The Forerunner Factor (12 page)

Chirping to the zorsals, she summoned them in, selecting a flat stone, loosing her head cloth, and coiling it there for a nest. They settled down with drowsy little mutters, their antennae close coiled, far more themselves than they had been by the shore, though they had not yet had to last through the furnace of the day. She was hungry and thirsty, but she would neither eat nor drink until Thorn returned. The energy of the starman amazed her. He had worked through the heat of the past day to make the carrier; to her knowledge he had not rested. Yet, he had kept going with this easy gait all through the night and, now he had made the climb to the top of the cut.

Of what were these off-worlders made—unwearing material like their mighty starships? She did not believe that even the desert riders of the past could have done so well as Thorn had done this day or night.

There was the sound of stones falling then, very visible in the now growing light, he landed easily, apparently jumping from a point above, only a few feet away—to move in beside her. She reached for the water pannikan. There were smears of dust across his face and already those were muddied by sweat which trickled down his cheeks.

He drank slowly, though she was well certain that he would have gulped it in an instant had he not been prudent. She waited until he had swallowed the last drop before she asked:

“How far?”

“I am not sure—” At least he was not lying to her and Simsa felt pride that he would not. “It is difficult to judge distances. I would say another night’s travel and we would be close—if not there.”

He ate doggedly the half cake she offered him and then, without a word, curled his tall body into a position which did not overcrowd her yet still brought him full under the carrier roof, and immediately went to sleep as if that too he could do by his will alone.

7

Simsa lay gasping in the pocket of heat. Sun shining into the crevice had turned their refuge into a pot placed over the fire. She had opened her coat, pulled loose chemise and wrappings which had stiffened with the stale sweat of her body. It was too hot to move, to think. The girl wavered in a nightmare land of half-consciousness, arousing twice to tend the zorsals when she thought she could hear their gasping. If any wind blew the sand above the lip of the cut in which they rested, or sent whirling pillars of grit dancing there, it did not spill down to where they lay imprisoned.

From under swollen eyelids, she glanced at the off-worlder. The upper part of his tight-fitting suit was open, he must have pulled that so without her being aware of any movement. He had turned on his back, and she saw the rise and fall of his pale-skinned chest. Yet he seemed to be asleep, as if his efforts had thrown him so far into weariness that not even the heat could awaken him.

Time dragged on so slowly the girl felt that she had lain there forever and that there would be no end to this misery. She denied herself water—keeping what she tipped so slowly from the jar they had broached the night before to succor the zorsals.

She must have slept, for there were blurred dreams which filled much of the day. She was sure that once she had lain and watched Ferwar, wrapped in the many layers of those garments which were made patch upon patch, walk down past the rock on which the off-worlder had set his magic lifting thing. A younger Ferwar that had been, her back not yet curved into a bow, not yet leaning on the staff. She had passed their refuge and gone on with the brisk step of one bound on a certain task which must be accomplished within a given time.

Simsa shaped the name of that seeming wayfarer but did not speak aloud. Only, as if she had been hailed, the tattered figure paused by the rock on which Thorn had laid his treasure. From under the heavy, shaggy brows, she looked straight at the girl. Then, deliberately, she raised the staff which she did not need now to support herself, swinging it wide so that it swept over the off-world thing. Then its tip pointed up the cut. Her lips in turn moved with words Simsa could not hear. Having surveyed their pitiful camp for a long moment, the Old One turned and went on.

It was a dream, of course, or some vision brought by the heat and the place in which she lay. Still, Simsa dragged herself up well as she could and watched that walker until suddenly she was not there.

There was only one reason for her to appear now, Simsa decided, too far sunk in the misery of her body to know fear. Ferwar was dead, she would lead them on until they, too, joined her. The girl found she did not greatly care. She dropped back again, her hand curled up against her cheek. Smoothing cool touched her heated flesh, like a precious drop of water flung out of a fountain—

With the infinite slowness to which she was reduced, Simsa brought up her hand and looked at the ring. Days earlier, it had become too large for her shrunken flesh, but she had not put it away into safety. Instead, she had wrapped the hoop around and around with torn bits of the cloth as she had used to ease her feet, wedging it so securely as she might. Now, as she looked down into the cloudy, glowing gem which formed the roof of the keep, it was like—almost like—gazing indeed into a pool of water.

Magic—what was magic? There was the lore of growing things to cure the body—which Ferwar had known and taught her—a little. For it had been true that the old woman had been jealous of her skill and never quick to share knowledge. There were such wonders as the off-worlder seemed to know and use. But those were only things built by men, from their own learning and efforts—solid things one could hold in one’s hand.

There were the tales of strange powers. Yet no one Simsa had ever known had actually seen these in action. Always such had been viewed in another place, another time, and the girl had never accepted them as anything but tales. Knowledge could be won, then lost, and won again. Those who had lived before could be wiser than the men who came after, if something happened to interrupt the flow of their wisdom from one generation to the next.

This ring and the other pieces of jewel work she carried hidden on her were finer than any she had seen in the upper-city shops when she had dared go to look upon the riches she had no hope of even laying finger on. That did not mean they were magic—merely that they were old and the fruit of labor of hands long still and dwindled into bone, even into dust.

Still, as she lay there now staring down into the pool of the grey-blue gem, she was—

Walls rose about her. There was no sun, still there was heat. Fire blazed and reached out tongues to scorch her. She heard screams, wild cries, and the roar of other sounds the like of which she had never heard before. At her feet there was a pool, bordered by shimmering blocks of blue green stone. She teetered on the very rim of that, afraid to leap, afraid to stay and face a fury which raged closer and closer.

