Wulfston's odyssey

Chapter Three

Gasping for breath, Wulfston felt the surf carry him toward the beach, but a powerful undertow swept him back to sea again. He struggled to pull air into his burning lungs, and took in a mouthful of sea and sand.

Another surge swept him toward shore, but pulled him under and rolled him in a helpless tangle. As it retreated he felt sand beneath him, and thrust his feet down. The wave carried his purchase from beneath him, but his feet sank ankle-deep in the shifting sand.

Lurching to his knees, he wheezed, the water a cold ache in his lungs, closing out the air. But there was land under him!

He forced gritty eyes open and saw the beach, stumbled toward it pursued by another voracious wave, and fell on his face at the edge of the water.

For an endless time he coughed and vomited sand and seawater, leaving his throat and nasal passages raw. When the spasms finally passed, he was weak and sick… and alone.

His eyes still burned, but he could open them. To the west was the empty sea, all traces of the Night Queen swallowed in its depths save for black smoke drifting toward the clearing horizon. The tide retreated in a steady ebb and flow. North and south stretched the beach, with no signs of life except three little brown birds following the edges of the waves back and forth, snatching exposed edibles.

To the east stood a forest, impenetrable as a solid wall. It lined the beach in both directions, as far as he could see, unfamiliar and forbidding. But unless he found a stream running down to the shore he would have to go inland to search for fresh water.

When he could stand, Wulfston assessed himself. He was bruised and aching, but in the uncertainty of what lay ahead, he dared not waste energy healing such minor ills. He seemed to have no broken bones, but when he tried to walk his feet responded with sharp pain.

Wulfston quickly discovered the problem: he was wearing hose, a silk shirt, and a lightweight tabard that was now soggy and uncomfortable. His hose had been torn in the surf, and a few recalcitrant threads clung between his bare toes, cutting into the tender flesh. He reached for his knife, but it was gone.

Picking up a broken shell, he cut off the hose at his ankles, leaving his feet bare.

From the calves upward, although they bore holes, his hose were in good enough condition to provide some warmth against the coming night. He took them off, along with the tabard, letting the shirt dry on his body. Ordinarily he would have had everything dry with a thought; alone and exposed, he feared to waste what power he had left on mere comfort.

Above the tideline, the sand was dry. Wulfston laid tabard and hose out there; they couldn’t get any sandier than they already were. The waves had driven sand into every pore and crevice of his body.

It was warm enough to go without even the shirt, but although there was no one in sight, he felt defenseless enough without stripping naked. Modesty was better served, though, by turning the shirt into a makeshift loincloth.

Remembering the women Reading through his clothes on Freedom Island, he wondered if anyone were Reading him now, or even watching from the dense forest. He couldn’t worry about that. He had to try to find survivors of the shipwreck.

He wondered whether he should try north or south, until he remembered that Chulaika had said the harbor Sukuru had used was to the south.

Surviving Readers would be scanning for him-for anyone who had reached shore. Further reason not to use his Adept powers: they made him unReadable except to visualization, a technique a weary Reader would not be using after the battle with the sea.

So he picked up his soggy clothes and trudged down the beach, keeping as far as he could manage from the edge of the threatening forest.

Before he had gone half a mile, his feet were cut and bleeding from sharp shell fragments buried in the sand. He cursed himself for kicking his boots off in the sea-but they had filled with water and weighed him down. Rather than risk infection, he used healing power to close the cuts, and continued on his way.

Up ahead, he saw a shape at the edge of the water-a survivor! He broke into a run, but the man didn’t stir. When Wulfston touched him, he knew at once that he was dead; the body was cold and stiff, already starting to bloat.

Wulfston turned the man over, and recognized one of the Night Queen sailors, one rigid hand gripping a piece of railing. Should he use the strength needed to create a funeral pyre-white heat to return the body properly to the elements? The man’s clothes were so wet-

And, sturdy workman’s garments, they were in much better condition than Wulfston’s.

He was uneasy at the thought of robbing the dead, yet this man had no further use for that heavy seaman’s shirt and those thick-soled shoes that might well have been what pulled him under and drowned him.

I will give him a proper funeral pyre in exchange for what he can no longer use, Wulfston decided, and bent to the task of stripping the rigid corpse.

But the moment he began to move the body, a shout rang out from the edge of the forest.

Wulfston looked up.

A dozen men ran toward him, armed with knives, spears, and clubs.

Like Wulfston, they were naked except for a covering about their loins, but they wore chains of what appeared to be bones about their necks.

Other than that, they wore only headbands, all alike, each with the same symbol in bright beadwork.

They charged down the beach, then paused to throw their spears-and Wulfston saw a weapon new to him.

What had appeared to be a spear was actually made of two pieces. When a man flung one, he kept the heavier lower end in his hand, while something like a long, heavy arrow shot forth with the strength of his swing and whizzed toward Wulfston!

