It is told in the dark forests that the evil princes of Cyb and Sin who plotted against the god-men of the Golden Age had the power to light the suns and strike terror into the hearts of all men. This they did for joy of wickedness, and their wickedness grew apace and they grew over-proud and they enlarged their wickedness until the very stars were consumed and the Dark Time was upon all the worlds of the Great Sky.
--From
The Book of Warls,
Interregnal period
Shana Lar faced her father with tear-stained cheeks. The talon mark on her upper arm had stopped leaking blood and subsided to an ugly brownish smear. She tugged nervously at her straight-combed hair and covered her small, naked breasts courteously as she waited on her knees for the head of the household to come to a decision about the thing the eagles had seen.
Shevil, gray and weathered, old at forty seasons, tugged half-heartedly at the ritual seams in his weyr skin vest, and prayed to the Star for guidance. Behind him, arranged in a council semicircle, squatted the six elders of the valley. Shevil was aware that the youngest, Tamil Hind, was being distracted from his deliberations by the sight of Shana’s sweaty skin and scratched, but shapely thighs. With one portion of his mind Shevil concentrated on the momentous decision the folk expected of the elders, and with another--that part that devoted itself to the business of being the father of four daughters and no sons--pondered the possibility of marrying Shana to Tamil, who owned a substantial number of the weyr in the high pastures.
Actually, Shevil was angry with Shana: angry but relieved that she had come to no real harm by disobeying him and joining the eagles’ convocation on the stone cliff. He was also dubious about Tamil’s honorable intentions regarding her, for she was an adept and no man of the valley of Trama ever willingly married a mutation. None, Shevil thought dourly, save Shevil Lar, and he remembered Shana’s mother; Shevaughn of the slotted, silver eyes and six fingers, whom he had taken to wife (in spite of all his father could do to discourage him) and loved deeply for the five warm years she lived. Did Tamil understand that women whose ancestors had stood in the light of the Falling Sun seldom lived to be old?
But Shana was waiting and so were the others, and outside the hovel stood fully half of the half-hundred folk of the valley. They expected wisdom and a plan to keep them safe from the warmen the eagles had seen. Shevil frowned and drew a deep breath. What they actually wanted was for him to cut the throat of a prime weyr and lead them all up the moraine to seek the sorcerer who lived inside the deadly mountain, that was
really
what they wanted. The folk had become querulous and dependent on the Warlock, who had appeared three seasons back from within the belly of the mountain. They had lost their self-dependence, expecting always to be protected by the blind spirit-man’s magic.
But that was exactly the point and the danger, Shevil argued with himself. The eagles had seen a Navigator with Vara’s warmen, and that meant that the ways of the folk were known, somehow, to the grim priests of the Inquisition. To turn to the Warlock in this extremity would be to damn the settlement and all who lived in it forever. The Navigator would know and the warmen would erect a burning stake in the meadow. Shevil imagined his daughters screaming in the fire and shivered. In truth it was Shana he saw in his mind’s eye, for she had always been his favorite child. Gytha, Marya, and Arietee were dull girls, very much creatures of the valley. But Shana was like dark quicksilver, and his love.
Behind him, Quarlo the miller, cleared his throat and said tentatively, “Time is passing, Shevil. We listened to you three seasons ago and held back Lord Ulm’s weyr-tribute. Now that his warmen have come, you must tell us what you intend for us to do.”
The resentment, though hidden, was discernible in his voice.
It was true, Shevil thought, that he had counseled the folk to keep their weyr. He had heard from a traveler that Ulm was at war across the Narrow Sea and that year the winter had been bitter, so that the folk of Trama might have died of hunger had the tribute been sent. And then the second year and the third? Shevil asked himself. Well, once the old patterns had been broken, once Ulm’s rights had been denied, it seemed easier to withhold the tribute for another year, and then another. And there had been the appearance of the Warlock--yes, one had to consider that, too. To excuse himself and his counsel of rebellion, Shevil had declared that the appearance of the mad old spirit from the mountain had been an omen of approval from the Star--
Lies, all lies, Shevil thought bitterly. Not the Star, but Sin and Cyb had sent the Warlock, and he, Shevil Lar, had known it in his heart from the beginning. Now the folk waited for him to save them from the results of his sinful folly.
