Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (62 page)

Welcome, Two-Legs! You have been a long time upon your journey, as you and yours count time. That which bears you has helped to bring you to me. Leave the animal now. It has served its purpose, or part of its purpose. It has no further use in our dealings together. Follow the shore around to the right and you will be more comfortable. We have much to discuss, we two.

As the voice entered his mind, Hiero became a changed man. Outwardly, he remained what in fact he had been for a long time, a prisoner of his own body, obedient to the will of that which had summoned him. But the strange voice in his brain had alerted all the long-silenced circuits that had been killed by the drug of the Unclean. They were not operating under his control, but they were activated. He could feel all his emotions again, sense the brain of that which addressed him, plan on the future with his full mentality, review the damage done by the drug, and, above all, feel that he was no longer a prisoner in his own skull. Yet he must obey.

He dismounted as he had been told. The hopper remained squatting on his haunches, as immobile as a statue, his great, gentle eyes fixed in a blank stare, as if he were seeing nothing. The man began to walk along the edge of the dark water, picking his way over the slippery masses of the crumbling bones with care. All the while, his brain was still captive, but racing furiously, considering the voice in his mind and the implications thereof.

It was no human voice, this mental alert. In some ways, it was not unlike the House, that amalgam of fungoid intelligence he had slain in the cavern to the north. The resemblance lay in a sense of coldness and of great age. But there it ended. The House had been all furious malignancy, hating and despising all that was not of its own foul nature, determined to swallow the whole world in its sporate growth. This mind was quite different, being as placid as the mountain tarn before him. It was remote, non-caring. It envied and despised nothing, too aloof and withdrawn from the scheme of things for such pettiness. If it had any deep emotions, it hid them well.

While Hiero was considering the voice and trying to sort out the burst of galloping thoughts created by the sudden awakening of his mind, he was still clambering over the moss and lichen-strewn bones. Presently, he came to the end and found himself in a little bay on the shore of the black lake. Over the water, the mist still clung to the damp air, wreaths and swathes of it folding and refolding in gauzy tendrils. The light was growing brighter as the sun once more began to make its appearance, and shades of pearly opalescence colored the fog.

Hiero seated himself on a convenient bank of thick, green moss and stared at a narrow ridge of grayish rock which had become revealed some yards from the shore as the mist cleared a little. The voice had been silent for some minutes now, and his brain registered nothing. Yet he was well aware that his summoner was not gone and also that he could make no move save with permission. Far back down the shore, whence he had just come, he heard the sound of a heavy splash. There was no other sound, and he wondered at the noise. While he sat in silent puzzlement, the voice came again to his mind.

So, Two-Legs, you are at rest. I feel in your mind that you do not hunger, nor do you thirst. Good. Very good. We can have speech with each other.

The strange voice was not speaking in words, but rather in instantaneous images. Moreover, the images were halting and somewhat labored, not at all like the clear mind speech Hiero could use with Gorm, the absent bear, his mutant comrade. It was as if the being had developed little or no skill in what it was doing. It had plenty of ability, but the ability was theoretic, not practiced.

You can speak to me, Two-Legs. Not to anyone else, at least not in this manner. And there is no one to speak to with sounds, as you do with your own sort. Here, in my place, there is none other. You must speak with me or with none.

Hiero tensed as he received this, then attempted to use mind speech. As he did so, he tried to throw up a guard as well, so that whatever addressed him could not read his hidden, innermost thoughts.

Who are you?
he sent.
What do you want? Why cannot I see you? What is this place?

He could swear he had felt amusement or at least irony from the voice. But there seemed to be no malice, no feeling of evil, directed toward him. Yet he knew the creature was right. He was sending to it alone. His powers had been restored only on this one "channel." Aside from his unseen interlocutor, he was still cut off from the world of the mind.

