Hiero Desteen: 01 - Hiero's Journey (4 page)

The sunlight under the big trees was fading fast, but Klootz could see in full dark like a cat, and presumably the bear could also, so that Hiero felt no particular concern. He himself could see as well as many of the wild things when the light was dim, a result of a childhood spent in the
forest as well as the cultivated ability of a trained woodsman. He was in no hurry to make camp, not being particularly tired, and he badly wanted to get away from the artificial silence of the wood, the zone of mental oppression which he felt so strongly.

For a mile or two. the little party moved under a pure forest of the great pines, the faint crackle of the deep-banked needles the only sign that bear and morse were passing. The light was very dim now, but an occasional ray of sunshine still broke through a. gap in the foliage far above and illumined a patch of forest floor or a small clump of fern.

Suddenly, with no warning, Gorm was gone. One moment, he had been padding ten feet in front, the next he vanished. Klootz checked, his big ears lifting and his great nostrils flaring as he sought for a scent of some kind. His rider reached smoothly for the bolstered thrower strapped to his saddle, at the same time looking keenly about.
Is this treachery?
His mind raced.
The bear
—
had he been a friend, or was this the sign of the Fishhook being revealed, a false friend and a traitorous guide?
The thrower was halfway from its scabbard and lying across the pommel of the saddle when the silence was broken by a voice.

Musical and deep, the note of a trained doctor, it rang under the arched branches from their left, speaking in perfect Metz.

"An ugly beast and a still uglier rider. Who follows on the tracks of S'nerg? Is this the prey we have sought all day?"

One of the rare beams of last sunlight streamed down onto a flat boulder perhaps twenty feet from the morse's left side. Upon it, arms crossed on his breast and a thoroughly nasty smile on his face, stood the man of the gray cloak, looking coldly at Hiero. Of the bear, there was no trace. Apparently the two men and the morse were alone.

"A priest, and one of some rank in your absurd hierarchy, I see," the cloaked man, whose name was apparently S'nerg, went on. "We have seen few priests in these parts, having a dislike for such vermin. When I have made an example of you, little priest, we shall see fewer yet!"

As he listened, Hiero had been slowly tightening his hold on the thrower, which lay across the saddle, facing the other way from his enemy. He was under no illusions about his own safety despite the fact that S'nerg appeared unarmed. From the almost visible aura the man radiated, the electric sense of power, the Metz warrior-cleric knew he was in the presence of a great adept, a mental master, who in his dark way was perhaps the equal of a Council member or Grand Abbot. Against such, any physical weapons were a matter of luck.

Lowering his arms, S'nerg stepped from his rock and strode toward Hiero. As he did, Hiero whipped the thrower up and tried to fire. His finger could not reach the trigger. He was locked in a muscle spasm, the weapon's barrel halfway aimed, but unable to move further. Despite his best efforts, he could not move. He looked down in agony at S'nerg, who stood calmly by his left leg, serenely looking up at him, the power of his incredible mind alone holding Hiero rigid. And not just Hiero. In a dim way the priest could feel the giant morse straining to break a similar mental compulsion and no more able to do so than his master. The sweat of his effort streaming into his
eyes, Hiero fought to break the bonds, using every technique he had been taught to free his own will from the dreadful grip which the wizard had laid upon him. As Hiero glared into the calm eyes of S'nerg, a shudder ran through his frame. The evil master seemed to have no pupils, and his eyes were slanted, grayish pits of emptiness, opening on a nameless void. Despite all his efforts, Hiero felt a compulsion to dismount. He knew somehow that if he did, the control would grow even stronger, that the mere fact that he sat high on the saddle helped in a small way to limit S'nerg's power over him. Perhaps, a remote, absent corner of his mind mused, even as he fought, the morse's physical vitality somehow flowed into his master, helping him stay strong. As he stared down into the awful, pale eyes, he noted in the same detached way that, despite the smile on the cruel face, sculptured from sickly marble in appearance, beads of sweat stood out on S'nerg's forehead also. The strain was telling on him too. But Hiero could endure no more. He began to sway in the saddle. "In the name of the Father," he gasped aloud, fighting with his last strength. The Unclean adept's cold smile deepened.

