Norton, Andre - No night without stars

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Norton - No Night Without StarseVersion 3.1 - see revision notes at end of text
NO NIGHT WITHOUT STARS
by
Andre Norton
PAGINATION
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The thick plume of the greasy-looking black smoke rising from beyond the ridge
was warning enough. Sander slipped off Rhin, crept up-slope, his mount padding
behind him with the same caution. They had seen no campsite for days, and the
provision bag, still knotted to the pad strapped about Rhin, was empty. Hunger
was a discomfort within Sander. This land had been singularly empty of game for
the past twenty-four hours. And a handful or two of grain, pulled, barely ripe,
out of a straggle of stalks, was far from filling.
Five days ago Sander had passed the boundaries of the territory known to Jak’s
Mob. When he had ridden out of the ring of tents, blackly bitter at his
treatment, he had swung due east, heading for the legendary sea. Then it had
seemed possible that he could achieve his purpose—to find the ancient secrets
whereby he could better forge the metal brought by Traders, so that, upon his
return, he could confront Ibbets and the others and force from them an
acknowledgment that he was not an apprentice of little worth, but a smith of the
Old Learning. This long trek through a wilderness he did not know had taught him
caution, though it had not yet dampened the inner core of his rebellion against
Ibbet’s belittling decision.
Now he wedged his shoulders between two rocks, pulling his hood well down over
his face so that its gray color would blend well with the stones about. Though
he was no hunter by training, each member of the Mob was lessoned from childhood
in the elements of hiding-out when confronted by the unusual, until he could
make very sure there was no danger ahead.
Below lay a wide valley down which a river angled. And where that opened into a
much larger bowl of water (of which he could see only one shoreline, the one
into which the river cut), there stood a collection of buildings, a small
village. Those log-walled shelters appeared to be permanent, not like the hide
tents of the Mob that were easily moved from one place to another. However,
small sullen tongues of fire now showed here and there, threatening complete
destruction of the buildings.
Sander sighted even from this distance what could only be a huddle of bodies
lying along the riverbank. There had been a raid, he deduced. Maybe the dreaded
Sea Sharks of the south had struck. He doubted if there was any life left in
that collection of huts.
The fire burned slowly, mainly along the riverbank and the shoreline of the
large body of water beyond. There were a few buildings seemingly still
untouched. They would have been looted, of course. Still, there was a chance
that not all of the provisions collected by those settled here had been carried
away. And this was harvest season. His own people (or those whom he had believed
to be his close kin—he grimaced at that thought) had been engaged in late season
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hunts and the drying of meat when he had ridden out.
Though the nomadic Mobs roamed the wide inner lands, Sander had heard enough
tales from the Traders to know that elsewhere men lived differently. In some
places clans had settled permanently upon the land, planting and tending food
which they grew. Here, in this near-destroyed settlement, they must also have
fished. His stomach growled and he shifted a little, surveying the scene of the
raid carefully to make sure that if he did go down he was not running into
active trouble.
Rhin whined deep in his throat, nudged Sander with his muzzle. His yellow-brown
coat was already thickening with new winter growth. Now his jaws opened a
little, his pointed tongue showed. His ears pricked as he watched the burning
buildings with the same intense stare as Sander. But he betrayed no more than
the common caution with which he approached all new situations.
His green eyes did not blink, nor did his brush of tail move. Instead he sat on
his haunches as if it did not matter that his head rose well above the sky line,
to be sighted from the town. Sander accepted Rhin’s verdict of no imminent
danger—for the sly intelligence of his kind supplied information no man, with
his blunter senses, could hope to gain.
Though he got to his feet, Sander did not remount. Instead he slipped down the
ridge, using every bit of cover, Rhin like a red-yellow ghost a step or two
behind. Ready to hand, Sander carried his dart thrower, a missile notched ready
against its taut string. In addition he loosened his long knife in its leather
scabbard.
As they drew closer to the looted town, Sander’s nose wrinkled at the stench of
burning and of other smells far worse. Rhin growled, sniffing. He liked that
scent no better than Sander. But at least, by his attitude, he had picked up no
hint of enemies.
Sander circled away from the riverbank where lay those blood-stained bundles,
heading toward the seemingly unharmed buildings farther inland from the shore.
