Dare to Go A-Hunting ft-4

by Andre Norton

  There was a kind of flutter, as if the roots from above swayed. He looked up. Overhead was nothing but the thick dark. Cautiously Farree tried to open his wings. Once more the edges scraped over his head. The passage was low of roof. He pulled his wings into as tight folds as he could manage.

  The thirst which he had tried to put out of his mind was joined now by hunger. He longed for the pack of emergency supplies still back in the ship.

  The ship! The Lady Maelen—what had happened to her when the murky globe had broken in his hands? What had those who had put him here done? Had they in some manner moved into that bowl valley and tried to fetter those on board as they had him? He had great respect and awe for Maelen's powers—even more for those of the Zacanthan. Through unreckoned time Zoror's people had collected knowledge, had developed latent talents. Not all of them had followed the same paths—he knew that Zoror had experimented with mind speech and mind control. But Farree did not know the scope of the historian's talent. He paused for a moment to put his own mind send to the test once more—only to strike that barrier.

  Well, they might have bound his mind, but they had not fettered his body this time. During his brief halt those roots above seemed longer. For some reason that awoke a dread in him. Being under the earth was difficult enough; he had to fight an ever-present fear of being shut in—encased in this evil-smelling pocket of soil. The light from the tuber continued to ebb. Farree faced around to look back, although all there was blind dark.

  Not quite. He sighted a small spark of light—fiery orange-red, like a minute, awakening flame. Two—close together– another pair slightly behind the first. At the same time an effluvium, a stench strong enough to churn his empty stomach, puffed in his face. He gagged and fought to control the nausea that awoke in him.

  At the same moment his mind was touched. He was in contact with one of the things which had run the dark ways underground back in the valley. What he could read was ravening hunger, and a picture of this foul thing hurrying to seize upon his flesh.

  The odor grew stronger, and the lights which marked their eyes brighter and larger. Hunger drove them and he was the food.

  Moving backward, Farree edged as close as his folded wings would allow him to the wall at his right. His hand groped for the knife and then he remembered his sheath was empty. He had no defense except his two hands. Still he backed and the creatures followed. Now and again he gave a hurried glance over his shoulder to make sure that there were no other eye lights showing ahead, that he was not being driven into a trap.

  He expected them to charge, but it seemed that something kept them from making that last run which would bear him down. They were coming up on him to be sure, but not as swiftly as he expected. The tuber in his hand lost its light. But he could still see the eyes.

  As Farree went he was careful to test each step with his heel, making sure that he was not about to lose his balance. Then he kicked something and there was the sound of metal striking stone. He dared to stoop and seek to feel what he had stumbled upon. His hand closed about a chain.

  Part of it was loose and yielded easily to his jerk but the other end appeared to be fixed. He pulled again and was answered by a glow of light. Again where his fingers pulled he saw a glimmer. The hunters had paused– Raw hatred and purpose still filled them but there was now caution, he believed, in their halt, as if he had chanced upon something in which they foresaw trouble. At the same time the links gathered into his hand began to warm, to burn as had the globe; but he refused to drop his find. The fact that the very picking up of the thing had slowed the others' advance made him cling to it the tighter.

  Light sped from the links in his hand out along the rest of its length. This was a far better light than the tuber had given. He gathered the metal linkage up in both hands now to give a strong pull.

  There was no give. Only more of the chain was alight, so that his eyes, already accustomed to the dark, could follow it to a wall. There it had been fastened to a loop apparently deep set in one of the stone blocks. Farree followed it up to that anchorage. He had to divide his attention between what he was doing and those menacing eyes. But the latter had stopped their advance.

  Farree's fingers found a loop set in the stone. From his touch there came a stab of agony as great as if he had put his hand into real flames. He drew back but he did not drop hold of the chain. Unlike the links he held the loop did not shine. Pull having achieved nothing, he tried twist, winding the chain as swiftly as he could to the left, its links clinging together and its length becoming less as he wound it into two strands together. Once more he jerked.

  There was a clang and the link locking the chain to the loop gave way so quickly he stumbled back, his wings brushing painfully against the other wall. Now he held several arm's lengths of glowing chain free from its anchorage. Though it remained fully in his hand it did not sear his flesh as had the single stone-set loop. Winding a fair portion about his right hand he swung the rest back and forth as one would swing a lash. With a clank of metal against rock it met the pavement behind him. Only then did its light reveal something else—a skull, teeth a-grin, as it rested in the midst of a pile of bones. What manner of creature had been left to die here Farree could not tell, but to his eyes the skull looked as if it were humanoid in shape.

  He took a stride across that mass of bones, striking the skull without intention with the toe of his boot. It rolled back along his trail, toward the waiting eyes. Farree shivered and began once more to edge along the right hand wall of this place, which changed quickly into a narrowed passage. The glow from the chain remained constant and he swung it back and forth now—not only as a warning to those who followed him, but as a method of seeing a little ahead on his own path.

