The Valley of Creation

Chapter XII DEATH IN ANSHAN

All through the long hot hours of the day they hid there, waiting — the great eagle and the man who was now a wolf. It was the dry season. Nelson could see how the stream had dropped in its rocky bed and the scent of pine needles lay heavy on the warm still air. All the forest seemed to sleep.

They talked, the two of them, with their thoughts.

Once Nelson said, "You seem friendly to me, Ei. You stood up for me in the Council Hall. I don't understand."

The eagle answered, "You saved one of my Clan from torture by Shan Kar. The other Winged One, who escaped, saw and told."

"I see." Nelson was silent for a time. Then he said, "I have learned many things in the forest, Ei. I have learned many things from the mind of Asha, which I share. I would like to learn also from yours if it is possible."

He caught the bright, sharp glance from Ei's golden eyes. A look that was wise and understanding.

"It is possible," Ei said. "Let your mind relax."

Nelson laid his rough wolf's head on his paws and let his eyes drop shut. The heat of the day made it easy to relax. Almost he dropped into a half doze.

And then his mind was touched by another. A wise mind, wiser far than Asha's because it was far older, a mind whetted and honed to razor sharpness by the upper air, keen as the eagle's curving beak and sharp as his talons — able to grip and tear and worry a thought until its inner bones lay bare and truthful.

Once again Nelson had the strange experience of seeing the world through the eyes of another being.

He saw the whole valley of L'Lan spread out below him, so far down that the great trees of the forest appeared as a mere roughness of texture, like a tapestry thrown over the knees of the mountains. He saw the high crags of the barrier cliffs, leaping and thrusting up into the sky, tossing the cold winds from their shoulders in flying clouds of snow, exulting in the sun.

In imagination his lungs were filled with air that was thin and pure and more intoxicating than wine. He felt the surging strength of mighty wings and flung himself headlong into the buffeting, swirling gales that swept among the high peaks and fought them joyously as a swimmer fights the surf. He knew the long whistling rush of the swoop, the exquisite precision of the tilting wing, the excitement of the strike and kill.

All this, and much more. The gossip and the quarrels of the eyries, the time of mating and the young. The first flight, when the young untried wings plunge out into the blue gulf and beat and stagger and hold. And the long silent times when Ei and the others like him would perch on the high crags and brood, thinking-thinking with minds like those of men, there among the vast upper reaches, where thought must be as broad as the heavens and as clean as the snow.

Here again, more clearly and strongly than before, in the older wisdom of Ei's thought, Nelson felt the power of the Clan law and the Brotherhood. L'Lan was a world unto itself. No matter how the social order ran between man and beast in the outer world, here the Brotherhood was right. The rough but obvious parallel of tyranny and democracy occurred to him.

He began suddenly to detest Shan Kar. As for Sloan and Piet Van Voss and himself, he was filled with loathing. Not for the first time he thought back over the years of his life and was conscious of bitter regret.

He thought somberly, "The wolf and the tiger of the outer world, who have only the minds of beasts, are worthier than I."

Ei answered quietly, "Not one of us lives who is without shame at one time or another. It is not the end of the world."

There was silence for a time between their thoughts, and then Nelson asked, "Why did Nsharra send you?"

"She will tell you that herself," Ei answered. "Wait."

The long still hours of the afternoon wheeled over them. The drooping forest brooded and, beneath the trees, the watching scouts of the Clans slept with sheathed claw and covered fang, a light and uneasy sleep. At sunset Ei flew off and at dusk he returned, guiding Nsharra. She rode the black stallion, Hatha, and Tark loped beside her, his lolling tongue dripping in the heat.

At sight of Tark, Nelson sprang up, bristling. But Tark flung himself down in the cool water and rolled, luxuriating.

"A long run from Vruun, in the dry season," came his thought. He snapped the water between his jaws, biting it like a puppy.

Nelson watched Nsharra as she slid from Hatha's back. Even now, when with his wolf's vision all her exquisite coloring was dulled to a monotony of black and gray and the pure white of her skin, he thought that she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.

He had no anger for her now. All that was long burned out of him and he knew that, in Kree's place, he would have done the same or worse. All he remembered was that Nsharra had pleaded for him and that there had been tears on her cheeks.

The wild hope rose in him that she had come to take him back to Vruun to his own body.

