Planet of Adventure

CHAPTER TWO

REITH AWOKE To the flicker of firelight, the murmur of voices. Above was a dark canopy, to either side a sky full of strange stars. The nightmare was real.

Aspect by aspect, sensation by sensation, Reith took stock of himself and his condition. He lay on a pallet of woven reeds which exuded a sourish odor, half-vegetable, half-human. His shirt had been removed; a harness of withe constricted his shoulders and provided support for his broken bones. Painfully he raised his head and looked around. He lay in an open-sided shelter of metal poles covered with fabric. Another paradox, thought Reith. The metal poles indicated a high level of technology; the weapons and manners of the people were purely barbaric. Reith tried to look toward the fire, but the effort pained him and he lay back.

The camp was in the open country; the forest had been left behind; so much was evident from the stars. He wondered about his ejection seat and the attached survival pack. Seat and pack had been left dangling, so he recalled to his regret. He had only himself and his innate resources to depend upon-a quality somewhat augmented by the training forced upon a scout, some of which Reith had considered pedantic over-elaboration. He had assimilated vast quantities of basic science, linguistic and communication theory, astronautics, space and energy technology, biometrics, meteorology, geology, toxicology. So much was theory; additionally he had trained in practical survival techniques of every description: weaponry, attack and defense, emergency nutrition, rigging and hoisting, space-drive mechanics, electronic repair and improvisation. If he was not killed out of hand, as had been Paul Waunder, he would live-but to what purpose? His chances of returning to Earth must be considered infinitesimal, which made the intrinsic interest of the planet less stimulating.

A shadow fell across his face; Reith saw the youth who had saved his life. After peering through the dark the youth kneeled down, proffered a bowl of coarse gruel.

"Thanks very much," said Reith. "But I don't think I can eat; I'm constricted by the splints."

The youth leaned forward, speaking in a rather curt voice. Reith thought his face strangely stern and intense for a boy who could not be more than sixteen years old.

With great exertion Reith pulled himself up on his elbow and took the gruel. The youth rose, moved a few paces back, stood watching as Reith tried to feed himself. Then he turned and called a gruff summons. A small girl came running forward. She bowed, took the bowl and began to feed Reith with earnest care.

The boy watched a moment, evidently mystified by Reith, and Reith was perplexed no less. Men and women, on a world two hundred and twelve light-years from Earth! Parallel evolution? Incredible! Spoonful by spoonful the gruel was placed in his mouth. The girl, about eight years old, wore a ragged pajama-like garment, not too clean. A half-dozen men of the tribe came to watch; there was a growl of conversation which the youth ignored.

The bowl was empty; the girl held a mug of sour beer to Reith's mouth. Reith drank because it was expected of him, though the brew puckered his lips. "Thank you," he told the girl, who returned a diffident smile and quickly departed.

Reith lay back on the pallet. The youth spoke to him in a brusque voice: evidently a question.

"Sorry," said Reith. "I don't understand. But don't be irritated; I need every friend I can get."

The youth spoke no more and presently departed. Reith leaned back on his pallet and tried to sleep. The firelight flickered low; activity in the camp dwindled.

From far off came a faint call, half howl, half quavering hoot, which was presently answered by another, and another, to become an almost identical chanting of hundreds of voices. Raising up on his elbow once more, Reith saw that the two moons, of equal apparent diameter, one pink, the other pale blue, had appeared in the east.

A moment later a new voice, nearer at hand, joined the far ululation. Reith listened in wonder; surely this was the voice of a woman? Other voices joined the first, wailing a wordless dirge, which, joined to the far hooting, produced a colloquy of vast woe.

The chant at last halted; the camp became quiet. Reith became drowsy and fell asleep.

In the morning Reith saw more of the camp. It lay in a swale between a pair of broad low hills, among multitudes rolling off to the east. Here for reasons not immediately apparent to Reith the tribesmen elected to sojourn. Each morning four young warriors wearing long brown cloaks mounted small electric motorcycles and set off in different directions across the steppe. Each evening they returned, to make detailed reports to Traz Onmale the boyruler. Every morning a great kite was paid out, hoisting aloft a boy of eight or nine, whose function was evidently that of a lookout. Late in the afternoon the wind tended to die, dropping the kite more or less easily. The boy usually escaped with no more than a bump, though the men handling the lines seemed to worry more for the safety of the kite; a four-winged contraption of black membrane stretched over wooden splints.

Each morning, from beyond the hill to the east, sounded a fearful squealing, which persisted for almost half an hour. The tumult, Reith presently learned, arose from the herd of multilegged animals from which the tribe derived meat.

Each morning the tribe butcher, a woman six feet tall and brawny to match, went through the herd with a knife and a cleaver, to excise three or four legs for the needs of the day. Occasionally she cut flesh from a beast's back, or reached through a wound to carve chunks from an internal organ. The beasts made little protest at the excision of their legs, which soon renewed themselves, but performed prodigies of complaint when their bodies were entered.

While Reith's bones mended his only contacts were with women, a spiritless group, and with Traz Onmale, who spent the greater part of each morning with Reith, talking, inspecting Reith's habiliments, teaching the Kruthe language.

This was syntactically regular but rendered difficult by scores of tenses, moods and aspects. Long after Reith was able to express himself, Traz Onmale, in the stern manner so much at odds with his years, would correct him and indicate still another intricacy of usage.

The world was Tschai, so Reith learned; the moons were Az and Braz. The tribesmen were Kruthe or "Emblem Men," after the devices of silver, copper, stone and wood which they wore on their hats. A man's status was established by his emblem, which was reckoned a semidivine entity in itself, with a name, detailed history, idiosyncrasies and rank. It was not too much to say that rather than the man carrying the emblem, the emblem controlled the man, as it gave him his name and reputation, and defined his tribal role. The most exalted emblem was Onmale, carried by Traz, who prior to assuming the emblem had been an ordinary lad of the tribe. Onmale was the embodiment of wisdom, craft, resolution and the indefinable Kruthe virtu. A man might inherit an emblem, take possession after killing its owner, or fabricate a new emblem for himself. In the latter case, the new emblem held no personality or virtu until it had participated in noteworthy feats and so acquired status. When an emblem changed hands the new owner willy-nilly assumed the personality of the emblem. Certain emblems were mutually antagonistic, and a man coming into possession of one of these at once became the enemy of the holder of the other. Certain emblems were thousands of years old, with complex histories; some were fey and carried a weight of doom; others impelled the wearer to hardihood or some specific sort of berserker elan. Reith was sure that his perception of the symbolic personalities was pale and gray compared to the intensity of the Kruthe's own comprehensions.

