"This 'you' stands here-the other 'you is in Styr."

Kincar blinked, distrusting this new thought. Multiple "yous"-or "I's"-all acting separately, leading different lives? How could Kincar s'Rud be so split? Once more the Lady Asgar came to his rescue.

"The Kincar who chose to remain in Styr," she said softly, "would not be the Kincar who came through the gates in our company, for, by his very decision, he made himself a different person in a different world. He is not you, nor have you now any part in him-for that world is gone."

Lord Dillan studied the lines he had drawn. "But as it is with men, so it is also with nations and with worlds. There are times when they come to points of separation, and from those points their future takes two roads. And thus, Kincar, there are many Gorths, each formed by some decision of history, lying as these bands, one beside the other, but each following its own path-"

Kincar stared down at those faint marks. Many Gorths, existing one beside the other but each stemming from some crossroads in the past? His imagination caught fire, though still he could not quite believe.

"Then," he said slowly, trying to find the right words, "there'is a Gorth into which the Star Lords never came, in which the wild men of the forest still live as do the animals? And perhaps a Gorth from which the Star Lords chose not to withdraw?"

Lord Dillan smiled; he had an eager look. "That is so. Also there are Gorths-or at least one Gorth, we hope-in which the native race never came into being at all. It is that Gorth we sought when we came through the gates."

"But which we were not given the time to find," Lady Asgar murmured. "This fortress proves that."

"Had we not been hunted there at the end, had we had but a day-or maybe only an hour more-we might have found it. Still, with the knowledge we have brought with us, we can open the gates once again-just give us a fraction of time."

But even Kincar was able to sense that behind those brave words Lord Dillan was not so sure. And he asked a question.

"Where are we now? Who built this fort? It is not of any fashion that I know. I thought it to be a hidden hold of the Star Lords."

"No, it is none of ours. But it will give us good shelter for a necessary s.p.a.ce. Had we only been granted more time-!"

"At least"-Lady Asgar put Vorken gently on the floor and got to her feet-"your destruction of the gates brought one advantage. If it did not serve us very well, it served Gorth-since Herk came to his end in that blast."

Lord Dillan sat back. "Aye, Herk is safely dead. And those he gathered as a following will quickly melt away, their own jealousies and pa.s.sions driving them apart. He was the last of the rebels, so Gorth is now free to seek its own destiny, while we may seek ours in another direction."

He stood up, and now he smiled at Kincar with a warmth and true welcome. "We are but a handful, yet this is our venture and we shall have the proving of it to the end. Let us seek out the materials we need and we shall have a new gate with time enough to choose which world it will open to us."

"Lord!" Vulth relooped the door curtain. "The gate box has been rea.s.sembled-"

"So!" Dillan was away without farewells, but the Lady Asgar put out a hand to stop Kincar when he would have gone after.

"It is not so easy." She was grave. Behind her serenity she was considering some problem. "The time before we can build another gate may be a long one."

"In Gorth-the old Gorth," Kincar commented, "the Lords had all the magic supplies of Terranna to aid them in such a building. They have been forced to destroy some of that. Can they find such magic here?"

She stood very still. "You bear with you that which must give you ever the clear sight. Aye, that is the stone within our fruit-perhaps for us a gate may not rise again. Dillan will try to rebuild, for that is his life. But his efforts may come to nothing. I would know more of this Gorth-for our own protection I would know. How far back in time was the turning which cleaved our Gorth from this one? Who built this hold and why did they forsake it? Are we in a world emptied by disaster-or one only too well peopled? That we must learn-and speedily."

He thought he could guess at what she hinted. "I have not the Sight," he reminded her.

"Nay. But you are closet to Gorth than those of full Star blood. And you wear that which may bind you closer still. If the Sight comes to you, do not deny it, speak aloud-to me or to Lord Dillan. It is in my mind that Herk forced a bad choice upon us and ill shall come here. See, I have not the Sight, either, yet foreboding grows upon one. And you?"

