The dark was so thick in this stinking alley
that a man might well put out his hand and catch shadows, pull them
here or there, as if they were curtain stuff. Yet I could not
quarrel with the fact that this world had no moon and that only its
stars spotted the nightlit sky, nor that the men of Koonga City did
not set torchlights on any but the main ways of that den of
disaster.
Here the acrid smells were almost as thick and strong as the
dark, and under my boots the slime coating the uneven stone
pavement was a further risk. While my fear urged me to run,
prudence argued that I take only careful step after step, pausing
to feel out the way before me. My only guide was an uncertain
memory of a city I had known for only ten days, and those not
dedicated to the study of geography. Somewhere ahead, if I was
lucky, very, very lucky, there was a door. And on that door was set
the head of a godling known to the men of this planet. In the night
the eyes of that head would blaze with welcoming light, because
behind the door were torches, carefully tended to burn the night
through. And if a man being hunted through these streets and lanes
for any reason, even fresh blood spilt before half the city for
witness, could lay hand upon the latch below those blazing eyes,
lift it, to enter the hall beyond, he had sanctuary from all
hunters.
My outstretched fingers to the left slid along sweating stone,
picking up a foul burden of stickiness as they passed. I had the
laser in my right hand. It might buy me moments, a few of them, if
I were cornered here, but only a few. And I was panting with the
effort that had brought me so far, bewildered by the beginning of
this nightmare which had certainly not been of my making, nor of
Vondar’s.
Vondar—resolutely I squeezed him from my thoughts. There had
been no chance for him, not from the moment the four Green Robes
had walked so quietly into the taproom, set up their spin wheel
(all men there going white or gray of face as they watched those
quiet, assured movements), and touched the wheel into life. The
deadly arrow which tipped it whirled fatefully to point out, when
it came to rest, he who would be an acceptable sacrifice to the
demon they so propitiated.
We had sat there as if bound—which indeed we had been, in a
sense, by the customs of this damnable world. Any man striving to
withdraw after that arrow moved would have died, quickly, at the
hands of his nearest neighbor. For there was no escape from this
lottery. So we had sat there, but not in any fear, as it was not
usual that an off-worlder be chosen by the Green Robes. They were
not minded to have difficulty thereafter from the Patrol, or from
powers beyond their own skies, being shrewd enough to know that a
god may be great on his own world, and nothing under the weight of
an unbeliever’s iron fist, when that fist swung down from the
stars.
Vondar had even leaned forward a little, studying the faces of
those about us with that curiosity of his. He was as satisfied as
he ever was, having done good business that day, filled himself
with as fine a dinner as these barbarians knew how to prepare, and
having gained a lead to a new source of lalor crystals.
Also, had he not unmasked the tricks of Hamzar, who had tried to
foist on us a lalor of six carats weight but with a heart flaw?
Vondar had triangulated the gem neatly and then pointed that such
damage could not be polished out, and that the crystal which might
have made Hamzar’s fortune with a less expert buyer was an
inferior stone in truth, worth only the price of an extra laser
charge.
A laser charge—My fingers crooked tighter about my weapon. I
would willingly exchange now a whole bag of lalors for another
charge waiting at my belt. A man’s life is ever worth, at
least to him, more than the fabled Treasure of Jaccard.
So Vondar had watched the natives in the tavern, and they had
watched the spinning arrow of death. Then that arrow had wavered to
a halt—pointing at no man directly, but to the narrow space which
existed between Vondar’s shoulder and mine as we sat side by
side. And Vondar had smiled then, saying:
“It would seem that their demon is somewhat undecided this
night, Murdoc.” He spoke in Basic, but there were probably
those there who understood his words. Even then he did not fear, or
reach for a weapon—though I had never known Vondar to be less
than alert. No man can follow the life of a gem buyer from planet
to planet without having eyes all around his head, a ready laser,
and a nose ever sniffing for the taint of danger.
If the demon had been undecided, his followers were not. They
came for us. From the long sleeves of their robes suddenly appeared
the bind cords used on prisoners they dragged to their lord’s
lair. I took the first of those Green Robes, beaming across the
table top, which left the wood scorched and smoking. Vondar moved,
but a fraction too late. As the Free Traders say, his luck spaced,
for the man to his left sprang at him, slamming him back against
the wall, pinning his hand out of reach of his weapon. They were
all yammering at us now, the Green Robes halting, content to let
others take the risk in pulling us down.
I caught a second man reaching for Vondar. But the one already
struggling with him I dared not ray, lest I get my master too. Then
I heard Vondar cry out, the sound speedily smothered in a rush of
blood from his lips. We had been forced apart in the struggle and
now, as I slipped along the wall, trying to get beam sight on the
Green Robes, my shoulders met no solid surface. I stumbled back and
out, through a side door into the street.
