Norton, Andre - Brother To Shadows

"What service?"

"It shall reveal itself. So be it. The Shattered Land shall be a gate opened to you, fools. We shall claim our price when it is right. Be ready to move out at first light."

He turned and left them, brushing past the Deves and leaving the priest to stare after him before the Axe looked, his big eyes a little narrowed, at the Zacathan, and on to Jofre.

"What does he mean? What service can such as you offer the drifting ones?"

"You heard, Axe, what we heard. It would seem that we have now an open-ended bargain. But it will have to suffice."

For a moment it seemed as if the priest was going to protest further and then he turned away, but not before he shot another look at Jofre which was both speculative and unpleasant.

"Why me?" Jofre actually voiced that question when they were alone again.

He heard Taynad laugh. "Did he not speak of ghosts who want man flesh for their pots? Perhaps he would herd a particularly toothsome dish in their direction. But I think—Learned One," she said slowly, "that Skrem— he has a strong inner sense—he sought. Us he could not touch—but the little one," she stooped and gathered up the trembling Jat, holding its body close, "it knew and feared. I think that we had best be doubly on guard."

"As if we can be anything else," Zurzal returned. "This is indeed perhaps folly, yet I cannot—I cannot stray from what I would do here!"

WHAT I'ON HAD TO OFFER ON HIS PART THEY LEARNED the next morning. Though the caravan moved on its way, the off-worlders remained with the Skrem. Two of the Deves also relinquished their traveling swings, though the Axe had gone with the others. It was apparent that the priest fully intended to have his own sources of information—or control—accompanying the Zacathan's party.

The stamping march of the bearers was well away from the overnight campsite when the Skrem went to work. He scrabbled in the mosscarpet some distance away from the trampled ground and came up with three rods which he fitted together—much like the tripod on which the scanner rested. But what was then affixed on top was a round of what appeared to be crystal, backed with an interweaving of the same material as the rods.

As the off-worlders remained by the pile of their gear, the Skrem affixed the platter to the tripod and wriggled it back and forth. Jofre recognized something from the Lair days—their mountain sentries had used burnished mirrors for the flashing of messages overland. This must be a similar form of communication.

Swiftly the Skrem tilted his signal back and forth. Then from the northeast there came a flicker of light in return.

Methodically the Skrem set about dismantling the apparatus and then reburied it, pulling the moss back over it.

How long must they wait? Taynad leaned back against a box of supplies. It seemed to her now that her wits certainly must have been astray when she had joined up with this muddle-headed Zacathan. Jofre was oathed to him, she was not—save by word alone. The mission to Tssek had been her first big one and it had fallen apart through no fault of her own. She had been given those orders—why did she continue to question them this way? She could only return in thought to those moments when she, Jofre, and Yan had been one—as if at that time there had been forged something as strong as a blood oath. It was almost as if her own will had been weakened, that she had been drawn along as one sometimes was in ill dreams when one struggled against an invisible threatening power.

"Power—strong—big—" She had a mind vision of a fire raging up into the sky, heat which was not from any sun, even one as hot as this one. Yan crouched against her. The Jar's paw hand rested over her hand and its large eyes were turned up to view her face. "Power—" Yes, that had sprung from Yan's thinking, not her own. She shot a glance in Jofre's direction.

He was watching the actions of the Skrem with complete absorption as if he expected some trouble to burst from a gesture or action on the part of the alien. No, Jofre must not have been touched by that half-message.

Taynad closed her hand gently about the Jat's. "Power?" She struggled to give all the strength she could to make that word a question.

What she received in return did not altogether surprise her. A wavering, oddly slanted face flashed into her mind— Jofre—as Yan must see him.

"Power?" she asked again in thought.

Flames—shooting flames bursting outward as if a dozen lasers were firing at a single target. She instinctively cringed. Yan was very sure.

The flames were, of course, merely a picturing of punishing force, of that she was certain. The guard could have not smuggled in any weapon that would reveal itself so. In fact she was very sure that she knew exactly the number and style of every piece of armament he had hidden about his person.

There were tales that the Shagga could produce strange effects—bemuse minds—make one see what was not there— even as the issha could protect themselves for short periods of time. But Jofre was not Shagga—to them he was the enemy who must be erased—one way or another.

Why did they want him prisoner, that was a small puzzle— better dead—off-world dead where he would be no problem. Why prisoner—and only dead at the last resort as the instructions passed to her? Or—her thought took another small leap—were those twigs and their messages counterfeit? The Guild was supposed to possess infinite knowledge. She knew that Zarn had been charged with certain delicate negotiations with the Guild. Suppose it was the Guild who wanted Jofre—alive—or dead by her hand?

Her eyes lowered to that hand curved to comfort the Jat. Shadow did not slay Shadow. She must have better reason— Which came back to—

The Jat squirmed closer to her. Another mind picture—blurred—so distorted she could make nothing of it. Except that she was certain that it was an object—something which Jofre owned, or controlled, or—

"They are coming!" Zurzal was on his feet, looking out over the tundra in the direction which that flash had marked. There was certainly movement there and at a speed far transcending the plod of the bearers. As they plowed on through the moss the new party revealed themselves, however, as grotesquely alien to the off-worlders as U-Ky and his caravaners had been.

There were four mounted figures, each leading a line of four-footed creatures but apparently by no lines or reins, the mounts being followed without urging by six of their own kind, in a line behind each of the riders.

They were of the same musty yellow as the tundra, their legs long and thin, their bodies apparently hairless and also nearly skeleton-slender. They held their heads on a straight line with their bodies as they came, and the muzzles ended in sharp points. Those heads were small in proportion to a spread of horns, bending sharply backward, which were flat and shovellike in appearance.

As the runners came pounding up to the deserted campsite Jofre saw that their feet were long and narrow, the fore ones sprouting claws which apparently were not retractable. The Skrem who brought them rode well forward on those slim backs, their hands gripping the edges of the shovel horns.

In height they were close to the size of a small horse such as Jofre had seen used for pleasure riding on Wayright, and on the backs of those without riders there were weavings of odd-looking harness. But there were no saddles; apparently one was to perch like the Skrem, hold on to the horns, and hope for the best.

The Skrem made no move to aid in the loading of the extra mounts, gathering in a knot around I'On and chittering loudly. Fortunately the animals they had brought did not seem to resent the actions of the three in dividing up their gear and stowing it into the baggage nets. Jofre wondered if what they had to haul would not be too heavy a load but the creatures, except for a grunt or two, made no complaint.