The Valley of Creation

Chapter XIII THE FIGHT IN THE PALACE

For a long moment they stood, the three of them, without movement or speech. The dead boy lay looking quietly into eternity, and there was no sound save the hissing of the torches as they burned. Nothing stirred but the flames, their light running ragged and uncertain over the gleaming walls.

Over and over, above his horror at the brutality of this thing, the thought tolled like a bell in Nelson's mind: Barin is dead, and I shall never be a man again.

It was a thought he could not face.

"I knew nothing of this," said Li Kin out of the depths of shame — shame that his own kind could have done such a thing. "I swear it."

Nelson realized then that Tark had swung around toward Li Kin and that there was death in his green eyes.

Nelson sprang, interposing his wolf body between them.

'^Wait, Tark!" he thought swiftly. "Li Kin speaks the truth. He, of all of us, never wished to come here, never wished your people harm. Sloan was here and Van Voss. Not this one."

Tark's hairy body quivered. He did not seem to have heard.

Nelson told him, "Tark, listen to me! Barin was the price of my body. I want as much as you to punish those who did this. And for that we need Li Kin's help. Do you hear me?"

Slowly, reluctantly, Tark answered, "I hear." He relaxed but not much, "Let us go and find the others."

The torchlight gleamed like blood upon his fangs. "No," said Nelson. "Li Kin and I will go. You'll wait."

Swiftly, over Tark's snarling protest, he pressed home the truth. "You know the outland weapons. You'd be dead before you could spring. You can better avenge Barin by staying alive to fight for the Brotherhood."

"Very well," came Tark's thought finally. Then, suspiciously, "What have you to say to these men, Eric Nelson?"

"I have much to say," answered Nelson grimly, looking at Barin. Then he added ironically, "Don't worry, Tark. Even if I would I can't betray you. You have the best hostage a man can give — his own body!"

Tark growled assent and lay down like a great dog beside the dead boy to wait.

Li Kin said with a terrible lack of emotion, "They are not men, those two. They are butchers. They are lower than the brutes."

He was a very tired man, Li Kin. Nelson could feel the overpowering weariness of his mind. Weary of war and bloodshed and suffering and the pointless days that wandered on to nowhere. Weary of tears that had long ago been shed, of memories that were fainter than forgotten dreams, of the very beating of his heart.

"Let us go," said Nelson and led the way out of the cell.

They found Sloan and Van Voss together in the vast gloomy Council Hall. They were alone. They had a jar of wine on the table between them and their faces in the flaring torchlight were the faces of happy men.

They glanced up as Li Kin entered and then, as they saw the wolf-shape that moved beside him, they sprang up, reaching for their guns.

Li Kin flung up his hand to stop them. He bent down, shielding Nelson's wolf-body with his own body, and said with a strange dreamy smile, "Put on the thought-crowns, my friends. You are about to learn something of the powers you fight against."

Nelson watched them as they picked up the platinum circles and put them on, frowning, their hands still ready on their gun butts.

He sent his thought out to them. "Haven't you a word of welcome for me — Eric Nelson?"

Van Voss swore and drew his gun. "A beast-spy from Vruun, who tries to trick us like children! Get out of the way, Li Kin."

But Sloan snapped, "Hold on, Piet." Nelson could feel his mind probing, testing.

Nelson told them, "You don't believe? Then listen."

Rapidly, he reminded them of things they had done together that only Eric Nelson could know. Gradually Van Voss' heavy jaw fell and his gun slid back into the holster. He sat down, staring.

Sloan let out a long harsh breath and swore softly. "How was this done and why?"

"The punishment of the Guardian!" said a voice from across the hall — a voice full of fear.

The voice was Shan Kar's. He came from a side door across the shadowy hall, his eyes drugged with sleep. Apparently the voices had awakened him and he had come in time to hear.

He looked at Nelson with fear-wide eyes. "Kree did this to you, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did." Nelson told them all that had happened.

Sloan's hard brown face was tight. "Then you have to take Barin back to get your own body back?"

"Yes," Nelson answered. "And I've just come from Barin."

"So you know, do you?" Sloan said calmly.

"Yes, I know," Nelson told him. He added, with all his hatred throbbing in his thought, "You murdering swine."

Shan Kar looked bewildered. "What has happened to Barin?"

"Torture," Nelson answered. "Death."

He kept his wolf-gaze on Sloan and Van Voss, and Li Kin also regarded them with the eyes of a man sitting in judgment.

Shan Kar swung to Sloan. "It's not true, is it?"

Sloan shrugged. "I had Piet work the kid over. He could have talked. Was it our fault if he made it tough for himself?"

Sloan grinned. "You should have realized what I did, Nelson. If the Guardian of the Brotherhood holds the secret of the way into the Cavern as an hereditary trust, his son would know it too."

"And now you know it."

"That's right, Nelson. Now I know it."

Shan Kar said incredulously, "You tortured that secret out of him?"

"Come off it," Sloan answered disgustedly. "You'd have killed him yourself."

"A clean death, the fortunes of war-that's one thing," said Shan Kar. "But torture of a helpless prisoner, a boy—"

"Listen," said Nick Sloan harshly, "I came here for platinum and I'm going to get it. I have the secret of the Cavern now and in the morning we start our drive on Vruun. If you're with me, Shan Kar, that's fine. If you're not, that's fine too, and the Brotherhood, what's left of it, can do what they want to you after I'm gone."

He grinned and added, "From what they did to Nelson, I don't think you'd like what they'd do to you."

Quorr's words came back to Nelson. If we sin, we are banished into the bodies of the little hunted things that are born only to be eaten.

He saw the look that came over Shan Kar's face and knew that he too was thinking of that.

