The Wyvern males had left the landing strip.
Charis could follow their path through the brush to the open and
the waiting copter. Lantee’s plan of heading out to sea in
the copter, aiming at the witch Citadel, was practical. Lantee?
Charis rubbed her hands together and tried to think clearly.
Something had happened back there at the domes; it was only logical
to associate the clamor with Lantee’s attempt to scout the
enemy. He could now be a prisoner—or worse.
But if she took the copter now when the attention of any
sentries was fixed elsewhere, she had her best chance of escape,
though she might well be deserting a man who had aroused the
invaders but managed to evade them. To go—to get to the
Citadel and warn the witches of the possible danger, leaving
Lantee, his fate unknown? Or to stay in hopes of his coming?
There was no real choice; there never had been, Charis knew that
deep within her. But now, at the final test, she felt as bruised
and beaten as if those spear carriers had taken her in an unequal
struggle. Somehow she got to her feet and ran for the copter.
As she wrenched open the cockpit door, Charis paused for any
trap to explode in her face. Then she scrambled in behind the
controls. So far, all right. Now—where?
The Citadel was to the west, that was her only clue. Only, the
sea was wide and she had never made the journey by air, as Lantee
had. Maybe her guide could be a negative one, and she tracked her
goal by the barrier against the Power or rather her use of it. Such
a thin chance—but still a chance.
Charis set the control on full, braced herself for the force of
a lift-leap, and pushed the proper button. She was slammed back in
the cushioned pilot’s chair. Copters were not designed for
such violent maneuvering. But a lift-leap would take her off the
strip with speed enough to startle any guard she had not seen.
She gulped and fought the effects of the spurt upon her body,
forcing her fingers to modify the climb. The domes were now small
silvery circles just visible in the growing dark. She set a course
northward, and put the flyer temporarily on auto-pilot while she
tried to think out just how she could track that barrier with any
accuracy.
How did you track nothingness? Just try to pierce here and there
until you found the wall between you and your goal? Her vague
direction was that island home of the Wyverns which stood northwest
of the government base, southwest from Jagan’s post, and she
had not even a com sweep to give her a more definite position.
Below, just visible in the night, was the shore, an irregular
division between land and sea. The pattern—she must
have the pattern. Charis looked about her a little wildly. There
was no leaf to scratch, no earth or rock to draw upon. That wall
storage pocket at her left hand? Charis plunged fingers into it and
spilled out what it contained.
A packet of Sustain tablets—swiftly she scooped that into
her own belt pouch and another first-aid kit, bigger and better
fitted than the small one Lantee had carried. Joyfully Charis
scrabbled in it for the sterile pencil. It was not here, but there
was a large tube of the same substance. Last of all, a flat sheet
of plasta-board such as could be used for sketch maps, its surface
slighted roughened as if it had been marked and erased many
times.
This would serve if she could find something with which to mark.
Again Charis pawed into the pocket, and her fingers, scraping the
bottom of the holder, closed about a thin cylinder. She brought out
a fire tube. No use—or was it?
Frantically she twisted its dial to the smallest ray, and
pressed the tip tight to the plasta-board. It was such a
chance—the whole thing might go up in a burst of flame. But a
map sheet should have been proofed against heat as well as
moisture. Only this one had been used in the past, perhaps too
often. She drew swiftly, fearful of any mistake. The brown
heat-lines bit deeply into the surface and spread a little, but not
enough to spoil the design.
Charis clicked off the heat unit and studied what she now held.
Blurred, yes, but to her distinctive enough in its familiarity. She
had a good substitute for the disk which she had lost.
Now—to put it to use. She closed her eyes. The room in the
Citadel—concentrate!—the barrier! But in which
direction? All she knew was that the barrier still existed. Her one
idea of a direction-finder seemed a failure. No one gave up at a
first try, though.
Room—design—barrier. Charis opened her eyes. Her
head was turned slightly to the left. Was that a clue? Could she
test it? She snapped the copter off auto-pilot and altered course
inland away from the shore. When she had ceased to see the sea with
only the dark mass of land now under her, she brought the flyer
about and cruised back.
Room—design— Her head to the left again, but not so
much. She had to take that as her lead, slender as it was. Altering
the degree of course to that imagined point, she sent the copter on
out to sea.