He could hear the pound of waves and smell a new odor, swept toward him by a
rising wind—a strange, fresh scent. Was this indeed the sea, not just some
larger lake?
As he approached the furthermost of the buildings, he hesitated, something in
him willing against this intrusion. Only need for food forced him into an
alleyway so narrow that Rhin crowded him with a furry shoulder as they padded on
together.
The walls of logs Sander saw were thick and there were only openings set very
high, nearly masked by the overhanging eaves, part of the sharply-pitched roofs.
He reached the end of the alley and turned right before he saw any entrance
door.
It had been fashioned of heavy planking. Now it hung crazily from a single
hinge, plainly having been forced open. Rhin snarled, his tongue sweeping out
over his lips. There was a body just within that broken door; between the
shoulders was a splotch of clotted blood. The villager lay face downward and
Sander had no desire to turn him over. The stranger was not wearing the leather
and furs of a Mobsman, rather a coarsely woven overtunic dyed a nut brown. And
his legs were encased in baggy trousers of the same material, laced hide boots
on his feet. For a long moment Sander hesitated before he stepped gingerly
around the dead man into an interior that showed both search and wanton
destruction.
There was another huddle of twisted body and stained clothing in the corner.
Sander, after a single glance, kept his eyes resolutely from it. Smashed and
near destroyed as the contents of this room were, he could still see that the
town dwellers had possessed more worldly goods than any Mobsman. That was only
sensible in their way of life. One could not cart chairs, tables, and chests
about the land when one was ever traveling to follow the herds. He stopped to
pick up a broken bowl, intrigued by the design across its side. It was only a
few dark lines against the clear brown of the pottery, but, as he studied them,
he could envision birds in flight.
He made his way quickly to the food bins, wanting no more of this chamber of the
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dead. Rhin whined from without. Sander caught the uneasiness of his companion,
the need to be gone. But he made himself examine what was left There was a
measure of grain flour mixed with chopped and powdered nut meats. Using the
broken bowl for a scoop he packed it into his provision bag. He found two dried
fish wedged in another over-turned bin. But the rest had been deliberately
wasted or wantonly befouled. He was sickened by the signs of relentless hatred
he could sense in the room as he hurried out to join Rhin.
Yet Sander made himself approach the next building also. Here again was a forced
door but with no body nearly blocking it. However, one glance at what lay inside
made him gag and turn hastily away. He could not go any nearer to that. It
seemed that the raiders, whoever they might have been, had not been content to
kill, but had also taken time to amuse themselves in a beastly fashion. Sander
kept on swallowing to control his nausea as he backed out into the way that
fronted the unfired buildings.
There was one other place he must search for—in spite of his growing terror of
this ravaged village. There must have been a smith’s forge somewhere. He slapped
his hands against the bag of tools that was lashed to the back of Rhin’s riding
pad. What he carried there was all he had from his father. Ibbets would have
liked to have claimed those, as he claimed the office of smith with the Mob, but
custom had supported Sander to that extent.
[01]
The major hammers and chisels had been buried with his father, Dullan, of
course. A man’s main tools of trade were filled with his own powers and must so
be laid away in the earth when he no longer could use them. But there were some
smaller things that a son could rightfully claim, and no one could deny him
those. However, Sander needed more, much more, if he were to realize his
dream—to find the place wherein those masses of congealed metal, which the
traders brought to the Mobs, were concealed, to learn the secret of the alloys
which now baffled the smiths.
Resolutely he started on, dodging a charred wall that had fallen outward,
closing his mind to everything but his search, holding his nose against the
stink. Rhin continued to whine and growl. Sander knew well that his companion
wanted none of this place of death and followed him under protest. Yet because
there was the brotherhood between them, Rhin would continue.
Rhin’s people and those of the Mob were entwined in mutual service. That
companionship began during the Dark Time. Legends Sander had heard recited by
the Rememberers said that Rhin’s people had once been much smaller, yet always
clever and quick to adapt to change. Koyots they were called in the old tongue.
There had been many animals, and more men than one could count, who had perished
when the Earth danced and the Dark Time had begun. Mountains of fire had burst
through the skin of the world, belching flame, smoke, and molten rock. The sea
had rolled inward with waves near as high as those same mountains, hammering the
land into nothingness in some places, in others deserting the beds over which it
had lain for untold ages. Cold followed and great choking clouds of evil air
that had killed.
