The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “How’s that?”

  “Kwangtan is coughing a lot. He’s failing rapidly. We had always thought he would live forever.”

  Verrill shrugged. “He’s old, so old he hasn’t much time left. He’d rather die a little sooner than admit that there is anything I could possibly do for him. Letting me treat him would be casting serious reflections on the fire god. How was the raid—did it pay?”

  “Pretty well, all around.”

  “A few more sheep, and some more work for me!”

  “More than that,” Ardelan corrected. “There’s a nice looking valley, but it’s always been deadly. Poisonous from the beginning. We’ve never used it. That stranger, that Dawson, must have found out that the curse is no longer on the soil. They’ve been using it for their flocks. Well, it’s ours, it always has been, so we ran them out.”

  “They’ll come back?”

  “Of course they will; but with enough raids, we’ll discourage them, and then we can send some of our own people to hold it permanently. Build a settlement.” Verrill had heard talk of all this, but not in such clear terms; now, having got it from the chief, he could take notice, and he was prepared.

  “Your oldest son will live there,” Verrill surmised, “to represent you?”

  Ardelan nodded. “Good experience for him against the day of my death, when he will rule the tribe.”

  “That’s been worrying you.”

  Ardelan’s brows bristled and his eyes went fierce. “Worrying about the day of my death—what do you mean?”

  “I meant, worrying about your son’s taking an exposed outpost.”

  “It’s good experience for him.”

  “It’s worrying you. The next son is six years younger.”

  The chief grimaced. “He’s a reckless young fool and a show-off. Like I was at his age. And I don’t think he has my luck.”

  “Next time there’s a raid,” Verrill promised, “I’ll go. It will be good for all your men, not just for him in case he is wounded. It won’t look as though you’re favoring your son.”

  Ardelan grumbled something midway between throat and beard, and gave Verrill a gesture of dismissal. Verrill knew when to stop pressing a point; and he knew also that further words had not been needed.

  In this he was right. He rode out with others who went to reconnoiter the dangerous valley, and there was no objection. He rode well. His presence was good for the morale of the raiders. And while he caught no sight of Dawson, he won prestige from supposedly having come to the frontier camps to get a shot at his enemy. Actually, he rather hoped that he would not have any such chance to settle the feud…it would be much more satisfactory to have Dawson witness his return to Venus with the Fire of Skanderbek.

  And of an evening, when he was at home with Falana, she would sit with him as he watched Venus hanging low over the rimrock, white and splendid; she was finishing her term as evening star. And the sight of that far-off globe made him more than homesick. It accentuated his feeling of remoteness and of exile, and at the same time made him uneasy and uncomfortable, as though he and his Terrestrian redhead were somehow under Linda’s eyes.

  And he was afraid lest Falana read his thoughts. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave; for in spite of his having come with fraudulent intent, he had done enough good to these barbarians to have become attached to them.

  Meanwhile, the sooner Venus became the morning star, the better he would like it.

  CHAPTER V

  At last came the night when he felt sure that Kwangtan’s search for the bones of Skanderbek had become such a fixed habit that the priest would be ranging further and further afield, leaving the shrine unguarded for an ever-lengthening period. The length of Kwangtan’s absence was the measure of Verrill’s head-start

  As he set out for his goal, he said to himself, “When the old devil misses the ruby, and then hears I’m gone, he’ll likely play foxy and cook up a yarn about my having taken it back to the gods. He couldn’t be so dumb as to admit he was out wandering when he should have been guarding the shrine… I’ve done a reasonable number of other miracles since I brought Falana’s nephew back from the dead…so if he’s smart, he’ll invent another miracle, and that will make it nice for Falana…”

  And so, all at ease, he rode boldly from the walled enclosure. The guards, assuming he was going out on a case, settled back after greeting him, and drew their sheepskin coats closer about them.

  Nearing the shrine, he left his horse in the shadow of a limestone ledge, to proceed afoot. He had to make sure that Kwangtan was actually away.

