A World Divided (17 page)

“He’s afraid of it,” Larry said, and told Kennard how he knew, but Kennard shook his head. “He might still risk it; he’d evidently risk a lot to have you. Oh, Zandru, what shall I do, what shall I do! He covered his face with his hands and sat motionless, the blue stone clutched in his hand. Finally he looked up and his face was gray and drawn with terror.

“We—must destroy Cyrillon’s stone,” he said at last. “I know what I must do, but I’m afraid, Larry, I’m afraid!” It was a cry of terror. “But I must!”

“Why?”

Kennard looked grim. He rolled back his sleeve and showed Larry a curious mark, like a tattoo. “Because I am sworn,” he said, grimly, ”that I will die rather than let any of our Comyn weapons fall into the hands of such people.”

Larry felt a cold wrench of terror twisting his insides. To go back, deliberately, into Cyrillon’s power and destroy the stone ...

“What do we do?” he asked, deliberately light and sarcastic, “walk up to his front door and ask him politely to let us have it?”

Kennard shook his head. “Worse than that,” he said his voice barely audible, “and I can’t do it alone. I’ll have to have your help. Aldones guard us! If I could only reach father with this—but I can’t—”

“What is it? What do you have to do?”

“You wouldn’t understand—” Kennard began hotly; then with an effort, said, “Sorry. You’re in this, too, and you’ll have to help me. I have to take
this
”—he motioned toward the blue crystal in his hand—“and destroy Cyrillon’s—with it. And we have to do it
now
.”

“But how can I?” Larry was frightened and bewildered. “I am not a telepath.”

“You must be,” said Kennard urgently. “You fought Cyrillon to a standstill with the thing! I don’t understand either. I never heard of a Terran telepath. But evidently you and I are in rapport. Maybe you got it from me, I’m not sure. But we’ll try.”

He unwrapped the crystal and Larry averted his eyes. The thought of looking into the thing again made him literally sick to his stomach. The memory of Cyrillon’s forcing made his abused shoulder ache in sympathy.

But Kennard had to do it—Kennard, who had risked death to save him. Larry said steadily, “What do I have to do?”

Kennard sat cross-legged, gazing into the stone, and Larry was inescapably reminded of the three Adepts who had brought the rain to the forest fire. Uncommanded, he took his place across from Kennard. Kennard said, silently, “Just go into link with me—and hold hard. Don’t let go, whatever happens.”

The twisting blueness of the crystal engulfed all space. Larry felt Kennard like a spot of fire and tensed, throwing all his energies, all his will toward supporting him—

He felt a blue blaze, slumbering, blaze up and waken. It flared out, flaming electric blue, and Larry felt himself struggling, drowning. His body ached, his whole head tingled, earth spun away, he reeled alone in blue space as blue flame met blue flame and he felt Kennard tremble, spin out and vanish in unfathomable distance. The fire was drowning him. ...

Then from somewhere a huge surge of strength seemed to roar through him, the same strength that had flung Cyrillon howling across the room. He poured it against the alien blue. The flames met, merged, sank—

The forest was green and bright around them and Larry gulped in air like a drowning man. Kennard lay white and drained on the leaves, his hand limply clutching the crystal. But there was no blue fire in its heart now. It was colorless stone, which as Larry looked glimmered once or twice and evaporated in a tiny puff of blue vapor. Kennard’s hand was empty.

Kennard sat up, his chest heaving. He said, “It’s gone. I destroyed it—even though I had to destroy this one too. And it might have guided us to Lorill Hastur’s lands.” His frown was bitter. “But better than having a starstone in Cyrillon’s possession. Now all we have to face are ordinary dangers. Well—” He shrugged, and struggled to his feet. “We’ve got a lot of country to cover, and all we have to do is to follow the sun’s path westward. Let’s get started.”

Forcing back his multitude of question and curiosity, Larry reached out for his now-drying clothes and began to draw them on. He knew Kennard well enough, by now, to know that he had had all the explanation the other lad would ever give him. Silently, he pocketed his little knife, his medical kit, thrust his feet into his boots. Still silently, he followed Kennard as the Darkovan started down the western slope of the mountain, down into the trackless wasteland that lay between Cyrillon’s castle and the lands of Lorill Hastur.

