"I think . . . not!" That was Maelen. "There is Yiktor itself to work for us."
"Perhaps." The woman made a dismissing gesture with her hand. "But the full story is not yet told. What happened then, little one?"
He told of the coming of the bird with Toggor, of how by the smux's help he had set up the trap for the guard. Toggor, as if he knew well he was being discussed, came out of Farree's shirt to sit upon one of those knobby knees, his eyestalks well up and all turned in the direction of the Elders.
For the rest Farree hurried over his climb to the tower top and the nest there. When he spoke of finding the small box, the man among the Elders who had not yet spoken leaned forward and demanded: "There were symbols on this box – you could read them?"
Farree shook his head. "It was very old – "
"That it was!" the man agreed. "We knew not that such still existed. But if it was there, what else may still be ready to hand?"
"How did you know how to use it?" again he asked Farree.
"I did not. It was very old and worn. I forced it open, and the powder in it touched the dried nest stuff and aflamed."
"So. The Scales dipped in your favor then. This is something to be thought on. Only yet your story has no end – give us that, little one."
Farree spoke of his improvised weapons of bone and the assault on his perch, of the strange cloud of smoke which, instead of being wafted away by the wind, had sunk into the courtyard. Then he ended with the message of hope and the coming of the flitter to bear him away.
"Well enough," the Elder who had questioned him about the box said when he finished. "You gave them the truth and it did not serve them; you have escaped them, therefore their wrath, or that of their leader, will be great. I know that we may look forward to some new attack on their part. And since you are not Thassa and so vulnerable to what they may launch in the form of controls . . ." He hesitated.
Farree moved a little on his seat. Uneasiness and wariness arose within him. He had half offered, in spite of all good reason, to be bait, even as the Guild had thought to use him. But they had not accepted that from him. Now – now he must make them understand.
"What if they set some control on me and I prove a key to open your fortress?"
"Forewarned is forearmed," Lord-One Krip made answer. His hand closed about Farree's upper arm and he kept a grip there as if he feared that the hunchback was about to take off forthwith to tempt the Commander and his men into the open.
"There are none that can touch you here now." The Thassa Elder spoke with such conviction that Farree was compelled to believe her. "We have a defense which has not grown any the lesser through the years but stronger, as we have learned more and more concerning our own powers of self."
"They will not give up," Lord-One Krip said slowly. "Even if we see them evacuate the ruins and seemingly depart, we may be sure they have not given up."
"Nor shall we. There will be eyes aloft and eyes afield. Those who go on two wings and those who trot on all fours will keep them ever under eye."
Farree drew a deep breath. The bird which had brought Toggor, Yazz, other animals either linked by mind to – or even exchanged with – a Thassa. What if all the Thassa became one with the birds and the animals of this world? How could those still in human guise know or prepare to defend themselves against such an overthrow of all which was natural by their own thinking? Hand clutched on hand before him. What would it be like to have a fine, well-shaped body like Yazz – to be free of the miserable itching burden always on his back? Could this be done for him? His life as a humanoid had not been such that he would not willingly relinquish it for this other and freer guise.
"Not so!" She had read him, this Thassa Elder. "It is not given for all to make great change. Even the Thassa cannot do that as they please. Would you condemn Yazz to your body then?"
Farree set teeth on his lip and bit hard. All his thoughts had been for himself, that was the truth. No, he could not ask that any – animal or man – take on the burden that he wore.
"You must be a Singer." The Lady Maelen must also have caught those thoughts. "And there must also be to hand one furred or feathered who needs the strength of man – one hurt in mind or greatly beloved to the Singer. It is not an easy thing like putting off one kind of clothing and assuming another." She was kind, but he did not need her kindness, he thought sourly for that moment.
"I have been thinking upon this matter of the Eor-fog," the other Thassa man spoke. "That such a weapon was left in a grok nest is a mystery beyond all mysteries. It has been so many tens of tens of tens of seasons since the last of the weapons was destroyed. Certainly these ruins were built even later as an outpost for the Lord Janger's land. Where did the grok find that? There was nothing else?" He looked to Farree.
"This" – the hunchback drew the knife from his belt – "and a sword – I, think it was a sword – which was rusted past use. Some scraps of leather which might once have been a belt. And bones – many bones."
"If Janger had come across any such arms," the woman Elder commented, "he would not have been overrun during the march of the clans. But there remains no record of usage. Who knows where the grok came upon it? They are easily attracted to all bright and shiny things. The cock brings them to the nest to attract a hen to what he has built for her."
"The grok do not range too widely," answered her companion. "This was a better hunting land then. And the nest was old. It might well have been built in the first year Lord Janger set his own masons to work. These lordlings look for omens and fortune favors. The Lord Janger's war sign was a screaming grok – he would have never had such driven from his own inner keep. No, the box came from somewhere near."
"You are saying?"
"Saying that perhaps there are other supplies here in the heart of Thassa holdings – only waiting to be found!"
"There was the surrender of all!" the woman Elder protested.
"Something might have been overlooked. I would advise that, instead of setting all the seers upon actions of the enemy, we put some to hunt those places where we have not walked hereabouts – to see what time itself may have hidden for future finding."
Chapter 14.
Moonglow was gone with the deepening of the dawn. Farree stood in the valley of the Thassa watching a mustering of the clans and then an outspreading of men, women, and even children—each small group heading toward one of the carved doorways in the cliffs. But he remained with Lord-One Krip and the Lady Maelen and their place was apart: up the throat of that canyon which led to the valley and to the edge of the plain on which still stood the ship that had brought them. By them danced Yazz on impatient feet, ready to be gone; while Bojor hunched from side to side, swinging his heavy head aloft as far as nature would allow it to reach, the nostrils wide above the tooth-fringed muzzle as the creature tested the air.
That the Guild would have reason to explore their ship was something they all agreed upon. Though there was nothing within it that could possibly give any service to the Commander's force – not now. Star maps, yes, but Yiktor had been their true goal and on Yiktor they had landed. Whatever other voyage tapes were in stock within would lead only to false trails, and so perhaps would serve better now than weapons to confuse the enemy.