The darkness of the sky overhead was rent by great flashes of raw fire. She saw that lick at a tower and the tower swayed, came falling down. Simsa screamed and leaped into the waiting water. But it was too hot, searing her. This was death and still it would not close its jaws well upon her—rather it played with her, using torment, as a zorsal would use its claws when, filled of stomach, it played with fresh caught prey. All the world was a fire and she was caught in the middle of its blaze—

“—wake—wake up!”

Back and forth the boiling water washed her body. She tried to fight but it had taken her, sapped from her all her strength. Still it played with her.

“Wake up!”

Simsa saw a face above her—large as the moon, round—with two dark pits for eyes, a mouth come to suck her out of the water. Still, there would be no safety in that mouth—only another kind of torment—

“Wake up!”

The huge face receded, became one she could remember dimly. She blinked, the water had made her sight hazy. She—no dream—no fire—the hands of the off-worlder were on her shoulders shaking her. She gaped at him a moment and then pulled away.

“You must have had a dream to end all dreams—on the dark side,” he commented as he sat back on his heels. “Here, take this.” He held out the pannikan she had last used to ease the thirst of the zorsals. “Take it,” he urged again when she had not put up her hand.

This was the valley still and the heat lapped around her. But there was something curious, too. It was as if, from time to time, she saw one thing across another—the valley clear, then veiled by a toppling tower and a pool into which fear was driving her, death before her, behind her and all around.

“Drink!” He moved, was at her side, his arm firmly about her shoulders, so that she was supported against the swing of the sickening visions, one upon the other. The edge of the pannikan against her sore lips was a small pain, yet it, more than his voice, broke up that last vestige of her dream.

She did not question that the pannikan was near full. The water was warm and slightly bitter, but she drank it all thirstily, allowing him to hold the cup until the end.

He settled her shoulders back against the hamper from which she could hear the small panting gasps of the zorsals. They needed tending, but her head felt so light and queer she could not force herself to move—not yet.

Instead, not understanding what he did, she watched the off-worlder pick up a small vial from the rock by his knee, measure three drops from it into the water he poured with such care. Stoppering the vial and replacing it in his pouch, he lifted the pannikan as one who was meeting a friend in an inn, made a gesture in her direction, and sipped slowly at the portion he had allowed himself. Still over the rim of the cup, he studied her so intently that at last she moved a little, uncomfortable under so keen and searching a gaze.

“I did have a bad dream,” she said, as if she must justify whatever she had done to so engage his concern. “It—it was a part of this . . . somehow.”

She raised her hand and let the ring tower stand high. “Fire in the sky and a falling tower—and I jumped into a pool but the water—was boiling.”

“Lady Simsa,” he still kept that courteous form of speech which had so irritated her—though she would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her protest against what must be a subtle kind of mockery, “have you ever heard among your people of strange talents which some may have? Have you known, or heard, of one who can take a thing into his or her hands and read then the past through which it has come?”

For some odd reason, she was beginning to feel stronger, more alert than she had in days. She straightened up from leaning against the hamper, reached behind her to tend the zorsals. What he said—could anyone believe that such things were? No, he was not testing her by some new folly that to him
might
be the truth—on another world.

“No,” she answered shortly. She did not like at all this talk of things so strange. All her life she had been burdened by her difference in color, in kind, from anyone in the Burrows, any she had seen in Kuxortal. She had done the best that she could to conceal that difference—which was of the body. Now he spoke of worse differences—for, to her, that talk appeared more dangerous than any mirror image of herself.

“Such things are known. Those who have a gift such as that are recognized among my people, trained to use it—”

“I have no such ‘gift’!” Gift indeed, it would have been only one more thing which would have set her apart. “If you are through with that,” she nodded to the pannikan, “the zorsals must be tended.”

Unless, she thought with a sudden stab of fear, he might consider the creatures useless baggage, believe that the water she must have to keep them alive would be better used to continue their own existence.

However, he did not protest. In fact, she noted that the portion he poured out was certainly higher in the cup than that which he had taken for himself. One by one, she brought the limp and drooping creatures out of their shelter, induced them to drink, laid them carefully, their feet under them, their wings smooth against their backs, on the lid of the hamper.

She became aware as she did so that her store of new energy was growing. In spite of the heat which lingered here, she had found some reserve within herself which gave her the power to move with more strength than she had known since they left the shoreside. The cliff held shadows now and the off-worlder was settling, with extreme care, the magic lift box in the center of the carrier which arose with something close to a leap and then floated near his shoulder level until he dragged it down and had Simsa sit on the edge and hand him the hampers and the rest of the gear when he called for them, he making very certain that each was put in an exact place, though she could see no real purpose in his care.

They ate, and now the zorsals were fanning their wings, their heads raised, hooting a little back and forth.

Simsa, as Thorn tied the last cord, lifted Zass to her shoulder ready to move out. Thus, once more they began the journey along what seemed, from all Simsa could spy ahead, to remain an endless chasm, the walls, the footage no different than those they had passed the night before.

Their journey started with the coming of dusk, Thorn again in the lead, Simsa swinging from side to side behind, her attention for the carrier when its sway might bring it into contact with the rocks. It rode, she believed, a little higher above the ground than it had the first night of their journey. Perhaps the water and food they had taken, small as that quantity was, had made the difference.

It was a weary business, her own small surprise was that she found herself stepping out so briskly after the long baking of the day, able to move quickly to fend off the carrier from some obstruction at need. With the downing of the sun, the zorsals once more took to the air, Zass screaming harshly after them as if to make sure she would be entitled to some portion of any prey this achingly barren land might yield.

Once more, they halted at intervals and the second time they did, Thorn asked suddenly: “How do you feel?”

There was a note in his voice which alerted the girl. Almost as if he expected her to report some measure of difficulty—because of her dream? She shied away from such questions as he had asked her about the strange “talent,” as he had named it, which some off-worlders believed in.