The Valley of Creation Page 10

  The thought-crown was not in place but Nelson hoped that the contact would enable him to get through a message to Li Kin's relaxed mind. He remembered how he had heard Nsharra and Tark all those centuries ago in Yen Shi.

  "Li Kin," he sent his urgent thought, "Wake, Li Kin, and do not fear. It is I, Eric Nelson."

  Over and over, soothingly, and presently Li Kin opened his eyes and said aloud in a startled voice. "Who calls?"

  Then he saw the gray wolf standing over him and Tark's eyes burning green in the shadows and his mouth opened for a scream.

  Nelson leaped. He smothered the cry and crushed Li Kin's slight body with his own weight until he stopped struggling. Then he lifted the thought-crown again in his teeth and offered it. Staring wildly, Li Kin took the thing in shaking hands and put it on.

  "Li, it is I — Eric Nelson!" he thought swiftly.

  "Nelson?" came Li Kin's numb thought. His eyes dilated in horror. "It is a nightmare. I am dreaming."

  Nelson's thoughts raced, telling the other what happened. Li Kin shook his head.

  "Sorcery. The power of those who were before man." Then, heavily, "We did evil, Eric Nelson, to come to L'Lan with our weapons. For that evil we shall die."

  "Very probably," Nelson answered, "but just now I need your hands to release Barin, so that I can get my own hands back. Will you help?"

  Li Kin nodded. It was a dazed, queer sort of nod. Nelson knew what Li Kin was thinking. He was thinking that the heavy sword of Fate was weighing upon the woven strand of his years and would presently cut it through and that, in the woven strand, there were few bright strands, very few among the many that were strained and drab.

  "Of course," nodded Li Kin. "I will help." He fumbled for his spectacles, put them on and rose, pulling his jacket straight. Then he went out with the two wolves trotting like two silent shadows at his heels.

  The corridors were empty, the moonlight falling through the vaulted glass in a strange dusky light such as is seen only in dreams.

  Li Kin's thought informed them, "The others hold council."

  "Why aren't you with them?" Nelson asked.

  Li Kin shrugged. "I can better spend my time in sleep. You know how much my word weighs with Sloan."

  They came to the prison wing. Here as before the torches flared but now there were no guards. Nelson and Tark, who had slipped back into the shadows, rejoined the little Chinese.

  Li Kin's thought was puzzled. "I can't understand it. Shan Kar keeps the boy under guard at all times."

  Something came drifting to Nelson on the sluggish air. A little red whisper that made his nerve-ends ripple. He saw the hackles ridge up along Tark's spine and then the two of them ran ahead of Li Kin, going low to the ground with a slinking gait, up to the door of Barin's cell.

  Before Li Kin unbarred the door, they knew what they would see.

  Barin lay on the floor. The smell of death was on him, and the smell of blood. He had died only a short time before and he had not died easily. The reek of Piet Van Voss was strong in the little room.

  Tark's sorrow burst from him in one wailing cry that was quickly checked. Nelson caught the wild, raging thought of the Clan-leader.

  "I will avenge!"

  Chapter XIII

  THE FIGHT IN THE PALACE

  For a long moment they stood, the three of them, without movement or speech. The dead boy lay looking quietly into eternity, and there was no sound save the hissing of the torches as they burned. Nothing stirred but the flames, their light running ragged and uncertain over the gleaming walls.

  Over and over, above his horror at the brutality of this thing, the thought tolled like a bell in Nelson's mind: Barin is dead, and I shall never be a man again.

  It was a thought he could not face.

  "I knew nothing of this," said Li Kin out of the depths of shame — shame that his own kind could have done such a thing. "I swear it."

  Nelson realized then that Tark had swung around toward Li Kin and that there was death in his green eyes.

  Nelson sprang, interposing his wolf body between them.

  '^Wait, Tark!" he thought swiftly. "Li Kin speaks the truth. He, of all of us, never wished to come here, never wished your people harm. Sloan was here and Van Voss. Not this one."

  Tark's hairy body quivered. He did not seem to have heard.

  Nelson told him, "Tark, listen to me! Barin was the price of my body. I want as much as you to punish those who did this. And for that we need Li Kin's help. Do you hear me?"