It was then that I ran, heedlessly at first, then dodging into a
deep doorway for a moment. I could hear the hunt behind me. From
such hunting there was little hope of escape, for they were between
me and the space port. For a long moment I huddled in that doorway,
seeing no possible future beyond a fight to the end.
What fleeting scrap of memory was triggered then, I did not
know. But I thought of the sanctuary past which Hamzar had taken
us, three—four—days earlier. His story concerning it flashed into
my mind, though at that instant I could not be sure in which
direction that very thin hope of safety might lie.
I tried to push panic to the back of my mind, picture instead
the street before me and how it ran in relation to the city.
Training has saved many a man in such straits, and training came to
my aid now. For memory had been fostered in me by stiff schooling.
I was not the son and pupil of Hywel Jern for naught.
Thus and thus—I recalled the running of the streets, and thought
I had some faint chance of following them. There was this, also—those who hunted me would deem they had all the advantages, that
they need only keep between me and the space port and I would be
easy prey, caught deep in the maze of their unfamiliar city.
I slipped from the shadow of the door and began a weaving which
took me, not in the direction they would believe I would be
desperately seeking, but veering from it north and west. And so I
had come into this alley, slipping and scraping through its noisome
muck.
My only guides were two, and to see one I had to look back to
the tower of the port. Its light was strong and clear across this
dark-skyed world. Keeping it ever at my right, I took it for a
reverse signal. The other I could only catch glimpses of now and
again as I scuttled from one shadowed space to the next. It was the
watchtower of Koonga, standing tall to give warning against the
sudden attacks of the barbarian sea rovers who raided down from the
north in the lean seasons of the Great Cold.
The alley ended in a wall. I leaped to catch its crest, my laser
held between my teeth. On the top I perched, looking about me,
until I decided that the wall would now form my path. It continued
to run along behind the buildings, offering none too wide a
footing, but keeping me well above ground level. There were dim
lights in the back windows of these upper stories, and from one to
the next, they served me as beacons.
When I paused now and then to listen, I could hear the murmur of
the hunters. They were spreading set from the main streets, into
some of the alleys. But they did so cautiously, and I believed they
did not face too happily a quarry who might be ready to loose a
laser beam from the dark. Time was on their side, for with the
coming of dawn, were I still away from the sanctuary, I could be
readily picked out of any native gathering by my clothing alone. I
wore a modified form of crew dress, suited to the seasoned space
traveler, designed for ease on many different worlds, though not
keeping to the uniform coloring of a crewman.
Vondar had favored a dull olive-green for our overtunics, the
breast of his worked with the device of a master gemologist. Mine
had the same, modified by an apprentice’s two bars. Our boots
were magnet-plated for ship wear, and our undergarment was of one
piece, like a working crewman’s. In this world of long,
fringed overrobes and twisted, colored headdresses, I would be very
noticeable indeed. There was one small change I could make; I did
so now, balancing precariously on my wall perch, once more holding
the laser between my teeth as I loosed the seam seal and pulled off
my overtunic with its bold blazoning. I rammed it into as small a
ball as I could and teetered dangerously over a scrap of garden to
push it into a fork of branches on a thorn bush. Then I crept along
the wall top for the distance of four more houses until I came to
the end at the rise of another building. From there I had a choice
of leaps—down to a garden, or into the maw of another alley. I
would have chosen the alley had I not frozen tight against the
house wall at a sound from its depths. Something moved there, but
certainly no number of men.
There was the sucking sound of a foot, or feet, lifted out of
the slime, and I even thought I could hear the hiss of breathing.
Whoever crept there was not moving with the openness of those who
quested on my trail.
My hands had been braced against the house wall and now my
fingers fell into holes there. I explored by touch and knew that I
had come upon one of those geometric patterns which decorated the
walls of more important buildings, some parts being intaglio and
others projecting. As I felt above me, higher and higher, I began
to believe that the pattern might extend clear to the roof and
offer me a third way out.
Once more I crouched and this time I unsealed my boots,
fastening them to the back of my belt. Then I climbed, after
pausing for a long moment to listen to sounds below. They were
farther away now, near the mouth of the alley.
Again my schooling came to my aid and I pulled myself up those
sharply etched hand and toe holds until I swung over an ornamental
parapet, past bold encrustations of demon faces set to frighten off
the evil powers of natural forces.
The roof onto which I dropped sloped inward to a middle opening
which gave down three floors to a center court with a core pool,
into which rain water would feed during the spring storms. It was
purposely smoothed to aid in that transfer of rain to reservoir, so
I crept beside the parapet, my hands anchoring me from one spike of
the wall to the next. But I did so with speed, for even in the dark
I could see that now I was only a little away from my goal.
From this height I could see also the space port.
There were two ships there, one a passenger-cum-trader, on which
that very morning Vondar had taken passage for us. It was as far
from me now as if half the Dark Dragon curled between. They would
know that we had bought passage on it and would keep it cordoned.
