Part 22 (1/2)

”No, and the Rovers are believers in the balance of hurt against hurt,”

the Foanna conceded. ”Do they also believe in the balance of aid against aid? Now that is a thought upon which depends much. Gordoon, it would seem that we may not take to our s.h.i.+ps. So let us return to council.”

Ashe's hand was on Ross's arm guiding him through the murk. Though the fog which had choked the bay had vanished, thick darkness remained and Ross noted that even the fires and flares were dimmed and fewer. Then they were in a pa.s.sage where a very faint light clung to the walls.

Robed Foanna, three of them, moved ahead with that particular gliding progress. Then Ashe and Ross, and bringing up the rear, a dozen of the mailed guards. The pa.s.sageway became a ramp. Ross glanced at Ashe. Like the Foanna, the Terran Agent wore a cloak of gray, but his did not s.h.i.+ft color from time to time as did those of the Hawaikan enigmas. And now Gordon shoved back its folds, revealing supple body armor.

Questions gathered in Ross. He wanted to know--needed desperately to know--Ashe's standing with the Foanna. What had happened to raise Gordon from the status of captive in Zahur's hold to familiar companions.h.i.+p with the most dreaded race on this planet?

The ramp's head faced blank wall with a sharp-angled turn to the right of a narrower pa.s.sage. One of the Foanna made a slight sign to the guards, who turned with drilled precision to march off along the pa.s.sage. Now the other Foanna held out their wands.

What a moment earlier had been unbroken surface showed an opening. The change had been so instantaneous that Ross had not seen any movement at all.

Beyond that door they pa.s.sed from one world to another. Ross's senses, already acutely alert to his surroundings, could not supply him with any reason by sight, sound, or smell for his firm conviction that this hold was alien as neither the Wrecker castle nor the Rover s.h.i.+ps had been.

Surely the Foanna were not the same race, perhaps not even the same species as the other native Hawaikans.

Those robes which he had seen both silver gray and dark blue, now faded, pearled, thinned, until each of the three still gliding before him were opalescent columns without definite form.

Ashe's grasp fell on Ross's arm once more, and his whisper reached the younger man thinly. ”They are mistresses of illusion. Be prepared not to believe all that you see.”

Mistresses--Ross caught that first. Women, or at least female then.

Illusion, yes, already he was convinced that here his eyes could play tricks on him. He could hardly determine what was robe, what was wall, or if more than shades of shades swept before him.

Another blank wall, then an opening, and flowing through it to touch him such a wave of alienness that Ross felt he was buffeted by a storm wind.

Yet as he hesitated before it, reluctant in spite of Ashe's hold to go ahead, he also knew that this did not carry with it the cold hostility he had known while facing the Baldies. Alien--yes. Inimical to his kind--no.

”You are right, younger brother.”

Spoken those words--or forming in his mind?

Ross was in a place which was sheer wonder. Under his feet dark blue--the blue of a Terran sky at dusk--caught up in it twinkling points of light as if he strode, not equal with stars, but above them!

Walls--were there any walls here? Or s.h.i.+fting, swaying blue curtains on which silvery lines ran to form symbols and words which some bemused part of his brain almost understood, but not quite.

Constant motion, no quiet, until he came to a place where those swaying curtains were stilled, where he no longer strode above the sky but on soft surface, a mat of gray living sod where his steps released a spicy fragrance. And there he really saw the Foanna for the first time.

Where had their cloaks gone? Had they tossed them away during that walk or drift across this amazing room, or had the substance which had formed those coverings flowed away by itself? As Ross looked at the three in wonder he knew that he was seeing them as not even their servants and guards ever viewed them. And yet was he seeing them as they really were or as they wished him to see them?

”As we are, younger brother, as we are!” Again an answer which Ross was not sure was thought or speech.

In form they were humanoid, and they were undoubtedly women. The m.u.f.fling cloaks gone, they wore sleeveless garments of silver which were girded at the waist with belts of blue gems. Only in their hair and their eyes did they betray alien blood. For the hair which flowed and wove about them, cascading down shoulders, rippling about their arms, was silver, too, and it swirled, moved as if it had a separate life of its own. While their eyes.... Ross looked into those golden eyes and was lost for seconds until panic awoke in him, forcing him after sharp struggle to look away.

Laughter? No, he had not heard laughter. But a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt tinged with respect came to him.

”You are very right, Gordoon. This one is also of your kind. He is not witches' meat.” Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt.

”These are the Foanna,” Ashe's voice broke more of the spell. ”The Lady Ynlan, The Lady Yngram, the Lady Ynvalda.”

The Foanna--these three only?

She whom Ashe had named Ynlan, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in that gesture as well as in the words witches' meat the Terran read the unhappiness which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its mystery.