  Slowly, reluctantly, Tark answered, "I hear." He relaxed but not much, "Let us go and find the others."

  The torchlight gleamed like blood upon his fangs. "No," said Nelson. "Li Kin and I will go. You'll wait."

  Swiftly, over Tark's snarling protest, he pressed home the truth. "You know the outland weapons. You'd be dead before you could spring. You can better avenge Barin by staying alive to fight for the Brotherhood."

  "Very well," came Tark's thought finally. Then, suspiciously, "What have you to say to these men, Eric Nelson?"

  "I have much to say," answered Nelson grimly, looking at Barin. Then he added ironically, "Don't worry, Tark. Even if I would I can't betray you. You have the best hostage a man can give — his own body!"

  Tark growled assent and lay down like a great dog beside the dead boy to wait.

  Li Kin said with a terrible lack of emotion, "They are not men, those two. They are butchers. They are lower than the brutes."

  He was a very tired man, Li Kin. Nelson could feel the overpowering weariness of his mind. Weary of war and bloodshed and suffering and the pointless days that wandered on to nowhere. Weary of tears that had long ago been shed, of memories that were fainter than forgotten dreams, of the very beating of his heart.

  "Let us go," said Nelson and led the way out of the cell.

  They found Sloan and Van Voss together in the vast gloomy Council Hall. They were alone. They had a jar of wine on the table between them and their faces in the flaring torchlight were the faces of happy men.

  They glanced up as Li Kin entered and then, as they saw the wolf-shape that moved beside him, they sprang up, reaching for their guns.

  Li Kin flung up his hand to stop them. He bent down, shielding Nelson's wolf-body with his own body, and said with a strange dreamy smile, "Put on the thought-crowns, my friends. You are about to learn something of the powers you fight against."

  Nelson watched them as they picked up the platinum circles and put them on, frowning, their hands still ready on their gun butts.

  He sent his thought out to them. "Haven't you a word of welcome for me — Eric Nelson?"

  Van Voss swore and drew his gun. "A beast-spy from Vruun, who tries to trick us like children! Get out of the way, Li Kin."

  But Sloan snapped, "Hold on, Piet." Nelson could feel his mind probing, testing.

  Nelson told them, "You don't believe? Then listen."

  Rapidly, he reminded them of things they had done together that only Eric Nelson could know. Gradually Van Voss' heavy jaw fell and his gun slid back into the holster. He sat down, staring.

  Sloan let out a long harsh breath and swore softly. "How was this done and why?"

  "The punishment of the Guardian!" said a voice from across the hall — a voice full of fear.

  The voice was Shan Kar's. He came from a side door across the shadowy hall, his eyes drugged with sleep. Apparently the voices had awakened him and he had come in time to hear.

  He looked at Nelson with fear-wide eyes. "Kree did this to you, didn't he?"

  "Yes, he did." Nelson told them all that had happened.

  Sloan's hard brown face was tight. "Then you have to take Barin back to get your own body back?"

  "Yes," Nelson answered. "And I've just come from Barin."

  "So you know, do you?" Sloan said calmly.

  "Yes, I know," Nelson told him. He added, with all his hatred throbbing in his thought, "You murdering swine."

  Shan Kar looked bewildered.
"What has happened to Barin?"

  "Torture," Nelson answered. "Death."

  He kept his wolf-gaze on Sloan and Van Voss, and Li Kin also regarded them with the eyes of a man sitting in judgment.

  Shan Kar swung to Sloan. "It's not true, is it?"

  Sloan shrugged. "I had Piet work the kid over. He could have talked. Was it our fault if he made it tough for himself?"

  Sloan grinned. "You should have realized what I did, Nelson. If the Guardian of the Brotherhood holds the secret of the way into the Cavern as an hereditary trust, his son would know it too."

  "And now you know it."

  "That's right, Nelson. Now I know it."

  Shan Kar said incredulously, "You tortured that secret out of him?"

  "Come off it," Sloan answered disgustedly. "You'd have killed him yourself."

  "A clean death, the fortunes of war-that's one thing," said Shan Kar. "But torture of a helpless prisoner, a boy—"

  "Listen," said Nick Sloan harshly, "I came here for platinum and I'm going to get it. I have the secret of the Cavern now and in the morning we start our drive on Vruun. If you're with me, Shan Kar, that's fine. If you're not, that's fine too, and the Brotherhood, what's left of it, can do what they want to you after I'm gone."