Kincar shook his head. He could not pretend to a sensitivity he did not have, and, privately, neither wanted nor thought he would ever develop. So far the only effect that the Tie had had on him was physical. He could play guardian, but he was willing to relinquish even that task when the time came that he could pa.s.s the talisman to one of the proper temperament to make full use of its powers. Wurd had never been a fa.r.s.eer nor seer, yet he had held the Tie in his time. Guardianship did not always accompany use.

He marveled at the tale he had heard of worlds beside worlds. But had he no premonitions and he wanted none. He would give thanks for his healing, for Vorken's, but he was not ready to join forces with the Lady Asgar in that way. And she must have guessed that, for she smiled wearily and did not try to detain him longer.

VI.

LEGEND COME ALIVE.

THE GALE was brisk, but there was no more snow, and the wind had scoured away the early fall, save where the powdery stuff clung in pockets between trees and rocks. Vorken swung on a high branch, her large head seeming to shake disparagingly above the surrounding countryside as she kept watch. If any creature stirred there, she would mark its path.

Kincar leaned against the bole of the large tree, surveying the domain that their fortress guarded. It was indeed a holding of which any great lord could well be proud. Beyond the narrow neck of the entrance valley, which the hold spanned from wall to wall-an efficient cork to front any enemy-the land opened out into a vast valley ringed about with heights. There might be pa.s.ses over those mountains, trails out of the valley that did not pa.s.s the hold, but so far the newcomers had not discovered them. And all indications pointed to the a.s.sumption that the valley of the hold was the only practical entry into the open ground beyond.

From this distance up one of the flanking mountainsides, one could trace the boundaries of old fields, see the straggle of tree stumps, fallen branches, and a few still st.u.r.dy trunks marking an orchard. Aye, it had been a rich land, well able to provide a rich living for the hold-once.

But now no harvests from those fields or orchards lay- except as powdery dust-in the storerooms of the fortress. Men must hunt, prowling the wooded slopes of the heights in search of game. So far the results had been disappointing. Oh, now and again one would chance upon a suard or some forest fowl. But they were thin, poor creatures.

This was the first day Kincar had deemed Vorken healed enough to take afield, and he was pinning his hopes upon her aid in a profitable hunt. But, though she had soared and searched in her usual manner, she had sighted nothing. And her rests, during which she clung to some roost well out of his reach, muttering peevishly to herself, grew longer and closer together. The mord might turn sullen with such constant disappointment and refuse to go on unless some success came soon.

With a forlorn hope of flushing a wild fowl, Kincar started ahead, thrusting through any promising stretch of shelter brush. A few scratches and a more intimate, and unwelcome, acquaintance with local vegetation was his only reward. However, he kept to the task.

He heard the stream before he found it-the tinkle of free running water. Then he saw, rising from the narrow cutting in the hillside, misty white tails that might be breath puffed from a giant's lungs.

To his surprise there was no edging of ice on the sh.o.r.e line, and it was from the surface of the water those smoky lines rose. Intent upon the phenomenon, he cautiously slid down the steep slope. There was a disagreeable smell, as well as steam, about him-a strong, acrid odor that made his eyes water as a warm puff drove into his face, setting him coughing. Very warily Kincar put out an investigating finger. The water was not clear, but a reddish-brown, and it was hot enough to sting. He raised the wet finger to his nose and sniffed a fetid smell he could not give name to.

Eager to see from where it sprang, he traced back along the cut until he found the place where the discolored water bubbled out of the mountain's crust. Yet that was not a spring, but a round hole, water worn and stained red-brown, an exit from some depths beyond. Kincar could perceive no immediate use for his find, but, in spite of the odor, the warmth of the water was welcome in the chill, and he lingered, holding hands ill-protected by their clumsy wrappings into the steam.

He was watching the brown swirls of the water, without close attention, loathe to climb back into the cold, when an object bobbed to the surface of the oily flood, struck against a stone, and would have been swept on had Kincar not grabbed for it. He snapped out a pair of pungent words as he scooped it out, for here the water was far hotter than it had been downstream. But he held the prize safely-the thing that had come out of the mountain.

