"So you are not hunting us; you have not been sent out of U-Sippar to run us down. But then we shall be your favor gifts for Lord Rud. Collar and take us in, Hand, and you will have his good wishes."

Kincar made a move he hoped worild allay a measure of their suspicion. He pulled a packet of journeycake and dried meat from Cim's bags and tossed it across the s.p.a.ce between them. It struck against Murren's foot. The man stared down at it as if it were a bolt from one of the Star Lords' weapons. The he released his hold upon the boy and scooped it up, bewildered at what he found within the wrappings.

Murren thrust a piece of the cake into the boy's hand, giving voice to his own avid hunger with a whimpering cry. They crammed the food into their mouths. Kincar was shaken. The captives he had helped to free on the road had been, with the exception of Kapal, so sunk in their misery that they had hardly seemed human. He had tended them as he had tended Vorken when her wing had been singed, as he would have Cim. But these two were no slaves, apathetic, animal-like in their acceptance of degradation and pain.

"Who are you?" The boy had swallowed the cake, was now sucking on a stick of meat, eying Kincar as Kincar might watch Lord Dillan engaged in some Star magic.

"I am Kincar of Styr-" It was better not to claim s'Rud here. And he must keep always in mind that this Gorth was not his Gorth. That Lord Rud, the tyrant of U-Sippar, was not the Lord Rud who had been his father.

"Styr-" The other shook his head slowly; the name plainly had no meaning for him.

"In the mountains." Kincar gave the setting of Styr, which probably did not exist in this Gorth.

The boy, still holding the meat stick as if he had forgotten he had it in hand, came forward to stand directly before Kincar. He studied the half-Gorthian's face with a searching that must have planted every line of it in his. memory forever. Then with one finger he touched the mark, dropping his hand quickly.

*Who are you?" he asked again, and this time with a lord's authority.

"You have the truth-I am Kincar of Styr-out of the mountains."

"You dare much, mountain man!"

"How so?"

"To wear that and yet not wear it- Nay"-he shook his head-"I ask no questions. I wish to know nothing of what brought you here. We may be danger to each other."

"Who are you?" Kincar countered in his turn.

The other answered with a wry smile. "One who should never have been born. One who will speedily be naught, when Lord Rud finds me, as he must-for we are close to the end of our wayfaring, Murren and I. I have no name, Kincar of Styr, and you had best forget that our paths ever crossed. Unless you choose to win a goodly welcome at U-Sippar by taking me there-"

"In the meantime," Kincar said with deliberate lightness of tone, "will you grant me shelter this night?"

If the boy was coming to accept him-if not as a friend, at least only a minor menace-Murren was not so disposed. He showed his teeth in a mord's hunger grin as Kincar came forward. Impulsively then the half-Gorthian did something that might have endangered his life, but it was the best example of good will he could think of. He went back, took up the hook, and skidded it across sand and gravel.

Murren was down in a flash, his fingers on its shaft. But as quickly the boy caught his arm.

"I know not how you are tossing your chance sticks in this game," he told Kincar, "but I accept that you will not act after the manner of those whose foul mark you wear. Murren-not this one!"

The older man mouthed a protest of yammered sound, and in that instant Kincar saw the real horror that had come upon him-he was tongueless! But the boy pulled him aside from the hut door.

"If you would claim shelter, stranger, it is yours. Silence can be exchanged for silence."

They had a fire, if they had no food, and in the hut there was a measure of warmth, walls against the night wind. Kincar tethered Cim nearby and gave the larng rations, Murren, ever at his side, turning the hook in his hands, kept only from its use by the influence the boy held over him. When they were all three inside, he stationed himself before the door, his sullen, very watchful eyes daring Kincar to a false move.

But the half-Gorthian was very content to settle down by the driftwood fire, hoping in time to gain some sc.r.a.ps of information from his chance-met companions. If they were outlaws of the coastlands, as the boy's talk of Lord Rud made it clear that they were, then they knew U-Sippar and could set him on the trail for that city. But to ask questions without raising suspicions was a delicate problem.

He was no student of men's minds. It needed the skill of Lord Dillan or the Lady Asgar to allay others' fears and make them talk freely. And there was very little time in which to work. Oddly it was the boy who gave him a good opening.

"You ride to U-Sippar?"

"Aye-"

The boy laughed. "You could not be coming from there. The search for us is up. Watch how you walk-or rather how you ride-man from Styr. Lord Rud's mords hunger, and they are appeased by those who cannot give good account of their activities."

"Even those wearing this?" His hand arose to his forehead.

"Now perhaps those wearing that. A secret was broke in U-Sippar." His lips twisted again in that smile that was no smile. "Though all its parts were smashed, as a man brings down his boot upon a oil-crawler, yet Lord Rud is not certain that is so. He will question all and everything for many days and nights to come. Think three times before you ride to that city without a tight tale, Kincar."

