“But Jean add to the tale, Brothers, and in a way that will give us a new strength.” S’lorn of the Green was actually smiling, a nasty rictus of no humor but of immense satisfaction. “Take heart, Brothers, while I unfold news from the South, from my own distant lands. Much of it came to hand only today, from my own trusted messengers. But it makes a pretty picture.”
He leaned forward as he spoke, and his long white fingers arched and touched each other upon the cold smoothness of the table.
“We all have been told that the priest arrived in D’alwah, throwing years of patient work by our minions and allies into confusion. For lo, as we could never have guessed, the ragged slave woman this woods rat had found in the distant North was the lost princess, daughter of D’alwah’s stupid king, one thought by us to be dead in the jungle long ago. The priest knew this, nurtured her, and finally married her by their absurd rites. Thus in one incredible stroke, he had himself made the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
“I had ascribed much of this creature’s past success to sheer luck and, I honestly confess it, to complaisance and bad planning in the North.” He looked around, meeting every eye firmly before going on. “I offer my profound apologies to any here who may have thought me somewhat disdainful of their efforts in the past. This stroke of genius, this mating with the seat of power, changed my views of Per Desteen overnight. If he was a mere Abbey servant—and I know little of them, save what is passed to me from your realms—who and what are they in turn? Yet if, as I suspected, he was a strange mutant, a spontaneous appearance, as it were, unplanned and unplanning, then some opportunity might present itself.
“I too took counsel and devised a plan. We have powerful allies in that kingdom, even among what they call royal blood, and their strange church is rotted with our servants, who are deep in its secrets. A new drug was under experiment in our hidden centers, a drug which kills the mind powers, even of the most powerful. We have experimented on such.” That the experiments probably had involved the death of at least one Brother of the Order who had merited Slorn’s displeasure seemed obvious to all there. It meant nothing to them. Thus was power attained and kept.
“I met with our allies far from their city,” S’lorn went on. “For I allowed no mind work near this priest creature at all. I wanted him to find nothing to suspect, and that is what he found—nothing!
“Now listen to this good cheer, Brothers. Today I have the following to tell. Per Hiero Desteen—this prince of D’alwah, this titan who has so shaken our great Order—is dead!”
There was at least one gasp. It did not come from S’duna of the Blue, whose cold face was unchanged.
“This prince-priest, this vagabond ruffian, this mental giant, was simply struck on the head, drugged with the new drug I spoke of, and spirited far away into the wilderness. He was not killed at once, lest his wife, the royal slut, sense his passing and attack our allies before they were ready. But that is the real and inescapable fact. He is dead, finally, totally, completely dead. He is gone from the gaming board, Brothers, and we can once again plan as in the past, this random and ruinous factor forever disposed of!”
This time the silence was not brief. The purring voice of S’duna cut in, and there was no pleasure in it, only coldness.
“Before we rejoice, Elder Brother, I, the youngest of you, but nevertheless the one who knows this man best, indeed the only one of us ever to see him and live, have some small questions. Who saw the body? Yes, and also, how and where was he slain? Do your allies have the body in their possession? And if so, what was done with it? When I hear answers to these humble questions, I too shall perhaps rejoice.”
A faint hint of red colored the pale cheeks of the Green Master. It was obvious that S’lorn was both angry and unaccustomed to be so taken to task. There was a noticeable rasp as he answered.
“Our chief ally in the kingdom was trained under me as a child. He sent the drugged priest under guard far to the west, by hidden paths known to none but himself. He sent trusted men, childhood servants, in two parties. This proved wise. For the second party found the bodies of the first. All, I repeat, all were reported dead and still warm. I see no reason to doubt any of this. Who slew them all is not know, but is thought to be local outlaws who haunt the western marshes. Are you answered?”
“Yes,” S’duna said slowly, “I am answered. But I warn all here, with due respect to yourself, Eldest Brother, that this man is very hard to kill. I would a Brother, and a high one at that, had seen the corpse. I shall be honest, if nothing more. I like it not. Yet 1 may be wrong, and none hopes this more than I. That, at least, you may believe.”
