VIII
Vaguely aware that the clamor at the other end of the camp had diedaway, Dane muted the sound of his drum. Over its round top he couldwatch the Khatkan outlaws; their heads bobbed and swayed in time to thebeat of his fingers. He, too, could feel the pull of Tau's voice. Butwhat would come in answer? That shadowy thing which had been loosed todrive them here? Or the man himself?
To Dane, the ruddy light of the fire dimmed, yet there was no actualdying of those flames which coiled and thrust around the wood. And theacrid scent of burning was thick. How much of what followed was real,how much the product of his tense nerves, Dane was never afterwards ableto tell. In fact, whether all the witnesses there saw the same sightscould be questioned. Did each man, Khatkan and off-worlder, see onlywhat his particular set of emotions and memories dictated?
Something swept in from the east, something which was not as tangible asthe creature born of swamp mist. Rather it came as an unseen menace tothe fire, and all that fire signifies to human kind--security,comradeship, a weapon against the age-old forces of the dangerous night.Was that threat, too, only in their minds? Or had Lumbrilo some power toso shape his hatred?
The unseen was cold; it sapped a man's strength, bit at his brain,weighted his hands and feet, weakened him. It strove to soften him intoclay another could remold. Nothingness, darkness, all that was opposedto life and warmth and reality, arose in the night, gathered togetheragainst them.
Yet still Tau fronted that invisible wave, his head high. And betweenhis sturdily planted feet the knife gleamed bright with a radiance ofits own.
"Ahhh--" Tau's voice curled out, to pierce that creeping menace. Then hewas singing again, the cadence of his unknown words rising a littleabove the pattern wrought by the drum.
Dane forced his heavy hands to continue the beat, his wrists to rise andfall in defiance of that which crept to eat their strength and make themless then men.
"Lumbrilo! I, Tau, of another star, another sky, another world, bid youcome forth and range your power against mine!" Now there was a sharpernote in that demand, the snap of an order.
He was answered by another wave of the black negation--stronger, rollingup to smash them down, as a wave in the heavy surf of a wild oceanpounds its force against the beach. This time Dane thought he could seethat dark mass. He tore his eyes away before it took on substance,concentrating on the movements of his hands against the drum head,refusing to believe that hammer of power was rising to flatten them all.He had heard Tau describe such things in the past. But told in familiarquarters on board the _Queen_, such experiences were only stories. Herewas danger unleashed. Yet the medic stood unbowed as the wave broke uponhim in full.
And, advancing under the crest of that lick of destruction, came itscontroller. This was no ghost drawn from the materials of the swamp;this was a man, walking quietly, his hands as empty as Tau's, yetgrasping weapons none of them could see.
In the firelight, as the wave receded sullenly, men moaned, lay facedown upon the ground, beat their hands feebly against the earth. But, asLumbrilo came on from the shadows, one of them got to his hands andknees, moving with small tortured jerks. He crawled toward Tau, his headlolling on his shoulders as the head of the dead rock ape had done. Danepatted the drum with one hand while, with the other, he groped for hisfire ray. He tried to shout in warning and found that he could not uttera sound.
Tau's arm moved, raised from his side, made a circling motion.
The creeping man, his eyes rolled up in his head until only the whitesgleamed blindly in the limited light, followed that gesture. He drewlevel with the medic, passed beyond toward Lumbrilo, whining as a houndprevented from obeying his master might lament.
"So be it, Lumbrilo," Tau said. "This is between you and me. Or do younot dare to risk your power against mine? Is Lumbrilo so weak a one thathe must send another to do his will?"
Raising both hands again the medic brought them down, curling inward,until he stooped and touched them to the ground. When he straightenedonce again the knife was in his grasp and he tossed it behind him.
The smoke from the fire swirled out in a long tongue, coiled aboutLumbrilo and was gone. A black and white beast stood where the man hadbeen, its tufted tail lashing, its muzzle a mask of snarling hate andblood lust.
But Tau met that transformation with laughter which was like the lash ofa whip.
