Moonsinger

by Andre Norton

It would seem that they did, with awe and a little more than awe— fear. I saw two of them make gestures toward her as if to ward off ill fortune.

  "Thus do I lay upon you your debt, men of—of—" she looked at them intently "Oskold. This one is under the cloak of Umphra, do you deny it?"

  One by one, if reluctantly, they shook their heads. Those with the bared swords sheathed them.

  "Then do you with him what must be done."

  I thought, from the looks they shared, that they would object. But if they were so inclined her manner quelled such protests. One of them led out a kas and between them they got the thing that was no longer a man up on the beast's back and there made fast. Then they turned and rode away into the very early sun, which came from behind a cloud to illumine the dell.

  "Why? What?" Yaps from my mouth, but she must have read my thoughts, for once they were gone she came swiftly and knelt before me, putting her hands out to hold my head firmly while she looked into my eyes.

  "Our plan is working, Krip Vorlund. Now, give them a small lead, and we follow!"

  "What?" I tried to think, not to make beast sounds. "What have you done to me, and why?"

  Now she stared again into my eyes, her attitude one of puzzlement. "I have done as you desired, star rover, given you a new body and taken care to save the old, that you might not bubble forth your life's blood from rents their swords would make. So—" she shook her head slowly, "you did not believe that this could be done, even when you said aye to the doing! But it is done and lies now on the scales of Molaster."

  "My—that body—can I get it back? And—what—what am I now?"

  She answered my second question first. There was a small overflow of pool like unto a shallow plate of water. To this I was guided by her hand on the nape of my neck. Over it she passed her wand, and the water was still and calm so that I looked into it as I might a mirror. I saw an animal head, with a thick mane between the ears and running down the shoulders, red fur with a golden note—

  "The barsk!"

  "Yes, the barsk," she said. "And the body—they will take it, as they must or else face certain darkness now and ever after, to a place of refuge. We will follow and, once in the Valley of Forgetting, we shall be safe from Oskold. For those were Oskold's men, which means that much of this country is a death trap, or would be if you still abode in your former shell. Safe from Oskold you may once more be yourself and then move as you see fit."

  She spoke the truth as she knew it. I had one last lingering thread of hope.

  "This is a dream," I said to myself, not to her.

  Again her eyes met mine and in them, as well as in the words she spoke, was that which cut the thread for me.

  "No dream, star rover, no dream."

  "And now," she rose. "We shall go, but not too fast on their heels lest suspicion be roused. Oskold is no fool and I think that Osokun has plunged his father, through his recklessness, into deep folly. I have saved you by the only method I knew, Krip Vorlund, however ill it may be to your eyes."

  So I followed her out of the dell in the guise of an animal who owed her allegiance. For now I discovered that though the barsk body held the essence of a man, yet also was I now attuned in a new way to the form I wore, and more than just in the way I faced the world. Those four who trotted with me were not a company of servants following a mistress, but something more—companions of varied natures allied with another species who understood them and in whom they placed supreme trust.

  We came to one of the vans such as I had seen in the yard of the show, the interior of which held cages. My companions went confidently forward and jumped in, pawed open the unfastened doors of the cages and settled themselves therein. But I stayed on the ground, growls rumbling in my throat. Cage—I was in that moment far more man than beast, and I had had enough of cages in Osokun's keep.

  Maelen laughed softly. "Well enough, Jorth—so I have named you. For that means in the ancient tongue 'One-who-is-more-thanhe-seems,' and was once granted as a battle name to Mimber of Yithamen when he went up against the Night Valks. Share my seat if you will, and I shall tell you of your name-hero and how he wrought."

  There was nothing farther from my mind at that moment than the desire to listen to the folklore of Yiktor while riding blindly into a future which yet seemed so beyond belief that only by determined will could I consider it. Yet I mounted the seat beside Maelen and there sat upon my haunches, studying the world through eyes which still gave me strange reports.

  But I began to see that there was more than the wish to beguile me out of considering my plight which moved Maelen to tell her tale. For as she continued to speak mind to mind, her powers to communicate and mine to receive were heightened and strengthened. Perhaps the esper I had used in my human body still worked in my favor. And, too, I found her story of value. Through its fabric was interwoven much of Yiktor—not the present, but an older, far more complex civilization which had once rooted here and of which the Thassa were the last survivors. There was much she said beyond my understanding, references to events and people unknown, such hints only making me wishful to go through the doors they represented and see what lay on the far side.

  The van followed no path, taking the most open way across a wilderness country. We were on the eastern slopes of a range of hills forming a barrier between Oskold's holdings and the plains of Yrjar. But to return to the port in my present guise was the last thing I wished. Maelen continued to reassure me that our eventual goal was the mysterious place of refuge in the higher hills to which my body was being escorted. She explained that the natives believed mental disorders to be a visitation of certain powers, and those harboring them were sacred, to be placed as speedily as possible in the custody of priests trained in such care. But we dared not follow too closely to this place, she warned me several times over, lest they suspect some trickery.

