The Game of Stars and Comets (72 page)

The grating noise was louder, the portal showed only a few inches of opening then froze. Witol seemed to go mad. Lowering his head, the bull drew back a little and charged, the sound of the impact of his horns against the door ringing in echoes and re-echoes through the city of the dead.

The force which he had used must have jolted free the ancient mechanism for the door sprang open just as I thought his assault might have jammed it past any further effort. Witol whipped through that aperture with a speed one would not expect from his bulk, the other two crowding behind him. Illo raced, her one hand twisted in the lashing of the gear on Wobru's back; I was only seconds behind.

I looked back; the door was snapping shut even as I watched, once more sealed. We were on a ramp, a stepped ramp, leading up. The gars strained to take that incline at the same burst of speed.

Their instinct was keener than mine, yes, but now I, too, felt that warning. I had no idea what fate the long dead had left to be visited upon the enemy should they reach this final stronghold. But that it was drastic and complete I could well guess.

We scrambled and climbed. This had been no easy entrance nor exit such as the other ways. Here the smooth metallic coating had become rough stone, the stuff of Voor itself which acted to our advantage, for I doubt whether we could have climbed so fast on a smooth surface at such a sharp rising angle.

What light showed us the way ahead was very faint, once the gate was shut and the glittering of the city gone. There were only some grayish gleams at the head of the ramp. Witol had been forced to slacken speed by the steepness of the incline; he was snorting and panting now, but he did not falter.

Even as he had charged the gate, so now he drew a little ahead and butted at a mass of fallen stone which near sealed us in, except for crevices which allowed daylight through. Stones and earth flew, fell back on us. Witol made a last lumbering leap and was gone, the other two gars after him, bringing us along as we clung to the pack lashing.

I had expected to burst forth in the Tangle. Instead we were in a very narrow valley, a knife-edged cut between two ridges of rough rock. Witol, breathing hard, did not pause, though his speed was more labored, his panting near as loud as his grunts. He kept on down the middle of the narrow way, though that required scrambling over slides of fallen rock, a weaving in and out to find footing at all. There was no sign of any vegetation here—only grey rock seamed up the sides of that cut with wide bands of black which was like that from which the eyeless statue had been hewn.

If there had ever been any road here it was long since hidden under those slides. In fact so rugged were our surroundings, I would have thought that none could have ever forced a path here before.

We were at the end of the knife-narrow valley, then out into the beginning of a wider space in which there was a sparse growth of grass, when the blast came—with force enough to knock us from our feet, send rocks crashing down all along the way we had come. The gars voiced such cries as I had never heard the beasts give before; their terror was plain. They ran on in a mad way, twice more being knocked from their feet by great earth shocks. Illo and I lay where the first of those had flung us, our fingers biting into the dusty earth to provide the only anchorage in what had become a shaken and shaking world.

I buried my face in the crook of my arm, coughing heavily, for dust arose to whirl so much about us it was a cloud to hide all—even my own hand lying so close to my face. The grit stung my eyes until they watered.

This then was the final answer of those in the gemmed city—and we had loosed it. I was as sure of that as if some voice out of the dust proclaimed our deed aloud in a solemn indictment. The opening of the gate where that hellish garden grew was invitation to the Shadows to reach the prey they had always coveted. Perhaps the essence of what made up the shadow cores had no longer real intelligence, as well as no body unless they built such—but I was certain that the age-old hatred had not been lost.

Those skeletons we had found within the city gate—had they been the last victims before somehow, with their unknown knowledge, the natives had been able to expel their enemies ? I had a half thought which again made sickness rise in my throat—volunteers? Men who had gone to such a death that satiated the victors, rendered the attackers so sluggish after their feeding, they could be better dealt with? We would never know—I did not want to.

But the city—its people driven to their final refuge had made their choice. They must not have been able to handle an attack in force—perhaps there had been only a handful of them left. Perhaps they had never lived or wanted to live on the outer surface of Voor. Only they had made sure that if their defenses were breached they would take the enemy with them. I—I had in reality been the one to breach the defenses—open the gate with the necklet which was the key.

Had the return of that to the pool not only released the final message, but also triggered the defense to ready, so that when the Shadows followed us greedy for the feast they were met with—?

With what? That there had been a mighty explosion underground was so evident it was not even necessary to speculate about that. However was any explosion enough to finish that which could not be seen, which had no substance unless it wished for it? Had we, instead of defeating the evil, loosed it instead, sent it free to roam with the wind?

My sickness grew stronger as I made myself face that possibility. My hope was a thin one—the city people had known the nature of their enemy. Certainly any final defense they would rig would be one which that nature could
not
withstand. Only hope is a tricky thing on which to build confidence.

Muffled by the dust I heard the bellow of the gars. It seemed to me that there was no fear in that sound any more—rather anger—and perhaps confidence. At least the ground had stopped shaking. There was still a rattle of falling stones, a crash of larger boulders in the vent valley from which we had emerged just in time. The dust was beginning to settle.

I sat up, trying to wipe my eyes without getting any more grit into them. My body was grey with dust. I coughed, and spit, choked, and coughed again. A figure thoroughly muffled in dust was performing like action an arm's length or so away.

Slowly I edged around without even getting up as far as my knees, for I had an uneasy feeling that if I tried that I would not stay even so far above the ground for long. The shifting billows of dust had fallen well enough to show me that there was no longer any break in the cliff wall. That crack through which we had run to safety was so choked now with rubble that it was sealed as tightly as a stopper could be pounded into a water bottle—

A water bottle!

