Ice and Shadow (47 page)

Jofre stepped back a pace. He crooked his finger and Yan obeyed. Into the Jat’s forepaws he dropped the stone.

“I take no advantage,” he said. “What would you? Knives by choice?”

It had come so suddenly—though, yes, he had had his suspicions of her. But somehow he had never guessed that it would end in blade against blade. They were probably evenly matched enough—since they must keep to the single weapon agreed upon—and she was issha-trained. Also the knife was the first weapon for the Sisters, even as the sword or spear might be for the Brothers.

“Stop!” Zurzal was between them. “You are oathed to me,” he added sharply to Jofre. “While that oath holds you are not allowed to seek a private quarrel. Is that not part of the oathing?”

“For issha—yes,” Jofre returned slowly. “But now it is said I am not issha—otherwise the Sister would not take mission against me.”

“I refuse to accept such a quibble,” Zurzal hissed. His frill, flushing darkly, was a fan behind his head. “You are my oathed. And you,” he looked now to Taynad, “I did not oath you but you accepted a bargain—were you already then playing another game? Had you taken oath to bring down this man?”

Slowly the girl shook her head. “No, Learned One, when I said I would come with you they had not sent any message to me. It was only afterward—”

“I have heard much of issha honor on Asborgan,” Zurzal continued. “No, I did not formally oath you to my service, Taynad. But you accepted my offer freely. Does one need a ritual to keep full faith?”

Jofre saw her tongue tip show between her set lips. The heavy lids nearly veiled her eyes and for a moment she was silent as one who weighs one matter against another.

“Learned One, what I accepted I shall keep to for as long as this venture lasts—”

Jofre’s hand moved away from the hilt of his knife. So until another day this would go unsettled. But he also knew well that issha word was unbending; she would hold only to a truce and that for the time the Zacathan would set.

“We had better settle down,” Zurzal said, “before some of our companions grow interested and come to see what we are doing. I think none of us would want them to know about that.” And he pointed to what blazed brightly in the Jat’s hold. Swiftly Jofre recovered his treasure and tucked it away into hiding.

“I take the watch,” he said, knowing that he could not sleep now, not until he had thought, weighed, and decided all he could about the days ahead.

CHAPTER 29

HOWEVER,
morning light found him with no true decision. What he could foresee was only what concerned his own actions; he could not know what Taynad might think or do. Realizing this, Jofre forced the whole matter to the back of his mind. What lay before them now was another kind of action. He had mistrusted this ragged land from the start and to work their way across it might well be beyond what any living thing—without wings—could do.

The Skrem broke their own camp and herded their beasts down to be packed by the off-worlders, the Deves still holding themselves apart, though keeping a close eye, Jofre noted, on both parties. There was a suggestion in this that they were not altogether ready to play trail comrades with the Skrem.

Though Zurzal’s guide pointed out into those knife-edged ridges, he did not lead in that direction, rather paced a little south, pausing often to check on the com he held. Perhaps with other knowledge he had not shared with them he had some idea there was a way into this stark country which could be taken on foot. Though Jofre remembered that the party whose directions they now depended upon had come by flitter and so had not had to face that impossible terrain.

The ranges of massed lava about them took on color as the sun arose. Those patches of small growth on them were in vivid contrast, but the small flowers which had greeted the night seemed now to be tightly closed. It was indeed a weird country, for the rock in places seemed to have been worked into faces which grinned, or grimaced, or gaped widely at passersby.

Out of their whole company the Jat seemed the most at ease for some reason. Its usual timidity had vanished and from where it rode perched before Taynad it made eager gestures and murmurs which sometimes sounded like small muted cries. Jofre began to wonder about the world from which Yan had been stolen—had it borne some resemblance to this riven countryside so that the Jat felt it had come home?

Suddenly the Zacathan brought his mount to a halt with a jerk on its horns, swung it around to face into the lava stretch. The com was giving forth a sharp series of notes, so close together they almost formed a kind of scream.

“Here—we strike cross-country here.”

He said that as if he were suggesting no more than they cross one of the thoroughfares of Wayright. But there was certainly no road ahead—only a round wall which rose well above their heads. Zurzal swung off the beast, which snorted as if registering a strong protest to what it now faced.

“A foot march—over there? We cannot push the beasts into it!” Jofre moved up beside him.

“No other way. Let’s take a look.” He slipped the cord attached to one end of the com over his head and started to climb. Jofre was prompt to follow. Taynad had moved in at their backs, and, for now, he believed he could depend upon her to see that none of the natives would interfere without warning.