All that day and all the next they spent forcing their way down through the pathless underbrush, following the westward sun-route, sleeping at night in hollows of dead leaves, eating sparingly of the bread and meat remaining of Kennard’s provisions. On the night of the second day it came to an end, and they went supperless to bed, munching a few dried berries like rose-hips, which were sour and flavorless, but which eased hunger a little.

The next day was dreadful, forcing their way through the thinning underbrush, but they halted early, and Kennard, turning to Larry, said, “Give me your handkerchief.”

Obediently, Larry handed it over. It was crumpled and filthy, and he couldn’t imagine what Kennard wanted it for, but he sat and watched Kennard rip it into tiny strips and knot them until he had a fairly long strip of twisted cloth. He searched, on silent feet, till he found a hole in the ground; then, bending a branch low, rigged a noose and snare. He motioned to Larry to lie flat and still, following suit himself. It seemed hours that they lay there silent, Larry’s body growing cramped and stiff, and Kennard turning angry eyes on him when he ventured to ease a sore muscle by moving it ever so slightly.

A long time later, some small animal poked an inquisitive snout from the hole; instantly, Kennard jerked the noose tight and the small creature kicked, writhing, in the air.

Larry winced, then reflected that, after all, he had been eating meat all his life and this was no time to get squeamish. He watched, feeling vaguely useless and superfluous, as Kennard wrung the creature’s neck, skinned and gutted it, and gathered dead twigs for a fire.

“It would be safer not to,” he said, with awry smile, “but I haven’t any taste for raw meat—and if they’re still on our trail after this long, we’re out of luck anyhow.”

The small furred thing was not much bigger than a rabbit; they finished every scrap of the meat and gnawed the bones. Kennard insisted on himself covering the fire and scraping leaves over the place where it had been, so that no sign of their camp remained.

When they slept that night, Larry lay long awake, feeling somehow ill at ease; half envying Kennard’s woodcraft—he was lost and helpless in these woods without the other boy’s knowledge—yet possessed by a nagging disquiet that had nothing to do with that. The woods were filled with strange noises, the far-away cries of night birds and the padding of strange beasts, and Larry tried to tell himself that he was simply uneasy about the strangeness of it all. The next morning when they prepared to go on, he kept glancing around until Kennard noticed and asked him, rather irritably, what was the matter.

“I keep hearing—and not quite seeing—things,” Larry said reluctantly.

“Imagination,” Kennard said, shrugging it off, but Larry’s disquiet persisted.

That day was much like the former. They struggled down exhausting slopes, forcing their way through brushwood; they scrambled through country that looked like smooth forest but was matted with dead trees and deep ravines.

At night Kennard snared a bird and was about to light a fire to cook it when he noticed Larry’s disquiet.

“Whatever is the matter with you?”

Larry could only shake his head, silently. He knew—without knowing
how
he knew—that Kennard
must not
light that fire, and it seemed so senseless that he was ready to cry with the tension of it. Kennard regarded him with a look halfway between impatience and pity.

“You’re worn out, that’s what’s the matter,” he said, “and for all I know you’re still half-poisoned by the drug they gave you. Why don’t you lie down and have a sleep? Rest and food will help you more than anything else.” He took out his tinderbox and began to strike the fire—

Larry cried out, an inarticulate sound, and leaped to grab his wrist, spilling tinder. Kennard, in a rage, dropped the box and struck Larry, hard, across the face.

“Damn you, look what you’ve made me do.

“I—” Larry’s voice failed. He could not even resent the blow. “I don’t know why I did that.”

Kennard stood over him, fury slowly giving way to puzzlement and pity. “You’re out of your head. Pick up that tinder—” When Larry had obeyed he stood back, warily. “Am I going to have trouble with you, damn it, or do we have to eat raw meat?”