Without his emblem the tribesman was a man without a face, without prestige or function. He was in fact what Reith presently learned himself to be; a helot, or a woman, the words in the Kruthe language being the same.

Curiously, or so it seemed to Reith, the Emblem Men believed him to be a man from a remote region of Tschai. Far from respecting him for his presence aboard the space-boat, they thought him a subordinate to some non-human race unknown to them, as the Chaschmen were subordinate to the Blue Chasch, or the Dirdirmen to the Dirdir.

When Reith first heard Traz Onmale express this point of view, he refuted the idea indignantly. "I am from Earth, a far planet; we are not ruled by anyone."

"Who built the space-boat then?" Traz Onmale asked in a skeptical voice.

"Men, naturally. Men of Earth."

Traz Onmale gave his head a dubious shake. "How could there be men so far from Tschai?"

Reith gave a laugh of bitter amusement. "I've been asking myself the same question: How did men come to Tschai?"

"The origin of men is well-known," said Traz Onmale in a frigid voice. "We are taught this as soon as we can speak. Did you not receive the same instruction?"

"On Earth we believe that men evolved from a protohominid, which in turn derived from an ancient mammal; and so on back to the first cells."

Traz Onmale looked askance at the women who worked nearby. He gave them a brusque signal. "Be off, we are discussing men's matters."

The women departed with clacking tongues, and Traz Onmale looked after them in disgust. "The foolishness will be all over camp. The magicians will be annoyed.

I must explain to you the true source of men. You have seen the moons. The pink moon is Az, abode of the blessed. The blue moon is Braz, a place of torment, where evil folk and kruthsh' geir* are sent after death. Long ago the moons collided; thousands of folk were dislodged and fell to Tschai. All now seek to return to Az, good and evil alike. But the Judgers, who derive wisdom from the globes they wear, separate good men from the bad and send them to appropriate destinations.

"Interesting," said Reith. "What of the Chasch and the Dirdir?"

"They are not men. They came to Tschai from beyond the stars, as did the Wankh; Chaschmen and Dirdirmen are unclean hybrids. Pnume and Phung are spew of the northern caves. We kill all with zeal." He regarded Reith sidelong, brows knit severely. "If you derive from a world other than Tschai, you cannot be a man, and I should order you killed."

"That seems overly harsh," said Reith. "After all, I have done you no harm."

Traz Onmale made a gesture to indicate that the argument had no relevance. "I will defer judgment."

Reith exercised his stiff limbs, and diligently studied the language. The Kruthe, he learned, held to no fixed range, but wandered the vast Aman Steppe, which spread across the south of the continent known as Kotan. They had no great knowledge of conditions elsewhere on Tschai. There were other continents--Kislovan to the south; Charchan, Kachan, Rakh on the other side of the world. Other nomad tribes roamed the steppe; in the marshes and forests to the south lived ogres and cannibals, with a variety of supernatural powers. The Blue Chasch were established to the far west of Kotan; the Dirdir, who preferred a cold climate, lived on Haulk, a peninsula reached south and west of Kislovan, and on the northeast coast of Charchan.

Another alien race, the Wankh, were also established on Tschai, but the Emblem Men knew little of these folk. Native to Tschai was an eerie race known as the Pnume, also their mad relatives, the Phung, regarding whom the Kruthe were reluctant to speak, lowering their voices and looking over their shoulders when they did so.

Time passed: days of bizarre events, nights of despair and longing for Earth.

Reith's bones began to knit and he unobtrusively explored the camp.

About fifty sheds had been erected in the lee of the hill, the roofs butted end to end to form what from the air would seem a fold or declivity on the hillside.

Beyond the sheds was a cluster of enormous six-wheeled motor drays, camouflaged under tarpaulins. Reith was awed by the bulk of the vehicles and would have examined them more closely were it not for the band of sallow urchins which followed him about, attentive to his every move. Intuitively they sensed his strangeness and were fascinated. The warriors, however, ignored him; a man without an emblem was little more than a ghost.

At the far end of camp Reith found an enormous machine mounted on a truck: a giant catapult with a thrust-arm fifty feet long. A siege engine? On one side was painted a pink disc, on the other a blue disc: reference, so Reith assumed, to the moons Az and Braz.

Days passed, weeks, a month. Reith could not understand the inactivity of the tribe. They were nomads; why did they keep so long to this particular camp?

Every day the four scouts rode forth, while overhead swung the black kite, veering and dipping while the rider's legs swung doll-like back and forth. The warriors were clearly restive, and occupied themselves practicing the use of their weapons. These were of three sorts: a long flexible rapier with a cutting and stabbing tip, like the tail of a ray: a catapult, which used the energy of elastic cables to shoot short feathered bolts; a triangular shield, a foot in length, nine inches across the base, with sharp elongated corners and razor-sharp side-edges serving additionally as a thrusting and hacking weapon.

Reith was tended first by the eight-year-old urchin, then by a small hunched crone with a face like a raisin, then by a girl who, were it not for her joylessness, might have been attractive. She was perhaps eighteen years old, with regular features, fine blonde hair typically tangled with twigs and bits of fodder. She went barefoot, wearing only a smock of coarse gray homespun.

One day, as Reith sat on a bench, the girl came past. Reith caught her around the waist, pulled her down upon his knee. She smelled of furze and bracken, and the moss of the steppes, and a faintly sour scent of wool. She asked in a husky alarmed voice, "What do you want of me?" And she tried half-heartedly to rise.

Reith found her warm weight comforting. "First, I'll comb the twigs from your hair ... Sit still now." She relaxed, eyes turned sidelong at Reith; puzzled, submissive, uneasy. Reith combed her hair, first with his fingers, then with a chip of broken wood. The girl sat quietly.