The other, farther away, was a Free Trader. And, while no one
normally interfered with one of those or its crew, I could make no
claim on it for protection. Even if I reached sanctuary, what
further hope would I have? I pushed aside that fear and turned to
examine the immediate prospect of getting to the doorway. Now I
would have to descend the outer face of the building into a lighted
street. There were more bands of decoration and I had little doubt
they would make me a ladder, if I could go unsighted. However,
torches flamed in brackets along that way, and compared with the
back streets through which I had fled, this was as light as a
concourse on one of the inner planets.
Few men were abroad so late with legal reason. And I heard no
sounds to suggest that the hunt had spread this far. They must
rather be patrolling near the field. I had come this far; there was
no retreat now. Giving a last searching glance below, I slipped
between two of the ornaments and began the descent.
From hold to hold, feeling for those below, trusting to the
strength in my fingers and wrists, I worked my way down. I had
passed the top story when I came upon a window, my feet thudding
home on its jutting sill. I balanced there, my hands on either
side, my face to the dark interior. And then I was near startled
into letting go my grasp by a shrill scream from within.
I was not conscious of making the first few drops of my
continued flight down the wall. There was a second scream and a
third. How soon would the household be aroused, or attention raised
in the street? Finally I let go, fell in a roll. Then, not even
stopping to put on my boots, I ran as I had not run before, without
looking back to see what fury I had roused.
Along the house walls, sprinting from one patch of shadow to the
next, I dashed. Now I could hear cries behind. At the least, the
screamer had aroused members of her own household. But there came a
street corner and—memory had served me right! I could sight the
bright eyes of the godling on the door. I ran with open mouth,
sucking in quick breaths, my boots still fastened to my belt and
knocking against my hips, the laser in my hand. On and on—and
always I feared to see someone step into the open between me and
the face with the blazing eyes. But there was no halting and with a
last burst of speed I hit against the portal, my fingers scrabbling
for the ring below the head. With a jerk I pulled it. For a second
or two the door, contrary to promise, seemed to resist my efforts.
Then it gave, and I stumbled into a hall where stood the torches
which gave light to the beacon eyes.
I had forgotten the door as I wavered on, intent only on getting
inside, away from the rising clamor in the street. Then I tripped
and fell forward on my knees. Somehow I squirmed around, the laser
ready. Already the door was swinging shut, shutting off a scene of
running men, light gleaming on the bared blades they held.
Breathing hard, I watched the door shut by itself, and then was
content to sit there for a space. I had not realized how great the
strain of my flight had been until this island of safety held me.
It was good simply to sit on the floor of that passage and know I
need not run.
Finally I roused enough to draw my boots on and look about me.
Hamzar’s tale of sanctuary had not gone beyond the few facts
of the face on the door and the guarantee that no malefactor could
be taken from within. I had expected some type of temple to lie
behind such a story. But I was not in the court of any fane now,
only in a narrow hall with no doors. Very close to me stood a stone
rack in which were set two oilsoaked torches, blazing steadily to
form the beacon of the door eyes.
I got to my, feet and rounded that barrier, waiting for a
challenge from whoever tended those night lights. With my back to
their flames I saw only more corridor, unbroken, shadows at its far
end which could veil anything. With some caution I advanced.
Unlike the glimpses I had had into the various other temples of
Koonga, these walls were unpainted, being only the native yellow
stone such as cobbled the wider streets. The same stone formed the
wide blocks of the floor, and, as far as I could see, the ceiling as
well.
They were worn in places underfoot, as if from centuries of use.
Also here and there on the floor were dark splotches following no
pattern, which suggested unpleasantly that some of those who had
come this way earlier might have suffered hurts during their
flight, and that there had been no effort to clean away such
traces.
I reached the end of the corridor and discovered it made a sharp
turn to the right, one which was not visible until one reached it.
To the left was only wall. That new way, being out of the path of
the torches, was almost as dark as the alleys. I tried to pierce
its dusk, wishing I had a beamer. Finally I turned the laser on
lowest energy, sending a white pencil which scored the stained
blocks of the flooring, but gave me light.
The new passage was only about four paces long. Then I was in a
square box of a room and the laser beam touched upon an unlighted
torch in the wall bracket. That blazed and I switched off the
weapon, blinking. I might have been in a room furnished by one of
the cheaper inns. Against the far wall was a basin of stone, into
which trickled a small runnel of water, the overflow channeled back
into the surface of the wall again.
There was a bedframe fitted with a netting of cords, a matting
of dried and faintly aromatic leaves laid over it. Not a
comfortable bed, but enough to keep one’s bones from aching
too much. There were two stools, a small guesting table set between
them. They bore none of the customary carving, but were plain,
however smoothed by long use.
