Lallia

IX

They landed badly, hitting a range of low hills, bouncing over rock and scree, tearing a broad swathe through snow-laden trees before coming to a halt at the bottom of a shallow ravine. From the plateau beyond Nimino looked back at the column of smoke which marked the funeral pyre of the Moray.

"My books," he said. "My holy objects and sacred charms. Gone, all of them."

"They served their purpose," said Dumarest. "At least you are still alive." He glanced to where Yalung and the woman stood, shapeless in bundled garments, ankle-deep in azure snow. "We are alive," he corrected. "Your prayers and sup shy;plications must have been effective."

But not for the ship and not for its captain. Sheyan was dead, his blood and flesh mingled with the metal of the crushed vessel, charring now beneath the searing heat of re shy;leased energies.

Yalung stirred, stamping his feet in the freezing snow. "Where are we?" he demanded. "What is the name of this world?"

"Shrine."

Dumarest looked at the navigator, remembering those he had seen at the carnival. "Then there is a settlement here. Ships and men to aid us."

Nimino shook his head. "No settlement, Earl. Shrine is a peculiar world. It is a place which is regarded by many as being holy. They come here hoping for a miracle to cure their deformities and many have their hopes realized. There is a sacred place protected by strange guardians. Ships call and leave but there is no town and no commerce."

Lallia said, "How do you know all this?"

"I was here once, many years ago, soon after I entered the Web. Often I suggested to Sheyan that he use the Moray as a pilgrim vessel but always he refused. The vessel was too small, the cost of conversion too high; a larger crew would have been needed together with medical personnel." Nimino looked to where the column of smoke climbed into the violet sky. "Well, he is here now and will stay here. The manipula shy;tions of fate often contain a strange irony."

"You helped him plot the course," said Dumarest. "What happened towards the end? Did he try to land near the settlement?"

"I told you, my friend, there is no settlement." The naviga shy;tor beat his hands together, vapor pluming from his mouth. "And I left him long before we hit the atmosphere. But he would have tried to land us close to the field. He was a good captain," he added. "But for him we would still be in space, drifting wreckage or fused metal, we could even have fallen into a sun. He gave us life."

Dumarest looked at the sky, the surrounding terrain. The feeling of impotent helplessness of the past few hours was over now that he was back among familiar dangers. Cold and hunger and the peril of beasts. The need to survive and to escape from their present situation.

He glanced at the sky again. The sun was small, a ball of flaring orange rimmed with the inevitable corona, hang shy;ing low in a bowl of violet. The ground towards the hills was thick with snow, the soft carpeting broken by shrubs and mounded trees. Turning he looked towards the plateau. The snow continued, broken in the far distance by un shy;familiar trees. They were tall and bulbous, set wide apart and each ringed with a circle of darkness. Beyond them the air held a peculiar shimmer.

Lallia shivered as a rising wind blew azure flecks into her face. "Earl, I'm cold."

Dumarest ignored the comment. To Nimino he said, "You were here before. What is the weather like? How low does the temperature fall?"

"I was at the sacred place," said the navigator. "Not out in the wilds. There the temperature is that of blood."

Warm air rising to meet upper layers of frigid cold would produce such a shimmer as lay beyond the trees. And Sheyan would have tried to put them down close. It was possible and yet, how in this wilderness could a place be so warm?

The wind strengthened a little, a flurry of snow streaming from the hills like azure smoke from a fire thick with ash.

"We had best find shelter," said Yalung. "The sun is set shy;ting and the cold will increase." He looked at the column of smoke, bent now, a ragged plume marring the sky. "The trees, perhaps?"

The shimmer lay beyond, it was the right direction.

"Yes," said Dumarest. "The trees."

They were further than he had guessed. In the clear air distance was hard to judge and it was growing dark by the time they reached the vicinity of the unfamiliar growths. He paused as they neared them, looking up at the soaring trees, alert for signs of aerial life. He saw nothing. Only the bulbous trunks spiked with a multitude of bristle-like protu shy;berances. Leaves, he thought, or branches, or protective spines like those on a cactus. The dark rings beneath them were areas clear of snow, a thick, springy grass showing a dull brown in the fading light.

