At last, I am coming to my presence here. We knew you were being hunted down the coast. I have an idea by the way, Per Desteen, what it is you look for in the South. But of that, more later. He went on quickly before Hiero could even react in surprise.
At any rate, it was decided to aid you if we could. We have come, we Eleveners, to the conclusion that the Unclean are gaining great power, mental and physical, too fast for us Brothers of the Eleventh to hope we can stop them alone. Our powers primarily are of the mind and spirit. We need physical strength, mechanical strength if you will, though we dislike yielding to the necessity. I can tell you, Man of the Metz, that even as we sit here, Elevener emissaries are seeking to join formally with your Abbey Council and offer our help for the first time in battling the common enemy. This is a great concession for us, the greatest in our whole history.
I myself volunteered to come and try and help you. We did not know of the Lady Luchare, though, as I said, we have long sought her elsewhere. We feared she was dead. As such things go, I have a good deal of authority in our councils. I ask you to let me join your party and go with you from now on. Two nights past, I sensed a converging of mental forces in this place as I came up from the distant South. I struggled to reach you and was barely in time. Now we have a brief, a very brief, respite until the Unclean rally. They are terribly shaken by your mind, Per Desteen. You hardly understand your new powers as yet, but I can tell you that the ether was disturbed by you, half a continent away! The Unclean guess you seek something important. They are determined you shall not have it and that they, in turn, shall.
What does the group say? I do not ask the good deer, for, though his heart is great, his mind is not on a level with ours as yet; though that too may come in time. Thank you for enduring the rambling of the aged. His thought ceased abruptly and he sat back, looking from one to the other of the three with his sparkling black eyes.
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.”