In the wall opposite the bed was a niche in which sat a flagon
of dull metal, a small basket, and a bell. But there were no doors
to the room. And I could see no other exit save the corridor along
which I had come. It began to impress me that this vaunted
sanctuary was close to a prison, if the trapped dare not venture
forth again.
I forced the torch out of its wall hold and carried it about,
searching the walls, the ceiling, the floor, to find no break. At
last I wedged it back into place. The bell by the flagon next held
my attention and I picked it up. A bell suggested signaling.
Perhaps it would bring me an explainer—or an explanation. I rang
it with as much force as I could get into a snap of the wrist. For
so large a bell, it gave forth a very muted tinkle, though I tried
it several times, waiting between each for an answer that did not
come, until at last I slammed it back into the niche and went to
sit on the bed.
When the delayed answer to my impatient summons came, it was
startling enough to bring me to my feet, laser drawn. For a voice
spoke out of the air seemingly only a few feet away.
“To Noskald you have come, in His Shadow abide for the
waning of four torches.”
It was a moment before I realized that that voice had not used
the lisping speech of Koonga, but Basic. Then they must know me for
an off-worlder!
“Who are you?” My own words echoed hollowly as that
voice had not. “Let me see you!”
Silence only. I spoke again, first promising awards if my plight
was told at the port, or if they would give me help in reaching it.
Then I threatened, speaking of ill which came when off-worlders
were harmed—though I guessed that perhaps they were shrewd enough
to know how hollow those threats were. There was no answer—no
sign I was even heard. It could have been a recording which
addressed me. And who the guardians here were I did not know either
—a priesthood? Then they might be akin to the Green Robes and so
would do me no favors, save those forced upon them by custom.
At last I curled into the bed and slept—and dreamed very vivid
dreams which were not fancies spun by the unconscious mind, but
memories out of the past. So, as it is said a dying man sometimes
does, I relived much of my life, which had not been so long in
years.
My beginnings were overshadowed by another—Hywel Jern who, in
his time, had had a name to be reckoned with on more than one
planet—and who could speak with authority in places where even
the Patrol must walk with cat-soft feet, fearing to start what
would take death and blood to finish.
My father had a past as murky as the shallow inlets of Hawaki
after autumn storms. I do not think that any man save himself knew
the whole of it; certainly we did not. For years after his death I
still came across hints, bits and pieces, which each time opened
another door, to show me yet another Hywel Jern. Even when I was
young, at times when a coup of more than ordinary cleverness warmed
whatever organ served him as a heart, he launched into a tale which
was perhaps born out of his own adventuring, though he spoke always
of some other man as the actor in it. Always this story was a
lesson aimed at impressing upon his listeners some point of
bargaining, or of action in crisis. And all his tales made more of
things than of people, who were only incidental, being the owners
or obtainers of objects of beauty or rarity.
Until he was close to fifty planet years old, he was prime
assessor to the Veep Estampha, a sector boss of the Thieves’
Guild. My father never tried to hide this association; in fact it
was a matter of pride to him. Since he seemed to have an inborn
talent, which he fostered by constant study, for the valuing of
unusual loot, he was a valuable man, ranking well above the general
core of that illegal combine. However, he appeared to have lacked
ambition to climb higher, or else he simply had an astute desire to
remain alive and not a target of the ambition of others.
Then Estampha met a rootless Borer plant, which someone with
ambition secreted in his private collection of exotic blooms, and
came to an abrupt finish. My father withdrew prudently and at once
from the resulting scramble for power. Instead he bought out of the
Guild and migrated to Angkor.
For a while, I believe, he lived very quietly. But during that
period he was studying both the planet and the openings for a
lucrative business. It was a sparsely settled world on the pioneer
level, not one which at that time attracted the attention of those
with wealth, nor of the Guild. But perhaps my father had already
heard rumors of what was to come.
Within a space of time he paid court to a native woman whose
father operated a small hock-lock for pawning, as well as a trading
post, near the only space port. Shortly after his marriage the
father-in-law died of an off-world fever, a plague ship having made
a crash landing before it could be warned off. The fever also
decimated most of the port authorities. But Hywel Jern and his wife
proved immune and carried on some of the official duties at this
time, which entrenched them firmly when the plague had run its
course and the government was restored.
Then, some five years later, the Vultorian star cluster was
brought into cross-stellar trade by the Fortuna Combine, and Angkor
suddenly came to life as a shipping port of exchange. My
father’s business prospered, though he did not expand the
original hock-lock.
With his many off-world contacts, both legal and illegal, he did
well, but to outward appearances, only in a modest way. All spacers
sooner or later lay hands on portable treasures or curiosities. To
have a buyer who asked no questions and paid promptly was all they
wanted at any port where the gaming tables and other planetside
amusements separated them too fast from flight pay.
This quiet prosperity lasted for years, and appeared to be all
my father wanted.