"We both be men, you and I, Lumbrilo. Meet me as a man and keep thosetrickeries for those who have not the clear sight. A child plays as achild, so--" Tau's voice came in a rumble, but Tau was gone. The huge,hairy thing which swayed in his place turned a gorilla's beast visage tohis enemy. For a breathless moment Terran ape confronted Khatkan lion.Then the spaceman was himself again. "The time for games is over, man ofKhatka. You have tried to hunt us to our deaths, have you not? Thereforedeath shall be the portion of the loser now."
Lion vanished, man stood watching, alertly, as swordsman might faceswordsman with a blood feud lying on their blades. To Dane's eyes theKhatkan made no move. Yet the fire leaped high, as if freshly fed, andflames burst from the wood, flew into the air, red and perilous birds,darting at Tau until they outlined him from the ground under his bootsto an arch over his head. They united and spun faster until Dane,watching with dazzled eyes, saw the wheel become a blur of light, hidingTau within its fiery core. His own wrists ached with the strain of hisdrumming as he lifted one hand and tried to shield his sight from theglare of that pillar of fire.
Lumbrilo was chanting--a heavy blast of words. Dane stiffened; histraitorous hands were falling into the rhythm of that other song!Straightaway he raised both from the drum head, brought them downin a discordinate series of thumps which bore no relation to eitherthe song Tau wanted or that which Lumbrilo was now crooning._Thump--thump--thump_--Dane beat it out frantically, belaboring thedrum head as he wanted to sink his fists home on the body of theKhatkan witch doctor.
The pillar of fire swayed, fluttered as if a wind drove it--and wasgone. Tau, unmarked, smiled.
"Fire!" He pointed his fingers at Lumbrilo. "Would you try earth, andwater, and air also, wizard? Call hither your whirlwind, up your flood,summon the land to quake. None of those shall bring me down!"
Shapes came flooding out of the night, some monstrous, some human,streaming past Lumbrilo to crowd into the circle of firelight. Some Danethought he knew, some were strangers. Men wearing space uniforms, or thedress of other worlds, women--they strode, wept, mingled with themonsters to laugh, curse, threaten.
Dane guessed that Lumbrilo sent now against the Terran the harvest ofthe medic's own memories. He shut his eyes against this enforcedintrusion upon another's past, but not before he saw Tau's face,strained, fined to the well-shaped bones beneath the thin flesh, holdingstill a twisted smile as he met each memory, accepted the pain it heldfor him, and set it aside unshaken.
"This, too, has no power any longer, man who walks in the dark."
Dane opened his eyes. Those crowding wraiths were fading, losingsubstance. Lumbrilo crouched, his lips drawn back from his teeth, hishatred plain to read.
"I am not clay to be molded by your hands, Lumbrilo. And now I say thatthe time has come to call an end--"
Tau raised his hands slowly once again, holding them away from his body,palms pointing earthward. And beneath them, on either side of thespaceman, two black shadows gathered on the surface of the ground.
"You have fettered yourself with your own bounds. As you have been thehunter, so shall you now be the hunted."
Those shadows were growing as plants might issue from the packed soil ofthe camping ground. When his hands were shoulder high, Tau held themsteady. Now on either side of his tautly held body crouched one of theblack-and-white lions with which Lumbrilo had identified his own brandof magic throughout the year.
Lumbrilo's "lion" had been larger than life, more intelligent, moredangerous, subtly different from the normal animal it counterfeited. Sonow were these. And both of them raised their heads to gaze intentlyinto th
e medic's face.
"Hunt well, brothers in fur," he said slowly, almost caressingly. "Himwhom you hunt shall grant you sport in the going."
"Stop it!" A man leaped from the shadows behind the witch doctor.Firelight made plain his off-world dress, and he swung up a blaster,aiming at the nearest of the waiting beasts. That flash struck true, butit neither killed nor even singed the fine fur of the animal's pelt.
