The Ginger Star-Volume I of The Book of Skaith

by Leigh Brackett

  "Do you feel there's a chance you may not complete it?"

  "On Skaith," said Amnir, for once not smiling, "there is always that chance."

  The ruins became more extensive. In places they were no more than shapeless hummocks of ice and snow. In others there were stumps of towers still standing, and great mazes of walls and pits. Several sorts of creatures laired in the hollow places. They seemed to live by hunting each other, and the more aggressive ones came howling and prowling around the wagons at night to put the beasts in an uproar.

  Twice the wagons were attacked in force, and by day. It seemed that the squat ferocious shapes emerged from the ground itself, rushing forward in the rusty twilight, hurling themselves at anything that lived, all teeth and talons and wild harsh screamings. They impaled themselves on lances, spitted themselves on swords, and their fellows tore them to bits and devoured them while still they screamed. The armed men drove them off, but in each case not before some of the beasts had been pulled down in harness by swarming bodies and reduced to stripped bones in a matter of minutes. The creatures did not stop eating even long enough to die. The worst thing about it to Stark was that the overpowering stench of them was undeniably human.

  As they passed these danger points in the ruins, the shadows that slipped and slid along the edges of vision disappeared, only to reappear farther on.

  It was obvious that Amnir had been aware of them, too, and that he was worried.

  "You know who they are?"

  "They call themselves the People of the Towers. The Thyrans say they're great magicians. The Gray Maggots, they call them, and will have nothing to do with them. I've always paid them a generous tribute for passage through their city, and we've had no trouble. But they've never done this before, this spying and following. I don't understand it."

  "How soon do we reach their city?"

  "Tomorrow," said Amnir, and his hand tightened on his sword hilt.

  In the dark morning-time, under the green star, they crossed a river on the ice, beside the piers of a vanished bridge. On the other side of the river a cluster of towers reared against the sky, jagged and broken in outline. They were perfectly silent, except for the wind. But they showed lights. The road ran straight to the towers. Stark looked at them with immense distaste. Ice glazed them. Snow choked their crevices, frosted their shattered edges. It was somehow indecent that there should be lights within those walls.

  Amnir rode along the line of wagons. "Close up there. Close up. Smartly now! Let them see your weapons. On your guard, watch my lance point, and keep moving."

  The broken towers were grouped around an open circle, which had a huge lump of something in the middle that might once have been a monument to civic pride. Three figures stood beside the monument. They were gaunt, tuck-bellied, long-armed, slightly stooped. They wore tight-fitting garments of an indeterminate gray color, hoods covering narrow heads. Their faces were masked against the wind. The masks were worked in darker threads with what appeared to be symbols of rank. The three stood immobile, alone, and the ragged doorways of the buildings gaped darkly on either hand.

  Stark's nostrils twitched. A smell of living came to him, from those doorways—a dry subtle taint of close-packed bodies, of smoke and penned animals, of dung and wool and unnamable foods. He was riding in his usual place beside the third wagon in line. Gerrith was behind him, beside the fourth; the other captives strung out behind her, except for Halk, who was still confined. Stark tugged nervously at his bonds, and the armed man who led his beast thumped him with his lance butt and bade him be still.

  The noise of the wagons rolled against the silence. Amnir rode aside, toward the three gray figures. Men came after him bearing sacks and bales and rolls of cloth.

  Amnir halted and raised his hand. The hand held a lance, point upward.

  "May Old Sun give you light and warmth, Hargoth."

  "There is neither here," said the foremost figure. Only his eyes and his mouth showed. The eyes were pale and unreadable. Above them, on the forehead of the mask, was the winged-disc sun-symbol which Stark had found to be almost universal. On the sides of the mask, covering the cheeks, were stylized grain patterns. Stark supposed the man was both chief and high priest. It was strange to find a Corn King here, where no corn had grown for centuries. The man's mouth had thin lips and very sharp teeth. His voice was high and reedy but it had a carrying quality, a note of authority.

  "Here there are only my lord Darkness, and his lady Cold, and their daughter Hunger."