The dark was so thick in this stinking alley
that a man might well put out his hand and catch shadows, pull them
here or there, as if they were curtain stuff. Yet I could not
quarrel with the fact that this world had no moon and that only its
stars spotted the nightlit sky, nor that the men of Koonga City did
not set torchlights on any but the main ways of that den of
disaster.
Here the acrid smells were almost as thick and strong as the
dark, and under my boots the slime coating the uneven stone
pavement was a further risk. While my fear urged me to run,
prudence argued that I take only careful step after step, pausing
to feel out the way before me. My only guide was an uncertain
memory of a city I had known for only ten days, and those not
dedicated to the study of geography. Somewhere ahead, if I was
lucky, very, very lucky, there was a door. And on that door was set
the head of a godling known to the men of this planet. In the night
the eyes of that head would blaze with welcoming light, because
behind the door were torches, carefully tended to burn the night
through. And if a man being hunted through these streets and lanes
for any reason, even fresh blood spilt before half the city for
witness, could lay hand upon the latch below those blazing eyes,
lift it, to enter the hall beyond, he had sanctuary from all
hunters.
My outstretched fingers to the left slid along sweating stone,
picking up a foul burden of stickiness as they passed. I had the
laser in my right hand. It might buy me moments, a few of them, if
I were cornered here, but only a few. And I was panting with the
effort that had brought me so far, bewildered by the beginning of
this nightmare which had certainly not been of my making, nor of
Vondar’s.
Vondar—resolutely I squeezed him from my thoughts. There had
been no chance for him, not from the moment the four Green Robes
had walked so quietly into the taproom, set up their spin wheel
(all men there going white or gray of face as they watched those
quiet, assured movements), and touched the wheel into life. The
deadly arrow which tipped it whirled fatefully to point out, when
it came to rest, he who would be an acceptable sacrifice to the
demon they so propitiated.
We had sat there as if bound—which indeed we had been, in a
sense, by the customs of this damnable world. Any man striving to
withdraw after that arrow moved would have died, quickly, at the
hands of his nearest neighbor. For there was no escape from this
lottery. So we had sat there, but not in any fear, as it was not
usual that an off-worlder be chosen by the Green Robes. They were
not minded to have difficulty thereafter from the Patrol, or from
powers beyond their own skies, being shrewd enough to know that a
god may be great on his own world, and nothing under the weight of
an unbeliever’s iron fist, when that fist swung down from the
stars.
Vondar had even leaned forward a little, studying the faces of
those about us with that curiosity of his. He was as satisfied as
he ever was, having done good business that day, filled himself
with as fine a dinner as these barbarians knew how to prepare, and
having gained a lead to a new source of lalor crystals.
Also, had he not unmasked the tricks of Hamzar, who had tried to
foist on us a lalor of six carats weight but with a heart flaw?
Vondar had triangulated the gem neatly and then pointed that such
damage could not be polished out, and that the crystal which might
have made Hamzar’s fortune with a less expert buyer was an
inferior stone in truth, worth only the price of an extra laser
charge.
A laser charge—My fingers crooked tighter about my weapon. I
would willingly exchange now a whole bag of lalors for another
charge waiting at my belt. A man’s life is ever worth, at
least to him, more than the fabled Treasure of Jaccard.
So Vondar had watched the natives in the tavern, and they had
watched the spinning arrow of death. Then that arrow had wavered to
a halt—pointing at no man directly, but to the narrow space which
existed between Vondar’s shoulder and mine as we sat side by
side. And Vondar had smiled then, saying:
“It would seem that their demon is somewhat undecided this
night, Murdoc.” He spoke in Basic, but there were probably
those there who understood his words. Even then he did not fear, or
reach for a weapon—though I had never known Vondar to be less
than alert. No man can follow the life of a gem buyer from planet
to planet without having eyes all around his head, a ready laser,
and a nose ever sniffing for the taint of danger.
If the demon had been undecided, his followers were not. They
came for us. From the long sleeves of their robes suddenly appeared
the bind cords used on prisoners they dragged to their lord’s
lair. I took the first of those Green Robes, beaming across the
table top, which left the wood scorched and smoking. Vondar moved,
but a fraction too late. As the Free Traders say, his luck spaced,
for the man to his left sprang at him, slamming him back against
the wall, pinning his hand out of reach of his weapon. They were
all yammering at us now, the Green Robes halting, content to let
others take the risk in pulling us down.
I caught a second man reaching for Vondar. But the one already
struggling with him I dared not ray, lest I get my master too. Then
I heard Vondar cry out, the sound speedily smothered in a rush of
blood from his lips. We had been forced apart in the struggle and
now, as I slipped along the wall, trying to get beam sight on the
Green Robes, my shoulders met no solid surface. I stumbled back and
out, through a side door into the street.