But Shan Kar straightened his shoulders and told Sloan, "That is an empty boast. You can never take Vruun or the Cavern without us."

"He's right," Nelson put it edgedly. "I've been a day and night in the forest. The Clans are out in full force, waiting. They'll pull you down and tear you to pieces in the woods."

Sloan smiled and shook his head. "Oh, no," he said. "They won't, because there won't be any woods."

Nelson stiffened. He knew Sloan, and he knew that something particularly horrible and efficient had been planned. "What do you mean?"

"Simple," Sloan answered. "The prevailing wind blows north toward Vruun and in this dry season the woods are like tinder. All it needs is a few little matches."

"Fire!"

The mind of Eric Nelson, which was a human mind, recoiled in horror from the plan, so beautifully simple, so unutterably cruel. And his body, which was the body of a wolf, was shaken to its very core by a fear that was as old as the first four-footed creature who fled from a rush of burning lava.

"But you can't do that!" Shan Kar said unbelievingly. "The suffering, the destruction-"

Li Kin echoed, "Sloan, you can't!"

"Oh, lord!" said Sloan with the utter contempt of the professional for the amateur. "What are we fighting here, a war or a tea-party? Naturally there'll be suffering and destruction. There will also be a victory, and it won't cost us anything but the price of a few matches. What more do you want, Shan Kar? I'm handing you L'Lan on a platter!"

He slammed his hand down hard on the table. "Are you with me, Shan Kar, or aren't you?"

The Humanite leader looked sick. But after a while he nodded. "We'll be with you, Sloan. We have no other choice now."

"I thought you'd understand that," Sloan said curtly. Then he turned and looked at the wolf that was Eric Nelson. "Nelson, you're in a cursed creepy jam. But we'll use that trick machine you told about to get you back into your own body, when we take Vruun."

Nelson sent him a level thought. "Sloan, I'm not helping you to take Vruun, or conquer the Brotherhood. Your murder of Barin and this plan to destroy the Clans — they mean that I'm through with you."

"You'd go back on the bargain that you made with me?" Shan Kar demanded.

"I made no bargain," Nelson reminded him swiftly. "I told you in Yen Shi that I would make no bargains in the dark. And you kept us in the dark, Shan Kar.

"You kept us in ignorance of what the Brotherhood you want to shatter is really like, of what you're really trying to do here. Now you're going to help Sloan bring fire and death to this valley. I tell you straight, from here on I'm against you!"

Sloan laughed harshly. "You're forgetting something, Nelson. You're forgetting that we're your only chance of getting your body back! You can't do a thing but string along with us."

"I can go back to Vruun," Nelson told him.

"Go back and tell them that Barin's dead?" jeered the other. "You'd not only be a wolf then, you'd be a dead wolf."

"I'd rather be that than an accomplice in what you plan to do!" flashed Nelson.

Sloan's eyes narrowed. "If that's so, I might as well make you a dead wolf right here and save you the trip."

His gun started to flash out. But Li Kin's voice stopped him. Out of the corner of his eye Nelson saw that Li Kin had already drawn his gun and that it was as steady as a rock in his hand.

"Drop it, Sloan," he said.

Sloan dropped it.

Piet Van Voss sat perfectly still behind the table, his hands out of sight. His face appeared stupid with surprise.

"What is this?" Sloan demanded. "More mutiny in the ranks?"

Li Kin said, "I'm with Nelson."

Sloan's hard brown face cracked, in a derisive smile. "That's fine," he said. "I hope you're more use to him—"

Van Voss fired from under the table. The shot thundered and rang from the high glassy walls in ricocheting echoes.

Li Kin dropped his weapon, put both hands over his stomach and sat down with an expression of surprise on his face. Then he slumped forward. Sloan's voice went calmly on, after that pause.

"— than you were to me," he finished. Then, jerking around, he yelled, "Watch him, Piet!"

Nelson was already in mid-leap, his wolf-body going like an arrow for the Dutchman's throat.

His teeth met in the flesh of the man's forearm, flung up to ward him off. They fell to the floor in a crashing tangle. Sloan stooped swiftly to pick up his gun.

Suddenly, from nowhere, Tark came like a leaping shadow. His charge knocked Sloan rolling. Shan Kar turned and ran from the room.

Above the yells and the curses and the worrying, growling sounds Nelson caught Tark's mental cry.

"There is no time now, outlander! Others come and Shan Kar is raising the alarm. The palace is a trap!"

He turned and raced for the door with Nelson after him. Behind them, Sloan and Van Voss, bleeding and half-stunned, were able to muster only one wild shot before the two darting wolf-shapes had vanished down the long dark corridor.

Tark's mind sent out a rallying cry. "Hatha! Ei! We are discovered!"

They tore onward through the labyrinth of corridors, shoulder to shoulder. As they ran Nelson sent a swift thought.

"You saved my life. How—?"

"I did not trust you completely, outlander," Tark answered. "I crept close to the Council Hall and listened to your thoughts."

He checked suddenly. "They come. The way is blocked."

They had reached the head of the great entrance hall, a broad, high-arched, gloomy immensity, lighted by torches set along its glassy walls. Through the wide open doors at its far end Nelson could see the dark trees of the forest avenue outside.

Out there was safety and escape. But they were barred from it. The broad open doorway was full of torch-flames and running men as hastily summoned Humanite warriors came pouring into the hall.

There was no other way out and no turning back. For they could hear Sloan and Van Voss coming fast behind them.

Tark eyed the Humanites and their naked swords and uttered a curt, sharp thought.

"Rush them!"

He shot off down the hall like a streak of gray lightning, with Nelson beside him.