II
Lightning played along the black ridges above them, and below was asheer drop to a river which was only a silver thread. Under their boots,man-made and yet dominating the wildness of jungle and mountain, was aplatform of rock slabs, fused to support a palace of toweringyellow-white walls and curved cups of domes, a palace which was alsohalf fortress, half frontier post.
Dane set his hands on the parapet of the river drop, blinked as alightning bolt crackled in a sky-splitting glare of violet fire. Thiswas about as far from the steaming islands of Xecho as a man couldimagine.
"The demon graz prepare for battle." Asaki nodded toward the distantcrackling.
Captain Jellico laughed. "Supposed to be whetting their tusks, eh? Iwouldn't care to meet a graz that could produce such a display by meretusk whetting."
"No? But think of the reward for the tracker who discovers where such goto die. To find the graveyard of the graz herds would make any manwealthy beyond dreams."
"How much truth is there in that legend?" Tau asked.
The Chief Ranger shrugged. "Who can say? This much _is_ true: I haveserved my life in the forests since I could walk. I have listened to thetalk of Trackers, Hunters, Rangers in my father's courtyards and fieldcamps since I could understand their words. Yet never has any manreported the finding of a body of a graz that died a natural death. Thescavengers might well account for the bulk of flesh, but the tusks andthe bones should be visible for years. And this, too, I have seen withmy own eyes: a graz close to death, supported by two of its kind andbeing urged along to the big swamps. Perhaps it is only that thesuffering animal longs for water at its end, or perhaps in the heart ofthat morass there does lie the graz graveyard. But no man has found anaturally dead graz, nor has any returned from exploring the bigswamps...."
Lightning on peaks which were like polished jet--bare rock above, thelush overgrowth of jungle below. And between, this fortress held by menwho dared both the heights and the depths. The wildly burgeoning life ofKhatka had surrounded the off-worlders since they had come here. Therewas something untameable about Khatka; the lush planet lured and yetrepelled at the same time.
"Zoboru far from here?"
The Chief Ranger pointed north in answer to the captain's question.
"About a hundred leagues. It is the first new preserve we have preparedin ten years. And it is our desire to make it the best for tri-deehunters. That is why we are now operating taming teams--"
"Taming teams?" Dane had to ask.
The Chief Ranger was ready enough to discuss his project.
"Zoboru is a no-kill preserve. The animals, they come to learn thatafter a while. But we cannot wait several years until they do. So wemake them gifts." He laughed, evidently recalling some incident."Sometimes, perhaps, we are too eager. Most of our visitors who wish tomake tri-dees want to picture big game--graz, amplet, rock apes,lions--"
"Lions?" echoed Dane.
"Not Terran lions, no. But my people, when they landed on Khatka, founda few animals that reminded them of those they had always known. So theygave those the same names. A Khatkan lion is furred, it is a hunter anda great fighter, but it is not the cat of Terra. However, it is in greatdemand as a tri-dee actor. So we summon it out of lurking by providingfree meals. One shoots a poli, a water rat, or a landeer and drags thecarcass behind a low-flying flitter. The lion springs upon the movingmeat, which it can also scent, and the rope is cut, leaving a freedinner.
"The lions are not stupid. In a very short time they connect the soundof a flitter cutting the air with food. So they come to the banquet andthose on the flitter can take their tri-dee shots at ease. Only theremust also be care taken in such training. One forest guard on the Komogpreserve became too enterprising. He dragged his kill at first. Then, tosee if he could get the lions to forget man's presence entirely, he hungthe training carcasses on the flitter, encouraging them to jump fortheir food.
"For the guard that was safe enough, but it worked too too well. A monthor so later a Hunter was escorting a client through Komog and they swunglow to get a good picture of a water rat emerging from the river.Suddenly there was a snarl behind them and they found themselves sharingthe flitter with a lioness annoyed at finding no meat waiting on board.
"Luckily, they both wore stass belts; but they had to land the flitterand leave until the lioness wandered off, and she seriously damaged themachine in her irritation. So now our guards play no more fancy trickswhile on taming runs. Tomorrow--no," he corrected himself, "the dayafter tomorrow I will be able to show you how the process works."
"And tomorrow?" inquired the captain.
"Tomorrow my men make hunting magic." Asaki's voice was expressionless.
"Your chief witch doctor being?" questioned Tau.
"Lumbrilo." The Chief Ranger did not appear disposed to add to that butTau pursued the subject.
"His office is hereditary?"
"Yes. Does that make any difference?" For the first time there was acurrent of repressed eagerness in the other's tone.
