The Game of Stars and Comets (52 page)

"He would not have so sent you to me,
me
of all this world, had he not wanted me to know this, Bart. For he understands from the old days what manner of person I am and what moves in me, even as it has made of him a rootless, roofless man. For I, too, was at Mungo's Town—though I was also gone when the Shadows came."

In all the ways she had surprised me since our meeting, this gave me the greatest stroke of amazement. I had not known in all my years any others who had lived in that ill-omened place.

"Shadow dead—all of them—" her face grew then near as grim as my father's could upon occasion, rounder of cheek and chin though it might be. "You alone—why—"

"Not I alone—there was my father!" I corrected her.

She shook her head. "He was on journey that night, he came back. You lay in the bed—not crying—rather as if you slept though your eyes were open. It has happened elsewhere. Always it is a child who lives—or sometimes an elder whose memory does not thereafter return. Tell me, what can you remember—the farthest back of all memories!"

Her demand was sharp. It was one my father had never made, perhaps because he did not want—or dare—to do so. That he had been away from the town when the Death had come—that much I had always known.

What did I remember? Had she not so caught me perhaps I would not have automatically obeyed her command and tried to recall my first clear memory. I had heard men, and women, too, boast that they remember this or that happening which reached back to the time when they crawled on all fours or were carried in arms. What did I remember?

With real effort I closed my eyes, for to me memory most often presents itself in pictures as if I were running through some reading tape of my own devising. What then did I see?

There was a hot sun blazing over my head, I could feel it even as the ground swayed, far down and away, for I was perched on the wide back of an animal which ambled peacefully along, snatching, as it went, mouthfuls of leafy brush which was high enough on either hand so it could so graze without bending its head to the ground. My two hands grasped tightly the stubby mane of the gar as I stared about at its horns. It was a wagon beast and was yoked to a fellow that also mouthed at leaf and stick with flabby, mobile lips.

There was the yoke before me, such a yoke as I have handled many times since. So I rode in the sun and yet though I could feel the heat of that upon my head and shoulders, still I was cold, I shivered. And I was afraid. Yet what I feared so—no, my mind flinched from remembering. I could not recall.

A man came up beside the gar, a man so tall that even that great beast did not make him seem either small or lacking in strength. He swept me from my perch as if he knew that the fear was eating at me, held me to him, so that my head lay on his shoulder and my face in hiding against his body. I clung to him with desperation.

Though now I forced, and searched, and strove for the first time I could truly remember to recall the past, that was my first memory. I was five planet years old, on my first trek. Behind that—lay nothing.

I was not even aware that I must have been repeating aloud the description of the picture in my mind until I heard the woman near me catch her breath.

"Nothing farther back? Nothing of—of her?"

Did I begin to shiver again? I was not sure. Suddenly there was someone standing beside me on the other side, and a tankard was pressed into a hand which I found I had lifted as if to ward off some blow.

"Drink," said a soft voice and I sensed that special calming which is the healer's heritage.

I raised the tankard and drank, but first, over its rim, I looked at the one who had brought it to me. It was the girl of the green smock, she who had sat by the fire dreaming, or seeming to dream, and who alone in that hall had, as I believed, never seen me. Now she watched me alertly as the liquid she had brought me filled my mouth and I swallowed.

Was it sweet, or tart? Surely it was not of any ordinary brewing. I thought that somehow the taste of sun-ripened berries, of autumn ripe fruit, as well as the sharp freshness of spring water had all been caught in it, mixed with a subtlety to leave no one flavor or taste in full command. It was cool and yet it warmed. I forgot that cold which had begun to form an icy core within me. No, not forgot it perhaps, just knew that it no longer mattered, had been pushed far off so that it concerned someone else but not the me who was important, alive, and here and now.

"You are a healer," I stumbled awkwardly, stating the obvious.