He used his powers to deflect the arrows, but his attackers kept coming.

He sent a sheet of flame leaping before the startled band, but the moment it disappeared they charged toward him. As they spread out in a semicircle, Wulfston knew he had made a mistake in giving his Adept powers away. They knew how to take an Adept: divide his attention and make him use up his strength.

If his powers had been at full strength, he might have withstood them. But at twelve to one, given his current condition, he had no choice but to run.

He darted to the right, angling up the sand, abandoning his bundle of clothes beside the drowned sailor.

Using Adept power to strengthen his tired legs, he plunged through the dry sand at the top of the beach, deflecting the spear-arrows that pursued him.

One of the men was fast enough to catch him. He felt a hand on his arm, turned, and saw the upraised club. He stopped the man’s heart. His attacker fell, pulling Wulfston down with him in his death spasm.

Wulfston peeled the dead man’s fingers away and sprinted for the forest, Adeptly forcing his lungs to take in air, his limbs to move in rhythm.

He plunged into a different world!

This forest was like none he had ever known. It was jungle, as thick with undergrowth as with trees. He staggered and slid on rotted vegetation, blinded by the difference between the hot yellow beach and this dark greenness where the sun could hardly penetrate. Birds screamed at his noisy passage, and small animals fled through the trees.

The air was cool and moist, a relief to his aching lungs, but the smell was frighteningly different from any he had ever known.

To avoid his pursuers, he zigzagged through the trees. The jungle would not let him choose his own path, but made him go where it provided openings. Over and over he found his way blocked by roots, rocks, thickets.

He ran until he could run no further. Exhausted, he leaned against the sloping trunk of a huge tree, gasping for breath. The jungle had fallen silent.

Through the roaring in his ears, he listened for pursuit. There was nothing. As his breathing calmed, he realized that it was too silent around him. The jungle was watching this intruder like a cat, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

He was lost.

Sunlight filtered through dappled green shade, diffused so that he could not tell what direction it came from, nor could he hear the pounding of the surf. He didn’t know how to get back to the beach-and if he could, would those warriors be waiting for him?

He needed rest, but first he needed food. In the woods near where he had grown up, he would have been able to put together a meal in minutes; here he could see berries, fungus, some yellow fruit on a nearby tree… but which of it was safe, and which poisonous?

Besides, he needed meat to restore his strength. And he was desperately thirsty.

His heart stopped pounding in his ears, and his breathing returned to a rapid but normal pace. Through the silence he heard a soft rushing; it had to be water.

Pushing himself away from the support of the tree, he moved toward the sound, pausing often to listen, following as the sound became slowly louder until he came out at a pool into which a small cascade fell from a rocky but overgrown hillside.

With no thought except slaking his thirst, Wulfston rushed to the pool, sinking calf-deep into mud among the rushes that lined it, and on into the water itself.

It was cold and clear. He sank into it, drank it in, let it wash away salt and sand and sweat.

But it was too cold to stay in. He swam to the rock wall and pulled himself out onto a secure perch, where he sat and watched for fish to return to feeding now that the disturbance was gone. He knew that it was safe to eat any scaly fish, and he hoped that he still had enough strength to kill a fish and make a fire to cook it.

A wave of hunger swept through him as he thought about grilling fish. His mouth watered.

But the fish stayed out of sight.

He would have to call them, his desperate need for food outweighing his reluctance to lure a creature only to kill it.

This ability to influence animals had been the first Adept power Wulfston had manifested, when he was three years old. He had used it for amusement then, calling rabbits and squirrels to play with him, to the delight of the other village children. Over the years he had used it to calm frightened horses, or wounded animals so he could heal them.

Now, though, he had no choice but to use it to feed himself. He felt more naked without the full strength of his powers than without his clothes.

He began to picture the pool from beneath the water, where he had been a few minutes before. He thought of a big, fat fish wanting to go up toward the surface, where there was food.

Sure enough, just such a fish swam lazily to the dappled surface of the pool. Wulfston began to lure it closer, giving it the desire to come within his grasp. When it was just below the rock on which he perched, he stopped its heart quickly, painlessly, and reached down-

Wulfston got a fleeting impression of something with teeth enough for an army as the fish was snatched away!

He started back, fear tingling through his nerves and emerging from his skin in cold sweat.

There was a monster in the pool!

He stared as the thing resurfaced, a lizardlike animal as large as a man, with a back like a log, a tapering tail that moved lazily to rudder it through the water, and a head that was ugliness personified. Eyes atop the head stared coldly at him, defying him to dare try again for its prey, but it was the creature’s snout that held his gaze. His impression of endless teeth was verified-there were so many that the mouth could not contain them all, and they snaggled in sharp array around the outside of the vicious maw.

