Words coming out of the air, words without meaning. Warm-it was warm again. He had not been killed in that fall from the flier. Now he was lapped in the waters of the hot riverlet, being borne with its current. Watery, he saw the world only through a mist of water, and before him bobbed another dim figure. Then that shadowy shape turned, and he saw its face and knew that there was no escape. Lord Dillan! They had traced him, and he was once more a prisoner.

"Not so!" He heard his own cry as shrill as a mord's scream as he tried vainly to win free of the current, away from the Dark One. But it was no use; he could not move and the riverlet carried him on.

It was night, but not the total dark of the U-Sippar dungeon, for stars swung across Lor's Shield resting above him. And those stars moved-or did he? Dreamily he tried to work out that problem. The homely smell of larng sweat had driven away the stink of the river. But he was still swinging as if cradled in water.

"There is the beacon! We are almost in now-"

In where? U-Sippar? The ship-tower fortress? He had solved the mystery of the movement around, under, about him, realizing that he was lashed securely in a hunter's net swung between two of the burden larngs. But how much was real and how much was a dream he could not tell. He closed heavy eyelids, worn to a state of fatigue in which nothing at all mattered.

But perhaps he was too tired for sleep, for he was aware of arriving in a courtyard, and roused again to see the one who loosed the fastenings of his net.

It had been no use, that wild attempt at escape, for it was Lord Dillan who gathered him up and carried him into light, warmth, and sound. They were back at the ship-towers, and now would come the questioning- They must have returned him to the padded chamber. He was lying on_the softness of the bench there. Feeling it, he kept his eyes closed obstinately. Let them think he was unconscious.

"Kincar-"

He tensed.

"Kincar-"

There was no mistaking that voice. They might duplicate Lord Dillan but-the Lady Asgar? He opened his eyes. She was half-smiling, though watching him with a healer's study. And she was bundled in cold-season riding clothes, her hair fastened up tightly beneath a fur hood. Vorken sat on her shoulder appearing to examine Kincar with a measure of the same searching scrutiny.

"This is the hold?" He doubted the evidence of his eyes; he had been so sure he was elsewhere.

"This is the hold. And you are safe, thanks be to Vorken. Is that not true, my strong-winged one?"

Vorken bent her head to rub her crest of bone peak caressingly against the Lady's chin.

"We were hunting in the peaks and she came to us, lead-ing us to a feast-" Asgar's expression was one of faint distaste. "And from there it was easy to trace your path, Kincar. Now"-she stooped over him with a horn cup in her hand while someone behind raised his head and shoulders so that he might drink-"get this inside of you that you may tell us your story, for we have a fear that time grows 'very late indeed."

It was Lord Dillan who supported him. But his own Lord Dillan and not the dark master of the ship-towers. Braced comfortably against that strong shoulder, Kincar told his story, tersely with none of a song-smith's embroidery of word. Only one thing he could not describe plainly, and that was what had happened to him in the ruined shrine. And that they did not ask of him. When he told of his meeting with the fugitives at the sh.o.r.e, Lord Dillan spoke for the first time.

"This we have heard in part. Murren could not master Cim, and the beast took his own path. He brought them to our gates, and they were found by Kapal and a foraging party. We have heard their story, and it is a black one." There was a dark shadow of pain in his eyes. "It will be for your hearing later. So-you were taken by the ruler's men," he prompted, and Kincar continued.

There was Vorken's providential appearance on the field where he had been condemned to death, and then the interference of the Dark Lord Dillan- The man who held him tensed at his description. "Not only Rud-but I-here too'

"Did we not know that it would be so for some of us?" queried the Lady Asgar. "And in the end that may prove the one weapon we have. But where did they then take you, Kincar?"

His memories of the ship-towers were so deeply etched that his account of the action there was more vivid. Both of the Star-born were moved by his recounting of his trial by fear.

"A conditioner!" Lord Dillan spat the word. "To have perverted that!"

"But that is a small perversion among so many," Asgar pointed out, "for their whole life here is a perversion, as well we know. Because that particular machine is a tool known to you, Dillan, it may strike more deeply home, but it is in my mind that they have made use of all their knowledge- our knowledge-to weld slave chains. And mark this-the conditioner was defeated by something native to this Gorth! Kincar believes that he was sent on this path, and it seems to me that he is right, very right! But you escaped from these earth-bound ships, and how was that done?" she de-Hianded of the young man.

In retelling, his flight from the weird fortress sounded matter-of-fact and without difficulty, though Kincar strongly doubted that he could face it again. Action was far easier to take in sudden improvisation than when one knew what lay in wait ahead.

When he had done, the drink they had given him began its work. The aches of his bruised body faded into a lethargy, and he slipped into a deep sleep.