  Stealthily, he made the most of rocks and shadows to cover his advance. The gurgling overflow of the spring combined with the whining of the wind to make a curtain of sound. He was quite near the spot from which, unseen, he could look in and see if Kwangtan was there, when he heard a disturbance which gave him all the answer he needed.

  Kwangtan was not abroad, hunting a dead man’s bones. He was instead choking, gasping for breath; in his struggle, he knocked down some pottery, judging from the clatter.

  The sounds, and the way the old man had been scrambling about by night, exploring ravines and caverns, exposing and overtaxing himself, told the story. He had come to the end of his crooked rope.

  This was perfect. It had worked far better than Verrill had anticipated. Just sit and wait for silence and the finish.

  But another ingredient took effect. Verrill’s own long-sustained pretense of being a doctor drove him forward against his best interest. After two paces taken in a helpless daze, he was no longer compulsion-driven and bewildered; he ran, and with his kit. He had brought it with him, from force of habit as much as for making a show for the benefit of whomsoever he might encounter along the way to the border.

  As he knelt beside his patient, Verrill concluded that Kwangtan’s heart had been cutting up tricks; though with exposure and worry, other complications might have set in. He got his vials and his hypo and set to work.

  Of a sudden, he knew that he was not alone with his patient. Startled, he glanced about.

  Falana was in the doorway, and with her two of the guards. They held her by the arms. She had a bundle of something wrapped up in a shawl. Her face showed only impatience and annoyance at their stupidity. Their faces were still changing; the growth of understanding and the accepting of a new idea had not yet erased suspicion.

  The sight of the trio gave Verrill the story, before any could speak: Falana, sensing what he planned, had packed up a bundle and had set out after him; and the guards, even though not getting the entire point, had suspected that the doctor was up to the very trick of which he had been accused. Falana had from the start been a hostage, at least a bond sufficiently strong to guarantee his good behavior. Thus the sight of her apparently preparing to follow him into the night had aroused all the suspicions which his work had lulled.

  Falana said, “The poor fellow’s half starved, Verrill! And shivering from cold! Let go of me, you blockheads—he’s busy and I’ve got to give him a hand.”

  She plopped her bundle on the floor, brought out a small pot, and set to work heating water over the sacred flame.

  “If you don’t like it, get some brush,” she told the guards, “and I’ll stop the sacrilege.”

  Blinking owlishly, they obeyed.

  When they returned to kindle a fire on the floor, she had dried meat in the pot. “Here, hold this!” she directed, and taking a heavy cape from the bundle, she blanketed the patient. Next she drew the shawl about his head and shoulders. Whatever else she may have had in the bundle, Verrill did not know, for she had very deftly wadded the odds and ends into a shirt and had tucked the lot under the priest’s head, for a pillow.

  When Kwangtan responded to treatment and regained consciousness, he did not have any idea as to what had happened, or why people were gathered about him. But he
swallowed some of the broth Falana offered him.

  The guards explained, “The doctor knew you were in trouble.”

  Falana nodded. “He awakened suddenly and told me to follow when I had this and that gathered together. The gods talk to him. Now that you’ve had your fill of snooping, suppose you go on about your business!”

  They went, leaving Verrill and Falana to sit up with the priest until he was out of danger.

  Within the hour, Verrill could have ridden off with the Fire of Skanderbek. Instead, he made apologies to himself; he could not rob a patient, or even collect his fee before he had really earned it.

  * * * *

  Several days passed, and word of Verrill’s having heard the voice of the gods and so having gone to the shrine in time to save Kwangtan gave him an enormous boost in prestige. He had the priest at least halfway on the road to recovery when a courier brought news of another outbreak on the border. He hesitated to leave his patient, and decided to wait until the warring tribesmen made actual contact. As nearly as he could analyze the report, both sides were still scouting, skulking, maneuvering into positions suitable for the seizure of, or the defense of, the valley that Ardelan claimed as his own.

