Yurth Burden Part 7

"It matters not to me." She returned from the emptiness in which her probe had been lost and useless.

"Left then." The Raski got to his feet. He waited until she, too, stood up, and then turned in the direction he had chosen, keeping near enough to the edge of the drop so the rim lay ever within the light of the torch.

There was little way to measure distance traveled, save in the fatigue of their own bodies. Elossa found herself counting steps under her breath for no good reason, save that such a sum of their journey quieted the ever-present fear that there was no way out.

Then- Stans gave a sharp exclamation, strode forward. The light of the torch had caught a projection out from the rim of the chasm, extending over the dark emptiness of that drop. It was of the same rock as formed the flooring over which they had traveled, and narrowed as it went. Not worked stone of any man-made bridge, Elossa thought. Yet. . . .

Her companion swung the torch closer to the surface of that projecting tongue. Though there were no marks of tools smoothing this path there lay something else. Deep carven into the floor was another representation of that face, while extending from it was the bridge in the form of a tongue thrust forth. Elossa halted just beyond the edges of the carving, having no wish to tread over the wide lips of the mouth. But Stans apparently felt no such repugnance. He stepped onto the tongue where it issued from between the lips at its widest extent. Then he knelt and, torch in one hand, began to crawl out on the bridge itself, if bridge it was.

Elossa had no desire to follow. There was that about this continual appearance of Atturn's face which disturbed her. It was wholly of Raski, and yet Stans insisted that he knew little of it There was also the fact that whoever had wrought the representations of it she had seen had continually accented the malice, the evil. Atturn had not been a G.o.d-or ruler- or energy-who had been engaged in any good for her own kind.

She watched Stans creep along over the drop, longing to summon him back. Yet she knew better than to disturb the concentration displayed in his whole tense figure. While the tongue bridge, though it narrowed, did seem solid enough as far as the torchlight reached.

Stans paused, for the first time glanced back at her over his shoulder.

"I think we can cross," he called and there was a distorted echo from below uttering his words so garbled they might have been from the throat of some beast "It seems to continue. Let me see the other end."

"Well enough." Elossa dropped down just beyond the edge of the face, watching as he once more advanced slowly but steadily ahead. Around her the dark thickened as the torch was carried farther and farther away. She could hardly make out the details of the tongue pa.s.sage, save that it seemed to her that it was narrowing to an extent where Stans might not even find width enough to support both knees at once.

The Raski's advance was very slow. Though he held the torch up to illuminate as much as he could of what still stretched before him, his other hand grasped the edge of the bridge in a grip Elossa did not have to see clearly to realize was tightened by the very real presence of fear. Then he moved so that now his legs dropped, one on either side of that path which had become so narrow his own body more than spanned it.

He began to hitch, his legs swinging over nothingness. Elossa, without being conscious of what she did, pressed one fist tight against her mouth, until the pain in her pinched lips made her aware. The torch had certainly not caught any sign yet of the other side of the chasm. What if the tongue became a tip and Stans slid off it into the depths?

The malice of the carven face certainly promised no more than harsh disaster for anyone daring to trust to it. She longed to shout to the Raski to return, but at the same time feared that any sudden summons might send him off balance, to fall.

She blinked, hardly sure that she did see that hint of a ledge of rock reaching out toward the tongue tip from the far side. Was there a s.p.a.ce between the two which could not in the end be bridged? Or did the very tip of the stone span actually rest upon the ledge? It was too far-the light too confined by the distance-for her to make sure. Her heart was pounding, she had risen to her knees, staring out at that small flicker of flame which was so perilously distant.

Stans made a convulsive movement-a fall! Her breath caught in a choking gasp. No! He was getting to his feet, and now the torch was swinging back and forth like the flag of a victorious army waved to signal triumph.

He started back, down once more on the thread of stone, edging along, holding the torch before him. Her own body ached with tension as she watched him make the slow return trip. She only breathed deeply and fully once more when he arose to walk the last few steps to gain the lips of the face from which that incredible bridge issued.

"It is very narrow toward the end. . . ." He breathed in short gasps and in the torchlight she could well see the sheen of sweat across his face. That journey had not been an easy one. "There is but a very small margin of meeting between bridge and the edge on the far side. But it is a crossing."