The need for a drink struck me like a blow. Now I did get slowly, and with caution, to my knees, arose to stand, swaying, shielding my eyes against yet moving clouds of dust, looking out into the wide open land of grass and far spreading space. Not a tree, not a hint of bush, vine or thorn growth arose there. I licked dust from my lips and then wished that I had not, for it added to my thirst.

The other dust-covered figure which was Illo also stood up, weaving a little. Before us was the open land—not only that but I caught sight, through my watering eyes, of a greyish strip set in a lone thread of greenery, as if the growth there had not yet been season killed. The warmth which had been with us so that we had come to take it for granted, even as does a man the summer sun, ever since we moved along the edge of the Tangle was gone, cut off with a blast of chill wind against our backs.

I could see more clearly now—that ribbon was water and the humps moving determinedly towards it must be the gars. There was no other moving thing, nor even tallish growth. This was a land as stripped as the mid-plains I had known for most of my life.

"Come—!" I took one step and then another, and found that truly the ground was no longer rolling under me. I could walk. I need only cover the distance now lying between myself and that ribbon and water was mine.

Laying a supporting arm about Illo's shoulders, I started that march. We wavered together for a step or two and then strength flowed back into us, seeming to come the faster as we determinedly followed the gars into the open, nor did either of us look back.

My full attention was on reaching the water I craved, and we exchanged no words as we made that leg of our journey. Not until we threw ourselves full length in an opening between the stream-seeking bushes of a thicket and laved our faces, hands, arms, drank, rested and drank again, did she speak:

"It must be gone—all of it." Though I noticed she did not turn her head to look along our back trail to that valley which had ceased to be the last door to the underworld. "That was their final plan—if
those
got into the city to destroy it all!"

I rolled over on my back and lay looking up into the dun grey of the sky. It must be nearing twilight, but the roof of clouds overhead made it hard to judge. We should round up the gars, assemble our camp. Yes—that dark thought crept into my mind once more and clung.

"How," I blurted out, "do you destroy something which is only a—shadow?"

"
They
knew." Now Illo did turn her head a fraction, reluctantly, as if she must make herself do this. "It was by their arts that the first evil came to be; I think they had a last drastic control. While they lived they were not forced to use it. I think it would have been very hard for them to destroy their city—it was part of them."

"You talk as if you know—but how
can
you!" I persisted.

She was sleeking back the damp locks of her hair which had fallen into the water moments earlier and were now plastered into a ragged frame about her face, a face which seemed thinner, older, more tired than I had ever seen it.

"I know—" she hesitated as if hunting for words to make plain, emphatic what she would say—"I know it here!" The fingers of both of her hands were on her forehead just above her eyes, rubbing back and forth as if to ease some pain—or memory of pain. "It was in me—first the calling as I told you—that was true. And when the calling stopped and I believed that Catha must be dead—there was still a need in me—another calling, deeper buried, but one, I think which would have kept me crawling forward on my knees when I could no longer walk, if that had been necessary. That—all of it is gone!"

"You—" I remembered, but now it was not so horrible, so immediate—rather as if time had raised the barrier between memory and this moment which it would have naturally done had all been normal in my world, "you were being summoned still—by Shadows?"

She was frowning and rubbing still at the frown lines as if to erase them.

"Perhaps, or perhaps something else. Perhaps it was time that certain conditions must be fulfilled. There was no real reason why we, of all travelers, should have stumbled upon the necklet—"

I sat up and drew my knees close to my chest, lacing my arms about them. Out of my inborn desire for independence I did not want to follow her reasoning. That was born of her talent, I told myself. Still there were oddities about the both of us. Alone on Voor, as far as I knew, we were the only survivors of the Shadow doom. There had been that freak storm, the worst I had ever encountered in all my years on the plains, my father's death, the task he had laid on me.

Men who worship some forces greater than they themselves can truly imagine may see patterns in the laying out of our lives, reasons for action or choices which we do not understand. As if we are tools, honed and readied for one special task, set to it, instead of blundering on by ourselves.

I looked up into the evening sky where the first faint stars began to show, We two were born of Voor, no matter our off-world blood. Creatures—people—like us had once landed here, were caught up in an evil which became a dark blight, an evil which was able to reach out and draw in turn upon some inner quality of my species. Had those refugees indeed been of my own stock or enough like us so that our heritage was a common one?

Only this time our blood had been the victims—except for Illo and me. If the Shadows could move to bend men to their purposes, could not some overwhelming
other
will, seeking ever a weapon against them, have had a hand in what we had done?

"What do we do now—?" I asked it of the sky, and of myself, but Illo answered:

"Nothing. Time will heal. We shall not speak the truth to anyone. It is gone, all of it—that garden place of utter evil in which they fed and spawned, and which I think they needed in order to live—the jewel city where now no one will tramp and pry and seek out secrets we are not meant to handle, use, or know. I am a healer—I shall heal—In time this memory shall fade more and more into a story—"

I sat up, put my fingers to my lips and gave Witol's whistle.

"I do not think we shall forget so easily," I told her. "But, yes, we must keep silent. There will be holdings in the north after the years pass and others find no more trouble. Perhaps the Tangle will fade, it may have been nourished by what lay under it.
Their
peace is locked upon them for all time—" I could still sense a little of what I felt in the city; I hoped I would not forget that healing peace ever. "You are right, this is our secret, we shall remain who we are, and none shall know the difference. After all," I was on my feet now and had stretched wide my arms as if some burden had loosened and fallen, to leave my back unbowed any longer, "what better life can I choose—Voorloper!" I shouted that to the sky in a sudden burst of relief and returning youth, as Witol and his companions came trotting up to the two of us there under the evening sky.

SIOUX SPACEMAN

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12

EYE OF THE MONSTER

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

THE X FACTOR

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18

VOORLOPER

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13