  There would not be a serious clash until both sides had completed their infiltration whereby each planned to catch the other off guard, and so precipitate a panic the result of which would be relatively few casualties and a great deal of loot in the form of stampeded or abandoned or lost animals.

  These barbarians, Verrill told himself, had a warfare far more civilized than had been that of The War, and also, a lot more sensible—there was a result to show for the effort exerted, and a profit instead of a mutual loss.

  He decided to stay with his patient, and then by dint of hard riding join Ardelan’s son when there was immediately impending need.

  Falana said, “You’re making a mistake. Now is your chance.”

  Just that way: with no build up at all. And she was right, for he needed no explanation of her meaning. He knew all of a sudden that she had tuned in on all his unspoken debates with himself. He and Kwangtan were supposed to be able to talk with the gods. That was pure nonsense. The gift was largely a feminine monopoly. Falana undoubtedly knew all about Linda, instead of merely about the Venusian Domes.

  Verrill answered, “I can’t rob a patient. If he dies or gets well, then it will be different.

  Falana shrugged, and for no apparent reason, moved a bundle wrapped up in a cape. “Suit yourself, Verrill, but you are letting your luck wear thin. If you want it this way, though, I’ll be ready whenever you are.”

  “You were all ready the other night?”

  “Of course. And when the guardsmen caught me, I was scared silly. I don’t know what would have happened if that old devil hadn’t been at death’s door. Now is your chance… It won’t ever be better.”

  Falana was right, so very right, yet Verrill balked. He mounted up, with his medical kit, and with a pair of pistols thrust into his sash.

  He was worried, and worn down. Tending to Kwangtan, and within reaching distance of the ruby, had been difficult. Worse yet, there was the problem created by Falana. Whenever he convinced himself that once back in the Venusian Domes, he would forget the Terrestrian girl, his argument went into reverse: and he knew that regardless of distance, the bond could not be broken in fact. Then, pursuing the endless debate from its other alternative, neither could he remain an exile from Venus, and stay away from Linda by any choice of his own.

  And all this went with him, oppressing him as he rode toward the new valley which would so enrich Ardelan’s people.

  CHAPTER VI

  Verrill was still well short of his destination when he heard a rider behind him: a horse blowing and wheezing, ridden nearly to death, yet carrying on. He wheeled about. It was Falana who had overtaken him.

  “You little idiot, go back home!”

  “I won’t.”

  “You will, and now.”

  “Yes, if you carry me back.”

  “What’s the idea? You know I’m coming back, and you know there’s a lot of trouble ahead, where I’m bound for.”

  “I’m going anyway.”

  And then her horse collapsed. Verrill had no magic to restore it to life. “Now I can’t go back,” she announced, contentedly, as though she had foreseen this decisive detail.

  She mounted up and rode behind him. From time to time, Verrill halted, and cocked an ear. Thus far, he had heard no firing. He had seen no signal fires on the crests that were dark against the stars. The way became harder, and until moonrise, difficult to pick.

  When the first half-glow whitened the limestone slopes and the high snowcaps, the mountain world became a maze of illusion and shifting glamour.

  Finally, Verrill’s horse sniffed the air, and would have whinnied, had he not checked him in time. As he paused, he wondered whether Falana’s presence, the night he had saved Kwangtan, would be sufficient precedent for her accompanying him into the field; or whether instead suspicion would be aroused.

  He had reined in at the edge of a deep shadow. Before he could make up his mind, Falana said, “Turn around and see—I’ve got it.”

  As he twisted about, the horse shifted, moving out of the shadow and into light strong enough for him to see the ruby she had in her hand. It collected enough of the glow to pulse and flame as though in its own right. One good look he got, and then she had knotted it again into the end of her scarf and thrust it securely between her breasts

  “I’m going with you to the home of the gods,” Falana said, “and if they, your people, don’t like me, they can do what they want with me. But I’m going.” However she had made away with the gem, there would be the devil to pay when Kwangtan missed it. His exclamation of dismay made her add, “He won’t make any trouble. He smothered under his sheepskin robe.”