  The dim light picked up a heap of something and for the second time he viewed a pile of bones. But the method of securing this unfortunate prisoner to the wall had been different. The upward swing of the chain showed a small cage of metal secured to the stone about as high as a man such as Vorlund would stand. In that cage a second skull rested, with the bones piled below. Farree hurried on.

  He passed two more chains looped to the wall but neither of these contained a prisoner held to his or her death. Then he came to the end of the way he followed to be faced by a flight of steps and a matching rise overhead to give that flight room.

  It was at that moment that the hunters attacked. Farree must have been about to pass out of their territory and they would not allow that. He got up four of the worn steps and stood ready to face them, the chain dangling ready. They came and he lashed out. He struck solidly the one in advance of the other, then hit at the second with less chance to aim. For the first time the things gave voice—a shrilling so high and piercing that it hurt his ears. Twice more one leaped at him only to be caught by the lash. The first one he had struck lay struggling where the first blow had thrown it. Now its fellow joined it. One pair of eyes lost their light, and Farree thought that perhaps the creature was dead. Now it seemed that if not at that last state yet the second was badly injured, for it did not attack again, only lay near its fellow eyeing Farree with a hate near great enough to cancel out pain.

  He watched it narrowly before at last turning away and beginning to climb. Farree still glanced back every step or two to see if he were again being followed. The heightened color of the chain dimmed to a light glow. He wound it about his forearm and held it out before him to light as much of the way ahead as it could.

  Once started on that climb the upward path seemed endless. Twice he made his way through an opening overhead to come out upon another dark passageway. He was not tempted to explore, keeping rather to the stairs still reaching upward.

  Used to the subdued radiance of the chain he was not aware at first of a faint light up ahead. At length the shape of a grey square drew his attention and he found by means of this some remnants of his decreasing strength to hurry on to the head of the stairs. This left him in a room of some size. There was a furnace
at one end, and hanging on the walls at intervals were objects he had no desire to examine closer, for in this place there was such a residue of pain and fear as to make him shudder. Farree opened and flexed his wings—there was room here. At the far end of this chamber was another stair, while far above the reach of any one standing here, there was a row of barred windows, square cut along one wall. From them the mist-light of the grim place came.

  Underfoot was a layer of dust in which Farree's tracks were very plain. The bitter cold here was that of a place which had been deserted. Farree wove the chain end once more about his hand as he fanned the cramps out of his wings and stood looking about. Here the glow of the chain was subdued, but Farree thought it looked like well-burnished silver. Certainly it did not show any rust, as had the anchorage loop and the cage of the skull, both of which had red flakes falling from them. He wound the length more tightly about his arm and started up the second flight of stairs. As had the one in front of the earth ways, there was a second flight beyond a first landing. A corridor ran off to his right but to his left there was a window—narrow enough that he had again to fold down his wings, and high enough that he had to loosen the chain from around his skin to catch the bars with both hands and pull himself up to look out.

  He was staring into open air as he had done in that chamber of his first waking. The bars prevented him from leaning far enough forward to see what lay to either side. In the center crossing of those bars there was a plate of metal which was a dull red in color. Rust from the bars sifted off on his hands and his fingers jerked in pattern with twinges of pain until he loosed his hold again. The center plate had a deeply incised pattern, and there was no mistaking the picture it bore. He had seen in it some of Zoror's prized records—the ancient hand weapon known as a sword—longer than a knife and more difficult, he thought, to handle. The point and half the blade of this had been driven, point down, through the representation of a humanoid skull a-grin with teeth as long as fangs. Just as the room below had brought him the ache of pain and ancient fear so did this tug at him—but in a different way—as if there was an important meaning in it which he could almost guess.

  Hunger and thirst drove him on, up the next length of the stair, and he came out at the far end of a hall which stretched before him as had the hall of his dream except there was no crystal brightness here. The walls were hung with tatters of woven stuff which were now rags, and most of them had fallen to the floor, lying at the foot of the walls in mouldering lengths. Down the center of this huge chamber was a table. Dust had reduced its vivid colors, but here and there some chance had brushed away the fall of years to show that the board was of a deep red stone veined with black and glittering. There were benches on both sides of the board, their supports carved of shining black, the seat hidden by the dust. At intervals down the table were set large footed goblets and these had a shadow of sheen. Perhaps if they were burnished they would show the glow as that chain which was his weapon.

  There was a backed chair at one end of the table, also of the black glittering stuff. The top of the back was a mask of a skull, bone white and thus vivid against its setting despite the dust, pierced by a black sword. Along the left wall as he started down the length of the chamber, rotten rags had fallen from covering large windows, each barred and centered with the sword and skull device. Through these came air which was so fresh and sweet after the burrows beneath that Farree made his way to the nearest.

  These were quite large and he found them closer to the floor than any of the others—as if they had been fashioned to accommodate inhabitants of his own size. Also, when he leaned forward he was able for the first time to see something besides sky.