Design—try— She was looking straight ahead when she
met what she could not penetrate. Oh, let this be right.
Let it be right.
Charis had no idea how far offshore the Wyvern-held islands
were. Any copter had a good ranging allowance, but her goal might
still lie hours ahead. She clicked up the speed to full and sat
with her hands on the map sheet, waiting.
The stars were low on the horizon. No! Not stars—they were
far too low. Lights! Lights at nearly sea level—the Citadel!
On impulse Charis tried the Power and it was as if she had thrown
her body at full force against an unyielding slab of tri-steel. She
gasped at what was translated into physical pain upon that
encounter.
But the copter had met with no barrier. It continued on,
unerringly bound for the lights ahead.
Charis had no idea what she would do when she reached the
Citadel. Only she had her warning, and with the Power the Wyverns
would know that she spoke the truth. Even with the
warning—what could the witches do in their turn, except avoid
outright and quick disaster by delaying whatever attack they had
already organized.
The lights picked out the windows in the massive block of the
Citadel, some of them almost on a level with the copter. Charis
resumed control and circled the buildings in search of a level site
on which to land. She had rounded the highest of the blocks when
she sighted ground lights marking an open space, almost as if they
had prepared for her coming.
As the flyer touched the pavement, she saw a second copter at
one side. So—the other Survey man, Thorvald, had not left. An
ally for her? Or was he now a prisoner, tucked away in such a
pocket of non-being as Lantee had been? Lantee— Charis tried
to push out of her mind any thought of Lantee.
She held the plasta-board. In this well-like space between walls
there were no breaks, no doors, and the windows were at least a
story above her. The lights which had directed her landing burned
in portable standards. So the Wyverns had expected her.
Yet no one waited here; she might be standing in a trap.
Charis nodded. This was all a part of what the shadow-patterned
Wyvern had promised. She must do it all by her own efforts; the
answer had to be hers.
The shadow Wyvern had said it, so to her it must be proven.
Charis held the plasta-board in her two hands where she could see
its design in the flickering half-light of the lamps. Spike-wing
crest, pallid skin with only the faint tracings of faded
designs—Charis pulled the Wyvern out of memory and built with
care the picture to center upon, until she was sure no detail she
could recall was missing. Then—
“So you can dream to a purpose after all.”
No amazement, only recognition as a greeting.
The room was dusky. Although two lamps stood on either side of a
table, their radiance made only a small pool, and Charis sensed
larger space stretching far beyond where she stood. That
other—the Wyvern—sat in a chair with a high back, its
white substance glowing with runnels of color, which in themselves
appeared to crawl with life.
She leaned back at her ease, the alien witch, her hands resting
on the arms of her chair as she surveyed Charis appraisingly. Now
the off-worlder found words to answer.
“I had dreamed to this much purpose, Wise One, that I
stand here now.”
“Agreed. And to what future purpose do you stand here,
Dreamer?”
“That a warning may be delivered.”
The vertical pupils in those large yellow eyes narrowed, the
snouted head raised a fraction of an inch, and the sense of affront
reached Charis clearly.
“You have that which will arm you against us, Dreamer?
Then you have made a gain since last we were thus, face to
face. What great new power have you discovered to be able to say
‘I warn you’ to us?”
“You mistake my words, Wise One. I do not warn you against
myself, but against others.”
“And again you take upon yourself more than you have the
right to do, Dreamer. Have you then read your answer from Those
Gone Before?”
Charis shook her head. “Not so. But still you mistake me,
Reader of Patterns. In what is to come, we dream one dream, not
dream against dream.”
Those eyes searched into her, seemed to pick at her mind.
“It is true that you have done more than we believed you
could, Dreamer. Yet you are not one with us in any power save that
which we have granted you. Why do you presume to say that we are
now to dream the same dream?”
“Because if we do not, then may all dreams be
broken.”
“And that you truly believe.” Not a question but a
statement. However, Charis made a quick answer.
“That I truly believe.”
“Then you have learned more than how to break a restraint
dream since last we have stood together. What have you
learned?”
“That those from off-world are more powerful than we
thought, that they have with them that which renders all dreams as
nothing and protects them, that their desire here may be
to gather to them the Power that they may use it for their own
purposes in other places.”
Again that faint pick, pick to uncover the truth behind her
words. Then, “But of these facts you are not wholly
sure.”
