“I see you who wears the name of Krotag.” Hosteen signed formal salutation.
“I see you-stranger-“
Not a good beginning, but one he had to accept. Hosteen looked at the Drummer.
“I see also the one who can summon the bright sky arrows,” he continued. “And this one also wears a name?”
Silence, so complete that they could hear from outside the stir of a horse. Then the Drummer’s hands came out before him, palms up, while those black-ringed eyes caught and held Hosteen’s in a compelling stare.
Hardly aware of his action, the Terran raised his own hands, moved them out until palm met palm, and so they stood linked by the touch of flesh against flesh, Hosteen and the Norbie medicine man. Once before in his life the Amerindian had felt a power, not human and far beyond the control of any man, fill and move him. Then he had been swept up and used by that power to bring prisoners out of a Nitra camp. But at that time he had deliberately evoked the “medicine” of his own people. And now-
Words came out of him, words the Drummer could not understand-or could he?
“I have a song-and an offering- In the midst of Blue Thunder am I walking- Now to the straight lightning would I go. Along the trail that the Rainbow covers- For to the Big Snake, and to the Blue Thunder Have I made offering- Around me falls the white rain, And pleasant again will all become!”
Bits, fragments, dragged from the depths of memory by some power-perhaps borrowed from this Drummer. No true Song, just as Hosteen was no true Singer, yet those words stirred the power where it lay coiled deep in his body-or his mind.
Hosteen blinked. The maze of colors that had rippled before his eyes had gone. He fronted an alien face with round skull-set eyes. Only for a moment was there a flicker in those eyes, a belief or an emotion or a thought that matched what Hosteen felt. Then it was gone, and Hosteen was only a Terran settler fitting his hands to those of a Norbie medicine man. The hands drew away from his.
“This one wears the name of Ukurti. You are one who can also summon clouds—younger brother.”
“Not so.” Hosteen disclaimed any wizard powers. “But on my world, and long ago, my grandfather was such a one. Perhaps he laid upon me something of his own at his passing-“
Ukurti nodded. “That is as it should be, for it is a burden laid upon us who have the strength to pass it to those who can bear it well in their own time. Now there are other matters-this one who has taken the airways into the medicine country rashly and against the laws of your people and mine. This, too, is a part of your burden, younger brother.”
Hosteen bowed his head. “This burden do I accept, for it is partly by my doing that he came into this country, and his rashness and evil are as mine.”
“That one has gone in-he will not return.” Krotag’s gestures were emphatic, but he eyed Hosteen with a mixture of wonder and exasperation.
“That is not for our deciding,” corrected Ukurti. “If he is found, you, my younger brother, must deal with him-that we lay upon you.”
“That do I accept-“
There was a crackle of sound, not from without but from the mike before Logan. He jerked it up to mouth level.
“Come in-come in!”
“TRI calling base camp-“
Hosteen leaped across the tent and tore the mike from Logan’s grasp.
“Storm here-come in TRI-“
“-sighted the LB. Going down for look-on side of mountain-“ The din of static half drowned out the words.
Hosteen made an urgent hand signal to Logan and watched his brother snap on the locator. If Widders kept talking, that ought to give them a fix on the present position of the ‘copter.
“LB all right-going down!”
“Widders-Widders, wait!” But Hosteen knew that his protest would never be heeded by the men out there. Logan’s fingers relayed the information to the Norbies.
“So he has found what he has sought,” the Drummer replied. “It may be that his quest wins the favor of the High Dwellers after all. We shall wait and see-“
Hosteen clung to the mike, calling at intervals, but without raising a reply-until, at last, it came with forceful clarity.
“We are going to look for evidence of any survivors. Forgee-Forgee!” The voice grew as shrill as a Norbie pipe, carrying a note of surprise that deepened to alarm. “No! Fire-fire down the mountain. Forgee -they’re coming-Storm! Storm!”
“Here!” Hosteen tried to imagine what was happening out there.
“Fire at ‘em, Forgee. Got that one!”
“Widders! Are you under attack?”
“Storm-we can’t hold ‘em off-the fire’s spreading too close. We’re going to make a run for it-can hold out in the cave-“
“Hold out against what?” There was no answer from the mike.
“Those-Who-Drum-Thunder have answered,” Krotag signed. “This is the end of the evil doer.”
“Not so. They may still be alive,” Hosteen protested. “We can’t leave them there-like that-“
“It has been decided.” Krotag’s reply was final.
“You,” Hosteen appealed to Ukurti, “have said this man is my burden. I cannot leave him there-without knowing the truth of what has happened to him-“
Again it was as if the two of them stood apart from space and time in some emptiness that held only Norbie medicine man and human-that they were in contact in a way Hosteen could never explain.
“The truth was spoken-the burden is yours, and you are not yet loosened from it. These off-worlders have no part of what lies in the Blue, and they have been punished. But I do not think that the pattern is yet finished. The road lies before you; take it without hindrance-“
“If my brother walks this road, then do I also,” Logan’s hands flashed.
Ukurti turned on the younger man the measuring regard of his paint-ringed eyes. “It is said rightly that brother should shoulder brother when the arrows of war are on the bow string. If this is your choice, let this road be yours also and no one-save the High Dwellers-shall deny it to you.”
“This is spoken on the drum?” Using finger speech, Krotag asked Ukurti.
“It is spoken on and by the drum. Let them journey forth and do what is set upon them. No one can read the path of his beyond-travel. This is a thing to be done.” His fingers tapped a small patter of notes on the drum head, a rhythm that sent a crawling chill up Hosteen’s back.
From the dark beyond the doorway came Surra, slinking belly to earth, her eyes slitted, her ears tight to her skull. And behind her, Baku, her beak snapping with rage-or some other strong emotion. Last of all Gorgol, stalking like a sleep walker, his eyes staring wide before him. The Drummer gave a last tap and broke the spell.
“Go-you all have been chosen and summoned. Upon you the burden.”
“Upon us the burden,” Hosteen agreed for all that strangely assorted group of rescuers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Mirage?” Logan asked dazedly, perhaps not of his gaunt, hard-driven companions but of the very world about them.
Having won through the cauldron of rocky defiles on foot, for the way they had come was not for horses, it was indeed hard to believe in this valley-the land sloping gently before them, widening out in the distance until they could no longer see the wall heights that guarded it to the west because here the yellow and yellow-green vegetation of the river lowlands was lush. There was no sign of the searing Big Dry cutting down grass and bush. And in the distance there was the shimmer of water- either a curve of river or a lake of some size.
Gorgol braced himself on his folded arms and surveyed the countryside with an expression of awe, while Hosteen sat up, his back against a rock wall still warm enough to feel through his shirt, though this was twilight. Three, four, five days they had spent in hiding, the nights in winning through to this point, where the Blue was at last open before them.
And on the last night only Gorgol’s knowledge of the outback had saved them. All water gone, the Norbie had searched the ground on hands and knees, literally smelling out a clue, until he scooped the soil from a small depression. He buried there a hollow reed with a twist of dried grass about its tip, sucking at the other end with an effort that left him gasping, until after a half hour of such labor he brought liquid up from the source he alone suspected.
Surra whined, nudged against Hosteen, her nostrils expanding as she took in the scents arising from this oasis of the wild. At least to the cat, this was no hallucination, and Hosteen was willing to rely upon her senses sooner than upon his own. Gorgol opened a small pouch on his warrior belt and brought out a pencil-shaped object. He pressed it against one finger tip to leave a small dot of glowing green. Then he drew marks crisscross on his hollow cheeks, in no pattern Hosteen could see, that glowed, making of half his face a weird mask. He held the crayon out to the Terran.