She divined his thought and said, "Not yet, Eric Nelson."

Nelson's whole body drooped with the sickening shock of disappointment, and then he felt Nsharra's hand on his rough head and heard her thought.

"I am not without heart, outlander. My father has given you an impossible task. I have brought Tark and Hatha and Ei to help you."

"Without Kree's knowledge," growled Tark, who had obviously been persuaded against his will.

Hatha snorted and added, "The lightning will not equal his anger when he learns of it."

Nelson told the girl, "You're not doing this for me."

She looked at him steadily and answered, "The one goes with the other. If you fail, my brother Barin will die. My father would sacrifice him if necessary, as he would sacrifice me or himself for the good of the Clans. But I want to save him. Therefore I must save you."

"That's all clear," said Nelson grimly. "Well, I'm ready."

But they waited in silence until full dark.

Then Tark rose and shook himself. He ordered, "You will wait here, Nsharra."

When she started to protest they all three cried her down, Hatha refusing to carry her. She went to the very edge of the forest with them, sat down sulkily to wait. Then her face cleared.

"Good luck," came her thought and, for a second, Nelson had a queer feeling that she meant that for him too — for Eric Nelson, apart from Barin or anything else.

Then Ei's wings thundered as they beat up into the dark sky, and the three of them, Tark and Hatha and the wolf Asha who was Eric Nelson, slipped silently out across the plain toward Anshan.

Ei soared over them, watching the Humanite outposts, sending down his thought-word of the movements of the guards. Nelson realized that, even with his keen wolf-senses, he could never have made it alone through the outer defenses. Sloan's military genius, long trained in guerrilla warfare, shone out in the way he had placed his sentinels so that almost every inch of the plain was under surveillance.

Hatha said, "We must make it before moonrise. I am not small enough to hide like a mouse in the grass with you Hairy Ones."

They went on silently, swiftly, following the direction of Ei's mind as he threaded them like a needle though the sentries, taking advantage of every blade of grass and every fold of the ground.

The stallion was black as the night itself and there was no skyline to show him against the background of the forest. His hoofs fell daintily as dry leaves on the turf. The two wolves were no more than two wisps of gray smoke blown on the wind.

Even so, twice they were almost discovered, lying flat until it was safe to creep on again. The first flooding silver of the moonlight touched the eastern peaks as they slipped into the shelter of the woods that bordered the river. Silent as shadows, they followed the winding forest ways into the city.

Night lay heavy on Anshan. The long forested avenues brooded, deserted and silent. Where for countless centuries the hoofed and padded feet of the Clans had walked, the dust and the dry leaves blew lonely on the wind and even the birds had gone.

The bubble-domes and the towers glistened cold as black ice under the rising moon and, where the buildings fronted on the forest ways, the empty doorways watched them pass and gaped in silent woe.

Where are they now, the children of the Brotherhood? Where have they gone, the tall hunters, and the Winged Ones, and the mothers with their cubs?

The trees made a sound of weeping in the night wind, and they were answered by the hollow voices of the eyrie-towers high above, where the nests of the eagles had fallen into dust.

Where the Humanites lived, in the midst of this desertion, torches burned inside the walls, so that here and there a building would burst upon the darkness in a blaze of sullen light. But there was no sound of revelry or excitement. The Humanites hovered on the edge of war. They were tensely ready but they were not gay.

No one saw the four beasts who went swiftly and quietly down the dark forest avenues toward the palace of Anshan. Near it, Nelson heard the stallion's angry snort. The wind had brought him scent of his mates, those enslaved ones penned in the Humanite stables.

"Silence!" snapped Tark. "Do you want to rouse the city?"

"My Clan-brothers!" came Hatha's fierce thought. "Slaves of the Humanites. Should I rejoice?" His hoof-beats quickened. "By the Cavern, I'll free them!"

Tark sprang at his nose, his teeth clicking purposely just close enough to give the stallion pause.

"You'll ruin everything," Tark said furiously. "Our first task is to get Barin safely away. After that we'll see."

"He is right, Hatha," came Ei's thought.

Reluctantly, sullenly, Hatha consented.

"You and Ei must wait here," Tark said. "The outlander and I can move better inside. Keep watch and be ready if we meet trouble."

