As I drove I felt their eager inquiry, their wonder at the meaning of our journey. To them I relayed my sense of danger, the need for wariness, to which they responded each in his own way. And, once well beyond sight of the fair, I brought each in turn out of the cage to sit beside me for a space, to look upon the country, to use his own senses for guide. For they had eyes to see what man’s eyes do not, noses to lift from the breeze messages we do not note, ears to hear what we remain ignorant of—and these were in my service.
Simmie was uneasy, not because of what she sensed as she sat quietly beside me in the sunlight of the morning, but because of the barsk. To the rest he was no kin, near or far. And since they knew he was not free to harm them, they ignored his presence. But to Simmle he was enough like her own clan that she was ever aware of him, and I had to ease her fear, for madness is something so alien it breeds panic in those who come in contact with it.
On Yiktor there is madness, the brain does not think along smooth paths but slips out of pattern into chaos. And the mad man, the woman so afflicted, are deemed touched by Umphra, a primeval power. No one will harm such. When discovered they are put under restraint of the priests and taken high in the mountain to a certain Valley. And from memories of that Valley my mind ever flinches. To harm or kill the mad is to take into one’s own body, believe the plainsmen, that illness which twisted awry its victim.
But animals that go mad are killed, and I think they are the more kindly used, being loosed so on the White Road where suffering and sorrow are naught, drawn so into Molaster’s great pattern and keeping. I feared that I must deal so with the barsk, though still I was loath to take that final step. For as Malec had said, it had long been my wish to add this very rare and independent rover to our company. Perhaps I was vain of my own power and desired to add to the small fame I already had of one who worked well with the little people.
We forded the river, meeting with none other on the outward road from Yrjar than some belated fairgoers. And to the greetings of these I replied as one who had cares, twice saying that illness among my beasts drove me to this departure. But after midday I turned from the open road into a side trail which still led eastward, lest some passer-by would begin to wonder why I needs must go so far in my search for peace and quiet for my ill ones.
Before sunset we came to a meadow place by a stream, and there I made camp, loosing the kasi for grazing, my other ones to explore and enjoy their freedom. They relished this ability to nose about and lap from the stream, though none of them wandered far from the van, and in that the barsk remained curtained and alone.
After my companions were fed and bedded for the night and all was well, I looked upon the moon at its rising. Already the Third Ring was better defined. Another night or two and it would be bright—to be visible for sometime after. In my hands the wand caught its light and made it dazzle the eyes. I longed fiercely to try beam-reading, but since I was alone, and he who reads thus must in a manner of speaking depart from the body, lie entranced so that he may not easily awaken, I did not dare. But it was a hunger eating in me and I must rise and pace back and forth to quiet my nerves. Though I did dare again the use of the wand, it pointed firmly to the east.
At last I realized I must use the Qu’lak Song to summon slumber since the body must never be overridden by the mind, unless the need is very great. A Singer early learns that the temptation to forget the body is a strong one, and must ever be resisted. So I sang the four words and the five tones and opened my mind to rest.
There were twitterings and squeakings in the grass and I looked upon the mists of early morning. I released my little people once again while I prepared our food and put the kasi to the yoke. I fed the barsk and he lay quiet on his bedding. To the mind-touch he was weaker, growing lethargic as if the frenzy which had eaten him the day before had bruised and injured what contained it. And I wondered if this weakness was a good thing, to afford me a way of reassuring and perhaps leading those impulses back to stability. But my probe showed me that the time, if it would ever come, was not yet.
Once more we set out, though the trail we followed grew rougher and I feared I might reach a point the van could not pass and I would have to retrace my steps and seek out a side way. There was a kind of tension in the air which we all shared. I knew it for what it was, no warning of ill but rather the foreshadowing of what the Three Rings would bring to all who opened their minds rightly to the power. For at this time there was little limit on what might be assayed by the bold-though boldness is never enough when dealing with the power.
We were going into the hills and though this was not a country I was much familiar with, I knew that in this direction lay the holdings of Oskold. But I wondered at Osokun’s rashness at bringing any captive here, unless the very boldness of such a move would, in a way, cover his tracks. None would believe that he would take a secret prisoner into the heart of his father’s domain. But was Oskold himself a party to this? That set another design on the loom. For Oskold was seemingly a man of some intelligence and cunning. And if he were ready to defy law and custom, it would mean he held a mighty weapon in reserve with which to confound his enemies.
I remembered the half threat the off-worlder Slafid had made-that more was known about the Thassa than was right or safe for us. I hoped that our warning would stir the Old Ones into such countersteps as they could beam-read into taking. Rumor has always made much of us among the plainsmen. It is true that we are older in this land than they, that we were once great as they consider greatness, before we learned other ways to measure power and growth. We, too, built cities, of which only scattered stones abide in lonely places, knew rises and falls in history. Men progress, however, or they destroy themselves and sink back to their dim beginnings. By the will of Molaster did we progress beyond such matters. And to us now the quarrels and strivings of these newcomers were as the clamor of the little people, save that the little people are moved by simpler needs and go about their ways in more honest openness.
All through the day did the Abiding Influence of the Third Ring act upon us. From time to time my little people gave vent to their rising excitement with yells or barks, or whatever manner of sound was their normal speech. Once I heard the barsk, too, give tongue, but in a mournful, echoing howl full of mind-pain, which sent the rest of them dumb. I sent a sleep-wish to quiet him. Simmle gave me warning near midday of something coming, and I stopped the van to alight and followed her on foot through the yet frost-unkilled weeds and leafed brush to the top of a rise from which we could see the road east. A party came along it at a determined trot and their leader was Osokun. He did not ride in ordinary state, but headed a small squad with no display of banners, no way horn—as if he would pass through this wilderness with as little note as possible.
I watched them well out of sight before I returned to the van. My kasi were not meant for burst of speed, but only an unvarying pace. In a long haul they could beat and leave behind such swifter mounts as those of Osokun’s men, but no spurt was in them and I must abide by that.
That night we reached the hills and I hid the van, went ahead to find a pass. But there was only one cut I could find which would take the passage of the van, where the road ran. I was very loath to return to that. Too open, the sort of place where any lord but the most foolish would have sentry posts. I loosed Simmle and she quickly found two—surely manned by guards selected for keenness of eye.