Dhalvad freed Gi from the gag and was immediately inundated by a barrage of sharp whistle-clicks. Gi’s angry words slowed and softened as Dhalvad unwrapped him from the coils of blanket and brought him to his chest.
“Easy, Gi,” Dhalvad said as he stroked Gi’s back and massaged the fur at the back of his neck. “You’re talking too fast for me to understand.” Dhalvad felt Gi’s angry tremors subside as the olvaar snuggled up against his neck. A rasping tongue touched his chin twice, then Gi released a deep sigh.
“Gi, are you all right?” Dhalvad asked gently. “You weren’t hurt?”
Gi pushed back slightly so he could look into Dhalvad’s face. His small black tongue licked at the sides of his mouth where the gag had bruised tender skin. “Not hurt,” he answered in trader.
“Poco? Jiam? And Screech? Were they hurt?”
“Poco and baa-bee not hurt. Big Fur fight. Get bad knock on head. He would fight more, but Paa-tol threatens Poco and baa-bee.”
“Are they here in the tunnels somewhere?”
“Yes. We all together.”
“Where?”
“Not knowing, Dhal,” Gi responded mournfully. “Gi all wrapped up. Can’t see.”
“Did Paa-tol carry you a long time or a short time?” Dhalvad knew that most olvaar had little sense of time, but Gi had lived with them a year in Jjaan-bi and was growing accustomed to scheduled eating and sleeping times.
“Short time,” Gi answered after a moment of thought. “They be close, yes? What we do? Want find Poco, Jiam, and Big Fur and get out of here!”
“I, too, little friend, but it may not be easy. Amet wants something from me, and until I give him what he wants, he isn’t about to let any of us go.”
“What Amet want?” Gi asked, head cocked to one side.
“Power. And he intends to get it through the Tamorlee with my help.”
“You help him?”
“I don’t have much choice, Gi.”
Amet returned a few minutes later. Paa-tol and another guard were with him. “Are you ready to link with the Tamorlee?” Amet asked.
Dhalvad set Gi-arobi aside and stood up, pushing his anger back where it would not threaten Poco or Jiam. “I’d like to speak to Poco first.”
“When we’re done,” Amet said firmly. “You have my word.”
Which is worthless, as far as I’m concerned, Dhalvad thought. He glanced down at Gi, who stood on the couch, one small hand clutching the back of Dhalvad’s tunic. “What about Gi?”
“He’ll be here when you return,” Amet stepped back a pace and motioned to Paa-tol and the other guard. They moved to either side of the door. “Coming?” Amet said.
Dhalvad nodded, touched Gi lightly on top of the head, and freed his tunic from the olvaar’s grasp. “I’ll be back, Gi. I promise.”
“I’ll wait,” Gi whistle-clicked. “Hurry.”
Chapter 6
DHALVAD KNELT BEFORE the crystal and placed his hand on the depression in the floor. He glanced up and saw Paa-tol watching him. Amet stepped past Paa-tol and came to kneel beside and slightly behind Dhalvad. He, too, looked up at Paa-tol.
“Be on guard,” he said. “No one is to enter until we’ve finished with the link. If anything goes wrong, you know what to do about the others.”
Dhalvad suppressed a shudder, knowing well what others Amet was referring to. It was strange, he thought, how being Speaker had changed Amet. It still was hard to believe that he was their enemy. Did power always corrupt? he wondered. Or did it just take a very special kind of person to handle it safely?
Amet leaned close to Dhalvad. His left arm went around Dhalvad’s waist, locking their bodies together; his right hand dropped over Dhalvad’s hand. He nodded to Paa-tol, who took his fire ring off, touched it to each of the five points in the star shape, then set it in the last indentation before the crystal. The link was activated.
Paa-tol stepped back and watched as the two Ni slipped away into another world, their physical bodies held in a kind of stasis while their minds traveled the corridors of a being who had lived as long as there was a memory of the Ni-lach as a people.
Paa-tol had gifted the Tamorlee often enough to know what Amet and Dhal were experiencing and also to know that there was a more direct way to link with the crystal. It was a natural property of the fire stones to absorb the actions and memories of the Seekers who wore them through actual skin contact. So, too, could the Tamorlee be activated, but because the Tamorlee was the parent crystal of all fire stones and held in reverence by the Ni, a ceremony had been created to set it apart from the other fire stones.