"There," said Reith presently. "You look nice."

The girl sat as in a dream. Presently she stirred, rose to her feet. "I must go," she said in a hurried voice. "Someone might see." But she lingered. Reith started to pull her back, then thought better of the impulse and let her hurry away.

The next day she chanced past again, and this time her hair was combed and clean. She paused to look over her shoulder, and Reith could remember the same glance, the same attitude from a hundred occasions on Earth; and the thought made him sick with melancholy. At home the girl would be reckoned beautiful; here on Aman Steppe, she had no more than a dim awareness of such matters ... He held out his hand to her; she approached, as if drawn against her will, which was undoubtedly the case, for she knew the ways of her tribe. Reith put his hands on her shoulders, then around her waist, kissed her. She seemed puzzled.

Reith asked, smiling, "Hasn't anyone done that before?"

"No. But it's nice. Do it again."

Reith heaved a deep sigh. Well, why not? ... A step behind him: a buffet sent him sprawling to the ground, accompanied by a spate of words too fast for his understanding. A booted foot struck into his ribs, sending shivers of pain through his mending shoulder.

The man advanced on the cringing girl, who stood with fists pressed to her mouth. He struck her, kicked her, pushed her out into the compound, cursing and bawling insults: "disgusting intimacy with an outland slave; is this your regard for the purity of the race?"

"Slave?" Reith picked himself up from the floor of the shed. The word rang in his mind. Slave?

The girl ran off to huddle under one of the towering wagons. Traz Onmale came to look into the uproar. The warrior, a stalwart buck of about Reith's own age, pointed a quivering finger toward Reith. "He is a curse, a dark omen! Was not all this foretold? Intolerable that he should spawn among our women! He must be killed, or gelded!"

Traz Onmale looked dubiously toward Reith. "It seems that he did small damage."

"Small damage indeed! But only because I happened past! With so much energy for ardor, why is he not put out to work? Must we pamper his belly while he sits on pillows? Geld him and set him to toil with the women!"

Traz Onmale gave a reluctant assent, and Reith, with a sinking heart, thought of his survival kit dangling from the tree, with its drugs, transcom, spanscope, energy pack, and, most especially, weapons. For all their present benefit to him they might as well be with the Explorator IV.

Traz Onmale had summoned the butcher-woman. "Bring a sharp knife. The slave must be made placid."

"Wait!" gasped Reith. "Is this any way to treat a stranger? Have you no tradition of hospitality?"

"No," said Traz Onmale. "We do not. We are the Kruthe, driven by the force of our Emblems."

"This man struck me," protested Reith. "Is he a coward? Will he fight? What if I took his emblem from him? Would I not then be entitled to his place in the tribe?"

"The emblem itself is the place," Traz Onmale admitted. "This man Osom is the vehicle for the emblem Vaduz. Without Vaduz he would be no better than you. But if Vaduz is content with Osom, as must be so, you could never take Vaduz."

"I can try."

"Conceivably. But you are too late; here is the butcherwoman. Be good enough to disrobe."

Reith turned a horrified glance upon the woman, whose shoulders were broader than his own and inches thicker, and who advanced upon him wearing a face-splitting grin.

"There is still time," muttered Reith. "Ample time." He turned upon Osom Vaduz, who snatched forth his rapier with a shrill whine of steel against hard leather.

But Reith had stepped in close, within the six-foot reach of the blade. Osom Vaduz tried to leap back; Reith caught his arm, which was hard as steel; in his present condition Osom Vaduz was by far the stronger man. Osom Vaduz gave his arm a mighty jerk to fling Reith to the ground. Reith pulled in the same direction, swung around to drag Osom Vaduz reeling off-balance. Reith thrust up his shoulder, Osom Vaduz rolled across his hip and crashed to the ground. Reith kicked him in the head, grounding his heel into Osom Vaduz's throat, to crush the windpipe. As Osom Vaduz lay twitching and croaking his hat rolled off; Reith reached for it but the Chief Magician snatched it away.

"No, by no means!" cried the magician in a passion. "This is not our law. You are a slave; a slave you remain!"

"Must I kill you too?" asked Reith, edging ominously forward.

"Enough!" cried Traz Onmale peremptorily. "There has been enough killing. No more!"

"What of the emblem?" asked Reith. "Do you not agree it is mine?"

"I must consider," declared the youth. "In the meanwhile, no more.

Butcher-woman, take the body to the pyre. Where are the Judgers? Let them come forth and judge this Osom who carried Vaduz. Emblems, bring forth the engine!"

Reith moved off to the side. A few minutes later he approached Traz Onmale. "If you wish, I will leave the tribe and go off by myself."

"You will know my wishes when they are formulated," declared the lad, with the absolute decisiveness conferred upon him by the Onmale. "Remember, you are my slave; I ordered back the blades which would have killed you. If you try to escape, you will be tracked, taken, flogged. Meanwhile you must gather fodder."

It seemed to Reith as if Traz Onmale were straining for severity, perhaps to divert attention-his own as well as everyone else's-from the unpleasant order he had given to the butcherwoman and which, by implication, he had rescinded.

For a day the dismembered body of Osom, who once had carried the emblem Vaduz, smoldered within a special metal kiln, and the wind blew a vile stench through the camp. The warriors uncovered the monstrous catapult, started the engine and brought it into the center of the compound.

The sun sank behind a bank of graphite-purple clouds; sunset was an angry welter of crimson and brown. Osom's corpse had been consumed; the fire was ashes. With all the tribe crouching in murmurous ranks, the Chief Magician kneaded the ashes with beast-blood to form a cake, which was then packed into a box and lashed to the head of a great shaft.

The magicians looked into the east, where now rose Az the pink moon, almost at the full. The Chief Magician called in a great belling voice: "Az! The Judgers have judged a man and found him good! He is Osom; he carried Vaduz. Make ready, Az! We send you Osom!"

The warriors on the catapult engaged a gear. The great arm swung across the sky; the elastic cables ground with tension. The shaft with Osom's ashes was laid in the channel; the arm was aimed toward Az. The tribe set up a moan, rising to a throaty wail. The magician cried: "Away to Az!"