"As you have proved." She tried to make her face impa.s.sive. There was no escape save this very risky path. All her life she had known mountain trails which were narrow, where one must walk with the greatest of care, the highest dependence upon one's balance and skill. Yet the worst of those was as nothing compared to the ordeal before her now. She needs must shut away fear, and with it that other feeling of repugnance for the form of their only escape. To her the face carried such a sensation of sheer evil that to trust her body to the tongue was nearly more than she could force herself to do. The thing was stone, it had no life-except that illusion it might be able to foster in those who feared it-yet there was deep in her a sick hatred born from the need to touch its substance.

A picture haunted her, a vision of the tongue curling up and around, as that tongue of fog had wreathed the Raski. A stone tongue to hold her securely a prisoner, draw her back into the gaping mouth of. . . .

Elossa shook her head. To allow such a vision any place in her mind was to carry out the very purposes of those who had created Atturn-whatever he was. She held her head high and was pleased that her voice was so steady as she asked: "How do we go?"

Stans had been looking back along the path he had taken once.

"I think I go first-if we only had a rope!"

Elossa managed a laugh which did not sound too ragged. "Uniting us? To what purpose in disaster save that it would mean the loss of us both then. I do not believe that either of us could sustain the weight of the other were that one to slip. If it must be done, let us get to the doing of it!" Perhaps with that last outburst she had revealed her dismay. If so he did not let her realize, by even a look, that he knew how fear ate at her.

Instead, holding the torch close enough to him that the light shone well over his shoulder, he set forth with an air of steady confidence to again cross the tongue. Staff in hand, her cloak held tightly about her, Elossa followed.

It seemed only too soon that they must descend from walking to crawling on hands and knees. She tried to keep her eyes only for the stone way that the flame showed. But those edges drawing ever more closely together were a torment to watch. Maybe she was lucky in that complete darkness did fill the chasm. Was it better not to see? Only then imagination could paint what the eyes did not distinguish.

"Astride here," his words floated back.

Elossa hitched high her robe, bunching it about her waist The stone, rough and cold, chafed the skin of her inner thighs as she edged slowly along, and the perch on which she rested grew ever more narrow. Her dangling legs appeared to gather weight, making her ever afraid of over-balancing.

Then Stans seemed to give a leap, if one could so express his quick thrust forward from a sitting position. The torch flashed down. He had laid its b.u.t.t on a ledge, the flames out over the gulf. On his knees, he turned to reach both hands to hers.

Somehow the girl loosed her grip on the stone. The staff she had held across her lap she s.n.a.t.c.hed up, angling it to him. He seized the length of wood, then there came a steady pull, to drag her over what was indeed the most shaky of supports-the very tip of the tongue, a bit of stone no wider than her hand, where it just touched the ledge.

She sprawled forward, her body landing full on Stans, pushing him back across the stone. For a moment or two she could not move at all. It was as if the demands she had put on her body and her courage had weakened both at once, leaving her as weak and empty as one who has been ill for a long time.

Stans' arms closed about her. She was hardly aware of that fastidious dislike for touching another which was so much a part of her heritage. Elossa only knew at this moment the warmth of his body close against hers sent rushing back into the darkness of the gulf all the fear which had gnawed at her. They were across-there was stable rock under them.

Then the Raski loosed her as he made a lunge for the torch which was sputtering. He swung it up through the air so the flames took on new life. Elossa felt tears runneling the rock dust on her cheeks, but she bit back any sound. Using the staff for a support she was able to drag herself up and stand, though it felt to her for some s.p.a.ce out of time that the solid rock which was her footing swayed from side to side.

Starts, torch in hand, held out that brand. There was no mistaking the way those flames were borne back toward them. Just as the current of air, which seemed to her as fresh as the wind from a mountain tip, blew from some s.p.a.ce before them. There must be some way out waiting for them.

Elossa was hungry, her body ached from the journey. But she was in no mind to suggest that they halt, drink of what they carried in the water bottles strapped to their girdles, or eat the rest of her crumbs of journey bread. If there was a chance of winning out of here in the not too distant future, that was all that mattered.

The size of ledge on which they stood did have limits. It might not be as clearly defined as the tongue for a bridge, but there was s.p.a.ce to be seen on either side. Only, before them loomed a new opening in a rock wall, unworked natural stone. It was down this pa.s.sage that the air came.