“Should it prove in error, then I will answer for it,” the other snapped, annoyed by the doubt thrown on his triumph. “But we have wasted far too long on this matter already. The fact that the priest was what he was and did what he did is part of a much larger scheme. We have an organization, Brothers, now plotting against us, moving actively to challenge us, who have always been unknown to our enemies. Seldom even has an enemy ever glimpsed a Brother and lived to speak of it in the past. None knew of us, save the Eleveners, curse them, and them we scorned. Their creed of nurturing all life, of harming nothing—that, we thought, was sufficient protection from their lurking and prying. Let them skulk about, we thought, until the Great Plan comes to pass, and then let them be swept away, along with all the other vermin of no use to us!
“But now…” His voice hardened. “What do we learn? At least in part, they have abandoned their foolishness at last. They are actively helping our foes. And this is bad, could not be worse. They know much of us, and only the fact that they were passive and stupid held our hand in the past, for they have studied us a long time, longer maybe than we know. Their mere knowledge, imparted to others more prone to violence, could be a deadly weapon against us.” He paused, then went on.
“The priest is dead. But what sent him is not. He came from the North, from your Abbeys that were thought under control, Brothers. Two states of the North, both under Abbey rule or guidance—the Metz Republic to the west and the League of Otwah in the east—are the source of this one deadly troublemaker. Whence came he and—more to the point—are there more like him? We must plan quickly. This peril must be crushed at its roots—at once! It is for this, I know in my inner being, that I was told to summon this Council.”
The other three leaned forward and listened as he began to expound his plan.
In another place, far from the dark and gloomy tunnels of the Unclean, stood a grove of mighty pines or related conifers. Of vast size, their immense boles were stained with lichen and hoary with age. In the heart of the grove lay a ring, bare to the rising moon and padded with many layers of fallen needles. Nothing grew in the ring, though the bed of needles was always fresh and clean.
No sound broke the silence of the night, save for the faraway hooting of a hunting owl and the sough of the soft wind in the lofty branches. Yet the glade was not empty. Here, too, there was a meeting. Shadowy, ursine shapes lay about the ring, only their glowing eyes proclaiming life. Great, furry sides heaved as the bear people kept their attention on the smaller figure of Gorm in the center.
Deep thoughts moved through mental circuits that others in the wild could not follow. Patiently, these Wise Ones of their people studied the new information brought to them. They had long remained hidden from the other sentient races of the world. Now they were not to be hurried in any decision which might affect their future.
The night passed slowly as thoughts moved from one reflective mind to another. The moon waned. After a time, it vanished behind a large drift of cloud. When the white light illumined the clearing once again, the smaller figure of Gorm was gone from the center, but the outer ring of bodies remained, fur-covered sides heaving gently.
A still pool lay deep in the jungle, as far from the tunnels of the Unclean or the grove of the bear people as those places were from each other. Here the trees which arched over the brown water were of su
ch size as to make the great conifers look like saplings by comparison. Their incredible branches did not start to leave the main trunks until they were almost out of sight from the ground below. Vast cables of liana and veritable forests of parasitic plants clung to the towering sides of the giant trees. In the noon warmth, insects buzzed busily and bird calls rang out.
From down a well-trodden game trail, a great, black beast came quietly to the pool. He paused and surveyed the surroundings, his wide, flaring nostrils testing the air. Upon one shining haunch lay the still-bleeding marks of some savage claw. The mighty palmate antlers which crowned his huge head were stained and smeared with caked blood. Yet he did not look fearful in any way, only alert.
Eventually, he decided that the area was safe and slowly slid into the small pool until only his head protruded, the eyes always watching, the huge ears and blubber lips twitching at the slightest sound.
