Children of the Gates (19 page)

“He—he doesn’t know what he is saying—” The first voice choked as if someone struggled against crying. “What has happened to him?”

“He believes, and to him what he believes is,” Avalon replied.

“You are Avalon,” Nick said slowly. “But that is not true—for Avalon is gone. Am I dead?” There was no fear in him now. Perhaps death was this—this nothingness.

“No, of course not! Nick—Please don’t be like this! Oh, you can help him. I know you could if you would.”

“He must believe.”

“Nick, listen!” Someone was so close to him he could feel a stir of breath against his cheek. Breath was life—so that other must be alive. But how could one live in nothingness? “Nick, you are here with us. You somehow blew up that power standard, or whatever it was. And then—everything just happened. The prisoners were able to get out. And the aliens all died. Barry says the backlash of power did it. Their saucers were blown open. Then—then the Herald came, Nick, you must see!”

Something stirred in him. This was Linda. He could give a name to her voice. Linda and Avalon were here with him. He could feel her touch as she held his head against her, he could even hear the beating of her heart. A beating heart was life also.

And if Avalon existed for Linda, how could it be gone for him? Once more he opened his eyes on nothingness. But there should be no nothingness—there should be Avalon!

Nick drew upon his will of concentration. Avalon—let Avalon be!

Sight did not return as it had gone in a burst of fierce light—but slowly. He saw first shadows darkening the blank white of the place into which he had been exiled by his own desperate act. Then those shadows took on substance. There were figures. As he had concentrated on creating illusion, so he concentrated now on the return of a world. Was this an illusion also? No, he must not give room to such a doubt.

There was Linda, watching, concern on her face, in her touch as she supported him. There was Jeremiah, unblinking eyes regarding him, and beyond, standing, so he had to raise his head a fraction to see the better, the blaze of color that was the Herald.

Brighter, sharper, more real with every moment, the world came back. Had he indeed lost his sight so that it had made him believe he had lost all else into the bargain? Nick did not know. All he cared about was that he had been wrong.

He was lying, he discovered, at the edge of what must have been a battlefield for forces, not men. Facing him, one of the saucers had flipped from stilt feet to its side, part of it plowed in a deep gash into the earth. The sight of that tore his mind from his deep self-consciousness to think of the others. He freed himself from Linda’s hold, struggled to sit up and look around.

Linda was safe, and Jeremiah, and Lung, for the Peke was pressed close to the girl as if he feared they might be parted. But Hadlett, Mrs. Clapp—the prisoners in the pen—?

“The others,” he demanded of Linda. “How are the others?”

She did not answer at once, only looked distressed.

“The Vicar—Mrs. Clapp?” What of those two who had shared this last adventure?

“Over—over there.” She put out a hand to restrain him. But Nick pushed it aside and somehow got to his feet.

“Over there” was by the second saucer. There was a rent in its upper surface, its landing ramp was twisted. At the foot of it he saw Crocker and Jean. Mrs. Clapp and Lady Diana were on their knees beside someone stretched on the ground. Nick began to walk, though he felt very lightheaded and dizzy.

“Nick!” Linda was beside him. Before he could resist she had caught his arm, drawn it about her shoulders, steadying him. He did not try to push her away this time. If her help could bring him to the others sooner he accepted it.

He covered the gap, stood with Linda’s support, looking down at the Vicar. Hadlett’s eyes were open and when he saw Nick he smiled. “St. George,” he said, “and St. Michael are supposed to be the warriors. I have never heard it of St. Nicholas that he went into battle, but rather that he was a giver of gifts.”

Nick went to his knees. “Sir—” Until that moment he had not realized, though perhaps he had dimly suspected, how close were his ties with this man. Heart-ties Rita had called them. Now he could feel why.

“You won for us, Nicholas. And”—Hadlett turned his head just a fraction in Mrs. Clapp’s hold—“I think it was perhaps a notable victory indeed. Have I the right of it, sir?”

Nick realized then that the Vicar spoke to someone behind, and turned his own head to see that the Herald had followed them.

“He has won the freedom of Avalon, and not for himself alone.”

“There was a danger then for you as well as us,” Hadlett said. “Yet we were not allies—”

“Only in part. Avalon has its laws, which are not the laws of men.”

Hadlett nodded, a fractional movement of his head. “That was—” He paused and there was struggle on his face. “That was the truth that I had to abide by. Good may govern Avalon—but it is not—my—good—” A red bubble formed in the corner of his mouth. It broke and a trickle of scarlet came from it.

Nick turned on the Herald. “Help him!”

“No, Nicholas.” It was not Avalon, but Hadlett who answered. “To every man his own season. And the season passes. You and I”—again it was Avalon he addressed—“know that. It is given few men to find peace. I am—content. You told me once, Nicholas, that there might be many rivers from a single source. That is also the truth, but we each choose our own. Now, let me enter into my own peace in my own time.”