It had begun as a chip of wood, buoyant and fresh enough to possess still the pale yellow color of newly cut zemdol. But it was no longer just a chip. Someone had used it for idle shaping such as he had often seen a man do in Styr, to try out a new knife, or for the pleasure of working with his hands through dull hours in the cold season. The chip now had the rough but unmistakable likeness of a suard. There were the curling horns worn in the warm seasons, lost in the cold, the powerful back legs, the slender, delicate forefeet- a suard carved by one who not only had an artist's skill in his fingers but a good knowledge of suards!

Yet it had bobbed out of the heart of the mountain! And it was not of the fugitives' making, that he was sure of. Where had the builders of the fortress retreated-underground? Kincar was on his feet, searching the wall of rock and earth from which the stream bubbled, striving to see on its surface some indication that there was an entrance here, that someone who was a hunter of suards and had tried out his knife upon a fresh chip of zemdol had a dwelling therein.

They had all puzzled over the history of the hold. There had been no signs that it had been stormed and sacked, no visible remains of those who had reared its ma.s.sive walls for their protection, tilled the fields beyond; And the Star Lords said that such a place could not have been taken easily, not even by the weapons of which they alone possessed the secret. They were inclined to believe that some plague had struck down the valley dwellers without warning. Except of that there was no evidence either. All the rooms, from nooks in the watchtowers to eerie hollows hacked out of the rock under those same towers' foundations, probably intended for dark purposes the present explorers did not care to imagine, were bare of anything save dust. If the people of the valley had gone to plague tombs, they had carefully taken with them all their material possessions.

Kincar turned the chip over. This was evidence of other life in the mountain land, though he could not be sure how far from its source the water had carried it. But he was inclined to believe that the temperature of the flood, far higher here than it was downstream, suggested a beginning not too far inside the mountain. And it might be at that birth spring that the carver had lost his work.

The desire in Kincar to get to the root of the mystery was strong. But no one was going to move those tons of earth and rock. So at last, having put the chip in his belt pouch, he climbed out of the cut, which held the hot stream, into the frostiness of the upper air, where the wind bit doubly sharp because of his respite in the warmth.

He whistled to Vorken, and her answer came from farther down the slope. As he worked his way along, he saw her take to the air again in an ascending spiral, and he brought out the weapon Lord Dillan had entrusted to him, to be used only if they were sure of a kill. One held the tube balanced- so-and pressed the forefinger on a stud. Then ensued a death that was noiseless, an unseen ray that killed, leaving no mark at all upon the body of the slain. Kincar did not like it; to him it was evil when compared to the honest weight of sword or spear. But in a time when a kill meant food-or life-it was best.

Vorken no longer cried, her circles for alt.i.tude were bringing her up level with the peaks. Plainly she was in sight of her quarry. Kincar waited where he was to mark her swoop -there was too good a chance of warning the prey if he went on right now.

The mord brought her wings together with a snap he could hear plainly through the dry, cold air. Now she was at strike, her four feet with claws well extended beneath her as she came, air hissing from her open bill. There was a high scream as she vanished behind treetops, and Kincar ran.

He heard the beat of thumping feet through the brush and crouched. A suard, its eyes wide with terror, burst between two saplings, and Kincar used the strange weapon as he had been instructed. The animal crumpled in upon itself in mid-leap, its try at escape ending in a roll against a bush. Kincar ran up-there were no claw marks on it. This could not have been Vorken's prey. Had they had the excellent good luck of finding a small party of the animals? Sometimes the suard, usually solitary creatures, banded together, especially in a section where there was poor feeding. Rudimentary intelligence had taught the animals that concentrated strength brought down small trees whose bark proved cold season food.

Kincar paused only to bleed the suard he had killed, and then he sped on-to discover his guess had been right. A tree, its roots dug about, had been pushed to the ground and a goodly part of the tender upper bark shredded away. A second suard lay on the scene of the feast, Vorken's claws hooked in its deep fur. She welcomed Kincar with a scream, demanding to be fed, to have the part of the kill rightfully hers. He set about the gory task of butchering.