Had he accented that word "three"? Kincar took a chance. He spread out his hand in the glow of the fire, the red gleam making plain the movements of his fingers as they shaped a certain sign.

The boy said nothing-he might not understand. His features were well schooled, and he sat quietly for what seemed a long period of time. Then his own right hand went up in the proper answer.

"More than ever, it is well that you keep from U-Sippar!"

But already all warnings were too late. Cim did not have Vorken's superlative sight, but he had keen senses, superior to those of men. Now outside he shrilled a challenge to another male larng. The three jumped to their feet.

"This was an ill-chanced meeting, man from Styr," said the youth. "You have been caught with us. But you can still save yourself-" He waited tensely, and Kincar grasped his meaning.

To claim these two as his captives would be his pa.s.sport to favor. .Instead he drew his dagger from his belt and tossed it to the unarmed boy, who caught it out of the air with a skilled hand.

"We shall see ill-chanced for whom!" Kincar returned.

XII.

A MEETING WITH LORD RUD.

To KINCAR there was no sense in remaining inside the hut, to be poked out of hiding as a cau-rat would be poked from its nest by a boy. Swordplay needed s.p.a.ce. But he had to thrust Murren out of the way at the door, and the boy needs must scuffle to follow him. The tongueless man was still male-ing his protesting yammer as they came out into the twilight.

That fading light was yet bright enough to show that indeed their luck had run out. A ring of mounted men was closing in about the hut, and every other one of them balanced a lance ready to use. On Cim Kincar might have fought his way free. His larng was trained and strong enough to override these scrubby animals. But it never occurred to Kincar at that moment to desert the other two.

Only Murren was alert to such a possibility, proving himself more warrior than fieldman. It was he who sprang onto Cim's bare back and then leaned down to swing at the boy. His fist connected with the other's jaw, and the slight young body went limp. Murren got his master across his knees and drove Cim inland, swinging his hook as he charged against the wall of riders. And the very ferocity of his attack disconcerted the enemy as much as it astounded Kincar.

The hook rose and fell, and a stunned man tumbled from his larng, making a break in the wing. Murren used it, Cim leaping through like a hunted suard. Some of the party went after him at the shouted orders of their officer.

But the four or five who remained headed for Kincar, who set his back to the hut wall and waited tensely. Could he bluff it out-say that Murren and the boy had been his prisoners and had escaped? But the facts were too plain.

Murren had been armed and Cim had been there for his use.

Lances against sword. It was an unequal contest at the best. He held his cloak ready to entangle a lance point. Had the encounter only come at night, he might have had a thin chance of escape under cover of the dark. But they were between him and the sea- no hope of swimming out- and there was a long open stretch of flat sh.o.r.e before one came to the nearest ruins of the old town. However, surrender without a fight was not to be thought of.

That was what they wanted. The nearest warrior hailed him.

"Put down your sword, stranger! The peace of the G.o.ds between us-"

Not the peace of the Three- but the peace of the G.o.ds. Tlie false G.o.ds. And any peace of their offering meant nothing. Kincar made no answer.

"Ride him down!" came a growl from the nearest lancer.

"Not so!" someone objected. "Lord Rud must have speech with any man found in the company of-" The other speaker bit off his words as if fearing an indiscretion. "Take him prisoner if you do not wish the Lord to overlook you, lackwit!"

They came at him from three sides. Kincar threw the cloak, sh.o.r.e away one lance point with his sword. Then a larng reared to bring down its raking claws. He flung himself sideways and went down on one knee. Before he could recover, a lance b.u.t.t was driven against his back with force enough to burst the air from his lungs and carry him down into the sand. They were all over him in an instant, grinding his face into the shingle as they whipped his arms behind him and locked his wrists together. Then they allowed him to lie there for a s.p.a.ce, choking and gasping, while they held consultation over him.

For the time being Kincar was occupied with the suddenly difficult job of breathing. And he had not yet given over gasping when he was raised and flung roughly face down over the withers of a sweating larng.

It was a cold ride through the night, for Kincar had no cloak. It seemed that the riders were so well acquainted with the route that they dared travel it in darkness. Or else they were in such a well-founded fear of their overlord that it was worth the risk to carry him a quick report. However, a head-down journey was not an inducement to logical thinking or the forming of future plans. Kincar was only semiconscious at the end of that ride. When he was tumbled from the larng, he was as limp as a pair of saddlebags.

Dull pain reached through the general fog as a boot was planted in his ribs to turn him over. As he lay sprawled on his back, a light flashed blindingly into his eyes.

"-is he?"

"-bears the mark-"

"Whose man?"