What he repeated thereafter were the words of his own priesthood and belief, the belief he might not surrender to Avalon. Nick could not listen. It was too unfair. The Vicar had given freely, and what came in return?

He pulled loose from Linda, moved away from the others, steadying himself with one hand against the bent support of the wrecked saucer. Before him stretched the open land with a crater rimmed in glassy slag to mark the site of the pole. Had that operated the gateway to the aliens’ own world? If so it was closed, perhaps forever.

What would happen to him and his companions now? Would the Dark Tide Rita and the Herald warned of continue to flow? Or had his vision, dream, whatever it might have been, held the truth—that it was the force of the aliens that stimulated and released the Dark Ones, built up their power to spread over the land?

“Nick?”

He did not look around.

“You won’t get back through any way of theirs now!” He struck out at her voice.

“No.” But she did not sound crushed.

Nick turned his head. Linda stood there in worn and bedraggled clothing, her hair loose about her shoulders, a raw scratch on her cheek, Lung in her arms, as if he were now the only treasure she could ever so hold. She looked forlorn, lost.

“I hope—I hope Dave—” Her voice broke. “No—” She backed away as Nick took a step toward her. “Don’t—don’t try to tell me— We won’t go back, ever. After awhile we’re going to forget, I think. The past will all seem a dream. Maybe, Nick, I shall accept Avalon. I must! If I don’t—I’ll keep on remembering and that I cannot live with!”

“And what about them?” Nick gestured toward the others.

“The Vicar—he’s gone, Nick.” Tears spilled down her cheeks and she made no move to wipe them away. “And the rest—the Warden was killed in the backlash, as you might have been, Nick—as I thought you were at first.” There was fear and horror in her eyes now. “The others—they know now what they must do. And you, Nick?”

“I always knew—after the city. There can be only one way of true life in Avalon. If we would be any more than those miserable human animals I saw in the woods, we must choose that.”

He held out his hand, and Linda, cradling Lung against her with her other arm, let her fingers be enclosed in his. Together they started back. After all, Nick thought, in this choice the giving was not so much his. What he received was far the greater.

Avalon the Herald waited for them, the radiance about him very glorious indeed.

1

The Raski girl made Demon Horns with two fingers of her left hand and spat between them. That droplet of moisture landed, dust covered, on the rutted clay of the road just missing the edge of Elossa’s stained travel cloak,, She did not look at the girl but kept her eyes turned to those distant mountain rises, her goal.

In the town hate was a foul cloud to stifle her. She should have avoided the village. None of Yurth blood ever went into one of the native holdings if they could help it. Broadcast hate so deep gnawed at one’s Upper Sense, clouded reception, muddied the thoughts. But she had had to have food. A tumble on a stream’s stepping stones in the past evening dusk had turned the supplies she carried in her belt pouch into a sticky mess she had jettisoned that morning.

The merchant whose stall she had visited had been surly and sullen. However, he had not had the courage to refuse her when she made a quick choice. All those eyes, and the waves of hate. . . . Now, when she judged she was well beyond the girl who had given her that last salute, Elossa walked faster.

A Yurth man or woman moved with dignity among the Raski, just as they ignored the natives, looking over and around them as if they were not. Yurth and Raski were as different as light and dark, mountain and plain, heat and cold. There was no common ground for their meeting ever.

Yet they shared the same world, ate the same food, breathed the same air. Even some among her kin had dark hair resembling that the Raski wore in tight rolls about their heads, and their skins were not unlike in color. That of the Raski might be brown by birth, but the Yurth, living as they did ever under the sky and the fierce sun, also tanned darkly. Put a Yurth, even herself, into the bodice and ankle-sweeping skirt of the girl who had so graphically made her hate clear, let her hair grow and twist it up, and she might have looked no, or little, different. It was only in the mind, the thought, that Yurth stood apart.

It had always been so. The Upper Sense was a Yurth child’s from birth. He or she was trained in its use before plain talk came from the lips. For the Upper Sense was all which stood between them and utter annihilation.

Zacar was not an easy world. Storms of terrible force came in the bleak season, sealing Yurth clans into their mountain burrows, blasting, and overwhelming the towns and the dwelling on the plains. Wind, hail, freezing winds, rain in drowning torrents. . . . All life sought shelter when those struck. That is why the Pilgrimage was only possible during the two months of early autumn, why she must hurry to find her goal.

Elossa dug her staff point into the crumbling clay and turned aside from the road which served farms she could see, the houses squatting drably some distance ahead. For the road, such as it was, angled away from the mountains she must reach. She longed to be out of the plains, higher up into the places of her own heritage, where one could breathe air untainted by dust, think thoughts unassailed by the hate which clogged about any Raski gathering place.