It was then that I ran, heedlessly at first, then dodging into a
deep doorway for a moment. I could hear the hunt behind me. From
such hunting there was little hope of escape, for they were between
me and the space port. For a long moment I huddled in that doorway,
seeing no possible future beyond a fight to the end.
What fleeting scrap of memory was triggered then, I did not
know. But I thought of the sanctuary past which Hamzar had taken
us, three—four—days earlier. His story concerning it flashed into
my mind, though at that instant I could not be sure in which
direction that very thin hope of safety might lie.
I tried to push panic to the back of my mind, picture instead
the street before me and how it ran in relation to the city.
Training has saved many a man in such straits, and training came to
my aid now. For memory had been fostered in me by stiff schooling.
I was not the son and pupil of Hywel Jern for naught.
Thus and thus—I recalled the running of the streets, and thought
I had some faint chance of following them. There was this, also—those who hunted me would deem they had all the advantages, that
they need only keep between me and the space port and I would be
easy prey, caught deep in the maze of their unfamiliar city.
I slipped from the shadow of the door and began a weaving which
took me, not in the direction they would believe I would be
desperately seeking, but veering from it north and west. And so I
had come into this alley, slipping and scraping through its noisome
muck.
My only guides were two, and to see one I had to look back to
the tower of the port. Its light was strong and clear across this
dark-skyed world. Keeping it ever at my right, I took it for a
reverse signal. The other I could only catch glimpses of now and
again as I scuttled from one shadowed space to the next. It was the
watchtower of Koonga, standing tall to give warning against the
sudden attacks of the barbarian sea rovers who raided down from the
north in the lean seasons of the Great Cold.
The alley ended in a wall. I leaped to catch its crest, my laser
held between my teeth. On the top I perched, looking about me,
until I decided that the wall would now form my path. It continued
to run along behind the buildings, offering none too wide a
footing, but keeping me well above ground level. There were dim
lights in the back windows of these upper stories, and from one to
the next, they served me as beacons.
When I paused now and then to listen, I could hear the murmur of
the hunters. They were spreading set from the main streets, into
some of the alleys. But they did so cautiously, and I believed they
did not face too happily a quarry who might be ready to loose a
laser beam from the dark. Time was on their side, for with the
coming of dawn, were I still away from the sanctuary, I could be
readily picked out of any native gathering by my clothing alone. I
wore a modified form of crew dress, suited to the seasoned space
traveler, designed for ease on many different worlds, though not
keeping to the uniform coloring of a crewman.
Vondar had favored a dull olive-green for our overtunics, the
breast of his worked with the device of a master gemologist. Mine
had the same, modified by an apprentice’s two bars. Our boots
were magnet-plated for ship wear, and our undergarment was of one
piece, like a working crewman’s. In this world of long,
fringed overrobes and twisted, colored headdresses, I would be very
noticeable indeed. There was one small change I could make; I did
so now, balancing precariously on my wall perch, once more holding
the laser between my teeth as I loosed the seam seal and pulled off
my overtunic with its bold blazoning. I rammed it into as small a
ball as I could and teetered dangerously over a scrap of garden to
push it into a fork of branches on a thorn bush. Then I crept along
the wall top for the distance of four more houses until I came to
the end at the rise of another building. From there I had a choice
of leaps—down to a garden, or into the maw of another alley. I
would have chosen the alley had I not frozen tight against the
house wall at a sound from its depths. Something moved there, but
certainly no number of men.
There was the sucking sound of a foot, or feet, lifted out of
the slime, and I even thought I could hear the hiss of breathing.
Whoever crept there was not moving with the openness of those who
quested on my trail.
My hands had been braced against the house wall and now my
fingers fell into holes there. I explored by touch and knew that I
had come upon one of those geometric patterns which decorated the
walls of more important buildings, some parts being intaglio and
others projecting. As I felt above me, higher and higher, I began
to believe that the pattern might extend clear to the roof and
offer me a third way out.
Once more I crouched and this time I unsealed my boots,
fastening them to the back of my belt. Then I climbed, after
pausing for a long moment to listen to sounds below. They were
farther away now, near the mouth of the alley.
Again my schooling came to my aid and I pulled myself up those
sharply etched hand and toe holds until I swung over an ornamental
parapet, past bold encrustations of demon faces set to frighten off
the evil powers of natural forces.
The roof onto which I dropped sloped inward to a middle opening
which gave down three floors to a center court with a core pool,
into which rain water would feed during the spring storms. It was
purposely smoothed to aid in that transfer of rain to reservoir, so
I crept beside the parapet, my hands anchoring me from one spike of
the wall to the next. But I did so with speed, for even in the dark
I could see that now I was only a little away from my goal.
From this height I could see also the space port.
There were two ships there, one a passenger-cum-trader, on which
that very morning Vondar had taken passage for us. It was as far
from me now as if half the Dark Dragon curled between. They would
know that we had bought passage on it and would keep it cordoned.
