by Allen Wold
"Sure." The hermit was insane. But whether he was pretending or actually believed himself to be Arin Braeth, there still might be something Rikard could learn from him.
The hermit led him into the patched-up hovel that was his home and into the room stacked with skins.
"There are places, you know," the hermit said, "where rich people will pay a lot of money for real skins and furs, just because they're real."
"You must have quite a treasure there." Rikard hadn't thought about black-market furs. Each of these skins, once properly treated, would be worth several hundred bills.
"No treasure," the hermit said, "just skins. How did you find me?"
"I know an old friend of yours, Aben Arshaud."
"Oh, yes, him. I send him letters every now and then."
"I didn't know there was mail service out this far." The old hermit laughed and went on laughing so hard that Rikard thought he was going to have a fit.
"There's no mail service here." He almost choked in his paroxysm. "No power, nobody." He suddenly became completely sober. "Nothing can get past the creepies."
"Then how can you send a letter?" Rikard was wary of the hermit's sudden change of mood.
"Sometimes a farmer comes by. He takes my letter if I give him some skins to sell in the city."
"I'll take a letter for you if you like."
"Would you do that? How many skins do you want?"
"None. I'll do it for you because you're Arin Braeth."
"That's very kind of you. Just a minute, I'll go get it." The hermit went back to his main room, and Rikard looked over the dried and smelly skins. Now that he understood their worth, he was curious. They were of various sizes, some only a dozen centimeters long, some over a meter. They varied in their texture and in the pattern of their colors, from simple smooth brown to striped and spotted cream and tan and black and even maroon. There had to be a lot of wildlife down here by the river to provide the hermit with so many pelts.
It seemed to be taking the hermit an awfully long time to find the letter. Rikard went to the door and saw the old man sitting on his bed. He was holding a piece of paper but was staring at something else in the palm of his other hand.
"Ann?" Rikard said. There was no answer. Rikard stepped into the room. "Arin? Are you all right?"
The hermit didn't move. Rikard went up to him, afraid that he might have had a stroke, but before he touched the old man's shoulder, he saw what was in his other hand, what the hermit was staring at so intently.
It was three irregularly rounded stones, each about as big as the end of Rikard's thumb. They were transparent and had hearts of pale iridescent fire. Beside the hermit, on the bed between him and the wall, was a learner bag, bulging with hundreds more.
Rikard crouched down to look into the hermit's eyes. The old man's gaze was transfixed; spittle drooled from his slack mouth. There was only one thing Rikard knew of that could produce such an effect.
Afraid to break the old man's trance, Rikard straightened up, then reached around behind him and took one of the stones from the bag.
"If they were cut and polished," the hermit whispered, "then they'd really show their fire." His voice had lost most of its madness. It was now a soft purr with a new kind of fascination. But he was not talking to Rikard.
Rikard held the stone, as big as the end of his thumb, and looked into it. As it warmed in his hand, he began to feel a sense of exhilaration, joy, and peace slowly come over him.
It was dialithite, the hypnotic stone found only on a few old worlds. Everybody knew about dialithite, but few people ever had the opportunity to see it, let alone touch it. Rikard had seen one once, cut and polished and a little larger than this one, in a carefully guarded display in a big museum on Benarth. And there were hundreds of perfect stones, just like this one, in the handmade leather bag.
As Rikard held this one and stared into the fiery depths of colors beyond human vision, he felt the power and the peace the gems were reported to convey to those who did so. If he were to just look at it without touching it, or just hold it without looking at it, he would feel no effect. But when he held it and gazed at it at the same time...
He clenched his fist convulsively, breaking the spell he was falling under. The hermit still sat, staring at the three stones he held. Even more carefully than before, Rikard put , the stone back. Without it, he felt deprived.
"No wonder Arin Braeth was cheated," Rikard said softly.
"Yes, no wonder." Sadness was mingled with fear in the hermit's face as he began to arouse from his trance. Quietly, quickly, before the hermit could recover completely, Rikard returned to the skin room. A moment later the hermit joined him, holding only the piece of paper now.
"Here's the letter," he said. "It's already written. Will you take it to Aben?"
"I will." Rikard took the letter and glanced at it. The handwriting was large and clear.
"Are you sure you don't want any skins?"
"Meeting you is reward enough," Rikard said. The letter was very short. It took him just a second to read it.
Dear Aben. I am doing fine. Please don't look for me. I'm afraid of Sed Blakely. How are you? Sometimes I think he's looking for me. It was a terrible thing. Love, Arin.
"Where is Blakely now?" Rikard asked as he put the letter in a pocket. The hermit's story was beginning to make sense. This prematurely aged old man was Sed Blakely, who had abandoned Arin Braeth after taking the dialithite. He had simply changed roles.
"I don't know," Blakely said. "He went away." His voice fell. His gaze grew distant. "He's lost. I don't know where he is."
"Do you suppose he felt bad about cheating his partner?"
"I should hope so. I hope it drove him crazy. It would drive me crazy. If I had cheated my partner like that. Sitting in some hole probably, fondling his treasure. Never do him any good. If I could just get my hands on him..." He choked off into silence, his eyes fixed on nothing.
