Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (32 page)

All this tale had taken no more than a few moments. The mental pictures and concepts succeeded one another so rapidly and so clearly that no ambiguity was possible. The bear understood quite as well as the man and woman. Despite his asides about age and accompanying decrepitude, Brother Aldo's mind messages were as lucid and sharp as any Hiero had ever encountered.

Luchare spoke aloud, looking directly into the old man's eyes. "I go wherever Hiero goes, now and always. But if my word means anything, I think we are very lucky."

I agree. I am grateful for our rescue, too, but more, I think we have a great source of strength in our new friend. The future may prove worse than the past.
Hiero smiled at the Elevener and met an answering smile.

My own Old Ones told me that the Brotherhood were men we might seek help from if necessary. Also, I can "feel" that this man is a friend. This cannot be a lie.
Gorn stared at Brother Aldo with his weak eyes.
Yes, he is a friend, this human Old One. And he is very powerful. Let us not anger him.

The priest could not tell whether this last thought was simply a sample of bearish humor or not, but Brother Aldo apparently could, for he suddenly reached out and tweaked Gorm's nose. Gorm promptly fell over on his back, paws over his muzzle, and gave a superb imitation of a mortally wounded bear, complete with gasps, tongue hangings, and pitiful moans.

The three humans laughed in unison, and only when his sides ached did Hiero suddenly remember where they were and what had recently happened here. His laughter ceased abruptly.

"Yes, humor and death make odd companions," Brother Aldo said. "Nevertheless, the chemistry of life itself is compounded of both." He stared out over the sunlit water.

Really
Hiero thought (behind a shield),
too much empathy can be unsettling!

"If I may suggest a change of air," the old man's deep voice went on, "I think we ought to eat and leave this area. I have a ship a few leagues down the coast, waiting for me, and us, if I were lucky enough to find any of you. The enemy will be wondering at the sudden cessation of signals from their party. They may be in communication with that which rules the frog creatures over there in the drowned city too. And I can sense very little of its purposes, save hate alone."

I can sense nothing at all of it, nor can Gorm. I marvel that you can.
The priest's thought was envious.

Remember, both, or rather all three, of you are very young children compared to me. Even a stupid man can learn a lot if he has enough time granted him.
This time, all three minds "smiled."

In no time they had eaten and set off again, on the far side of the island, their faces to the east once more. They took the little canoe and the old Elevener's small supply of provisions, mostly dried fruit, aboard the raft as well, and he lent a hand with the clumsy paddles. Not surprisingly, he was both strong and agile,

The sunken city came to an abrupt end not far ahead, he now told them. Another half day's travel would have brought them to it and to dry land. The Palood curved away back to the north at this point and no longer strayed down to the Inland Sea. Instead, wide lands opened out, prairie and great forest, sweeping to the far distance and eventually the great salt ocean, the Lantik.

But they were not to go east for a long while yet; rather, their route lay south, across the eastern arm of the Inland Sea itself. Somewhere to the east of Neeyana, the trading port from which Luchare's captors had sailed, Brother Aldo hoped to strike a certain forest trail, without alerting the enemy.

That evening, on dry land, around a hidden campfire, buried deep in some brush, they again sought to plan for the future.

"If you have no objection, I should like to try the Forty Symbols," Hiero said to Brother Aldo. Gorm had vanished on some private errand, and they were using speech.

"Why should I object? Precognition is an art, if that is the right word, of which we Eleveners know little. Our teaching lies in other areas of the mind and spirit. But I cannot for the life of me see why it is wrong to use such a talent in a good cause. Save for the fear of becoming skilled enough to read one's own death. That might deter some people."

"You may watch if you wish," the priest said as he drew forth the box and the alb of his office. "There is nothing secret about any of this. We don't regard it as being hidden, although we do think of it as a service."

When Hiero eventually came out of the brief trance, he saw Aldo watching him closely, and next to the old man, Luchare, her eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement.

