Flame is red, yellow, many shades of those colors, as anyone who has watched the dance of fire tongues can tell you.
The hide drew something else—it was grey, as if this country had even bleached the life from fire itself. But that strange flame leaped into being as the hide curled, giving forth the stench of its burning. When the last of it was ashed there was only the blackened hole and no sign of anything which might still lie in wait there. I had seen that happen. Such was totally beyond any traveler’s tale I had ever listened to with the greed of one who wished to know yet hesitated to venture forth to learn for himself.
Now I went back to those other two skulls which bore the brand of the strange burning. This time I impaled a tatter on the end of my staff and gingerly shook it free so that the stained ribbon might fall upon the human skull.
There came fire again—only this burned with a sickening greenish hue—and was as quick to finish off what I had fed into it. Two kinds of fire? Or only one which answered in different ways because the prey differed?
What had happened—
I started back, tripped over the bones of a yaksen, and fell on my back, as helpless for a moment as one of those brilliantly colored beetles the traders from Vapala offer from time to time.
Again—
Sound, a moan of sound—then pattern of notes—as if someone lost in this desolation was singing his own death melody.
Murri snapped around but with care for his footing. He was facing outward, away from the ill-omened battlefield.
Again—now there was a continuous background hum from which came notes, or even sounds like a much repeated refrain aroused. And since the first shock was over I realized what it was—that there was one playing a Kifongg harp and with it singing a dirge which was only rightful for this country.
“Life!” Murri’s whole body stiffened into a point.
Had someone escaped massacre? The law of the trail was plain: it was my duty to hunt for that survivor.
Or—I glanced once more at the blackened skulls—was this a trap?
Murri picked up that thought. Perhaps it had already occurred to him.
“No trap—life, cave, food—” He was impatient.
I had stored my finds into my pack. Now more than ever were I to reach some authority I must report our discovery. Leaning on my staff a little as the ever-crunching and moving gravel cut at my boots, I moved on into the night after Murri.
As suddenly as it had sounded out of the night, so that dirge ended. We had passed out of the treacherous footing that lay on the edge of the Plain and once more faced the rise and fall of the glimmering sand dunes. Here the wide, furred feet of Murri made better time than mine and I had dropped a length or so behind when I sighted a spark of light ahead. It seemed so high in the sky that first I thought it was a star, yet it seemed too bright for one of those dim beacons which had so far not served me at all.
We came upon our first-seen spur of rock. And a moment or so later, I was sure that this was not altogether the work of nature. Rather it was a part statue of a way cat, the head and shoulders of which had been snapped off to lie as a partly shattered mass to one side.
Not far beyond that a second way marker reared, and this one was not only intact but within its head a small fire had been kindled, for there were yellow beams to mark the eyes. It was a work of cunning art and it wore also a necklet of dullish jewels, certainly so eroded by the sandstorms, as well as rings at the tips of its well-shaped ears. Yet there was that in its outline which suggested the sandcat rather than the harmless kottis with which we were always so glad to share our shelters.
The statue was faced partly away from me so that I saw only the one eye clearly. As we passed it the land began to slope downward and we had to fight our way through shifting sands, which, in places, were like to swallow Murri to his belly fur and me to my knees. It was the sloping of this way which had hidden, by the aid of the night, the fact that we had entered a great basin. Nor was the cat with the burning eyes the only one who was set there on guard. There were three others, and a second of these also showed the burning night eyes.
We won through the slopes of the dunes and came out upon a more level space. Here there had been erected a whole clan of cats, some showing signs of wear, and others standing as straight and tall as if they had just been set in place. While not too far away that was a line of darkness blotting out some of the sand glitter—surely the outermost shore of one of the isles!
Murri held high his head, his ears pointed a little forward, his nostrils expanded. My senses were so much the less than his but I knew that scent too well to be deceived—there were yaksen ahead! Though that did not mean that we had come upon some outpost of a holding here—for the thick-coated beasts of burden roamed free in many places.
We came to where rock sprouted upward from the sand. Murri uttered a small sound. Water! Somewhere not too far beyond us now was an algae bed and there lay what we needed the most.
Still we were not utterly disarmed by our need. Murri yet took the lead with a spring which carried him up into a shelf extension of the rock and I followed with greater effort.
I heard the snorting of a herd bull that must have picked up our scent. Murri was inching along an ascending ledge, his claws unleashed to make sure of every small advantage to come from hooking them into the seams and crevices.
“Saaaaaaaaaa!” It was almost the snarl of a cat and there bounded downslope, only inches away from my defenseless head, a rock, full double-fist large. I flattened myself until my cheek ground into the stone.
The musky smell of the yaksen was strong. I could almost hear the click of their hooves.
“Saaaaaa!” Again the rising cry of a guardian herdsman. How many times I myself had uttered such when on duty?
“We mean no harm.” I had to moisten my lips twice with my tongue before I could shape those words. “Traveler’s rights, herdsman. These we claim!”
Traveler’s rights for a sandcat? To any there would be folly in such a suggestion.
“Saaaaaaaa!” Undoubtedly the voice was farther away. The watchman was true enough to his service to urge what beasts he could out of range.
My hand flailed upward, caught at the stone, and I had a firm enough grip to hold, to pull myself up on a flat surface. I got to one knee and then made it to my feet which were shaking a little as I forced myself away from the stone to look around.
Five yaksen, two of which were hardly more than calves, had moved away. I could see no more of them than blots which stirred uneasily.
“Traveler’s greeting,” I tried again. And to prove the Tightness of my claim for such consideration I added:
“I am Hynkkel of the House of Klaverel. I am faring forth on my solo.”
“You bear weapons.” The voice was thin, wavery, almost as if it had been but little used lately.
“Only such—” I was beginning when I remembered the arms we had taken from the massacre camp, “only such as a man may need hereabouts.”
“You company with that which brings death— ‘ There was accusation in the voice which had now taken on something of a whine.
“I company with a friend,” I returned firmly. “This one is blood brother to me. Murri,” I called to the sandcat. “This is a friend—
“A sandcat has no friends among smoothskins,” he spat.
“Then what am I?” I countered. That this stranger so well hidden in the shadows could make anything of our exchange I did not know. But having reconstructed a course of life after such a near acceptance of death, I was not going to surrender.
“By the blood which unites us,” I spoke only to Murri now, “swear that we come in truce, as is the way of the land.”
There was only silence and my frustration grew strong. If Murri was ready to separate me from my own kind after this first smile of fortune—
“Murri, I wait!”
“And die?” there came the cat’s answer.