The two waited, the eagle perched high in a tree-top, the stallion sulking in the darkness below. Nelson and Tark were two slinking wolf-shadows as they went through the darkness toward the palace. They avoided the big open doorway through which they could glimpse the great torchlit entrance hall.

Instead they circled the palace until they found a side entrance, inside which they could scent no guards. They slipped into the building and paused, sniffing. Then on through the dusty deserted corridors of the sleeping pile they went and came at last to the rooms where Nelson and his comrades had been quartered.

It is very strange, thought Nelson, that now I creep into these rooms on four feet and that, before I enter, I know that only Li Kin is here.

One dim lamp burned in the room. The little Chinese lay on his cot, his face relaxed in sleep-the face, Nelson thought, of an unhappy child, hollowed with a long hunger of the soul. He felt a warm surge of affection for Li Kin.

"Wait," he told Tark. "I will wake him."

Tark waited, his nose wrinkling with disgust at the alien odors of the outlanders. Nelson padded over to the cot, wondering how to wake Li Kin without causing him to cry out in terror and bring the others running. He felt that he could talk to Li Kin alone of all these men he had fought and drunk with for so long.

He hesitated over the sleeping man and Li Kin stirred and moaned uneasily. Then Nelson saw the dull platinum circle of the thought-crown that lay with Li Kin's things beside the bed. He picked it up carefully in his jaws and laid it by Li Kin's head. At the touch of the cold metal the Chinese stirred again and sighed.

The thought-crown was not in place but Nelson hoped that the contact would enable him to get through a message to Li Kin's relaxed mind. He remembered how he had heard Nsharra and Tark all those centuries ago in Yen Shi.

"Li Kin," he sent his urgent thought, "Wake, Li Kin, and do not fear. It is I, Eric Nelson."

Over and over, soothingly, and presently Li Kin opened his eyes and said aloud in a startled voice. "Who calls?"

Then he saw the gray wolf standing over him and Tark's eyes burning green in the shadows and his mouth opened for a scream.

Nelson leaped. He smothered the cry and crushed Li Kin's slight body with his own weight until he stopped struggling. Then he lifted the thought-crown again in his teeth and offered it. Staring wildly, Li Kin took the thing in shaking hands and put it on.

"Li, it is I — Eric Nelson!" he thought swiftly.

"Nelson?" came Li Kin's numb thought. His eyes dilated in horror. "It is a nightmare. I am dreaming."

Nelson's thoughts raced, telling the other what happened. Li Kin shook his head.

"Sorcery. The power of those who were before man." Then, heavily, "We did evil, Eric Nelson, to come to L'Lan with our weapons. For that evil we shall die."

"Very probably," Nelson answered, "but just now I need your hands to release Barin, so that I can get my own hands back. Will you help?"

Li Kin nodded. It was a dazed, queer sort of nod. Nelson knew what Li Kin was thinking. He was thinking that the heavy sword of Fate was weighing upon the woven strand of his years and would presently cut it through and that, in the woven strand, there were few bright strands, very few among the many that were strained and drab.

"Of course," nodded Li Kin. "I will help." He fumbled for his spectacles, put them on and rose, pulling his jacket straight. Then he went out with the two wolves trotting like two silent shadows at his heels.

The corridors were empty, the moonlight falling through the vaulted glass in a strange dusky light such as is seen only in dreams.

Li Kin's thought informed them, "The others hold council."

"Why aren't you with them?" Nelson asked.

Li Kin shrugged. "I can better spend my time in sleep. You know how much my word weighs with Sloan."

They came to the prison wing. Here as before the torches flared but now there were no guards. Nelson and Tark, who had slipped back into the shadows, rejoined the little Chinese.

Li Kin's thought was puzzled. "I can't understand it. Shan Kar keeps the boy under guard at all times."

Something came drifting to Nelson on the sluggish air. A little red whisper that made his nerve-ends ripple. He saw the hackles ridge up along Tark's spine and then the two of them ran ahead of Li Kin, going low to the ground with a slinking gait, up to the door of Barin's cell.

Before Li Kin unbarred the door, they knew what they would see.

Barin lay on the floor. The smell of death was on him, and the smell of blood. He had died only a short time before and he had not died easily. The reek of Piet Van Voss was strong in the little room.

Tark's sorrow burst from him in one wailing cry that was quickly checked. Nelson caught the wild, raging thought of the Clan-leader.

"I will avenge!"