"Please, Earl." Lallia was shaking with the cold, the thick mane of her hair coated with azure flecks borne by the wind. "Can't we find somewhere to stay, build a fire, per shy;haps?"

"We could get behind a tree," suggested Yalung. The dealer's voice was even, he did not appear to feel the cold. "At least it would protect us from the wind."

Dumarest hesitated, caution prickling his nerves. There was a stillness about the forest he did not like. There should have been underbrush, birds, small animals, perhaps. There should have been the feel of life instead of the eerie still shy;ness as if a giant animal were holding its breath and crouch shy;ing ready to spring.

"A fire," said Nimino. He blew on his hands, his dark skin puckered with the cold. "Always man has found com shy;fort in the leaping dance of a flame. I will gather wood while you select a place to rest." He was gone before Dumarest could object, his figure small against the bole of a soaring giant.

He jerked as something exploded.

It was a short, harsh sound like the vicious crack of a whip. Nimino stumbled and fell to roll on the dark mat of the grass. Dumarest caught Lallia as she went to run to shy;wards him.

"Wait!"

"But, Earl, he tripped and fell. He could be hurt."

"He didn't trip." Dumarest narrowed his eyes as he ex shy;amined the tree. "If he did he will rise. Yalung, that ex shy;plosion, did you hear it?"

"It sounded like the snapping of a branch," said the dealer slowly. "I think it came from the tree."

It came again as they watched, the hard, snapping sound accompanied by the flash of something dark which hit the ground close to where Nimino rolled in pain. Dumarest shouted towards the navigator.

"Don't move! Stay as you are!"

He ran forward as he shouted, head lowered, shoulders high. The cracking explosion came again as he reached the edge of the dark area and he sprang aside as a dozen shafts spined the place where he had been. More explosions echoed from the trees as he stopped, picked up the navigator and, cradling him in his arms, ran from the vicinity of the tree.

Something slammed into his back, his legs and arms, the impact accompanied by more vicious crackings. They ceased as he rejoined the others.

"The tree," said Yalung. "It fired spines at you. I saw the puffs against the bole."

"Earl!" said Lallia. "You were hit!"

Hit but not harmed, the spines had failed to penetrate the mesh buried within the plastic of his clothing. Nimino hadn't been as lucky. A half-dozen spines had hit his torso, finger-thick and covered with pointed scales. Dumarest touched one and felt the sting of poison. Even if they hadn't hit a vital part the navigator was as good as dead.

A defense mechanism, he thought. The trees protecting themselves or using the fired spines to bring down game so as to nourish their roots.

"Earl!" Nimino writhed in his agony, sweat beading his face. "Earl!"

"It's all right," said Dumarest. He lifted his right hand and rested the fingers on the navigator's throat. A pressure on the carotids and the man would pass quickly into uncon shy;sciousness and painless death.

"No!" Nimino twisted, one hand rising to knock away the fingers. "Not that, Earl. I want to see it coming. Meet it face to face."

He coughed and wiped his mouth, looking at the red bright against the darkness of his hand.

"It burns," he said. "God, how it burns!" His hand reached for Dumarest's, found it, tightened. "Earl, do you think I'll have to pay for Claude? Start again at the very beginning? It's such a long, hard climb, Earl. So long. Will I ever reach the Ultimate?"

"Yes," said Dumarest quietly. "You're going to it now. You won't have to pay for Claude. You killed him in order to save my life."

"Yes," said Nimino. He coughed again, blood staining his lips and chin. "Earl, I lied to you. About Earth. I said I didn't know anything about it. I lied."

"You know where it is?" Dumarest stooped close to the dying man, his eyes intent. "How I can find it?"

"Not where it is. But in the old books, the religious works, they talk of it." Nimino's voice faded, became a liquid gur shy;gling. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," he said. "The Earth, Earl! And there is more. In the Rhamda Veda it says: 'From terror did the people fly and they did scatter themselves in the heavens.' Terror, Earl, or Terra? I have thought much about it since you joined the Moray." He coughed again and his voice became clearer. "Find the Original People, Earl. They hold secret knowledge and legends born in ancient days. The Original People."