  He grinned and added, "From what they did to Nelson, I don't think you'd like what they'd do to you."

  Quorr's words came back to Nelson. If we sin, we are banished into the bodies of the little hunted things that are born only to be eaten.

  He saw the look that came over Shan Kar's face and knew that he too was thinking of that.

  But Shan Kar straightened his shoulders and told Sloan, "That is an empty boast. You can never take Vruun or the Cavern without us."

  "He's right," Nelson put it edgedly. "I've been a day and night in the forest. The Clans are out in full force, waiting. They'll pull you down and tear you to pieces in the woods."

  Sloan smiled and shook his head. "Oh, no," he said. "They won't, because there won't be any woods."

  Nelson stiffened. He knew Sloan, and he knew that something particularly horrible and efficient had been planned. "What do you mean?"

  "Simple," Sloan answered. "The prevailing wind blows north toward Vruun and in this dry season the woods are like tinder. All it needs is a few little matches."

  "Fire!"

  The mind of Eric Nelson, which was a human mind, recoiled in horror from the plan, so beautifully simple, so unutterably cruel. And his body, which was the body of a wolf, was shaken to its very core by a fear that was as old as the first four-footed creature who fled from a rush of burning lava.

  "But you can't do that!" Shan Kar said unbelievingly. "The suffering, the destruction-"

  Li Kin echoed, "Sloan, you can't!"

  "Oh, lord!" said Sloan with the utter contempt of the professional for the amateur. "What are we fighting here, a war or a tea-party? Naturally there'll be suffering and destruction. There will also be a victory, and it won't cost us anything but the price of a few matches. What more do you want, Shan Kar? I'm handing you L'Lan on a platter!"

  He slammed his hand down hard on the table. "Are you with me, Shan Kar, or aren't you?"

  The Humanite leader looked sick. But after a while he nodded. "We'll be with you, Sloan. We have no other choice now."

  "I thought you'd understand that," Sloan said curtly. Then he turned and looked at the wolf that was Eric Nelson. "Nelson, you're in a cursed creepy jam. But we'll use that trick machine you told about to get you back into your own body, when we take Vruun."

  Nelson sent him a level thought. "Sloan, I'm not helping you to take Vruun, or conquer the Brotherhood. Your murder of Barin and this plan to destroy the Clans — they mean that I'm through with you."

  "You'd go back on the bargain that you made with me?" Shan Kar demanded.

  "I made no bargain," Nelson reminded him swiftly. "I told you in Yen Shi that I would make no bargains in the dark. And you kept us in the dark, Shan Kar.

  "You kept us in ignorance of what the Brotherhood you want to shatter is really like, of what you're really trying to do here. Now you're going to help Sloan bring fire and death to this valley. I tell you straight, from here on I'm against you!"

  Sloan laughed harshly. "You're forgetting something, Nelson. You're forgetting that we're your only chance of getting your body back! You can't do a thing but string along with us."

  "I can go back to Vruun," Nelson told him.

  "Go back and tell them that Barin's dead?" jeered the other. "You'd not only be a wolf then, you'd be a dead wolf."

  "I'd rather be that than an accomplice in what you plan to do!" flashed Nelson.

  Sloan's eyes narrowed. "If that's so, I might as well make you a dead wolf right here and save you the trip."

  His gun started to flash out. But Li Kin's voice stopped him. Out of the corner of his eye Nelson saw that Li Kin had already drawn his gun and that it was as steady as a rock in his hand.

  "Drop it, Sloan," he said.

  Sloan dropped it.

  Piet Van Voss sat perfectly still behind the table, his hands out of sight. His face appeared stupid with surprise.

  "What is this?" Sloan demanded. "More mutiny in the ranks?"

  Li Kin said, "I'm with Nelson."

  Sloan's hard brown face cracked, in a derisive smile. "That's fine," he said. "I hope you're more use to him—"

  Van Voss fired from under the table. The shot thundered and rang from the high glassy walls in ricocheting echoes.