That she must make this journey alone was in keeping with the custom of her people. On the day the clan women had gathered to bring her staff, cloak, supply bag, she had known a sinking of heart which was not quite fear. To travel out into the unknown alone. . . . But that was the heritage of Yurth, and each girl and boy did so when their bodies were ready for the duties of Elders, their minds fallow enough to receive the Knowledge. Some never returned. Those who did were—changed.

They were able to set up barriers between themselves and their fellows, sealing out thought talk when they wished. Also they were graver, preoccupied, as if some part of the Knowledge, or perhaps the whole of it, had been a burden fastened on them. But they were Yurth, and as Yurth must return to the cradle of the clan, accept the Knowledge, however bitter or troublesome that might be.

It was the Knowledge which would itself guide them to their goal. They must leave their minds open until a thought thread would draw them. The coming of that was the command they must obey. She had tramped for four days now, the strange urgency working ever in her, bringing her by the shortest route across the plains to the mountains she now faced, the land no one visited now unless the Call came.

She had often speculated with those of her own birth age as to what must lie there. Two of their company had gone and returned. However, to ask them what they had done, or seen, was forbidden by custom. The barrier was already set in them. Thus the mystery always remained a mystery until one was led oneself to discover the truth.

Why did the Raski hate them so, Elossa wondered. It must be because of the Upper Sense. The plains dwellers lacked that. But there was something else. She was different from the hoose, the kannen, all the other life which Yurth respected and strove to aid. She did not wear upon her body, slender beneath her enveloping cloak, dust plastered from the road, fur or scales. Yet there was no hate for her in the minds of those others. Wariness, yes, if the creature was new come into the places of the clan. But that was natural. Why, then, did those who possessed bodies like her own beat at her with black hate in their thoughts if she was forced by some chance to move among them as she had done this morning?

Yurth did not seek to command—even those of lesser and weaker minds. All creatures had their limitations—even as did the Yurth. Some of her kin were keener witted, faster to mind-speak, producing thoughts which were new, unusual enough to make one chew upon them in solitude. But Yurth did not have rulers or ruled. There were customs, such as the Pilgrimage, which all followed when the time was ripe. Still no one ordered that this be so. Rather did those obeying such customs recognize within themselves that this must be done without question.

Twice, she had heard, in the years before her birth, long ago by the reckoning of the clan, the King-Head of the Raski had sent armies to seek out and destroy the Yurth. Once those reached the mountains they had fallen into the net of illusions which the Elders could weave at will.

Men broke out of disciplined companies, wandered lost, until they were subtly set back on their path again. Into the mind of the King-Head himself was inserted a warning. So that when his brave soldiers came straggling back, foot worn, exhausted, he returned to his city stronghold, and did not plan a third mountain expedition. Thereafter the Yurth were let strictly alone and the mountain land was theirs.

But among the Raski there were rulers and ruled, and they were, as far as Elossa had been able to tell, the sorrier for that. Some men and women toiled all their lives that others might live free and turn their hands to no task. That this was a part of their otherness was true, and perhaps those who toiled had little liking for it. Did they hate their masters with some of the same black hatred that they turned toward the Yurth? Was that hate rooted in a bitter and abiding envy of the freedom and fellowship of the clans? But how could that be, what Raski knew how the clans lived? They lacked the mind-speak and could not so rove away from their bodies to survey what lay at a distance.

Elossa quickened pace again. To be away from this! She was fanciful. Surely no tongue of that black ill-wishing she had “seen” with the Upper Sense reached after her like the claws of a sargon. Fancies such as that were for children, not one old enough to be summoned for the Pilgrimage. The sooner, however, that she was in the foothills, the more at ease she would be.

Thus she walked steadily as the fields about gave way from ordered rows of grain to pasturage, well grazed by hoose teeth. Those patient animals themselves raised their heads as she passed. She gave them silent greeting, which seemed so much to astound them that here and there one shook its head or snorted. A younger one came trotting to parallel her way, watching her, Elossa felt, wistfully. In its mind she detected a dim memory of running free with no rein or lead cord to check that racing.

She paused to give it the blessing of food forage and pleasant days. Back to her came wonder and pleasure in return. Here was one ruled, and yet those who ruled it did not know what manner of life it really was. Elossa wished that she might open the gate of all these pastures, let loose those the fences kept in restraint, that they might have the freedom only one remembered so dimly.

Yet it was also laid straightly upon the Yurth that they must not attempt to change in any way the life of the Raski or their servants. To do so meant using the Yurth gifts and talents in the wrong manner. Only in some crisis, to defend their own lives, might the Yurth cast illusions before their attackers.