He woke again suddenly, without any of the normal lazy translation from drowsiness to full command. And when he opened his eyes, it was to see the youth from the seash.o.r.e hut seated not far away, his chin cupped in both hands, studying Kincar as if the other held some answer to a disturbing puzzle. The very force of that gaze, thought Kincar, was enough to draw one out of sleep. And he asked, "What do you want?"

The other smiled oddly. "To see you, Kincar s'Rud."

"Which you are doing without hindrance. But there is more than -just looking upon me that you wish-"

The boy shrugged. "Perhaps. Though your very existence is a marvel in this world. Kincar s'Rud," he repeated the name gravely, not as if he were addressing its owner, but more as one might utter some incantation. "Kincar s'Rud- Kathal s'Rud-"

Kincar sat up on the pad couch. He was stiff and sore, but he was alert and no longer weary to his very bones.

"Kincar s'Rud * I know weD," he observed. "But who is Kathal s'Rud?"

The other laughed. "Look at him! They have told me Hiany things, these strange lords here, and few of them are believable, save to one who will swallow a song-smith's tales open-brained. But almost I can trust in every word when I look upon you. It seems, though we can both claim a Lord Rud for a sire, it is not the same Lord Rud. And that smacks of truth, for you and I are not alike."

"Lord Rud's son-" For a second Kincar was befuddled. Lord Dillan had spoken of brothers-no, half brothers-who could name him kin. But they had gone with the Star ships. Then he understood. Not his father-but the Lord Rud of this Gorth, that man softened by good living, rotted with his absolute power, whom he had fronted in U-Sippar. "But I thought-"

"That there were no half-bloods here? Aye!" The boy was all one bitter protest. "They have even spread it about that such births are impossible, like the offspring of a mord and a suard. But it is true, though mostly we are slain at birth- if our fathers know of it. To live always under a death sentence, enforced not only by the Dark Ones, but by your other kin as well-it is not easy."

"Lord Rud found out about you; that was why you were running?"

"Aye. Murren, who was guardsman to my mother's kin, saved me twice. But he was handled as you saw for his trouble. Better he himself had knocked me on the head! I am a nothing thing, being neither truly of one blood or the other."

As he had studied Kincar, so now the other reversed the process. This was no duplicate other self, no physical twin, as were the two Dillans. So some other laws of chance and change had intervened between them. Kathal, he judged, was the younger by several birth seasons, and he had the fine-drawn, worn face, the tense, never-relaxed body of one who, as he had just pointed out, lived ever with danger. No happy memories of a Wurd or of the satisfying life of Styr were behind him. Would he have been as Kathal had he been born into this Gorth?

"You are safe now." Kincar tried to rea.s.sure him.

Kathal simply stared at him as one looks at a child who does not understand how foolishly he speaks.

"Am I? There is no safety ever for one who is s'Rud-no matter how it may be in the world from which you came."

"The Lords will change that-"

Again that bitter laugh. "Aye, your Lords amaze me. I am told that all here are full or half-blood-save for the refugees and freed slaves you have drawn in. But what weapons have your lords? How can they stand up against the might of all Gorth? For all Gorth will be marshalled against this hold when the truth is known. Best build another of these 'gates' of which they speak and charge through it before you feel Rud's fingers on your throat!"

And Kincar, remembering the ship-towers, the flier, could agree that other weapons and wonders must rest in the hands of the Dark Ones, His confidence was shaken for a moment.

"-and a deft server you shall find mel" That half sentence heralded Lord Dillan, who pushed through the door curtain, walking with exaggerated care because he held in both of his hands an eating bowl, lacy with steam and giving off an aroma that immediately impressed upon Kincar how long it had been since he had eaten. Lord Bardon was close behind him, his fingers striving to keep in one bundle several drinking horns of different sizes. Following on his heels came the remainder of the Star Lords, dwarfing the younger half-Gorthians with their bulk.

Kathal slipped from his seat and backed against the wall. He gave the appearance of a man about to make a lost stand against impossible odds. It was Lord Jon who put down the leather bottle he was carrying and smiled.

"Both in one netting. Feed yours, Dillan, and 111 settle this one and see that his tongue is properly moistened for speech." His clasp on Kathal's shoulder was the light one he would have used on his own son, and though the half-Gorthian fugitive had not lost his suspicion, he did not try to elude that grip.

Kincar spooned up the solid portion of the stew and drank the rich gravy. He had had no such meal since he had ridden out of Styr. Journeycake and dried meat were good enough for travelers, but they held no flavor.

"This," announced Lord Bardon, but his tone was light enough to war with the sense of his words, "is a council of war. We have come to learn all you can tell us, sons of Rud."

