XVI
LIKE ALL THE THASSA, I have ever loved the heights above the plains, where sometimes the breath clogs in the throat and there is such a dust of both country and man as to thicken the mind and slow thought. I do not know from whence my race came. The past stretches long and long, and is far lost in misty beginnings. Sometimes at in-gatherings we speak idly of this, speculating about this and that. It has been said among us that we are perhaps not even of Yiktor, but born of another world, in our time as new to this planet as the off-worlder riding with me. But if that is so, our coming is now so far behind us that not even any faint legend remains.
While we were still dwellers under roofs, our cities were of the mountains not of the plains, and that is why we made no difficulties over land when the plains dwellers came overseas to settle here. For they sought the lowlands as we the high places.
Now as the van climbed toward Yim-Sin, almost insensibly my heart grew a little lighter, as must any wanderer’s coming into a land which welcomes him. Yet this time fear also rode with me. Had Simmle still shared my life, she could have scouted ahead, being my warning eves and ears.
The sun climbed, but was much hidden by the peaks of the hills and we had neither its full light nor its warmth. I ate and drank as we went, but I no longer sang. For in me the power was much lowered by all the calls I had made upon it during these past few hours, and there might be need ahead for a weapon of some force. The signs of the troop which had preceded us could still be read.
Along the curves of the hills were the terraced vineyards, the leaves on the vines withered and purplish, proving the harvest well past its peak. Down from the crest land came no good wind to rustle through them, rather one carrying the reek of burning. I no longer doubted what was to be found at Yim-Sin.
The smoke still coiled lazily from some heaps of ashes; and from places where the harvest had been stored came oily clouds. I wet a scarf and tied it about nose and throat, but my eyes smarted.
Umphra’s temple alone stood unfired. But the great gate hung askew from its hinges and on it were marks of a battering ram. I stopped the van to listen. Very faintly from out of that inner court I heard a muffled plaint, not loud enough for true crying. About me I did not look too closely. Death had walked here and not as a friend. I climbed down from the van and went into that place beyond the broken gate.
It was plain what had happened. Yim-Sin had been taken by surprise, but a handful of her people had managed to reach here, hoping for a sanctuary not to be theirs. I searched for life, for the crying had stopped. And I found it in a child whom I took up in my arms, one who looked upon me vacantly and neither shrank from nor invited my hold.
Bestowing her in the van apart from Jorth, lest intelligence return to her and she be frightened by such a companion, I went again into Umphra’s temple.
Senseless had been the slaying and destruction, as if those who had wrought it had been only shells of man with far worse than any human spirit within those shells. But that is how man can be when he thrusts aside all controls upon the kernels of cruelty and evil which dwell within him. I am a Singer, and to win my power I faced many dire trials and tests. I am of the Thassa, a people now pledged to a form of peace. What I saw that day in Yim-Sin was beyond all experience, and I came forth sick and shaking, unable to believe that this had been wrought by any who were still to be termed men.
If Yim-Sin had fared so, then what had happened in the Valley? But the Valley had safeguards, intended to protect, even from themselves, those who dwelt there. Would those safeguards have turned outward to save them from this?
I went back to the van and gave orders to the kasi. Then I took into my arms the girl-child I had found still alive, and to her I sang a small song to give her sleep for a time and open the deep place within her as refuge for her terrified spirit. When I laid her back within the van, Jorth raised his head and looked at us.
“What has happened?”
I gave him the truth of what I had found here and told him that death might now run before us.
“Why? Who?”
“Neither can I tell you. My only guess is that some enemy would come upon Oskold by way of the Valley.”
“But I thought that the Valley, its roads, was sacred. untouchable.”
“In war the gods are forgotten or outraged. It is often so.”
“But would the plainsmen do such a thing just for a chance at a sneak attack upon one lord?” he persisted.
“I have thought that also, but I have no answer. There were fires out on the plains last night. I can only believe that this is not merely an invasion of Oskold’s land but a conflict which has spread far more widely, perhaps already laps with fire and blood across the whole land. For what I have seen here there is no sane reason. Outlaws might act so, but there is no outlaw band large enough to take a town—and with Osokun and his men dead, who are the outlaws?”
“But we go on—to the Valley?”
“I have sworn to you an oath,” I replied wearily “What I can do to restore to you something of what has been taken, that I shall do. And the answer is in the Valley.”
“You propose to give me Maquad’s body?”
I was not surprised at his words. He was not stupid and the fitting of one thing to another to make the right sum was not difficult. “Yes, if you agree, Maquad’? body. In that you can go to Yrjar, I with you. We can tell your tale, your ship may be signaled, they will return.”
“Many ifs in that,” he commented. “Tell me, Maelen, why should you give me Maquad’s body?”
“Because,” I said dully, “it is the only one possible.”
“No other reason? Not that you wish Maquad to live again?”
“Maquad is gone. Only that which held him has life still—after a dim fashion.”
“Then you separate man from body, you Thassa.” I did not know just what he was trying to say.
“You are Krip Vorlund,” I returned. “Do you feel yourself less Krip Vorlund because you now dwell in another outer casing?”
He was silent, considering this. I hoped it was the right answer to direct his thinking. If he believed the body did not matter as much as that which was within it, then the exchange would not be so hard for him.
“Then to you, your people, it does not really matter what body you wear?”
“Of course it matters! I would be one lacking in wits to declare it otherwise. But we believe that the inner part is far greater than the outer, that it is our true identity; the other only clothing for the eyes and sense. Maquad’s outer casing still lives, but that which was Maquad is gone from it and us. I can offer you his former dwelling place so that you can once more be a man—”
“A Thassa!” he corrected me.
“And is that not the same?”
“No!” his denial was sharp. “We are far different. As Jorth I have learned that a residue of the original inhabitant, as you would say, still dwells in this body and that it can influence me. Will it not be the same if I try another switch? Will I not be Krip-Maquad rather than Krip Vorlund?”
“Does barsk or man rule in Jorth?”
“Man, I hope—now—” But his answer was a little hesitant.
“Would not then Krip Vorlund be Krip Vorlund no matter what body he dwells in?”
“But you are not sure—”
“Is anyone,” I burst out then, “to be sure of anything in any world under any sun?”
“Except death.”
“Is death then a surety for you off-worlders? Do you believe that is just an end and not a beginning?”
“Who can tell?” he made answer. “Perhaps we can not demand any unqualified reply to any question we are moved to ask. So, you offer me a body more akin to my lost one. You say, take this and go to Yrjar, tell your story, and ask for the return of that which is yours. Yet it would seem that we must deal not only with our own affairs, but with a war lying between us and Yrjar.”