"There is some danger to your method, some that I had not quite foreseen," Aldo said. "Your mind was quite open and the power of the thought more than enough to reveal you to a mental listener close by. I cast over you a net of surface thought, a sort of mental screen, simulating the local small thoughts of animal and plant—oh, yes, plants have thoughts, though perhaps not the kind you are aware of—to deceive any spy who might be about."

"Thanks," Hiero grunted. He opened his hand and peered at the symbols now exposed on his palm.

The Fish lay uppermost. Water again! "That's no surprise," he said, after explaining it to the Elevener.

Next, there were the familiar little Boots. "Half my life has been a journey. Now we have a journey involving water. Well, we knew that too." The hawk nose lowered over the small, third symbol. It was the House.

"What's that one?" the girl asked eagerly. "Is it good or bad?"

"Neither," was the answer. "It's the House. The sign itself is a peaked roof. Its meanings are various and unfriendly. You know, or I guess perhaps you don't, that the signs are very, very old. Many of the instructions and meanings of their first makers are obscure, open to several interpretations. This is one of them. It can mean simply '"danger indoors.' Or it can mean 'get under cover!' Or it can mean an enemy building, or even a town or city, is near. Not much help, really."

Hiero looked at the fourth symbol. It was a minute Sword and Shield interlocked. "That means personal combat for the one who casts the symbols." He looked at Luchare and smiled at the worry in her eyes. "I've drawn it three times in my life so far. I'm still here." There was no more to say. He put the signs away and called to Klootz to come and be rubbed down.

All three of them had been riding the morse, albeit at a slow pace. It was no great strain on him, and he had been feeding fairly well. Even at his deceptive amble, he covered the ground faster than a man could walk, and went straight through things a man would have had to walk around.

Two hours' jog the next morning along the shore brought them to a small cove set deep in one side of a towering headland. As they appeared on the beach, Brother Aldo cupped his hands and let out a ringing shout, startling both the humans and the bear, who had been sniffing some tracks beside the path. Klootz twitched an ear.

To the surprise of Hiero and Luchare, a section of low woodland on the far side of the cove began to move. Out from a shallow indentation in the shore pushed a stout little, two-masted ship. Tree branches had been lashed to her lateen-rigged masts and more branches and bushes woven into a great net which covered most of the hull.

Perhaps a hundred feet long over all, she was painted brown and rose high at both bow and stern. There was a tiny deck cabin amidships between the masts and various bales and bundles lying about here and there. Men moved briskly on deck about various tasks, and a small rowing boat now pushed off and came shooting in to meet them as they came down to the water.

They dismounted, and the two sailors who were rowing splashed out and pulled the boat up on the beach. This allowed the man in the stem to step out dry-shod. He did so and came swaggering up to them. Luchare put her hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

"This is Captain Gimp," Brother Aldo said. "He has waited for me patiently and has been of great service, both in the past and recently as well. No more-renowned captain of merchants sails the Inland Sea. Captain, let me introduce friends and your new passengers."

Captain Gimp bowed profoundly. He was extremely short and very wide, a washtub of a man Luchare thought. His original, color was hard to make out, for he was so brown and weathered it might have been anything. He was bald, or perhaps shaved, for a short, smoke-blackened pigtail thrust straight back like a bow, or rather, stern sprit. He wore a kilt of dirty, greased leather, boots of undressed hide, and a green coat of wool, much stained and worn. He limped a little, hence his name, Hiero guessed, and his black eyes were beady with impudent humor. His hands, at the end of long arms, were surprising, being as dirty as the rest of him, but with long, delicate fingers. He carried no visible weapon.

"Glad to make yer acquaintance, all," he said in understandable but accented
batwah
when the introductions were complete. "The Brother's word is good enough for me. Now turn your dear pets loose and let's get aboard. Wind's fair for the southward and it may shift." He spat something he was chewing in Gorm's direction even as he spoke and started to turn away.

The bear, who had been sitting up on his haunches sniffing the warm morning breeze, moved like lightning. One broad paw shot out and intercepted the wad of spittle. Next, the young bear rose on his hind legs and advanced on the dumbfounded sailor, who stood only a few feet away. Reaching him, Gorm peered solicitously into his face from an inch away, snorted loudly, and then wiped his paw down the dirty green coat. The coat now bore a new stain, as well as several leaves. Gorm sat down again and looked up at Captain Gimp.