Hungry and tired, Wulfston shivered uncontrollably with the realization that it could have been a part of his body, rather than that hapless fish, that made a meal for the water-beast. He had probably aroused it when he splashed unthinkingly into the pool. He had gotten out just in time! It could have attacked him while he was swimming, or just now it could have taken his hand.

Wulfston did not command the powers Zanos and Astra had seen in the frozen isles to the far north, where sorcerers knew how to make severed limbs regrow.

Dapples of yellow turned orange around the green pool, and Wulfston knew that soon the sun would set.

He couldn’t stay by the pool. Predators were likely to come to drink under cover of night, perhaps great cats that could see in the dark. He needed sleep. If there was to be no food, at least he could rest, and hunt again in the morning.

So with his stomach growling in protest, he set out in search of a safe place to sleep. Was there any safety for him here, in the land of his ancestors?

There was a cave in the rocky wall, bones, feathers, and bits of fur strewn on its floor. Wulfston could build a fire in the cave mouth, but once he fell into the virtual unconsciousness of Adept sleep he would not rouse to stoke the fire. It could go out, leaving him helpless before whatever had left those remains.

So he moved away from the pool, looking upward and wishing once again that he could Read. A perch in a tree was the only haven he could think of-provided he did not fall to his death in the night. To a Reader darkness was meaningless, and wild animals could be sensed at a distance and avoided. He knew the power was in him; Adept and Reading powers sprang from the same source. But there was no use now in grieving over his inability to manifest the other half of his talents.

In the dimming light, he saw a tree with wide, forking branches. The climb was not hard, and he found a place where he could wedge himself between a broad limb and the trunk of the tree, with a second limb beneath to catch him should he fall. It was not very comfortable, but he could not see the ground when he looked down. Predators relying on sight should not notice him.

If animals followed his scent, he could only hope that they were not the kind that climbed trees. Once he settled in one spot, it was hopeless to try to stay awake in the face of his body’s need to restore itself.

Despite the hard, rough tree against his bare skin, he carefully arranged his body in the best compromise he could manage between safety and comfort. Wulfston felt himself sucked inexorably into the oblivion of Adept slumber.

Perhaps the gods would grant him protection for this one night-whatever gods held sway in this dark and alien land.

He was gorging on fresh meat, aware only of the smell and taste, and the emptiness in his belly. The pack leaders had brought down a water buifalo, and gorged their fill on the smoking entrails and the liver, but there was meat aplenty for the two young ones who now chewed on the tough muscles, struggling even with their sharply pointed teeth to tear off chunks to swallow whole, ready to run if-

Snarls warned him.

He saw the hyena coming up on the other side of the carcass, warning him away.

But he was still hungry! He had had only a few mouthfuls! And his sister-

She was gone already, had turned and run from the scavenger, knowing it perfectly capable of killing if it wanted to.

For the first time in his life, hunger combined with male instinct, and he stood his ground, his hackles rising, growling in return, baring his teeth to show their sharpness and the meat that was rightly his.

The hyena gave a bark of warning, and leaped over the buffalo carcass.

The one eating growled in return, but the hyena thrust its sharp nose under his tail, challenging.

He turned sharply, trying to do the same to the larger beast, but the hyena went for his throat, tumbling the younger animal head over heels in an attempt to escape the slashing teeth.

Hunger made him brave. He got his feet under him and leaped for the hyena’s throat-but the larger animal was wily and experienced. He caught the young dog by the thick throat fur, shaking, trying to snap his neck.

This time youth and lack of experience overtook him- when his opponent let go he cringed in fear, whining. The hyenas wicked yellow teeth gashed his thigh. In response, he turned on his back, belly exposed in submission.

The hyena snarled and threatened, standing between the buffalo carcass and the dog, but he did not attack further.

The dog whined, then slunk off in the stink of his own blood and fear musk, his stomach still empty and protesting.

At the edge of the jungle his sister waited anxiously, crying, ready to lick his wounds-

Wulfston woke with a start, to full daylight. What a strange dream-he and Aradia as dogs-?

As he turned his stiff body to climb down the tree, Wulfston found himself eye to eye with the biggest snake he had ever seen. The body was wrapped around a branch above him, the head hanging down to peer at him from cold reptilian eyes.

Wulfston backed down the tree as hastily as he could without any sudden moves. His limbs were stiff from having remained in the same awkward position all night, but he didn’t hurt. His body’s healing powers had come automatically into play. But still his stomach demanded food.

He reached the foot of the tree and straightened, stretching his arms upward to ease his back-and his makeshift loincloth slid down to his ankles!

Wulfston picked up the silk shirt and unknotted it to retie it more securely about his loins. He knew what had happened: he had not provided his body with food to restore his strength, and so it had taken energy out of his own flesh.

He had to find food-his gut was aching. The fact that he was wide awake and feeling good except for the raging hunger told him that his powers were restored, but he could not use them without replacing the energy his body required. Adepts carried no extra body fat; the night’s fast had taken all he could spare without giving up muscle.