Now the pastures disappeared; she entered the foothills of the mountains. The way was rough, but to Elossa it was familiar. She threw off the last of the shadow which had troubled her since she had come through the town. Lifting her head, she allowed the hood of her cloak to slip back so that the wind might run fingers through her pale, fine hair, bring fresh breath to her lungs.

She found faint traces of paths. Perhaps the townspeople came hunting here or they fed their stock among these hills. Yet there was no sign that such trails had been recently used. Then, upon climbing the top of one ascent, she sighted something else, a monolith taller than she when it stood upright, as it must once have been. It was not native to this place, for the rock was not the dull gray of that which surfaced here and through the scanty soil, rather a red, like the black-red of blood which had congealed in the sun.

Elossa shivered, wondering why such a dark thought had crossed her mind when she sighted that toppled stone. She shrank from it, so with the discipline of her kind she made herself approach closer. As she drew near she saw the rock had been carved, though time and erosion had blunted and worn those markings. What was left was only the suggestion of a head. Yet the longer Elossa stared at it, the more that same stifling uneasiness which had ridden her in the town arose to hasten her breathing, make her want to run.

The face was Raski in general outline, still it held some other element which was alien, dreadfully alien—threatening in spite of the veil the wearing of time had set upon it. A warning? Set here long ago to turn back the wayfarer, promising such danger ahead that its marker had been able to give it that distinctly evil cast?

The workmanship was not finished, smoothly done. Rather the rugged crudeness of its fashioning added to the force of the impression it made upon the viewer. Yes, it must be most decidedly a warning!

Elossa, with an effort, turned her back upon the thing, surveyed what lay beyond. With eyes taught by all her mountain training to study and evaluate terrain she caught another remnant of the far past: there had once been a road from this point on.

Stones had been buried by landslips, pushed aside by stubborn growth of bush and small tree. But the very grading which had been done for the placement of those stones had altered the natural contours of the land enough for her to be sure.

A road of stone? Such were only found near the cities of the King-Head. Labor in making such was very hard and would not have been wasted to fashion the entrance into the mountains, in the normal course of events. Also this was very, very old. Elossa went to the nearest of the stones, its edge upthrust as it lay nearly buried in the grass. She knelt and laid her hand upon it, reaching with thought to read. . . .

Faint, too faint to make any clear impression for her. This had returned to the wilds very long ago. So far in the past that the land had accepted it back, laid its own seal upon it. She could sense the trail of a sand lizard, the paw touch of a bander; what lay behind those in time was nothing she could seize upon.

The pavement itself headed for the mountain she must climb, and to use the faint traces of it would lighten her way a little, aid to save her strength for the more difficult task ahead. Deliberately she turned into the roadway. Once a way of importance, it must have been sealed, forgotten, and the fallen monolith set to forbid entrance. Who had done this and why? The curiosity of Yurth minds possessed her; as she went she kept looking for any hint of what had been the purpose of this road.

The farther she advanced along the vestige of highway the more Elossa marveled at the skill and labor which had gone into its making. It did not take the easiest way, twisting and turning, as did the game trails and footpaths of the mountains she knew, or the clay-surfaced roads of the plains, rather it cut through all obstacles, as if its stubborn makers would tame the land to serve them.

She came to a place where slides had, in a measure, covered what had been a cut into the side of the mountain itself, picking her way over the debris left by those slides with a stout aid of her staff. Still the road headed in her direction, and, because her curiosity was now aroused, she determined to see where it might lead. Though it could be, that before its goal was reached, she must turn aside to fulfill her own quest.

There were no more of such worn-off stones as that left below, but at intervals she did sight small ones, several still upright. On those there were traces of carving, but so worn that the markings were only shadows. None of these gave her the feeling of discomfort as had the one below. Perhaps they had been set another time and certainly for other purposes.

It was in the shadow of such a one that Elossa sat to eat at nooning. She need not even use the liquid in her water flask, for only a short distance away a rill from some higher mountain spring had made a runnel for itself. The murmur of running water was loud enough to be heard. She felt at peace, at one with what lay about her.

Then—that peace was shattered!

Her mind-seek lazily reaching out to engulf the freedom and quiet, brushed upon thought! One of the clans on the same Pilgrimage? There were other clans cross mountain with whom her own people had little contact save during wintering. No, in that short touch she had not caught the familiar recognition which would have signaled Yurth—even Yurth traveling with a closed mind.

If it was not Yurth, then it was Raski. For no animal registered so. A hunter? She dared not probe, of course. Though the Raski hatred was dampened by fear, who knew what might chance were a Raski, away from his own kind, to encounter a single Yurth? She remembered now those on the Pilgrimage who had never returned. There were many explanations—a fall among rocks, a sickness away from all help, yes, even perhaps death by intent from some menace they could not restrain by the Upper Sense. Prudence must be her guide now.