Many, many questions,
came the reply.
There is no need for so much at once. But I will try to answer. You will see me in due course. I have my own reasons for waiting. You are most impatient
—
as are, I guess, all those like you?
It ignored its own half question and went on.
This is my place, the only place I have ever known. And perhaps ever will. I have brought you here, as I see you perceive, by pulling on your mind slowly at first and then with more power, increasing the pull by degrees. For I could see that your mind was not such as I have ever encountered before. Many
w
anings and waxings of the moon have come and gone since one of your two-legged kind was brought here. It has been so long that I have lost count. It did not seem important. Very few ever came, and their minds were blind and foolish, unthinking and so full of terror. In the end, when I could not reach them and their minds, I gave them peace. What passed for their brains was full of blood, full of fear, and yet cruel also, in a way that the simple beasts who come are not. So
—
like these others, they passed.

Hiero was made conscious of the sea of mossy bones. He felt a sudden chill. How long had this invisible presence been here, and was this damp charnel house what it meant by "giving them peace" and "passing"?

But the thing which spoke to him detected his fear at once, and he knew that in his present state no mind screen he erected could bar it from any of his thoughts.

Do not be afraid!
' it said with surprising emphasis.
You are no use to me if you panic like the other things of your species. I mean you no harm. When I felt the strength of your thoughts, which burned in the atmosphere—for even though your mind is bent and silenced, I can still perceive its lost power
—
I
tried to draw you here. You were very far away, Two-Legs, so far I could barely detect you at all. I had to strain my own senses to the uttermost even to reach you. It exhausted me, the first time such a thing ever happened. And then, when I found your brain, I found it blocked, sealed off from all thought outside, even mine.
There was a pause, as if the voice were trying to assemble thought and concepts unused or never used before.

But the ones who shut your mind from the rest of the world—for I see that it was done to you, and not for your benefit
—
did not know of me.
There was a note of actual pride in the message, Hiero noted in turn. The voice had accomplished quite a feat, and it knew it.

I found a small place that the blockage did not cover, a hole, you would think. And into this hole I sent my own thought, calling you to me. It took much energy. I was always hungry. Even now, after just feeding, I am hungry still. I must summon more food before we talk again. You also, Two-Legs, are ready to eat and rest. Go back to where you came from first and get the food that you have brought with you, then return here to eat and rest. Later we can have speech together. Fear nothing. I alone rule here, and no enemy or beast can enter or leave unless I desire it. None has ever left.

There was silence in his mind, Hiero realized. The voice was gone. He thought of the message and shuddered inwardly. "None has ever left." Was this to be his fate as well, trapped by some nameless being in the far mountains, to perish alone and unknown in this lake of fogs, his quest undone, and Luchare and all who loved him never even to know? He crossed himself. If he ever needed the Lord's protection, this was the time. It was not fear or even the loneliness of his plight which unnerved him. Rather, it was the thought that he had surmounted, so much, only to come to this obscure and hopeless end.

Then, as he thought of the past, both recent and more remote, his spirits began to rise. He recalled the thousands of leagues he had come from his home in the North, the successes he had achieved, the foes he had overcome, and, above all, the woman he had saved and won. It was enough. He was still a human, and one bred to battle since youth. A warrior knows when to fight and when to wait upon events. This was a time to wait. The being whose shape he had not seen had not harmed him, only withdrawn somewhere. It had bidden him to eat and rest. Very well, he would do so. Then, refreshed, he would see what came next.

He began to retrace his steps to where he had left Segi entranced, as he had been himself a while back, staring out into the mists. Even with the increase of pallid light and the cessation of the rain, he had the same trouble picking his way over the pavement of bones, cracked, broken, and beslimed.

He saw a brown heap on the foreshore in front of him and decided that Segi was lying down, though the hopper looked curiously fore-shortened through the mist. Then, with a thrill of horror, he realized that the animal was not there at all. He broke into a run, careless of his footing, and arrived, panting, at the object he had glimpsed so mistakenly. There at his feet lay the saddle and bridle, all complete, with reins, boots, socketed spear, and saddlebags. But of the brave creature who had followed and carried him for so long, there was no trace. The hopper was totally, completely, gone, as if he had doffed his own well-laced and buckled gear and gone for a cooling swim. Over all the gear was a smear of glutinous slime, clear and odorless!

