The history of the Brothers was thickly entangled with the intrigues and conspiracies of many small courts and kingdoms. All they knew of off-world came largely through hearsay. Many, such as the Shagga priest, wanted to keep it that way. Only because the Master had been far looking and ambitious in a new fashion did Jofre have those scraps he clung to.
A city had been already established on the plain where the first spacer exploring starship had set down on Asborgan. Now there were, in fact, two cities, the old and a new one which had grown up nearer the port landing and in which there were strange off-world buildings housing beings of different races, different species even.
On the outer fringe of this newer city along the port side there was a third collection of buildings, seedy inns, trading marts in which there were few questions asked as to the source of goods offered. Here the outcasts of both Asborgan's native stock and the scum which followed the star lanes as a blot gathered and held a strong hold of their own.
Jofre had heard of the Thieves Guild, which spread talons to seize across half the star lanes. There was said to be a branch of that which had gained a foothold here, incorporating into its very diverse assembly native talent. In addition there were those who had met with such misfortune that they had fallen to a point of no return. He had been told of drugs which drove men wild, giving them great power for a short time, but condemning them to miserable deaths. All the evil which an intelligent mind could conceive gathered there in that dismal sink.
Yet that must be his own first goal. As a Brother he could not shelter in the old city—for he wore no lord's badge. Also there would be a need for coins to pay his way. The better portion of the space city would see him as a curiosity and so suspect. No, he must dive into the dark quarter until he could find his way about.
In his decision Jofre had no fear of either the law or the lawless. The conception that a Brother could be taken anywhere, used at any time against his own will, or the will of his Master, was inconceivable. He had skills of body and will, honed mastery of mind to shield him there. But when he tried to think to whom he might offer those skills now he found himself at a loss.
Finally, deciding that sure attempts at foreseeing were only useless, he shut down that portion of his mind and concentrated on the journey itself.
It was twilight when he came to where he must take the cutoff for the pass. Long trained to scout work,
he could slip through the bare-branched brush and work his way up into the heights easily enough. He sheltered that night in a half cave where two great rocks tilted together.
Once he had his fire, hardly wider than his two hands held thumb to thumb, and had chewed the tough trail mix of meat pounded with dried fruit into a strip, he turned to the fitting of himself for what might well be the trials of tomorrow.
First he sought out The Center of All Things, concentrating on the mental symbols which marked the existence of that. Then he visualized the inner workings of his own body, the muscles, the nerves, the blood and bones, the knitting of the flesh. From his toes he began to use The Flow of Inner Life, drawing it up through him, into his mid body, his arms and shoulders, until his hands, where they rested on his knees as he sat cross-legged, grew warm and each finger tingled.
Into his throat, his head, the flood continued. There was a feeling of elation but that he was swift to dampen. He was not summoning battle power. Only the strength needed for travel.
He breathed deeply three times, to lock in that warmth. Then he relaxed, aware that he had prepared himself as best he could. Now he set his sentinels of alarm that he might take a full night's rest. At least those were available to all travelers and so the Shagga priest could not refuse him them.
Jofre worked the three large pebbles out of their traveling bag and, with a knowing eye, in spite of the dark which had now closed in, he positioned them in the gravel about the rock. Such were quick to give alarm when approached by anything warm-blooded to which they had not been bound, as he had bound these with a drop of his own blood and the warmth of his bared hand.
Having taken his precautions, Jofre rolled in his double blanket and went to sleep, rest easily summoned by his long training.
There was no show of either moon tonight and clouds were heavy, though they had not yet loosed their burdens. Through their thickness sped the Kag. The creature lit on a spur of rock and hunched into a motionless blot of darkness, only to launch itself again and seize a warfin which had ventured out to hunt. Bearing the bird to its chosen perch, it ripped apart the body and fed ravenously, then settled to rest as had its quarry below.
Jofre awoke at dawn. He chewed another strip of journey rations, adding to that only a single finger scoop of yellowish paste from a small box. The Brothers did not depend often on stimulants but they had their own kinds of energy-inducing herbal concoctions. He gathered up his sentries, returned them to their pouch, and swung his pack up on his shoulder. However, when only a few feet from his last night's camp, he paused to eye something protruding slantwise from the rubble which must have descended in a small slide from the heights he must now face.
It was certainly not the remains of any bush, or sapling. No, he had seen—and used—its like before. This was a pass staff which, in the right hands, could even confront a steel swinging opponent. The flash of recognition sent his hand out to close firmly about it.
The slide held it well in grip and he had to work it loose. When he had it wholly free he could see that the hook at its end had been bent out of shape, but it was still a weapon of which he could make excellent use. His issha was assuredly strong—
But whence had it come? He took several steps backward so he could view the upslant of the way before him more clearly. Then he saw it—a clean angle which was not of nature. There had been—still was—a wall!
Jofre closed his eyes for a moment and drew to the fore of his mind the map. No, he was certain that there had been no hint of any such along the route he had chosen. How could he have gotten so far off trace? He turned his attention to the staff he now held. It was old but it had been painstakingly carven of armor wood—that precious growth which could be worked by a great deal of effort, but once shaped would perhaps well outlast its maker.