As the blaster's aim was swung from beast to man, Dane fired first. Hisray brought a scream from the other, who dropped his weapon from a badlyseared hand to reel back, cursing.
Tau waved his hands gently. The great animal heads turned obediently,until the red eyes were set on Lumbrilo. Facing them, the witch doctorstraightened, spat out his hate at the medic:
"I do not run to be hunted, devil man!"
"I think you do, Lumbrilo. For you must taste fear now as you have madeother men drink of it, so that it fills your blood and races throughyour body, clouds your mind to make of you less than a man. You havehunted out those who doubted your power, who stood in your chosen path,whom you wanted removed from the earth of Khatka. Do you doubt that theywait in the last dark for you now, ready to greet you, witch doctor?What they have known, you shall also know. This night you have shown meall that lies in my past that is weak, that was evil, that I may regretor find sorrow for. So shall you also remember through the few hoursleft you. Aye, you _shall_ run, Lumbrilo!"
As he spoke, Tau approached the other, the two black-and-white hunterspacing beside him. Now he stooped and caught up a pinch of soil and spatupon it three times. Then he threw the tiny clod of earth at the witchdoctor. It struck Lumbrilo just above the heart and the man reeled underwhat might have been a murderous blow.
The Khatkan broke then, completely. With a wailing cry he whirled andran, crashing into the brush as one who runs blindly and without hope.Behind him the two beasts leaped noiselessly together and all three weregone.
Tau swayed, put his hand to his head. Dane kicked away the drum, arosefrom his cramped position stiffly to go to him. But the medic was notyet done. He returned to stand over the prostrate native hunters and heclapped his hands sharply.
"You are men, and you shall act as men henceforth. That which was, is nolonger. Stand free, for the dark power follows him who misused it, andfear no longer eats from your basins, drinks from your cups, or liesbeside you on the sleep mats."
"Tau!" Jellico's shout reached them over the cries of the rousingKhatkans. But Dane was there first, catching the medic before he slumpedto the ground; but he was dragged with that dead weight until he satwith the medic's head on his shoulder, the other's body resting heavilyagainst him. For one horror-filled moment Dane feared that he did indeedhold a dead man, that one of the outlaw Hunters must have struck a lastblow for his discredited leader. Then Tau sighed and began to breathedeeply. Dane glanced up, amazed, at the captain.
"He's asleep!"
Jellico knelt and his hand went to test heart beat, then to touch themedic's worn and dirty face. "Best thing for him," he said briskly."He's had it."
It took some time to get the facts of their triumph sorted out. Two ofthe off-worlder poachers were dead. The other and the spaceman wereprisoners, while Nymani rounded up in addition the man Dane had burnedto save Tau. When the younger spaceman returned from making the mediccomfortable in the shelter, he found Asaki and Jellico holding animpromptu court of inquiry.
The dazed native Hunters had been expertly looped together by Nymaniand, a little apart from them, the off-worlders were under examination.
"An I-C man, eh?" Jellico, smoothing a mud-spattered chin with a grimedhand, regarded the latest arrival measuringly. "Trying to run in andbreak a Combine charter, were you? You'd better spill the facts; yourown head office will disown you, you ought to know that. They never backany failures in these undercover deals."
"I want medical attention," snapped the other, cradling his seared handto his chest. "Or do you plan to turn me over to these savages?"
"Seeing as how you tried to blast our medic," replied the captain with agrin which was close to shark-like, "he may not feel much like patchingup those fingers of yours. Stick 'em in where they have no business, andthey're apt to get burned. At any rate he's not going to look at 'emuntil he's had a chance to rest. I'll give you first aid. And while I'mworking we'll talk. I-C going into the poaching trade now? That news isgoing to please Combine; they have no use for you boys anyway."
His answer was lurid and uninformative. But the uniform tunic the otherwore could not be so easily explained away. Dane, worn out, stretchedhis aching length on a pile of mats and lost all interest in theargument.