The captain finally emerged from his trance, his face now a shade paler under the accumulation of smoke, dirt, and weather. Surprisingly, to Hiero at any rate, he crossed himself.

"Well, ride me under," he exploded. "I never see the half of that. That animal can talk! Who's he belong to?" he asked, swiveling on the others, who were all smiling. "I'll buy him! Just name your own price! I'm as fair as any master afloat; ask the Brother here, now, if you don't believe me!"

It was some time before it could be brought home to the little sailor that Gorm was not for sale and that he could think as well as a man. The captain was still muttering to himself when Brother Aldo asked him to warp his ship in near the beach so that a plank could be run and the bull morse taken aboard also. This, however, seemed to be altogether too much.

"Look now, Brother," he said to the old man, "I've carried those kaws on occasion, back when I had an old storeship, on local journeys, mind you, a day here or there. But I can't take that great ox of a thing. What would people think? My ship,
Foam Girl,
the finest thing in the trade, a dung barge? I ask you, now? It's not considerate of you, Brother. Talking bears, women who ain't proper slaves or wives, that funny-looking northerner-—no offense, mister—and now this animal mountain. No, it's too much; I won't do it; my mind's made up."

By the time they were aboard, it was almost noon. Once his arguments had been beaten down, the squat little captain proved both helpful and extremely efficient. A log pen was quickly built next to the deck cabin, and Klootz was secured by broad straps so that he could not slip.

The crew, Hiero noticed as the ship eased out of the cove, were a wildly varied lot. There were dark men who, with their curly hair, could have been Luchare's or Brother Aldo's cousins. But there were men in appearance like himself, though he heard no Metz spoken, and also there were others. He saw two, half-naked men with pale skins and high cheekbones, whose eyes were an icy blue and whose hair was fiery red. He had read of red-haired men in the ancient past, but had no idea that they still existed.

"They come from an island in the far North, from what used long ago to be called the Green Land, I believe," said Brother Aldo, who had followed his glance. "They were probably outlawed, to be so far from home."

"Do your Eleveners reach so far?" Hiero asked. He clutched the rail as the
Foam Girl
emerged from the cove and a strong wind in the great triangular sails made her heel sharply.

"We do reach there, though we are called something else, a habit of ours in many lands," Aldo said. "One of the assistant witch doctors of the white savages who were trying to kill Luchare was an Elevener. That's how I got on your track, my boy." He smiled sadly at Hiero. "Yes, he would have let the birds kill her. He had no choice, and he was next in line to be chief wizard, or shaman. You see that then he could have influenced the whole tribe, to who knows what good end. The enemy works on such primitive people, too, and we cannot neglect such chances. I am sorry, but that's the situation."

"In other words," Hiero said bitterly, "you'd turn on me if you had a change of mind about how much good it would do you. Not a very inviting thought when we're so dependent on you."

"I'm sorry," Brother Aldo said. "I was trying to be honest with you, Hiero. I openly allied myself to you and gave my word. Now, the man I just spoke of made a calculated decision to remain silent in pursuit of a long-held purpose. Can you see no difference at all?"

"Possibly," the Metz priest said in a curt tone. "I am not trained as a casuist or debater of legalisms. It sounds a bit cold-blooded.

Now I think I'll rest. I haven't slept in anything like a bed since Manoon." He nodded and walked off to the little cabin, whence Luchare had already retired, taking the bear with her, for Gorm, surprisingly, was seasick and wanted to be shut up, away from the sight of the wind-tossed whitecaps.

As Hiero moved away, he missed the pain in Brother Aldo's eyes, which followed him until the cabin door closed.

The following day and for several more, the weather held fair. The travelers, even Gorm, grew accustomed to the wave motion and enjoyed roaming the little ship. Klootz fretted, but Hiero spent a lot of time grooming him and keeping him soothed. Also, the old Brother seemed able to calm him at will, and Hiero actually felt a bit of jealousy at the morse's fondness for Aldo.