He was still within the sound of the waterfall, so he went back, easily caught a fish and lifted it from the water with Adept power, and cooked it over a small fire he built on the rock ledge. He ate the first of it half raw, unable to wait for it to cook through.

When he had caught, cooked, and eaten a second fish, although he was not satisfied, he had at least given his body something to work with. He also felt more confident, now that he dared use his powers again.

Having fulfilled his first priority of nutrition, he had to decide what to do next. Surely the other survivors of the shipwreck were looking for him.

Were there other survivors? There had to be. Zanos and Astra would have combined their Adept powers to save themselves. And what about Chulaika and Chaiku? Sukuru had used them to bring Wulfston to Africa. Their usefulness over, had he discarded them? Or had they rejoined him?

He wasn’t going to find them in the middle of the jungle. If he worked his way east for a few miles he would come out onto a plain-

How did he know that?

He realized the knowledge came from that weird dream, in which he and Aradia were half-grown wild dogs driven from their meal by a hyena.

Was that what the dream was really about? Or was that just the interpretation he had put on it when he woke up?

When he opened his mind to it, Wulfston realized that in the dream he had been the dog, not himself at all. The female had been sister, litter-mate, companion… but not Aradia.

It had been… real.

He had been in that dog’s mind.

He had been… Reading?

Torio had once asked him how he knew where the animals were that he called. Had his defenseless state of last night dropped some barrier?

He sat beside the pool, and tried to Read. As always, nothing happened. Of course nothing happened.

He d had a dream, that was all!

So how did he know that a grassy plain lay beyond the jungle?

Well, how did he know? Maybe there was no plain. Maybe there was nothing but more jungle, and if he went east he would be farther and farther from any other survivors of the shipwreck. If he went west, he would certainly come back to the ocean. But wouldn’t the shore be where Sukuru expected to find him?

He had been attacked there once already.

So… east or west?

And then, with chill prickles up his spine, he realized that he knew east from west. He was no longer lost, although the sun rode too high to be an indicator of direction, and he had no lodestone. He just knew!

Something had happened to him in the night. Perhaps it really was the opening of his Reading powers at last. He had to find Astra-she’d quickly train him to use them. But he had to keep from being captured or killed by Sukuru, or by Z’Nelia’s forces, who might assume he was on Sukuru’s side.

They knew he was not a Reader. They would assume that, unable to traverse the jungle, and not knowing that the plain lay within easy distance for an Adept, he would go back to the sea.

Therefore he would go eastward, to the plain.

By high noon he came to the edge of the jungle. Before him stretched the plain he had seen in his dream-grassland as far as the eye could see, teeming with life.

Some animals he recognized-elephants were used for heavy labor in the Aventine Empire, and lions had been kept by the Emperor’s family as if to demonstrate their power by their hold on the king of beasts.

But he did not know the names of the many deerlike creatures, large and small, some with horns that appeared too large for their small heads to carry.

And the birds! Acres of flamingos turned the shore of a lake a brilliant orangey-pink. Small brown birds hid in the grass, while bright parrots perched in the occasional tree. Crows and magpies lent their raucous cries to the snorts of the lions and the trumpeting of the elephants, while above it all floated an eagle, watching with keen eyes for his prey.

In the grass, besides smaller birds there were mice and rabbits, little squirrellike animals, snakes, lizards and chameleons, insects.

The life of the plain called to something in Wulfston’s blood. He was one with that community of nature under the open sky. It didn’t even seem strange that he was seeing and hearing things too distant or too small and faint to perceive with his normal senses.

He knew what he had never consciously known before: his ancestors had come from here, from the plain, not from the jungle where enemies lurked. This… was home.

As if to reassure himself that he was not imagining his new senses, Wulfston became aware of two dogs-the young dogs of his dream. They were at the edge of the jungle, in the shade, the male lying down while the female licked at a nasty wound high on his left hind leg.

They were black, about half-grown. Wulfston understood they had been turned out of the pack to learn to fend for themselves, and would not be able to join another pack until they were grown. So they struggled to survive, their once happy rabbit-chasing no longer a game, but a deadly-earnest search for food.

Wulfston turned, and made out the two dogs because he knew where to look. They blended into the shadows, but he recognized that their black color would make them as conspicuous on the golden plain… as he was in the Savage Lands.

Using his power to make animals trust him, Wulfston walked toward the two dogs. When he came near, he saw that despite the way they had cleaned it with their tongues, the gash inflicted by the hyena’s filthy teeth was starting to fester.

“Easy, boy,” Wulfston murmured, offering his closed hand to the male. The female bristled, and snarled at him from behind her brother.

But when the male sniffed his hand and accepted a pat on the head, Wulfston turned his attention to the young bitch and soon had her nuzzling his hand. He wished he had food to offer, but he was as hungry as they were.