  "I have brought you gifts," said Amnir.

  And the Corn King said, "This time, you have brought us more."

  The wind blew his words away. But Amnir's lance point dipped and a movement began along the line of wagons, a bristling of weapons. The man leading Stark's beast shortened up on the rein.

  In a curiously flat tone Amnir said, "I don't take your meaning."

  "Why should you?" said the Corn King. "You have not the Sight. But I have seen. I have seen it in the Winter Dreaming. I have seen it in the entrails of the Spring Child that we give each year to Old Sun. I have seen it in the stars. Our guide has come, the Promised One who will lead us into the far heavens, into warmth and light. He is with you now." A long slender arm shot out and pointed straight at Stark. "Give him to us."

  "I do not understand you," Amnir said. "I have only captives from the south, to be sold as slaves to the Thyrans."

  The lance point dipped lower. The pace of the wagons quickened.

  "You lie," said the Corn King. "You will sell them to the Citadel. Word has come from the high north, both truth and lies, and we know the difference. There are strangers on Skaith, and the star-roads are open. We have waited through the long night, and now it is morning."

  As though in answer, the first sullen glimmer of dawn stained the eastern sky.

  "Give us our guide now. Only death waits for him in the high north."

  Stark shouted, "What word have you of strangers?"

  The armed man clouted him hard across the head with the lance butt. Amnir voiced a shrill cry, reining his beast around, and the wagons began to move, faster and faster, the teams slipping and scrabbling on the frosty ground.

  14

  Bound so that he could neither fight nor fall, half unconscious from the blow, Stark saw the encircling walls and dark doorways rush past him in a ringing haze. He wanted the people inside those doorways to come out and attack, to set him free, but they did not. And the Corn King with his attendants remained motionless beside the monument. In a few moments the whole clattering, jouncing caravan of wagons and armed men was clear of the circle and racing along between lesser ruins, lightless and deserted. By the time Old Sun had dragged himself above the horizon they were in open country, and unpursued.

  Amnir halted the train to rest the beasts and restore order along the line. Stark managed to twist himself around far enough to see that Gerrith was all right. Her face was white, her eyes large and strange.

  The man-at-arms used his lance again, this time with less force, to straighten his prisoner in the saddle. Stark shook away the last of the haze from his vision and tried to ignore the throbbing in his head. Amnir was riding up to him.

  There was something peculiar about the man's expression as he looked at Stark. It was plain that the encounter with the men of the Towers had shaken him.

  "So," said Stark, "you meant us for the Citadel all along."

  "Does that surprise you?"

  "No. But the Corn King surprised me."

  "The what?"

  "The man you called Hargoth, the priest-king of the Towers. He knew me. He was waiting. That's why we were being watched."

  "You will get little good from that," said Amnir, and turned to the man-at-arms. "See that he's put into the wagon. Now. And guarded well."

  "Guarded against what?" asked Stark. "The People of the Towers? Can you guard against magicians? Or the Thyrans. Perhaps they'd prefer to sell us to the Citadel themselves, without sharing the p
rofits. Or the Lords Protector. Suppose they see no reason to pay you the price you've been rolling under your tongue ever since Kazimni talked to you in Izvand. Suppose they send their Northhounds to hunt us all down." Stark laughed, a small unpleasant sound. "Or are you perhaps beginning, in spite of yourself, to think that there may be something in the wise woman's prophecy? If that's it, hurry, Amnir! See if you can outrun fate."

  Amnir's eyelids flickered uneasily. He said something Stark could not hear, probably a curse, and rode away, kicking his beast with unnecessary viciousness.

  Stark was put into the wagon and bound with even more care than usual. He lay staring up at the tilt of the rough canvas above him, hearing again the Corn King's words. The star-roads are open. We have waited through the long night and now it is morning.

  Old Sun's pale gleaming had long since vanished from the canvas when the wagon was wheeled into place for the night. Stark lay still, feeling a curious and quite unfounded anticipation. He listened to the sounds of Amnir's men making camp. He listened to the fretting of the wind at the canvas. He listened to the beating of his own heart. And he waited.

