Part 3 (1/2)

Baya lifted her shoulders as though a breath of cold air had touched her. She shook her head.

”I spoke to him,” she said. ”I touched him. There was something about him. Strength, a terrible strength. He killed a Child of the Sea, remember?”

”You're being silly,” said the short one, and hopped up and down like a rabbit. ”Girl-silly. You saw his muscles, and you want him to be alive. You're sorry he didn't love you before he died.”

”Hold your tongue,” said Baya. ”Maybe he's dead, and maybe he isn't, and if he isn't, someone is hiding him. Stop whining and look around.”

”But we've already searched-”

The rubbishy one sighed. ”We'd better do as she says, I suppose. You know what a terrible temper she has.”

They wandered off, out of Stark's sight but not out of his hearing. Baya continued to stand where she was, frowning at the flickerings of firelight that shone from the vault. Then she sauntered over, her insolent body agleam in the light of the Three Ladies. Stark lost sight of her, too, since she was directly beneath him, but he could hear the vines rustle as she swept them aside.

”Master ...”

Yarrod's angry voice sounded from the vault. ”You have no business here. Get out.”

”But, Master, I'm only curious,” said Baya. ”I might even want to join a pod myself one day, when I'm tired of being a Farer. Tell me about them, Master. Is it true that they forget about everything, even love?”

The vines swished as she entered the vault and let them fall behind her.

The voices from within were now too m.u.f.fled for Stark to understand the words. In a very few minutes a squeal of pain came from Baya, and the vines thrashed wildly as she and Yarrod came through them. Yarrod had his hand wound cruelly in her hair, and he marched her, crying and struggling, away from the vault. He took her to the river bank and pushed her in.

”You've done enough mischief for one day,” he said. ”If you come near my pod again, I'll make you regret it.” And he spat, and added, ”Farer tras.h.!.+ I have no need of you.”

He left her and strode back to the vault. She stood in the shallow water of the ford and shook her fists at him, screaming.

”You live on the bounty of the Lords Protector just the same as we do! What makes you so much better, you-” She poured out obscenities, then choked on her own rage and ended up coughing.

There was a sudden delighted outcry from among the ruins where her two companions were poking around. She came up the bank.

”Have you found him?”

”We found love-weed! Love-weed!” The two Farers reappeared, waving handsful of something they had grubbed up, chewing greedily. The tall one held some out to Baya.

”Here. Forget the dead man. Let us love and enjoy.”

”No. I don't feel like loving now.” She turned away, toward the vault. ”I feel like hating. Pod-masters are supposed to be holy men. This one is too full of hate.”

”Perhaps it's because we threw stones,” said the short one, cramming his mouth full.

”Who cares?” said the tall one, and grabbed Baya by the shoulder. ”Eat this, and you'll feel like loving.” He pushed some of the weed by main force into Baya's mouth.

She spat it out. ”No! I must talk to Gelmar. I think there's something-”

”Later,” said the Farer. ”Later.” He laughed, and the short one laughed, and they shoved Baya back and forth between them. The struggle seemed to pleasure them, and hasten the action of the drug. Baya pulled the bodkin from her hair. She slashed the naked one once, not deeply, and they laughed some more and took the bodkin away from her. Then they worried her down to the ground and began beating her.

The roof of the vault was not high. Stark came down off it in one jump. The Farers neither heard nor saw him. They were far too busy, and Baya was screaming at the top of her lungs. Stark hit the tall one a chopping blow at the base of the skull and he fell, and the shorter one followed him without a groan, strewing the last of his flowers. Stark heaved the bodies aside. Baya looked up at him, her eyes wide and dazed. She said something, perhaps his name. He could not be sure. He found the nerve-center in the side of her neck and pressed it; she was quiet.

He saw that Yarrod had come out and was standing over him, looking like thunder.

”That was ill-done,” said Yarrod. ”You fool, who cares what happens to a Farer?”

”You're the fool,” said Stark. ”You gave yourself away. She was going to tell Gelmar that the pod-master was a fraud.” He lifted the girl smoothly to his shoulder and stood up.

”She saw you, I suppose.”

”I think so.”

”And these?”

The two men had begun to snore heavily. They smelled of a sweet-sour pungency. Their mouths were open and smiling.

”No,” said Stark. ”But they heard Baya. About you, I mean. They may remember.”

”All right,” said Yarrod, still angry. ”I suppose it makes no difference who's to blame. The only choice we have now is to run, and run fast.”

He looked across the river to the lights of Skeg and then went stamping back to the vault.

Within minutes they were on their way, through the sprawling ruins and into the jungle. The Three Ladies smiled serenely. The warm air was moist, heavy with the smells of night-flowering creepers, mud, and decay. Nameless things scuttled and clicked, bickering in tiny voices round their feet. Stark adjusted Baya's light weight more comfortably across his shoulders.

”The roads are closed to off-worlders,” he said. ”I suppose you've thought of that.”

”You don't imagine we came here by the road, do you?” Yarrod said. ”We got out of Irnan by pretending to be a hunting party. We left our mounts and all our proper gear at a place on the other side of the hills and walked in, by a jungle path.” He squinted at the sky. ”We can be there by tomorrow noon, if we kill ourselves.”

”There's a chance, isn't there,” said Stark, ”that Gelmar will think you've moved your people out because of the disturbance? And that Baya simply ran off? She stabbed one of her friends, you know, and her knife is still there.”

”Of course there's a chance. He can't be sure of anything, can he? He can't even be sure whether you're dead or alive. So if you were Gelmar, what would you do?”

”I'd send word along to be on watch, especially to Irnan.” And he cursed the name of Gerrith, wis.h.i.+ng that she had kept her mouth shut.

”She got her death by it,” said Yarrod curtly. ”That should be punishment enough.”

”It's my death that I'm like to get by it that worries me,” said Stark. ”If I'd known about the d.a.m.ned prophecy, I'd have laid my plans differently.”

”Well,” said Halk, smiling his fleeting smile at Stark, ”if it's a true prophecy, and you are a fated man, you have nothing to fear, have you?”

”The man who doesn't fear, doesn't live long. I fear everything.” He patted Baya's bare thigh. ”Even this.”

”In that, you're well-advised. You'd do best to kill it.”

”We'll see,” said Stark. ”No need to hurry.”

They moved on, following a little still green star that Yarrod called the Lamp of the North.

”If Gelmar does send word to Irnan, he'll do it in the usual manner, by messenger, by the roads. Barring accident, we should be well ahead.”