Andas turned to Kai-Kaus, not too far away on the same leafy perch.
"They are—?" he began when a faint hiss warned him into silence.
He balanced as well as he could, waiting, though the interval was not long, for out of the brush pushed the white mass of a crawler. It came at a pace faster than he would have allowed for its bulk to squat below the ring. The forepart of its half-seen body, visible because of its paleness in the general gloom, reared as it tried apparently to reach the ring.
Its repeated failures did not seem to matter. It kept on rearing, even though at best it was well below the dangling treasure it sought. And it was still single-mindedly busy when a second of its kind appeared.
The monsters took no notice of each other. It was as if their world had narrowed to the ring. The smaller rocked against the larger as they both reared, sending it off balance. There was a sharp grunt, and the head of the larger swung around to butt its companion away from the bait.
Since the smaller accepted the challenge, they were striking at each other when a third and greater one arrived, plowing up and over the struggling bodies of the other two, aiming at the ring. Its questing forelimbs (if you could call them such) came close to achieving the goal. Andas, afraid that a second try might be successful, fired. He had given no warning to Yolyos. But at the same instant his needler rayed out, the other fired also, so that the twisting bodies below were caught in a cross fire that was fatal.
Were there any more? And would the lure of the ring suffice to draw them even though some signal of their companions' ending might have been broadcast? The men waited in the branches above for what seemed to Andas such a stretch of time as must comprise half the night. But no more crawlers appeared, nor did they hear any wailing.
At last, Andas, stiff from his unaccustomed position and wondering if he could cope as well with a second attack, hooked in the vine and loosed the ring, to stow it away safely. Evil token it might be, but tonight it had served them well. And there was a chance that they might continue to use its calling powers for their own ends. He was more confident about the future since they had won this engagement. First they had taken the skimmer by wild chance and now defeated these monsters.
When they were back again in the tree fort, Andas was willing enough to stretch out on the bed place. His body ached from that cramping vigil in the treetop, and he could not remember sleeping since that abortive try in the commander's quarters.
Green light sifted down through the branches when he awoke. At least it was day, but what hour he could not tell. He rolled over to see that he had shared his bed. Shara's head was pillowed beside his. Her sunken eyes were closed, but he thought she looked a shade less gaunt now and younger—
How old was she? She had announced herself the Chosen of the Emperor. There had been cases in the past of marked disparity of ages for dynastic reasons, but he began to believe that she was no worn woman as she had first appeared—haggard with the hardships of her hunted life—but a girl instead. And he was still searching her face for some clue as to the truth of that when her eyes opened.
There was instant awareness in those eyes. She was like a trained warrior who wakes at once to any alarm. But she said nothing, only returned his study, surveying his face with the same intensity he turned upon her.
They were alone on the bed platform of the tree as he saw when, embarrassed, he sat up, a little ashamed he had been detected spying on her as she slept.
"You are the Emperor's Chosen." He was at some loss as how to approach the matter of his own feelings.
"But not yours." Her voice was the faintest murmur of sound, meant to carry to his ears only. "My choosing was a matter of state—or began so—"
For once imagination told him what he guessed was the truth. "But later it became otherwise between you two?" Inwardly he was now doubly ashamed at his own blindness. The death of that other Andas might have ended part of her world for her, but it had meant nothing but a burden for him. In his self-centeredness he must have been cruel where he should have been kind. He had thought only what events meant to him and inwardly struggled against enmeshment, resentful of the man who had committed him to this life. That the other Andas had been devoted to duty and had taken the only way left to save his plans, he did not doubt. But he, too, had been selfish, or he would not have sentenced a stranger to this.
"It became otherwise." Again her light whisper wrenched him from his thoughts to consider her. But she did not enlarge upon that admission.
The Chosen of the Emperor—his wife, though not his empress, until he could crown her publicly. He had a wife in the sight of his loyal followers and one he could not possibly disown.
That thought bothered him. His father's solitary life, which he had shared, had been devoid of feminine company. They had not even had a woman servant. And when Andas had been drawn into the life of the court, he had shortly thereafter gone to Pav for warrior training, again a world without women. There had been ladies enough at court on his return ready to toss him their flower bracelets. But he had been too shy, too ill at ease in such company, to react to their invitations. And there had been no official marriage made for him before that night when he had gone to bed in the palace—to awaken in the prison on another planet.
Since then, there had been Elys for whom he had been sorry, judging her by his own fears and feelings, only to learn that she had been more alien than the furred Salariki. And he had seen the Princess Abena—he smiled wryly at the memory of that meeting. Abena was supposedly his daughter. Now here was this frail-looking yet tough wraith, with her drab barbaric dress, who claimed to have been the other Andas's Chosen. How closely would she expect him to carry out that previous relationship?
He had no feelings about her, save a kind of impatient pity—impatient because she was part of the new life he could not discard. Could it be that lack of emotion was the sign of an android? The old fear bubbled in him. If he only knew more about androids! They had been forbidden for so long that the references he had were mainly hearsay. But could they have made an android so physically human that he could deceive a medic, even father children? But if the false emperor was not false—then he, Andas, was android!