Perhaps Kathal flinched at a t.i.tle that in this world meant shame and horror. But Kincar found it natural and was pleased at that link with the soft-spoken but sword-wary men about him. A measure of that confidence that had been frayed by Kathal's suspicions was restored. He had seen the Dark Ones, and to his mind none of them were matches for the Star men that he knew.

"We shall begin"-Lord Dillan took charge of the a.s.sembly as he was wont to do-"with a naming of names. Tell us, Kathal, who are the Dark Ones-give us a full roll call of their number."

XVII.

INVASION.

"IT CAN NEVER be set one piece within the other properly again!"

Kincar sat back on his heels. There was a broad smear of suard fat across his cheek where his hand had brushed unnoticed, and before him lay a puzzle of bits of metal salvaged from the broken flier. Brought from the point where it had cracked up, the machine was in the process of being rea.s.sembled by the Star Lords and half-bloods alike, neither certain of the ultimate results.

Lord Dillan sighed. "Almost it would seem so," he conceded. "I am a technician of sorts, but as a mechanic it appears I have a great many limitations. If it could only remember more!" He ran his greasy hands through his close-cropped dark-red hair. "Let this be a lesson to you, boy. Take notice of what you see in your youth-it may be required of you to duplicate it later. I have flown one of these-but to rebuild it is another matter."

Lord Jon, who had been lying belly-down on the courtyard pavement to inspect parts of the frame they had managed so far to fit together, smiled.

"All theory and no practice, Dillan? What we need is a tape record to guide us-"

"Might as well wish for a new flier complete, Lord." Vulth got to his feet and stretched to relieve cramped muscles. "Give me a good sword tail, and I'll open that box for you without this need for patching broken wire and shafts together."

Lord Bardon who had earlier withdrawn from their efforts to fit the unfitable together, protesting that he had never possessed any talent for machine a.s.sembly, laughed.

"And where do we recruit a tail for spear-festmg, Vulth? Lay a summoning on the mountain trees to turn them into warriors for your ordering? From all accounts any a.s.sault straight into the face of danger will not work this time. I wonder-" He was studying the parts laid out on the stones. "That gear to the left of your foot, Dillan-it seems close in size to the rod Jon just bolted in. Only a suggestion, of course."

Lord Dillan picked up the piece and held it to the rod. Then he observed solemnly, "Any more suggestions, Bard? It is plain that you are the mechanic here."

Kincar was excited. "Look, Lord. If that fits there, then does not this and this go so?" He slipped the parts into the pattern he envisioned. He might not know Star magic, but these went together with a Tightness his eyes approved.

Dillan threw up his hands in a gesture of mock defeat. "It would seem that the totally unschooled are better at this employment. Perhaps a little knowledge is a deterrent rather than a help. Go ahead, children, and see what you can do without my hindrance."

In the end, with all of them a.s.sisting, they had the flier rebuilt.

"The question remains," Lord Bardon said, "will it now fly?"

"There is only one way to test that." Before any of them could protest, Lord Dillan was in the seat behind the controls. However, even as his hand moved toward the row of b.u.t.tons, Kincar was beside him, knowing that he could not let the other make that trial alone.

Perhaps Dillan would have ordered him out, but it was too late for that, as inadvertently the Star Lord had pushed the right b.u.t.ton and they were rising-not with the terrifying speed Kincar had known in his last flier trip, but slowly, with small complaints and buzzes from the engine.

"At least," Lord Dillan remarked, "she did not blow up at once. But I would not care to race her-"

They were above the hold towers now. And Vorken, seeing them rise past her chosen roost, took to the air in company, flying in circles about the machine and uttering cries of astonishment and dismay. Men walking, men riding larngs she understood and had been accustomed to from fledgling-hood. But men in her own element were different and worrying.

Kincar, with only too vivid memories of the mountain sa-mord, tried to wave her away. Vorken could not smash the flier with her weight as had the giant of her species. But if she chose to fly into Lord Dillan's face, she might well bring them to grief. Her circles grew closer, as she swung in behind the windbreak, her curiosity getting the better of her caution. Then she made a landing on the back of the seats and squatted, her long neck outstretched between the two who sat there, interested in what they would do next.

"Do you approve?" Lord Dillan asked her.'

She squawked in an absent-minded fashion, as if to brush aside foolish questions. And seeing that she was minded to be quiet, Kincar did not try to dislodge her.

Dillan began to try out the repaired craft. It did not respond too quickly to the controls governing change of alt.i.tude or direction. But it did handle, and he thought it could be safely used for the purpose they planned. After flying down the wide valley guarded by the hold and making a circle about the mountain walls, he brought the machine back for a b.u.mpy but safe landing in the courtyard.

"She is no AA job, but she will take us there-" was his verdict given to the hold party and the natives from four liberated slave gangs. The hold archers now kept a regular watch on the mountain road and freed all unfortunates dragged through that territory.