The suard Vorken had brought down was prepared for packing back to the hold and the mord was eating greedily before Kincar moved to the other kill. As a trained hunter, he walked silently to the place where the second body lay-so silently that he surprised another at work. As he caught sight of the figure hunched above the suard on the bloodied snow, saw those hands busy at the same task he had just performed, he froze. This was no partner from the hold. Unless one of the children has slipped away to trail him- Then the other turned to strip back a flap of furred hide. This was not a child in spite of the small body, the hands half the size of his own, which worked with the quick sureness of long experience. The face beneath the overhang of the fur hood was that of a man in his late youth, a broad face bearing the lines of bleak living. But when the stranger got to his feet to walk about the suard, his head could not have reached a finger width above Kincar's shoulder. As he himself was to the Star Lords, so was this one to him. The compact body, m.u.f.fled as it was with furs and thick clothing, showed no signs of malformation-the manikin was well proportioned and carried himself as might a trained warrior.

But had the other been as tall as Lord Dillan himself, Kincar would have jumped him now. To see this dwarfish creature calmly about the business of butchering the suard he had killed, preempting meat so badly needed in the hold, was like waving a bit of fresh liver before an uncaged mord and daring it to snap. Kincar sheathed his Star weapon and crossed the open s.p.a.ce in one flying leap, his hands settling as he had aimed on the thief's shoulders. But what happened an instant after that was not part of his plan at all.

The stranger might have the size of a lad not yet half grown, but in that slight body was a strength that rivaled Kincar's. Startled as he must have been, he reacted automatically as one trained in unarmed combat. His shoulders shrugged, he wriggled, and, to Kincar's overwhelming astonishment and dazed unbelief, he found himself on the ground while the other stood over him, a knife blade stained with suard blood held at striking distance from his throat.

"Lie still, lowland rat"- the words were oddly accented but Kincar could understand them-"or you will speedily have two mouths-the second of my making!"

"Big talk, stealer of another man's meat!" Kincar glared back with what dignity he could muster from his position on the ground. "Have you never learned that only a hunter skins his own kill?"

"Your kill?" The manikin laughed. "Show me the wound with which you dealt that death, my brave-talking hunter, and I shall deliver you the meat."

"There are other ways of killing than by sword or spear."

The manikin's lips flattened against his teeth, drawing a little apart in a snarl.

"Aye, lowlander." He spoke more softly still, almost caressingly. "There are such ways of killing. But your sort have them not-only the 'G.o.ds' kill so." But he spat after mouthing the word "G.o.ds" as a man might spit upon the name of a blood enemy. "And no 'G.o.d' would give a slave his power stick! You are naught but an outlaw who should be turned in for the price set upon him-to be used for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the 'G.o.ds' after their accursed way."

There had been outlaws in the Gorth of Kincar's birth. He could readily accept the idea that such men lived here also. But these "G.o.ds" were something else altogether. However, his immediate problem was to get safely out of the range of that knife, and his swift overthrow had given him a healthy respect for the one who now held it.

"I am no outlaw. I am a hunter. My mord flushed the suard in their feeding ground. One shfe slew, the other I killed as it fled. If you would have proof of that, look behind those bushes yonder where you will find the other made ready for packing. Or, better yet-" He whistled and the blade descended until he felt the chill touch of the metal on his throat.

"You were warned-" The manikin was beginning when Vorken swooped upon him. Only the overhang of his hood saved his face. As it was, the mord hooked claws in his jerkin and beat him about the head with her wings. Kincar rolled away and got to his feet before he called the mord off her victim. And ready in his hand now was the death rod of the Star Lords.

Vorken flapped up to a tree limb, her red eyes holding upon the manikin. But he lay on the ground, his attention all for the weapon Kincar had aimed at him. And his expression was the bleak one of a man facing inevitable death.

"Who are you, wearing the body of a slave, carrying the death of a 'G.o.d'?" he demanded. "Why do you trouble the hills?"

Now that Kincar had his captive, he did not quite know what to do with him. To take a prisoner down to the hold, there to spy out their few numbers, their many lacks, would be folly indeed. On the other hand, to turn the man loose on the mountain, perhaps to arouse his own people, that was worse than folly. But to kill as a matter of expediency alone, that was an act Kincar could not commit.