Hiero drew the great sword-knife from his back and whirled to face the black lake. He remembered now the heavy splash he had heard while seating himself in the mossy bay to which he had been directed. He knew now what had caused it!

Damn you!
he raged in his mind, sending the signal as savagely as he could.
Come and get me! Leave off hiding and skulking wherever you are! Here's someone ready to fight, not a poor, dumb animal that did you no harm! Let's see you fight a man, you foul spawn of whatever!
"Come on, I'm waiting for you!"

So enraged was he that he brandished his sword at the lake and shouted the last words aloud. His fury at the sly murder of the helpless Segi—for he was sure that not only was the beast dead but that it had had no chance to defend itself—made him shake with baffled anger.

From the still water there came no reply. No ripples arose on the calm surface; the colored mist, now gray and pearl, now pink and shot with faint golds, swirled as silently as before. The far shore of the tarn remained hidden from view, and nothing moved save for the eternal drip of the trickling droplets from the rocks and leaves, running through the rnoss channels and lichens until they merged with the substrate and entered the lake far below.

Hiero was trembling with silent rage, though he made a strong effort to master himself. He had been gulled with smooth words to take him off guard, while Segi had been dragged, helpless, to some horrid den to serve as a feast for God knew what atrocity. It made him wild. Soon, however, a new mood of cold anger replaced the hot fury. What was done was done. They had been lured here by some power which had boasted that it never let go of its prey. His hapless mount had trusted him to the death—and had followed him to that death. His memory working at full throttle now, Hiero had no trouble remembering how Segi had tried to warn him on the long route up the mountain's throat, checking and snorting in a last attempt to make his master see the peril and take action. But, insensate, befooled, his brain under the spell of what laired here, Hiero had simply urged the poor brute on. And this was the result!

Well, then, he would take the being's advice, just as he had done earlier. He took dried meat and some edible roots from the saddlebags and ate, watching the water while he did so. He did not really expect anything to materialize from the silent mere; it was simply that he knew that what had taken Segi came from there. The shore of bones was enough clue to that without any other evidence. Over the centuries, whatever had spoken to him had collected prey, and it was no accident that the lake was the epicenter of its activity. There was no way he could reach it now, but he could at least be ready when
it
came again. For it would come, he felt sure.

Arriving at the mossy bank, he selected the driest section with care. In the dying light—for he could feel the sun setting through the cloudy reek—he laid himself down, His spear was across his breasts and his sword to hand. Not that, having overcome his first wrath, he felt material weapons were going to be much use to him. They were a symbol of readiness, nothing more. And the crossbar of the spear, forming a cross with the blade, gave him the added security of his faith. He was suddenly drowsy, though not suspiciously so. He remembered, just before full dark fell, to say his prayers and he silently mentioned the good beast who had served to the end and done his master's bidding to the last.

Out in the dark waters of the lake, something listened to the prayer—something both alien and lonely.

When Hiero awoke, it was mid-morning, according to the built-in clock in his head. The mists were far thinner than yesterday, and he could see the lake shore stretching much farther in both directions. Overhead, the sky was still hidden, but the light that came down was golden with the sun, even though strained through the coiling vapors.

He stretched and yawned, then remembered the previous evening, and once more the anger returned. He drew his knees up, cradling the spear across his arms, and stared malevolently at the water before him, now a silver gray in the glow of the morning. His blast of mental rage received an answer at once.

I have done you a wrong, I perceive,
the voice said in his head.
I have seen somewhat of your mind as you rested. This I cannot do with the same ease as when you are awake. Yet when your brain was at rest, I saw in the dark hours great anger against me. That I slew the animal that carried you here is a fact. That I knew that this would anger you is not. Somehow, in some way hidden from me, this creature and you were linked. Yet it was not your mate, not of the same kind at all. It was something that bore you as a burden, a matter which cannot have been agreeable to it, though useful to yourself It carried you as a larger animal carries a smaller which sucks its blood. Yet you got no sustenance from it, nothing beyond a slight increase in speed and ease.
There was a brief pause, as if the thing were trying to formulate some new thought. At last it said, or sent,
I do not understand the cause of your anger, but I will do what I can to make amends if you will explain.