Paa-tol was aware of Amet’s problem in linking with the Tamorlee because the Speaker had had to confide in someone and he had been a friend of long standing. Their friendship had begun when they joined the Gerri-Mountain Draak Watch shortly after the Sarissa War broke out twenty-five years earlier. Both had earned Seeker rings by their sixth year of service, at the same time discovering kindred spirits in each other. The passing years had seen each go his separate way, Paa-tol to become a high-ranking leader in the Draak Watch, Amet to become first a teacher, then Speaker for the Tamorlee. Now events were bringing them back to a closer relationship, one that Paa-tol hoped would lead to bigger and better things, such as a place on the Jjaan-bi Council.
He looked at Amet and nodded slowly to himself. But why stop there? If the crystal could be forced to accept Amet, perhaps it could be made to accept him.
While Paa-tol dreamed dreams of power, Dhalvad and Amet were carried deeper and deeper into the Tamorlee’s consciousness. The crystal sensed the double load it carried, but because one was the Healer who had promised to help him, he accepted the second passenger even as it wished the Healer had come alone, for just a short time ago it had sensed its brother’s energy pattern flaring to life and it was ready to contact it again.
Tamorlee, Amet is with me, Dhalvad began when he felt the Tamorlee’s presence surrounding him.
Greetings to you both, the crystal responded.
Tamorlee, Amet thought-spoke, I have come with Dhalvad because I no longer seem able to come alone. Is it true that you—have chosen a new Speaker?
Yes.
You’ve chosen Dhalvad?
Yes.
Why? Have I done something to displease you? Tell me what it is and I’ll do my best to correct the wrong.
Dhalvad was startled by the feel of Amet’s projected thoughts. Where was the arrogant attitude the Speaker had displayed just a short time before? Was this supplicant the same person who had threatened Dhalvad’s family if he failed to cooperate? What was Amet trying to pull? How could he warn the Tamorlee of Amet’s dual nature without alerting Amet?
The wrong is not something done, the Tamorlee said. It is something within you as well as something within myself, a need you cannot fill.
Tamorlee, please don’t put me aside without giving me a chance! Amet begged
Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, Amet. There was a moment’s hesitation. Come with us then. My brother sends, and we must try to link with him.
Brother? Amet repeated. Dhalvad’s story about another crystal was true?
It’s true, Amet, Dhalvad answered.
Dhalvad sensed Amet’s surge of excitement as the Tamorlee wrapped itself more tightly around them, drawing their energy to assist in the search. For a fleeting moment he wondered if he, too, had misjudged Amet; then the thought of Poco and Jiam being held prisoners somewhere in the tunnels returned him to his senses. No. Amet was wrong in what he was doing, no matter his reasons!
Dhalvad felt himself being pulled down a corridor of shifting shadows as the Tamorlee projected its energy outward, seeking the signal radiated by its brother crystal. Their passage through time and space created a hum that resounded through his mind. It seemed to go on for a long time. He lost all sense of Amet’s presence.
Suddenly the humming sound stopped, and Dhalvad was filled with a joy that belonged to the Tamorlee. Together they were ca
rried upward and out into the light of another place where evening shadows were real.
Bhaldavin sat on the end of the ancient stone pier that jutted out into Lake Thessel and looked out across the calm dark water. His thoughts were on the crystal he held in his land. Long ago, when he had first linked with Mithdaar, it had taken his memories and had formed a unique bond with him, a bond that he was sure only death could sever.
He looked down at the warm green light pulsating in his hand and felt happy. It was more than pride of ownership that stirred within him; it was more than the ethereal beauty of the crystal; it was knowing that he was accepted fully by the being who dwelt within the fire stone. He had felt Mithdaar’s hunger for knowledge and had experienced its sadness when it first came to understand that the images within the life recorders were only memory images of a people long dead. He was not sure it understood exactly what dead meant. His only perception so far was that the crystal equated death with loss of a knowledge source, for each life contained its own special knowledge, its own way of thinking and feeling, which meant that every life was sacred and not to be wasted. It was the Ni philosophy—shared by a being who was forever imprisoned within green crystal.
