“Best not to meddle farther—” he began and then hesitated.
“It will go no farther,” I promised, not knowing then how quickly such a promise can become a dawn web, vanquished by sun rays.
In this much was SIafid right. There were Traders, two of them, at the performance. I cannot read off-worlders’ ages aright, but I believed them young, and neither wore many service bands on his tunic. Their skin was very dark, as comes from space, and their hair, clipped close to the skull for the better wearing of their helmets, was dark also. They did not smile ever as had SIafid, nor did they speak much with each other. But when my little people showed their talents, they were as enrapt as children, and I thought we might be half friends, were they of Yiktor.
As I had suggested, Malec brought them behind when the show was over. And when I looked at them closely I knew they were not as Gauk SIafid. Perhaps they Were simple men as we Thassa judge most other races to be, but it was a good simplicity, not that of ignorance which can be made crooked by malice or ambition. And I was moved to speak to the one calling himself Krip Vorlund concerning my old dream of seeking other worlds with my little people.
In him I read a kindred interest, though he was quick to point out to me the many dangers which would hedge about my desire, and the fact that it could be accomplished only if one had vast treasure to draw upon. Deep in me sparked the thought that perhaps I, too, had a price. But that quickly vanished.
As his kind is judged, this off-worlder was good to look upon, not as tall as Osokun, but rather slender and wiry. And I think that, were he matched weaponless to Oskold’s son, the latter would have a surprise in the struggle. My little people enchanted him, and they liked him also—which wanned me to him. For animals such as ours can read the spirit. Fafan, who is very timid in strange company, laid her hand paw in his at first advance and called after him when he went from her, so that he returned and spoke softly as one does in soothing a child.
I would have explored farther this man and his comrade, only Otjan, one of the run boys, came then with his tale of a barsk in harsh imprisonment and I had to go. This Vorlund asked to go with me and to that I agreed, I know not why, save that I wanted to know more of him.
And in the end it was his quickness which saved me trouble, for that torturer of fur people, Othelm of Ylt, would have used a snik-claw knife. But Vorlund used his off-world weapon, which cannot kill nor greatly harm, merely deter a would-be attacker, giving me time to wand-wish that nather. With his aid we brought back the barsk and saw to its housing. But then I knew that I could not be two-minded while I nursed that hopeless one, and I dismissed the Traders with what courtesy my impatience would allow.
When they were gone I wrought with the barsk as best I could, using all the skill of Molaster’s servant. I thought that the body might be healed, but so dampened with pain and terror was the mind that never might I establish contact. Yet neither could I find it in me to send it along the White Road now. I left it in a sleep without dreams, to heal its limbs and body, to take away the pain of its thoughts.
“There is no use,” Malec told me near dawn. “You will have to keep it in dream or make the sleep complete.”
“Perhaps, but let us wait awhile. There is something—” I sat by the table, drooping with that fatigue which makes one’s muscles and bones leaden and slow to answer to an equally slow mind. “There is something—” But the burden of my weariness kept me from probing then. Instead I stumbled to my couch and truly slept.
The Thassa can dream true, but only under controlled conditions. What I pictured then in the depths of sleep was a return of memory which flowed on to be mingled grotesquely with the present, to give birth to a possible future. For first I held in my arms one who cried herself into a bleak despair for which there was no comfort. And I looked upon another who, in the fair and unblemished body of youth, was empty of all reason, to whom no power could return. Then I walked with the young Trader, not as I had through the fair this night, but rather in a mountain place, which I knew with sorrow and dread.
But man shrank into animal, and beside me paced the barsk who turned now and again and looked upon me with cold eyes full of menace, which became entreaty, then hatred. But I walked without fear, not because of a wand—which I no longer held—but because I had that which tied the animal to me in a bondage it could not break.
And in that dream all was clear and had much meaning. Only when I awoke, with a dull pain behind my eyes and no refreshment of body, the meaning was gone, I held only scraps of haunting memory.
But now I know that dreaming planted in the depths of my mind, or awoke there, purpose that grew within me until it influenced clear thought. Nor did I shrink from that purpose when the moment came to put it into action, because it had grown to fill my being.
The barsk still lived, and inner seeing told me that its body mended. But we left it in deep sleep, which was the best we could now do for it. As I dropped the curtain across its cage, I heard that metallic ring which had come to mean space boots to my ears, and I turned somewhat eagerly, thinking that mayhap the Trader— Only it was Slafid who walked there alone.
“Dawn light fair to you, Freesha.” He gave greeting in the town tongue as one who was entirely sure of his welcome here. And, needing to learn the reason for his persistence, I gave greeting in return.
^ see,” he said, looking about him, “that all is well.”
“Why should it be otherwise?” Malec came from the kasi lines to ask.
“There was no disturbance here, but elsewhere last night-” Slafid looked from one to the other. And when we stood blank-faced to his gaze, he continued, “One Othelm of Ylt has made formal complaint against you, Freesha, and one he terms an off-worlder.”
“So?”
“Use of an off-world weapon, theft of valuable property. Both are black crimes in fair law. At best you may be embroiled with the court, at worst expelled and fined.”
“True,” I agreed. I had no fears of Othelm’s complaint myself, but the Trader’s case was another matter. Osokun-was there any way he could turn this to his advantage? By port law the Traders had a right to wear body weapons, since the effects of those were relatively harmless. In fact they were less dangerous than the swords and daggers no lord or sword-sworn would move without. And Vorlund had used his in my defense, against a weapon that was outlawed and the very possession of which could condemn Othelm to greater penalties than I believed he would care to think upon. Only, any embroilment with fair law could set the Trader’s superiors against him. We all knew of the strictness of their code on alien planets.
“Osokun’s kinsman-by-the-third, Ocorr, is chief guard today.”
“What would you say?” Malec fronted this Slafid, his impatience sharp in his tone.
“That perhaps you have done Osokun’s will in this matter after all, Freesh.” Slafid smiled his slow smile. “I think you might be wise to claim credit for it, even if you did not intend to have this result.”
Now I could not bite back the question, “Why?”
Still he smiled as he leaned against a cage. “The Thassa are above and beyond plains law. But what if there be new laws, Freesha? And what if the Thassa legend be mostly that, legend only, with little in the way of deeds to back it should it be challenged? Are you now a great people? Rumor says not—if you ever were. So far you have kept aloof from the affairs of the plainsmen, you who are not men as they are men, nor women as they are women. How do you run under the Three Rings, Freesha, on two feet or four-or do you sail on wings?”
I took that as a warrior might take a sword in his vitals. For such words and what lay behind them were a sword, a weapon which, if used rightly, could cut down all of my clan and blood. So—this was the threat Osokun could bring to force us, or try to do so, under his hand! But I was proud that neither of us, Malec nor I, showed the effects of the blow he dealt us.