"Perhaps a vast amount of difference," Tau replied. "A hereditary officemay carry with it two forms of conditioning, one to influence itsholder, one to affect the public-at-large. Your Lumbrilo may have cometo believe deeply in his own powers; he would be a very remarkable manif he did not. It is almost certain that your people unquestionablyaccept him as a worker of wonders?"
"They do so accept." Once more Asaki's voice was drained of life.
"And Lumbrilo does not accept something you believe necessary?"
"Again the truth, Medic. Lumbrilo does not accept his proper place inthe scheme of things!"
"He is a member of one of your Five Families?"
"No, his clan is small, always set apart. From the beginning here, thosewho spoke for gods and demons did not also order men."
"Separation of church and state," commented Tau thoughtfully. "Yet inour Terran past there have been times when church and state were one.Does Lumbrilo desire that?"
Asaki raised his eyes to the mountain peaks, to the northward where layhis beloved work.
"I do not know what Lumbrilo wants, save that it makes mischief--orworse! This I tell you: hunting magic is part of our lives and it has atits core some of those unexplainable happenings which you haveacknowledged do exist. I have used powers I can neither explain norunderstand as part of my work. In the jungle and on the grasslands anoff-worlder must guard his life with a stass belt if he goes unarmed.But I--any of my men--can walk unharmed if we obey the rules of ourmagic. Only Lumbrilo does other things which his forefathers did not.And he boasts that he can do more. So he has a growing following ofthose who believe--and those who fear."
"You want me to face him?"
The Chief Ranger's big hands closed upon the rim of the parapet as ifthey could exert enough pressure to crumble the hard stone. "I want youto see whether there is trickery in this. Trickery I can fight, forthat there are weapons. But if Lumbrilo truly controls forces for whichthere is no name, then perhaps we must patch up an uneasy peace--or godown in defeat. And, off-worlder, I come from a line of warriors--we donot drink defeat easily!"
"That I also believe," Tau returned quietly. "Be sure, sir, if there istrickery in this man's magic and I can detect it, the secret shall beyours."
"Let us hope that so it shall be."
Subconsciously, Dane had always associated the practice of magic withdarkness and the night. But the next morning the sun was high and hotwhen he made one of the party coming down to a second and larger walledterrace where the Hunters, Trackers, Guards and other followers of theChief Ranger were assembled in irregular rows.
There was a low sound which was more a throb in the clear air aboutthem, getting into a man's blood and pumping in rhythm there. Danetracked the sound to its source: four large drums standing waist highbefore the men who tapped them delicately with the tips of all tenfingers.
The necklaces of claws and teeth about those dusky throats, the kilts offringed hide, the crossed belts
of brilliantly spotted or striped furwere in contrast to the very efficient and modern side arms each manwore, to the rest of the equipment sheathed and strapped at their belts.
There was a carved stool for the Chief Ranger, another for CaptainJellico. Dane and Tau settled themselves on the less comfortable seatsof the terrace steps. Those tapping fingers increased their rate ofbeat, and the notes of the drums rose from the low murmur of hived beesto the mutter of mountain thunder still half a range away. A bird calledfrom those inner courts of the palace from which the women neverventured.
Da--da--da--da.... Voices took up the thud-thud of the drums, the headsof the squatting men moved in a slow swing from side to side. Tau's handclosed about Dane's wrist and the younger man looked around, startled,to see that the medic's eyes were alight, that he was watching theassembly with the alertness of Sindbad approaching prey.
"Calculate the stowage space in Number One hold!"
That amazing order, delivered in a whisper, shocked Dane into obeyingit. Number One hold ... there were three divisions now and the stowagewas--He became aware that for a small space of time he had escaped thenet being woven by the beat of the drum, the drone of voices, thenodding of heads. He moistened his lips. So that was how it worked! Hehad heard Tau speak often enough about self-hypnotism under suchconditions, but this was the first time the meaning of it had beenclear.
Two men were shuffling out of nowhere, wearing nothing on their darkbodies but calf-length kilts of tails, black tails with fluffy whitetips, which swayed uniformly in time to their pacing feet. Their headsand shoulders were masked by beautifully cured and semi-mounted animalheads displaying half-open jaws with double pairs of curved fangs. Theblack-and-white striped fur, the sharply pointed ears, were neithercanine nor feline, but a weird combination of the two.
Dane gabbled two trading formulas under his breath and tried to think ofthe relation of Samantine rock coinage to galactic credits. Only thistime his defenses did not work. From between the two shuffling dancerspadded something on four feet. The canine-feline creature was more thanjust a head; it was a loose-limbed, graceful body fully eight feet inlength, and the red eyes in the prick-eared head were those of aconfident killer. It walked without restraint, lazily, with arrogance,its white-tufted tail swinging. And when it reached the mid-point of theterrace, it flung up its head as if to challenge. But words issued frombetween those curved fangs, words which Dane might not understand butwhich undoubtedly held meaning for the men nodding in time to thehypnotic cadence of that da--da--da....