  "How did you—how did you make me thus?" I asked at last.

  She was silent for a space and when she replied, her thoughts were guarded and remote.

  "I did that which I long ago took oath not to do. For this I shall answer in another time and place to those who have the right to demand it of me."

  "Why did you?"

  "I was debt-laid," she replied still more remotely. "It was through me that you came into this misfortune, thus I must level the scales."

  "But you did nothing—that small matter of the beast seller—"

  "That, but also this. I knew that you had an enemy, perhaps more than one, and I did not warn you. Rather did I say that as Thassa the concerns of others were naught, save where they touched me. And for this I must also answer."

  "Enemy?"

  "Yes." And she told me of how Osokun had come to her with the man from the Combine ship, Gauk Salfid, and how they had suggested she attract a Free Trader into a net they would set. Although she had not done openly as they wished, she now believed that she had served their purpose because of curiosity. Thus had she begun the chain of events which had led to my kidnapping.

  "That is not true. It was chance only until—"

  "Until I made the moon-weave for you?" she interrupted. "Ah, that seems to you now the greatest of interference. But perhaps you will discover it the least as the future opens before us, then passes behind us. What I have done is a thing private to the Thassa." Then she stopped and I felt her thoughts withdraw and I could not touch her, for a barrier grew between us. Her body sat there, but her eyes were really turned inward and she had gone where I could not follow.

  But the kasi forged onward as if she had set some direction in their minds and they kept on as a navigator would hold to his chart, at a speed which might be slow but which held steady. Above us the sun was warm and bright. Then I set myself to learning my new body, that I might inhabit it competently as long as I must—though still I could not rid myself of the belief that this was a long dream haunting the mind of one safe in his own place and person.

  Chapter 9

  Two days we traveled
so, camping at night in hidden thickets. I became more and more a part of the body I wore, and I learned that there are some compensations, lessons to be learned, by one who travels four-footed and looks upon the world through animal eyes. Maelen fell into moods of abstraction now and then, but between these she talked much, either relating legends or else pointing out features of the country and speaking of her own life as a wanderer there. But, I came to note, she did not often mention her people in the here and now, only as they were in the past. Also there were questions I asked that she adroitly avoided answering. I came to make it something of a business to try to trap her and I think she knew what I would do and as cunningly slipped past me.

  On the morning of the third day as we climbed into the van she was frowning slightly.

  "From here," she said, "we come into the land of villages and men. And to cloak our purpose we shall call upon the skills of the little people."

  "You mean—give shows?"

  "Yes. The road to the Valley is such that there are no side ways. Also we may learn of those who have gone before us."

  It was almost a shock to think of my body having ridden this road ahead, a sensation difficult to put into words. Maelen continued to promise me that those escorting that mindless thing would be careful to keep the spark of life within it, that, according to their superstitions, any neglect would result in a fate such as they would avoid at all costs.

  "And I will be part of your entertainment?"

  She smiled slowly. "If you wish. A very great part if you agree. For to my knowledge, and I assure you that is not small, no one has ever shown a barsk before."

  "But you had hoped to?"

  "Yes, I had hoped to."

  "What happened to—to—"

  "The spirit who wore your present body? It was failing. Another day, perhaps two, and I would have out of compassion sent it on the

  White Road."

  "But in my body—now?"

  "It is a feeble tenant. It does not suffer, only lingers for a time to keep the lamp lit until you return."

  "This exchange—you must have done it before."

  I had come out boldly with what I had tried to discover earlier. She looked at me.

  "To each his own secrets, Krip Vorlund. I told you—this burden is mine, you will not be called to account for what has happened."

  "But you will?"

  "I will. Now let us consider what lies before us, not what may exist behind a mountain range or two. By midday we shall arrive at Yim-Sin, the road to it lies there—" We were coming down a bank to a road into which the kasi turned, heading upward from the plains.

  "In Yim-Sin there is a temple of Umphra," Maelen continued. "There we shall be quartered and, if possible, learn of Oskold's men—though they may have taken the other road on the eastern side of the mountains. This night we shall give a performance. So now let us study what a barsk may do to astound the world."

  I was willing to fall in with her plans, for this was the case of depending upon a navigator in the deeps. To the one with the proper knowledge one leaves the ordering of the ship. Together we set up a performance, suggesting the act of a well-trained animal. When we came to a place where terraced fields, now mainly cleared by harvest, made steps on the hillsides, Maelen paused and I withdrew from my usual seat beside her to the traveling cage like the rest of the four-footed company.