“Not wholly,” Charis agreed. “Every pattern is
made of lines. So, when you have long known a design and see only a
portion of it, you can still envision the whole.”
“And this is a pattern you have known before?”
“It is one I have heard of, one Lantee has heard
of.”
Had she made a mistake in mentioning the Survey man’s
name? That chill which reached from mind to mind suggested that she
had.
“What has any man-thing to do with this?” A hissing
question hot with rising ire.
Charis’s anger woke in turn. “This much, Wise One.
He may be dead now, striving to carry war to the
enemy—your enemy!”
“How can that be when he is—” The thought
chain between them broke in mid-sentence. Lids dropped above the
yellow eyes. The feeling of withdrawal was so sharp that Charis
almost expected the Wyvern to vanish from her chair. Yet her body
was still there although her mind was elsewhere.
The minutes were endless, then Charis knew the Wyvern had
returned. Fingers had clenched about the chair arms, the yellow
eyes were open, fixed upon the girl, though there was no touch of
mind.
Charis took a chance. “You did not find him, Wise One,
where you had sent him?”
No answer, but Charis was sure the Wyvern understood.
“He is not there,” the girl continued, “nor
has he been for some time. As I told you in truth, he has been
about your business elsewhere. And perhaps to his
hurt.”
“He did not free himself.” The frantic grip of the
Wyvern’s hands relaxed. Charis thought that the witch was
annoyed because she had betrayed her agitation so much. “He
could not. He is a man-thing—”
“But also a dreamer after his own fashion,” Charis
struck in. “And though you strove to remove him from this
struggle, yet he returned—not to war against you but against
those who threaten all dreaming.”
“What dream have you that you can do this
thing?”
“Not my dream alone,” Charis retorted. “But
his dream also, and other dreams together, as a key to unlock this
prison.”
“I must believe that this is so. Yet such an act is beyond
all reason.”
“All reason known to you and your sharers of dreams. Look,
you.” Charis moved to the table, stretched out hand and arm
into the full path of the light. “Am I like unto you in the
sight of all? Do I wear any dream patterns set upon my skin? Yet I
dream. However, need my dreams be any more like unto yours than my
body covering resembles that you wear? Perhaps even the Power when
I bend it to my will is not the same.”
“Words—”
“Words with proving action behind them. You sent me hence
and bade me dream myself out of your net if I could, and so I did.
Then with Shann Lantee I dreamed a way free from a deeper prison.
Did you believe I could do these things?”
“Believe? No,” the Wyvern replied. “But there
is always a chance of difference, a variable within the Power. And
the Talking Rods had an answer for you when we called upon Those
Who Once Were. Very well, these are truths accepted. Now say again
what you believe to be a truth that had no full proving.”
Charis retold her discoveries at the base, Lantee’s
deductions.
“A machine which nullifies the Power.” The Wyvern
led her back to that. “Such you believe can
exist?”
“Yes. Also—what if such a thing be brought to use
against you even in this very stronghold? With your dreams broken,
how may you fight against slaying weapons in the hands of those who
come?”
“We knew—” the Wyvern was musing
“—that we could not send dreams to trouble these
strangers. Or bring back—” she spoke in anger
“—to their proper places those who have broken the law.
But that all this is being done so that they may take the Power
from us—that we had not thought upon.”
Charis knew a small spark of relief. That last admission had
changed her own status. It was as if she were now admitted in a
small way into the Wyvern ranks.
“However, they must be ignorant to believe that man-things
can use the Power.”
“Lantee does,” Charis reminded her. “And what
of the other you have known as a friend
here—Thorvald?”
Hesitation, then an unwilling answer. “He, too, in a small
way. An ability, you believe, that these others may share because
they are not blood, bone, and skin with us?”
“Is that so hard to understand?”
“And what have you to suggest, Dreamer? You speak of
battles and warfare. Our only weapons have been our dreams, and now
you say they will avail nothing. So—what is your
answer?” Hostility again.
And Charis had little with which to meet that. “What these
invaders do here is against the law of our kind as much as it is a
threat against your people. There are those who will speedily come
to our aid.”
“From where? Winging down from other stars? And how will
you call them? How long will it take them to arrive?”
“I do not know. But you have the man Thorvald, and he
would have answers to these questions.”
