Children of the Gates (33 page)

Whereas the plain forecast the swift coming of winter, the growth they now looked down on was lush, thick with leaves as it might be at the height of a good growing summer. Trees stood so close together that all one could really see for the most part was their tops, the leaves ruffled by gentle winds.

The leading guard went to the left a little and stepped onto the beginning of a stairway which had been cut back into the stone of the cliff. They followed single file, going down into that waiting lower land.

17

The luxuriant growth of vegetation in this lower land was beyond anything Elossa had ever known. Those valleys and plains in the east which the Raski cultivated to the best of their ability would seem desert borders compared to this. As the stair down the cliff side gave way to a road wide enough for six such guards as surrounded them now to walk abreast Elossa continued to wonder at the difference in this country.

Overhead trees arched, completely, she guessed, cloaking the road under their canopy. While the trees themselves were of new species. Between their trunks and lower branches climbed and looped thick vines which branched into stems so heavy with a bright purple fruit that they drooped downward near to breaking.

Around the fruit flew and climbed countless feasters—some feathered, some furred. Their squawks and cries led to a continual rise of sound. Yet none of the guard marching below glanced upward or seemed to notice any part of what lay on either hand.

There was a dank lushness to the very air of this woodland, scents both rank and fragrant hung as heavy as the fruit, clogged the nostrils and made the breath come faster as if one labored to catch lungfuls of the keener and more sterile air of the heights. The road underfoot was well laid and Elossa noted that, for some reason, none of the thick undergrowth so much as hung out above it. Those blocks might in themselves generate some warn-off quality which kept the forest from intruding on the work of the builders who so challenged nature.

But the way did not run straight. There were some trees of such a girth that it appeared their rooting could not be disturbed, so the road curled east or west about their bulk. When this was so and one glanced back it seemed that the road itself had disappeared from sight beyond each such curve.

Beads of sweat gathered along the edge of Elossa’s hair, trickled down her face. This heat reached out to wrap her around until it seemed that every place her clothing touched her body the coarse fabric fretted and chafed her skin. Still the Yurth guard, having set on this path, did not pause or in any way abate their pace.

But all roads must in time have an end and this one came as they rounded an isle of earth which gave root space to three giant trees, so smothered in vines and towering ferns that the whole looked as solid as a rock wall.

The crook in the road ended in an open space, also paved with the firmly laid stone blocks. Set flat in the surface of the center was an opening, square and without doors. Now they came to more stairs but this time the descent ran into depths below the surface of the ground.

It was darker as they went; still there was enough light to see about them. The stair curled around, leading ever down but following the walls of this well-like space in a spiral pattern. The lower they went the more the lush rich air of the forest thinned, though there was a current which Elossa could feel and it was fresh.

She tried to count the steps, hoping so to gain some idea of how deep this burrow went. But it was easy to lose count. And she disliked the atmosphere of the place more and more. Yurth life was mainly led in the open, under the sky, and with fresh winds about one.

They reached the end of that descent to face a passage running straight from the foot of the stairs. Along it at intervals torches set in rings fastened to the walls smoked and flared, the acrid scent of their burning strong.

That hall ended in another arch and Elossa near missed a step. Once again they fronted the same—or twin—stone face of Atturn, its open mouth stretched wide awaiting them.

Two of the Yurth dropped to hands and knees and crawled through. Then pressure on Elossa’s shoulders forced her down into the same humble position, indicating that she must follow suit. Angrily she obeyed, shrinking as far as she could from any contact with the walls of that mouth opening.

There was a wide chamber beyond, walled as well as floored with stone. As she scrambled to her feet she saw that there was a dais at the other end of the room and on it a seat high of back, wide of arm. Yet as large as that throne was it in no way dwarfed or belittled the man seated on it.

Red and black, crest of roached hair held high, this was he who had fronted them before the attack of the misshapen creatures. He was smiling as Elossa’s guards dragged her forward, watching her as a sargon, had it more than rudimentary intelligence, might watch helpless prey advance within paw-crushing distance.

The girl held her head high, something in her responded with instant defiance to that smile, to the arrogant confidence the lord exuded, though to meet him stare for measuring stare was all she might do now.