* * * * *
Two days later they stood once more on the same terrace where Lumbrilohad wrought his magic and met his first defeat. This time no lightningplayed along the mountain ridges and the blaze of the sun was so brightand clear that one could hardly believe in the fantastic happenings ofthat swamp clearing where men had fought with weapons not made by hands.The three from the _Queen_ moved away from the parapet to meet the ChiefRanger as he came down the stairs.
"A messenger has just arrived. The hunter was hunted indeed, and hisgoing was witnessed by many--though they did not see those which huntedhim. Lumbrilo is dead; he came to his end by the Great River."
Jellico started. "But that is almost fifty miles from the swamp, on thisside of the mountain!"
"He was hunted and he fled--as you promised," Asaki said to Tau. "Youmade strong magic, off-world man."
The medic shook his head slowly. "I but turned his own methods againsthim. Because he believed in his power, that same power, reflected back,broke him. Had I been facing one who did not believe...." He shrugged."Our first meeting set the pattern. From that moment he feared a littlethat I could match him, and his uncertainty pierced a hole in hisarmor."
"Why on earth did you want 'Terra Bound?'" burst out Dane, still seekingan explanation for that one small mystery among the others.
Tau chuckled. "In the first place, that blasted tune has haunted us allfor so long that I knew its rhythm was probably the one you could keepto without hardly knowing that you were beating it out. And, in thesecond place, its alien pattern was a part of our particular background,to counteract Lumbrilo's native Khatkan music, which was certainly a bigfactor in _his_ stage setting. He must have believed that we would notfind out about the drugged water and so would be prepared for anyfantasy he cared to produce. When they saw us coming out over the swampthey counted us easy takings. His practice had always been withKhatkans, and he judged us by their reactions to stimuli he knew wellhow to use. So he failed...."
Asaki smiled. "Which was good for Khatka but ill for Lumbrilo and thoseusing him to make mischief here. The poacher and the outlaw Hunters willmeet with our justice, which I do not believe they will relish. But theother two, the spaceman and the company agent, are to be sent to Xechoto face Combine authorities. It is my thought that those will not acceptkindly the meddling of another company in their territory."
Jellico grunted. "Kindness and Combine are widely separated in suchmatters. But we can now take passage on the same ship as yourprisoners--"
"But, my friend, you have not yet seen the preserve. I assure you that_this_ time there shall be no trouble. We have several days yet beforeyou must return to your ship--"
The captain of the _Queen_ held up his hand. "Nothing would give megreater pleasure than to inspect the Zoboru preserve, sir--next year. Asit is, my holiday is over and the _Queen_ is waiting for us on Xecho.Also, permit me to send you some tapes dealing with the newest types offlitters--guaranteed against flight failures."
"Yes, guaranteed," Tau added guilelessly, "not to break down, losecourse, or otherwise disrupt a pleasant excursion."
The Chief Ranger threw back his head and his deep-chested laughter wasechoed from the heights above them. "Very well, Captain. Your mail runwill bring you back to Xecho at intervals. Meanwhile I shall study yoursales
tapes concerning the non-expendable flitters. But you _shall_visit Zoboru--and pleasantly, very pleasantly, I assure you, Medic Tau!"
"I wonder," Tau muttered and Dane heard. "Just now the quiet of deepspace is a far, far more entrancing proposition!"
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Notes | | | | | | One copyright symbol was replaced with "(c)". | | The repetition "too too" and the writing of the word | | "steppingstones" without hyphen is as in the original. | | | | The following typos have been corrected. | | | | Typo Correction | | | | breath breathe | | an on | | Yes. sir! Yes, sir! | | Terran Terra | | visiting; visiting. | | Terran Terra | | qraz graz | | telaported teleported | | Sinbad Sindbad | | supersition superstition | | remarkble remarkable | | was were | | waves weaves | | missive missile | | throbbling throbbing | | "_Haugh!_ "_Haugh!_" | | succesful successful | | reading readying | | Nohingness Nothingness | | blatt blast | | pleace please | | Bu But | | | | | | "Andrew North" was one of the pseudonyms used by | | "Andre Norton". | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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