Part 2 (1/2)

'I am working my power to fuller perception,' the Shaker said. 'But there is something curious about these two.'

No one spoke, for it was only the Shaker's place to comment now at this penultimate moment of discovery.

It had begun to hail outside, and nut-sized b.a.l.l.s of ice pinged off the windows, rattled on the roof, like the feet of hundeds of dwarves performing some fairy dance.

'There seem to be precious few personality traits to grasp. I find the sheen of their conscious minds, but to penetrate them is difficult. And when I do delve within, there seems to be precious little there.'

The images on the silver plate remained indistinct. There were dark circles where eyes should have been, dark slits for mouths, dark holes for nostrils. There were whirls of dark hair, and a haze of mist filmed even this small vision.

'What is that?' Richter asked, pointing to fine lines that had begun to criss-cross the faces on the plate.

'Wires?' Gregor asked. 'Copper wires?' He looked at his master uncertainly, then returned his gaze to the faces.

By this time, both visions were woven through with a net of wires; here and there were small plastic squares that were transistors, but which no one in the study could identify.

The Shaker was straining now, bringing all his power to bear on the problem. But only the wires grew more distinct while the features of the two a.s.sa.s.sins remained unidentifiable. 'There does not seem! to be the mind! of! a man! in either! of those two! we see.'

'Not the mind of a man?' Belmondo asked, peering at the s.h.i.+mmering ghosts.

'Their minds are cold! unfeeling! but clever!'

'Demons you say?' Belmondo asked, his voice rising squeakily.

'Not demons, perhaps! but something! we cannot guess,' the Shaker said.

Then the silver plate flashed with a puff of incandescent gas, and the images were gone. There was only a silver plate, cut square and set flush in the round oak table, holding the reflections of their anxious faces.

Weary, Shaker Sandow pushed away from the table and slumped in his chair. Immediately, Mace went to the sideboard and poured him a stiff jolt of peach brandy brought it to him and placed it in his weathered, slim magician's hands. Sandow drank greedily of the liquor some color returned to his ashen complexion.

'You are reputed to be one of the most powerful Shakers in all of Darkland,' Richter said thoughtfully. 'And yet even you could not summon up the nature of our enemy. So we fight demons, not men. But how could the lands beyond the Cloud Range house demons for the Oragonians to make pacts with, when demons live in the bowels of the earth and not on the land itself?'

'The word 'demons' was the choice of your captain,' Sandow corrected. 'I have said that our killers are simply something different than men.'

'And what else does than mean but demons?'

'It could mean angels,' Sandow said.

'I would hardly think the beneficent sprites are responsible for the carnage we saw tonight'

'I was only offering an alternative,' Sandow said, 'as proof that there could also be a third.'

'What do you suggest?' the commander asked.

'I suggest nothing. I only report what information I obtain and leave the decision to you. It must be so, or I then become the commanding officer. And I do not want nor could I bear such responsibility.'

The room was quiet a long while before Richter said, 'We will leave tomorrow at dawn, as planned. If we went back to the Darklands, to the capital, days would be lost that we cannot afford. And the chances of more spies entering our ranks the next time would be no better for us.'

'Then perhaps we should get some sleep,' Sandow said. This night has given us very little rest with which to meet the mountain tomorrow.'

Slipping into their oiled leather coats, the two officers left the house, hurrying through the driving sheets of rain and the occasional stinging pellets of hail which still fell. The Shaker stood by the front door, watching them until they were out of sight down the cobbled slope.

'It will not be easy,' Gregor said. 'Not many will cross the Cloud Range.'

'Perhaps,' the master said. 'But the commander is more of a man than he even appears. He has that strength which negates the acceptance of defeat. There is a better chance with him than there would be with another officer.'

'Such as Belmondo,' Gregor said.

'I wonder at Richter's tolerance of that frightened youth,' the Shaker said. 'They are not like men.'

'Good G.o.ds!' Mace roared behind them. 'Must we stand here all night gossiping of soldiers. We've but two hours on the springs, if that!'

Gregor chuckled. 'Better make that an hour and a half Mace. If I know you, the activities of this night will drive you to devour twice your normal horse's breakfast.'

'I may just eat yours as well,' Mace said. 'And then without a morning's vittels in that skinny stomach of yours, you'll be blown right off your mount!'

'Enough, enough!' the Shaker said. 'Let's get our sleep while we can. The days to come might not provide much time for rest.'

6.

It was some seven miles across the small valley, even by the shortest route, to the foothills of the Cloud Range. Since horses could also be employed for the first three thousand feet of the ascent, where the land was rather gentle and worn through with many paths, Commander Richter had rented enough of the beasts for the party, along with several tenders to feed and water them and bring them back to Perdune when the Banibaleers should find the way too rugged to proceed in any manner but by foot.

With the village streets shrouded in drifting ma.s.ses of white mist, the expedition set out that autumn morning: seventy-six enlisted men, Sergeant Crowler, the commander and the captain, and Shaker Sandow and his two young a.s.sistants: eighty-two in all, if one did not count the four Perdune horse tenders accompanying them on the first leg of their long journey. The horses' hooves clacked hollowly on dewy street stones, and the sounds of men s.h.i.+fting in their saddles to find comfortable positions complemented this to break the otherwise grave-like silence of the town.

Within twenty minutes, they gained the banks of the icy Shatoga River and forded it without incident-though their mounts made great whinnying protests at the near-freezing temperature of those waters. On the other side, they struck south as well as inland, breaking from the thick stands of pines into the rock-strewn foothills, where the going became more difficult.

Some four hours after dawn, Commander Richter called a halt while the horses were watered and given a meal of grain and bruised apples. The Shaker dispatched Mace to speak with the commander and compare notes of observation on the morning's ride. Sandow had seen nothing suspicious, and he rather doubted the commander would have noticed anything that he did not. Even though the commander was certainly a clever man, the Shaker was far cleverer.

Gregor was set the task of checking the condition of the Shaker's magic devices to be certain they remained well-padded and strapped properly in place in the rucksacks their horses carried.

Sandow wandered back through the line of riders, noting with approval the businesslike dress that had replaced the foppish, colorful costumes of the previous day. Each man wore tough leather britches which were tucked and banded into rugged boots. They wore coa.r.s.e, long-sleeved s.h.i.+rts and soft but sufficiently warm neck scarfs. Each man owned an oiled leather artic coat which was folded into a bulky square and strapped over the gear-stuffed rucksack. All in all, they looked the efficient mountaineers they were reported to be.

'You're Shaker Sandow, aren't you?' a blond-haired, blue-eyed man asked, stepping around a horse's rump to intercept the Shaker. He was in his thirties somewhere, not nearly so slim and willowy as his fair skin and hair made him appear. There was a ruggedness beneath the clothes he wore, and a heartiness in those sky-chip eyes.

'That is so,' Sandow acknowledged. 'But I fear you have the advantage here.'

'Aye, and excuse me,' the man said. He grinned, and the pleasant smile which split his face seemed the prototype of the theatrical mask of the comic. His teeth were broad, very white. 'My name is Fremlin, and I am the master of the birds-the Squealers who will be our eyes in advance of our feet.'

'Squealer masters are always portrayed as dark and mysterious, intense men who actually commune with their charges.'

'I commune with them, beyond the verbal level,' Fremlin said. 'But the similarity ends there.'