Vorken stirred, uttering her warning, and a moment later they heard a musical whistle, unlike the shrilling of the mord. Kincar answered eagerly with the rest of the bar. The figure who tramped through drifted snow to join them did not come with Kincar's light hunter's tread. And at the sight of the silver clothing the manikin froze as a suard youngling might freeze under the shadow of a mord's wings-seeing raw death above it with no possible escape.

Lord Bardon, leading one of the pack larngs, came to a halt, the animal's head bobbing over his shoulder, the luck of the rest of the hunting party to be read in the small bundle lashed to its back. He surveyed the scene with open surprise.

"What have we here, Kincar?"

"A thief of another hunter's kill!" snapped the other. "Also a teller of tales. What else he may be, I have no knowl-edge."

The manikin's face was twisted with hate, whitened with something deeper than fear, a dull despair. But he made no answer, though his glance swung from the Star Lord to Kincar as if the last sight he expected to wonder over was such a friendly relationship between the two.

"Who are you?" Lord Bardon came directly to the point, and then added-as if to himself-"and what are you, my small friend?"

But the manikin remained stubbornly silent. There was about him now the air of one about to be put to some torture, determined to endure to the end that he might not betray a weighty secret.

"He has a tongue." Kincar's exasperation broke out. "He was free enough with it before your coming, Lord-with all his talk of 'G.o.ds' and 'slaves'! But what he is or- where he springs from I do not know. Vorken brought down a suard- a second, fleeing, I killed with the silent death. While I butchered Vorken's kill, he was busy here. And so I discovered him thieving-"

For the first time since Lord Bardon had appeared on the scene the manikin spoke.

"Aye, and but for that mord of yours, you'd have been meat, too, lowland dirt!"

"Perhaps so." Kincar gave credit where it was due. "He is a warrior, Lord, overturning me with some trick of fighting when I closed with him. But Vorken came, and I was free to use this-a threat he appeared to understand"-he held out the death tube-"though how that can be is a mystery-" Lord Bardon's eyes were like light metal, cold, with a deadly l.u.s.ter in his dark face. "So he recognized a ray blaster. Now that is most interesting. I think it is important that he comes with us for a quiet talk together-"

The manikin had drawn his feet under him. Now he exploded for the nearest cover with the speed of a spear throw. Only this time Kincar was prepared. He crashed against the captive, bringing them both to the frozen ground with the force of that tackle. And when he levered himself up, the other lay so quiet that Kincar was for an instant or so very much afraid.

But the prisoner was only stunned, the rough handling leaving him tractable enough to be stowed away on the larng along with the meat. So enc.u.mbered they started back to the hold, making only one short side trip to look at the steam stream Kincar had chanced upon. Lord Bardon examined the carved chip and then looked to the trussed captive on the larng.

"Perhaps our friend here can tell us more concerning this. He is well clad, at home in these ranges, yet we have seen no other steading or hold. If they dwell within instead of without the mountains, that would explain it. But he is a breed new to me. How say you, Kincar; is he a dwarf of Gorthian breed?"

"I do not know, Lord. He seems not to be in any way misshapen, but rather as if it is natural with his kind to be of that size-just as I do not equal you in inches. There is in my mind one thing-the old song of Garthal s'Dar-" He began the chant of a native song-smith: "In the morning light went Garthal Sword in hand, his cloak about his arm. A white shield for his arm, And he raised his blade against the inner men, Forcing their chieftain into battle, Forcing them to give him -freedom of their ways, That he might come upon his blood enemy And cross metal with him Who had raised the scornful laughter In the Hold of Grum at the Midyear feasting-"

"The inner men," he repeated. "They were long and long ago-if they ever lived at all-for many of the old songs, Lord, are born from the minds of men and song-smiths and not out of deeds which really happened. But these 'inner men' were of the mountains, and they were small of body but large of deed, a warrior race of power. Or so Garthal found them-"

"And there are other tales of 'inner men'?"

