Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (25 page)

Then, over the waves, he saw the outline of the slim, engine-driven vessel which had captured him. It came fast from the southeast, a white curl of foam at the sharp bow, slicing through the waves like a knife. In a few moments it was resting bow to bow with the sailing ship, rocking up and down in the waves. He could see a cluster of dark figures on her foredeck and he knew the "lightning gun" again was seeking a target. He crouched quickly and slid down the back side of the dune. As he did he saw the grass burst into orange flame a few yards over his head.

Idiot! I never moved sideways from where I ran up the slope!
He trotted slowly away from the dunes through the palmettos and scrubby bushes, picking a way around patches of growth too dense to cut through. Behind him, he heard more fires crackle. A stitch began to cause a sharp pain in his side, and he had to slow to a walk. All the while he tried to monitor the enemies* minds, but a new difficulty had come up. Apparently there were
too many
minds, and they were all trying to shield themselves and concentrate on him at the same time. He found it almost impossible to separate their thoughts, even on the new wavelength of which they were ignorant.

Suddenly a clear message came to him, standing out, so to speak, above the jumbled thoughts of the others, like a mountain above hills.

Priest, I think you can hear me! You have some new tricks, priest, and I want them. You have slain another Elder Brother
(sacrilege!)
and made away with the chief of our Howler allies in some manner, this too we know. Now listen well, priest!! S'duna, a Master of the Dark Brotherhood and Initiate of the Seventh Circle, swear by our most sacred bond to slay you, yes, and by the most horrible means we can devise. And I will never rest until I bring this about. I go now, but you will see me again!

Hiero sat down under the shadow of a large bush and stared dully at the moonlit vegetation before him. He felt so tired that further physical effort would probably kill him, but he also felt marvelous in another way. He could
feel
the enemy minds, and they were not coming ashore! And there was only one answer to that. They feared him, alone and worn out, feared him desperately! Only this could make a heavily armed pack of over a hundred (a guess) furious Unclean, including their acolytes and Leemute allies, abandon so hard a chase. They had no idea of what he was really capable, and their leaders feared an ambush! The priest giggled weakly at the thought. It was all he could do to stay awake and keep his mind shield up, and the Unclean feared a superhuman, one-man ambush!

He roused himself at length. What little store of strength he still possessed must be used before it too gave out. He concentrated in the new channel on Gorm. The bear must have been waiting, his response was so quick.

I'm ashore to the west of you, I think,
Hiero sent, striving to keep his message coherent.
You'1l have to find me. I couldn't see your island, but I'm back in the scrub about a quarter mile from the dunes. I can't stay awake much longer and my mind screen will be on lock. You'll have to use your noses and ears. The enemy is near, just offshore, so stay behind the dunes and guard your minds! Repeat, guard your minds!
He fell forward on his face in the sand, the last trickle of energy leaving his body. Anyone passing by would have had to look hard to see that one patch of shadows cast by the moonlight under a certain large bush had a solidity that the others lacked. A child armed with a rock could have slain him.

He awoke to find it dark. Water dripped down his face, and for an instant he thought it was raining. Then he felt the canteen spout against his teeth and realized that he was leaning on something soft which smelled wonderfully of girl. His head was on Luchare's breast, and he now saw the young bear a few paces away in the moonlight and heard his snorts as he sought for a scent. The giant morse loomed in the background, dark against the star-filled sky.

With an effort, for he was terribly stiff, Hiero pushed himself up on his elbows and took the canteen from the girl's hands. She squeaked in excitement and surprise and started to babble.

"Are you all right, we looked all day and just found you a few minutes ago, that is, Gorm did. He smelled you and I don't wonder, I can myself, where have you been, you need a good bath and I—"

Hiero had freed one hand and pressed it firmly over her mouth while he drank from the canteen. When he had had enough, he put it down and released her lips.

"1 need food," he said firmly. "While I eat I'll talk. But we're by no means out of the woods. Have you seen any of the enemy, either at sea or here on shore?"