Here and there a handful of men or animals survived. But when the skies cleared
once again, there were changes. Some animals grew larger generation by
generation, just as distant species of men were rumored to be now twice the size
of Sander’s own people. That information came from Traders’ tales, however, and
it was well known that Traders like to spread such stories to keep other men
away from any rich finds. They would invent all manner of monsters to be faced
were a man to try to track them back to their own places.
Sander stopped, picked up a spear, gruesomely stained, and prodded with that
into the ashes of a small building. He swiftly uncovered what could only be an
anvil—a good one fashioned from iron, but far too heavy to be transported.
Finding that, a sure sign he had found the smithy, he scratched with more vigor.
His delving uncovered a fine stone hammerhead, the haft near burned away, but
the best part remaining, then another of a lesser weight. That was all that
remained, though there were some traces of metal—copper he was sure—puddled from
the heat.
He raised his hand and recited the secret smith words. If the owner, who might
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lie farther back under the debris at the rear, was still spirit-tied, as men who
died quickly and violently sometimes were, he would know by those words that one
of his own craft was present. He would not, Sander was sure, begrudge that his
possessions be used again, carefully, and to a purpose that might in the end
benefit all men.
Sander fitted the two hammerheads in among the tools he carried. He would hunt
no farther. Let the dead smith keep all else as grave-hold. But such hammers he
did not have and he needed them.
He wanted no more of this nameless village wherein death stank and spirits might
be tied to their destroyed homes. Rhin sensed that decision, greeting it with a
yelp of approval. However, Sander was not minded to leave the shore of the
sea—if sea this was. Rather he passed as quickly as he could among the
smoldering buildings, refusing to look at the bodies he passed, to come out upon
the slippery sand of the shore.
To prove that he might have reached one of his objectives, he advanced to where
the small waves ended in foam upon the sand. There he dipped a finger into the
water and licked the moisture. Salt! Yes, he had found the sea.
However it was not the sea alone that he sought, but rather the heart of the old
legends around it. It was along the shore of the sea that there once had stood
many great cities of old. And in those cities lay the secrets concerning which
Sander’s father had often speculated.
It was certain that men before the Dark Time had possessed such knowledge that
they had lived as might spirits of the upper air, with unseen servants and all
manner of labor-saving tools. Yet that learning had been lost. Sander did not
know the number of years that lay between him and that time, but the sum was
more, his father had said, than the lifetimes of many, many men, each a
generation behind the other.
When, at the death of his father from the coughing sickness, Ibbets, his
father’s younger brother, had denied Sander the smith-right, saying he was only
an untried boy and unfit to serve the Mob, then it was that Sander knew he must
prove himself, not only to the people whom he had believed kin-blood, but to
himself. He must become such a worker of metal that his own number of years or
lack of them would mean nothing, only the fact that many things could be wrought
by his design and his skill. So it was that, when Ibbets would have bound him to
a new apprenticeship, he had instead claimed go-forth rights, and the Mob had
been forced to grant him that choice of exile.
Now he was kinless by his own hard decision. And there burned fiercely in him
the need to know that he was a better smith, or would be, than Ibbets claimed.
To do that he must learn. And he was sure that such knowledge lay somewhere near
the original source of the lumps of congealed metal that the traders brought.
Some of the metal could be worked by strength of arm and hammer alone. Other
kinds must be heated, run into molds, or struck when hot to form the needed tool
or weapon. But there were some metals that defied all attempts to work them. And
it was the secret of those that, from childhood, had fascinated Sander.
He had found the sea; now he could go north or south along its shore. There had
been great changes in the land, he knew. Perhaps such cities as he sought were
long since buried under the wash of the waves, or else so overturned by
earth-shaking that little remained. Yet somewhere the Traders found their metal,
so somewhere such sources existed—and those he could seek.
It was close to nightfall, and he did not wish to camp close to the
half-destroyed town. He pushed on northward. Above, sea birds wheeled and
screamed hoarsely, and the steady roll of the waves made a low accompaniment to
their cries.
Rhin’s head swung around twice toward their back trail. He growled, and his
uneasiness gripped Sander in turn. Though it seemed the town was wholly given
over to the dead, it was true that Sander had not delved too deeply in the
ruins. What if some survivor, perhaps shaken out of his wits by the terror of
the raid, lurked there, had seen Sander and Rhin come and go? They might now be
hunted by such.
