The drain of energy was such that she could actually feel it flowing out of her fingertips into the hurt. Heal! Back and forth her fingers passed, touching lightly the surface of the cloth, sending through that the force of the Upper Sense aimed at this one task alone.
She had reached the end of her endeavor, weariness was about her as an outer skin. Her hands dropped to her sides, her shoulders were bent. The dark had now so enclosed them that she could not see the face of the sleeping man save as a white blue. But he slept, and for him she could do no more.
Elossa raised her head with a great effort. Now she was aware that the clamor of battle was stilled. Her concentration relaxed. She wanted to seek out through the night, but the power was far spent, her whole body was so drained that she could not even move, only sat hunched beside the sleeper, waiting and listening in a dull way.
No sound. Nor did the feeling of aroused fury sweep toward her. She could not seek to penetrate the dark with mind-send. It might be a full day and night, or more, before she might draw back into her even a fraction of the talent she had used.
There was a sigh out of the night. Once more that head moved against her knee. Elossa tensed. She had paid her debt to the Raski but she did not believe that her care of him would in any way mitigate the inborn hatred of his kind for hers. Though she had nothing to fear from him in his present weakened state, still his emotions, if he roused fully, would shatter the peace and quiet she must have to recover her own necessary strength.
Very slowly she pushed away from the man. In spite of her great fatigue she knew that she must make an effort to get away, out of his sight. She slipped down from the rock perch, steadied herself against that while she picked up her staff.
With that to lean on, Elossa turned once more to the slope. Out of the veiling brush she caught the scent of blood, the reek of rog and sargon intermingled. There in the open rested a mass of torn fur, splintered bone, from which all life had fled. Here two monsters, equally matched, had fought to the death of both.
The girl pulled herself past that horrible battlefield, digging the staff in to support herself. There was the sound of sliding gravel, a hoarse clack of bird, a patter of feet Scavengers were coming out of the night. None of that noisome crew need she fear. They would find a feast awaiting.
Up and up. She had to pause often to gather her forces and settle her will the firmer. But, at length, she came into the cup of grass and growth where the spring pool lay. Wavering over, she plunged her face and hands into the sharp chill of the water. Then she fumbled with her provision bag, hunger gnawing within her.
She drank from the stream, chewed food she hardly tasted, straggling to keep awake while she ate. At last she could battle no longer. Around her neck she settled the chain of the seeing disc and that she put by her ear. Though she did not know the reason or the method by which that worked, it was tuned to her personally alone, and, when she set it so, it would rouse her against the coming of any danger.
Thus protected as well as she could be in this wilderness, Elossa stretched out on the tough grass, her traveling cape about her. There was no time tonight for the daily meditation upon all happenings which was a part of Yurth training. Instead she dropped into almost instant slumber as she relaxed her conscious hold on her mind.
Dreams could warn, could instruct, were of importance. For long Yurth minds had investigated, recorded, shifted and judged dreams. They had learned to control them, to pick from perhaps a muddling and puzzling sequence of dream pictures a scrap here, a fragment there, which could be carried over into waking and there answer some question, or propose one to be investigated in the future.
Elossa was very used to dreams, some vivid and alive, some so tenuous they were floating wisps she could not capture even with her training.
But. . . .
She stood on a road, a road of stone blocks fitted together with expert precision and art. Smooth and solid under her feet was that road. It wound on, arose by expert engineering into heights, until her questing eyes could no longer follow it. She began to move along the road, headed toward those heights. Behind her came another presence, but she could not look over her shoulder, she only sensed that it followed behind.
Her feet did not quite touch the surface of that stone way. Rather, she swiftly skimmed above the stones. Up and up the road led, and she went, that other always following.
Distances were lessened by the speed with which she moved. Elossa thought that she must have come a long way since she had first seen the road. Now she was among the mountains. Mists clung to her body, but with the road as a guide she could not lose her way. She passed so swiftly that all around was a blur. There was some need, some desperate need, that she reach a point ahead, though, what was that need and where lay that point, she could not understand.
There were no other travelers along the road. Save for that one who came behind, whose speed was less than hers so he did not catch up. But the urgency which filled her was shared by him also. This much she knew.
Up and up, and then came a pass with mountain walls rearing high and dark on either hand. When she stood in the pass the force which had carried her hither abruptly vanished. Below the mists clung and veiled the lower slopes, the road which lay farther on.
Then, as if a curtain had been drawn aside, those mists were pulled from immediately before her. She did indeed look down, and down, over such a drop as made her dizzy. Still she could move neither forward nor back.
Below were lights sparkling, as if a handful of cut gems had been spilled out. They shone from reaching towers, along walls, outline great houses and buildings. This was a city far larger, far more majestic and imposing than any she had seen. The sweep of the towers was so marked that she thought at ground level they must seem to reach the sky.
There was life there but it was far away, dim in some fashion, as if another dimension besides distance lay between her and it.
Then. . . .
She heard no sound. But in the air there came a burst of flame as brilliant as an unshielded sun. This flame descended toward the city. Not to its heart, but at the far edge. The flaring outburst reached the wall there, spread over, to lick out at the nearest buildings.
Something hung above those flames. The fire sprouted from the bottom and a little up the sides of a dark globular mass. Down that came. The flames swept out, caught between the ground and the mass, fanning farther and farther.
She was too far away to see what must be happening to the city dwellers as this fate descended to crush and burn. Lights went out. She saw three towers break and fall as the mass riding the flames drew nearer. Then that rested part on the city, part without. Wall, tower, and buildings must have been crushed under it.
More flames arose, spreading farther over the city. Elossa wavered where she stood, fighting against the compulsion which held her there. In her there arose a keening sorrow, yet she could not give voice to the great sadness which tore at her. This catastrophe-it was not intended-but it happened and from it came a sense of guilt which made her cringe.
Then. . . .
Elossa opened her eyes. She did not stand in any pass watching the death of a city. No, she blinked and blinked again. For the space of several heartbeats she had difficulty in correlating the here and now with the then and there. There had carried over from the dream the sense of guilt, akin to that which had possessed her when she had realized that she had unwittingly sent death to stalk another.
The first of Zasar’s twin moons was well up in the sky, its sister showing on the horizon. The beams silvered the water of the pool, made all within the cup of that small mountain meadow either shadow black or moon white. One of the scavenger birds croaked as it arose sluggishly from its feast.