Fragments of questions that had very little meaning. And then one order to bring action: "Put him in the cells and then report. If he was with the young one, Lord Rud must know it."

They did not try to get him to his feet. Fingers were laced in his armpits, and he was dragged across a stone pavement, b.u.mped downstairs. The fetid smell of damp underground closed about him along with a deeper darkness. Then he was shoved backwards so that he rolled down a few more steps. There was the slam of a door, and light was totally gone.

He had come to rest in an awkward position, legs higher than his head, and now he tried to wriggle backwards on a level surface until his feet slipped from the stairs. He was bruised, still groggy from the ride, numb with cold. But he had suffered no real hurt, and he was aroused enough to think rationally once more.

They had mentioned Lord Rud, so it followed that he must now be in some fortress of U-Sippar. And he had entered under the worst possible disadvantage-captured while com-panying with fugitives hunted by the district's ruler. They had noted his brand but had not marked its falsity, so he still had a faint chance to pa.s.s himself off as a man following some lord living at a distance. It was a very slender hope, but it was all he had left, and now Kincar made himself go over his story, testing its weakest points.

When that story had first been concocted back in the hold, they had never expected him to face one of the Dark Ones in person. His general instructions had been to enter U-Sippar as an unattached Hand seeking employment, but with enough loot in his pouch to keep him for a s.p.a.ce before he had to take service. He was to keep away from the fortress, from the guards on duty there. And here he was in the very heart of the place to be most shunned.

Supposing that Lord Rud-this Lord Rud-was gifted as Lord Dillan with the power of acting upon men's minds. Or if he was not so himself, he could summon those who were. For the first time a new idea broke. If in this Gorth th&re was a Lord Rud, might there not also be a Lord Dillan? What would it be like to confront a Lord Dillan who was different? That thought spun slowly through Kin-car's mind.

Now, he told himself, he had only to remember that these Star Lords were not those he knew, that he must not be misled by resemblance. And he had as yet to see the proof of Lord Dillan's statement that men could have their counterparts in other worlds.

Time in the dark was not a matter of minutes and hours. It was a thing of cold, and growing hunger, and cramp in his pinioned arms, aches in his bruised body. He squirmed across the floor until his shoulders met a wall, and then, with infinite expenditure of energy, he was able to rise to his feet. Now by movement he could fight the cold, be in better shape to meet the ordeal that no doubt awaited him.

Using the wall as a guide he encircled the chamber. It was bare of any form of furnishing save in one corner where he padded over a heap of musty straw, perhaps the bedding of those unfortunates who had preceded him in its occupancy. He came to the stairs again. And for want of a better seat huddled there until the chill from the stone drove him up again.

How many times he circled, rested, and then circled again, Kincar did not try to count. But he was seated when he felt a vibration in the stone heralding the coming of his jailors. He was up and facing the door when that portal crashed back against the wall, and light flared at him from above, blinding him once more.

"Up on your feet, are you, dragtail?" demanded a voice with that sort of hearty humor that is more sinister than a curse. "Have him forth, you stumble feet, and let his betters see if he's ripe for the skinning-!"

Figures plunged out of the source of the light, hands fastened on him, shoulder and elbow, and he was propelled up the stairs and out into a stone-walled corridor. More stairs, then the light of a fair day, as they issued into a courtyard.

The men who hustled him along were guardsmen of the common sort, with flat, brutal faces, the spark of intelligence low behind their uncaring eyes. Their officer was a huge man. Kincar almost believed him of off-world breed until he saw the Gorthian features and the devil mark between his eyes. He grinned, showing tooth gaps, leaning over Kincar until his foul breath was thick in the younger man's nostrils. One big hand dug deep in Kincar's hair, pulling his head back at a painful angle.

"The mark right enough," remarked the giant. "But you'll find that will not save you here, youngling."

"Do we pin him, Sood?" inquired one of the guards.

The giant loosed his grasp on Kincar and slapped his open palm across the questioner's face, rocking him so that he stumbled against the prisoner.

"Tighten your lip, dirt! He's pinned when Sood says pin and not before. But he'll cry for pinning before we get the irons to him, so he will! Nay, larng sc.r.a.pings, he goes to the hall; you get him there! You know who is not ever pleased to be kept waiting!"

The man who had been slapped spat red. But he made no protest at his rough disciplining, not even the inarticulate one of a glare at Sood's back as the giant marched ahead. Kincar was pushed on across the courtyard and under a second archway into the living quarters that were officers' territory.

They shuffled under an arch of rough stone into another world. Here was no stone, no native cloth arras as were stretched across the walls of Styr's Hold to keep out cold-season drafts. On either hand the walls were smooth with the sheen of a sword blade. They might have been coated with metal. And over their pale gray surfaces there was a constant dance and play of rainbow color, which appeared, until one focused steadily upon it, to form pictures in an endless and ever changing series of ghostly scenes.