Climbing on the top of a dune, along the sides of which grew tough sea-bleached
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grass, Sander studied the still-smoking buildings. Nothing moved save the birds.
However, he did not discount Rhin’s uneasiness, knowing he could depend upon the
acute senses of the koyot to give him fair warning if they were followed.
He would have liked to have ridden, but the slippery sand gave such uncertain
footing that he kept on as they were. He angled away from the wave line now, for
there lay drifts of wood which looked ready to entrap the unwary. Now and then a
shell lay exposed in the damp sand. Sander could not turn away from them, eyeing
with amazement the fantastic patterns on these jewels from the sea. He dropped
some into his belt pouch. Like a bright bird’s feather or a tumbled-smooth
stone, they delighted him. He dreamed momentarily of setting them in bands of
copper, that metal which so easily answered to the skill he had learned, to make
such articles of adornment as the Mob had never seen.
The sand became covered with coarse grass, which in turn changed to meadowland.
But Sander disliked this too-open country. He could see, forming a dark line
across the horizon, the beginning of wooded land. While his people were of the
open plains to the west, they also knew northern woods, and he could see the
value of finding cover. However, he was enough a judge of travelers’ distances
to be sure he could not reach that forest before nightfall. What he wanted now
was a camp site which might offer his some measure of defense, if Rhin’s
instinct was proven correct and they were to face some danger out of the dark.
He would not dare a fire tonight, wanting no beacon that might draw anyone—or
anything—that prowled this country. So at last he settled on a stand of rocks,
huddled together as if the stones themselves had drawn close for comfort in an
hour of need.
Jerking up handfuls of the grass, he pulled and patted that into a nest. Then he
brought out the dried fish and shared with Rhin. Ordinarily, the koyot would
have gone off hunting on his own. But it would seem that this night he was not
about to leave Sander.
As the young man watched the twilight draw in, felt the chill of the night winds
which swept from the sea bringing the strange scents of that water world, his
weariness grew. He could hear nothing save the wash of the waves, the sounds of
birds. And Rhin, though he held his ears aprick, also manifestly listening with
all his might, did not yet show any signs of real alarm.
Tired as he was from the day’s journeying, Sander could not sleep. Over him
arched the sky in which sparked eyes of the night. The Rememberers said those
were other suns, very far away, and around them perhaps moved worlds such as
their own. But to Sander they had always seemed more like the eyes of strange,
ever-aloof creatures, who watched the short lives of men with more indifference
than interest. He tried to think about the star eyes, but his mind kept
returning to the horrors of the raided village. What would it be like, he
wondered with a shiver, to be suddenly set upon by men out of the sea who wanted
to slay, to destroy, to dip their hands in blood?
[02]
The Mob had fought for their lives, but only once, in Sander’s memory, against
their kind. That had been when a terrifying people of light skin and wild pale
eyes had come down to raid their herd. Mainly their struggle was against cold
and famine and sickness for themselves or their animals, warring against a hard
land rather than mankind. Their smiths forged the weapons and the tools for that
struggle, not many of the kind meant to drink man-blood.
Sander had heard tales of the sea slavers. Sometimes he had thought that those,
too, were inventions of the Traders, who created fearsome horrors to fill the
land they did not want others to explore. For the Traders were notoriously
tight-fisted when it came to their own profits. But after this day he could
believe that man was more ruthless than even a full winter storm. Now he
shivered a little, not from the touch of the sea breeze, but because of what his
imagination suggested might exist in this wilderness so unknown to him.
Sander put out a hand for the reassuring touch of Rhin’s hairy hide. At the same
moment the koyot leaped to his feet. Sander heard a warning growl. Rhin faced
not the sea, but inland. It was plain that the animal had decided that there was
indeed a menace slinking through the night.
With so little visibility, the dart thrower was no good. Sander drew his long
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belt knife, which was in reality a short sword. He crouched upon one knee, the
rocks a firm wall at his back, and listened. There seemed to be a slight
shuffling ahead. Rhin growled again. Now Sander caught a trace of musky odor. He
thought he had seen a shadow, moving so swiftly that there was but a suggestion
of a shape, out there.