Stans had thrown back his head, was drawing in deep breaths.

"We must be close to the outer world," he commented. "There is no underground taint in this wind."

He must feel as heartened by the thought of escape as she was for he moved on with a hasty stride and she hurried to catch up with him.

They emerged into a night near as dark as the pa.s.sage from which they came. Clouds ma.s.sed overhead heavily enough to shut out all signs of moon or stars. And there was a wind which carried in it more than a promise of the winter season now not so distant. Having found their door they were not so determined to use it yet, at least not until they knew more of the world into which they had come. In mutual consent they withdrew again into the pa.s.sage and, finding a niche which protected them somewhat from the wind, they crowded into its shelter, deciding to wait out the hours of dark there.

Elossa brought out the last of her journey cakes-a ma.s.s of crumbs. And they had the water in the bottles. Having eaten, they drank, and then agreed, though they lacked any method of telling time, to share sentry duties.

Stans arbitrarily claimed the first watch period and Elossa did not dispute him. The ordeal of the bridge crossing still was with her. She was content for now to huddle within her cloak and just rest. But sleep came upon her then with the suddenness of a blow.

When she roused from that state it was to feel Stans' hand on her shoulder, shaking her into wakefulness. He grunted some disjointed words she did not clearly catch and settled down himself in the dark leaving her to look out upon the strangeness of this over-mountain country.

At first she sharpened her sleep-drugged wits by trying to place their present position. Their crossing of the valley had been mainly an east to west trail. But when Stans had sought the Mouth he had certainly gone north. Had their journey also within the ulterior of the heights been northward? She was certain that was so. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she believed that they were surrounded by peaks higher than the foothills among which they had earlier traveled. There was no mistaking a certain feel to which she was sensitive from her life among the heights.

Now that the pressure of the journey, the need to escape, was gone, she tried to marshal what little she knew, what she had observed and felt, into a logical sequence from which she might reason possible future action.

Two heritages had been very much in evidence in the way of the Mouth: Raski-even though Stans denied that he knew much of Atturn-Yurth in the mysterious figure who had attempted to slay them with the ancient weapon of her own people and then had vanished.

Yet because of their very heritage there was no reasonable motive for such a melding of menace. Until she and Stans had stood in the sky ship and made their own uneasy alliance there had been, to Elossa's knowledge, no pacific meeting between Yurth and Raski.

She fumbled in folds of her clothing and brought forth the mirror pendant. There was no light of moon to give it life; she was able to see only a disc, and that very shadowy in her hand. Also to use that would open her mind, leave her defenseless to any other who had mind-send, mind-probe. Restlessly she fingered it, longing to put it to use, caution acting as a brake on her desire.

That Yurth call-concerning that she had not been mistaken. If that were only a mental illusion, to match what had been visual ones, then she was indeed lost. A chill of fear crawled along her body, far worse than any sold brought by the wind and the stone surrounding her. Mind must control illusion. But if the mind itself were to be invaded by such-against that not even the most strongly armed Yurth could stand! And she did not claim the completely trained powers of her elders.

She raised the half-seen mirror to her lips, breathed upon it. Then holding it at eye level she concentrated.

Yurth-if there was Yurth. here then that call would bring, should bring. . . .

Elossa could see the disc only as an object between her fingers. She had never tried before to use it in such an absence of light. There was-no, she was not mistaken! The disc grew warm-it was activated!

Yurth! Urgently she beamed out that call. No answer, though she put into her mind-send all the strength she could summon. If Yurth had ever been here then her people were now gone. Dare she try Raski? As Elossa hesitated, the memory of the Mouth was sharp in her mind. Better not play with forces she did not understand. That looping shadow tongue which had near taken Stans was something beyond her own knowledge. Regretfully she clasped the mirror between her palms, loosed all concentration, then stowed it carefully away.

There was a lighting of the sky beginning, and, judging by that, they were indeed facing north. How long did they have before the first storms of the cold season would close in? Though the Yurth had their log huts and stone caves, their storage houses, yet that season was never easy for them. She and Stans had no supplies, no shelter as yet. Both must now be their primary concern.

