“And if D’Fani sweeps the council and the people with him back to the old dark ways? Do you not remember the Chronicles of the Wearers—who were the first to be subjected to the Feeding? Are you martyr enough to ask for that? How much better can D’Fani make plain his power than by such a spectacle?”
“We vowed when we put on the Eyes to abide by the law—“
D’Eyree flung out one hang in an impatient gesture. “Do not quote law to me—not when it means the Feeding! Not when it serves D’Fani to climb to the rulership of Nornoch! Though do not fear—if he has his will I shall furnish the banquet—not you.”
She turned her back on the other; any more words between them would give D’Fani weapons to use against her. And she was not what she had accused D’Huna of being, a willing martyr.
Back she went to her own tower, trying to think, to control those fears D’Fani brought to her mind. But it was when she looked from the sea-window that she was shocked out of her preoccupation. There were the signs she had been trained to read—another storm was on the way.
For one to follow so quickly upon the last was unnatural. And the Lurla were tired; they should have rest and the nourishment of their specially grown food. Also—D’Huna’s section of the wall now had no warden.
The Lurla — D’Eyree used the Eyes to look into their burrows. They lay flaccid, thick rolls of boneless flesh, upon the flooring. There was not even a twitching. She tried a thought probe. One—two—raised their fore-ends a little. The rest lay supine, inert. And they did not have that bloated look of afterfeeding.
For the first time D’Eyree did then what it was against all custom to do. She allowed her thought-sight to invade the Lurla pens of the other wearers. In each she noted those which seemed well fed, but there were a far greater number who were not. and some of those in the other pens were moving restlessly, angrily. If this were reported—more fuel for D’Fani!
Her weather-wise eyes told her there was perhaps a day before the storm gathered to full strength. Long enough for D’Fani to strike. There was nothing she could do—or was there?
The Lurla fed on cultures blended by a time-tested formula devised by D’Gan. But before that — She used the Eyes again in a manner she had never tried before, not certain whether they could so serve her, not to watch, to encourage the Lurla—but rather to trace through the walls and the rock of this island certain ancient channels she knew of only by tradition. And to her relief she found she could do this.
Heartened by her first success, D’Eyree explored farther and farther, concentrating on those hidden ways so they also formed pictures in her mind. At last she found the outer gate, and it did give into the sea, well under the surface waves. Now—
D’Eyree gathered her power. There was plenty of life force in the water, though she could not distinguish the separate forms which emitted it, only the impact of the life itself. She began to use thought even as she used it to send the Lurla to labor. But this time she strove to entice, to draw it after her as a fisherman pulls a loaded net.
She played, angled, worked with concentration. In hardly daring to believe that she was succeeding, D’Eyree retraced those long forgotten and unused inner tunnels, bringing the life down them, and so into those pools where the culture for feeding was kept. Three times she made the awesome journey from the sea to the pool by which the Lurla sprawled inertly.
How much life she had so snared she could not tell, save that the vigorous force of it registered. Now D’Eyree turned her attention to one of the unfed Lurla—that nearest to the pool. As she would urge it to work during the storm, she used her talent as a lash to push it toward the pool. It moved weakly, as if so far spent that the least effort exhausted it, but it did move.
Then—
It had reached the pool side. There was a quiver of interest, of awakening. A moment or so later she knew that the first part of her experiment was working. The Lurla was aroused to feed, and it was absorbing the life force.
Not only that but the radiation of its satisfaction was reaching its fellows. They were beginning to crawl toward the pool, to share the feast. Exhausted, she threw herself on the soft carpet, sundering contact with the Lurla in order to strengthen her control. If the Lurla fed well and throve on the bounty of the sea, then D’Fani would be answered and would not dare propose the Feeding. They need only activate the old food tunnels. Of course, in time they would face the same problem which D’Gan’s generation had known before them: the inability to continue to feed the Lurla with natural food in quantity enough to build up their strength, especially after great storms had driven the sea dwellers into the depths. But a breathing space in which to defeat D’Fani’s immediate plan was all she wanted now.
Time—
Again she was shaken by an uncurling of strange memory. Something far buried in her clamored for expression. D’Eyree sat up, drawing her bent knees close to her breast, her arms about them, huddling in upon herself as she battled with that part of her mind that seemed to be an invader. There was no time — Why did that haunt her so? Yet she would not explore behind that thought; she was afraid to do so with a fear as deadly as her distrust of D’Fani.
A sound—it echoed, vibrated through the walls of the tower—through her body.
The Voice! It had never been heard in her lifetime, but there was no mistaking it for anything else. D’Fani had in so much backed his boasts—the Voice was speaking.
No words, just the rhythm of its beat. But that entered into one’s body, one’s mind! D’Eyree cried out. For the vibration centered in the Eyes, and they caused such a blaze of pain that she rolled across the floor, now whimpering in gasps of agony, clawing at the band that held the source of torture against her skull.
Somehow she got it loose, dragged it off. Then she lay panting, the relief so great she could only grasp that the pain was gone. Still the beat of the Voice shook her bone and flesh, and somehow its meaning was clear in her mind.
As she had drawn that life force in the sea to feed the Lurla, just so was she being drawn. Yet something within her, some hard core which was herself, D’Eyree, was still firm against that pull. And random thoughts drew together.
In all the tales of the Voice she had never heard of this effect. This was something different—wrong. The Voice was a warning, a defense for the people. It did not beat down the mind, control one. What had D’Fani done to unleash this?
Wrong, all wrong! The realization of that was strong inside her. This was a tampering, an assault — Still, even as she thought that she was crawling against her will on hands and knees toward the door in answer to the summons of that unending sound.
No, she would not answer the Voice—this Voice that was D’Fani’s weapon. D’Eyree fought against the compulsion until she lay writhing on the floor. The band of the Eyes was about one arm like a giant’s bracelet that did not fit, now she brought it to her. The Eyes were braziers filled with blue-green fire, as she had never seen them before. To loose the compulsion—could she touch them, then focus her power on breaking the call of the Voice?
The pain—could she stand it? With courage she did not know she had, D’Eyree laid her hands across the Eyes. Pain, yes, but not so intense, not so concentrated as when she wore them.
She could stand this, and the very hurt helped to break the drag of the Voice. If she went, and she believed she must see what was happening, then she would be armed by having her own will back.
She took the way from the tower inward to the heart of Nornoch. People moved along it with her. But none spoke to the others; rather they stared straight ahead in such concentration as she herself knew when she worked with the Lurla.
So they came to the heart of Nornoch, that tallest spur of rock which had never been leveled, on which was hung the Voice in its cage. And on the ledge beneath it was D’Fani. His entire head was encased in a transparent arg shell of vast size. And below him were D’Atey and others, similarly shielded against the sound of the Voice.