A hissing out of the dark became a loud snarl. Rhin advanced a step,
stiff-legged, plainly alert against attack. Sander desperately regretted the
fire he had not lit. To face such an unknown menace kindled one of the age-old
fears of his own race.
Yet the thing did not attack as Sander expected it to do. He heard that
challenging hiss, and he gathered from Rhin’s reaction that the koyot thought
this unknown to be a formidable opponent. Still, whatever it was stayed beyond
the boundaries where Sander might sight it against the lighter rocks. There came
a shrill whistle out of the night, followed by a flash of light, which shone
straight into Sander’s eyes, dazzling him, though he flung up his arm in an
involuntary gesture to ward off the blinding glare.
Under the shadow of his hand he watched an animal glide forward, a sinuous body
seeming to him more that of a snake than of a furred species. It arose upon its
haunches, still hissing, until its head was nearly level with his own. Behind it
a smaller edition of itself, much darker in color, hugged the ground. It was
neither of that pair who carried the light.
“Stand—” The command from behind the source of the light was an emphatic order,
and it was followed by another. “Drop your knife!”
Sander might be very close to death, for he was sure only the will of the
speaker held the animals in check, but now he shook his head.
“I do not obey the orders of unknowns who skulk in the dark,” he returned. “I am
not a hunter or harmer of men.”
“Blood cries for blood, stranger,” snapped the voice. “Behind you streams
blood—kin-blood. If there is an accounting, then it is mine, seeing that no one
else lives in Padford now—”
“I came to a town of the dead,” Sander returned. “If you seek blood for blood,
look elsewhere, stranger. When I rode from the south, there were only the dead
within half-burned walls.”
The light held steady on him and no answer came forth. But that the stranger had
been willing to speak without immediate attack was, Sander believed, in his
favor.
“It is true that you are no Sea Shark,” the voice observed slowly.
Sander could understand the words. But the accent with which they were spoken
differed both from that of the Mob and that of the Traders.
“Who are you?” Now the voice sharpened in a new demand.
“I am Sander, once of Jak Mob, and I am a smith.”
“Soooo?” The voice drawled that as if not quite believing. “And where tents your
Mob this night, smith?”
“Westward.”
“Yet you travel east. Smiths are not wanderers, stranger. Or is there blood
guilt and kin-death lying in your back trail?”
“No. My father, who was smith, died, and they would have it that I was not apt
enough to take his place. Thus I took out-rights—” He was growing irritated.
That he must patiently answer this quizzing out of the dark awoke a small stir
of anger in him. Now he boldly asked in return:
“Who are you?”
“One not to meddle with, stranger!” snapped that other. “But it seems you speak
the truth and so are not meat for us this night.”
The light snapped out instantly. He could hear a stirring in the dark. Rhin
whined in relief. Though the koyot could be a formidable fighter when he wished,
it was plain he preferred the absence of those animals and whoever controlled
them to their presence.
Sander himself felt tension seep away. The voice was gone, taking with it the
strange hounds of its hunting. He settled back, and after a while he slept.
Sander’s slumber was full of dreams in which dead men arose to face him with
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broken weapons in their slack hands. He roused now and again, sweating, hardly
sure of what was dream and what reality. He could then hear sometimes a soft
growl deep in Rhin’s throat, as if the koyot scented something threatening. Yet
the voice and the light were surely gone.
By the coming of the first gray predawn Sander was ready to move on. This seemed
to him a haunted land. Perhaps the unburied dead of the town brought the
oppression to his spirit. The sooner he was well away from such an ill-omened
place, the better. However, he made a quick survey of the ground where the night
before that half-seen beast had reared up in the light.
That truly had been no dream, for there were paw marks deep-set in the soil,
pads and claws in clear impression. Beyond, he discovered a single other print,
small and distinct, unmistakably human. Rhin sniffed at the tracks and again
growled. It was plain from the swing of the koyot’s head that he little liked
what his own special senses reported. Another reason to be on their way.
Sander did not even wait to eat. He swung up on the riding pad, and Rhin trotted
off at a pace that soon carried them well into the tough grass of the lowlands,
parallel with the sea. The passing of the koyot stirred into life some birds,
and Sander uncoiled his sling, made ready a pebble, brought down two of those
fugitives. Once away, where he could light a fire, there would be food.