At this point Gorm suddenly returned. Even a smallish bear has very powerful jaws, and they now clamped hard to a most sensitive portion of the sorcerer's anatomy. He screamed in pain and fright, a curiously high tremolo note, and his mental grip dissolved on the instant as he staggered and fell. Hiero's strength surged back and so did all his other faculties. While Klootz still shuddered from the strain, his rider was out of the saddle and on the ground in a second. As the writhing tangle of bear and man rolled over, the priest saw an opportunity, and his long poniard flashed from his belt and was drawn once over the white throat, even as S'nerg tried to rise. A fountain of dark blood obscured the contorted features, and then the cloaked shape lay still.

Hurry,
came the bear's mind.
Made
(too)
much
(volume)
noise. Go now—quick
(run/gallop).

Wait,
Hiero said to the other's mind. He was busy searching the adept's body. There was a peculiar and heavy, bluish metal rod, over a foot long, a dark-handled knife with what looked like bloodstains on it, and a roll of parchment. Under the cloak, the dead man had worn a soft, woven suit, all one piece of grayish, neutral-colored cloth, with an odd feel to it, almost slippery. In a small belt pouch was a round metal thing which at first glance looked like a small compass. This was all. Hiero tossed the rod, knife, parchment, and compass-thing into a saddlebag and mounted in one easy motion.

Go now,
he said.
All done here.

The bear set off instantly at a rocking canter, in the same direction in which they had gone before. In long strides the morse moved in his wake, easily maintaining the distance between them.

Looking back, Hiero could no longer see the still form of his enemy in the gloom.
At least,
he thought,
he didn't seem to dissolve like the others had. Maybe they weren't men at all.

For several miles the three moved at high speed, despite the fall of night. Many bright stars provided some diffused light, and a pale crescent moon promised more later. Also, to Hiero's relief, the terrible mental oppression was gone; the dull feeling of stifling which had choked him for the last few hours had been lifted. It must, he decided, have emanated from the monster they
had overcome. He did not forget to say a soldier's brief prayer of thanks. He was under no illusions as to how close he had come to death and perhaps worse. He had been about to submit to the terrible mind of the thing who called himself S'nerg. Whether he would have been slain on the spot or taken elsewhere to some foul den for torture and questioning, he did not know. But save for the young bear, they all would have been destroyed, he was sure of that. It must have taken great courage, as well as high intelligence, to hide, wait, and attack as Gorm had done, and Hiero felt a powerful sense of respect for his new ally.

Eventually, the bear began to slow down, his faint puffs of breath indicating that he had run about as far as he could. Klootz slowed his own pace, and they now moved at about the speed of a man trotting. The dark was full of sounds, but they were the normal sounds of the Taig, a grunting bellow in the distance, which was the mating call of a monster hog, the Grokon, the faint squall of some cat or other, the chitter-chatter of the night squirrels high in the trees, and the mournful tremolo of small owls. There was nothing about such noises to alarm. Once a large form, pale as a ghost, rose from the earth and flitted away before them in great, silent bounds which soon carried it out of sight. The solitary giant hares were a prey to everything and never left their carefully concealed forms until full dark.

At Hiero's estimation, they had come about five miles, moving steadily south and east, when Gorm signaled a halt. They were in a stand of great, dark firs, and rotting logs lay about them on the carpet of needles. It was very black under the trees, and even the dim starlight was blotted out.

Stay
—
rest
—
now
(safe)—
here?
came from the bear. Hiero dismounted wearily and walked over to where the black form sat in the dark. Squatting on his haunches, he tried to look into the eyes of his friend.

Thanks
—
help
(us)—
danger
—
bad,
he sent. He had noticed that each time, the exchange grew easier. He now could talk to the animal almost as easily as he could to his roommate Per Malaro at the Abbey college, who was also his frater and bondmate, closer mentally than anyone else in the world. The exchange was on the same level of intelligence too, not the way he talked to the big morse, whose answers were simple and contained no abstract concepts at all.

Now the bear responded. He felt a flick of the long tongue on his own nose and knew it for a greeting. Also, he sensed a wave of shyness, or some emotion akin to it, and with it a carefully buried element of humor. Gorm was amused.

(Almost)
killed us
—
bad thing
—
saw it
(felt it)
watching us, so I went away before it
(caught)
me
—
made me
(not alive)
stay
—
not move.
Then:
came back
—
bite behind
—
stop
(break)
bad thing-
—
think at us. Good
(luck?) The bear paused, his mind not readable.