The Yurth who had brought her there were as blank faced as ever. They were—maybe they were only now extensions of this Karn’s will, his things, in truth swallowed up by Atturn.

“Lord.” It was Stans who broke that silence. He elbowed past Elossa as if she were invisible, taking a stand Immediately below the single tall step of the dais. “Lord King. . . .”

The dark eyes of the man broke contact with Elossa, turned to the Raski, so like him in body. That smile did not fade.

“You make common cause with Yurth. . . .” In Karn’s voice that last word took on the sound of some degraded and degrading obscenity.

“I am Stans of the House of Philbur.” The Raski had not knelt, save for the address of courtesy, he stood as one addressing an equal. “The House of Philbur—” he repeated as if those four words were in some manner a talisman which would admit him to the dominate company of Karn. “Is it thus that the Lord of Kal-Hath-Tan speaks with his kin?” He jerked his shoulders as if to point home that he went bound as a prisoner.

“You company with Yurth filth.”

“I bring you Yurth for you to do as you will. Your servants took no time to ask.”

So! Her vague distrust of Raski, in spite of all their seeming need of one another had been right! Lies—lies ran behind him to the very moments on board the wrecked ship when he had apparently agreed that they had common cause in questioning all tradition had built in the past of their two peoples.

Karn’s probing stare was sharp. Elossa felt another probe—not Yurth contact clean and clear, no. This was a furtive nibbling at the outer defense of her mind, a desire to violate her inner being without the power to force the rape.

“Interesting,” Karn remarked. “And how knew you of the Kal-Hath-Tan which is, Raski?”

“It was—is—that laid upon the House of Philbur, that we take blood price for Kal-Hath-Tan. In each age we take it.”

“There is a blood price for Kal-Hath-Tan of a different sort, Raski.” Karn made a slight gesture to indicate the two vacant-eyed Yurth before him. “Yurth filth here is slave. More bitter is this than death—is that not so, Yurth?” Now he spoke directly to Elossa.

She made no answer. Still Karn—or some alien power in this place—was seeking a way past her mind shield. She found such fumbling feeble so far, but that did not necessarily mean that it could not build in force, perhaps without warning.

Karn’s lips, so like those of Atturn’s mouth, moved in what might be silent laughter. His gaze on her was worse than any blow which he might have dealt physically.

“Yurth breaks—yes, Yurth breaks. And I find it good that this, your gift to me, kinsman, is female. Breeding of our humble slaves is slow—we lack many females. Yes, I find your gift good.” He raised his hand again and the Yurth to Stans’ right took a step backward and freed the Raski’s hands with a quick slash of his bonds. “You claim House Blood of Philbur, kinsman. That also interests me. I thought that all our blood was gone.

“As for the Yurth—take it to the pens.”

Elossa did not need the jerk on the cord about her wrists to bring her around. The hidden evil of this place was like a stinking mud rising about her feet, seeking to drag her down. She was willing enough to see the last of Karn and his “kinsman.”

They left the audience chamber by a second door and traveled through such a maze of shorter and narrower passages that, though she tried to set each turn and twist in memory, she despaired of ever finding her way through them again.

At length she was shoved through a door into a room where there were more Yurth—women. None of them raised eyes to look at her as she half fell forward, being unable to help herself as her hands had not been freed. Instead those half dozen females of her own race stared blank-eyed before them. Two, she noted with horror, Karn’s threat returning, had the big bellies of the pregnant. But they were all slack faced, as if empty of mind.

None of these wore the suits of the ship people; rather their robes could be the journey dress of the Pilgrims. But she recognized none of them as missing members of her clan. And she had no way of telling how long they might have been here.

Then the woman nearest her slowly turned her head. Her gaze fastened dully on Elossa’s face and the horror of the mindlessness it suggested made the girl hurriedly edge away as the woman arose sluggishly to her feet and advanced toward her. To be touched by this—this
thing
wearing the guise of Yurth brought a scream very close to her lips.