  Verrill preferred not to ask whether she meant that the invalid had himself done this, accidentally, or whether, aroused by her prowling, his protest had been stifled, quickly and silently, by a solid armful of a woman who knew precisely what she had to do to save herself. Instead of being horrified by a very logical suspicion, he dismissed the query: for in either event, he had no longer any choice concerning Falana. She had made the bond so strong that wherever he went, he would take her. There was no more clash between him and Dawson. The bond that had attached him to Linda had been cut. Whether by smothering the fire priest, or merely robbing the fire god, Falana had done well for herself.

  After a silence, he said, “There’s someone just ahead. My horse scented them. Whoever they are, they may have caught some sign of us. You get down and wait. The sight of you is likely to make the outposts think I’m leaving the tribe. And now is no time for suspicion!”

  “I know another way around, and out,” Falana said. “A hard trail, but we can make it.”

  “Whoever’s ahead, up there, might start wondering. All I have to do is go ahead and identify myself, and then go my way.”

  “You can make some excuse for coming back this way,” she said, and slipped to the ground. “I’ll wait.”

  He rode on, at a walk. Ten to one, Falana had smothered Kwangtan, not out of malice, but simply because he would have kept her from following Verrill. Since Verrill could not reject her, he had to accept the act as his own, however heavy the burden. He shrank from the very suspicion of the deed, and at the same time, his eyes were tear-blinded from realization of her devotion, so much more reckless than any Venusian woman’s could have been.

  A horse whinnied. Verrill’s mount answered. And before Verrill could hail the dimly-discerned rider, revealed when he rounded a sharp curve, he knew that this was an ambush; the recognition between horses had come because the animals ahead had been stolen from Ardelan’s herd.

  Despite his disadvantage, knowledge came before he had made himself too good a target. />
  That split-second sensing gave him a chance with his pistol. He spurred in, shooting. A wild shot grazed him. The enemy stampeded, as though from the sudden fear that they had tricked themselves; it was as though his boldness had convinced them that he had a large party at his back.

  In half a dozen hoofbeats, he was through. One horse was down, and struggling. Something thumped into the ravine, far below. There was a brief shower of rocks, and the diminishing clatter of hoofs.

  Only two had lain in wait: and one was bound for home.

  Verrill reined in sharply, and called to Falana. She answered, and knowing it was all over, came toward him at a walk.

  Verrill was badly shaken. Falana, knowing that he would be, was giving him a welcome moment to himself. This was his first taste of combat.

  The enemy, sprawled among the rocks, groaned and cursed, as though shock had until that moment held him unable to make a sound. This was something familiar to Verrill, for in his way, he was now a doctor in fact—a man was a man, whether friend or enemy. And this one, being a man he had wounded, evoked his response more readily than had Kwangtan.

  Verrill dismounted. The man in the shadows mumbled and choked; the man’s horse lay dead; and approaching his own handiwork shook Verrill’s composure. Worse yet, he should not dally. No telling who might have heard the shots, who might be hurrying to the scene. But he could not abandon a patient, though this might become a dangerous business, with the Fire of Skanderbek taken from the shrine—

  Three sounds blended. Verrill understood each, but too late.

  “Now see if you’ll get the ruby!” the patient challenged, triumphantly, and fired.

  Venusian accent and intonation; pistol blast; and then, as Dawson, unwounded, bound up to take Verrill’s horse, came the third sound: Falana’s cry.

  Her approach, afoot, had tricked Dawson. She was on him from the rear before he sensed his danger. He swayed, he choked, and he would have flung her aside, but for the knife with which she finished him. Stab and slash; and he was dead before she could crawl free of him to go to Verrill.