Why, why have you helped me?
Hiero asked bluntly.
What do you want?
There was another pause. Behind his back, the man heard Klootz snuffling in search of some dainty, perhaps a mushroom growing on a fallen log. Finally, the young bear answered, his thoughts perfectly clear, but untrained—as if he knew what he wanted to say but not as yet very well how to say it. Finally:

(To)
go with you
—
see new things—new lands
—
see what you see, learn what you learn.

Hiero sat back, nonplussed. Could Gorm have guessed his mission? It seemed impossible. Yet he had told no one and his coming was secret.

Do you know what I seek, where I go?
the man shot back, fascinated by the new mind he was meeting.

No,
the bear replied coolly.
But you
(will)
tell. Tell now. Perhaps
(there will)
be no time later.

The priest considered. He was under a vow to say nothing of his mission. But the vow was not absolute but confidential, merely for common secrecy's sake, not because it was holy, or even a secret in itself. He could, at his own judgment, seek any aid he wanted. He made a decision and once more leaned forward.

The two figures lay, head to head, in outward silence. The great morse bull kept watch, nose and ears winnowing the night air for news, near and far, while those he guarded conversed, each learning many things under the dark of the firs.

-

We are losing, Hiero, slowly but surely, we are losing." The Father Abbot's brown-robed form paced his underground study chamber as he spoke, thin arms locked behind his back. "Faith alone is not enough. Never was, for that matter. Again and again in recent years, we have become conscious of a will, or group of wills, working with the utmost secrecy and deliberation against us. The human-seeming things which tried to invade Abbey Central and almost succeeded are only a small part of the problem, though of great importance. But there is much, much more, which the Council in its wisdom has kept from the people. No agent of the newsletters has, or will, hear a word of it." He paused, and his lined, dark face with its pointed, white beard and drooping mustaches softened into a grin. "None of us have even told our wives." In an instant he was serious again, and picking up a piece of white chalk, strode over to a slate blackboard. The Most Reverend Kulase Demero had begun a most successful career as a teacher of the young, and old habits die hard.

"Look here," he said crisply as he began to write. "A large convoy two years ago was ambushed well north of the Inland Sea, on the main road from Otwah. Ten loads of old-time laboratory instruments taken and some found destroyed later. Those instruments came from an undamaged pre-Death site on the Eastern Ocean and, we think, were experimental matter involving advanced weaponry of which we now know nothing. We'll call that item number one." He continued, glancing over at intervals to see that Hiero, seated at a long table facing him, was paying due attention, just as he had done with a thousand pupils in the past. "Two, we sent a complete regiment of soldiers, under a good sub-abbot, twenty priests, a construction crew as good
as any we had, and full supplies for all for six months, to start a new fishery-based Abbey up on the Huzon Gulf, to the far Northeast, in the cold woods. You have heard of that, I imagine, as it was too big to keep quiet. Despite all precautions, continuous mental communication with our own Comm chambers at Abbey Central and at other Abbeys, the whole force, roughly eleven hundred picked men and women, vanished utterly. Our only warning was a total and sudden lapse of communication. A Rover team found the site deserted and most of the remaining supplies being plundered by wild animals a half month later. There were vague traces of some element of the Unclean, but nothing you could put your finger on. Eleven hundred of our best! This was and is a terrible blow. So I say, we'll call that number two." He paused and looked at Hiero,

"Any comment?"

"Not yet, Father," Hiero said placidly. Those who did not know him sometimes thought him phlegmatic, but the abbot had watched his man for years and knew better. He grunted and turned back to his blackboard.

"That was about eighteen months ago. Next, which I'll call number three, was the affair of the ship. Damned few members of the Council know about
that,
so I'll assume you don't. About two months after we lost the Abbey colony, which would have become Abbey Saint Joan," and another look of pain crossed his face, "a great ship was reported to us by certain trusted persons on the Beesee coast to the west, well to the north of Vank and the great Dead Zone there, in a nest of rocky, wooded islands called the Bellas. These people are not Metz, but older still, in fact—"

"In fact, purebred Inyans," Hiero agreed. "And there are quite a few of them scattered about here and there, but they live in small hunting groups and won't come in and amalgamate. Some are good people, others trade with the Unclean and maybe worse. Now let's stop the baby stuff, Father. I'm not a first-year student, you know."