“You are certain the eagles saw a priest, Shana?”
The girl answered with averted eyes as was proper when addressing the elders, even though the hetman was her father. “Yes, Shevil. A priest and, I think, one of the tiny men. I can’t be sure of that. The eagles do not know them. But I think I felt one near.”
A Vulk, Shevil thought. Worse and worse. Long ago, in his young manhood, when he had dreamed of being a mercenary soldier, he had traveled to one of the outposts of the Lord Ulm’s warband. His journey had been a failure because the soldiers had laughed at him and beaten him with their sheathed swords, making sport of the peasant who wished to carry iron weapons. But he had seen a Vulk: eyeless, noseless, hideous to view--a creature with terrible mental powers, far more potent and dark than those of any mutation. The soldiers had told him that the Vulk could touch minds across thousands of kilometers of ocean and mountain, that he could turn humans to stone with an incantation, that he ate the hearts of children and drank women’s blood. All that and much more, as the Protocols explained, were gifts to the Vulkish people from their masters the Adversaries, Sin and Cyb.
“Are you certain about this thing, Shana?” he asked. “A Navigator would not travel with a Vulk.”
“I have heard of them being together,” Tamil Hind interjected. “The priests have spells that can enslave the creatures. Sometimes they break free and then the Navigator is damned, but I have heard of this thing Shana’s eagles saw.”
“The eagles did not see a Vulk,” Shana said rudely. She did not like Tamil devouring her with his eyes, seeking her favor by telling tales like this one. “I sensed something strange. It could have been one of them, that is all.” She turned her eyes, so silvery gray they reminded Shevil of Shevaughn’s, on her father. “Tell us what we must do, Shevil. The Navigator will burn us.”
The others broke out in angry murmurs of agreement. They muttered of the Warlock, as Shevil knew they would.
Still, what else was there? Half a hundred herdsmen and women could not defend themselves against the-Lord Ulm’s warmen. Damnation had fallen upon them with the coming of the Warlock. But death as rebels was more real, and it was coming upon them from the southern ridge of the valley, probably with the rise of the sun. “Very well,” the hetman said, “we will go to the mountain”--he paused and swallowed the bitter taste of fear--”and there we will seek the protection of Sin and Cyb.” He said over his shoulder to Tamil, “Snare a fat weyr for sacrifice,” then he turned to the other elders. Their dull, stupid faces made him ache with anger. Was the world always like this, he wondered? Had there ever been a life without fear? Had there ever been, in fact, a Golden Age --and if so, would there ever be again?
Heavily, he said, “Perhaps the flesh of the weyr will please the Warlock, but I must tell you that I do not believe he cares for such things. If he is a true son of Sin and Cyb, his price for saving us may be much greater.”
He raised his daughter to her feet and spoke to the folk who crowded about his open doorway. “Go and make ready. A member of each family must climb the moraine with the elders.” He stroked Shana’s dark hair and said, “Dress in your best, daughter, and cover yourself. The Warlock must not think us savages.” And he thought of a line from The Warls:
“From the wrath of the warmen, who will deliver us?”
Who, indeed, he wondered bitterly.
On the ridge, where the soldiers bivouacked, the cooking fires burned low. Glamiss prowled the outposts studying the sky for further attacks from the eagles of Trama. But the birds seemed to have vanished from the sky and now, as evening drew near, a thin skin of high clouds began to cover the sun and the wind turned bitterly cold as it blew across the ice-fields and snowy peaks of the northern mountains.
At the picket line he stopped to inspect Blue Star’s injuries once again. The mare was still nervous and angry and she showed her teeth at his approach, scratching at the hard ground with her deadly claws.
“Fight,” she said. “Fight the flying things, Glamiss.”
“Soon,” the Vykan said.