“It would seem, Dreamer, that you believe I, Gidaya, can
give all orders here, do as I wish. But that is not so. We sit in
council. And there are those among us who would not listen to any
truth if you spoke it. We have been divided upon this matter from
the first, and to talk against attacking now will require much
persuasion. Should you stand openly with me, that persuasion would
fail.”
“I understand. But also, as you have said to me, Wise One,
there is such a thing as a threat by time. Let me speak to Thorvald
if you have him here, and learn from him what may be done to gain
help from off-world.” Had she gone too far with that
plea?
Gidaya did not answer at once. “Thorvald is in safe
keeping—” she paused and then added
“—though I wonder now about the safety of any keeping.
Very well, you may go to him. It may be that I shall say to those
who will object that you are joining him in custody.”
“If you wish.” Charis suspected that Gidaya would
offer that as a sop to the anti-off-world party. But she greatly
doubted that the Wyvern believed any longer Charis herself could be
controlled by the Power.
“Go!”
At least Thorvald had not been consigned to that place of
nothingness which had been Lantee’s prison. Charis stood in a
very ordinary sleeping room of the Citadel, its only difference
from the one she had called her own being that it had no window. On
the pile of sleep-mats lay a man, breathing heavily. His head
turned and he muttered, but she could not make out his words.
“Thorvald! Ragnar Thorvald!”
The bronze-yellow head did not lift from the mats nor his eyes
open. Charis crossed to kneel beside him.
“Thorvald!”
He was muttering again. And his hand balled into a fist and shot
out to thud home painfully on her forearm. Dreaming! Naturally? Or
in some fantasy induced by the Wyverns? But she must wake him
now.
“Thorvald!” Charis called louder and took hold of
his shoulder, shaking him vigorously.
He struck out again, sending her rolling back against the wall,
then sat up, his eyes open at last, looking about wildly. But as he
sighted her he tensed.
“You’re real—I think!” His emphatic
assertion slid into a less confident conclusion.
“I’m Charis Nordholm.” She crouched against
the wall, rubbing her arm. “And I’m real all right.
This is no dream.”
No, no dream but the worst of trouble. And did Thorvald have any
of the answers after all? She only hoped that he did.
The Wyvern males had left the landing strip.
Charis could follow their path through the brush to the open and
the waiting copter. Lantee’s plan of heading out to sea in
the copter, aiming at the witch Citadel, was practical. Lantee?
Charis rubbed her hands together and tried to think clearly.
Something had happened back there at the domes; it was only logical
to associate the clamor with Lantee’s attempt to scout the
enemy. He could now be a prisoner—or worse.
But if she took the copter now when the attention of any
sentries was fixed elsewhere, she had her best chance of escape,
though she might well be deserting a man who had aroused the
invaders but managed to evade them. To go—to get to the
Citadel and warn the witches of the possible danger, leaving
Lantee, his fate unknown? Or to stay in hopes of his coming?
There was no real choice; there never had been, Charis knew that
deep within her. But now, at the final test, she felt as bruised
and beaten as if those spear carriers had taken her in an unequal
struggle. Somehow she got to her feet and ran for the copter.
As she wrenched open the cockpit door, Charis paused for any
trap to explode in her face. Then she scrambled in behind the
controls. So far, all right. Now—where?
The Citadel was to the west, that was her only clue. Only, the
sea was wide and she had never made the journey by air, as Lantee
had. Maybe her guide could be a negative one, and she tracked her
goal by the barrier against the Power or rather her use of it. Such
a thin chance—but still a chance.
Charis set the control on full, braced herself for the force of
a lift-leap, and pushed the proper button. She was slammed back in
the cushioned pilot’s chair. Copters were not designed for
such violent maneuvering. But a lift-leap would take her off the
strip with speed enough to startle any guard she had not seen.
She gulped and fought the effects of the spurt upon her body,
forcing her fingers to modify the climb. The domes were now small
silvery circles just visible in the growing dark. She set a course
northward, and put the flyer temporarily on auto-pilot while she
tried to think out just how she could track that barrier with any
accuracy.
How did you track nothingness? Just try to pierce here and there
until you found the wall between you and your goal? Her vague
direction was that island home of the Wyverns which stood northwest
of the government base, southwest from Jagan’s post, and she
had not even a com sweep to give her a more definite position.