When both dogs were calm, Wulfston laid his hand over the wound and sent healing heat to drive out the infection. He closed the wound from the inside out, while the female paced nervously and tried to shove her nose under his hand. When the healing was complete he let her, and watched both dogs sniff and lick the area where the wound had been, unable to understand where it had gone.

The male got up and tried his leg; he didn’t limp at all. In a moment he was belly-down, hindquarters-up, inviting his sister to play.

Wulfston let the pups tumble for a few moments, then mentally called them to his side. “You,” he told the male, “are Traylo, and you are Arlus,” to the female, “and we are going to hunt some rabbits!”

Wulfston did the actual hunting, but the dogs didn’t know that. When he called a rabbit from its burrow, Traylo and Arlus dashed after it. The rabbit tore off through the grass with the yipping dogs in hot pursuit.

But the object was food, not games. Before the rabbit could pop down another hole, Wulfston stopped its heart, then tried to control the dogs-

They were on their prey, hungry and victorious! Gleefully, they ripped into the warm, quivering flesh, fighting over the tender innards. Fur flew as they shredded the skin to reach the flesh, filling their bellies at last!

It was only when the dogs began to gnaw on the stripped bones that Wulfston came to himself, to the demands of his own empty stomach. He could smell and taste the raw meat, and the lingering memory when he withdrew forcefully from the dogs’ perspective made him momentarily queasy.

Not for long, however; he had used what energy his early-morning meal had given him in healing Traylo, and his body once more clamored for food. Leaving the dogs to their prey, he caught and killed another rabbit, and soon had it spitted over a small fire.

Watching that the fire did not throw sparks into the grass, Wulfston pulled the outer flesh off the rabbit as it cooked, and ate while he considered what to do. Head toward that lake he had Read, for a drink of water. Perhaps he would find a trail there. Surely people would have settled along such a body of water, or would stop there on journeys across the plains. Perhaps he would find a trail leading south. To people.

He would have to approach people soon, if only to discover what fruits and vegetables he dared to eat in this land. Meat alone was inadequate nutrition, yet he feared to risk poison by eating the bright red berries that tempted him from a nearby thicket.

Traylo and Arlus came back. They accepted the bones from his rabbit, but buried them, as they were no longer hungry. Soon they were curled up together, fast asleep.

The more he thought, the more Wulfston realized that he could not avoid human habitation. Although his Adept powers allowed him to clean a rabbit without a knife, that was wasteful. And Adept or no, he had no way to carry water without some kind of container.

Zanos and Astra and the others would be looking for him in the settlements, too, not out on the plain.

Yes, he would walk to the lake and see what trail he might pick up there.

Making certain the fire was out, Wulfston wrapped what was left of the rabbit in some leaves and set out.

Traylo and Arlus trotted along beside him until his direction was established, then veered off after fascinating scents.

It was hot under the direct sun. Wulfston’s black skin never burned like Aradia’s fairness, but after a while he wished he had a covering for his head. The animals had ceased their restless activity, spending the heat of the day in burrows or in the shade of grass or thickets. Even the herd animals lay down to rest in the hot afternoon glare.

Wulfston could see the lake ahead… or was it a mirage formed by the waves of heat? He noticed the two dogs now moving straight ahead, no more forays to either side, and wondered if they could smell water.

With the thought, he was in their perceptions again, scenting the welcome wetness, sharing their thirst.

Their keen noses told them far more than their eyes-they could not see the zebra off to their left, but the not-quite-horse smell was as clear as the smell inside a stable to Wulfston.

It didn’t disturb Traylo and Arlus when Wulfston shared their perceptions, so he remained within their minds, hearing the sounds of birds huddling down as the danger passed, smelling a wider variety of scents than he had ever imagined, but seeing little.

It wasn’t just that the dogs’ eyes were so close to ground level; their way of seeing was different. There were not nearly as many colors as Wulfston was used to, and everything was slightly out of focus.

With human instinct, he tried to see more clearly, but the blur of tannish grass persisted. Suddenly there was a movement ahead. A startled rodent dropped the stalk it had been chewing on and scurried for its burrow, Arlus and Traylo in hot pursuit.

There were two rodents, one to the left and one to the right! He tried to turn toward one-then-

— tripped over a hummock and fell sprawling, the grass giving way to let him hit the ground with a bruising thump.

Back in his own senses, Wulfston realized what had happened: he had been looking through both dogs’

eyes at once, each seeing the same rodent from a different perspective.

He laughed as he picked himself up, and decided he would not do that again-at least until he had had more practice at watching where he was going while he Read something else!

Now he could definitely see the lake ahead. The dogs, having lost the little rodent, raced merrily into the shallow water and stopped to lap it up eagerly. Wulfston was not far behind them. He knelt, and dipped up water with his hands, then went in farther to cool off, trying to watch for dangerous animals as he splashed the water all over himself.