Blue Star shook her head savagely and snorted. Idly, Glamiss stroked the soft, dark, furred skin of her muzzle. The mares would suffer if there was a freeze in the night. They were a hardy breed, accustomed to the grassy plains of Rhada where they were born, but they were lowland animals, bred for thousands of years on sea-level tundras. On Rhada, only the polar islands ever froze; the continents had a cold but even climate.
For a time Glamiss pondered the peculiar similarities and strange differences of the animal forms he knew. The horses of Rhada, like Blue Star, Sea Wind, and the others of this troop, were light-boned, swift beasts. Their eyes were pale blue--the color of turquoise--with slit pupils. Like many other of the life-forms with which the warman was familiar, they were rudimentarily telepathic (according to Emeric, bred to it so that they would obey their warrior without bit or bridle in battle) and possessed of a simple language. Yet on Vegan worlds, horses were much larger, less intelligent, and heavily armored with chitinous plates like those of insects, or armored lizards. How had this come about, Glamiss wondered. The legends said that the men of the Golden Age, expanding into the galaxy from mythic Earth, had taken with them the life-essence of many Earth animals, and from this source had bred the beasts to suit their strange needs on alien planets. Perhaps it was so, though
how
the thing was done was beyond imagining. For a thoughtful moment he tried to imagine the men of the Empire boarding the great starships laden with their sinful packets of life. Had there been an Order of Navigators then? Priests believed it, or said they did. But Glamiss did not. No, in those days there could have been no priesthood and the piloting of starships must have been done by ordinary men. The young warman tried to imagine what Earth must have been like (if it existed at all, that is)--a world of gold and silver avenues and jeweled buildings circling a diamond sun situated in the exact center of the galaxy, 333,333 kilometers to the Rim of the Great Sky in all directions. The orderliness of such a society seemed utopian to Glamiss and quite unreal. But the idea of so many millions of people living and working together in amity and safety was strangely moving. Even if it never was, actually, that way--it should have been, he thought.
Nav Emeric, his robe hitched up to show his mail-clad legs, appeared from the direction of the bivouac. He had stripped off his weapons and unlaced the throat of his iron-chain shirt, and he carried a cup of hot bouillon and a strip of broiled meat.
“Have you eaten? Here.” He offered the rations to Glamiss, who took them silently.
“I have been thinking of what you said, Glamiss,” the priest said in a low voice. “What, exactly, do you think we will find down there?” He indicated the valley, in shadow now.
“I don’t know,” Glamiss replied. “But there is something there. Things we have never seen before, perhaps. I can’t explain it. It is as though we’ve stumbled on something I need to know--something I must have before--” He broke off suddenly and the Navigator studied his somber face intently.
“There is a strangeness in you, Glamiss Warleader,” Emeric said. “I felt it from the first day we met. You are different from other men of our time.”
Glamiss raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say ‘from other men of our time’?”
“A feeling, no more. Vulk Asa senses it, too. We’ve spoken of it together.”
“You have discussed me with the Vulk?”
The Navigator smiled wryly. “Terrible, is it not? But there it is. It might be blasphemous to say so, but it is almost as though you have been chosen for something. Have you never wondered at how men follow you so willingly? Don’t you think it strange that a man of your humble birth should come so far as you have?”
“The thought has occurred to me,” Glamiss said in a dry tone.
“Forgive me, my friend. But you asked me. Why, you come from a tribe that isn’t even allowed to bear arms, isn’t that so?”
“It is,” Glamiss said. “My people are herdsmen. Like those.“ He turned his eyes on the darkening valley.
“Yet now you are the most honored warleader in Ulm’s warband. Has it never come to you that perhaps there is the hand of God in the Star in this?”
Glamiss grinned ruefully. “I thought you would give the credit to the Adversaries.”
“I’m not joking, Glamiss,” the Navigator said soberly. “You must be a chosen one. Though chosen for what, I cannot say.”
Glamiss narrowed his eyes against the fading light and thought of his recurring dream. He said quietly, “In the night, sometimes, I see myself standing on an island between two rivers, Nav Emeric. In my hands are a flail and dagger. On my back a feathered cloak. And on my head a circlet of gold--” Emeric turned pale, but did not speak.