“It was a mistake to let Gringers use you for his experiments,” he said softly to the crystal. “I promise, I won’t let it happen again.”
He shuddered when he remembered the last impression the crystal had sent him before he snatched it away from the machine. Those startled amber eyes would haunt him forever.
“I should have destroyed the wind tower housing the star beacon long ago,” he said, rubbing his thumb alongside the crystal. “Then the men of Barl-gan could never have contacted their gods. What happens now if their gods return, Mithdaar? How will they look upon my people?”
Thinking about men’s gods and their strange machines made him think about the Sarissa, who claimed to be the direct descendants of the gods. He turned and looked at the Draak’s Teeth, wondering if the war that had taken his arm was still going on. Or had the Sarissa already expunged his people from the Enzaar Sea territories? That thought led to another, as he remembered the small brother he had left behind. He had always planned to return to his home in the Deep and look for his brother, but getting back over the mountains had proved most difficult. He was not yet ready to give in to the word “impossible.”
He glanced down at Mithdaar. His thoughts were fragmentary and erratic. It was always thus when he held the crystal. He was sure it had something to do with how the crystal learned as it siphoned off images of people and places from the life recorder, or as it snatched bits and pieces from his own existence—and now it had locked into Gringers’s machine, which might well prove to be everyone’s undoing.
He brought the crystal closer to his face and stared into the golden pocket of light that he had come to equate with the crystal’s eye on the world. Though it was growing dark, he could easily see the crystal’s inner glow.
“Who did you touch this last time, Mithdaar? Were they the Ral-jennob?” He sighed deeply. “How I wish you could answer my questions.”
A tingle of warmth spread up his hand to his arm and into the rest of his body. The feeling was familiar; it happened whenever the crystal took from him: thoughts, feelings, fears. Everything was quickly absorbed, then the tingle subsided.
Bhaldavin smiled. “What do you do with all you take from me, Mithdaar?”
He was not exactly sure when he had begun calling the crystal by name. Mithdaar meant “Bold Light” in the Ni tongue, and it seemed to fit the crystal’s insatiable curiosity and fearlessness. His fingers closed around the crystal as he brought his legs under him and stood up. It was time to go back and face Gringers. Lil-el would also be worried about him.
He walked back along the length of the pier and stepped onto the partially grass-covered stone path. Vegetation was fast reclaiming the city. Another fifty years without someone to keep the paths clear, and Barl-gan would become a moss- and bush-covered monument to the Sun Travelers; in another hundred years it would be lost to tangle vine and fast-growing trees that were already sprouting everywhere.
Strange, Bhaldavin thought, that a civilization could be born, grow, flourish, and die with no one outside its own borders ever knowing about it. It was sad, tragic in its own way. Would the Ni-lach one day be like the men and women of Barl-gan, only a legend whispered by old storytellers?
He was climbing the first flight of stone steps leading up from the lake when he became aware of someone standing at the top of the stairs. The shadows were too deep to make out features, but the figure stood too tall and straight to be any of the Barl-ganians.
“Gringers, I was just starting back. You needn’t have come after me.”
The man did not respond.
“Gringers?” Bhaldavin stopped suddenly, wary as the man started down the tree-shaded steps toward him. The stranger held something at his side. A few steps closer, and Bhaldavin made out the outlines of a sword. The clothing also became visible, its raglike draping finally giving the man away.
“Wastelander!” Bhaldavin hissed softly, backing down the steps. He turned and leapt down the last few steps, not waiting for the Wastelander to make the first move.
The Wastelander bounded after him, silent in his pursuit but for the sound of his draakhide sandals on the stone steps.
Bhaldavin plunged to the right along the pathway and darted into a stone building whose roof had rotted away years before and now lay in ruins on the floor. He passed through two rooms with tangle vine covering the walls and moved quickly and as quietly as possible to the back door, which stood open. He was halfway up the dirt- and brush-covered slope leading to the plateau when he heard the Wastelander curse aloud as he fell over rotted boards on the floor.
The Wastelander appeared at the back door moments later and raised a hand to his mouth. The sharp cry of a loring bird issued from his lips. It was answered by another cry somewhere above Bhaldavin and off to his left.