She sprang to the morse's saddlebags and was back with food on the instant, but her voice now tried unsuccessfully to be indifferent.

"How—how are you, Hiero? We were hiding about three miles down the coast in a bay. I guess you couldn't see it. You look terrible and smell worse." As she spoke, she handed him some smoked fish and biscuit.

Between ravenous bites, he told her briefly what had happened to him since his capture. At the same time, he was telling Gorm the story, only with his mind linked to the bear's. It was tiring, but saved repetition. The mental history took only a minute or two, so fast was mind speech, and Gorm wandered away when he had heard all he wanted.

Hiero finished his meal with a chunk of
pemeekan,
explaining he wanted some sugar. Then he stood up and stretched, breathing deeply.

"You don't know how good this feels after those black dungeons," he said, inhaling the scented night breeze. "Manoon is really indescribably horrible. Even the air smells dead, and nothing grows there, not even weeds or cactus."

She shuddered appreciatively and he looked her over. She was still neat and immaculate-looking in her leather suit, the mass of dancing curls shining in the moonlight. Something in his eyes made her hand go up to her head and attempt to adjust her hair, while she rose nervously from where she had been sitting in front of him.

"I missed you, you know," he said quietly, first sitting down and then leaning back on one elbow.

Luchare now had her back to him and she seemed to be staring at the dunes, white in the distance under the moon. "Did you?" she said, her voice uninflected. "That's nice, because we missed you too."

"I said I missed
you,
"Hiero returned. "I thought about you a lot. I was afraid you'd be hurt, much more afraid than I was of my own troubles, surprisingly."

She turned, and he could see the great dark eyes clearly in the moonlight. For a moment there was silence; then she spoke.

"Hiero, I'm not really a runaway slave girl," she began hesitantly.

"Now really," he said, suddenly annoyed for no reason he could think of. "I'd already come to that fascinating conclusion. And I don't give a damn, either, even if it seems so important to you. I was talking about how I felt about a—a—well, friend, a girl I liked, and who and what you are in your own benighted, barbarous country is of no conceivable interest to me at all!"

"Oooh!" she gasped. "You selfish, arrogant
man!
I was trying to tell you something important, but as far as I'm concerned, you can go get in a boat and go back to your Dead Isle as fast as possible! You're half-dead yourself, and you look like a dug-up body and stink worse!" Furious, she stamped away into the night, leaving the equally angry priest glaring after her.

His annoyance left him quickly and he scratched his head ruefully. Now why did I get so angry? he wondered.
I was the one who blew up first.
He could not see that the growing fear of personal involvement and other, even stronger emotions were clashing within him.

What news?
he sent Gorm, rubbing his dirty, unshaven face.

Nothing stirs in the night,
came the answer from nearby.
I
can feel nothing, smell nothing but the ordinary night creatures. The enemy has withdrawn, perhaps to the island you were on.

Wait here,
he sent,
and all keep watch. I'm going to bathe and get clean.

He walked slowly to the dunes and climbed them even more slowly. The Inland Sea lay empty and beautiful once more, under the bright moon. Only a light wind riffled the waves. His thoughts ranged far beyond his eyesight as he sought for news of his enemies. Up and down the coast went his mind. Never once did he encounter anything but the brain of a beast or a bird.

Then he gathered his new strength and his mind ranged far out, miles away over the water to where he knew the Dead Isle brooded. The new mental wave sought for the evil minds it knew to be there and found—nothingness!

Shocked, Hiero tried again. It was no use. There, out in the distant fortress, the Unclean had built a mind shield of their own. He could locate the island and even sense minds there, but he could learn nothing. He was in the position of a man who tries to peer through the dirty glass of a neglected aquarium. Behind the barrier he can sense dim shapes moving, but what they are and what they are doing remain a mystery.

That was quick,
he acknowledged grudgingly as he slid down to the beach and stripped. Behind him, he heard Klootz also coming down the sand hill. The big morse was not going to risk losing his master again, and was determined to mount guard.

