Warlock by Andre Norton

Tsstu reached the bottom of the cliff and vanished into the cloak of vegetation. Charis moved inland, the mental call bringing her to the spring.

A broken bush, torn turf. Then, on a stone, a dark sticky smear about which flying things buzzed or crawled sluggishly. In the edge of the pool, something gleamed in a spot of sun.

Charis picked up the stunner—not just any off-world weapon but one she knew well. When Jagan had had her in his cabin on the spacer to give her those instructions in what he intended to be her duties, she had seen such a side arm many times. The inlay of cross-within-a-circle set into the butt with small black vors stones had been a personal mark. It was out of the bounds of possibility that two weapons so marked could be here on Warlock.

She tried to fire it, but the trigger snapped on emptiness; its charge was exhausted. The trampled brush, the torn-up sod, and that smear— Charis forced herself to draw her finger through the congealed mess. Blood! She was sure it was blood. There had been a fight here and, judging by the lost stunner, the fight must have gone against the weapon’s owner or his weapon would not be left so. Had he faced a fork-tail? But there was no path of wreckage such as that beast had left on its pursuit of her, traces of which still remained to be seen. Only there had been a fight.

Tsstu made a sound deep in her throat, an “rrrrurrgh” of anger and warning. Moved purely by impulse, Charis caught up Tsstu and used the disk.

VIII

The smell caught at Charis’s throat, made her cough, even before she knew the source. This was the post clearing—just as she had aimed for—the bubble of the building rising from bare earth. Or the remains of it, for there were splotched holes in its fabric from which the plasta-cover peeled in scorched and stinking strips. Tsstu spat, growled, communication with Charis firm on the need for immediate withdrawal.

But there was a prone figure by the ragged hole which had once been a door. Charis started for that—

“Hoyyy!”

She whirled, her disk ready. There was someone on the trail which led down the cliff face. He moved faster, waving to her. She could escape at any moment she chose and that knowledge led her to stand her ground. Tsstu spat again, caught a clawed grip of Charis’s tunic.

From the brush rim of the clearing came a brown animal, trotting purposefully. It walked with its back slightly arched, showing off the bands of lighter color along each side, the fur thick and long. More of the light fur was visible above its eyes. Its ears were small, its face broad, the tail bushy.

Just out of the bushes it stopped to eye Charis composedly. Tsstu made no more audible protests, but the trembling of her body, her fear of mind, was transmitted to Charis. For the second time the girl readied her disk.

The man who had waved disappeared from the trail; he must have jumped down the last few feet. Now a whistle sounded from the foliage. The brown animal squatted down where it was. Charis watched warily as the newcomer burst into the clearing in a rush.

He wore the green-brown of Survey, with the addition of high boots of a dull copper-colored, supple material. On his tunic collar was the glint of metal—the insignia of his corps again modified with a key as it had been on the copter. He was young, though nowadays with the mixture of races and the number of mutants, planet years were hard to guess. Not as tall as the usual Terran breed though, and slender. His skin was an even brown which might be its natural shade or the result of much weathering, and his hair, rather closely cropped to his round skull was almost as tightly curled and just as black, as Tsstu’s fur.

His impetuous break into the open halted and he stood staring at Charis in open disbelief. The brown animal rose and went to him, rubbing against his legs.

“Who are you?” he demanded in Basic.

“Charis Nordholm,” she replied mechanically. Then she added, “That beast of yours—he frightens Tsstu—”

“Taggi? You need not fear him.” The brown animal reared against the man’s thigh and he fondled its head, scratched behind the small ears. “But—a curl-cat!” He was gazing now with almost as great surprise at Tsstu. “Where did you get it? And how did you make friends with it?”

“Meeerrreeee.” Some of Tsstu’s fear had lessened. She wriggled about in Charis’s arms as if settling herself in a more comfortable position, watching both man and animal with wary interest.

“She came to me,” Charis fitted the past to the present, “when you were hunting her with that animal!”

“But I never—” he began and then stopped “—oh, back in the woods that day Taggi went off on a new scent! But why—who are you?” His tone had a new snap; this was official business now. “And what are you doing here? Why did you hide when I searched here earlier?”

“Who are you?” she countered.

“Cadet Shann Lantee, Survey Corps, Embassy-Liaison,” he replied almost in one breath. “You sent that message, the one entered on our pick-up tape, didn’t you? You were here with the traders, though where you were just a little while ago—”

“I wasn’t here. I have just come.”

He moved toward her, the animal Taggi remaining where it was. Now his eyes were intent, with a new kind of measurement.

“You’ve been with them!”

And Charis had no doubt as to whom that “them” referred.

“Yes.” She was not prepared to add to that, but he seemed to need no other answer.

“And you’ve just come here. Why?”

“What has happened here? That man there—” She turned toward the body once more but the Survey officer in one swift stride was blocking her view of it.

“Don’t look! What’s happened?—Well, I’d like to know that myself. There’s been a raid. But who or why—Taggi and I have been trying to learn what could have happened here. How long have you been with them?”

Charis shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was the truth, but would this Lantee believe it?

He nodded. “Like that, eh? Some of their dreaming . . .”

It was her turn for surprise. What did this officer know of the Wyverns and their Otherwhere? He was smiling slowly, an expression which modified his usual set of mouth, made him even more youthful.

“I, too, have dreamed,” he said softly.

“But I thought—!” She had a small prick of emotion which was not amazement but, oddly, resentment.

His smile remained, warm and somehow eager. “That they do not admit males can dream? Yes, that is what they told us, too, once upon a time.”

“Us?”

“Ragnar Thorvald and I. We dreamed to order—and came out under our own command, so they had to give us equal status. Did they do the same to you? Make you visit the Cavern of the Veil?”

Charis shook her head. “I dreamed, yes, but I don’t know about your cavern. They taught me how to use this.” On impulse she held up the disk.

Lantee’s smile vanished. “A guide! They gave you a guide. So that’s how you got here!”

“You don’t have one?”

“No, they never offered us those. And you don’t ask—”

Charis nodded. She knew what he meant. With the Wyverns, you waited for their giving; you did not ask. But apparently Lantee and this Thorvald had better contact with the natives than the traders had been able to establish.

The traders—the raid here. She did not realize that she was speaking aloud her thoughts as she said:

“That man with the blaster!”

“What man?” Again that official voice from Lantee.

Charis told him of that strange last night in the post when she had awakened to find herself in a deserted building, of her use of the com and the answer the sweep had picked up in the north. Lantee shot questions at her, but the answers she had were so limited she could tell him little more than the fact that the stranger in the visa-plate had worn an illegal weapon.

“Jagan had a limited permit,” Lantee said when she had done. “He was here on sufferance and against our recommendations, and he had only a specified time in which to prove his trade claim. We heard he had brought in a woman as liaison, but that was when he first set up the post . . .”

“Sheeha!” Charis broke in. Rapidly she added that part of the story to the rest.

“Apparently she couldn’t take the dreams,” Lantee observed. “They reached for her, just as they did for you. But she wasn’t receptive in the right way, so it reacted on her, broke her. Then Jagan made another trip and got you. But this other crowd—the one you picked up that night—that spells trouble. It looks as if they hit here—”