"A sect?" Dumarest gripped the hand within his own. "What are they, Nimino? A religious sect?"

"Yes, Earl. They will tell you of the Dog Star and the Plow, the magic signs of the zodiac. Where you can see them that is where you will find Earth. They-" The naviga shy;tor broke off, his eyes widening as he stared past Dumarest. "You!" he gasped. "But how-"

Dumarest turned. Behind him was nothing but a mist of swirling snow, azure flecks caught and spun in the wind, ghostly against the darkening sky. He looked back. Nim shy;ino's eyes were still open, still holding an expression of in shy;credulity, but the blood no longer seeped from his parted lips. As he watched a thin patina of azure snow began to cover the dead face.

Gently he closed the staring eyes.

"He's gone?" Lallia was a dim bulk at his side as he rose to his feet. "Earl, is he dead?"

"He was talking," said Yalung. "What did he say?"

"Nothing of importance," said Dumarest. "He was ram shy;bling."

"I thought he might have told us how to get through the trees." The dealer sounded irritable. "He was here once before."

"And saw nothing," reminded Dumarest. "And he could know nothing of the trees or he would not have run towards them." He looked at the sky, the shadowed glades. "We'll have to try and go around them. Perhaps there is a path."

For two days they walked beside the forest, slaking their thirst on snow and sleeping huddled together for warmth. At dawn on the third day Dumarest announced his decision.

"As far as I can tell these trees completely surround the place we have to reach. Therefore we have to go through them."

"And end like the navigator?" Yalung looked at the un shy;broken ranks of trees.

"There could be a way." Dumarest pointed. "See? The grass areas around the trees do not completely meet. I have been watching and all are the same. My guess is that the grass is a form of symbiote. The trees kill game and the grass devours it, in turn feeding the tree and at the same time acting as a sort of trigger mechanism for the spines." He picked up a small boulder. "Watch!"

Explosions cracked the air as the mass of stone fell among the grass of one of the areas. A dozen shafts splintered on the target.

"Now watch this." Again Dumarest threw a large stone, this time on the narrow strip of snow between two of the trees. Nothing happened.

"I see what you mean," said Lallia. "But suppose it gets dark before we pass through the forest?"

"We sleep and continue the next day."

"And if that isn't enough?"

"We have no choice," said Yalung before Dumarest could answer. "Here we shall freeze or starve. Already we are weakening." He turned his round, yellow face away from the wind. "If you lead I shall follow."

It was like treading an intricate maze. No path was straight and all followed circles so that to progress a mile they had to walk four. And, always, Dumarest was conscious of the danger of getting lost.

His guides were the sun and the strange shimmer in the air beyond the trees. The sun moved across the sky but the shimmer did not and, fortunately, the trees were wide-spaced enough to allow fairly good vision. Even so the going was hard. The eerie silence of the forest began to play on their nerves and moving shadows gave the impression of watchful menace.

The wind fell and the snow vanished. Night caught them and they took turns to sleep, one watching while the others sprawled in the narrow margin of safety. With the dawn came a raging thirst adding to the weakness caused by cold and lack of food. The cold could be combated by exertion, but the thirst could not. Twice Yalung called a sharp warn shy;ing as Lallia staggered and almost left the path. The third time Dumarest halted and looked into the strained lines of her face.

"I'm sorry, Earl," she said. "I couldn't help it. It's got so that I seem to be walking in a dream." She looked around, shuddering. "It's so damn quiet. If only something would make a noise. And," she added with feeling, "if only there was something to drink."

"Stay here." Dumarest turned and walked on to the next area of grass. Dropping he reached out with his boot and scraped it towards him. As he tore at the grass explosions blasted the air and shafts rained towards him. His boots were strong and, like his pants, resisted penetration. Picking up the clump of grass he returned to the others. "Chew on this," he said. "It might help."

Dubiously Lallia took the tangled vegetation. It was a mass of thick, juicy strands, the ends seeping where it had broken away. Sight of the liquid inflamed her thirst and she thrust some of the grass into her mouth, chewing and swallowing, sap staining her lips as she helped herself to more.