The porous material over which they scrambled had hand and footholds enough, but they had to be very wary of the cutting edges of broken-off pieces. Luckily it was not a long ordeal and when Jofre pulled up beside the already standing Zacathan he stared out on something he had not expected.

Through some ancient level of the land here the flow of the lava had narrowed into a river. Beyond that was another kind of rock, darker in color, not showing the threat of the broken edges. The distance between them and that island was not too wide to be spanned, though they would have to take great care in their going, perhaps somehow fashioning extra covers for hands and feet, or provide an advance guard to chop out the worst of the edges. It could be done, and for the first time Jofre saw that Zurzal was not totally brain-twisted by his desire to reach that goal.

On returning to the edge of the flow below they reported to Skrem and Deves what they had discovered.

“This you search for—it lies there?” I’On demanded.

In answer Zurzal had simply held forward the com, so that they could all catch its chatter, which was now steady.

“The ochs cannot go.” The Skrem indicated their mounts.

“That is so. We must go on foot, carrying with us what is needful. But what we would find is not in the fields of broken rock, it is on firm and older land.” The Zacathan spoke with the authority of one who might well have seen exactly what he was describing.

“We think—” I’On made a gesture and withdrew, the rest of the Skrem close with him. They squatted in a circle some distance away, and Jofre could hear no sound from them. However, he did not doubt they were in debate over Zurzal’s plan for the venture on foot.

It was one of the robed Deves who came up to the Zacathan now.

“Only the mad walk the Shattered Land.” His shrill voice formed words via the translator. “Why do you urge death on us—take it upon yourself?”

Zurzal waved his hand toward the wall of the flow. “Climb and see. There are islands in the flow—it is not all as you see it before you here.”

For a moment it looked as if the Deve would do just that—climb to see for himself. But then he wheeled quickly and swung up on the mount his fellow, already on his own beast, had herded toward him.

Without any other answer the two started away. The knot of Skrem broke apart and scrambled toward their own beasts, as if fearing the creatures might follow the two which the Deves bestrode. Their chittering reached the height of screams as they swung up to follow the runaways.

“That,” commented Zurzal after a moment, “seems to be that. At least we still have the supplies.”

Jofre wondered what good the small amount they had brought with them would do if they were left without transportation. On the other hand it might well be that I’On and his fellows would catch the Deves and return. There was no way they, the three of them, could aid or hinder that chase at present. And he fell to checking over the woven containers which held all the equipment they had been able to assemble.

They made up three packs of the main essentials. Zurzal had used a knife and cut from his suit the half-empty sleeve covering his regrowing left arm. It was in length now a little past the elbow of his right one and the fingers of the hand on that side, when he flexed them, seemed to be as ready for work as those of his right. It was that miniature left hand which steadied the scanner in its web carrier.

Jofre had taken as much of the foodstuff and concentrates as he could crowd in his pack and knew he could shoulder. And Taynad worked with him putting together a burden of her own. His last addition was a roll of sleep coverings which he knotted into a rope, the other end of which he could tie to his weapons belt and carry up with him.

The Jat jumped to the side of the Zacathan as they began their climb—there had been no sign nor sound of the return of their fellow travelers. And it was Yan who had a ready paw to steady the scanner and aid the heavily laden Zurzal to make the top.

Once there Jofre jerked up the bundle of coverings and they all three set to work slitting them into strips and binding them thickly, not only around their own feet but around those of the Jat also, for with their other burdens they could not hope to carry Yan across that strip of lava flow ready and waiting to saw to pieces any flesh unaware enough to trust foot to it.

It was taking them a long time; the sun was well along towards setting. Jofre wanted to make that rock point which offered all the safety they could hope for before darkness closed in. Moonlight—under the two moons of Lochan, which whirled in orbit around each other as they passed—would not be enough to lighten all the pitfalls.

They selected what they believed was the narrowest of that anciently frozen flow and started their wavering path, for they could not keep to a straight line across it. As it was, the extra covering shredded from their feet, and they had to keep their pace to a crawl.

But there comes an end to every trial, Jofre thought thankfully, when at last he could put out a hand and touch the rock of the spur the flow had not engulfed. Again they must climb, first squatting to loose the tattered coverings from their feet and making sure that their packs were roped well together to be lifted once they had reached the top.

The Jat took the lead, again flapping its large ears and uttering cries as if it recognized the place, something of its exuberance urging them on. Then they were safely aloft and looking out into a stretch of country where the Shattered Land was not what it had been called.

They had reached a height and that widened out into a vast plateau where the fury of the mountain fire had not left any such scars as it had below. To the north, a little aslant of what might be the center of this open stretch of rock, gravelly sand, and a few stubborn patches of the yellow tundra grass, was a hill, the crown of which had been flattened off except for some humps here and there. It had a different look to it than the other heights around—as if it had not come directly from the shaping of nature by wind and time.