Below, just visible in the night, was the shore, an irregular
division between land and sea. The pattern—she must
have the pattern. Charis looked about her a little wildly. There
was no leaf to scratch, no earth or rock to draw upon. That wall
storage pocket at her left hand? Charis plunged fingers into it and
spilled out what it contained.
A packet of Sustain tablets—swiftly she scooped that into
her own belt pouch and another first-aid kit, bigger and better
fitted than the small one Lantee had carried. Joyfully Charis
scrabbled in it for the sterile pencil. It was not here, but there
was a large tube of the same substance. Last of all, a flat sheet
of plasta-board such as could be used for sketch maps, its surface
slighted roughened as if it had been marked and erased many
times.
This would serve if she could find something with which to mark.
Again Charis pawed into the pocket, and her fingers, scraping the
bottom of the holder, closed about a thin cylinder. She brought out
a fire tube. No use—or was it?
Frantically she twisted its dial to the smallest ray, and
pressed the tip tight to the plasta-board. It was such a
chance—the whole thing might go up in a burst of flame. But a
map sheet should have been proofed against heat as well as
moisture. Only this one had been used in the past, perhaps too
often. She drew swiftly, fearful of any mistake. The brown
heat-lines bit deeply into the surface and spread a little, but not
enough to spoil the design.
Charis clicked off the heat unit and studied what she now held.
Blurred, yes, but to her distinctive enough in its familiarity. She
had a good substitute for the disk which she had lost.
Now—to put it to use. She closed her eyes. The room in the
Citadel—concentrate!—the barrier! But in which
direction? All she knew was that the barrier still existed. Her one
idea of a direction-finder seemed a failure. No one gave up at a
first try, though.
Room—design—barrier. Charis opened her eyes. Her
head was turned slightly to the left. Was that a clue? Could she
test it? She snapped the copter off auto-pilot and altered course
inland away from the shore. When she had ceased to see the sea with
only the dark mass of land now under her, she brought the flyer
about and cruised back.
Room—design— Her head to the left again, but not so
much. She had to take that as her lead, slender as it was. Altering
the degree of course to that imagined point, she sent the copter on
out to sea.
Design—try— She was looking straight ahead when she
met what she could not penetrate. Oh, let this be right.
Let it be right.
Charis had no idea how far offshore the Wyvern-held islands
were. Any copter had a good ranging allowance, but her goal might
still lie hours ahead. She clicked up the speed to full and sat
with her hands on the map sheet, waiting.
The stars were low on the horizon. No! Not stars—they were
far too low. Lights! Lights at nearly sea level—the Citadel!
On impulse Charis tried the Power and it was as if she had thrown
her body at full force against an unyielding slab of tri-steel. She
gasped at what was translated into physical pain upon that
encounter.
But the copter had met with no barrier. It continued on,
unerringly bound for the lights ahead.
Charis had no idea what she would do when she reached the
Citadel. Only she had her warning, and with the Power the Wyverns
would know that she spoke the truth. Even with the
warning—what could the witches do in their turn, except avoid
outright and quick disaster by delaying whatever attack they had
already organized.
The lights picked out the windows in the massive block of the
Citadel, some of them almost on a level with the copter. Charis
resumed control and circled the buildings in search of a level site
on which to land. She had rounded the highest of the blocks when
she sighted ground lights marking an open space, almost as if they
had prepared for her coming.
As the flyer touched the pavement, she saw a second copter at
one side. So—the other Survey man, Thorvald, had not left. An
ally for her? Or was he now a prisoner, tucked away in such a
pocket of non-being as Lantee had been? Lantee— Charis tried
to push out of her mind any thought of Lantee.
She held the plasta-board. In this well-like space between walls
there were no breaks, no doors, and the windows were at least a
story above her. The lights which had directed her landing burned
in portable standards. So the Wyverns had expected her.
Yet no one waited here; she might be standing in a trap.
Charis nodded. This was all a part of what the shadow-patterned
Wyvern had promised. She must do it all by her own efforts; the
answer had to be hers.
The shadow Wyvern had said it, so to her it must be proven.
Charis held the plasta-board in her two hands where she could see
its design in the flickering half-light of the lamps. Spike-wing
crest, pallid skin with only the faint tracings of faded
designs—Charis pulled the Wyvern out of memory and built with
care the picture to center upon, until she was sure no detail she
could recall was missing. Then—
“So you can dream to a purpose after all.”