The catapult gave a heavy twunggg-thwack! The shaft sped away too swiftly to be seen. A moment later, high in the sky, appeared a burst of white fire; and the watchers gave a sigh of exaltation.

For another half-hour the folk of the tribe stood looking up toward Az. Did they envy Osom, Reith wondered, presumably now rejoicing in the Vaduz palace on Az?

He sought among the dark shapes, lingering before going to his pallet, until, with a smile of grim amusement for his own weakness, he realized that he was hoping to locate the girl who had occasioned the entire affair.

On the following day Reith was sent forth to gather fodder, a coarse leaf terminating in a drop of dark-red wax. Far from resenting the work, Reith was happy to escape the monotony of the camp.

The rolling hills extended as far as the eye could reach, alternate cusps of amber and black under the windy sky of Tschai. Reith looked south, to the black line of forest, where his ejection seat still hung in a tree, or so he hoped. In the near-future he would ask Traz Onmale to conduct him to the spot ... Someone was watching him. Reith swung around, but saw nothing.

Wary, watching from the corner of his eyes he went about his task, plucking leaves, filling the two baskets he carried on a shoulder-pole. He started down into a swale, where grew a copse of low bushes, with leaves like red and blue flame. He saw the flutter of a gray smock. It was the girl, pretending not to see him. Reith descended to meet her and they stood face to face, she half-smiling, half-cringing, awkwardly twisting her fingers together.

Reith reached forth, took her hands. "If we meet, if we are friends, we'll get in trouble."

The girl nodded. "I know ... Is it true that you are from another world?"

"Yes."

"What is it like?"

"It's hard to describe."

"The magicians are foolish, aren't they? Dead people don't go to Az."

"I hardly think so."

She came closer. "Do that again."

Reith kissed her. Then he took her by the shoulders and held her back. "We can't be lovers. You'd be made unhappy, and get more beatings..."

She shrugged. "I don't care. I wish I could go with you back to Earth."

"I wish you could too," said Reith.

"Do that again," said the girl. Just once more..." She gave a sudden gasp, looking over Reith's shoulder. He jerked around, to see a flicker of movement.

There was a hiss, a thud, a heartrending sob of pain. The girl sagged to her knees, fell over on her side, clutching at the feathered bolt buried in her chest. Reith gave a hoarse call, looked wildly here and there.

The skyline was clear; no one could be seen. Reith bent over the girl. Her lips moved, but he could not hear the words. She sighed and relaxed.

Reith stood looking down at the body, rage crowding all rational thought from his mind. He bent, lifted her-she weighed less than he expected-and carried her back to camp, reeling and straining. He took her to the shed of Traz Onmale.

The boy sat on a stool, holding a rapier which he glumly twitched back and forth. Reith lay down the body of the girl as gently as he was able. Traz Onmale looked from the body to Reith with a flinty stare. Reith said, "I met the girl picking fodder. We were talking-and the bolt hit her. It was murder. The bolt might have been meant for me."

Traz Onmale glanced down at the bolt, touched the feathers. Already warriors were sauntering close. Traz Onmale looked from face to face. "Where is Jad Piluna?"

There were mutters, a hoarse voice, a summons. Jad Piluna approached: one whom Reith had noticed on previous occasions: a man of dash and flair, with a keen high-colored face, a curious V-shaped mouth, conveying, perhaps unintentionally, a continual insolent mirth. Reith stared at him in a fascination of loathing.

Here was the murderer.

Traz Onmale held out his hand. "Show me your catapult."

Jad Piluna tossed it, an act of casual disrespect, and Traz Onmale turned up a glittering glance. He looked at the catapult, checked the claw release and the film of grease customarily applied by the warriors after using their weapons. He said: "The grease is disturbed; you have fired this catapult today. The bolt"-he pointed down at the corpse-"has the three black bands of Piluna. You killed the girl."

Jad Piluna's mouth twitched, the V broadened and narrowed. "I meant to kill the man. He is a slave and a heretic. She was no better."

"Who are you to decide? Do you carry Onmale?"

"No. But I maintain that the act was accidental. It is no crime to kill a heretic."

The Chief Magician stepped forward. "The matter of intentional heresy is crucial. This person"-he pointed toward Reith" is clearly a hybrid; I would suppose Dirdirman and Pnumekin. For reasons unknown he has joined the Emblem Men and now circulates heresy. Does he think we are too stupid to notice? How wrong he is! He suborned the young woman; he led her astray; she became worthless.

Hence when-"

Traz Onmale, again displaying the decisiveness so astonishing in a lad so young, cut him short. "Enough. You talk nonsense. The Piluna is notoriously an emblem of dark deeds. Jad, the carrier, must be brought to account, and Piluna curbed."

"I claim innocence," said Jad Piluna indifferently. "I give myself to the justice of the moons."

Traz Onmale squinted in anger. "Never mind the justice of the moons. I will give you justice."

Jad Piluna gazed at him without concern. "The Onmale is not permitted to fight."

Traz Onmale looked around the group. "Is there no noble emblem to subdue the murderous Piluna?"

None of the warriors responded. Jad Piluna nodded in satisfaction. "The emblems stand aloof. Your call has no effect. But you have laid a slur on Piluna; you have used the word 'murderer.' I demand vindication from the moons."

In a controlled voice Traz Onmale said, "Bring forth the disc."

The Chief Magician departed, to return with a box carved from a single huge bone. He turned to Jad Piluna. "To which moon do you call for justice?"

"I demand vindication from Az, moon of virtue and peace; I ask Az to demonstrate my right."

"Very well," said Traz Onmale. "I beseech Braz, the Hellmoon, to claim you for her own."

The Chief Magician reached into the box, brought forth a disc, on one side pink, on the other blue. "Stand clear, all!" He spun the disc into the air. It tilted, wobbled, seemed to float and glide, and landed with the pink side on top. "Az, moon of virtue, has decided innocence!" called the magician. "Braz has seen no cause to act."

Reith gave a snort of sour amusement. He turned to Traz Onmale. "I call upon the moons for judgment."

"Judgment in regard to what?" demanded the Chief Magician. "Certainly not your heresy! That is demonstrable!"

"I ask that the moon Az concede me the emblem Vaduz, so that I may punish the murderer Jad."