  They drowsed, for two of their species were nocturnal in normal life, and the other, Tantacka, was a lazy animal when well fed with no need to forage. I found that my new body had habits, too, which were emerging. And I curled up nose to tail and slept a little as the van trundled along.

  The scents of the open gave way to other odors, acrid, nose-tickling. I heard voices as if people were gathering around the van, running beside it—high shrill voices of children. Maelen must be bringing us into Yim-Sin. It was, she had told me, a farming village, with the addition of two inns and a temple for the accommodation of those bound for the Valley. Ofttimes those who had relatives there made the journey to look upon them. It was also true that the priests of Umphra sometimes wrought miracles and cured certain of their charges, so not all who went there were hopelessly lost.

  While the fields of this up-and-down country were not wide or rich, yet they rooted a vine-grown crop which produced wine favored in the cities. The villagers were prosperous enough, at least their overlords were. But hereabouts there were absentee landlords and there would be only bailiffs and overseers in the two castle holdings along the road we traveled.

  I tried to understand the cries, but the words were of a country dialect, not the speech of the Yrjar merchants. Yrjar—suddenly I wondered what had happened there after my kidnaping. Had Captain Foss taken his case to the fair authorities? Some of those authorities or their subordinates must have conspired in my disappearance for it to have happened at all. Had they taken Lalfarns too, or killed him?

  Why had I been so important to risk so much on my capture? Surely Osokun must have known I could not give him what he wanted. Nor might Foss have traded the price demanded for me. Maelen had provided one small clue to what might be a greater coil—the part Gauk Slafid played. But the life-and-death struggle between Free Trader and Combine had been all in the past. Why this move now? I had read all the tapes of the old days and the struggle had been a bitter one, carried from planet to planet. Now the Combines dealt mainly with the inner-system worlds and sometimes dabbled in politics on those, to their hurt or gain. What could possibly interest them on Yiktor?

  The van came to a halt and the smell of the town—or better described for barsk nostrils—the stench of the town was thick. I longed to peer through the curtains and see our surroundings. But I now wore a skin around which far too many legends of peril and death had been woven.

  Borba and Vors uncurled from fur balls and came to peer out of their cages. Simmle whined a greeting to which my barsk vocal cords responded at a lower pitch. Their thoughts reached me as broken bits of expression.

  "March-march—"

  "Thump-thump—" That was Tantacka.

  "Up and down."

  So did they foresee their parts in the coming performance. They appeared to look upon their stage appearances as amusement to be anticipated and enjoyed.

  "Many smells," I tried my own return.

  Simmle barked. "Man smell—many men."

  "March-march," chorused the glassia, "good—good!" Their small cries scaled up to a shrill squeaking.

  "Food," grunted Tantacka, "under rocks—food." She snorted and went back to doze.

  "Run." Simmle was wistful. "Run out in the fields—good! Hunt— good! Together—we hunt—"

  Instinct of my body answered her. "Hunt—good!" I agreed.

  Maelen opened the back flap of the van and climbed in. A man of the plainspeople, wearing a black robe which was crosshatched on back and breast with white and yellow, came with her. He was smiling and chatting in the village dialect, but, through Maelen, the sense of his words filtered to me.

  "We are indeed fortunate, Freesha, that you have chosen this season for your return! The harvest has been good and the people plan a festival for thanksgiving. The Elder Brother wishes to make a happy time for all. He will open the west court for you and will pay all fees, so that your little people may give joy to all with their cleverness."

  "The Elder Brother is indeed a maker of happiness and a force for good in this so-blessed village." Her reply sounded formal. "Does he permit that I loose my little people that they may stretch their legs in freedom?"

  "But certainly, Freesha. Aught you may need is at your call—the third-rank brothers will serve you." He raised his hand. Fastened to thumb and forefinger were two flat pieces of wood and these he clicked loudly together. Two more heads crowded into view at the tail of the van. The closely clipped hair, the Hand of Umphra branded into their foreheads, marked them as priests, though they were only boys.

  They were smiling broadly, and apparently well pleased to serve as Maele
n's assistants. She opened Simmle's cage and the cream-coated venzese came out, swinging her tail eagerly, while Maelen fitted her with a show collar flashing small gems. Borba and Vors were so accoutered and loosed, and then Tantacka, to whose collar was added a kind of frontlet of richly embroidered red cloth, pointed forward between her ears. It would seem that the animals were old friends as the young priests greeted each by name, but with a gravity which suggested that Maelen's little people were far more than mere animals. Then she put her hand to the latch of my cage and the senior priest leaned forward as if to see me better.

  "You have a new friend-in-fur, Freesha?"

  "I have indeed. Come forth, Jorth."

  As I passed around the door she opened, the priest's eyes went wide and his breath hissed between his teeth. "A barsk!"

  Maelen was busy putting about my neck the collar she had sewn at our last camp, a strip of black with mirrorlike stars glittering in a scattered trail along it.