No amazement, only recognition as a greeting.
The room was dusky. Although two lamps stood on either side of a
table, their radiance made only a small pool, and Charis sensed
larger space stretching far beyond where she stood. That
other—the Wyvern—sat in a chair with a high back, its
white substance glowing with runnels of color, which in themselves
appeared to crawl with life.
She leaned back at her ease, the alien witch, her hands resting
on the arms of her chair as she surveyed Charis appraisingly. Now
the off-worlder found words to answer.
“I had dreamed to this much purpose, Wise One, that I
stand here now.”
“Agreed. And to what future purpose do you stand here,
Dreamer?”
“That a warning may be delivered.”
The vertical pupils in those large yellow eyes narrowed, the
snouted head raised a fraction of an inch, and the sense of affront
reached Charis clearly.
“You have that which will arm you against us, Dreamer?
Then you have made a gain since last we were thus, face to
face. What great new power have you discovered to be able to say
‘I warn you’ to us?”
“You mistake my words, Wise One. I do not warn you against
myself, but against others.”
“And again you take upon yourself more than you have the
right to do, Dreamer. Have you then read your answer from Those
Gone Before?”
Charis shook her head. “Not so. But still you mistake me,
Reader of Patterns. In what is to come, we dream one dream, not
dream against dream.”
Those eyes searched into her, seemed to pick at her mind.
“It is true that you have done more than we believed you
could, Dreamer. Yet you are not one with us in any power save that
which we have granted you. Why do you presume to say that we are
now to dream the same dream?”
“Because if we do not, then may all dreams be
broken.”
“And that you truly believe.” Not a question but a
statement. However, Charis made a quick answer.
“That I truly believe.”
“Then you have learned more than how to break a restraint
dream since last we have stood together. What have you
learned?”
“That those from off-world are more powerful than we
thought, that they have with them that which renders all dreams as
nothing and protects them, that their desire here may be
to gather to them the Power that they may use it for their own
purposes in other places.”
Again that faint pick, pick to uncover the truth behind her
words. Then, “But of these facts you are not wholly
sure.”
“Not wholly,” Charis agreed. “Every pattern is
made of lines. So, when you have long known a design and see only a
portion of it, you can still envision the whole.”
“And this is a pattern you have known before?”
“It is one I have heard of, one Lantee has heard
of.”
Had she made a mistake in mentioning the Survey man’s
name? That chill which reached from mind to mind suggested that she
had.
“What has any man-thing to do with this?” A hissing
question hot with rising ire.
Charis’s anger woke in turn. “This much, Wise One.
He may be dead now, striving to carry war to the
enemy—your enemy!”
“How can that be when he is—” The thought
chain between them broke in mid-sentence. Lids dropped above the
yellow eyes. The feeling of withdrawal was so sharp that Charis
almost expected the Wyvern to vanish from her chair. Yet her body
was still there although her mind was elsewhere.
The minutes were endless, then Charis knew the Wyvern had
returned. Fingers had clenched about the chair arms, the yellow
eyes were open, fixed upon the girl, though there was no touch of
mind.
Charis took a chance. “You did not find him, Wise One,
where you had sent him?”
No answer, but Charis was sure the Wyvern understood.
“He is not there,” the girl continued, “nor
has he been for some time. As I told you in truth, he has been
about your business elsewhere. And perhaps to his
hurt.”
“He did not free himself.” The frantic grip of the
Wyvern’s hands relaxed. Charis thought that the witch was
annoyed because she had betrayed her agitation so much. “He
could not. He is a man-thing—”
“But also a dreamer after his own fashion,” Charis
struck in. “And though you strove to remove him from this
struggle, yet he returned—not to war against you but against
those who threaten all dreaming.”
“What dream have you that you can do this
thing?”
“Not my dream alone,” Charis retorted. “But
his dream also, and other dreams together, as a key to unlock this
prison.”
“I must believe that this is so. Yet such an act is beyond
all reason.”
“All reason known to you and your sharers of dreams. Look,
you.” Charis moved to the table, stretched out hand and arm
into the full path of the light. “Am I like unto you in the
sight of all? Do I wear any dream patterns set upon my skin? Yet I
dream. However, need my dreams be any more like unto yours than my
body covering resembles that you wear? Perhaps even the Power when
I bend it to my will is not the same.”