"I am Illo." She added no clan or house ending to that single name. Some healers did indeed acknowledge no roof, no holding. Those were wanderers, serving those in need from place to place—in their own way like the lopers—yet far more involved with their fellows than we in that they cared deeply for strangers, whereas we stood aloof and could not summon such emotions even if we wished.

"She is also shadow touched," said my kinswoman. "Have you heard of Voor's Grove?"

All the Shadow tales were known to the lopers. "You were the girl then?" I said to her directly.

"Drink first," she bade me, nor did she answer until I had indeed finished to the last drop what brew filled the tankard and turned it upside down in the fashion of a feaster after a toast, to show that I had honored the words spoken.

"Yes," she said then as she held out her hand for the empty tankard. "I was of Voor's Grove, the first holding to be set in the north plains, planted and raised by Helman Voor, for whom this world was named. It may be even that I am of his blood kin," she shrugged. "Who knows? I do not remember—I cannot remember. I am Shadow touched."

If I flinched again
it was inwardly, for I held tightly to that outward calm which I patterned after my father's way of facing the problems of this world. Instead I asked now, with a boldness for which I was proud:

"What really is Shadow touch? Of all on this world a healer must best know the answer of that."

She wore a considering look on her face. Not, I thought, as if she were weighing whether she might trust me with any true answer, but because she was seeking to choose words which could explain something very difficult to make clear. Then she questioned in turn:

"What are the Shadows?"

Only it seemed that she did not expect any meaningful reply from me, for then she added:

"Until we learn that—then how can we also open the door in here," she touched forefinger to her broad forehead, uncovered, for she wore her hair fastened tightly back as most healers do, "where must lie the explanation for this curse."

Beside the lady of the holding she was slight, though tall. Her body was as spare as the lead wand of a loper, and had nothing about it of the ripeness of a woman bred to mother a child. Her skin was browned near dark as mine by sun and weather, and her features were a little sharp, their angularity made more apparent by the gauntness of her cheeks. Still she carried the calm and authority of her talent in her, so in her own way she was good rival to her hostess, for I did not believe that she was rooted here.

Now she looked at me directly again.

"There comes a need—"

I could make little sense of that and, when I would have asked her what she meant, she had turned swiftly and went back down the hall taking the tankard I had emptied with her. Now I glanced at my hostess.

Between her eyes a frown line deepened. She stared after the girl a long moment before she brought her eyes back to me once again.

"Where does Mac trek this season?" she asked abruptly.

"We go to Dengungha." I named the mine settlement he had sought out on the map before we left Portcity. It was the farthest north now of any settlement, closest to the waste of the Tangle. Beyond it lay only ruins—the ruins of Voor, of Mungo—neither of which we had ever visited during our wanderings. Our trek wagon carried some off-world equipment for the mine—a small cargo, one which would barely pay for our supplies. I had thought it strange that we shipped so little, but my father offered no explanation, and he was not one to be questioned unless there was definite reason.

"Dangungha," she repeated. "Then where—?"

I shrugged. "My father is trek master, his the trail plan."

Her frown had grown deeper. "I do not like it—there is—but it is true that one does not question Mac's coming—or going—one never did. He is a man to keep his own council. Only one ever could speak freely with him—"

I thought I could guess—

"My mother?"

"Yes. We thought him a dour, secretive man. Only when he was with her it was as if he threw away all defenses and came fully alive. You would not have known him, seeing him as he is today. She was his light—and much of his life. He is Shadow touched now, even if he himself never came under the curse in body or mind. I wish—" her voice trailed away into nothingness and I sat in courteous silence, though I began to wish that I were free of this hall. For to me it seemed like a cage, pressing in upon me.

There was the good smell of fresh bread, of other things which meant a well-run household. But such caught in my throat as if I smothered in them. I wanted the outside where there was no hum of talk, no clatter of loom, of pans, no bustle of work strange to me.