For a second, the Father Abbot looked perfectly furious, then he laughed.

"Sorry, but I'm so used to explaining things in this manner to the average village councilman or even some of my more elevated colleagues on the Grand Council that it gets to be a habit. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, the ship.

"This ship, a big, odd-looking one, much bigger than any fishing boat we have, was reported wrecked on one of the outer islands of the Bella group. And there were people aboard from somewhere else, probably the other side of the Pacific! The ship was breaking up on the rocks, and the weather was bad. Our Inyan friends tried to get the people, who were yellow-skinned, just as the records say the East Pacific people should be, and just as the few rare fishermen who get wrecked here are, off in their small boats. We were already sending a cavalry squadron from the east, at Abbey St. Mark, as fast as we could. There are fairly good roads to that part of the coast.

"Well, when our people got there, nothing was left. The wreck was utterly gone, not a trace of it left. Three small Inyan camps on the coast, gathered for the salmon fishing, were gone too, with only a few traces that they had been there. But we found an old man in the woods, or he found
us, an ancient cripple who had been taking a sweat bath and thus had been missed when the attack came. A horde of Leemutes, some sort of Hairy Howlers, I gather, had appeared from out of the
water.
They were riding great animals which looked something like the really big seals we see once in a while on that coast. They stormed the shore camps, killing everything that moved and hurling the dead and all their possessions into the sea. The old man did not know what had happened to the ship, which he had only heard of and not seen, but it must have met the same treatment. Who knows what new knowledge from the Lost Years we missed that time? Are you beginning to see a pattern?"

"I think so," Hiero answered. "We are being physically penned in, you feel, but more than that, we are being blocked off from knowledge, especially any knowledge which might prove dangerous to the Unclean, to the Leemutes. And the plan is concerted, is organized, so that when we do hear of any new knowledge, it is instantly snatched from our grasp."

"Exactly," the abbot said. "That's exactly what I think. And so do others. But there's more yet. Listen a moment.

"A year ago, twenty of our best young scientists, men. and women both, who were working on problems of mental control, in a number of new and fascinating aspects, decided to have a joint meeting. They came here to Sask City from all over the Republic. Parment wasn't in session, but the Abbey Council, as the Upper House, was, and we received word of the meeting, and our permanent scientific subcommittee knew all about it, of course. A routine Abbey guard, two men for the doors, was provided. Now one of the two, a sharp fellow, thought he counted
twenty-one
scholars going in one morning, after the group had been meeting for several days.

"If it were not for him—! Even as it was, things were bad enough. The guardsman looked through a window in time to see the twenty killing one another, in total silence, by strangling, bludgeoning, pocket knives, whatever was handy. He burst in yelling and broke the compulsion. There were six dead and eight more badly wounded. As you might expect, those with the strongest mental powers of will were the least injured. We could prove that from their school records." The abbot sighed. He had ceased his pacing and now sat on a bench opposite Hiero.

"The scholars remembered little. They too had the vague feeling that another person was present at some point, but they could not describe him, or it. The guard at the back door had been conscious of nothing at all. But to us, what must have happened is clear. It should be to you. Is it?"

"A mind of great power, I suppose," the younger man said. "One of the legendary dark adepts of the Unclean I've heard rumored. Is it, or they, really something besides a fairy tale?"

"I fear so," the abbot said. "Look, you understand the mental powers as well as any young man of the Metz. To accomplish this very daring stroke, aimed, mark you, at our freshest brains, our own greatest asset and greatest danger to any foe, a mind of extraordinary power, as you say, had to be close. Had to be physically close, that is, to the persons under the compulsion. There can be no doubt that the lad on guard (who by the way is now getting advanced training) had a good mind and indeed retained the memory of seeing an extra person enter. Once inside, while simultaneously holding an invisibility spell upon their minds, the creature worked on tiny,
everyday resentments until they were built into murderous compulsions to kill. But there's another implication you may have missed as well."

"The silence." Hiero smiled. "No, I got that."

"Good boy," his superior said. "You do have brains, Hiero, under that lazy mask. Yes, the silence. What a mind! To compel them, twenty good minds, to slay one another in total silence! Noise would have spoiled the plan, so they had to be silent. I don't think there are four men in the Republic who could perform that feat."