Traz Onmale gave Reith a startled glance.

The Chief Magician cried out in indignation. "Impossible; how can a slave carry an emblem?"

Traz Onmale looked down at the pathetic corpse and gave a curt sign to the magician. "I release him from bondage. Throw the disc to the moons."

The Chief Magician stood curiously stiff and reluctant. "Is this wise? The emblem Vaduz-"

"-is hardly the most noble of emblems. Throw."

The magician glanced askance at Jad Piluna. "Throw," said Jad Piluna. "Should the moons give him to the emblem I will cut him into small strips. I have always despised the Vaduz trait."

The magician hesitated, considering first the tall hard-muscled figure of Jad Piluna, then Reith, equally tall but thinner and looser, and still lacking his full vigor.

The Chief Magician, a cautious man, thought to temporize. "The disc is drained of its force; we can have no more judgments."

"Nonsense," said Reith. "The disc is controlled, so you claim, by the power of the moons. How can the disc be drained? Throw the disc!"

"Throw the disc!" ordered Traz Onmale.

"Then you must take Braz, for you are evil and a heretic."

"I have called on Az, which can reject me if it chooses."

The magician shrugged. "As you wish. I will use a fresh disc."

"No!" exclaimed Reith. "The same disc."

Traz Onmale sat erect and leaned forward, his attention once again engaged. "Use the same disc. Throw!"

With an angry gesture the Chief Magician snatched up the disc, spun it high and twinkling into the air. As before, it wobbled, seemed to float, drifted down with the pink face up.

"Az favors the stranger!" declared Traz Onmale. "Fetch the emblem Vaduz!"

The Chief Magician stalked to his shed and brought it forth. Traz Onmale handed it to Reith. "You now carry Vaduz: you are an Emblem Man. Do you then challenge Jad Piluna?"

"I do."

Traz Onmale turned to Jad Piluna. "Are you prepared to defend your emblem?"

"At once." Jad Piluna whipped forth his rapier, flourished it whistling around his head.

"A sword and hand-foil for the new Vaduz," said Traz Onmale.

Reith took the rapier which presently was tendered him. He hefted it, whipped the blade back and forth. Never had he handled so supple a sword, and he had handled many, for swordsmanship was an element of his training. An awkward weapon, in some respects, useless for close-range fighting. The warriors at practice held their distance from each other, swinging, slashing, lunging, swerving the blade down and up, in and out, but using relatively little footwork. The triangular knife-foil for the left hand was also strange. He swung the blade back and forth, watching Jad Piluna from the corner of his eyes, who stood contemptuously at ease.

To attempt to fight the man in his own style was equivalent to suicide, thought Reith.

"Attention!" called Traz Onmale. "Vaduz challenges Piluna. Forty-one such encounters have occurred previously. Piluna has humiliated Vaduz on thirty-four occasions. Emblems, address yourselves."

Jad Piluna instantly lunged; Reith parried without difficulty, hacked down with his own blade: a blow which Jad Piluna glossed off with his knife-shield. As he did so Reith jumped forward, struck with the point of the knife-shield, to puncture Jad Piluna's chest: a trifling wound, but sufficient to destroy Piluna's complacence. Eyes bulging in wrath, the red in his face almost feverish, he leaped back, then launched a furious attack, overwhelming Reith by sheer strength and technical brilliance. Reith was extended to the utmost even to fend away the whistling blade, without thought for counterattack. His shoulder gave a sudden ominous twinge and began to burn; he panted for breath.

The blade slashed into his thigh, then his left bicep; confident, gloating, Jad Piluna pressed the attack, expecting Reith to fall back, to be carved into tatters. But Reith lurched forward, knocked aside the blade with his knife-shield, slashed at Jad Piluna's head and struck the black hat askew. Jad Piluna stepped back to set his hat straight but Reith jumped forward again, inside comfortable fighting distance with the rapier. He struck with the knife-shield, batted again at Jad Piluna's hat, knocked it off, and with it the emblem Piluna. Reith dropped the knife-shield, seized the hat. Jad, bereft of Piluna, stood back aghast, his face ringed by brown curls. He lunged; Reith swung the hat, caught the rapier in the ear-flaps. He stabbed with his own rapier, piercing Jad's shoulder.

Jad frantically disengaged his rapier, gave ground, anxious to gain more room, but Reith, panting and sweating, pressed him.

Reith spoke: "I hold the emblem Piluna, which has rejected you in disgust. You, the murderer, are about to die."

Jad gave an inarticulate call, lunged to the attack. Again Reith swung the hat, to catch the rapier in the flaps. He thrust and ran Jad, one-time carrier of Piluna, through the abdomen. Jad struck down with his foil, knocked the rapier from Reith's grip. A grotesque moment he stood looking at Reith in horror and accusation, the blade protruding from his body. He tore it out, flung it aside, advanced on Reith who groped for his dropped knifeshield. As Jad lunged Reith picked up the foil, hurled it point first into Jad's face. The point struck into Jad's open mouth and became fixed, like a fantastic metal tongue. Jad's knees buckled; he collapsed to the ground, and lay with fingers twitching.

Reith, breath rasping in his throat, dropped the hat with proud Piluna into the dirt and went to lean on the pole of a shed.

There was no sound throughout the camp.

Finally Traz Onmale said, "Vaduz has overcome Piluna. The emblem takes on luster. Where are the Judgers? Let them come to judge Jad Piluna."

The three magicians came forward, glowering first at the new corpse, at Traz Onmale and sidelong at Reith.

"Judge," ordered Traz Onmale in his harsh, old-man's voice. "Be sure to judge correctly!"

The magicians consulted in a mutter; then the Chief Magician spoke. "Judgment is difficult. Jad lived a hero's life. He served Piluna with distinction."

"He murdered a girl."

"For good cause: the taint of heresy, traffic with an unclean hybrid! What other religious man might not do the same?"

"He acted beyond his competence. I instruct you to judge him evil. Put him on the pyre. When Braz appears, shoot the evil ashes to hell."

"So be it," muttered the Chief Magician.

Traz Onmale went off into his shed.