The other, farther away, was a Free Trader. And, while no one
normally interfered with one of those or its crew, I could make no
claim on it for protection. Even if I reached sanctuary, what
further hope would I have? I pushed aside that fear and turned to
examine the immediate prospect of getting to the doorway. Now I
would have to descend the outer face of the building into a lighted
street. There were more bands of decoration and I had little doubt
they would make me a ladder, if I could go unsighted. However,
torches flamed in brackets along that way, and compared with the
back streets through which I had fled, this was as light as a
concourse on one of the inner planets.
Few men were abroad so late with legal reason. And I heard no
sounds to suggest that the hunt had spread this far. They must
rather be patrolling near the field. I had come this far; there was
no retreat now. Giving a last searching glance below, I slipped
between two of the ornaments and began the descent.
From hold to hold, feeling for those below, trusting to the
strength in my fingers and wrists, I worked my way down. I had
passed the top story when I came upon a window, my feet thudding
home on its jutting sill. I balanced there, my hands on either
side, my face to the dark interior. And then I was near startled
into letting go my grasp by a shrill scream from within.
I was not conscious of making the first few drops of my
continued flight down the wall. There was a second scream and a
third. How soon would the household be aroused, or attention raised
in the street? Finally I let go, fell in a roll. Then, not even
stopping to put on my boots, I ran as I had not run before, without
looking back to see what fury I had roused.
Along the house walls, sprinting from one patch of shadow to the
next, I dashed. Now I could hear cries behind. At the least, the
screamer had aroused members of her own household. But there came a
street corner and—memory had served me right! I could sight the
bright eyes of the godling on the door. I ran with open mouth,
sucking in quick breaths, my boots still fastened to my belt and
knocking against my hips, the laser in my hand. On and on—and
always I feared to see someone step into the open between me and
the face with the blazing eyes. But there was no halting and with a
last burst of speed I hit against the portal, my fingers scrabbling
for the ring below the head. With a jerk I pulled it. For a second
or two the door, contrary to promise, seemed to resist my efforts.
Then it gave, and I stumbled into a hall where stood the torches
which gave light to the beacon eyes.
I had forgotten the door as I wavered on, intent only on getting
inside, away from the rising clamor in the street. Then I tripped
and fell forward on my knees. Somehow I squirmed around, the laser
ready. Already the door was swinging shut, shutting off a scene of
running men, light gleaming on the bared blades they held.
Breathing hard, I watched the door shut by itself, and then was
content to sit there for a space. I had not realized how great the
strain of my flight had been until this island of safety held me.
It was good simply to sit on the floor of that passage and know I
need not run.
Finally I roused enough to draw my boots on and look about me.
Hamzar’s tale of sanctuary had not gone beyond the few facts
of the face on the door and the guarantee that no malefactor could
be taken from within. I had expected some type of temple to lie
behind such a story. But I was not in the court of any fane now,
only in a narrow hall with no doors. Very close to me stood a stone
rack in which were set two oilsoaked torches, blazing steadily to
form the beacon of the door eyes.
I got to my, feet and rounded that barrier, waiting for a
challenge from whoever tended those night lights. With my back to
their flames I saw only more corridor, unbroken, shadows at its far
end which could veil anything. With some caution I advanced.
Unlike the glimpses I had had into the various other temples of
Koonga, these walls were unpainted, being only the native yellow
stone such as cobbled the wider streets. The same stone formed the
wide blocks of the floor, and, as far as I could see, the ceiling as
well.
They were worn in places underfoot, as if from centuries of use.
Also here and there on the floor were dark splotches following no
pattern, which suggested unpleasantly that some of those who had
come this way earlier might have suffered hurts during their
flight, and that there had been no effort to clean away such
traces.
I reached the end of the corridor and discovered it made a sharp
turn to the right, one which was not visible until one reached it.
To the left was only wall. That new way, being out of the path of
the torches, was almost as dark as the alleys. I tried to pierce
its dusk, wishing I had a beamer. Finally I turned the laser on
lowest energy, sending a white pencil which scored the stained
blocks of the flooring, but gave me light.
The new passage was only about four paces long. Then I was in a
square box of a room and the laser beam touched upon an unlighted
torch in the wall bracket. That blazed and I switched off the
weapon, blinking. I might have been in a room furnished by one of
the cheaper inns. Against the far wall was a basin of stone, into
which trickled a small runnel of water, the overflow channeled back
into the surface of the wall again.
There was a bedframe fitted with a netting of cords, a matting
of dried and faintly aromatic leaves laid over it. Not a
comfortable bed, but enough to keep one’s bones from aching
too much. There were two stools, a small guesting table set between
them. They bore none of the customary carving, but were plain,
however smoothed by long use.