He pulled off his thick glove and took the shaft into his bare hand, allowing it to slide along between his fingers as he held it closer to centered sight. Then that grip tightened. His breath came with the faintest hiss.
Qaw-en-itter!
Dead Lair, long dead Lair! And by all the teaching of assha a site to be avoided lest the ill fortune of that place still weave some pattern to entrap. Even as his own home Lair would now be regarded by any chancing close to its deserted compound. However—Jofre slid the staff back and forth between both hands as he sifted logic from superstition.
The Master he had served had been one to discount much in the way of rumor and legend. His outlooking for off-world contracts had brought him a wealth of contradictory information which he had sifted patiently, and for the past half year Jofre had oftentimes served as a kind of sounding board—since the Shagga priest and the Master's Right and Left Hands were all of a conservative turn of mind. The Shagga doubtlessly believed, and would tell it near and far, that the now dead Master's loss of assha had come because of that very turning from orthodox ways. But something in Jofre had responded eagerly to whatever speculation the Master had wished to voice.
Now he could remember that small warning mark on the map. However, there was a far better way to the Pass if one tried the ancient route from Qaw-en-itter. He would save perhaps a day's journey time, maybe more. A glance at the lowering clouds, at that threat of storm to come, made him think it would be worth the try.
Slinging the staff to be fastened to the lashings of his pack took only a short time. He was moving upward determinedly, watching for the best footholds, almost at once.
Over the years there had been a number of slides here. He came to a place where his path was closed by blocks of masonry
, perhaps a portion of the wall above, and he had to wriggle by. Then he came suddenly on a ledge which sloped upwards and showed the marks of very old tooling, undoubtedly one of the ways into the deserted Lair.
That was not what he wished. He must round what remained of the stronghold to locate the road on the other side. And the ledge was soon choked with debris. This was dangerous footing and Jofre walked with careful tread.
The half-destroyed wall arose on his right. There was the broken archway of a minor door but what he sought would lie beyond, and he shifted left, paralleling that offshoot of the wall. Something floated down, touched his sleeve— then another and another flake. The snow was beginning and, unless he would have himself walled from the pass, he must hurry.
Qaw-en-itter had been of moderate size, he concluded. Though so much of it was in ruin that he could not, without some waste of time, trace out its original ways. He tried to think of its history—there had been something—like a flicker, a scrap of memory came and went in his mind.
The master crystal here had failed, of course, or it would still be inhabited. But there was something else—the last Master—Jofre shook his head. For all his meticulous training he could not deepen that very faint feeling of having heard something.
The flakes of falling snow thickened, still were not enough to hide the way ahead. He had sight, if limited, and could keep from blundering off trail. Yet when he reached the point he had been seeking, where that other old path led upwards into the heights, Jofre hesitated. There was shelter here of a sort. Should the winds rise past the teasing point which they now held and he be caught in the open on the bareness of the upper slopes, he would be in a perilous state.
This was a first storm. Those of the Lair had been trained to be weatherwise; they had to be. Part of him urged pushing on, another suggested a prudent delay. He could not hope to breast the pass if the snow became a true curtain.
On a quick decision he turned towards the end of the wall where the ruins beyond promised shelter. Edging around a tumble of stones, he came into what had been the main court of the Lair. There was a tangle of autumn-dried brush where the land had set its first grasp back on the forsaken territory. Brittle and sparse though that was, it promised better than anything he believed was available at a greater height.
Jofre nearly tripped on the first step which had led to the Master's hall, so enbowed was it with dried grass and drift from storms. He hesitated. To go on into that dark cavern which opened like a toothless mouth before him would take him out of the storm. But enough of the Brothers' belief remained in him to warn him off.
Instead he chose a niche to one side, where there had once been a storehouse, enough remaining of walls and roofing portion to afford shelter better than he could have hoped for elsewhere. There he set up camp.
The brush he broke off, or tore from its frail rooting in the pavement chinks, to afford him fuel for his small fire. As he worked to gather that the snow thickened, becoming more and more of a concealing curtain, and he knew that his impulse to night here had been right.
At last he settled in the small space he had made as stormtight as he could, but he felt no desire for sleep. Instead he knew the alertness of a scout in an enemy territory, his hearing, his sight, every sense he had reaching out to pick up the small hint of something which was not of wind, or snow, or natural to this ancient place.
For he could feel it more and more; it was like an itch he could not scratch because he did not know its source. There was that here which was not— Not what? Jofre chewed upon that question and found no answer.
He set out his sentries at the entrance to his burrow. The portion of supplies he allowed himself was halved and he chewed carefully a long time before he swallowed each mouthful, as if that would stretch it to satisfy his hunger.
What clung here? Were there indeed bases to old superstition and an abandoned Lair still held by the spirits of the last Master and his lieutenants? Without knowing that he did it, Jofre pulled the staff he had found across his knees as he sat cross-legged, was rubbing his right hand along the shaft, his fingers tracing the runes set there to identify the armory from which it had come. Suddenly he was aware there was a warmth in the shaft which did not spread from but rather to his moving hand. And then there was a sudden sharp shift in the staff, which had certainly not come by his will or from any movement he had made.