  Li Kin dropped his weapon, put both hands over his stomach and sat down with an expression of surprise on his face. Then he slumped forward. Sloan's voice went calmly on, after that pause.

  "— than you were to me," he finished. Then, jerking around, he yelled, "Watch him, Piet!"

  Nelson was already in mid-leap, his wolf-body going like an arrow for the Dutchman's throat.

  His teeth met in the flesh of the man's forearm, flung up to ward him off. They fell to the floor in a crashing tangle. Sloan stooped swiftly to pick up his gun.

  Suddenly, from nowhere, Tark came like a leaping shadow. His charge knocked Sloan rolling. Shan Kar turned and ran from the room.

  Above the yells and the curses and the worrying, growling sounds Nelson caught Tark's mental cry.

  "There is no time now, outlander! Others come and Shan Kar is raising the alarm. The palace is a trap!"

  He turned and raced for the door with Nelson after him. Behind them, Sloan and Van Voss, bleeding and half-stunned, were able to muster only one wild shot before the two darting wolf-shapes had vanished down the long dark corridor.

  Tark's mind sent out a rallying cry. "Hatha! Ei! We are discovered!"

  They tore onward through the labyrinth of corridors, shoulder to shoulder. As they ran Nelson sent a swift thought.

  "You saved my life. How—?"

  "I did not trust you completely, outlander," Tark answered. "I crept close to the Council Hall and listened to your thoughts."

  He checked suddenly. "They come. The way is blocked."

  They had reached the head of the great entrance hall, a broad, high-arched, gloomy immensity, lighted by torches set along its glassy walls. Through the wide open doors at its far end Nelson could see the dark trees of the forest avenue outside.

  Out there was safety and escape. But they were barred from it. The broad open doorway was full of torch-flames and running men as hastily summoned Humanite warriors came pouring into the hall.

  There was no other way out and no turning back. For they could hear Sloan and Van Voss coming fast behind them.

  Tark eyed the Humanites and their naked swords and uttered a curt, sharp thought.

  "Rush them!"

  He shot off down the hall like a streak of gray lightning, with Nelson beside him.

  Chapter XIV

  RETURN TO DOOM

  For Nelson, it was a strange, weird battle. More so even than his fight with Tark, because this time he was fighting men. There was somet
hing beautiful about it. To sweep in under the flash of a falling blade, leap and slash and twist away, then dodge and leap again. He had not realized that men were so slow and weak, their flesh so soft to tear, so naked. He felt contempt for them.

  A savage joy in his own wolf-strength swept over him. He hurled himself high in the air, right over the striking sword that would have split him open, saw terror widen in the swordsman's eyes, heard him cry out. Then he felt his own jaws snap and crunch an arm, heard the yell of pain and the clatter of the sword falling to the floor.

  But it was no use. Men might be soft and slow, but there were many of them. More came running into the doorway as word went forth that the wolves of Vruun were trapped. And their swords could bite, deep and deadly as fangs.

  Nelson and Tark recoiled, panting, and for all their swiftness they had not come off unmarked. Ears flattened, bellies down, they crouched for one brief moment as doom closed in on them. For behind them, Sloan and Van Voss had entered the big hall. Their guns were ready, but they could not fire yet for fear of killing the Humanites.

  Nelson licked his own blood off his lips, and said, "I go."

  Tark's answer came. "I, too. Farewell, outlander."

  The two lean gray shapes gathered themselves for what they knew would be their last charge against that wall of swords.

  Then, above the clamor, Nelson heard from outside the high shrill screams of Hatha's Clan rise like trumpets on the night and the rolling drumbeats of their hoofs.

  Hatha had freed his imprisoned mates and his thought-cry rang out to the fighting wolves— "We come, brothers!"

  And they came. Out of the darkness, through the wide door that long ago had been made for the clans to enter, into the big hall itself they came, their hoofbeats ringing on the glassy floor. They shook the torchlight from their gleaming hides and squealed and reared like giants under the high-arched roof as they trampled the Humanites down.

  Hatha led them — a demon, a shape of darkness, a living hate. He stood on his hind legs and screamed, the terrible ripping cry of his kind. Nelson saw him, towering high, teeth bared and mane flying, the great muscles of his breast flecked with foam, his eyes flaming and his fore-hoofs striking out like slim instruments of death.