He headed directly for the distant line of forest, disliking the feeling of
nakedness that he had in the open, a sensation that, being plains bred, he had
never experienced before. As he rode, he tried to see traces of the path the
voice had taken. But, save for the tracks near his improvised camp, Sander found
nothing that would lead him to believe he and Rhin were not alone.
Resolutely, he kept from glancing back at the now-distant village. Perhaps his
visitor had returned there, since it was plain from the words they had exchanged
that the unknown had been in search of those who had despoiled the town. What
had the stranger named it? Padford. Sander repeated the word aloud. It was as
strange as the accent of the other’s speech.
Sander knew so little of the land beyond the Mob’s own range. That such villages
existed he had picked up from the Traders’ guarded accounts. But the herdspeople
of the wide lands in the west had no personal knowledge of them. He wished now
that he had made a closer examination of the dead. It seemed to him, trying to
recall those glimpses of the bodies, that they had been unusually dark of skin,
even darker than he was himself, and that their hair had been of a uniform
black. Among his own people, who were an even brown in skin color, hair color
varied from light reddish gold to dark brown.
The Rememberers often recited queer things, that all men were not, before the
Dark Time, of the same kind. Their tales carried other unbelievable statements
also—that men could fly like birds and traveled in boats that went under the
surface of the water and not over it. So one could not believe every remnant of
supposed old knowledge they cherished.
Rhin abruptly halted, startling Sander out of his thoughts. The koyot gave a
sudden shake of body, which was his warning of danger, that he must be free of
his rider to confront something. Sander slid off as Rhin whirled about, facing
their back trail, his lips wrinkled to show his formidable fangs, the growl in
his throat rising to a snarl.
Sander thrust his sling into his belt, whipped free his thrower, making sure
there was a dart set within the firing groove. There were no stones to back them
here. They had been caught in the open.
[03]
Plain to see were two shapes humping along with a curious up and down movement,
at a speed Rhin could only equal by short bursts of determined flight. A third
figure on two legs ran behind, like a hunter urging on hounds, though the two
forerunners bore no likeness to any of the small dogs the Mob knew. Sander
dropped to one knee, steadying the dart thrower. His heart beat faster. Those
animals, whatever they might be, were agile of movement, continually twisting
and turning, yet always advancing. To sight a dart on one was almost impossible.
“Aeeeeheee!”
The cry came as sharp as the scream of a seabird, while the running figure
behind the first two flung up both arms as if urging on its furred companions.
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It was that runner who must be his target, Sander decided.
“Aeeeeheee!”
The foremost of the animals halted and rose on its haunches to stare at the
smith. A moment later its mate froze likewise. But Sander did not relax his grip
of the dart thrower. The distance, he judged, was still a fraction over what he
must have for a telling shot. Rhin’s snarl was continual. The koyot was already
on the defensive, ready for attack. It would seem that Rhin judged these to be
formidable opponents.
The human companion of the pair drew level with them, so the three moved
together toward Sander and the koyot. But they no longer ran. Sander rose to his
feet, his weapon at the ready. He stared at what seemed to him one of the
strangest sights he had ever seen, for the newcomer was plainly a woman. Her
scant body covering revealed that. Like the villagers, she had very dark skin,
and her only clothing was a piece of scarlet cloth wound from armpit to knee.
Around her neck rested a massive chain of soft, handworked gold, which held
pendant a disc set with gem stones in an intricate pattern. Her dark hair had
been combed and somehow stiffened, to stand out about her face like a halo of
black. On her forehead was a tattooed design, much the same as the one Sander
himself wore. But while his was the proud badge of a smith’s hammer, hers was a
whirl he could not read.
She wore boots that reached nearly to her knees, not as well-fashioned as the
leatherwork of his own people, and a belt twisted of gold and silver wire from
which hung, on hooks, a number of small bags of different colored cloth. Now she
walked proudly, as if she were one to whom others paid deference, like a
clan-mother, each hand resting on the head of one of the animals.
These were of the same breed, Sander believed, but they varied greatly in
coloring and size. One, cream-fawn in shade, was the larger. The smaller was
dark brown with black feet and tail. Their long tails lashed back and forth as
them came. It was plain, Sander was sure, that they did not have the same
confidence in his harmlessness as their mistress did, for they were ready to do
battle. Only her will kept them in check.