The sound of the Zacathan’s trail guide was now a steady drone and he headed out towards that hillock with the certain stride of someone knowing exactly where he was going. Nor had they been led astray, for, as they neared the truncated cone, they saw that the tundra grass had withered patches, that there were small heaps of the turf which had been peeled back so that the ground below could be trenched and trenched it had been, in narrow ditches. These no longer stood out clearly, for it was plain that they had been exposed to the weather for some time, but Jofre recognized the site as it had appeared on one dim tape. This was the doomed camp of the expedition which had made the first discovery.

It was only seconds later that they were fully shown what had happened. There were a series of rocks placed in a half circle about the edges of those ditches and mounted on each rough base formed by one of those was a skull. And they seemed to grin with a ghastly promise as the off-worlders drew near.

There were no other signs of any visitors—no remains of any camp structure if there had been such. Nor, as Jofre discovered as he circled the eerie site, any other signs of other bones. But not far beyond the ditches with their ghostly guardians there was a sinking of the plain which occurred abruptly and could not be sighted until one was almost on it.

Where the rest of the plateau stretching so far about them suggested a desert country, this slash in the rock allowed them to gaze down into a narrow file as different from the land above as one planet might differ from another.

There was a thick growth of fleshy-leaved plants, large near their first rooting at the foot of the rise, dwindling in size as they climbed. The leaves each grew in a rosette which was centered by a thick red stem—the leaves being a sickly yellow-green. And on the stem was a trumpet-shaped growth which might be a bloom yet certainly gave no pleasure to the eye.

What was more important was that these plant beds bordered a stream of dark water—at least it seemed to flow like water, if a little sluggishly. Though, Jofre decided, they would hold off testing it as long as possible. There was something about this dank seam in the earth which repelled.

Dusk would soon be upon them and they must establish some type of camp. The threat of the skulls was ominous enough to make them sure they should select a site which they could defend—against what—or whom—they could not be sure.

They found the best cover the countryside had to offer farther on towards the cone hill where there were small bumps in the ground and Jofre, with a scout’s trained eye, picked out three such which could form a rough triangle, their pack gear and stones dragged up to give some seeming of walls, low as those had to be.

Even Yan helped with the dragging of stones, and pawed up sods of the tundra grass to plaster between the loose rocks. They worked as fast as they could, though they tried to make certain they did not scant any loophole. A small fire, set in a hollow scooped in their rude for-tress, could not be sighted across the plain top—though it would be visible from the hillock but to that he had no answer.

However, the night winds were chill enough that they must have a measure of heat. To keep that cup of flame alive during the night would be one of the duties of the sentry. And they carried to pile against one of their shelter rocks dried vines which crisscrossed the tundra growth and were thick enough to be broken into respectable sticks.

Once more they ate their limited rations slowly. Zurzal sat with the scanner between his outstretched legs, his good hand more occupied with examining that than by conveying the ration strips to his mouth. Jofre chewed as he squatted by another of their chosen boulders, staring out across that ill-omened stretch of trenches and the guardian skulls, back across the country they had come.

If the Skrem and the Deves, he thought with a resigned logic, really wanted to be rid of them, all they need do was to leave them marooned here. There was no way he could see that they would ever be able to make a return journey. Twice he was nearly moved to say that aloud but then decided that his own dire predictions must indeed be shared by all of them since they possessed the intelligence of sentinent beings—even the Jat must feel that they must have indeed come to the end of the trail.

Still you had the perkiness of one at home with the surroundings. Earlier it had surveyed the skulls round-eyed and Jofre had been able to pick up a glimmer of disgust from the creature’s mind. But there was no shadow of fear.

“Tomorrow”—Zurzal gave the scanner a final pat as if it were a pet animal ready to offer good service—“we need wait no longer. Tomorrow!” There was exultation in his voice and his frill waved and stiffened, dark color flooding up through its ribbing.

Neither Jofre nor Taynad made answer. They were concerned with more than just tomorrow—the time which stretched beyond that. It might serve Zurzal completely that he prove for all time his contention was right—the ancient and unknown past might be made clear, recorded for the reading of others—but they were still engaged in living and preparing to continue that state.

Jofre took first watch. The Zacathan did not seem prepared to either settle down to rest or put himself to camp routine. He had edged out into the night as Jofre crouched tensely trying to follow his movements, as well as pick up any threat which might lie hid. Back and forth along those trenches Zurzal had strode, the com in his hand, until at last he seemed to find some point he had been hunting and stood there for some time.