In the wall opposite the bed was a niche in which sat a flagon
of dull metal, a small basket, and a bell. But there were no doors
to the room. And I could see no other exit save the corridor along
which I had come. It began to impress me that this vaunted
sanctuary was close to a prison, if the trapped dare not venture
forth again.
I forced the torch out of its wall hold and carried it about,
searching the walls, the ceiling, the floor, to find no break. At
last I wedged it back into place. The bell by the flagon next held
my attention and I picked it up. A bell suggested signaling.
Perhaps it would bring me an explainer—or an explanation. I rang
it with as much force as I could get into a snap of the wrist. For
so large a bell, it gave forth a very muted tinkle, though I tried
it several times, waiting between each for an answer that did not
come, until at last I slammed it back into the niche and went to
sit on the bed.
When the delayed answer to my impatient summons came, it was
startling enough to bring me to my feet, laser drawn. For a voice
spoke out of the air seemingly only a few feet away.
“To Noskald you have come, in His Shadow abide for the
waning of four torches.”
It was a moment before I realized that that voice had not used
the lisping speech of Koonga, but Basic. Then they must know me for
an off-worlder!
“Who are you?” My own words echoed hollowly as that
voice had not. “Let me see you!”
Silence only. I spoke again, first promising awards if my plight
was told at the port, or if they would give me help in reaching it.
Then I threatened, speaking of ill which came when off-worlders
were harmed—though I guessed that perhaps they were shrewd enough
to know how hollow those threats were. There was no answer—no
sign I was even heard. It could have been a recording which
addressed me. And who the guardians here were I did not know either
—a priesthood? Then they might be akin to the Green Robes and so
would do me no favors, save those forced upon them by custom.
At last I curled into the bed and slept—and dreamed very vivid
dreams which were not fancies spun by the unconscious mind, but
memories out of the past. So, as it is said a dying man sometimes
does, I relived much of my life, which had not been so long in
years.
My beginnings were overshadowed by another—Hywel Jern who, in
his time, had had a name to be reckoned with on more than one
planet—and who could speak with authority in places where even
the Patrol must walk with cat-soft feet, fearing to start what
would take death and blood to finish.
My father had a past as murky as the shallow inlets of Hawaki
after autumn storms. I do not think that any man save himself knew
the whole of it; certainly we did not. For years after his death I
still came across hints, bits and pieces, which each time opened
another door, to show me yet another Hywel Jern. Even when I was
young, at times when a coup of more than ordinary cleverness warmed
whatever organ served him as a heart, he launched into a tale which
was perhaps born out of his own adventuring, though he spoke always
of some other man as the actor in it. Always this story was a
lesson aimed at impressing upon his listeners some point of
bargaining, or of action in crisis. And all his tales made more of
things than of people, who were only incidental, being the owners
or obtainers of objects of beauty or rarity.
Until he was close to fifty planet years old, he was prime
assessor to the Veep Estampha, a sector boss of the Thieves’
Guild. My father never tried to hide this association; in fact it
was a matter of pride to him. Since he seemed to have an inborn
talent, which he fostered by constant study, for the valuing of
unusual loot, he was a valuable man, ranking well above the general
core of that illegal combine. However, he appeared to have lacked
ambition to climb higher, or else he simply had an astute desire to
remain alive and not a target of the ambition of others.
Then Estampha met a rootless Borer plant, which someone with
ambition secreted in his private collection of exotic blooms, and
came to an abrupt finish. My father withdrew prudently and at once
from the resulting scramble for power. Instead he bought out of the
Guild and migrated to Angkor.
For a while, I believe, he lived very quietly. But during that
period he was studying both the planet and the openings for a
lucrative business. It was a sparsely settled world on the pioneer
level, not one which at that time attracted the attention of those
with wealth, nor of the Guild. But perhaps my father had already
heard rumors of what was to come.
Within a space of time he paid court to a native woman whose
father operated a small hock-lock for pawning, as well as a trading
post, near the only space port. Shortly after his marriage the
father-in-law died of an off-world fever, a plague ship having made
a crash landing before it could be warned off. The fever also
decimated most of the port authorities. But Hywel Jern and his wife
proved immune and carried on some of the official duties at this
time, which entrenched them firmly when the plague had run its
course and the government was restored.
Then, some five years later, the Vultorian star cluster was
brought into cross-stellar trade by the Fortuna Combine, and Angkor
suddenly came to life as a shipping port of exchange. My
father’s business prospered, though he did not expand the
original hock-lock.
With his many off-world contacts, both legal and illegal, he did
well, but to outward appearances, only in a modest way. All spacers
sooner or later lay hands on portable treasures or curiosities. To
have a buyer who asked no questions and paid promptly was all they
wanted at any port where the gaming tables and other planetside
amusements separated them too fast from flight pay.
This quiet prosperity lasted for years, and appeared to be all
my father wanted.