"It's good," she said. "Have some."

Yalung said, quietly, "Thank you, no. I can continue for a while yet."

"Earl?"

"Later, maybe. Now stick to the path and don't start day shy;dreaming."

They reached the edge of the forest as the sun kissed the horizon, long shadows streaming from the ranked trees and hiding the terrain so that they were clear long before they realized it. Now they walked on close-cropped grass dotted with low bushes, bearing flame-colored berries and thorned leaves. A tiny lake yielded water of crystal clarity, cold but more delicious than wine. Later Dumarest managed to kill a small animal, spearing it with his knife at thirty feet, clean shy;ing the beast and jointing it, using the fur to wipe the blade.

Chewing on the raw gobbets of meat they walked on to where the shimmer hung against the blossoming stars.

They were few and Dumarest looked at them with a strange nostalgia. So had the stars looked from Earth when he had been very young. Not the shimmer and glare so com shy;mon in and close to the Center, but a scatter of burning points separated by wide expanses of darkness. They had formed patterns, those stars, and the broad swath of the galactic lens had traced a shining path across the heavens. But they had been scattered by distance and not, as the stars in the Web, by the cloud of shielding dust.

"Look," said Yalung softly. "A ship."

It fell wreathed in the misty blue of its field, a tiny mote incredibly far, falling as a meteor to a point beyond the horizon. Landing at the sacred place which, so Nimino had said, was protected by strange guardians. The trees? Dumarest didn't think so. They were guardians of a kind but not the ones the navigator had meant.

He paused as a thin trilling stirred the air, the ghostly echoes of a crystal chime, sounding high and shrill and far away.

A sweet and soulful sound, unbearably poignant, arousing memories better left undisturbed.

"Earl!" Lallia came close to him and caught his arm. "Earl, what was that?"

It came again as she fell silent, thin, hurtfully pure. A third time and then the night settled into unbroken silence.

"A signal," said Yalung thoughtfully. "It must have sounded when the ship landed. A summons, perhaps?" He sucked in his breath with an audible hiss. "Look! The sky!"

Ahead, where the shimmer had disturbed the cold beauty of the stars, leaped a vibrant cone of coruscating brilliance. It lasted for perhaps half a minute and then, as abruptly as it had come, was gone.

The ship left at dawn. Lallia watched as it rose, tiny in the distance, the blue mist of its field almost lost against the brightening sky. Her face was haggard as she looked at Dumarest.

"Earl! We're too late! It's gone!"

"There will be others," he said. "Ships must come here all the time."

"They come," agreed Yalung. "But will they take any who ask for passage? Will they be allowed to? This is a strange world."

He halted, brooding as he studied the sky. They had been walking for hours, using the stars as a guide, avoiding the thorned bushes more by instinct than actual sight. They had found no more lakes and there had been no more game.

"How much further do you think we have to go?"

"A long way," said Dumarest. The ship had been small, their progress of the night had been negligible, the faint shimmer in the sky seemed no closer. "A week, perhaps, even longer, but we'll get there in the end."

"If we can stay alive that long." Fatigue had made the woman sharp. "There's something crazy about this place. We've been walking for miles and seem no closer now than we did at the start. Maybe we'll never get closer. We could be moving in a giant circle."

"No," said Dumarest. "Not that."

"Then why are we so far? We-" She broke off and then said, wonderingly. "Look, Earl. Birds."

"The first we have seen," said Yalung quietly. "But — are they birds?"

They came from the direction in which they were head shy;ing, winged motes against the sky, wheeling and circling before swooping down at the travelers. There was something odd about them. Dumarest watched as they came, eyes like jewels and feathers rustling like metal, wide wings throwing shadows on the ground. They were big, their wings ex shy;tended fully twenty feet, their bodies as long as the height of a man. Their beaks were glinting spears and their clawed feet stretched as if to engulf barrels. From halfway down their bodies stretched limbs ending in long, prehensile finger-like claws. Three of them landed just ahead, the rest circling watchfully above.

The guardians?