Some distance away she stopped, her dark eyes surveying him coolly. The animals
once more reared on their haunches to flank her, the lighter-colored one’s head
now topping hers.
“Where do you go, smith?” she spoke imperiously, and at the sound of her voice,
he knew that this was his questioner of the night before.
“What matters that to you?” He was stung by her tone. What right had she to
demand any answer from him in this fashion?
“The seeing has signed that our paths now run together.” Her eyes were very
bright. They caught his gaze. He did not like her calm assumption that he was
some tribesman under her command.
“I do not know what a seeing may be.” With determined effort he broke that
linkage of eyes. “What I seek is my own affair.”
She frowned as if she had not believed he could withstand her control any more
readily than the hissing beasts by her side. That she had tried to control him
in some unknown manner he was now certain.
“What you seek,” she returned, a sharper note in her voice, “is the knowledge of
the Before Men. That is what I must also find, that my people may be avenged. I
am Fanyi, one who talks with spirits. And these be Kai and Kayi who are one with
me where there is need. My protection lay over Padford, but it was necessary for
me to go to meet the Great Moon. And while I was gone”—she made a slight gesture
with her hand—“my people were slain, my faith to them broken. This should not
be!” Her lips drew back in a snarl as marked as Rhin’s. “The blood debt is mine,
but for its paying I must draw upon the Before Ones. I ask you, smith, have you
knowledge of where what you seek lies?”
He longed to say yes, but there was something in her gaze, which, though he
would not allow it to bind him, compelled the truth.
“I am Sander. I seek one of the Before cities. Such may be to the north along
the sea—”
“A Traders’ tale perhaps?” She laughed and there was a note of scorn in that
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sound, angering him. “Traders’ tales are not to be depended upon, smith. These
seek always to deceive, not revealing what they deem their own hunting grounds.
However, for once, this is partly right. To the north—and the east—there lies a
great place of the Before Men. I am a one of Shaman Power—to us remains some of
the ancient knowledge. There is a place—”
“To the northeast,” Sander countered, “lies the sea. Perhaps your city is wave
buried now.”
She shook her head. “I think not. The sea has eaten deep into the land in some
places; in others it has drained from ancient beds, leaving land long hidden
once more revealed. But,” she shrugged, “of that we cannot be sure until we see.
You seek, I seek—but in the end our quest is not too divided. I want knowledge
of one kind, you of another, is this not the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well enough. I have powers, smith. Perhaps more potent than you carry in your
hands.” She glanced at the weapon he held. “But to fare forth into the
wilderness alone, that is folly, if there are those who travel in the same
direction. Therefore, I say to you—let us journey together. I will share my
certain knowledge of where the Before Place lies.”
He hesitated. But he believed that for some reason she was in earnest. Why she
made such an offer he could not quite understand. She might have been reading
his thoughts, for now she added:
“Did I not say that I had had a seeing? I know little of your people, smith, but
have you none among you who can foretell, who are able at times to see that
which has not yet happened but which will certainly come to pass?”
“We have the Rememberers. But they dream of the past, the future. The
Traders—they have said that they have heard of those who foresee, not backsee.”
“Backsee?” Fanyi seemed startled. “What do they backsee, these Shamans of
yours?”
“Some of the Before things, but only small pieces,” Sander had to admit. “We
came into this land after the Dark Time, and what they tell of is another part,
now sea covered. Mostly they remember our own Mob and a past that is ours
alone.”
“That is a loss. Think what might be done if your backseers could uncover the
lost things. But it is much the same with us who foresee—such we can do for only
a short way. Thus, I know that we shall journey together, but little more than
that.”
She spoke with such authority that Sander found himself unable to utter any
objection, though he was suspicious of that self-confidence of hers. It was too
evident that this Fanyi believed she was conferring some honor upon him by so
deciding. Yet there was sense in what she said—he had been traveling blindly. If
she indeed had some clue to a definite lost city, he would be far better served
to agree to her guidance than to simply wander on blindly.
“Very well.” He now looked to her beasts. “But do those agree also? They seem to
me to be less certain of the wisdom of our joining forces than you are.”
For the first time he saw her lips curve into a smile. “My friends become
theirs. And what of your furred one, Sander-smith?” She nodded to Rhin.