It was totally unlike anything Kincar had ever seen or heard described, and he guessed it was born of the off-world magic of the Star Lords. But he kept his surprise under control. He must appear to be familiar with such if he would carry out his pose as the ex-retainer of another lord in search of a new master.

A curtain of shimmering stuff fronted them. Without any touch from his guards, it parted, drew back against each wall to allow them through. Now they had come into a wide room. Sun flooded it from the roof, filtering through an intricate patterned crystal, which threw more rainbows on the floor. Evenly s.p.a.ced about were a number of doors, each veiled with the strange curtains, while in the center was a square pit, some benches beside it. On those nearest Kincar, two Gorthians sat stiffly. There was no ease in their manner. They might have been fieldman bidden to eat at a hold lord's table because of some whim of that lord, wary at #hat would chance should that whim change. They did not turn their heads to look as Sood and the others tramped in but kept their attention upon the man at the other end of the pit, as a novice swordsman watched a master-of-blades during a lesson.

Here Sood, too, was dwarfed for all his giant's brawn, made to dwindle in an odd fashion. He was no longer a rois.tering bully to be feared, but a servant attendant on a lord of power. He advanced no further than within a foot or two of the occupied benches and stood waiting to be noticed.

The lord of this fortress, he who held in a child's discomfort fighting men and who dwarfed Sood, lounged at ease on a couch removed from the Gorthians by the width of the pit. He was lying full length on the padded surface, his head supported by his crossed arms as he watched something below. And there was no mistaking his birthright. This man was of the Star breed.

Hitherto Kincar had seen the off-worlders only in their silver battle dress, simple clothing designed for hard usage. This man wore a robe of some light fabric under which every movement of his muscles was plainly visible. He was as ma.s.sive as Lord Dillan, but the clean, fine lines of Dillan's body were here blurred as if someone had tried to copy him from the same mold but with no master touch. There was a curve to a jaw line that should be square and sharp, a rounded softness of lip and chin. His hair was the most alien-a dull dark red, thick and straight.

Kincar had time for that appraisal because the Dark Lord was intent upon the pit. Then there came a thin squeaking from that opening, and he laughed, levering up his head to see the better.

"Well done!" He might have been cheering on some warrior duelist. "I win again, Calpar!"

There was a duet of agreement from the two Gorthians. But they were still watching their lord rather than the pit. Now he looked up-to sight Sood's party.

"Ah, Sood-" His voice was rich, almost caressing, only Kincar felt a sensation of cold as if he had walked bare-bodied into an ice storm. Here was something he had never met before. He had known awe with Lord Dillan, and to a greater degree with the Lady Asgar. With Lord Bardon he had felt the admiration of a warrior in the train of a noted chief. But none had given him that daunting of spirit, that feeling of being less than a larng in their sight. From this man he did not even strike the interest he would give to Vorken- he was less than a well-trained beast.

But that realization was consumed by a growing heat within him, a heat that flamed outward, as the heat of the Tie had eaten inward when it had been so cruelly activated by the Star Lords' magic. Perhaps the men of this Gorth had been beaten long ago into accepting that valuation of themselves-but he had not. Kincar fronted the Dark Lord straightly, striving to keep under control both his aversion and his defiance.

"What have we here, Sood-" The purr lapped across the pit.

"The one who was taken at the hideout of those, Lord."

"The one who aided in their escape, aye. Bring forward this hero-"

Kincar was shoved ahead, to the very lip of the pit. But those who pushed him remained a little to the rear, sheltering behind him from their ruler's attention.

"And who may you be?" The Lord addressed Kincar directly.

"I am from the mountains, Lord-Kincar of Styr who was lately Hand to Lord Seemon-" He had chosen the lord who had ruled the captured guard, and hoped it would prove a good choice.

"And why, my good Hand, did you leave the service of Lord Seemon?"

"There was a sword quarrel set upon me, Lord. I killed my man, but he had brothers who took blade oath to meet me one by one-"

Lord Rud laughed. "You are an unlucky man, are you not, Kincar of Styr? First you kill a man with brothers to be active in his favor and then you make a long journey only to meddle in what concerns you not, so you come to an ill fate in U-Sippar. Tell me, Kincar of Styr, why did you befriend those dirt-eaters you met upon the sh.o.r.e?"

"Lord, I knew nothing of them, save that they said they were flying also from a blood feud-"

"They said? Ah, but I think that one of them was incapable of saying much, or had he miraculously grown once more a certain important piece of his body which had been stricken from him?"

"The young man said it, Lord," Kincar corrected himself.