Reith stood alone at the center of the compound. In uneasy groups the warriors spoke together, glancing toward Reith with distaste. The time was late afternoon; a bank of heavy clouds obscured the sun. There were flickers and twitches of purple lightning, a hoarse mutter of thunder. Women scurried here and there, covering bundles of fodder and jars of food-pod. The warriors bestirred themselves to tighten the lines holding the tarpaulins down over the great wagons.

Reith looked down at the girl's corpse, which no one seemed interested in carrying away. To allow the body to lie out all night in the rain and wind was unthinkable. Already the pyre was alight, ready to receive the hulk of Jad.

Reith lifted the girl's body, carried it to the pyre and, ignoring the complaints of the old women who tended the flames, laid the body into the kiln with as much composure and grace as he could manage.

With the first spatters of rain, Reith went to that storage shed which had been given over to his use.

Outside the rain pelted down. Sodden women built a rude shelter over the pyre and continued to feed the flames with brush.

Someone came into the shed. Reith backed into the shadows, then the firelight shone on the face of Traz Onmale. He seemed somber, dejected. "Reith Vaduz, where are you?"

Reith came forth. Traz Onmale looked at him, gave his head a glum shake. "Since you have been with the tribe, everything has gone wrong! Dissension, anger, death. The scouts return with news only of empty steppe. Piluna has been tainted. The magicians are at odds with the Onmale. Who are you, why do you bring us such woe?"

"I am what I told you I am," said Reith: "a man from Earth."

"Heresy," said Traz Onmale, without heat. "Emblem Men are the spill of Az. So say the magicians, at least."

Reith pondered a moment, then said, "When ideas are in contradiction, as here, the more powerful ideas usually win. Sometimes this is bad, sometimes good. The society of the Emblems seems bad to me. A change would be for the better. You are ruled by priests who-"

"No," said the boy decisively. "Onmale rules the tribe. I carry that emblem; it speaks through my mouth."

"To some extent. The priests are clever enough to have their own way."

"What do you intend? Do you wish to destroy us?"

"Of course not. I want to destroy no one-unless it becomes necessary to my own survival."

The boy heaved a heavy sigh. "I am confused. You are wrong-or the magicians are wrong."

"The magicians are wrong. Human history on Earth goes back ten thousand years."

Traz Onmale laughed. "Once, before I carried Onmale, the tribe entered the ruins of old Carcegus and there captured a Pnumekin. The magicians tortured him to gain knowledge, but he spoke only to curse each minute of the fifty-two thousand years that men had lived on Tschai ... Fifty-two thousand years against your ten thousand years. It is all very strange."

"Very strange indeed."

Traz Onmale rose to his feet, looked up into the sky, where wind-driven wrack flew across the night sky. "I have been watching the moons," he said in a thin voice. "The magicians are watching likewise. The portents are poor; I believe that there is about to be a conjunction. If Az covers Braz, all is well. If Braz covers Az, then someone new will carry Onmale."

"And you?"

"I must carry aloft the wisdom of Onmale, and set matters right." And Traz Onmale departed the shed.

The tempest roared across the steppe: a night, a day, a second night. On the morning of the second day the sun rose into a clear windy sky. The scouts rode forth as usual, to return pellmell at noon. There was an instant explosion of activity. Tarpaulins were folded, sheds were struck, packed into bundles. Women loaded the drays; warriors rubbed their leap-horses with oil, threw on saddles, attached reins to the sensitive frontal palps. Reith approached Traz Onmale.

"What goes on?"

"A caravan from the east has been sighted at long last. We shall attack along the Ioba River. As Vaduz you may ride with us and take a share of plunder."

He ordered a leap-horse; Reith mounted the ill-smelling beast with trepidation.

It jerked to the unfamiliar weight, thrashing up its knob of a tail. Reith yanked at the reins; the leap-horse crouched and sprang off across the steppe while Reith held on for dear life. From behind came a roar of laughter: the hooting and jeering of experts for the tribulations of a tenderfoot.

Reith finally brought the leap-horse under control and came plunging back. A few moments later the group swept off to the northeast, the black long-necked brutes lunging and foaming, the warriors leaning forward on the saddleplats, knees drawn up, black leather hats flapping; Reith could not help but feel an archaic thrill at riding in the savage cavalcade.

For an hour the Emblem Men pounded across the steppe, bending low when they crossed over skylines. The rolling hills flattened; ahead lay a vast expanse streaked with shadows and dull colors. The troop halted on a hill while the warriors pointed here and there. Traz Onmale now gave orders. Reith pulled his mount up close and strained to listen. "-the south track to the ford. We wait in Bellbird Covert. The Ilanths will make the ford first; they will scout Zad Woods and White Hill. Then we sweep upon the center and make off with the treasure vans. Is all clear? So onward, to Bellbird Covert!"

Down the long slope rushed the Emblems, toward a far line of tall trees and a group of isolated bluffs overlooking Ioba River. In the shelter of a deep forest the Emblem warriors concealed themselves.

Time passed. From afar sounded a faint rumble, and the caravan appeared. Several hundred yards in advance rode three splendid yellow-skinned warriors, wearing black caps surmounted by jawless human skulls. Their beasts were similar to, but larger and rather more bland than the leap-horses; they carried sidearms and short swords, with short rifles laid across their laps.

Now, from the standpoint of the Emblems, everything went awry. The Ilanths failed to plunge across the river but waited watchfully for the caravan. To the river-bank lumbered motordrays with six-foot wheels, piled to astonishing heights with bales, parcels and in certain cases, cages in which huddled men and women.

The caravan commander was a cautious man. Before the drays attempted the ford, he stationed gun-carts to command all the approaches, then sent Ilanths to scout the opposite bank.

In Bellbird Covert the Emblem warriors cursed and fumed. "Wealth, wealth! Goods galore! Sixty prime wagons! But suicide to attempt an attack."

"True. The sand-blasts would strike us down like birds!"

"Is it this for which we waited three tedious months in the Walgram Rolls? Is our luck then so vile?"

"The omens were wrong; last night I looked up at blessed Az; I saw it jib and careen through the clouds: a definite admonition."

"Nothing goes right, all our ventures are thwarted! We are under the influence of Braz."