Feeling much better, he left the lake and began pacing along the shore, looking for a path that might indicate human use. All he saw were animal prints, and a flock of flamingos farther down the shoreline.

He couldn’t believe people didn’t come to this beautiful lake! Yet he saw no sign of villages or towns, no roads, no cultivated fields. He also saw no sheltered place where he could spend the night.

Although he was able to build a rapport with the animal life of the plain, the rodents and insects and little birds had no interest in man, except to avoid him. All he could tell was that there were no other people nearby; none of the animals gave him a perspective to tell whether there was a trail, even a road, beyond his line of sight.

Above the lake, however, soared a fish eagle, perhaps the same one he had seen in his first sensing of the lake that morning. I wonder- He hardly dared to think of it.

But that eagle could see the entire lake, and all the land surrounding it.

“Traylo! Arlus!” Wulfston called the dogs to him, and sat down cross-legged on the sandy shore.

The pups were wet, their fur standing up in points, and when they came to him they shook, spraying him with water. But they were panting, their tongues lolling out to give them a clownish look, and it was not hard to persuade them that they wanted to lie down next to him and groom their coats.

Even if the dogs fell asleep, they would be easily roused and, should he succeed at his daring idea, would pull Wulfston’s attention back at any sign of danger.

Readers and Adepts both learned relaxation and concentration exercises. Wulfston easily put himself into the quiet but ready state necessary for performing the most difficult and delicate of Adept functions, but instead of bracing himself to use those powers he let himself once again become attuned to the life about him. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out to the eagle, trying to see what it saw.

Unlike the dogs, who welcomed his mental touch, the eagle merely allowed him to share its perceptions, and he sensed that it could and would drive him out if his presence became offensive. But all he wanted was to see-

— as he had never seen before!

The bird’s vision was as much sharper than Wulfstons as his was than the dogs’!

As he floated on the currents of air, the world spread below in brilliant, sharply defined array. One of the little rodents skittered through the grass; silver-hued fish swam beneath the surface of the lake; frogs hopped from one lily pad to another along the far shore. Just north of the area where Wulfston had come to the lakeshore, a herd of water buffalo grazed, some of them standing knee-deep in the water, pulling up the lush green weeds.

At first Wulfston could do no more than marvel at the view, and at the sensation of floating above the world, divorced from its cares or pleasures. He was master of his world, untouchable in his high flight.

He thrilled to the sensation of tendon and muscle reacting to each shift in the wind, feathers spreading and retracting, the great wings held effortlessly open, supporting him easily. The bird spiraled slowly, sliding down an invisible column of air, then caught an updraft and rose again, triumphant in the sun’s rays.

Wulfston had to struggle to make his own mind work, to look out the eagle’s eyes but analyze with a man’s mind. From here, his own path through the grassy plain was clear, as were the side trails the dogs had made. Their footprints along the lakeshore led as plainly as a cobbled street, and he could see himself, the dogs curled up on either side of him!

It was most disconcerting to observe his own body this way. He remembered Torio and Lenardo saying how disorienting it was, something belonging to the advanced stages of a Reader’s training. But this was not the same thing as a Reader’s visualizing. Their Code probably kept them from such a thing as looking through someone else’s eyes.

Still, he wished the bird would not focus on him that way; it was strange to see that tired-looking, scruffy man wearing nothing but a fraying silk shirt turned into a loincloth, and realize that it was himself. From this vantage point, he was the least significant object in the landscape.

The bird began another slow downward spiral, and this time Wulfston was better able to keep his mind on observing. Sure enough, he saw what he was looking for: perhaps half a mile farther along the lakeshore there was an inlet, and from it a road stretched southward-a wagon track, clearly showing twin paths of the wheels, with the grass trying to survive between.

There was his road to human habitation! In fact, in the eagle’s peripheral vision he thought he detected what might be man-made dwellings several miles away, but the bird would not oblige him by looking directly at them.

The eagle continued its lazy spiral, and Wulfston studied the landscape. There was more movement below- people on horses! They had intersected his trail from the south, and were turning to follow it toward the lake.

Who were they? “Look at them, eagle! Are they all black people, or are my white friends among them?

Look there! I have to know!”

With a shock that sent spasms of pain wrenching through his head, Wulfston was back in his own body.

Resenting his demands, the eagle had dismissed him from its mind.

Taking only long enough to quell the pain, Wulfston climbed to his feet and ran back along his own trail.

He was sure the horsemen were looking for him. But were they Sukuru’s people, or Zanos and Astra?

Backtracking through the grass, Wulfston saw how easy he would be to follow-but perhaps they weren’t expecting him to come to meet them. One thing concerned him: even on the edges of the eagle’s peripheral vision, surely Zanos’ bright red hair would have stood out, had the gladiator been there. Best consider these people his enemies until they proved otherwise.