My hostess roused from her thoughts. "There is no reasoning with him. That we learned years since. He will go his own way, though to take you with him—"

Now a spark of heat flared in me. "Lady, I want nothing more than to be my father's son."

Once more she looked into my eyes and there was a sternness in her face as she answered me:

"Only a fool would say that was—is—not so. You must go your way in spite of all. The Faith of Fortune," between us she sketched in the air the sign of a blessing, "be with you Bart s'Lorn. You need the best that fair-wishing can bring you. We shall say your name before the Hearth Candle here each night."

I bowed my head and indeed she moved me with that solemn promise. I, who had no roots, nor had ever wanted them, did not know until that moment what it might mean to be so treated, as if indeed I were blood-kin with those ready to stand at my side, or at my back, were evil to rise in my path.

"Lady, I give you the thanks of the heart," I fumbled with courtesy words I had never had reason to use before. "It is a very kindly thing you do."

"Little enough." That set sternness was still in her face. "Little enough, for there is no turn in a chosen road. Give to Mac my good-wishing also, if he will take it, or if he ever thinks of the past which once was. He is—No, I shall not say such words to you. I do him no wrong in my thoughts, only I hold for him a very great pity."

She arose then and I got to my feet as swiftly, sensing that she would dismiss me. Still she walked again by my side down the hall and saw me through the door with full guest honor. I did not look back after the farewell words were said between us, for, oddly enough, I still felt uneasy and afraid. Not as I had when we had spoken of the Shadow—that was a thing which all men found ill to discuss—but rather I feared the hall itself and the abundant life there, a strange and alien life which in some way was vaguely threatening to my own.

My father had not chosen to outspan in the visitor's field, but had camped down by the river, some distance from the holding buildings. I had started down the footpath which led to the water and so on to our wagon when someone came from behind to match step with me.

I glanced up startled, for I had been deep in my thoughts. It was Illo, the healer, and her stride was free and near as long as mine, that of a traveler who had been on many trails in the past. There was a pack resting against her shoulders, a weather cloak folded and strapped to the top of that. She wore the thick-soled boots of a tramper, and in one hand was her healer's staff, a straight cutting of qui wood which had been peeled and smoothed so that it seemed to shine in the sunlight as if it were a rod of pure brilliance such as lit Portcity buildings.

"How can I serve you?" I asked quickly, for healers never come to any one save for a purpose. They do not walk idly, nor do they seek out conversation save when they have something meaningful to impart.

"You travel north. So do I go also. My way is long, and—" now she returned my glance, "perhaps there is little time. The truth being I would ask passage with you."

Such a temporary arrangement between loper and healer was not unknown, usually when, as Illo said now, there was a need for speed on a long trip. But the miners at Dengungha were all off-world men and they clung always stubbornly to a belief in their own medics. There would be no call for a healer to seek them out.

"I do not seek the mines—" She was not reading my thought, of course. It must be well known by now where we would travel once we had crossed river. "There is another place."

Illo did not name it, and it was not courtesy to ask. Though I could not recall any holding now to the north—unless some party had gathered more courage to front the unknown during the months just behind us, and trailed into the forbidden land for a groundbreaking.

However, though a healer had the right to ask passage, I could not see that my father would take kindly to this addition to our party. Yet there was no refusal he could give and not offend all custom. She said nothing more, only walked beside me to our camp.

My father sat on his heels beside the fire. Close to his hand lay a pipe and from it trailed still a small thread of smoke. He had been indulging himself in his one great extravagance, for the dried stuff he smoked was from off-world and could only be obtained by near ruinous bargaining with some shipsman. What he took in such trades from time to time he guarded so well and used so seldom that a small pouch of it would last him for many months. Also he used it only, I had come to know, when he was low in spirit, or else under that dark cloud which made him, sometimes for days, even more silent and aloof.

He had a reader out and there was a coil of tape set in it. But he was not using it, rather looking into the fire as if whatever message he would know was better found there.