  I have seen it in the Winter Dreaming.

  I have seen it in the entrails of the Spring Child.

  Our guide has come—

  The noises of the camp died away. The men had eaten and wrapped themselves for sleep, all but the sentries. There seemed to be more of them than usual, from the number of pacing feet. From time to time one of the guards looked in through the flap, making sure that the prisoner was still safely bound.

  Time went by.

  Perhaps I was wrong, Stark thought. Perhaps nothing at all will happen.

  He had no clear idea what he was waiting for. A sudden attack, the swift rush of footsteps, shouts, cries—The watchers sent out by the Corn King had had no difficulty keeping up with the slow-moving wagons, and the People of the Towers ought to be able to come up with the train at some time during the night.

  And suppose they did come; suppose they did attack. Amnir's men were disciplined and well armed. They were on guard. Could the People of the Towers overcome them? What weapons did they have? How well did they fight?

  If they were truly great magicians, they would have more subtle ways of gaining their ends. But were they, truly?

  He did not know. And he began at length to think that he would never know.

  The cold, he thought, was more penetrating than usual. It pinched his face. He worried about frostbite and tried to burrow his nose deeper into his sleeping furs, one side at a time. The moisture of his own breath froze upon the furs, upon his flesh and hair. His lungs hurt. He grew drowsy, and he could picture himself asleep and freezing gradually into a statue with a shining glaze of ice over him like glass.

  He was afraid.

  He fought his bonds. He did not break free, but he generated enough heat to melt some of the frost that had gathered around him.

  It froze again, and now he could hear the cold.

  It sang. Each crystal of ice had a voice, tiny and thin.

  It tinkled and crackled, faintly, sweetly, like distant music heard across hills when the wind blows.

  It chimed, and the chiming spoke elfinly of sleep and peace. Peace, and an end of striving.

  All living things must come to that at last.

  Surrender to sleep and peace.

  Stark was still fighting feebly against that temptation when the back flap of the wagon-tilt opened and a narrow person came lithely in over the tailgate. Moving swiftly, he slashed Stark's wrists and ankles free. He hauled him up, amazingly strong for all his narrowness, and forced a draught of some dark liquid down Stark's throat.

  "Come," he said. "Quickly."

  The face, masked in plain gray without markings, swam in the gloom, unreal. Stark pawed his way forward, and the draught he had drunk took sudden fire within him. He half climbed, half fell out of the wagon. The strong arm of the gray man steadied him.

  Inside the circle of wagons the tiny hoarded fires guttered behind their windbreaks, dying. Bodies, animal and human, lay about, motionless under a shining coat of frost that shone pale in the starlight. The sentries lay where they had fallen, awkward things like dummies with uplifted arms and stiffly contracted legs.

  Stark articulated one word. "Gerrith."

  The gray man pointed and urged him on.

  The Corn King stood on a small eminence beyond the camp. Behind him, a number of lesser priests were spaced along the line of a wide semicircle. It was as if they formed a drawn bow, with the Corn King at the tip of the arrow. They were all quite motionless, their masked faces bent upon the camp. Stark's guide took good care not to pass in front of that silent bow and arrow. He led Stark off to one side. The deadly cold relaxed its grip.

  Stark said again, "Gerrith."

  The gray man turned toward the camp. Two figures came stumbling from the wagons, one narrow and masked and supporting the other, clad in furs. When they came closer Stark saw a thick swinging braid of hair and knew that the fur-clad one was Gerrith.

  He exhaled a breath of relief that steamed on the icy air. Then he said, "Where are the others?"

  The gray man did not answer. Stark grasped him by one thin sinewy shoulder and shook him. "Where are the others?"

  The Corn King's voice spoke behind him. The semicircle was broken; the work of the arrow done.

  "We have no need of them," the Corn King said. "The Sun Woman I have use for. The others are worthless."

  "Nevertheless," said Stark quietly, "I will have them. Now. And safe. Also, we will need arms."