"Your thoughts are troubled." He had risen to his feet, but she only sat up on the bough bed. "I do not claim more from you than you can give, save that before others we must make a pretence, for the truth shall be kept. For his sake will I keep it!" And the concern in her voice became a warning.
"Before others I shall play my part as best I can. And I can play it better if you will tell me more."
She nodded. "This is a good time for such talk. We are alone. Even that furred one you speak of as friend has gone with the hunters. With the crawlers dead, there is a chance hunting will improve. And any chance to increase our food supply must be seized.
"The headquarters of your forces are at the Place of Red Water. You have four first captains now. There is Kwayn Makenagen. He is the oldest, once Governor of the North Marches, a tall man but a little stooped, and he has a habit of pulling on his lower lip so"—she demonstrated—"when he is thinking deeply or is at some disadvantage. He is none too fast at that thinking, but once he sets upon a matter, he does not drop it until the end.
"Next is Patopir Ishan. He is younger, a valiant fighter, but reckless, and needs the curb hand. He limps from an old wound, but is very soft-spoken and charms women as much as if he wore a love mirror about his throat. His face is handsome, and he laughs much, but he is also shrewd. Only his reckless impulses to action keep him from being truly great.
"The third captain is the Lady Bahyua Banokue."
"A woman!"
"Just so." Shara made a reproof of his two words with her tone. "When her lord fell at the battle of Ninemarr, she took command of the forces and stopped the rout. She is very shrewd in council and brings years of experience, for she is of middle life and had four sons in your service. Only one remains alive.
"And the fourth and la
st of your leaders, my lord, is one Shara. I have led my house since we broke out of the fire ring at Tortu and my elder brother covered our retreat.
"These are the ones with whom you will deal mostly, but there are others you must learn to recognize." She continued patiently, and he strove to memorize the details about men and a few women whom, upon meeting in the future, he must be able to greet as old comrades in arms.
Andras discovered that he was more proficient at this study than he would have believed. But he was a little surprised when Shara stopped suddenly and sat looking down at her hands.
"There is one other." Her reluctance was so visible that it was as if she spoke under duress. "That is the Arch Priest Kelemake."
"Kelemake!" Andas was surprised, though why should he be, he thought a moment later. If he, Andas, had had a counterpart here, surely others he knew must also. That he recognized none of the names Shara had recited earlier meant nothing. There had been a vast upheaval here. People who normally might never have come to the Emperor's notice were now in direct contact with him.
"You speak as if you know him—"
"There is a Kelemake in my world, though he is not an arch priest there. He was a court historian and taught me for a while."
She fastened at once on the explanation he had already guessed. "If there was an Andas to match an Andas, perhaps there is a Kelemake to match a Kelemake. Of what manner was the man you knew?" Now that they were alone, she spoke as equal to equal with none of that subtle deference she showed in company. And her directness made him more at ease with her.
"He was a man difficult to know—of deep learning, but little interested in anything beyond his work. He kept apart from the court, staying in the archives. In the end, the Emperor, my grandfather, appointed him keeper of the archives. He was not a man of religion, yet he knew more of its forms than many devoted priests, just as he knew much of other things but never exercised his knowledge. In spite of it all, he was no Magi—he never went through their training. Yet I would have thought that was what would have attracted his temperament the most."
"Knowing the forms of religion and learning rooted more in the past than the present—both these things could be said of our Kelemake also. He is a man who rules the temple brotherhood with a firm hand and has proved steadfast in support. Yet, I do not like him. And Andas, also, found him such that he could not bring himself to appoint him to the inner council. This I think was resented as a slight, though Kelemake has said nothing. But those who gather about him have tried to change Andas on this matter. My lord said that in him he sensed a flaw he could not put name to. And, let me tell you, there are some men—yes, and women—to whom if the need arose, I would tell our present deception. But Kelemake would be the last. Watch him with care—I cannot honestly tell you why. But in such a life as we lead, shadows can be worse than substance, for substance can be faced boldly and fought, but shadows slip away, only to return, always waiting for our courage to fail and our reason to falter in some time of need and despair."
"I am warned. And never has an emperor had more reason to lean upon his Chosen," he said deliberately, for he was moved again by her inner strength, by the fact that she could so set herself to preparing another to take the place of the man she had loved. That she had loved Andas but kept it within her, making no parade of her emotions, he had no doubt.
"As I am Chosen, so were you also," she said quietly.
He held out his hand. "Therefore, let us be handfasted anew."
When they had begun this talk, the last thing in the world Andas would have thought of doing was to offer her his hand so. Yet now the act came very easily and naturally, though there was nothing more in it for them both, he was sure, than the comrade tie existing between good friends—such friends as he had never before had the fortune to know.
"Prince!" Yolyos hailed from the lower level.
Andas stepped back from the girl and went to look down. The Salariki smiled up at him.
"The hunting is good, so good that your foresters need aid. They urge us to go on to the pass and have a message sent for transport, for this meat should get to the smokers as soon as possible. And you should be at your headquarters, also."