"And you're one of them, of course," Hiero said. "Is there more, or do we now get down to specifics involving me personally?"

"You knew about the two who almost got into our inner files and research centers at Abbey Central," his superior said. "We may call them case number four, I suppose. What they were is beyond our present knowledge. If they were actually human men, then how was it possible for their very flesh and bone to dissolve into the substance of an amoeba? The Unclean is overreaching us, Hiero.

"There are many other cases of interest if they are considered as part of the whole thing. Small parties of trained explorers, men like yourself, ambushed or worse, vanished, in areas where no one should have known they had gone. Messengers with matters of unusual importance for the Eastern League at Otwah, or perhaps from them to us, also vanished, causing delays of up to a year on matters of common concern. And so on. It all adds up to one thing; a web, Hiero, a deadly, tightening web, is being drawn in upon us, even as we sit and wait to find out what is going so wrong!" The lean old man fixed his keen eyes on Hiero. "I still haven't heard any very searching questions from my prize pupil. But I need them: we all do. Hiero, you can't be mentally lazy any longer. You've been doing work any journeyman priest-exorcist could do, mixed with a lot of forest running and plain loafing. Your scores at Abbey Central, and you know it, were some of the highest ever achieved. And you're not even trying! Now listen to me, Per Desteen. I am addressing you as both your Godly and your temporal superior, and I want your attention at its peak! Those of us on the Council who know about you have been giving you rope for years, for two reasons. One was the hope that you would develop responsibility by yourself, always the best way, of course. The other reason, mainly advanced by me, young man, was so that you could get experience in many areas. Well, the time for idling is now, this minute, officially over. Am I plain? Now, sir, let's have some intelligent questioning, because I have a lot more to say."

Black eyes snapping with anger, Hiero was now sitting upright, glaring at his friend and mentor, any pretense of being bored gone forever. "So that's what you think of me, is it?" he grated. "A sort of chartered ne'er-do-well and good fellow. That's not fair,
Most
Reverend Father, and you know it!"

Abbot Demero simply sat looking at him, his wise eyes sympathetic, but not yielding, and Hiero felt his anger ebb away. There
was
truth, a good deal of it, in the charges, and being an essentially honest man, he could not deny it.

"I apologize for anger and impudence, Father Abbot," he said heavily. "I suppose I'm not really much of a priest, or a soldier either, for that matter. What can I do for the Council?"

"A good question, Hiero," the Abbot said briskly, "but not really the one I wanted, because it comes last, or ought to, and I want more thoughts from you first. Look now, my friend, what are your conclusions about what I have told you? I mean strengths, weaknesses, reliability, for that matter, plausibility, and above all— solutions, remedies. Let's hear your own ideas now."

"Well," Hiero said slowly, "one thing hit me from the very first, and it grew as the tragedies you related mounted. There has to be treason, at least one highly placed traitor somewhere in the Republic and probably more. I don't like saying this, but I have to, to be honest. What about the Council itself?"

"Good," the abbot said. "You're still able to think. Yes, there's treason, and it's being carefully, very carefully, searched out as we sit here. As for my peers, and your superiors, on the Council, you have no business knowing what steps might be taken if we ever should suspect a traitor in such an unlikely place. Therefore I shall tell you nothing about any such possible theoretical procedures."

Two smiles met across the table. The old abbot had refused information and (literally) told Hiero nothing. As well as everything, including the fact that the Abbey Council itself was nonimmune from suspicion.

"I can't argue against a conspiracy," Hiero resumed. "We are definitely getting a series of blows, savage ones, from someone. And what you tell me is the final word. It must be coordinated. Since we are meeting here at a sealed office and
talking,
at your insistence, you must be worried about some sort of betrayal even here. If our minds concentrate on a subject, even if we speak aloud, there are currents set up audible to an adept, especially one such as you describe. What are you doing to keep this from happening?" He folded his arms on his chest and stared at the abbot in turn.

"This," the abbot said simply. While they had been talking, the younger man had not noticed a plain wooden box, perhaps eighteen inches high, at one end of the table. The abbot lifted its lid and exposed a curious mechanism, a small, flat pendulum of some polished, ivorylike material, suspended motionless from a delicate wooden crossbar. Close on either side of the pendulum, two oval discs hung from the slender supports.