But the woman passed behind her and a moment later Elossa felt a fumbling on the cords which bound her. Those fell away. Still blank of face the woman shuffled back to the pile of unsavory, stained couch pillows where she had first crouched and subsided again in the same position. Elossa, rubbing her wrists, moved back until her shoulders touched the wall and there dropped down to sit cross-legged.

Her gaze kept returning to the woman who had freed her. To look at this fellow prisoner suggested that the stranger was no different from her companions. Still, something had led her to come to Elossa’s aid. Letting her head fall back against the support of the wall, Elossa closed her eyes.

That fretting at the edge of her mind-shield was gone. Very tentatively she released a small questing probe of her own. Nothing close to hand. If these here in this room and the other Yurth she had seen in the common dress were captured during the Pilgrimage then they had come here with powers equal to her own. Still those had seemingly been drained from them, leaving them empty and useless.

But the Raski had no such power. At least those of the outer world had not. They could be manipulated by Yurth hallucinations should just cause for such arise. What
was
Karn that he had been able to enslave those with gifts none of his race could claim?

“Karn is Atturn. . . .”

Only discipline of mind kept Elossa quiet. Who had sent that thought?

“You—where?” she shot out.

“Here. But be warned. Karn has his ways. . . .”

“How?”

“Atturn was a god. Karn is Atturn,” came the not clear response. “He has ways of breaking minds—but not all. Some of us were warned in time . . . retreated. . . .”

Elossa opened her eyes slowly, looked to the woman who had freed her. This must be the one.

“Thank you. But what can we do?”

“I am not Danna.” The correction came quickly. “She is broken. But still she can respond—a little. We work—we who still are true Yurth—to repair. But there are so few of us. No, do not look for me—we meet as mind speaking mind—we do not know each other otherwise lest in some ill chance the truth be riven from us. That death which came to Kal-Hath-Tan had strange, evil results. You have seen the twisted creatures who obey Karn in the first valley, those who trap all that wander into the inner lands.

“They are of the blood of Kath-Hath-Tan, but the ruin of the fire which blasted forth tainted them. They bear children from time to time as monstrous as themselves. Karn was worked upon otherwise; he was already learned in a strange way in secrets known only to high priests and rulers. Of them a handful were in a secret inner place when the end came to the city. Karn became deathless, the incarnation so he believes—so his people believe—of Atturn who was never a deity of any grace or good. Karn I has outlived those who survived with him, always they sought what is Yurth power—that of the mind. But they sought it their own way—in order to deaden the spirit of others. And much did they learn through the passing years. Now. . . .”

As if a door had been slammed between her and the one who spoke there came instant silence. Elossa closed her eyes but did not attempt mind-probe again. The interruption had been warning enough.

Then speeding straight to her like a spear thrown in anger came another mind-touch.

“Kin.” It was not that word which was heartening, it was the very force with which it came to her. Here was no evasion or warnings. Yet, dared she respond? The small scraps of information she had been fed suggested that Karn had resources to meet Yurth power. Perhaps he could also, in some perverted way, ape Yurth call.

“Come in.”

Fair invitation, or trap? Still she hesitated. How deep had the rot reached in the Yurth who slaved for Karn; could one of them serve him thus, too, helping to betray some newcomer to actual takeover? Elossa felt that she could not depend upon her own judgment. With Stans she had been more than half convinced that he was willing to step free of the prejudices of his people, even as she had seen in that time of revelation in the ship the narrow folly—or what seemed so—of hers also. Yet Stans had indeed brought her here to Karn. Perhaps he had known from the very moment they left Kal-Hath-Tan where they were bound and why. He might have so betrayed others making the Pilgrimage before her.

“Come in,” urged that other mind, laying open the door in a way which even Yurth seldom did and then only to those they trusted above all others. It was such an intimacy, such an invasion of the inner being that it only came at times of high peril—or honest shared emotion.

“Come in.” For the third time and now it did not ask, it demanded in some impatience, even anger.

Elossa drew upon the full sum of her energy. She might be making the worst mistake of her life, or she might be finding a defense against the worst Karn had spoken of with his vile suggestion. She shaped a mind-probe, only hoping that she would have the power to jerk loose in time, if again she had trusted wrongly. With that probe she did as the other ordered—she went in.