He crouched, then crawled through the grass as he approached the area where he had seen the horsemen. Traylo and Arlus followed him, accepting him as pack leader and obeying his mental picture of them, staying close by his side until the danger was identified.

For the first time, he tried reaching out with his mind to Read people, but he got only a confused muddle.

Astra, a Magister Reader, would surely not Read like that!

So he tried the horses. They were tired from a long ride, but aware of no strangers among the riders. So none of Wulfston’s friends were there.

“Come on, Traylo, Arlus,” he murmured, and started angling back toward the lake. It didn’t matter if these were Sukuru’s men or Z’Nelia’s-he didn’t want to be taken by either!

He could not tell whether he had been seen or Read, but a shout went up, and suddenly horses were galloping after him!

Not even an Adept could outrun a horse. He had to stand and fight.

There were nine of them, but no one shot an arrow or threw a spear at him this time. They spread out, and he saw nets unfurled. They wanted to capture, not kill him.

As the first rider approached, net spinning, Wulfston grasped control of it and flung it back over the man’s own head, tangling him in its folds.

While he struggled to free himself, though, the others spread in a circle around Wulfston.

He shot a lightning bolt searing the air before the nearest horse. The animal screamed and reared, but the grass caught fire!

It spread as swift as thought!

Lest the whole plain go up, Wulfston had to concentrate now on stopping that wildfire-and while he was doing so the riders were closing in, Traylo and Arlus growling and nipping at the horses’ feet, barely escaping being pounded into the ground.

In this environment, Wulfston could not use fire, his most effective device to stop horses.

But he could buckle the knees of the one now approaching him, as if a net had entangled its feet. It went down, dumping its rider in a heap, and Wulfston concentrated for a moment on sending the man deep into unconsciousness.

There were still eight riders.

He sent another slumping into Adept sleep, but the method was too slow. He could not stop the other seven before they netted him.

His own knees buckled as a wave of dizziness swept over him-there were minor Adepts among them, joining their powers against him! If they could make him waste enough energy-

He shook off their attempt, and darted between two horses, pushing the animals apart with sheer Adept strength. That was working directly against nature, not an act he could perform very often, especially when he was not in peak condition.

But how could he work with nature here? Fire was too dangerous, and the little animals of the plain too small to do any good.

Then he remembered-down there by the lake-he concentrated, creating a fear, a need to move, to run in this direction-

As his mind went off in search of his weapon, the riders circled him again, nets spread-

Again the attack on his mind-he fought it-flailed at the descending net-

He was tangled!

Adept power tore through the wiry strands, but not without cost. Wulfston could feel his powers weakening as he regained his feet, tossing the shreds of the net from him.

The horsemen turned, surrounding him again.

A pounding louder than the horses’ hoofs shook the plain.

The herd of water buffalo, drawn by Wulfston’s message, stampeded toward the riders!

Their horses screamed, bucked, and galloped off to save their own lives, carrying their riders along, like it or not.

Wulfston called Traylo and Arlus, gathered them close against him and held the terrified pups still while he concentrated on separating the mindless stampede around them. Choking dust rose, hoofs pounding within a hand’s span on either side, but Adept concentration gave them a tiny island of safety as the herd thundered past, driving Wulfston’s would-be captors eastward toward the jungle.

When the herd was gone, he remained, still holding the whimpering dogs, deliberately guiding the buffalo to force the riders to the edge of the jungle, miles away. They would come back, he knew-and he wanted to be far away before they did.

Finaly, Wulfston released his concentration, and calmed the two pups. He looked around at the flattened grass, the settling dust, and knew a moments triumph. He was alive-he had survived in this strange land, won against enemies who knew the territory.

He turned back toward the lake… and saw the smashed, dead body of the rider he had sent to sleep. In his concentration on saving himself, he had forgotten the completely helpless man.

As he stared at the mangled body, though, he remembered that even though these men had obviously had orders to take him without killing him, they would have carried him off to face death… or worse.

It would be best if Sukuru or Z’nelia-or both-thought him dead.

Distasteful though the work was, he stripped the bloody clothing off the corpse, took off his loincloth, smeared it with the man’s blood, and put it on the body. The man’s face was smashed beyond recognition-and the scavengers of the plain would begin their work before the riders could get back here. Let them think two men had died here, and the jackals had carried off one of the bodies entirely.

Naked, Wulfston carried the dead man’s clothes back to the lake and washed them. The fresh blood came out easily in the cold water, and there were only a few tears in the cloth.

This time he used his powers to dry the material, and studied the clothes: a tan tunic with a braided belt, and a faded yellow hooded cloak. Nondescript, and similar to what the other riders had worn. Plain leather sandals also had no identifying marks that Wulfston could see.

There were also a wristband with a pattern burned into it, and a talisman of some sort on a leather thong.