Larry dropped to the ground and buried his face in his hands. The reluctant spark caught the tinder; Kennard knelt, coaxing the tiny spark into flame, feeding it with twigs. Larry sat motionless, even the smell of the roasting meat unable to penetrate through the thick, growing fog of distress. He did not see Kennard looking at him with a frown of growing dismay. When Kennard took the roasted bird from the fire and broke it in half, Larry only shook his head. He was famished, the smell of the meat made his mouth water and his eyes sting, but the fear, like a thick miasma around him, fogged away everything else. He hardly heard Kennard speak. He took the meat the Darkovan boy put into his hands, and put it into his mouth, but he could neither chew now swallow. At last he heard Kennard say, gently, “All right. Later, maybe, you’ll want it.” But the words sounded very far away through the thing that was thickening, growing in him. He could feel Kennard’s thoughts, like seeing the glow of sparks through half-dead ash; Kennard thought that he, Larry, was losing his grip on reality. Larry didn’t blame him. He thought so too. But the knowledge could not break through the numbing fear that grew and grew—

It broke, suddenly, a great cresting wave. He heard himself cry out, in alarm, and spring upright, but it was too late.

Suddenly the clearing was alive with darkly clustering swarms of crouching figures; Kennard yelled and leaped to his feet, but they were already struggling in the meshes of a great net of twisted vines that had jerked them closely together.

The fogged thickness of apprehension was gone, and Larry was clear headed, alert, aware of this new captivity. The net had drawn them close, but not off their feet; they could see the forms around them clearly in the firelight and the color of phosphorescent torches of some sort. And the new attackers were not human.

They were formed like men, though smaller; furred, naked save for bands of leaves or some woven matting around their waists; with great pinkish eyes and long prehensile fingers and toes. They clustered around the net, twittering in high, birdlike speech. Larry glanced curiously at Kennard, and the other lad said tersely. “Trailmen. Nonhumans. They live in the trees. I didn’t know they’d ever come this far to the south. The fire probably drew them. If I’d known—” He glanced ruefully at their dying fire. The trailmen were circling round it, shrilling, poking at it gingerly with long sticks, throwing dirt at it, and finally they managed to cover it entirely. Then they stamped on it with what looked like glee, dancing a sort of victory dance, and finally one of the creatures came to the net and delivered a long speech in their shrill language; neither of the boys, of course, could understand a word, but it sounded enraged and triumphant.

Kennard said, “They’re terrified of fire, and they hate humans because we use it. They’re afraid of forest fire, of course. To them, fire means death.”

“What are they going to do to us?”

“I don’t know.” Kennard looked at Larry curiously, but all he said, at last, was, “Next time I’ll trust your hunches. Evidently you have some precognition too, as well as telepathy.”

To Larry, the trailmen looked like big monkeys—or like the
kyrri
, only smaller and without the immense dignity of those other creatures. He hoped they did not also have the
kyrri
trick of giving off electric sparks!

Evidently they did not. They drew the net tight around the boys’ feet, forcing them to walk by tugging at the vine ropes, but offered no further violence. A few hundred feet of this, and they came upon a widened path; Kennard whistled, softly, at sight of it.

“We’ve been in trailmen country, evidently, most of the day. Probably they’ve been watching us all day, but they might not have bothered us if I hadn’t lit that fire. I ought to have known.”

It was easier to walk on the cleared path. Larry had lost track of time, but was stumbling with weariness when, much later, they came to a broad clearing, lighted by phosphorescence which, he now saw, came from fungus growing on broad trees. After a discussion in their twittering speech, the trailmen looped the net-ropes around the nearest tree and began to swarm up the trunk of the next.

“I wonder if they’re just going to leave us here?” Kennard muttered.

A hard jerk on the rope disabused them. Slowly, the net began to rise, jerking them off their feet, so that they hung up, swaying, in the great bag. Kennard shouted in protest, and Larry yelled, but evidently the trailmen were taking no chances. Once the slow motion rise stopped, and Larry wondered if they were going to be hung up here in a sack like a pair of big sausages; but after a heart-stopping interval, they began to rise again.

Kennard swore, in a smothered voice. “I should have cut our way out, the minute they left us!” He drew his dagger and began feverishly to saw at one of the great vines enclosing them. Larry caught his arm.

“No, Kennard. We’d only fall.” He pointed downward into the dizzying distance. “And if they see that, they’ll only take the knife from you. Hide it! Hide it!”

Kennard, realizing the truth of what Larry said, thrust the knife into his shirt. The lads clung together as the great vine net ascended higher and higher toward the treetops; far from wishing, now, to cut their way out, they feared it would break. The light brightened as they neared the lower branches of the immense trees, and at last, with a bump that flung them against one another, the net was hauled up over a branch and on to the floor of the trailmen’s encampment in the trees.