As he washed himself and shaved with his gear from the saddlebags, the priest brooded over the new enemy shield. Obviously, they were unsure of his present powers. But S'duna and his crew must have felt certain that a new mind power existed, and they had managed to nullify it in a very short time. They could not prevent Hiero from sensing where they were, but they had completely stopped any penetration beyond that.

The moonlight was strong enough so that he was able, after washing his clothes and changing to his set of spares, to retouch his badges of rank with the paint stick. Feeling a hundred times better and only missing the weight of his medallion, for he had thrown the remaining lump away, he headed back for the dunes again, Klootz falling in behind.

As he topped the crest, he found the girl and the bear climbing the other side. For a second, the blood beat in his temples as he looked down at her; then he controlled himself with an effort.
God in Heaven, what is the matter with me?
he wondered.

In her turn, she stared coldly enough at him, then merely smiled politely. It was an almost overwhelming temptation to invade her mind.
What in the nine Hells was she thinking? Why do I care?
his mind repeated, warding off the answer which made him so nervous.

"I'm sorry I was impolite back there," he said stiffly. "Please put it down to being tired." His voice sounded artificial even to himself, and he cursed his own clumsiness as he spoke.

"Not at all, Per Hiero," she said lightly. "I'm sure I overtaxed your strength and was being silly. Please forgive me!"

They glared at one another from behind frozen masks until Hiero mounted Klootz and held down his hand for her to take and then lifted her up before him. With Gorm ranging in front, once more they were a team.

After a while, the tension went out of both Hiero and Luchare. They did not speak again of the curious and disturbing exchange which had just taken place, but common sense made them both talk naturally of other things. The strained feelings were put aside by mutual and unspoken consent, buried but not forgotten by either party.

As Klootz carried them along at his mile-eating amble, Hiero explained what he thought might be the next order of occurrences.

"They must know fairly well where we are," he said. "Now they're somewhat scared of me, but that won't last too long.

"Still, here's how it would seem. We must go on, around the end of the Inland Sea or even across it, and get to the shore on the southeastern edge near this Neeyana place you went through. The Unclean will have alerted all their groups and allies ahead of us, you can be sure of that. My maps, even
their
maps, show nothing ahead on this coast but a complex of markings which apparently mean Dead Cities. Now, I'm supposed to hunt certain Dead Cities, but these particular ones, no. For one thing, they seem to be half-submerged. The Unclean map I took from the man I killed up north shows the Palood coming south again and touching the Inland Sea for the last time, just where the city markings are. I'd hoped to cut north before this, but we haven't time now or the thrower either. I'd need that to fight the big marsh animals."

They rode on beneath the moon until dawn, always on the landward side of the dunes, which necessarily slowed their pace. Klootz had to pick his way through thickets and palmetto scrub and also avoid cactuses, and he could not move in the open, not with S'duna and his evil company ready to pounce from offshore. All the time he monitored the mental bands, looking for any trap or signal, but the mind waves were silent. Evidently the Unclean had developed some inkling of his powers and were lying low and not communicating. This was all the more dangerous. But as the night drew on, he lost the ability to detect the Dead Isle at all, and this made him feel a little better. If his new powers could not reach out to them, the reverse was probably true. Also, though he could not prove it, he had a feeling that their newly-developed shield was linked somehow to the fortress, to Manoon itself. Perhaps it was an actual physical device of some sort, such as the one he had seen his Unclean warder use, a mechanical amplifier of the mental powers. In this case, his thoughts went on, it might be too cumbersome to move. He would only have to avoid fortresses and concentrations of the Unclean. If he could find them, that is!

At dawn, they sheltered under a dense clump of some squat palm. Hiero had once again become wary of observation from above, though he had seen no Unclean flier since entering the marsh far to the west. This was no assurance that none was above, however; and he dared not try and use the eyes of a bird, lest the enemy be able to get on their track. He did not even want to cast the Forty Symbols, though that was mainly because he was depressed.

They ate quietly and drowsed the long, hot day.