“Think, Krip Vorlund, have I ever promised you that this would be an easy thing?”
“No,” he agreed. “Nor can you either promise me a body—if those we trail now have used the Valley as they used Yim-Sin.”
“The Valley has safeguards the village did not. It is able to protect those who dwell there, and it may be there is a good defense against these raiders as well. I have offered you the best I can, Krip Vorlund. No one, man or Thassa, can do more than that.”
“Agreed. What will you do with this child?”
“If the Valley is still intact, Umphra will care for her. If not, she goes with us.”
For the first time, he appeared to note the loss of the rest of our company, for he asked:
“Where are the animals?”
“I have sent them to where I hope my people will find them. If not, they will be free to roam as they choose.”
For a while he was silent, and then he said, “Both our lives have been changed by that walk we took together in the fair of Yrjar. I would not believe this story had I not lived it.”
“Stuff for the weaving of a legend,” I agreed. “I have heard it said that if you dig far enough into any old tale you will unwrap at least one small kernel of one-time fact.”
“Maelen, what was Maquad to you?”
I was off-guard and perhaps he had sensed that. The sudden shot brought the truth from me.
“He was the life companion of my sister by birth, Merlay. When—when he went from us, I thought she might follow. She still turns her face from the fullness of life.”
“Tell me, would that alliance be again in effect did Maquad return?” His second demand was as sharp as the first.
“No. You would wear Maquad’s body, but you are not Maquad. Looking upon you, however, she might be moved to accept the truth and awake once more from dark to light.” There it was, my poor frayed wish spoken into words at last.
“But would your people know I was not as I seemed?” He appeared not to have heard the ending of my speech.
I smiled wryly. “Do not think you can hide your true identity from any Thassa, Krip Vorlund. They would know you at meeting. And, I must tell you this also, they will not approve of what we would do. I defy all our Standing Words when I give to you Maquad’s dwelling, even for a short space of time. They cannot prevent that act, but it is one I must answer for in time to come.”
“Then why—?”
“Why must I do it? Need you ask that, off-worlder? This tangle is of my snarling, mine must be the unraveling. I am pledged by the strongest oath of my people to see that you have all aid within my power. I cannot tell why this has been so set upon me. But one bears the burdens sent by Molaster, one does not question them.”
He asked me no more, and I was glad that he meditated upon his own thoughts. For I was busy in my own mind. I had told him the exact truth. He would wear Maquad’s body and he would not be Maquad. But just as the beast influences a little the human in-dweller, so would the shell of Maquad influence him. And this off-worlder was sensitive with esper power.
Maquad had been a Singer of the second degree. He had been searching for knowledge to lead him higher when he was slain in four-footed guise. The animal of his exchange had been young, not used before, and so it lapsed after a period of violence into a cataleptic state which no mind-send could reach. But the beast portion had not, could not, reach all of the human brain, just as the human could not entirely possess the animal. There was a residue left in Maquad, if not the same Maquad of his memories, or more-Even the Old Ones do not know the full extent of changes so wrought. In all our history there was never a case of a human’s return to a human or Thassa body not his own. Suppose, just suppose, that in Maquad’s body that residue would awake and influence- I could not be sure, but even a part-Maquad might brighten Merlay’s days for a space, draw her back to us again!
I stared out past the kasi and the road, and saw neither animals nor way but only her face and the change which might come to it were Maquad-or part-Maquad-to walk with her for a time! Although if what I longed for did not come, still I would abide by my oath-we would ride to Yrjar and try to change what might be unchangeable.
Also I thought of the Valley and what might be happening there this day. By all signs those who had finished Yim-Sin must have reached there by now, and the time space between us lengthened as we climbed so slowly. We passed the sections where sentries had once stood to ask the business of wayfarers. There were no sentries and I did not pause to seek them. I was not minded to hurry our ascent, to arrive while a battle might still be in progress. The Valley safeguards would make no distinction between friend or foe. And who knew—perhaps some measure of sanity would return to the raiders aloft.
The child slept and perhaps Krip Vorlund did also, for he lay quiet, his head pillowed on a forepaw. Nor did he speak to me again. We made a nooning in the wilderness where only the road broke the land. There water bubbled in a mountain stream and I loosed the kasi to graze and rest.
“No sign yet?” The off-worlder asked when I brought him a bowl of water.
“None save they came this way. But who they are, or why they do this—” I shook my head.
“Your powers,” he commented, “appear to have their limits.”
“As all do. You have mind-send. But do you also telaport or the like?”
“No. There are those who can, but I have yet to meet one. Only I had thought that the Thassa-”
“Could perform stranger acts than that? Sometimes, but the site and the time must fit the pattern. Given both I might beam-read and get a half view of the future, or rather a future.”
“Why a future? Do futures change?”
“They do, because they depend upon decisions, and does a man remain always subject to the same thoughts, hour after hour, day after day? What seems right and meaningful at this moment may not be so later. Therefore the future in the broad sense, yes, that can be read. But our relation to the future changes through our need to face this crisis or that. I could tell you the fate of a nation, but not of the individual men of that nation.”
“But you might tell the fate of the Valley?”
“Perhaps, given the right time, which I am not. For that is beyond my grasping.”
“And soon we may learn for ourselves,” he said. “When I first met you in that dell—how long ago was it? I have since lost all numbering of days.”
I shook my head. “Days bearing numbers are not the concern of the Thassa. Long ago we ceased to deal with such. We remember what has chanced, but not this day or that.”
Had he been man at that moment, I think he might have laughed.
“You are so right, Freesha! Enough has happened to me on Yiktor that days have certainly ceased to count in number. But when I came to your camp fresh from Osokun’s fort, I thought I was caught up in some vivid and unpleasant dream. And to that belief I am inclined to return now and then. It would explain what has happened so much more easily than to think that waking I have lived—am living—this.”
“I have heard that off-world there are methods of inducing such dreams. Perhaps you have tried such and so are ready for such a belief. But if you have been dreaming, Krip Vorlund, I am awake! Unless I am a part of your dream—”
He ate from my fingers the meat cake I crumbled, then drank from his water bowl. The child stirred and moaned.
“You put her to sleep.” That was more statement than question.
“Thus she could not remember, or fear.”
I took her up in my arms now and put to her lips a small cup wherein I had mixed water and the juice of healing herbs. In her sleep she drank, and then her head turned on my shoulder and she passed into deeper slumber.
“Maelen, are you wed? Do you have a child?”
I thought suddenly, in all this strange adventure we were sharing neither of us had asked such a question of the other, nor had we cared what had passed before.