"Beautiful!" Tau spoke in honest admiration, his own eyes almost asferal as those of the talking beast as he leaned forward, his fists onhis knees.
Now the animal was dancing also, its paws following the pace set by themasked attendants. It must be a man in an animal skin. But Dane couldhardly believe that. The illusion was too perfect. His own hands went tothe knife sheath at his belt. Out of deference to local custom they hadleft their stun rods in the palace, but a belt knife was an acceptedarticle of apparel. Dane slid the blade out surreptitiously, setting itspoint against the palm of his hand and jabbing painfully. This wasanother of Tau's answers for breaking a spell. But the white and blackcreature continued to dance; there was no blurring of its body linesinto those of a human being.
It sang on in a high-pitched voice, and Dane noted that those of theaudience nearest the stools where Asaki and the captain were seated nowwatched the Chief Ranger and the space officer. He felt Tau tense besidehim.
"Trouble coming...." The warning from Tau was the merest thread ofsound. Dane forced himself to look away from the swaying cat-dog, towatch instead the singers who were now furtively eying their lord andhis guest. The Terran knew that there were feudal bonds between theRanger and his men. But suppose this was a showdown between Lumbrilo andAsaki--whose side would these men take?
He watched Captain Jellico's hand slide across his knee, his fingersdrop in touching distance of knife hilt. And the hand of the ChiefRanger, hanging lax at his side, suddenly balled into a fist.
"So!" Tau expelled the word as a hiss. He moved with sure-footed speed.Now he passed between the stools to confront the dancing cat-dog. Yet hedid not look at that weird creature and its attendants. Instead his armswere flung high as if to ward off--or perhaps welcome--something on themountain side as he shouted:
"_Hodi, eldama! Hodi!_"
As one, those on the terrace turned, looked up toward the slope. Danewas on his feet, holding his knife as he might a sword. Though of whatuse its puny length would be against that huge bulk moving in slowmajesty toward them, he did not try to think.
Gray-dark trunk curled upward between great ivory tusks, ears went wideas ponderous feet crunched volcanic soil. Tau moved forward, his handsstill upraised, clearly in greeting. That trunk touched skyward as if insalute to the man who could be crushed under one foot.
"_Hodi, eldama!_" For the second time Tau hailed the monster elephantand the trunk raised in silent greeting from one lord of an earth toanother he recognized as an equal. Perhaps it had been a thousand yearssince man and elephant had stood so, and then there had been only warand death between them. Now there was peace and a current of powerflowing from one to the other. Dane sensed this, saw the men on theterrace likewise drawing back from the unseen tie between the medic andthe bull he had so clearly summoned.
Then Tau's upheld hands came together in a sharp clap and men held theirbreath in wonder. Where the great bull had stood there wasnothing--except rocks in the sun.
As Tau swung around to face the cat-dog, that creature had no substanceeither. For he fronted no animal but a man, a small, lean man whose lipswrinkled back from his teeth in a snarl. His attendant priests fellback, leaving the spaceman and the witch doctor alone.
"Lumbrilo's magic is great," Tau said evenly. "I hail Lumbrilo ofKhatka." His hand made the open-palmed salute of peace.
The snarl faded as the man brought his face under control. He stoodnaked, but he was clothed in inherit dignity. And there was power withthat dignity, power and a pride before which even the more physicallyimpressive Chief Ranger might have to give place.
"You have magic also, outlander," he replied. "Where walks thislong-toothed shadow of yours now?"
"Where once the men of Khatka walked, Lumbrilo. For it was men of yourblood who long, long past hunted this shadow of mine and made its bodytheir prey."
"So that it now might have a blood debt to settle with us, outlander?"
"That you said, not I, man of power. You have shown us one beast, I haveshown another. Who can say which of them is stronger when it issuesforth from the shadows?"
Lumbrilo pattered forward, his bare feet making little sound on thestones of the terrace. Now he was only an arm's-length away from themedic.
"You have challenged me, off-world man." Was that a question or astatement? Dane wondered.
"Why should I challenge you, Lumbrilo? To each race its own magic. Icome not to offer battle." His eyes held steady with the Khatkan's.
"You have challenged me." Lumbrilo turned away and then looked back overhis shoulder. "The strength you depend upon may become a broken staff,off-worlder. Remember my words in the time when shadows becomesubstance, and substance the thinnest of shadows!"