Alerted to the fact that he faced more than one enemy, he scrambled up and over the bank and sprawled out onto the road. He rolled over and was on his feet a moment later, racing along the path to his right. He knew most of the shortcuts to the upper plateau and had upon occasion used them to outdistance a Wastelander intent upon his head as proof of his manhood. For years the Wastelanders had hunted Barl-ganians, never bothering to differentiate between men and Ni.
He entered another building a short distance up the road and climbed a set of stairs leading to the upper floor. The back of the building stood up against the next rise of roadway. He paused in the doorway, saw the road was empty, and stepped out. Seconds later he was sheltered under the overhanging branches of a genna bush. Heart thudding heavily in his chest, he crouched low and caught his breath.
Suddenly someone came loping down the road. He heard the soft plop plop of bare feet on the dirt roadway followed closely by another pair of running feet. He peeked out from under cover and saw the second runner close on the first. The second runner lunged at the first and bore him to the ground. A strange cackle made Bhaldavin tense. He knew of only one man who made that sound. It had to be Birdfoot!
He stepped out from his shelter and saw Gils wrestling with a Wastelander just a few steps down the road. Gils was on the bottom. Bhaldavin slipped the crystal into his pocket and drew his knife, running toward the fight. He came up behind the Wastelander and drove his knife into the man’s back. As the Wastelander arched upward with a scream, Bhaldavin pulled his knife free and stepped back, prepared to use it again if necessary. The man turned, looked at Bhaldavin, then slumped forward to lay still on the road.
Gils scrambled to his feet as Bhaldavin shoved his knife into its sheath. Gils slapped Bhaldavin’s shoulder several times, all the while bobbing and making his strange noises; it was his way of thanking Bhaldavin for his rescue.
Together they found a place to hide a little farther up the roadway, and for the next hour they watched a number of Wast
elanders pass their position.
Gils stank of sweat and fear, and his nervous habit of rocking back and forth soon had Bhaldavin on edge. He tried to ignore Gils by sticking his hand in his pocket and caressing the crystal. As his fingers closed firmly around Mithdaar, he thought about the Wastelanders who were descendants of the original Barl-ganians, refugees who had run from the plague that had decimated the population of the city generations ago. It was not unusual for the Wastelanders to make a foray into the city every once in a while; those who came were usually there as a form of rite of passage to gain adult status among their peers, but sometimes they did come in greater numbers.
According to Kelsan, the Wastelanders had been more of a nuisance than a threat until about thirty years before, when the scattered tribes had begun to organize. Up until that time, they had been too busy just keeping alive or fighting among themselves to bother with the inhabitants of the city. The few times they had launched an all-out attack, they had been driven back into the forests by Barl-ganians wielding lethal light guns that burned through flesh in an instant.
But time was working against the Barl-ganians and for the Wastelanders. One after another, the light guns left by the First Men had fallen into disrepair until there were only a dozen or so left in full working condition; and in the last twenty years, the number of Barl-ganians had been cut by two-thirds as accidents and illnesses swept their ranks. Added to that was a drastically declining birth rate. Meanwhile, the population of the Wastelanders was growing, and they had begun to expand their territories.
Gringers had met with several Wastelander tribesmen to try to discuss peace terms between Wastelanders and Barl-ganians, but the talks had proved unsuccessful. Down through the years, generation after generation of Wastelanders had come to look upon the remaining citizens of Barl-gan as misshaped, disease-spreading freaks of nature and would have nothing to do with them. Part of the problem lay in the far past, when the horrible threat of plague had left its psychological mark on those fleeing the city; the other part of the problem lay in the disappearance of Wastelander women over the years, women who were stolen by Barl-ganians in a last-ditch effort to stem the steady decline of healthy children born to those remaining in the city. As it was, there were only five females in Barl-gan. There was Bhaldavin’s mate, Lil-el, and his daughter, Thura; there was old Patra, long past the childbearing years; and there were two young girls, both stolen from the Wastelanders a year before Gringers and his party had arrived in Barl-gan. The older girl, Sanna, had already chosen Gringers as her mate and had lived with him for over a year. Volly, who was two years younger, had not yet taken an interest in any of the men.
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