  Hargoth hesitated, his eyes catching a glint of starlight so the holes in his mask gleamed eerily. Then he shrugged and sent four of his people running back to the wagons.

  "It will do no harm," he said, "nor any good, either. Your friends will die later on, and less kindly, that is all."

  Stark looked toward the camp and at the still figures on the ground. "What did you do to them?"

  "I sent the Holy Breath of the Goddess upon them." He made a sign in the air. "My Lady Cold. She will give them sleep, and the everlasting peace."

  So that was the end of Amnir and his energetic greed. Stark found it difficult to feel much pity for him. The men-at-arms were doing a dangerous job for their living, but he felt little sympathy for them, either. His wrists and ankles bore the scars of their hospitality.

  Hargoth indicated a long, low ridge, a fold in the plain. "My folk have made camp beyond. There is fire. We have food and drink. Come."

  Stark shook his head. "Not until I see our comrades."

  They stood, in the biting air, until Halk and Breca and the brothers had been brought, together with weapons borrowed from the dead. Then they followed the Corn King toward the ridge.

  "There is food in those wagons," said Halk. He walked crookedly, having been bound for many days. Some of the strength had gone out of him, but he was as belligerent as ever, perhaps worse because he was conscious of his weakness. "Are you going to leave it all there for whatever beasts there are in this wilderness?"

  "We do not need it," said Hargoth. "And we are not thieves. Whatever is in the wagons belongs to the Thyrans."

  "Then why not us?"

  "You were no part of their bargain with the trader."

  Stark steadied Gerrith over a stretch of bare rock. "You said that word had come to you from the high north. Who sent that word?"

  "The Wandsmen. They told us to watch for strangers coming from the south. They offered a high price for you."

  "But you do not intend to take it?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "There was other news from the high north. A man not of this world has been brought to the Citadel. The Harsenyi nomads saw him with the Wandsmen in the passes of the Bleak Mountains. The Wandsmen like to hide their secrets but the Harsenyi see everything. They range over half the world, and they carry news." The Corn King glanced sidelong at Stark. "Besides, there is the Sight, and I knew who you wer
e when my people first saw you riding beside the wagons. You are not of this world. You come from the south, and it is said that there is a place in the south where the starships land. The Harsenyi brought this word from Izvand."

  "It is true," said Stark.

  "Ah," said Hargoth. "I saw it clearly, in the Winter Dreaming. The ships stand like bright towers beside the sea."

  They had reached the crest of the ridge. Below, somewhat sheltered from the wind, Stark saw the fires, and the humped shapes of skin tents already dusted with snow.

  "That is where we wish to go," said Hargoth. "That is why we will not sell you to the Wandsmen. You will lead us, to the stars."

  He bent his head humbly before Stark. But his eyes, looking upward, were not humble.

  15

  Stark walked halfway down the slope, so that Hargoth was obliged to follow. Then he stopped.

  "I will lead you," he said, "after we have taken the Citadel. Not before."

  The wind moaned against the ridge, sending a frozen spindrift of white crystals across it that drifted down on Stark and the Irnanese, on Hargoth and his lesser priests. There was an instinctive movement, each group gathering apart from the other. After that, they stood very still.

  Hargoth said, "The ships are in the south."

  Stark nodded. "Unfortunately, that gate is shut. There is war in the south. Other men beside you wish to follow those star-roads, and the Wandsmen are saying they cannot. They are killing, in the name of the Lords Protector. The only way to open that gate is to take the Citadel, destroy the Lords Protector, and the Wandsmen along with them. Otherwise, you will go south only to die."

  The wind moaned and the fine white spindrift fell.

  Hargoth turned to Gerrith. "Sun Woman, is this all true?"

  "It is true," she answered.

  "Besides," said Stark, suddenly very weary of trying to cope with people who stubbornly insisted on getting in his way, "if Skaith were an open world, certain kinds of ships could land anywhere on the planet instead of being confined to the enclave at Skeg. There would be no need for your people to go south. It would be much easier for ships to come to you."