Kincar grinned. "Such tales as one tells a youngling who would have his own way against the wisdom of his elders, warnings that should he not mend his ways the 'little men' will come in the dark hours and spirit him away to their hidden holds beneath the earth-from which no man ventures forth again,"

"Aye," mused the Star Lord, "But in such tales there lingers a spark of truth at times. Perhaps the 'inner men,' who have vanished from the Gorth we knew, are not gone from here, and we have laid hands upon one. At any rate he will supply us with much which we should know for our own safety."

"I do not think this one will talk merely because we bid him."

"He shall tell us all he knows, which is of interest to us."

Kincar measured the greater bulk of the Star Lord. In his brown hands the manikin would be a girl child's puppet to be sure. Yet the half-blood shrank from the grim picture his imagination produced. To slay a man cleanly in battle was one thing. To mishandle a helpless captive was something far different-a thing he did not want to consider. But again it was as if the Star Lord had the trick of reading minds, for the other looked down at him with a hint of smile in his eyes, though there was no softening of the straight line of lip and jaw.

"We do not tear secrets from men with fire and knife, youngling-or follow outlaw tricks for the loosening of tongues!"

Kincar flushed. "Forgive, Lord, the ways of your people are as yet strange to me. I was reared in a hold of the mountains, not in Terranna. What do I know of Star Lord life?"

"True enough. But not 'your people,' Kincar, but 'my people.' We are one in this as in all else, boy. You have an inheritance from us as well as from Styr-always remember that. Now let us bring this song-smith's hero into Dillan and the Lady Asgar and see what they can make of him to our future profit."

STAR LORD ways for extracting information from unwilling captives were indeed strange to Kincar, for questions were not asked at all. Instead their prisoner was given a seat before one of the heat boxes in the great hall of the old hold and left to meditate, though there were always those who watched him without appearing to do so.

After the first few minutes of lowering suspicion, the captive watched them openly in return, and his complete mystification was plain to read on his face. Something in their ways or bearing was too odd for him to comprehend. He stared wide-eyed at Lord Jon who was patiently teaching his half-Gorthian son the finer points of sword play before a fond and proud audience of the boy's mother and sister. They were both busy with their needles at the mending of under-tunics-while the younger brother watched with envious attention of one ready and willing to change places with the other boy at any moment.

And when the Lady Asgar came up behind Kincar and put a hand on his shoulder to gain his notice, the prisoner, seeing that friendly gesture, shrank in upon himself as if fearing some terrible outburst in return.

"This is a new thing you have found for us, younger brother," she said. "Dillan is coming, though he is loathe to leave his calculations. So this is one you think might be straight out of the saga of Garthal the Two-sworded?"

"It is in my mind, Lady, that he is close to the song-smiths' recording of the 'inner men.'"

Vorken fluttered down from her chosen perch high in the roof to claw beseechingly at the Lady's cloak. Asgar laughed at the mord. "Now then, Vorken, would you have me in tatters because of your impatience? Being of the female kind yourself, you should know better than to tear clothing that can not easily be replaced. Ha-up with you then, if that is how it must be." She stooped, and the mord sprang to her arm, climbing to her shoulder where she rubbed her head caressingly against the Lady's and chirruped in her ear.

"You have done very well this day, Vorken," Asgar continued as if the mord could understand every word she said. "More than your part. Now be patient, winged one, we have other business to hand."

But when she came to stand directly before the prisoner, the manikin crouched low, drawing in upon himself as if he would turn his body into a ball under the blows of a punishing lash. Nor would he lift his head to see eye to eye with the lady. His whole position suggested one awaiting death- and no easy pa.s.sing at that. And it was in such contrast to the spirit with which he had faced Kincar that the latter was puzzled.

"So-what have we here?" Lord Dillan came to them, giving Kincar an approving pat upon the back as he pa.s.sed. "This is your meat thief, boy?"

"He is more," remarked the Lady. "But there is a second mystery here. Why are we so fearsome to hrhi?"

"Aye." Lord Dillan reached down and, with a hand gentle enough but with a force that could not be denied, brought up the manikin's head so that he could see his face. The captive's eyes were squeezed shut. "Look upon us, stranger. We are not your enemies-unless you wish it so-"

That must have p.r.i.c.ked like a sword point upon a raw wound. The eyes snapped open, but none of them were prepared for the black hate mirrored in their depths.