The wand swung, pointed now to Maelen.
"What now is your tale – in this time and place – exile?"
It was the same voice which had questioned their landing, ringing again in their heads.
Maelen moved forward. Lord-One Krip stepped up beside her. If she faced a foe, then he, too, would front that hostility. Not to be left behind, Farree followed, his head at a straining angle to watch that company of four.
"Standing words cannot be altered. As was said here once before to you who sang and then forfeited that right."
Farree thought that that came from one of the two men flanking the woman with the wand.
"The third ring waxes, the power rises." Maelen faced them proudly with such a bearing as might a warrior waiting for the first order to advance.
"It waxes – " That was the other woman. "Well, well – the Old Ways are not to be denied. Speech is yours, you who were once a Singer."
"I am Maelen."
"That is the truth. Yet you come wearing a new guise. Do you again meddle as you once did with changing?"
Maelen threw open her arms as if she was so loosing all shields she might hold against any of these.
"Read, Older Sister."
There was silence, so deep that it might have been that this hall was now deserted. Yet Farree felt a stirring in his mind at too high a level to follow. Thassa bespeaking Thassa, he guessed – not for such as he to hear.
They stood motionless, all in that company, as if caught in some twist of time unending, unchanging. Then the woman who had challenged Maelen broke her statuelike stance and turned her head, first right and then left. She might have been speaking soundlessly to those with her, sitting in judgment. But it was the other woman among the four who touched minds now.
"You have been along a strange path, Singer-that-was. There abides in you now that which we cannot assess – save that you have used it as you could for the good of those who trusted you. Singer, no. We cannot judge for you. You must name yourself. Are you asking such a naming?"
"The third ring waxes," Maelen returned slowly. "No, I ask not any power which does not come to me openly and is earned. But I am still Thassa, and this thing which started on another world and with another race is not yet ended. It will again be my debt on the Scales, and Molester shall judge in the end as all of us are judged."
"On the Scales then let it lie. You do not judge – "
"Am I still exile?"
"You are what you are, by your choice. Thassa is not closed to you nor" – she now leveled the wand and pointed at Lord-One Krip – "to you, once stranger, who have worn our seeming well. Nor – "
Once more the wand centered on Parree. And he saw a look of vast surprise cross her face, the rod quivering in her hand.
"Go with Molester's Hand above you, small one," she said slowly. "His Scales shall weigh you and in the end it shall be the truth for you also."
He wondered at the way she said those words, as if she pronounced some judgment. Yet one that was not a heavy one for him. Perhaps, he thought, with a stab of the bitterness that was always with him, her surprise was that such a one as he had ventured into this company. Dung of the Limits might have no place here. He dropped his head and looked downward to his clawlike hands with the greenish skin, his feet which were no better, looking too small and weak to support that burden on his back. Thus he saw Toggor's eyestalks looming out of the neck opening of his robe, turning this way and that as if the smux must acquaint himself with all this company and the moon-glow hall in which they were gathered.
"You have not yet come into your inheritance." That loud, clear voice rang in his head. "We are what Molester shapes, and for each shape there is a reason and a duty – "
It was the bitterness which made him brave enough to answer with the mind touch, "And if the shape is spoiled in the making. Lady?"
"There is nothing save that which is ordained. You will come into that which is yours at the proper time."
He supposed she meant when he was dead, which was hardly an encouraging message. Then he remembered Lord-One Krip's own tale of how he had been, at a time of great need, transferred by Thassa power into the body of an animal and then into a man's form again. Could such work for him? For the first time Parree thought seriously of that part of the off-worlder's story. Would it be better to run like Yazz on four feet, or claw a way in Toggor's form, than to shamble as Dung? That was a thought to consider.
However, though the words of the Thassa Elder might promise change – what change and how? He breathed a little faster and then became aware that around him the people were starting to leave the hall within the cliff. Only Maelen and Lord-One Krip did not move, and, seeing that, he also stayed where he was.
The Elders did not leave the dais, but she of the wand made a small beckoning gesture, and Maelen and Krip moved toward her. Only Farree remained where he was, still bemused by that thought of another body, unburdened, four-footed perhaps. Though where was even a beast that would change places with such as he?
Those on the dais had come forward to face the two from the ship, and again there was a flow of thought too high and fast for Farree to catch. He dropped cross-legged on the stone where he was, and Toggor climbed out to hold the folds of his robe and project the feeling of hunger and impatience to be fed.
Then the smux suddenly loosed hold on Farree and with a leap reached the stone of the floor and caught a big-bodied insect that had swung from circling about one of the moon globes above, transferring the morsel to his mouth with a message that such prey hardly made up for the hunger in him.
"Come, Farree." Lord-One Krip looked back to him. "It is back to the ship for us now."
Yet the Lady Maelen remained still with those leaders of the Thassa as he rose to shamble after the off-worlder. No, not an off-worlder here where he wore a Thassa body, whatever might lie within that.
"What do we – you" – he caught himself quickly not to claim too such familiarity with the Lord-One – "do now?"
The man shrugged. "That remains with Maelen and the temper of the Thassa, This she had longed to do – to return here and be again a Singer, a companion to little ones with fur and feathers."
"But – " The question Farree might have asked was swallowed up by sound from the sky above them: the beat of a flitter coming low above the valley which led to the hall, swinging on toward the ship. Lord-One Krip began to run and Farree could not keep up, only trotted along as best he might. He noticed as he passed that none of those gathered by the wagons looked skyward.
There was something here to which he could not put name, but it made him feel that he was forcing his misshapen body through a turgid flood which sought to cover and stifle him.
The flitter swept on, and he fought to follow Lord-One Krip into the open where the ship stood. Was that strange wave of strength broadcast from the airborne craft, or was it some side issue of a protection summoned by the Thassa?
Farree stumbled around boulders, having twice to stop and draw enough panting breaths to send him on. He could see Lord-One Krip ahead but he, too, moved as if caught in some flood that would wash him back instead of forward, a current of power raised to keep him from his goal.