Dawn broke at last and Elossa could see the new land lying below, for the pa.s.sage in which they had sheltered part of the night fronted on a slope well above the floor of a valley. Unlike the wide expanse which had held the destroyed city, this was relatively narrow. But it ran east and west and she was sure that she caught a glimpse of a stream of some size forming a ribbon down its center. There was growth of dark vegetation on the lower slopes, rising to stunted trees. But there was something unwholesome about the look of that.

Still a source of water was important. Only, where there was any stream, they could also expect to find a come and go of life. Sargon, such as had already near made an end to her over mountain, and kindred beasts of the heights might well roam here. Stans carried a hunter's weapons, she had nothing save her staff. Nor had she ever taken life herself.

"Darksome. . . ." Stans moved out to join her. "This is no country to welcome the traveler. Yet there is water. So it may well be good hunting territory."

They left the entrance to the tunnel to proceed down slope. Without any spoken agreement they both made good use of all cover as they went, while Elossa opened her mind a little, striving to pick up any hint of life.

"Two-horns-" She spoke in a whisper gauged just to reach the ears of the man moving hardly an arm's distance away.

He shot her a startled glance.

"To the west." She pointed with her chin. "There are four-they graze."

He nodded swiftly and turned in the direction she had indicated. His crossbow was in his hands. Elossa felt a little sick. At least she had not tolled a helpless animal within striking distance. But her betrayal was little the less. How true was it that one was allowed to slay in order to live? She could defend herself against attack-but a two horn was no attacker. She. . . . No, in this much she must face the necessity of breaking her own creed. To starve because one would not kill-a stronger person might face that rule, she fell far short of such strength.

Also, since this was of her doing, she must force herself to watch. So, like Stans, she slipped along.

The brush which cloaked the slope gave way to a stand of gra.s.s which waved tips near as tall as the shoulders of the animals who grazed there. Four two-horns. Elossa had read the emanations of life forces aright. There was one female, a half-grown yearling, and two males-one with the wide-curved horns of a herd leader of more than ten seasons.

Stans shot. The younger male gave a convulsive leap forward, a red stream shooting from its throat. The other male cried aloud in a great bellow and herded the female and her yearling before him into flight. The wounded animal had fallen to its knees as the bolt in its jugular drained it of blood. Stans raced on, knife in hand, to swiftly end its struggles.

Sick at what she had seen, Elossa made herself advance to where the Raski was busy butchering the kill. She stooped and thrust her fingers into the congealing blood. Then she drew on her forehead the scarlet sign of her sin. So must she wear that for all to note until in some manner she might atone. She looked around to see the Raski, pausing in his b.l.o.o.d.y work, watching her action with open amazement.

"It is through me the innocent had died," she said, not wanting to explain her shame, but knowing that she must "So must I wear a killer's blood token."

His surprise did not lighten. "This is meat, we must have it or die. There are no fields to be harvested here, no fruit ripe for the picking. Do not the Yurth eat meat? If not so, how do they live?"

"We live," she said bleakly. "And we kill. But never must we let ourselves forget that in killing we take on ever the burden which is part of the death of another, be it man or animal."

"You did not blood yourself with the sargon," he commented.

"No, for then the fight was equal-life risked against life-and that is left upon the balance of the First Principle, not upon any better skill or trick of ours."

Stans shook his head and his expression was still one of bafflement.

"Yurth ways-" He shrugged. "It remains, we can eat."

"Dare we light a fire?" The girl looked on to the end of the meadow which bordered on the stream. Across that swift flow of water (and it was swift, bearing with it sticks, ma.s.ses of wrack as if there had been a storm somewhere higher up and the hurrying flood had picked up much debris along the way) there were standing rocks and sand, none of the vegetation which grew on this side.

"What do your Yurth talents tell you?" he countered. "If you can so find a beast to give us food without searching far, can you not also tell us whether we are alone here?" He sat back on his heels, his face impa.s.sive.

Elossa could not be really convinced whether he asked that without latent hostility. They were so different in their heritage-dare she ever be certain that there did not lie some other motive under any speech he made to her?

She hesitated. To reveal her weaknesses when she could not be sure of this Raski-that might be the height of stupidity. Yet she must not, on the other hand, claim powers which in a time of emergency she could not summon. That might well be worse in the future than admitting now there were limits to what she could do.

"If I use such a mind-search," Elossa said slowly, "and there is a mind equally trained within range, then instantly that other will know of me-or us."

"It would be a Yurth mind which could do so, would it not?" he asked. "Do you then fear your own people?"