"Poor Arin Braeth," Rikard whispered. He took the man by the shoulder and led him back to his front room and sat him on his bed.
"Poor Arin Braeth," the hermit whispered back.
"Where are you now, Arin Braeth?"
"Lost in the caverns. Dead by now, for sure. The tathas. They wouldn't let me leave."
"Could you tell me where the caverns are?"
"No. I don't know. I've forgotten. I knew once, but not any more. It's been so long, so long alone."
"Can I do anything for you?"
"Bury me. I'm so tired."
"I will. When the time comes. And thank you for talking tome."
"Why, it was my pleasure." The hermit's voice was sprightly again, as if nothing had happened. "Come by again."
"I will."
Rikard left the hermit sitting on his bed and went out to his car. He could find him again if he wanted to.
He felt a jumble of emotions as he drove away. He had held himself in control during the strange conversation, and now it came out all mixed together. The hermit was so pitiful. His father had been so badly wronged. And the dialithite stone had been so fascinating. That was a treasure worth his father's time and effort.
If Rikard wanted revenge for what Blakely had done to his father, he could find nothing better than the hermit's present torment. Rikard pitied him in spite of that, but he was not yet hard enough to end Blakely's misery by killing him.
At least he now knew why his father had disappeared so suddenly eleven years ago. It was some comfort that his father had not just gone into hiding, had found the treasure he had been looking for, even if he'd never had the chance to bring it back—except for the stones Blakely had, half of which Rikard could argue were his.
Now Rikard thought he understood the reactions of many of the people he had talked to in the city. They thought they were protecting Arin Braeth, and their concern for his father's safety was reassuring. They also didn't know about the dialithite, or somebody would have come for it long ago, discovered the truth, and have kill
ed Blakely for it. And Blakely's progressing madness foretold that that would happen soon enough.
It was easy to explain everybody's mistake. After all, Sed Blakely had never come back to the city after he had abandoned his partner. His guilty conscience had driven him to hide out in these ruins. All anybody knew was what they learned from Arshaud, from the letters Sed had sent in Arin Braeth's name.
The other letters he had sent were probably much the same as the one Rikard now had. The earlier ones, perhaps, had been more convincing. No wonder Arshaud thought Rikard's father had changed. He just didn't know how much.
People must have liked his father a lot to keep on defending and protecting his ghost after all these years.
3
Rikard drove back over the narrow old trail through the tall, thin woods. He slowed when he saw a group of people up ahead. He did not stop, but drove with one hand on the butt of his pistol, anticipating another ambush asking for "toll."
As he drew nearer, he saw that the six people had too many arms and legs. They were not human, but they didn't look like Atreef either. They were not animals; they were wearing clothes, but each had three legs and six arms.
He could have driven past, but wonder made him stop the car twenty meters from the cluster of trilaterally symmetric beings. It was an incredibly rare form for higher beings. The Belshpaer were supposed to have been trilateral, but they had died out millennia ago, or so he'd been told.
The six beings stood where they were, letting him look them over. They were dressed in soft, loose trousers and shirts, in pastel shades of blue, green, and violet. Even so, Rikard could see that their legs had three joints each. Their feet were encased in shoes. Their arms were triple jointed, ending in rosettes of fingers. Their bodies were columnar, their heads oval and tall, with three eyes radially placed. There were funnel ears between the eyes and an orifice of some kind below each eye. Their jaws seemed to be at the top of the head.
The skin of their faces and hands was a warm peach color. Under each subocular orifice was a patch of chocolate-brown hair. There seemed to be two each of three different sexes.
They stood and waited. Every now and then one of them rotated 120 degrees, presenting a new eye. They had no front or back. They carried no weapons.
Rikard could drive through them, drive around them, go back the way he had come. Instead curiosity got the better of him. He got out of the car and stood beside its open door.
One of the six came forward, walking by rotating on its three legs.
"Am I speaking your language?" the being asked. Its voice came from all three subocular orifices at the same time. It was a strange, triple-tenor voice, resonant and yet thin.
"Yes," Rikard said, surprised, "you are. Are you Belshpaer?" He tried to remember where he'd heard a voice like that before.
"We are. Are you the human known as Rikard Braeth?"
"Yes, I am. How do you know me?"
"We were waiting for you."
"Well, you found me. What can I do for you?"
"We wish to return to society."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"We have not retreated too far, but we hesitate to show ourselves."
"You're very much in evidence now."
"That is because you are Rikard Braeth. We were not sure you would ever come."
"I seem to be missing a point somewhere. How do you know my name?"
"It has been spoken. You are the one."
"Which one? I'm sorry, I just don't understand what you mean."
"A moment, please." The Belshpaer returned to its companions. They stood together and seemed to be conferring with one another, though Rikard could hear only a low murmur at this distance. And then he remembered the voices he'd heard behind the Troishla. The Belshpaer voices were the same.
After a moment the one who had spoken came back to just within a meter of Rikard's car.
"We have been expecting you," it said, "but it would not have been palshar to have confronted you in the city. Are you indeed Rikard Braeth?"
"I am."
"Then you are the one to conduct us."