“Words—”
“Words with proving action behind them. You sent me hence
and bade me dream myself out of your net if I could, and so I did.
Then with Shann Lantee I dreamed a way free from a deeper prison.
Did you believe I could do these things?”
“Believe? No,” the Wyvern replied. “But there
is always a chance of difference, a variable within the Power. And
the Talking Rods had an answer for you when we called upon Those
Who Once Were. Very well, these are truths accepted. Now say again
what you believe to be a truth that had no full proving.”
Charis retold her discoveries at the base, Lantee’s
deductions.
“A machine which nullifies the Power.” The Wyvern
led her back to that. “Such you believe can
exist?”
“Yes. Also—what if such a thing be brought to use
against you even in this very stronghold? With your dreams broken,
how may you fight against slaying weapons in the hands of those who
come?”
“We knew—” the Wyvern was musing
“—that we could not send dreams to trouble these
strangers. Or bring back—” she spoke in anger
“—to their proper places those who have broken the law.
But that all this is being done so that they may take the Power
from us—that we had not thought upon.”
Charis knew a small spark of relief. That last admission had
changed her own status. It was as if she were now admitted in a
small way into the Wyvern ranks.
“However, they must be ignorant to believe that man-things
can use the Power.”
“Lantee does,” Charis reminded her. “And what
of the other you have known as a friend
here—Thorvald?”
Hesitation, then an unwilling answer. “He, too, in a small
way. An ability, you believe, that these others may share because
they are not blood, bone, and skin with us?”
“Is that so hard to understand?”
“And what have you to suggest, Dreamer? You speak of
battles and warfare. Our only weapons have been our dreams, and now
you say they will avail nothing. So—what is your
answer?” Hostility again.
And Charis had little with which to meet that. “What these
invaders do here is against the law of our kind as much as it is a
threat against your people. There are those who will speedily come
to our aid.”
“From where? Winging down from other stars? And how will
you call them? How long will it take them to arrive?”
“I do not know. But you have the man Thorvald, and he
would have answers to these questions.”
“It would seem, Dreamer, that you believe I, Gidaya, can
give all orders here, do as I wish. But that is not so. We sit in
council. And there are those among us who would not listen to any
truth if you spoke it. We have been divided upon this matter from
the first, and to talk against attacking now will require much
persuasion. Should you stand openly with me, that persuasion would
fail.”
“I understand. But also, as you have said to me, Wise One,
there is such a thing as a threat by time. Let me speak to Thorvald
if you have him here, and learn from him what may be done to gain
help from off-world.” Had she gone too far with that
plea?
Gidaya did not answer at once. “Thorvald is in safe
keeping—” she paused and then added
“—though I wonder now about the safety of any keeping.
Very well, you may go to him. It may be that I shall say to those
who will object that you are joining him in custody.”
“If you wish.” Charis suspected that Gidaya would
offer that as a sop to the anti-off-world party. But she greatly
doubted that the Wyvern believed any longer Charis herself could be
controlled by the Power.
“Go!”
At least Thorvald had not been consigned to that place of
nothingness which had been Lantee’s prison. Charis stood in a
very ordinary sleeping room of the Citadel, its only difference
from the one she had called her own being that it had no window. On
the pile of sleep-mats lay a man, breathing heavily. His head
turned and he muttered, but she could not make out his words.
“Thorvald! Ragnar Thorvald!”
The bronze-yellow head did not lift from the mats nor his eyes
open. Charis crossed to kneel beside him.
“Thorvald!”
He was muttering again. And his hand balled into a fist and shot
out to thud home painfully on her forearm. Dreaming! Naturally? Or
in some fantasy induced by the Wyverns? But she must wake him
now.
“Thorvald!” Charis called louder and took hold of
his shoulder, shaking him vigorously.
He struck out again, sending her rolling back against the wall,
then sat up, his eyes open at last, looking about wildly. But as he
sighted her he tensed.
“You’re real—I think!” His emphatic
assertion slid into a less confident conclusion.
“I’m Charis Nordholm.” She crouched against
the wall, rubbing her arm. “And I’m real all right.
This is no dream.”
No, no dream but the worst of trouble. And did Thorvald have any
of the answers after all? She only hoped that he did.