For now she was aware of something else; around her gathered and grew that mad hate she had twice faced and which now began a third assault. The Raski suddenly threw back his head, lifting his face to the sky. He howled, mouthing a cry which held no human note in it.
She feared he would break the mental bond, turn and rend her with the brainless ferocity of a sargon. But, though he howled once more and his fear and rage enveloped her, still her will subdued that in him which struggled for freedom and he continued to climb.
They came to the door. The Raski flung out both, arms, caught at the sides of that portal, bracing his body as if this were his last stand against unnamable terror and despair.
“No!” he screamed.
Elossa, now afraid that he would swing around, throw her down the incline of that ramp- ladder, did not wait to send a mind-probe. Instead she thrust vigorously, her hands striking him waist high. Perhaps the speed of that physical attack made it successful. He stumbled, his head falling forward on his chest. Then that stumble continued and he crumpled, to lie motionless.
Elossa squeezed past him, turned and stooped, hooked her fingers in the belt which held his torn clothing to his body. Exerting her strength, she pulled him well into the hall.
Then. . . .
Instinctively she braced her body as one preparing for defense. For out of the air-not in her mind, but rather in words she could understand, though they had a different accent from true Yurth speech-there came a message.
“Welcome, Yurth blood. Take up the burden of your sin and shame and learn to walk with it. Go you forward to the place of learning.”
“Who are you?” Her voice was shaken, thin. There came no answer to her question. Nor would there be, some sense within her knew.
The Raski rolled over on the floor, lay staring up at her. There was no cloudiness in his eyes now, rather a fierce, demanding intelligence. He pulled away, to sit up, looking about him as a trapped animal might search for a way out of a cage.
From the doorway sounded once more the scraping of metal. The Raski whirled but he did not even have time to get to his feet. Inexorably the door slid shut, they were sealed into this place.
“Where are we?” He used the common tongue forged between Raski and Yurth.
Elossa answered with the truth. “I do not know. There was a city. . . in ruins. . . but that you know. . . .” She watched him carefully. It was true that sometimes some inner safeguard could wipe from memory all trace of the immediate past-if that memory threatened the well-being of the mind. To her ear his bewilderment suggested this might have happened to him.
He did not answer at once. Instead he surveyed what lay about them, the smooth walls which stretched away to form a narrow hall, no break in them. He frowned as his gaze returned to her.
“City-” he repeated. “Do not tell me we are in Coldath of the King.”
“Another place, older, far older.” She thought that the King-Head’s capital which he named might have been lost in this place when it had been a home for men.
He put his hand to his head. “I am Stans of the House of Philbur.” He spoke to himself, she knew, rather than to her, reassuring himself of his own identity. “I was hunting and. . . .”
His head came up again. “I saw you pass. I was warned that when any Yurth sought the mountains I must be prepared to follow. . . .”
“Why?” she asked, disturbed and surprised. This was a breaking of an old tradition and had an ominous sound.
“To discover whence comes your devil-power,” he replied without hesitation. “There was. . . surely there was a sargon.” His hand went to his side where her plaster still clung to his flesh. “That I did not dream.”
“There was a sargon,” Elossa assented.
“And you tended this.” His hand continued to rest upon his side. “Why? Your people and mine are ever unfriends.”
“We are not unfriends enough to watch a man die when we might aid him.” There was no need to explain her own part in his wounding.
“No, you are content to be murderers!” He spat the words into her face.
7.
“Murderers?” Elossa echoed. “Why do you name us that, Stans of the House of Philbur? When has any of the Yurth brought death to your people? When your King-Head came hunting us, swearing to kill us all, man, woman, child, we defended ourselves, not with drawn steel, but with illusion which clouds the mind for a space, yes, but does not kill.”
“You are the Sky Devils.” He arose, bracing his shoulders against the wall of that hall, facing her as a man might face great peril when his hands were empty of any weapon.
“I do not know your sky devils,” she returned. “Nor do I mean any harm to you, Stans. I have come hither by the custom of the Yurth and for no reason which means ill to you and yours.” She was eager to get on, to obey the voice which had welcomed her here. That compulsion which had led her to the mountains, and, in turn to the dome, had become an overwhelming urge to go on to some inner place which would show to her what she must learn.
“The custom of the Yurth!” His mouth moved as if he would spit upon her even as had the girl in the town. Anger blazed out of him, but it was not that madness which had controlled him in the ruins. This was natural and not the result of possession.
“Yes, the custom of the Yurth,” Elossa returned quietly. “I must complete my Pilgrimage. Do I go in peace to do that? Or is it that I must set mind-bonds upon you?”
She believed that she really could not do so. Her energy was far too sapped by what she had called upon to aid her in escape. But she must not let him realize that, and she knew that, above all else, the Raski feared mind-touch for any reason.
However, she could not read any fear in him now. Had he realized in some manner that her threat was an empty one?
“You go.” He stood away from the wall. “I also come.”
To refuse him would mean a confrontation either at mind level (which she was very dubious about winning) or on the physical plane. Though her thin body could endure much, the though of such a contact by force was one any Yurth would find revolting. Touch, except for very special reasons and at times when one was completely relaxed, no Yurth could long endure.
She did not know what lay before her; that it was an ordeal, a testing of her kind she did not doubt. What might it be for a Raski intruder? She could envision traps, defenses against one of another race or species which could slay-either mind or body or both. All she could do was warn.
“This is a sacred place of my people.” She used the term which he must understand. Though the Yurth had no temples, worshipped no gods that had any symbols, they recognized forces for good and evil, perhaps too removed from human land to be called upon. The Raski did have shrines, though what gods or goddesses those harbored the Yurth neither knew nor cared. “Do your temples not have sites of Power which are closed to unbelievers?”
He shook his head. “The Halls of Randam are open to all-even to Yurth, should such come.”
She sighed. “I do not know what barriers for a Raski may be raised here. I warn, I cannot foresee.”
His head was held proudly-high. “Warn me not, Yurth woman! Nor believe that where you go I fear to follow. Once my House dwelt in Kal-Nath-Tan.” He made a gesture toward the door through which they had come.
“Kal-Nath-Tan which the sky-devils slew with their fire, their wind of death. It is told in the Hearth-room on my clan house that we once sat in the High Seat of that city and all within raised shield and sword when they cried upon our name. I am the last to bear the sword and wear the name that I do. It would seem that Randam has ordained that I be the one to venture into the heart of the sky-devil’s own place.
“Other men of the clan have come seeking. Yes, we have followed Yurth hither. One in each generation has been bred and trained to do so.” He stood away from the wall, straight and tall, his pride of blood enwrapping him as might the state cloak of the King-Head. “This was my geas set upon me by the very blood within my veins. Galdor rules in the plains. He sits in a village of mud and ill-laid stone. While his House of Stitar was even not numbered in the shrine of Kal-Nath-Tan. I am no shieldman of Galdor’s. We of Philbur’s blood raise no voice in his hall. But it is said in the Book of Ka-Nath which is our treasure: there shall rise a new people in the days to come and they will rebuild what once was. Thus we have sent the Son of Philbert each generation to test the worth of that prophecy.”