"Ssaahh—" Jofre was so startled from his carefully maintained calm that he hissed that aloud. What he was experiencing—yes, it was certainly that which he had heard tell of—had once seen demonstrated—and that by the Master on a scouting trip.
The half-broken weapon he had found on the rocks below was issha pointing! Issha? But the fact that this Lair was abandoned meant that there was no issha here— nor was he a Master to channel the power. Yet—this was happening!
In his now loosened grasp that shaft was pointing outward toward the snow. A long-set trap? He had also heard tales of such. Some of the Masters were rumored to have powers far beyond those of common men. He had dared to invade the accursed—was he now being drawn to the punishment for his impudence?
Because, Jofre also realized, he could not resist. He must carry through whatever action the weapon now urged. Loosing his knife for his other hand, he crawled out into the open, remaining there for an instant or two in the half crouch of Ward-the-attack-in-the-night.
Only the snow. Nothing moved through it or against the drifts it was building around the ruined walls. But the shaft was swinging in his grip with vigor, as if he were being pulled by a determined force on the other end. Now he was facing again the hall door.
"By the blood oath Brothers.
By salt and bread, water and wine,
By steel and rope, hand and foot—mind,
By the ancients and the elders, Masters, and men,
Thus do I swear."
He repeated the oathing of the assha, even as he would have done had he been sent with the rest to another Lair.
And he followed, even as he would have had the long gone Master of Qaw-en-itter stood on the rubble-strewn steps gesturing him in.
But it was not to the dark that the staff led him. As he reached the top step, the staff swung in his hand, slipping fast to thud butt hard on the worn stone. He looked down.
That butt was near to touching a patch of darkness, a patch of black which seemed to have a— Jofre went down on one knee and held out his hand, his fingers cupped over the blotch. There was a spark, as if he had used his flint against steel for fire lighting. Almost against his will those fingers closed.
Warmth—even as had been in the shaft when it had driven him into this action. He raised his hand, bringing what he had picked up to eye level. It was an oval perhaps the size of his palm, smoothed like a gem for setting. Black, so black that it might have been cut from the darkest of shadows. But as he cupped it in his flesh it gave forth—
Assha glow! But no—it could not be! When a Master's stone died did it leave a ghost of itself? No legend he had heard had told of that. However, had anyone ever lingered in a cursed lair to make sure? He wanted to hurl it from him, his clutch was only the tighter. What he had found was a thing of power, that he knew. Only he was not one who might wield it—
"No!" His voice sounded through the night and the snow. "No!" But there was a bonding; he could feel it; this was fast becoming a part of him. He strove to raise his own inner power to repudiate his find. There was no use— he could not hurl it away. Instead his hand, as if under the orders of a Master, went to his wide girdle and those busy ringers were working the stone into safe hiding there.
Jofre wavered as he stood. This—he could not summon any explanation for what had happened—but it would seem some power had fastened upon him.
He turned to make his way back to his camping place. Through the snow from above came a flying thing. He breathed a whiff of musty stench and ducked as it seemed to strike directly at his head. An ill omen indeed.
Jofr
e struck out in turn at the wheeling half shadow. It screeched, arose and was gone into the night. Nor did it appear again. He settled into his shelter. Twice he tried to reach for the stone that he might examine it better in the faintish light of his pocket-sized fire. But his arm, his hand, would not obey his will. However, he felt it against his body, within the windings of the wide girdle its presence even through the folds of his thick clothing.
He began determinedly to Draw-to-one, Self-warrior-heart, Mind-of-seeker, so slipped into the innerways of the one who hunted in a strange and forbidden territory—even though that lay within himself. But for all his searching he found no trail, and he came out of that half trance stiff with chill, the pressure of the find still against him, knowing that he had done the best he could to arm himself against the unknown—now he could only face what would come.
The Kag beat wings to which snow clung and was flung forth again. It circled twice the ruins below but it no longer screeched nor attempted to descend. At length it broke the last circle and headed out through the night, winging its way north, away from Qaw-en-itter. Morning broke while it still flew, yet it did not perch to rest. It was nightfall again when it circled another camp—though this a much larger one—and settled on the top of the empty cage.
A wrinkled hand and scrawny wrist was offered and the creature hopped onto that so that it was borne up to face eye level again the skull-sharp visage of the Shagga.
"Soooo—" the priest hissed at last. "He dares to meddle!" He considered the situation, weighing one thing against another. Tradition was strong; in spite of his hatred it bound him in some ways. None of the Brothers would move against one of issha training unless he had been denounced openly in a gathering of Lair Masters and the accused allowed speech in his or her own behalf. There was no knife or rope which could be dispatched openly against this four times damned off-worlder—not yet. But he must be watched—assuredly he must be watched.
As he thought he fed the Kag from a handful of wine-soaked herbs and put the now drowsy creature back in its cage. There was a second cage among the priest's baggage. As he approached that he looked up at the sky. Mountains would make no difference for his swift messenger and that one would reach the port city well ahead of that traveler he longed to break now with his bare hands.
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