So they traveled trails that led them out of the woodlands, no longer haunted, at least for a space, by the obscene creeping horrors the enemy had unleashed there. It had been noon when they began that journey, but the way was easy enough, so they reached the pass before sundown.
The small garrison there greeted them warmly. Shara had privately informed him that none of the men stationed there had been of his close following. They greeted him with a respect he could meet easily.
Ten of them were sent down the back trail to pack in the unexpected bounty of meat.
"Lord, there are rumors of the crawlers out—" the commander had ventured before they left.
"They are out no longer." Andas told him of their own adventure and found the officer staring at him wide-eyed.
"Four—four crawlers killed! Lord, this is almost as good news as learning that the Drak Mount is breached. With the forest free, we can harvest game to push back the black fear of famine. If we but had our old weapons—what we might not do in our own behalf!"
"We have a skimmer also." Andas gave a terse account of their great luck in that encounter. "We dared not fly it in lest we be shot by our own defenses—"
"You need not fear, my lord. Perhaps we no longer possess the coms of the old days, but here we have that which serves us in a like manner, if less speedily. We can send your message, and you can fly back to headquarters. Marcher"—he spoke to the door sentry—"summon Dullah with his swiftest fliers."
Then he spoke once more to Andas. "Lord, inscribe what message you wish. It will be in the hands of your first captains before moonset, for Dullah is a master breeder of horn hawks, and his messengers have never been bested for speed or accuracy."
"Give me leave, lord," Shara offered. "I will send the message you require, while you gain from this captain knowledge of affairs along the mountains." So swiftly had she taken the matter into her hands that Andas knew he could make no wrong guess.
He admired the horn hawks when their breeder-trainer brought them in, message carriers already clipped to slender legs, two dispatched for safety. They were not as heavy as the birds of that breed he had known in his own world, and they were wider of wing. Their plumage was gray, deepening into black, and would make them invisible at night, while their heads, bearing these "horns" of ridged quills, held bright eyes, used to darkness. In their natural state they were nocturnal.
Shara busied herself with a sheet of tough, light skin the captain produced, printing terse script thereon with a fire pen. As she wrote, Andas turned again to the captain.
"Tell me how it goes along the mountains." He was very ready to add to his information, needed if he were going to continue in the role of commander in chief.
-16-
The light was bright enough for Andas to study the faces of those seated at the table. Shara had done well. He had known each of them at once from her description and was able to greet them without hesitation. Kwayn Makenagen sat at his left hand in the place of greatest seniority. Beyond him was Patopir Ishan, facing him the Lady Bahyua Banokue, and to his right, Shara.
They had welcomed him earlier with open relief, in which he could detect no sign of consternation. Yet with Shara's warning he was alert. That was why Yolyos sat now at the end of that council table facing Andas. He did not know how much the alien's strange warning sense could do to unmask a traitor, but it was a safeguard of a sort.
It was Ishan who spoke first, eagerly. "It must be the truth, my lord. This fellow was well-nigh dead when my scouts found him after his skimmer had crashed. They heard his story and went to the Drak Mount. There are no signs of life to be seen."
"Tricks!" Makenagen returned as forcibly, favoring his colleague with a glare. "Bait to get us into a trap."
"The Arch Priest reports"—it
was the Lady Banokue who spoke, in a low, calm voice—"that this prisoner is speaking the truth. He has tested him under hypnosis. The plague has spread widely through the Drak Mount. And what has fought us for the past months have been robots set on auto controls. Now those are going inert for want of tending."
"Inert!" Makenagen snorted. "They were in working order enough to blow a hole through our last land crawler. And that but ten days ago while we were hunting you, my lord." He directed his words to Andas. "I tell you, to venture into the land around the mount is fatal. No, this is a trap. Let the Arch Priest talk of the truth—we all know that in the old days a man could have his memory tampered with, be implanted with a false past. It was against the law, but it was done. They could have implanted this wretch—they still have machines while we are reduced to crossbows and the riding of elklands!"
Andas inclined his head to acknowledge the bitter logic of his captain's reasoning. What he had seen of this barren headquarters did not encourage a man. The spirit of those who held it was far higher than their ability to carry on war against those they admitted still held weapons of so-called civilization. It was as if they expected some of the old hero legends to work in their behalf, letting the "right" win by the favor of some supernatural force. But to depend upon a supernatural force—Suddenly his thoughts turned to what had lain at the back of his mind since their ordeal in the forest.
"Most dead or dying, said this prisoner?" he asked Ishan.
"Many so. There are some among them who appear immune. But those form only a skeleton force, unable now to defend the mount to any purpose. We can move in—"
"And among these dead was Kidaya?" Andas interrupted.
He saw the eager look fade on Ishan's face. "Now. This man was but a squad leader—he had no contact with the superior officers. But he said that a month ago, perhaps a little more—he was so dazed by the trials he had been through that he was vague on time—the lords who had declared for Kidaya and she herself took the last of the cruisers and departed."