"Where do you wish to go?"
"To join the people. There are so many worlds."
"You want to leave Kohltri? I think it can be done."
"No, not leave, rejoin. We need a verenth. You are he."
"I—ah—don't think so. What's a verenthV
"A verenth. To help us rejoin. Not a guide. A liaison. We have been down too long."
"I don't understand. I'm sorry, what do you want me to do?"
"Are you not he whose coming has been foretold?"
"I don't think so. I can't tell for sure, since I don't know what you want."
"We are not clear. I apologize."
"Look, I'm just here looking for my father. I think what you want is either a ticket agent or a social worker."
"I do not recognize the concepts. Perhaps we have come too soon."
"Perhaps. I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you."
"Perhaps you are right. We will have to try again." The Belshpaer stepped aside, and the others moved off the track.
Rikard got back in his car, confused and curious—and excited. Wait till he told Darcy about this! He drove slowly past them, then speeded up through the thin woods. At the same time he kept wondering, how had they gotten his name?
4
The strange conversation with the Belshpaer occupied his mind all the way back to the paved road. He wanted very badly to talk to Darcy about it. Their very existence, not to mention the fact that they had known who he was, was a mystery he couldn't unravel alone.
He pulled onto the paved road and turned north. There was a pale golden light shining around the car. He looked behind him and saw a dragon settling down onto the pavement just meters away. The glowing points in its ambiguous body were as bright as its eyes.
He panicked and tried to gun the engine. He did something wrong, and it died instead and sank to the pavement. The dragon's head stretched out, yellow and orange and transparent on the end of its long neck, and butted against the door on his side of the car. Static electricity sparkled around the interior, and the smell of ozone filled the air.
With a lurch, Rikard threw himself out the door on the other side. He hit the dirt running and headed for some shrubs a few meters off. Still running, he pulled his gun and time slowed. He fired over his shoulder at the dragon, which was still nuzzling the car. The bullet seemed to have no effect. Then the ground gave way under his feet, and he fell through loose earth and tangled roots.
He struck bottom hard. The gun was knocked from his hand and the breath from his lungs. Dirt and gravel rained down on top of him, blinding and choking him.
He scrabbled frantically through the loose soil, found the gun, grabbed it by the barrel, and lurched to his feet. He backed away from where he had fallen. His face was covered with dirt. He wiped it away. When he could see again, he looked up. There was a patch of blue three meters over his head. He was lucky he hadn't broken any bones.
He could hear a muffled thumf-thumf coming from above-ground. The dragon was up there, moving around. Rikard had to get out of sight before it came down this hole after him.
He looked around the hole into which he had fallen. There was enough light so that he could see he was in a roughly circular tunnel like the one connecting Dzhergriem's hideaway office with the upper shop. It sloped down in both directions, narrowing as it did so. He couldn't see how far the tunnel went in either direction.
He backed down the left-hand passage, which wasn't as steep as the other, keeping his eyes on the hole overhead. The tunnel curved away behind him and abruptly ended in another old cave-in.
He could no longer see the hole through which he'd fallen. He let his eyes adjust to the dimness here and looked for side passages. The walls of the tunnel, dark and metallically iridescent, were unbroken, save for the blockage against which he stood. From overhead came the thumf-thumf of the dragon movi
ng around.
He felt dizzy, as if the air in here were stale or noxious. It didn't smell bad. He glanced back up the passage the way he had come. The air up that way seemed to glow with light and brightness. He leaned against the tunnel wall, felt its cool, smooth surface, and slowly slid down to a sitting position. The dragon was up there, looking for him. He had to wait until it went away.
There was definitely something wrong with the air in the tunnel. He felt drunk. The light up ahead hurt his eyes, so he turned away from it. There was nothing to do but wait for just a little while. Waiting—that was all right. Waiting, just to be left alone. He could wait forever if he had to. All else was madness.
But this was madness. He had to get back to Darcy, had to find his father.
He looked around, but all he could see was the dark landscape superimposed on the dimly iridescent tunnel. He didn't know where he was. He didn't remember coming this way. He could see piled stones and wiry trees. But they were only images in his eyes. Really, he told himself, there was only the tunnel, wasn't there?
It seemed as if he had been dreaming a nightmare of intolerable light, of exhausting activity. It seemed as though he were just about to wake up to normal starlight and quiet waiting. But he was in the wrong end of the tunnel. He had to move, slowly of course, past the strangely familiar monoliths over there, past that oddly apertured pile of stones, that tree of wires and plates, all of plastic, all darkly colored under the black sky.
He moved slowly. Greater speed was possible, but not desirable. He oozed along to the right end of the passage. He had forgotten what made it right; it just was. But something was blocking his movements. He couldn't make it out clearly. He reoriented himself and saw blue sky outlined by a jagged hole. He was lying on his back under the caved-in ceiling.
The return to near-normality shocked him. He still felt lethargic, but he forced himself to his feet. He remembered his gun and panicked until he realized he still had it in his hand. If he had dropped it back in the tunnel, he wasn't sure that he would have had the strength to go after it.
He holstered the gun and listened for sounds of the dragon moving around aboveground. There were none.