At length, with antlers and hide now clean and glistening, Klootz heaved his bulk from the far bank of the pool where the game trail continued on. As silently as he had come, he vanished down it—going north.
Hiero awoke and looked about him, then stretched and yawned. Another day had come. From his tree fork, he could see far over the savanna, his vision obscured only by other clumps of towering trees like his own. With each day of travel, the ground rose, and the trees grew thicker, but there were still wide spaces between them. He could see many drifting herds of game filtering here and there down the lanes. Most were antelope and related beasts which would spend the day in the bush, avoiding both insects and the runners who preyed upon them in the open. Others were returning to the grasslands after a visit to a water hole and a night of peril, the prey of grim hunters who struck them down as they drank.
Hiero leaned down from the branches and gave a low, echoing call. He had scanned the neighborhood and seen no sign of inimical life.
Presently an inquiring head peered over a tall bush; then the great hopper bounded into sight, as perky as if he had spent a night in his straw-filled stall.
The man climbed down and dug the saddle and other gear out of a thicket where he had cached them the evening before. He was always relieved that Segi was still alive when morning came.
“The fact is, my boy,” Hiero said, scratching between the long ears as the hopper leaned down and nuzzled him, “you are something of a problem. In fact, I wish you weren’t here at all. How’s that for gratitude, after all you’ve done for me, eh?” A long pink tongue swept over his face, and he spluttered and then laughed.
But he was only half-jesting. Segi’s safety was something that indeed did worry him, and he could see nothing much that he could do about it. It was all very well for the man to climb into a tree at night, but Segi, bred for the great plains, had no such defense during the dark hours. There was still a good deal of open ground around them, but with each dawn it grew less as they neared the hills. With the encroachment of the forest, it was going to be harder and harder for Segi to look after himself at night, with the wood alive with hungry maws. A hopper’s only defense lay in his nose, ears, and huge hind legs. For the last, he needed room, room to leap and dodge, to spring and evade. And this sort of room was becoming increasingly scarce.
All that Hiero could think of was to take off every bit of the harness at evening, so that Segi had at least the total use of his freedom. The Metz hoped with half his mind that each morning would find the animal gone, drawn to his distant home and at least possible safety. Fully girt with saddle and weapons, he had found his way to his master through trackless country alive with predators. He would have had a fair chance, then, with nothing on, of making his way back alive to the distant East.
But Segi would not leave. Whatever Luchare had impressed on his simple mind, allied to plain love for Hiero, was too strong a bond. He had found his man and he proposed to stay with him. No amount of slaps and orders could make him take the trail back. When Hiero crept from the tree one night and, risking his life all the while, tried to steal away, he found the big brute hopping along in his tracks, thereby doubling the risk. It was the last time he tried that maneuver. Had Hiero’s mind power been intact, he could have sent the hopper away in an instant. As it was … He sighed and patted the warm, brown flank absently. He had come to love the big animal a great deal in the last few days. Before, back in D’alwah, Segi had been a cherished and interesting pet, but nothing beyond that. Now there was much more, a deep, mutual affection. It was not the same as it had been with Klootz, of course. Hiero and the great morse had been raised together, and Klootz’ mind, after centuries of Abbey breeding, was far superior to Segi’s. Indeed, the Abbey men were uncertain just how clever the morses were becoming. As he ate his simple breakfast, Hiero wondered if Klootz were alive. He stilled the thought for Luchare which came next; he had no time for vain regrets.
Some hours later, he reined in Segi and peered under his hand at the heights in the west. They were in a long ride of the forest, and the trees were very tall. Hiero knew without being told that he was coming to a tip of the great jungle again, the forest of the South. The trees around him now, which would have been considered well grown in his northern home, were but the scrub and the outliers of the incredible growth of the real forest, the greatest jungle Earth had ever known. The strange life of the atom fires, spawned by the horrors of The Death, had, among its many effects, the vast increase in bulk of many of the plants. Above all, the great trees of what were now the northern tropics, aided perhaps by what the ancients called the Greenhouse Effect, had reached a size and majesty never known in the planet’s past.