Kapal had a.s.sumed command of these men, and out of those who still possessed some stamina and spirit, he was hammering a fighting tail of which he often despaired but bullied and drilled all the more grimly because they fell so far below his hopes. He had taken readily, greedily, to the use of the bows and was employing both the men and the few women from the ex-slave gangs to manufacture more. Now he insisted that it was time for him to lead his band in some foray on their own.

"It is this way, Lord," he had sought out Bardon the night before to urge. "They have been slaves too long. They think like slaves, believing that no man can stand up to the Dark Ones. But let us once make even a party of slave-driving Hands surrender, or rather let us blood our arrows well on such eaters of dirt, and they will take new heart. They must have a victory before they can think themselves once more men!"

"If we had time, then I would say aye to that, Kapal, for your reasoning is that of a leader who knows well the ways of fighting men. But time we do not have. Let the Dark Ones discover us, and they have that which will blot us out before finger can meet upon finger in a closing fist. Nay, our move must be fast, sure, and merciless. And it should come very soon!"

Kathal had given them the key to what might be their single advantage. Occasionally the Dark Ones a.s.sembled at the ship-tower fortress. In spite of their covert internecine warfare, their jealousies and private feuds, they still kept to some fellowship and a certain amount of exchange of supplies, news and man power.

Though they laughed at native traditions, stamping out any whenever they found them, they themselves were not wholly free of the desire for symbolic celebrations. And one such, perhaps the most rigidly kept, was that marking their first landing on Gorth. For this anniversary they a.s.sembled from all over the planet, making a two-day festival of the gathering. It seldom ended without some bloodshed, though dueling was frowned upon. The natives, excluded from the meeting, forbidden even to approach within a day's journey of the ship-towers, knew that often a Lord did not return from the in-gathering and that his domain was appropriated by another.

"It has been our hope that they would continue to deal with each other so," Kathal had said, "using their might against their own kind. But always it works to our ill, for those Dark Ones who treated us with some measure of forbearing were always the ones to return not, and the more ruthless took their lands. Of late years there have been fewer disappearances-"

"How many Lords are there left?" Lord Frans had wanted to know.

Kathal spread his fingers as if to use them in telling off numbers. "Who can truthfully say, Lord? There are fifty domains, each with an overlord. Of these perhaps a third have sons, younger brothers, kinsmen. Of their females we know little. They live secretly under heavy guard. So secret do they keep them that there are now rumors they are very, very few. So few that the Lords-" He had paused, a dark flush staining his too-thin face.

"So few," Lord Dillan had taken that up, "that now such as your Lord Rud has a forbidden household, and perhaps others do likewise. Yet they will not allow their half-blood children to live."

Kathal shook his head. "If the Lords break that law, Lord, then they are held up to great shame among their kindred. To them we are as beasts, things of no account. Mayhap here and there a half-blood, who was secretly born, lives for a s.p.a.ce of years. But mostly they are slain young. Only because my mother had a sister who kept her close did I come to man's age."

"Say perhaps one hundred?" Lord Bardon had kept on reckoning the opposition.

"Half again more," Kathal replied.

"And they will all be at the ship-towers twelve days from now?"

"Aye, Lord, that is the time of the in-gathering."

The hold began their own preparations, working all day and far into the night, for if at no other time all the Dark Ones would be together, then they must strike here and now. They dared not wait another whole year, and they could never hope to campaign against fortresses beaded clear across Gorth.

As soon as they were certain the flier could take to the air again, the first party, mounted on the pick of the larngs moved out, armed and prepared for a long ride across the mountain trails that the inner men had shown them.

Kapal and his ragged crew, or the best of them, padded through the secret ways of the mountain with Ospik for a guide, heading for the agreed-upon point overlooking the waste plain on which the ship-towers stood.

Kincar had expected to ride with the other half-bloods in the mounted party. But, as the only one who had ever been at the ships, he was delegated to join the Star Lords.

The flier would carry four at a time-reluctantly-but it would rise and, at a speed greater than a larng's extended gallop, get them over the ranges to the last tall peak from which they could look down upon their goal. All wore the silver clothing insulated against the chill, giving them more freedom of movement than the scale coats and leather garments the Gorthians and half-Gorthians were used to. And Kincar, clad in a suit hastily cut to his size, moved among them looking like a boy among his elders.

On the heights they took cover, but four pairs of far-seeing gla.s.ses pa.s.sed from hand to hand, Kincar having them in his turn. And so they witnessed the arrival of swarms of fliers at the towers.

"That makes one hundred and ten," Lord Bardon reported. "But each carries several pa.s.sengers."

Lord Dillan had the gla.s.ses at the moment.

"I wonder, Bard-?"

"Wonder what?"

"Whether those ships were ever deactivated?"