“No dream, star rover, no dream.”
“And now,” she rose. “We shall go, but not too fast on their heels lest suspicion be roused. Oskold is no fool and I think that Osokun has plunged his father, through his recklessness, into deep folly. I have saved you by the only method I knew, Krip Vorlund, however ill it may be to your eyes.”
So I followed her out of the dell in the guise of an animal who owed her allegiance. For now I discovered that though the barsk body held the essence of a man, yet also was I now attuned in a new way to the form I wore, and more than just in the way I faced the world. Those four who trotted with me were not a company of servants following a mistress, but something more—companions of varied natures allied with another species who understood them and in whom they placed supreme trust.
We came to one of the vans such as I had seen in the yard of the show, the interior of which held cages. My companions went confidently forward and jumped in, pawed open the unfastened doors of the cages and settled themselves therein. But I stayed on the ground, growls rumbling in my throat. Cage—I was in that moment far more man than beast, and I had had enough of cages in Osokun’s keep,
Maelen laughed softly. “Well enough, Jorth-so I have named you. For that means in the ancient tongue ‘One-who-is-more-than-he-seems,’ and was once granted as a battle name to Mimber of Yithamen when he went up against the Night Valks. Share my seat if you will, and I shall tell you of your name-hero and how he wrought.”
There was nothing farther from my mind at that moment than the desire to listen to the folklore of Yiktor while riding blindly into a future which yet seemed so beyond belief that only by determined will could I consider it. Yet I mounted the seat beside Maelen and there sat upon my haunches, studying the world through eyes which still gave me strange reports.
But I began to see that there was more than the wish to beguile me out of considering my plight which moved Maelen to tell her tale. For as she continued to speak mind to mind, her powers to communicate and mine to receive were heightened and strengthened. Perhaps the esper I had used in my human body still worked in my favor. And, too, I found her story of value. Through its fabric was interwoven such of Yiktor —not the present, but an older, far more complex civilization which had once rooted here and of which the Thassa were the last survivors. There was much she said beyond my understanding, references to events and people unknown, such hints only making me wishful to go through the doors they represented and see what lay on the far side.
The van followed no path, taking the most open way across a wilderness country. We were on the eastern slopes of a range of hills forming a barrier between Oskold’s holdings and the plains of Yrjar. But to return to the port in my present guise was the last thing I wished. Maelen continued to reassure me that our eventual goal was the mysterious place of refuge in the higher hills to which my body was being escorted. She explained that the natives believed mental disorders to be a visitation of certain powers, and those harboring them were sacred, to be placed as speedily as possible in the custody of priests trained in such care. But we dared not follow too closely to this place, she warned me several times over, lest they suspect some trickery.
“How did you—how did you make me thus?” I asked at last.
She was silent for a space and when she replied, her thoughts were guarded and remote.
“I did that which I long ago took oath not to do. For this I shall answer in another time and place to those who have the right to demand it of me.”
“Why did you?”
“I was debt-laid,” she replied still more remotely. “It was through me that you came into this misfortune, thus I must level the scales.”
“But you did nothing-that small matter of the beast seller—”
“That, but also this. I knew that you had an enemy, perhaps more than one, and I did not warn you. Rather did I say that as Thassa the concerns of others were naught, save where they touched me. And for this I must also answer.”
“Enemy?”
“Yes.” And she told me of how Osokun had come to her with the man from the Combine ship, Gauk Salfid, and how they had suggested she attract a Free Trader into a net they would set. Although she had not done openly as they wished, she now believed that she had served their purpose because of curiosity. Thus had she begun the chain of events which had led to my kidnaping.
“That is not true. It was chance only until—”
“Until I made the moon-weave for you?” she interrupted. “Ah, that seems to you now the greatest of interference. But perhaps you will discover it the least as the future opens before us, then passes behind us. What I have done is a thing private to the Thassa.” Then she stopped and I felt her thoughts withdraw and I could not touch her, for a barrier grew between us. Her body sat there, but her eyes were really turned inward and she had gone where I could not follow.
But the kasi forged onward as if she had set some direction in their minds and they kept on as a navigator would hold to his chart, at a speed which might be slow but which held steady. Above us the sun was warm and bright. Then I set myself to learning my new body, that I might inhabit it competently as long as I must— though still I could not rid myself of the belief that this was a long dream haunting the mind of one safe in his own place and person.
IX
TWO DAYS we traveled so, camping at night in hidden thickets. I became more and more a part of the body I wore, and I learned that there are some compensations, lessons to be learned, by one who travels four-footed and looks upon the world through animal eyes. Maelen fell into moods of abstraction now and then, but between these she talked much, either relating legends or else pointing out features of the country and speaking of her own life as a wanderer there. But, I came to note, she did not often mention her people in the here and now, only as they were in the past. Also there were questions I asked that she adroitly avoided answering. I came to make it something of a business to try to trap her and I think she knew what I would do and as cunningly slipped past me.
On the morning of the third day as we climbed into the van she was frowning slightly.
“From here,” she said, “we come into the land of villages and men. And to cloak our purpose we shall call upon the skills of the little people.”
“You mean—give shows?”
“Yes. The road to the Valley is such that there are no side ways. Also we may learn of those who have gone before us.”
It was almost a shock to think of my body having ridden this road ahead, a sensation difficult to put into words. Maelen continued to promise me that those escorting that mindless thing would be careful to keep the spark of life within it, that, according to their superstitions, any neglect would result in a fate such as they would avoid at all costs.
“And I will be part of your entertainment?”
She smiled slowly. “If you wish. A very great part if you agree. For to my knowledge, and I assure you that is not small, no one has ever shown a barsk before.
“But you had hoped to.”
“Yes, I had hoped to.”
“What happened to—to—”
“The spirit who wore your present body? It was failing. Another day, perhaps two, and I would have out of compassion sent it on the White Road.”
“But in my body—now?”
“It is a feeble tenant. It does not suffer, only lingers for a time to keep the lamp lit until you return.”
“This exchange-you must have done it before.”
I had come out boldly with what I had tried to discover earlier. She looked at me.
“To each his own secrets, Krip Vorlund. I told you —this burden is mine, you will not be called to account for what has happened.”
“But you will?”
“I will. Now let us consider what lies before us, not what may exist behind a mountain range or two. By midday we shall arrive at Yim-Sin, the road to it lies there—” We were coming down a bank to a road into which the kasi turned, heading upward from the plains.