"I travel with a Raski." She picked the first excuse she could light upon. "They do not hate nor fear your kind, but I would be so strange because of that."

"Yes, even as I company with Yurth!" He nodded. "Most of my own blood would send such a bolt as this-" He touched what he had taken from the wound-"through me without question."

She made her decision, mainly for the reason that hunger was strong in her; still she could not think of putting raw flesh into her mouth. A poor reason, in which the needs of her body overrode all else, yet the body must be fed or the mind also would perish.

Kneeling a little away from where Stans had gone back to his butchery, Elossa again brought out her mirror. The sun was up now, and the surface of the disc she held was bright as it had not been in the night time. She looked down into the pool of light, for that was what it seemed to become in her hold.

"Yurth!" She aimed the thought sharply into the disc. "Show me Yurth!"

There was-yes! It came-a rippling on the surface of the disc. Then she saw-but very faint and hard to define-a figure which might have been that which had fronted them in the corridor. Her mind-send reached out and out. Life. . . far. . . . But was it Yurth? She met no answering spark of mind. It was more like Raski-closed, unknowing.

"There is nothing close." She slipped the disc back into its carrying place.

"Good enough. There is drift along the stream-dry enough to give us a good fire, and also that which will not cause much smoke."

Leaving him to finish his b.l.o.o.d.y task, Elossa went down to the water and began to gather those bone-white, water-polished sticks which had caught in the rocks above the present rise of the water, though, she noted, that was creeping higher now even as she watched.

They roasted chunks of the meat speared on sharpened pieces of drift and held over the flames. Elossa forced herself to eat, applying mental discipline against her half nausea. Stans was licking his fingers one by one as he spoke disjointedly: "We should smoke what we can-to carry with us."

He had said only that when Elossa was on her feet staring across the stream at the other rock-covered bank. Just as the strange Yurth and the face had both appeared without warning in the pa.s.sage, so now had a figure winked into sight there.

She gasped. Not Yurth as she had half expected. Like Stans the man was dark skinned, dark haired. But-his face! He wore a living countenance of flesh and bone but it was still the one of Atturn. Nor was his clothing the hide garments of the hunter, even the clumsy ill- woven robes of the city men, or the primitive armor of the Raski soldiers who patrolled the plains.

His body was covered with a black, tight-fitting suit, not unlike those worn by the Yurth in their shipboard life, save that the black was scrolled over by patterns in red as if so drawn by some point dipped in fresh blood. Those patterns glowed, waned, and glowed again, their brightness speeding from one part of the body they helped to clothe to another. From his shoulders hung a short cloak of the blood red, and that was patterned in black, reversing the order of that on his other clothing. His head was surmounted by a towering crest of either thick black hair set in some invisible helm, or else his own locks stiffened and allowed to grow to a height of more than a foot above his skull. In all he was the most barbaric figure Elossa had ever seen.

Instinctively she had sent forth a mind-probe. And met-nothing.

The stranger raised his hand and pointed, while his lips-the thickish, sneering lips of the Mouth of Atturn-shaped words which sounded heavily through the air as if the words themselves were bolts from some weapon dispatched to bring down the two on the other side of the river.

"Raski, si lar dit!"

Stans cried out. The appearance of the man had caught him kneeling, now he was on his feet in a half crouch, his hand tightly grasping the hilt of his knife. Like the stranger who wore Atturn's face his features were alive, but his expression was that of defiance.

"Philbur!" He made of the name of his house a battle cry. It was as if he met red hate with a rage as great and overpowering.

Without clear thought Elossa's hand grabbed her mirror from its hiding place, the swift jerk of her pull breaking the cord which held it. Then, swinging it by what was left of that cord, she spun it through the air.

Was what happened then chance alone or some intervention of power she did not realize she could call upon? A beam of searing red fire had shot from the pointed finger of he who wore Atturn's face. It struck full on the disc of the mirror and was reflected back-its force of beam increased. The black and red figure vanished.

"Who was that?" Elossa found words first, Stans was still staring bemused at where that stranger had stood.

"It was-no!" He flung up one hand in an emphatic gesture of denial. "It could not be that!" Now he turned his head a little to look at the girl and his look of astonishment was still plain. "Time does not stop-a man dead these half thousand years cannot walk!"