And beyond those trees, no more than a good day’s march, he thought, there loomed the purple hills. He ached in his bones to be among them, and only his native kindness and good sense restrained him from spurring his mount on at too fast a pace.
Had the Metz even a third of his former powers, he would have known at once that he was being drawn and not acting under his own volition at all, though the thought that had pulled him gently but inexorably to the southwest for days was clever and subtle. But Hiero knew that he had lost all his skills—the thought reading, the shields, the forelooking, and the sheer force of his once mighty mind—weeks in the past. He had tried, over and over again, to reach out, to listen, somehow, somewhere to detect the presence of another intelligence. Every attempt had met with failure. The foul drug of Joseato’s administering had done its work only too well. Mentally he was as blind as a newborn baby, and maybe more so if the baby possessed innate powers.
Being this mentally blind himself, he had the feeling that he was a blank to those outside, as well. He was right, but only in part. The drug had been effective, horribly so. To most of the outer world, and certainly to the Unclean, Hiero was a mental nullity, a blank. Not even Luchare could have detected him. The hopper had followed him by scent, his fine-tuned nose able to pick up the man’s tracks even after several days. Dogs, some of them, could do as much.
But there were minds other than the Unclean’s, also sprung from The Death. Hiero knew this well, none better. But it had never occurred to him that he might still be reached, be tapped and beckoned on a hitherto unused level of his brain, one which had lain dormant all his life and which he had not, even in the last year, realized was there at all. Yet so it was.
All day he and Segi moved steadily if slowly into the uplands, using great care to avoid dense clumps of foliage and timber. With each mile, this became harder and harder. The land itself was no longer a help but a hindrance. Folds of ground appeared, at first shallow, but then growing deeper and more precipitous. These ravines were no strong barrier at first, but Hiero knew them to be fingers thrust out from the heights ahead, the channels from which the tropic rains rushed down to the plains below.
Many of the ravines had water in their bottoms, though it was the dry season. At nightfall Hiero made camp on the lip of a sizable gorge, down which sped a small river, flowing fast over boulders and beds of gravel. He found a pocket i
n the stone, well above the river, and this he blocked, after penning Segi in with him, by dragging all the heavy, fallen timber he could find to barricade the entrance, making it at least partially secure. There were trees in abundance all about, but he could not leave the hopper alone on the ground overnight with no defense in this thick country.
Segi did not care for the small enclosure at first and grew restless, but settled down when Hiero lighted a small fire. There was good herbage, and succulent vines grew down the walls of the place. The big beast finally lay down after feeding, to chew his cud.
The moon was not out, but the stars were bright, and Hiero passed much of the night awake, studying the black outline of the hills, which now actually loomed high above him. They were old mountains, he surmised, worn and rounded, not like his great, sharp Stonies, which towered in white-capped chains in the distant Northwest. Forest reached to the tops wherever the soil was dense enough. He had already seen rock faces, though, bare of trees but hung with matted ranks of moss and fern. He could guess that there would be plenty of cliffs as well, making for hard climbing. As he had done for the last few days, he pondered the problem of the poor hopper. How could he make Segi leave him? As long as they were together in this steep, wooded country, the danger to himself was doubled. He had to care for both his mount and himself at all times, for Segi no longer had space to use his limbs in the colossal bounds which were his only defense.
Twice during the night they were disturbed. Once a sharp, feral reek told them of an intruder, and the hopper snorted and crouched away to the back of the little bay, eyes rolling in fear. He made no effort to flee, relying on his master for defense, thereby showing good sense. Had he bucked or struggled, their shelter would have become a nightmare.
Hiero watched from a crouch, weapons at the ready. Presently, with no sound, a great paw, covered with scarlet fur and ending in huge yellow claws, came gently over the log barrier and felt cautiously about for a hold. This, the man decided, was quite far enough!
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