"Braz-or the work of the black-haired sorcerer who slew Jad Piluna."

"True! And he has come to scathe the raid, where we have always enjoyed success!"

And sour looks began to be turned toward Reith, who made himself inconspicuous.

The war leaders conferred. "We can achieve nothing; we would strew the field with dead warriors and drown our Emblems in Ioba River."

"Well, then-shall we follow and attack at night?"

"No. They are too well-guarded. The commander is Baojian; he takes no risks! His soul to Braz!"

"So, then-three months dawdling for naught!"

"Better for naught than for disaster! Back to camp. The women will have all packed, and so east to Meraghan."

"East, more destitute than when we came west! What abominable luck."

"The omens, the omens! All are at odds!"

"Back to camp, then; nothing for us here."

The warriors swung about and without a backward look sent the leap-horses plunging south across the steppe.

During the early evening, surly and glum, the troop arrived back at the campsite. The women, who had all packed, were cursed for neglect; why were not cauldrons bubbling? pots of beer ready to hand?

The women bawled and cursed in return, only to be drubbed. All hands finally pulled gear and food helter-skelter from the drays.

Traz Onmale stood brooding apart, while Reith was pointedly ignored. The warriors ate hugely, grumbling all the while, then, seated and exhausted, lay back beside the fire.

Az had already risen, but now up into the sky sailed the blue moon Braz, angling athwart the course of Az. The magicians were first to notice and stood with arms pointing in awe and premonition.

The moons converged; it seemed as if they would collide. The warriors gave guttural sounds of dread. But Braz moved before the pink disc, eclipsing it utterly. The Chief Magician gave a wild bellow to the sky: "So be it! So be it!"

Traz Onmale turned and went slowly off to the shadows where by chance stood Reith. "What is all the tumult?" Reith asked.

"Did you not see? Braz overpowered Az. Tomorrow night I must go to Az to expiate our wrongs. No doubt you will go as well to Braz."

"You mean, by way of fire and catapult?"

"Yes. I am lucky to have carried Omnale as long as I have. The bearer before me was not much more than half my age when he was sent to Az."

"Do you think this ritual has any practical value?"

Traz Onmale hesitated. Then: "It is what they expect; they will demand that I cut my throat into the fire. So I must obey."

"Better that we leave now," said Reith. "They will sleep like logs. When they awake we will be far from here."

"What? The two of us? Where would we fare?"

"I don't know. Is there no land where folk live without murder?"

"Perhaps such places exist. But not on Aman Steppe."

"If we could take possession of the scout-boat, and if I were given time to repair it, we could leave Tschai and return to Earth."

"Impossible. The Chasch took the ship. It is lost to you forever."

"So I fear. In any case, we'd do better to depart now than wait to be killed tomorrow."

Traz Onmale stood staring up at the moons. "Onmale orders me to stay. I cannot pervert the Onmale. It has never fled; it has always pursued duty to the death."

"Duty doesn't include futile suicide," said Reith. He made a sudden motion, seized Traz Onmale's hat, wrenched loose the emblem. Traz gave a croak of almost physical pain, then stood staring at Reith. "What do you do? It is death to touch the Onmale!"

"You are no longer Traz Onmale; you are Traz."

The boy seemed to shrink, to lessen in stature. "Very well," he said in a subdued voice. "I do not care to die." He looked around the camp. "We must go afoot. If we try to harness leap-horses they will scream and gnash their horns.

You wait here. I will fetch cloaks and a parcel of food." He departed, leaving Reith with the emblem of Onmale.

In the light of the moons he looked at it and it seemed to stare back at him, issuing orders of baleful import. Reith dug a hole in the ground, dropped in Onmale. It seemed to shiver, give a soundless shriek of anguish; he covered the gleaming emblem, feeling haunted and guilty, and when he rose to his feet his hands were shaking and clammy, and sweat trickled down his back.

Time passed: an hour? Two hours? Reith was unable to estimate. Since arriving on Tschai his time sense had gone awry.

The moons slid down the sky; midnight approached, passed; night sounds came in off the steppe; a faint high-pitched yelping of nighthounds, a great muffled belch. In the camp the fires dwindled to embers; the mutter of voices ceased.

The boy came silently up behind him. "I'm ready. Here is your cloak and a pack of food."

Reith was aware that he spoke in a new voice, less certain, less brusque. His black hat seemed strangely plain. He looked at Reith's hands and briefly around the shed, but made no inquiry concerning the Onmale.

They slipped off to the north, climbed the hillside so as to walk along the ridge. "We'll be easier for the night-hounds to see," muttered Traz, "but the.

attanders keep to the shadows of the swales."

"If we can reach the forest, and the tree where I hope my harness still hangs, we'll be considerably safer. Then..." He paused. The future was a blank expanse.

They gained the crest of the hill and halted a moment to rest. The high moons cast a wan light across the steppes, filling the hollows with darkness. From not too far to the north came a series of low wails. "Down," hissed Traz. "Lie flat.

The hounds are running."

They lay without moving for fifteen minutes. The eerie cries sounded again, toward the east. "Come," said Traz. "They're circling the camp, hoping for a staked child."

They struck off to the south, up and down, avoiding the dark swales as much as possible. "The night is old," said Traz. "When light comes the Emblems will trail us. If we reach the river we can lose them. If the marshmen take us, we'll fare as badly, or worse."

For two hours they walked. The eastern sky began to show a watery yellow light, barred by streaks of black cloud, and ahead rose the loom of the forest. Traz looked back the way they had come. "The camp will be astir. The women will be fire-building. Presently the magicians will come to seek out the Onmale. That would have been me. Since I am gone the camp will be in turmoil. There will be curses and shouts: high anger. The Emblems will run to their leap-horses, and be off pellmell!" Once more Traz searched the horizons. "They'll be along soon."

The two walked, and reached the edge of the forest, still dark and dank and pooled with night shadows. Traz hesitated, looking into the forest, then back across the steppes.

"How far to the bog?" asked Reith.

"Not far. A mile or two. But I smell a berl."

Reith tested the air and detected an acrid fetor.

"It might be only the spoor," said Traz in a husky voice. "The Emblems will be here in a very few minutes. We'd best try to reach the river."

