Norton, Andre - Moon of Three Rings

But the thought was already near to fruition in Yim-Sin, so that I was knowing and yet denying it. When the priest Okyen had speech with me privately, he had ill news and left me with despair and futile anger to chew upon. So when we traveled on, coming ever nearer the Valley where many hopes are buried, I was constantly under assault by temptation, even though I could not believe that naught but ill might come of it.

It was very difficult for me to occupy my mind with the plight of Krip Vorlund during those hours, and I determined that once we found what he sought, I would make the exchange speedily to lay this temptation. Nor would I trust myself to think upon the one who abode there and whose days were surely numbered.

We came down from the lip of the Valley, through the chill mists which cloud it, into that portion which is allowed to those from outside. I answered the off-worlder's questions as shortly as I could, still wrestling with myself. It was near sundown when we pulled into the outer court of the great temple, that which is for visitors. The guard priest came to greet us. I knew his face, but I could not set name to it—there is a kind of merciful forgetting allowed one at times—and this was the man who had greeted me here on a different occasion I tried not to recall. I asked to speak with Orkamor, only to be told he was busy and could not receive me. We took the van into the second courtyard and I released the kasi and fed and watered my little people. But Krip Vorlund asked me questions by mind-touch and some I could not answer.

We had lighted the moon globes by the van when a third-rank priest came to say Orkamor would see me. Krip Vorlund wished to go with me. He was impatient with all save finding and being united with his body. But I had to tell him that I must prepare Orkamor for what would happen and explain carefully, lest our story be thought wild raving. This he could accept.

Did it move stronger in me then, the belief that I need only act and much of the burden I had carried so long would be resolved? If it did, I still had the courage to resist.

Okramor is not a young man and the burdens on him are a weighty load which grow heavier with the years, not lighter. Nor is he like the Thassa with their stronger, longer-lived bodies. So that each time I meet him, he seems to me even more shrunken, wasted, shadowy. Yet in him burns so strong a flame of will, and the need to answer need, that the spirit waxes while the fleshy envelope which holds it shrivels. After the first moments one sees only the spirit and not the man form that wears it.

"Welcome, sister." His voice was tired that night, thin and fluting as if it, too, had been used too much and too long.

I bowed my head above my wand. There are few the Thassa give full reverence to, besides their own Old Ones. But Orkamor deserves greatly of all Yiktor.

"Eldest Brother, peace and good." I made the Three Signs with my wand.

"Peace and good," he returned, and this time his voice was stronger, deeper, as if he battled away weariness with his will. "But we need no sooth-words between us, sister. I cannot tell you all is well."

"I know. I came through Yim-Sin."

"Was it well to come, sister?There is naught you can do, and sometimes surveying a wreck sorrows the heart past ever lifting of the cloud. It is better to remember a loved one walking in pride, than without pride or even manhood left."

My hands tightened on my wand, and I knew he saw me do that, but with Orkamor I did not care; he has seen worse self-betrayal in his time.

"I have come on another matter." Resolutely I thrust aside what he confirmed, and continued. "This—"

Quickly I turned to the matter of the off-worlder, telling the story to Orkamor simply. I could do this because he was who and what he was and would not read aught into my actions to make him think me more or less than himself. The priests of Umphra and the Thassa are not so un-kin as we are with others who dwell in the plains. When I was done he stared at me, but there was no great astonishment in his face.

"The way of the Thassa is not the way of mankind," he said.

"Tell me something I do not already know!" All that I had borne since Yim-Sin flared out in my sharp speech. And then, when I would have asked pardon, he waved it aside.

"Yes, you must have thought of the cost before you did this, sister. Those of your calling do not move lightly. This off-worlder was worth that much to you?"

"There was a debt."

"Which, if he knew all the consequences, he would not have demanded any payment from you. Now I must also say—there has been no charge brought hither by the men of Oskold."

I was not greatly disturbed. "If they returned to seek Oskold's leave— We came by the fore road, and though the van moves slowly that path is shorter."

"What if he is not brought, sister?"

I looked to the wand I twirled in my fingers. "They cannot—"

"You hope that they will not," he corrected me, and now there was sharpness in his voice. By all you have told me, Osokun broke fair law in taking this man. He involved his father when he imprisoned the captive in a border fort. It was a man wearing Oskold's livery who came hunting him to the death in your camp. It may be that they think to kill him, hide his body, and leave it to their enemies to prove their crime. Would you not think thus, were you Oskold at this hour?"

"Being Oskold, with a plainsman's mind, perhaps I would. But not one who was—"

"Who was under Umphra's cloak?" Orkamor did not need to read my mind to follow my thoughts. "Having broken one law, it is always easier to break another."

"They broke man's law at the fair, but would they dare to break Umphra's law?"

"You are thinking as a Thassa." He sounded more gentle now, as one who must reason with an alien. "You have few Standing Words, and your mortal precepts are so secure that they are seldom threatened. But, sister, what of your own actions under the Moon of Three Rings?"

"I have broken law, yes, and I will answer for it. Perhaps the reason for the deed will outweigh the deed. You know the judgment of my people."

"Yet you broke it with open eyes, though not in fear for yourself. Fear is the great lash the powers of darkness use to torment all men. If fear be great enough, then no law of man or god can stand against it. I have heard of Oskold. He is a strong man, though hard. He has but one heir, Osokun, and this has been that youth's bane. For his father favors him too greatly. Do you think that Oskold will tamely accept the outlawry of his son?"

"But how could he hope to conceal—"

"What men may say they know, and what they are able to prove are two different matters. And the full proof of Osokun's ill doing is the body of the off-worlder."

"No!" I should have seen this, of course. Why had I been so blind to logic.

"My sister, what did you really want?" Again Orkamor reached into my mind and sought what I did not want to see light.

"I swear—by the breath of Molaster, I swear—I did not—" I broke then, heard myself babbling, and strove to win control once more.

Orkamor looked at me steadily and made the truth, or what was now the truth, plain to both of us.

"And did you think, sister, that such could be? I tell you, it is not the body that makes a man, but what dwells within it. You cannot fill an empty frame and expect the past to come alive and all be as it once was. The Thassa can do much, but they cannot so give life to the dead."

"I did not mean it so!" I denied that once-hidden thought, now open in my mind. "I saved the off-worlder's life—they would have cut him down without mercy."

"And which would he have chosen, had all been made plain to him?"

"Life. It is a part of most to cling to life at that final Question."