Sander turned to the koyot. He exercised no such control on Rhin as the girl
apparently did over her companions, nor could he. There was a form of
communication between man and koyot, but it was a tenuous one. He was not sure
himself just how deep it ran, nor how well in some circumstances it would work.
Rhin was willing to share his travels and was an efficient warner against
enemies. But whether the koyot would accept close companionship for days with
the strange beasts, that Sander had no way of telling.
Fanyi shifted her gaze slightly to meet the eyes of the taller of her furred
ones. After their stare had locked and held for a long moment the creature
dropped to forefeet and was gone at its back-humping gait, disappearing into the
tall grass. Its companion remained quietly where it was, but Fanyi came forward
now to turn the same intent gaze up into Rhin’s bright eyes. Sander fidgeted,
again more than a little irritated at the girl. What right had she to impose her
will on his koyot, for that was what she was doing he was sure.
[04]
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Again she might have read his rebellious thought, for she spoke:
“I do not rule these other ones, smith. It is enough that they learn that we can
live together after a fashion, neither imposing wills upon another. My fishers
know that if I halt their actions by a will-thought, it is only with good
reason. And there are times when I accept their desire as quickly as they do
mine. We are not master-slave. No—we are comrade with comrade. That is the way
it should be with all life forms. So does the Power teach us who are born to
serve Its purposes. Yes, your koyot will accept us, for he knows we mean no harm
to one another.”
The fisher who had disappeared was returning. Clamped in its jaws was the end of
a bundle that it bumped and tugged along the ground until it could be dropped at
Fanyi’s feet. She loosened lashings to draw forth a square of drab cloth, which
had a hole in the center. Through this she thrust her head and then belted the
loose folds about her with a woven strip, hiding her scarlet garment and her
adornments under the dim gray overtunic.
The rest of her equipment for the trip seemed to be in two separate bags, their
strings knotted together. Sander took them from her when she would have slung
them across her shoulder and arranged them with his own bags on Rhin. He could
not ride while she walked, and the two of them would be too great a weight for
the koyot.
Fanyi whistled, sending the fishers bounding away, ranging ahead. For the first
time Sander relaxed a little. Those creatures must form an effective scouting
force, if Fanyi could truly depend upon them.
“How far do we go?” he asked, finding that she matched strides with apparently
little effort.
“That I do not know. My people do—did—” she corrected herself, “not travel far.
They were fisherfolk, and they worked the fields along the river. We had Traders
come from the north—and more lately from the south. From the south,” she
repeated and her tone was bleak. “Yes, now I think that those came before the
raid to sniff out how helpless we were. If I had not been afar—”
“But what could you have done?” Sander was honestly puzzled. She seemed to
believe that her presence, or the lack of it, had sealed the fate of the
village. He could not believe that.
She glanced toward him, clearly astounded at his question.
“I am one with Power. It is my thought-holding that walled my people in safety.
There was no danger that came to them that I, or Kai or Kayi, could not sniff
out and give warning of. Just as I knew, even though I sought with open heart
and mind the will of the Great Moon, when death came to those who believed in
me! Their blood lies on my hands, that I must avenge—for upon me rests the
burden of this deed.”
“And how can you avenge them? Do you know those who came raiding?”
“At the proper time I shall cast the stones.” Her hand went to the breast of her
drab overcovering. “Then their names shall be made clear. But first I must find
in the Before Place such a weapon as shall make those who delighted in slaughter
wish that they had never been born!” There was a cruel cast now to her generous
lips and such a look on her face as gave Sander a small, cold feeling.
He himself had never felt such great anger—even against Ibbets—as to death-wish
another. When the White Ones had struck he had been only a child of too young an
age to be greatly affected by the battle, even though his mother had been one of
the victims of it. His whole being had been focused on learning what he could do
with his hands. And weapons were only matters of fine workmanship. He rarely
thought beyond their fashioning to the uses to which they would be eventually
put.
What he had seen in the destroyed village had sickened and revolted him, but it
had not touched his own being. For those dead were strangers, none close to him.
Had he discovered one of the enemy left behind through some chance he would have
fought, yes, mainly to save his own life. But the flame that he knew burned in
Fanyi, the implacable dedication to vengeance, he could not quite understand.
Perhaps had it been his people who had been so handled, he thought, he would
have felt differently.
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