Dumarest studied them as they stood, wings folded, ap shy;parently waiting. Mutated biological mechanisms, he thought, fed on a diet heavy in metallic oxides and silicon. That would account for the rasping of the feathers, the sparkling gleam of bone and scale. Multilimbed creatures produced in order to fly, to walk, to grip and tear. Or perhaps they were a natural sport of this peculiar world. It didn't matter. To resist them would be suicide.

"They are barring our path," said Yalung. "A warning?"

"We can't turn back!" Lallia's voice held near-hysteria. "Earl, we can't turn back!"

Dumarest looked at the other winged shapes circling over shy;head. Reenforcements, perhaps, if they should somehow manage to overcome the three ahead. With lasers they could have killed them all but they had no weapons aside from his knife. And, even if they could have destroyed the birds, would that end their danger?

Slowly he walked forward to stand before the three silent images. They were like statues of burnished metal and shin shy;ing crystal, the idols of some ancient temple, utterly remote from human comprehension. The light of the rising sun shone redly from their eyes, beyond them the enigmatic shimmer quivered in the silent air.

Dumarest said, "We are survivors of a wrecked vessel. We wish to go to the field, there to obtain passage from this world."

A voice, cold, emotionless, echoed wordlessly in his mind, in the minds of them all.

"It is understood. Do not resist."

Wings lifted, flexed as they beat the air, the rustle of feathers a tintinnabulation. Lallia gasped as she was picked from the ground, hair flying as she turned in the grip of prehensile fingers. Yalung was next, his yellow face impassive as he was carried away. Dumarest followed, feeling the firm grip on his body, the sighing rush of air past his face. Around the three the other birds formed an escort as they first climbed then leveled in whispering flight.

Far below the ground swept past like an unrolling carpet.

The bushed plain, dotted with tiny lakes few and far be shy;tween. A circle of spine-bearing trees, a swampy morass suc shy;culent with livid grasses steaming with oozing mud, a rear shy;ing mound of stone surrounding a mass of scree and then, finally, a thick growth of timber at the side of which rested the unmistakable expanse of a landing field.

It swelled as they plummeted towards it, the bare ground torn and scarred from the impact of tremendous energies, tiny figures working to level the surface. Dumarest looked at them as the ground hit his feet and the bird which had carried him winged away. They were simple creatures with wide jaws and spadelike forepaws, clawed feet and a flat tail. Where they passed freshly turned soil rested flat and smooth behind them.

He lifted his eyes. The perimeter fence was high and stronger than any he had previously seen. A mesh of thick bars fifty feet high, so close that it was almost a solid wall. A single gate broke it where it faced the expanse of timber beyond.

As Dumarest watched it opened and a figure passed through.

"God!" Lallia's voice was a whisper at his side. "Earl, what is it?"

"A guardian." Yalung had no doubt. "One of those the navigator mentioned. It can be nothing else."

From the tip of the cowl to the hem of the trailing robe the figure was twelve feet tall, incredibly broad, the figure bulking beneath the muffling robe of glinting metallic fiber. The face was shadow in which transient gleams of varie shy;gated color flashed and died in winking splendor. The hands, if the creature had hands, were hidden in wide sleeves. There were no signs of feet or locomotive appendages.

Dumarest had the impression that the thing was entirely unhuman. That the robe was worn for concealment and that the figure bulking beneath was completely alien.

Again the cold, emotionless voice echoed wordlessly in his mind.

"You have come to the Place. You are welcome"

"Thank you," said Dumarest quickly before the others could answer. "We had misfortune. Our vessel crashed on some hills far from here. It was kind of you to send your servants to give us aid."

The birds could be nothing else. They shared the alien shy;ness of the tall figure but they could not be the masters. Nothing could be the master of the enigmatic being which stood before them. It was wrapped in an aura of power al shy;most as tangible as the metallic robe covering its body.

Yalung stirred and said, "We require little. Some food and water while we wait for the arrival of a ship to carry us from this world."

Lallia added, "And somewhere to bathe. Is that possible?"

Colored sparkles flashed and died in the shadow of the cowl.

"In the Place all things are possible. Ask and you shall be given."

The figure turned and glided towards the open gate, the mystery of the area beyond. Dumarest followed, the others just behind.

He stepped into a cathedral.