These he buried deep in the sand, then put on the dead man’s clothes, uncomfortable at the thought, but knowing no other way to blend in than to dress like someone who lived here. Surely he would be less conspicuous this way than stark naked!

As if to confirm that he was doing the right thing, when Wulfston turned to look for Traylo and Arlus he saw a horse approaching the lake-the dead man’s horse that had run off before the stampede, now over its terror and seeking water.

The horse put Wulfston on equal terms with his pursuers.

Furthermore, there was a leather water bag attached to the saddle. He emptied out the warm dregs and refilled it with fresh, cool water from the lake.

There were saddlebags, with the same design burned into them that he had seen on the man’s wristband.

They would have to be buried, too, but first he searched them, and found bread and cheese, an apple-and a knife!

He devoured the food, stuck the knife through his belt, and continued the search. A pouch of coins!

Coppers only, but at least a means of buying more food. There was also a small packet containing one bone and one metal needle and a folded paper of salt, which he put in the coin purse and suspended from his belt.

There was only one more item, a well-worn wooden plaque whose design appeared to be lettering rather than decoration. He wondered if Aradia could have read the language-she had shared their father’s love of books gathered from all over the world.

But the plaque might be identified, so it was buried with the saddlebags. Wulfston mounted the horse, called to the dogs, and set out for that wagon trail to the south, counting on the footprints of the animals who would come to drink at the lake during the night to obscure his trail along the shoreline.

That night he slept in one of the buildings he had seen from the eagle’s point of view. They turned out to be a deserted village, but gave Wulfston shelter for himself and the horse and dogs.

At dawn he set out along the wagon track again, spending the long hours practicing his rapport with Traylo and Arlus, or with other animals. He saw no people all day, just herds of wild animals. No wagons had been on this trail for days, for new grass was struggling to grow even in the ruts.

Its struggle was not entirely successful, though, for there had obviously been no rain recently-even the deepest ruts were dry. There were no rain clouds in sight; the sun beat yellow on the yellow plain, and Wulfston was grateful for the lightweight cloak with its hood to protect his head.

He sensed no pursuit. He hoped his ruse had worked, and his enemies thought him dead. It would give him time to find out what had happened to his friends.

Again he hunted, and shared fresh meat with the dogs, while the horse cropped the dry grass. When there was no watering hole, he figured out the use of a sort of leather bowl dangling from the bridle-he could pour some water from the water bag to share with the horse. Traylo and Arlus drank from it, too.

By noon of the second day on the deserted trail they were out of water.

The character of the land had changed: although the ubiquitous grass grew here now, the land was furrowed, as if it had been plowed and a crop grown at some time in the past year. In this part of the world, it appeared that crops would be grown in the rainy season, and the fields left fallow during this dry time of year.

Plowed fields had to mean people close by.

Wulfston wasn’t sure he was ready to meet anyone, yet he needed to trade coins for fruit and vegetables.

And he had to find out where his friends were.

He also had to learn to Read people, not just animals.

So he stuck to the wagon track, getting more tired and thirsty with every step, wondering where the nearest settlement was.

Instead of a village he saw in the distance a cluster of green trees. That meant water! The dogs smelled it and ran eagerly ahead, and the tired horse picked up his pace when Wulfston urged him.

On closer approach, he saw a stone well, and off to one side a cluster of houses. Only one person was to be seen; a young woman who had just filled a jug at the well, and was walking in the direction of the houses.

Wulfston hoped she would keep going, as he wanted to renew his water supply and be ready to retreat if he ran into trouble. The girl glanced at him, but continued on her way-probably taught not to talk to strangers. He could see why. In his lands she would be safe enough today, but there had been a time when such a pretty young girl would not have dared stray so far from home alone.

Wulfston’s attention turned from the girl to the well. He hadn’t known how thirsty he was until he was in sight and smell of water!

He swung down off his horse, strode to the well, and dropped the bucket into the water below. The splash was the most welcome sound he had heard all day. He licked dry lips as he added Adept strength to cranking up the winch, grabbed the bucket, raised it to his lips, spilling water on himself as-

Something stung him in the neck.

He let go the bucket with one hand to slap at it, but his hand did not connect. It fell to his side limply, the fingers of the other hand releasing the bucket, which fell back into the well.

Wulfston’s knees gave way as he tried to turn in the direction from which had come-

— a dart.

The girl stood not ten paces away, a blowgun in her hand.

Wulfston tried to speak, but he was falling, out of control of his body.

He reached instinctively for his Adept powers to drive the poison from his blood, but it was as if he had used up every bit of his energy! He could do nothing-nothing- except stare up helplessly at the girl who bent over him.

Traylo and Arlus snarled at the girl as she reached to touch him, but she smiled at the dogs, and in moments they were fawning on her, letting her scratch them behind the ears.

Paralyzed, bereft of his powers, Wulfston could do nothing but stare, the greatest fear he had ever felt in his life tearing at his guts.