"First the ejection harness!"

Traz gave a fatalistic shrug, plunged into the forest. Reith turned a last look over his shoulder. At the far dim edge of vision a set of hurrying black specks had appeared. He hurried after Traz, who moved with great care, stopping to listen and smell the air. In a fever of impatience Reith pressed at his back.

Traz speeded his pace, and presently they were almost running over the sodden leaf-mold. From far behind Reith thought to hear a set of savage boots.

Traz stopped short. "Here is the tree." He pointed up. "Is that what you want?"

"Yes," said Reith with heartfelt relief. "I was afraid it might be gone."

Traz climbed the tree, lowered the seat. Reith snapped open the flap, with drew his hand-gun, kissed it in rapture, thrust it in his belt.

"Hurry," said Traz anxiously. "I hear the Emblems; they're not far behind."

Reith pulled forth the survival pack, buckled it on his back. "Let's go. Now they follow at their own risk."

Traz led the way around the bog, taking pains to conceal the signs of their passage, doubling back, swinging across a twenty-foot finger of black muck on a hanging branch, climbing another tree, letting it bend beneath his weight to carry him sixty feet away to the opposite side of a dense clump of reeds. Reith followed each of his ploys. The voices of the Emblem warriors were now clearly audible.

Traz and Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of black-brown water. Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held together by living reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith hid in a nearby clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came crashing through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with catapults at the ready. They ran to the river's edge, pointed to the marks where Traz had dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of floating vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was being carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave cries of fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along the bank toward the drifting raft.

"Quick," whispered Traz. "They won't be fooled long. We'll go back along their tracks."

Back away from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest, Traz and Reith ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming silent, then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. "They've picked up our trail once again," gasped Traz. "They'll be coming on leap-horses; we'll never-" He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid half-sweet fetor once again. "The berl," whispered Traz. "Through here ... Up this tree."

With the survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily green branches of a tree. "Higher," said Traz. "The beast can lunge high."

The berl appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar's-head split by a vast mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great horny hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of the warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance up toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before.

"Ridiculous. It's only a beast..."

The creature disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit halted abruptly. "They smell the berl," said Traz. "Let's be off."

They climbed down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells of horror, a guttural gnashing roar.

"We're safe from the Emblems," said Traz in a hollow voice. "Those who live will depart." He turned Reith a troubled glance. "When they go back to the camp there will be no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?"

"I don't think so," said Reith. "The magicians will see to that."

Presently they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread flat and empty, drenched in an aromatic honey-colored light. Reith asked, "What is to the west of us?"

"The West Aman and the country of the Old Chasch. Then the Jang Pinnacles.

Beyond are the Blue Chasch and the Aesedra Bight."

"To the south?"

"The marshes. The marsh men live there, on rafts. They are different from us: little yellow people with white eyes. Cruel and cunning as Blue Chasch."

"They have no cities?"

"No. There are cities there"-Traz made a gesture generally toward the north-"all ruined. There are old cities everywhere along the steppes. They are haunted, and there are Phung, as well, who live among the ruins."

Reith asked further questions regarding the geography and life of Tschai, to find Traz's knowledge spotty. The Dirdir and Dirdirmen lived beyond the sea; where, he was uncertain. There were three types of Chasch: the Old Chasch, a decadent remnant of a once-powerful race, now concentrated around the Jang Pinnacles; the Green Chasch, nomads of the Dead Steppe; and the Blue Chasch.

Traz detested all the Chasch indiscriminately, though he had never seen Old Chasch. "The Green are terrible: demons! They keep to the Dead Steppe. The Emblems stay to the south, except for raids and caravan pillage. The caravan we failed to loot skirted far south to avoid the Greens."

"Where was it bound?"

"Probably Pera, or maybe to Jalkh on the Lesmatic Sea. Most likely Pera.

North-South caravans trade between Jalkh and Mazuun. EastWest caravans move between Pera and Coad."

"These are cities where men live?"

Traz shrugged. "Hardly cities. Settled places. But I know little, only what I have heard the magicians say. Are you hungry? I am. Let us eat."

On a fallen log they sat and ate chunks of caked porridge and drank from leather flasks of beer. Traz pointed to a low weed on which grew small white globules.

"We'll never starve so long as pilgrim plant grows ... And see yonder black clumps? That is watak. The roots store a gallon of sap. If you drink nothing but watak you become deaf, but for short periods there is no harm."

Reith opened his survival pack: "I can draw water from the ground with this sheet of film, or convert sea-water with this purifier ... These are food pills, enough for a month .... This is an energy cell ... A medical kit ... Knife, compass, scanscope .....ranscom ..." Reith examined the transcom with a sudden thrill of interest.

"What is that device?" asked Traz.

"Half of a communication system. There was another in Paul Waunder's pack, which went with the space-boat. I can broadcast a signal which will bring an automatic response from the other set and give the other set's location." Reith pushed the Find button. A compass arrow swung to the northwest; a counter flashed a white

6.2 and a red 2. "The other set-and presumably the space-boat-is 6.2 times 10 to the second, or 620 miles northwest."

"That would be in the country of the Blue Chasch. We knew that already."

Reith looked off to the northwest, ruminating. "We don't want to go south into the marshes, or back into the forest. What lies to the east, beyond the steppes?"

"I don't know. I think the Draschade Ocean. It is far away."

"Is that where the caravans come from?"

"Coad is on a gulf which connects to the Draschade. Between is all of Aman Steppe, the Emblem Men and other tribes as well: the Kite-fighters, the Mad Axes, the Berl Totems, the Yellow Blacks and others beyond my knowledge."

Reith considered. His space-boat had been taken by the Blue Chasch into the northwest. Northwest therefore seemed the most reasonable direction in which to fare.

Traz sat dozing, chin on his chest. Wearing Onmale he had demonstrated a bleak unrelenting nature; now, with the soul of the emblem lifted from his own, he had become forlorn and wistful, though still far more reserved than Reith thought natural.

Reith's own eyelids were drooping with fatigue: the sunlight was warm; the spot seemed secure ... What if the berl should return? Reith forced himself to wakefulness. While Traz slept he repacked his gear.