  Judging by the sun it must be after middle day, a clear day. The frightening gloom of the building through which he wandered was forgotten when he looked down. Below there were indeed walls. It was what was still lingered within the wall which made him gasp. For this was like a sea of green, although after a first incredulous glimpse it sorted itself out into a tangled mass of shrub and tree, with an inner core of what could only be a pool. A bird of clearest yellow arose from one of the trees with a burst of song.

  Farree could see a terrace farther on, a stairway leading down into that miniature wilderness. He stumbled in the general direction now, trying to find the door which would give upon this freedom. He shuffled through a large mound of rags which became dust at his touch, puffing up to set him coughing and blinking his eyes against the flying particles. Then he found his door—closed. He jerked down on a time-fretted latch and came out on the terrace.

  He was staggering, and had to make his way down the stairs crab fashion, holding on with both hands to the banister, the chain now looped around his neck. The water drew him—to find that pool locked within the green and drink from it—that was the only thing important now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Yellow birds were screeching over his head, expressing their anger at his plundering fruit from a tree they must consider their own. There was no sign here that any but the birds and a small furred creature who had scrambled out of his way, its teeth firmly fixed in one of the same pale green balls as the one on which he feasted now, had been here for a long time. He had dared to drink from the pool and to cram the fruit into his mouth, taking the chance that neither carried any seeds of death for off-worlders.

  Only—he was not an off-worlder, Farree thought, as he reached for another of the fruits. There were those like him here. Also there were those odd small flashes which managed to work past the memory block which cursed him, letting him know that his kind were not strangers here, though this castle might be utterly strange to the Farree within its walls now.

  His hunger for the moment satisfied, he climbed back to the terrace where there were no trees or bushes to impede the full spread of his wings. From there he launched himself into the air, the better to see the nature of this lodging which chance had brought him to.

  The walled garden became a single bright green square as he spiraled upward, while the dark mass of the building looked all the more sinister from this height. It was not the height of the walls and towers alone which rendered it so for him. The fact that it crowned what might be a high-set plateau, with lower heights crowding about it, made it all more impressive. There were three towers, one large one springing from the bulk of the building through which he had come into the garden, two smaller and of less bulk to one side. The building was unique in that the pile of masonry rose sheer from the very lip of the level on which it had been built—as if it had sprung directly from the native rock.

  He wheeled down closer to those two towers and the small open stretch before them. It was now plain that they guarded a gateway—one where a massive portal was firmly closed upon the outer world. However, from an open space there led downward a way which had been cut into the rock—steep enough in places to turn into steps of stone.

  That was also closed he saw as he swooped downward, for not too far down that stepped path was abruptly cut off. There was only the rock of the mount on which the castle stood, though some distance below there were signs that broken traces of it still lingered.

  Below at ground level there was a trace which might once have been a road, and that pushed between ranks of oddly twisted trees bare of any leaf or sign of life. Farree swooped lower again until he was near skimming the top of a dead forest. Limbs of all these trees were twisted as if they had been deliberately wrung and left contorted. There were splotches here and there of a sickly yellow and a disturbing red-brown, masses which clung to the trunks or to the spindly branches. As he had felt in the unpleasant chamber within the castle, so did the same faint fear touch him here. There had been evil here, strong enough to utterly defeat all that was of life and hope.

  The dead forest spread out and away from the foot of the plateau on which the castle was rooted. There was no sign of green no matter how high he flew. And at the end of that stretch of tormented woodland there were again mountains such a
s stood between the ship and that other mountain hold which went veiled in haze.

  He circled back and flew along the wall of the two towers, seeking again the garden with the food he needed. Between the towers on that gate which was so firmly set there appeared in high relief that device he had seen elsewhere in the castle—though this time the skull was red and the black sword had lost its hilt.

  Farree's flitting was joined suddenly, as he passed the second tower, by a flight of birds, not the yellow ones of the inner garden but larger and more aggressive looking. If they were birds—Farree wondered as they circled in a wheel formation around him, taking turns to fly closer until he feared one of those curved beaks would strike at one wing or the other.

  In color they were almost the same yellow as the growths on the dead trees, and, although their bodies were feathered, their wings appeared with patches of what looked like dirty grey skin exposed. Their eyes were always turned toward him—they might well have been examining a suspected enemy before they ventured an attack.

  So wary did the sight of them make Farree that he almost sheered away from the castle, to wing out across the dead forest. Only the need for food and water kept him on his way toward the overgrown garden. He was above the bulk of the castle, the tallest of the towers to his left when the birds, which had flown in silence, suddenly voiced a series of harsh screams. The encircling flight broke apart.

  Out of the uppermost slit window of the tower there shot a beam of light. It had not been aimed at him, but rather at one of the birds. That one screamed again and veered, flapping its ragged wings with frenzied haste, yet losing altitude.

  The others were already on their way back toward the gate tower from which they must have first come, while that one which had fallen afoul of the light shaft landed on the roof below where it lurched along, one wing dragging, as if it could no longer be folded against its body.