of —behind the head of the bed

above. Though she had snapped off the beamer at once, there was enough

grayish light for her to grope aloft. And she reached the upper story none too

soon. She was no more than into the bedroom when she heard voices, the

tramping of feet below. No more taking chances. She had already been far too

reckless. Roane squeezed between the head of the bed and the cold of the wall,

her hands covering her nose against the putrid scent of the bed stuffs. She

could not see now—the wood before her had no cracks. But she could hear. The

newcomers did not speak Basic, of course. But her briefing had given her a

working knowledge of the Rev-eny tongue. And now she began to pick up words.

They were coming up the stairs, how many she could not tell, though she tried

hard to distinguish voices and number of footsteps. Now and again there was a

metallic clang as if something had struck the wall, followed by exclamations

she could not translate but thought were curses. They moved out into the

chamber and she could hear their speech plainly now. "—ride on in this? Are

you empty between the ears?" "—not like it—" The second voice was hardly above

a mumble. "Back of my hand to him then! I tell you, this is as safe a place to

keep her as the underway at Keveldso. Dump her in the bed there, snap this

leash on her, and we can wait out the rain below. Think you she can turn

herself into a snake maybe to get out one of those windows? And with us

sitting nice and easy down here she is not going to come tripping down the

stairs and do a flit. Nor is she going to slip this here leash neither. That

is made of good sword steel and the collar's made to hold one of His Grace's

direhounds. Try it, go ahead, try it, man." There came the sound of metal

clinking. "We snap this right around her throat, so. Now she cannot get away

withouten this key, and that goes right here on my belt latching. I weren't a

hound help for nothing, not that I weren't glad to get away from those kennels

neither!" "He will not like-" "Would he like it more if we was squashed into

a jelly by some tree coming down on us? You saw what happened to Larkin. Made

you sick, didn't it just? Maybe he has plans for this little bird, but those

don't include having her smashed up—not just yet. He said to see she kept on

breathing, and he said that firm, as you heard him." "Yes—" But it seemed to

Roane that agreement was made with reluctance. Once more she heard the clink

of metal, then a laugh, and the first speaker continued: "Nobody is going to

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

break that. She's as well tethered as if she was half walled in this place.

Come away and let her lie. Better do nothing to rouse her up; she is enough

trouble limp. She was a fighting cor-cat before Larkin gave her that little

love tap." Tramp of feet, the sound of them on the stairway. Roane dared to

breathe more deeply. The fetid odor of the bedding was worse, as the settling

of the captive within its box had stirred up the nasty remains. How long would

she have to hide? And could she stay where she was at all? That stench made

her sick. She wished she had not eaten the E ration in spite of her

hunger. There was no sound in the room, though any slight one would be

covered by the rising wind. The dying of the storm seemed to have been only a

lull. It was getting worse again. From the words of the men she was sure that

whoever they left here was unconscious. And she must have more air or she

would be sick. She could slip along the wall, gain the open beyond the bed by

one of the windows. It did not matter that rain was blowing in again; she must

have the clean wind on her face. But Roane moved with due caution, stopping

every few inches to listen. And when she finally got from behind the headboard

she froze to watch the head of the stair. There was a faint glow of light from

below. They must have brought a lantern with them. But the room was dusky with

thick shadows. She took another step, heard the rattle of metal, tensed

again, turning her head to look at the bed. A dark figure arose from the muck

which filled it. And the smell aroused by that stirring brought a coughing,

quickly muffled, as if the cougher was trying very hard to subdue those

racking spasms. Another flash of the revealing lightning burst. There was a

girl in the bed, holding both hands over her mouth and nose, her shoulders

shaking. And over those muffled hands her eyes were wide open, looking

straight into Roane's. *3* Roane moved without any conscious volition, at

least afterward she could remember none. When she was thinking again she found

herself face down in the stinking morass of the bed, a struggling body pinned

under her. One of her hands was across the girl's mouth, and Roane was using

her own weight to try to subdue the other's struggles. There was a sharp pain

in Roane's gagging hand and she snatched it away instinctively. The girl had

bitten her. But the shrieks she feared might follow did not come. Instead the

other spoke in a low voice: "Why try to smother me, you dolt?" Roane jerked

away, nursing her bitten hand. She fumbled her beamer out of its belt loop,

set it on low, and turned it on. And with her hand about it for a shield, she

held it full upon the other. The pale face caught in that light was streaked

with black smears; dark hair tumbled about it. Below the determined chin was a

broad metal collar, and from that a chain stretched into the dark. The girl

caught at the collar with both hands, worried at it, though she continued to

stare straight at the light as if seeking Roane behind it. "If you are not

one with the offal below," she said in a whisper, "then who are you?" "I came

here to shelter from the storm," Roane said evasively, in a whisper even more

constrained. "I heard them bringing you and I hid." "Where?" The girl asked

that eagerly as if the answer held some desperate meaning for her. Roane

switched the light so it touched the headboard as a pointer. "Behind that.

There is space enough." "But where you were does not tell me who you are,"

the girl returned sharply. "I am the Princess Ludorical" And there was a note

in her voice which canceled out the dirt streaks on her face, the clinging

stench, the collar that confined her. Roane looked at that collar, and in her

a small spark of anger flared. By all the urging of her training she should

leave here right now. She could use that niche ladder. By the strongest oaths

known to her people she was pledged not to make any contacts. Revenian

quarrels were no concern for off-worlders. The old laws On noninterference

were strictly enforced. And yet—that collar— "I am not of Reveny," she said,

evading once again, striving to keep her answer as low as she could. "Thus

making this matter none of your affair?" the Princess snapped. "What are you

then, a Vordainian spy? Or perhaps a smuggler from over-border? He who will

not reveal his face nor speak his name cannot thereafter be troubled if we see

him as a walking evil." She repeated the last as if she quoted some saying.

"Can you be bought? My offer will be very high—" Roane wondered at the calm

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

IceCrownCopyright©1970byAndreNorton*1*Roanefoughtagainstclosinghereyes,tensedherslightbodyuntilitached.Onecouldargueintelligently(shecouldhearUncleOfflasnowwiththatodiouspatiencewhichalwayscoloredhisvoicewhenmakinganyexplanationtoher)thatsuchdiscomfortwasallmental.Ifyoufastenedyourmindonsomethingels...

展开>> 收起<<

Andre Norton - Ice Crown.pdf

共89页,预览18页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Andre Norton - Ice Crown

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: