Old Donn sat in a chair by the hearth, blue robe drawn tight around his gaunt frame. Like the other Doctors, he was clean-shaven, and only a thin, white halo of hair fringed his high skull. With his hooked nose and sunken cheeks and smoldering, steady eyes, he resembled an aged eagle. One bony hand rested on the serpent-wreathed wand of his authority where it was laid across his knees; he rested his chin in his other, as he looked across at the third man.
This was a stranger, a lean young warrior of about twenty, weaponless and clad in garments obviously borrowed from Ralph. His hair was raven black, and a dark mustache crossed his sharp face. He was seated at ease, legs crossed, a hard and hostile smile on his mouth.
“It makes no difference,” he was saying. “Whether you hold me or not, Raymon will come. He has other sons—”
“Carl!” Ralph saw the boy and took a long stride forward across the tiger-skin, his arms opening and sudden gladness lighting in his face. “Carl—you’re back!”
They shook hands, father and son, and Ralph checked himself, putting on the mask of coolness expected from a man. Perhaps only Carl saw the candlelight glisten off a tear. It must have been cruel to hear that the enemy had been in the very region where he had sent his only son, the only hope of his race.
“Yes—Father.” The boy cleared his throat, trying to get the thickness out of his voice.
“Yes—I’m back, well and sound. And these are my friends, Tom and Owl-Jim, sons of John in the north—”
“Be welcome, friends of Carl and friends of mine,” said Ralph gravely. He lifted his voice in a yell for a servant. “Margo, Margo, you human turtle, bring food and drink! Carl is back!”
Donn looked keenly at the boys. “And how did the trip to the City go?” he murmured.
“Both well and ill, sir,” answered Carl uneasily. “But, Father—who is this?”
Ralph smiled with pride. “Carl, meet Lenard—eldest son of Raymon, Chief of the Lann!”
“What?” Tom’s hand dropped unthinking to his knife.
“Aye, aye. There have been skirmishes in the north between our scouting parties and vanguard Lann troops.” Ralph paced back to the hearth. “The other day our men brought back some prisoners taken in one of those fights, and among them was Lenard here. A valuable captive!”
Lenard grinned. “I was just explaining that my hostage value is small,” he said in the harsh accents of the north. “We believe that the souls of dead warriors are reunited in Sky-Home, so—as long as my father has other brave sons—he will not betray our people to get me back.” He waved a sinewy hand. “But I must say my host Ralph has treated me well.”
“He gave oaths not to try to escape before battle is joined, and my guards wouldn’t let him get out of the house in any event,” said Ralph. “I still think we can use him…. or at least learn from him.” His eyes held a brief, desperate appeal. “And if we treat our captives well, the Lann should do likewise—if they have honor.”
“We have honor,” said Lenard stiffly, “though it may not always be the same as yours.”
Carl folded his legs under him and sat down on the rug. He could not help a certain uneasiness at having Lenard so close. Lenard, the heir to the mastery over that savage horde which had chased him down the ways of night and laid the northern marches in ruin.
“But what of your journey, Carl?” persisted Donn. “What did the witch-folk say?”
Carl glanced at Lenard. The prisoner sat quietly leaning back, half in shadow, not even seeming to listen. And neither Ralph nor Donn seemed to care what he might learn.
Slowly, Carl told the story of his trip. There was stillness as he talked, under the thin dry crackle of flames. Once Donn stiffened and leaned forward, once Ralph whispered an oath and clenched his fists with a sudden blaze in his eyes—but both leaned away again, clamping the mask back over their faces, hooding eyes in the weaving shadow.
Night closed down outside, darkening the windows, stilling a little the babble of the aimless crowds. Wordlessly, the servant Margo came in with a tray of refreshment, set it on a table, and stole out again. Beyond the little ring of light at this end, the long room grew thick with a creeping darkness.
Under the light, Carl unwrapped the bundle in his hands. The ancient metal was smooth and cool; it seemed to vibrate with unknown powers. “And this is the light,” he said, his voice shaking ever so faintly. “Look!”
He spun the crank, and the pure white beam sprang forth, searching out corners, flashing back from metal and darkly gleaming wood, a whisper of gears and a lance of cold, colorless fire.
Ralph gasped, Lenard gripped the arms of his chair with sudden white-knuckled force—only Donn sat unmoving, unblinking, like the graven image of some eagle god.
It was to the Doctor that Carl first looked when he let the light die, for he knew that the real decision lay there. The class of the Doctors existed in all known tribes, men who handed down a fragment of the ancient wisdom and guarded the mysteries. A Doctor was many tilings: public scribe and record-keeper, teacher of the young, priest of the gods, medicine man in time of sickness, counselor and sorcerer and preserver of knowledge. Much of what they did was good —they knew some medicine and other things beneath all the magical rites, and their shrewd advice had helped many. But Carl thought that they were, in their hidebound beliefs and their fear of the Doom, the greatest reason why life had hardly changed in these hundreds of years. And the fountainhead of the Doctors was their grand master, Donn.
The old man was still very quiet. He had lifted his serpent wand, as if to ward off powers of evil, but his face did not move at all, he did not even seem to breathe.
“Carl—Carl—let me see that light!” Ralph stooped over his son, shaking with excitement, holding forth an eager hand. “Let me see it!” Stop.
Donn spoke softly. Little more than a whisper came from his thin lips, but it seemed to fill that room of tall shadows. He held out his own gaunt fingers. “Give it to me, Carl.”
Slowly, as if moved by a power outside himself, Carl laid the metal tube in the hand of Donn.
“Taboo! Taboo!” The old pagan word rustled and murmured in dark corners, hooted mockingly up the chimney to hunt the wind. “It is forbidden.”
“But it is good!” cried Carl, with a wrench in his soul. “It is the power which can save us from the Lann and—”
“It is one of the powers which brought the Doom.” The High Doctor touched the flashlight with his wand and muttered some spell. “Would you unchain that wrath and fire again? Would you see the earth laid waste and the demons of Atmik raging over the sky and folk falling dead of fire and hunger and plague and the blue glow—cursing your name as they died? Taboo, taboo!”
Carl sat numbly, hardly aware of the stern words snapping from that suddenly grim face:
“You have broken the law. You entered the accursed City and consorted with witches. You opened a door on the powers of the Doom, and you brought one of those very devils home with you. Fools! You wanted to help the Dalesmen? Be glad you haven’t destroyed them!”
After a moment, Donn spoke a little more gently. “Still, it is plain that some god protected you, for no harm that I can see has been done. I shall offer this light as a sacrifice to appease any anger in heaven. I shall throw it into the sacred well. And tomorrow you must come to the temple and have the sin taken off you— but that need only be marking your foreheads in the blood of a calf which you must bring. You meant well, and for that you shall be forgiven.”
The sternness came back like the clash of iron chains: “But there shall be no more of this.