But the stars that gave light, Hresh knew, were not the only stars in the sky. There were the death-stars, too, those dark terrible things that had come crashing down upon the world to bring the Long Winter. They weren’t made of fire at all; they were spheres of ice and rock, so the chronicles said. Hresh hefted the pouch of the Barak Dayir. A piece of a death-star in here? He tried to imagine the furious trajectory of the plummeting star, the thunderous impact with Earth, the clouds of dust and smoke rising to blot out the light of the sun and bring the deadly cold. This? This little thing in his hand, a fragment of that monstrous calamity?
The chronicles also said that the distant stars of heaven had worlds in attendance on them, just as this world where the People dwelled was in attendance on its sun. Those other worlds had peoples of many kinds. Maybe, Hresh thought, the stone had been made on a world of one of those other stars. He touched it through the pouch and let some other world float into his mind, yellow sky, turbulent purple rivers, a red sun smoldering by day, six crystalline moons singing in the heavens by night.
Guesses. All guesses. He was stumbling about in the dark. There was information of all kinds in the chronicles but nothing that could help him with this.
He made the Five Signs. He called on Yissou, and then on Dawinno, who had always shown special favor to him. Then, slowly, fearfully, he took a deep breath and drew the Barak Dayir from its pouch, thinking that he might be taking his death into his hands. He was surprised at how calm he was.
If it killed him, well, then, it would kill him. A voice tolling like a gong in his head told him that he must do this all the same, that he owed it to his tribe and to himself finally to attempt the mysteries of this thing, whatever the risk.
The Barak Dayir was pleasing to look at, but not extraordinary. It was a piece of polished stone longer than it was broad, brown with purple mottlings, tapering to a point. Though it seemed so soft that it could be marred at a finger’s touch, it was in fact hard, terribly hard. Except that it was so ornamental, it could have been a small spearhead. There was a dizzying network of intricately carved lines along its edges, forming a pattern so fine that it was all but impossible for him to make it out, keen as his vision was.
He held it in his left hand for a while, then in his right. It was warm, but not unpleasantly so. There was something almost benign about it. At least it did not appear to be planning to kill him. His fear of it diminished moment by moment, yet he continued to regard it with respect.
What did you do with it? How did you make it obey you?
He put it to his ear, thinking perhaps to hear a voice within it, but there was no sound. He pressed it between both his hands, to no avail, and held it firmly against his breast. He spoke to it, telling it his name and declaring that he was the successor to Thaggoran as chronicler. None of this produced any response. Then at last Hresh did the most obvious thing, the one thing he had held back from doing, and curled his sensing-organ about it and applied his second sight.
This time he heard distant music, strange, unearthly, not from the stone itself but from all about him. The music entered his soul and filled it to its depths, engulfing him, intoxicating him. He felt a hot prickling at the root of his tongue and his fur grew light, floating outward, spreading about him like mist. The sensations were so intense that they were frightening. Hastily Hresh released the Wonderstone and the music stopped. Putting his sensing-organ to it again brought the music back. But once more a moment was all he could stand. Again he broke the contact. All those tales of the power of the Barak Dayir had not been lies. The thing had great strength and magic to it.
Hresh took a deep breath. He felt drained and close to collapse. But he had taken the first step on an immense journey he knew not where. Gratefully he put the Wonderstone back in its pouch. He would continue these researches at another time. But at least he had made a beginning. A beginning, at last.
In a troubled dream Harruel saw himself grasping the towers of Vengiboneeza in his hands and tearing them out by their roots, and smashing them one against another like dry sticks, and hurling their fragments contemptuously aside.
In his dream Koshmar appeared and stood before him, defying him to overthrow her. He ripped a vast stone tower loose and wielded it as a club, swinging it high over Koshmar’s head and smashing it down. She jumped deftly aside. He roared and swung the tower again. And again. And pursued her through the streets of the city, until he had her trapped between two broad black-walled buildings. Calmly she awaited him there, unafraid, a mocking smile on her face.
Bellowing in fury, Harruel grasped the tower under his arm now as though it were a spear. And began to thrust it at the chieftain; but as he started toward her he was seized about the throat and held in check. The tower fell from his hands, crashing to the ground. Who dared to interfere with him this way? Torlyri? Yes. The offering-woman held him with astonishing force, so that he felt his soul being squeezed upward and outward from his chest. Desperately Harruel struggled, and slowly he began to break her grip, but as they fought she shifted shape and became his mate, Minbain, and then that strange boy Hresh who was such a mystery to him, and then a roaring, snarling sapphire-eyes, huge and green and loathsome with blazing blue eyes and a great snapping mouth glistening with many rows of evil teeth.
“Become anything you want!” Harruel shouted. “I’ll kill you anyway!”
He seized the long jaws of the sapphire-eyes and strived to wrench them apart with one hand and hold them apart, while reaching for a tower with the other, so that he might wedge it between and prop the terrible mouth of the creature open. It struck back with fierce raking blows of its clawed hands, but he paid no heed, he forced the jaws to part, he pushed the great head backward—
“Harruel!” it cried. “Please, stop, Harruel — Harruel—”
Its voice was strangely soft, almost a whimper. It was a voice he knew. A woman’s voice, a voice much like that of Minbain, his mate—
“Harruel — no—”
He came swimming up toward consciousness, which lay like a stone pavement above him. When he broke through he found himself close by the side of the room where he and Minbain slept. Minbain was crushed up against the wall, struggling to push him away. His arms were wrapped about her in a frenzied grip and his head was jammed down into the hollow between her shoulder and her throat.
“Yissou!” he muttered, and released her, and rolled away. The dank biting stink of his own curdled sweat filled the room, sickening him. The upper muscles of his arms were jerking and popping as though they were trying to break free of his body and there was a ridge of flame running along his shoulders and neck. He wiped shining flecks of saliva from the coarse fur of his jaws. Great racking shivers ran through his body.
She said into the silence in an uncertain voice, “Harruel?”
“A dream,” he said thickly. “My soul was gone from me, and I was in strange realms. Did I hurt you?”
“You frightened me,” Minbain said. Her eyes, dark and solemn, stared into his. “You were like something wild — you made awful sounds, choking, gagging, and you thrashed around — and then you caught hold of me, and I thought — I thought you would—”
“I would not injure you.”
“I was frightened. You were so strange.”
“It frightens me also.” He shook his head. “Have I ever done such a thing before, Minbain? This wildness, this fury?”
“Not like this. Dark dreams, yes. Stirrings, groanings, moanings, words in your sleep, curses, even sometimes slapping your hands against the floor as if you were trying to kill creatures moving around beside you. But this time — I was so frightened, Harruel! It was as if a demon had entered you.”
“Indeed a demon has entered me,” he said bleakly. He rose and went to the window. The night seemed less than half spent. A heavy darkness lay like a smothering veil over everything. The hideous scarred face of the moon blazed icily high overhead, and behind it, hanging in thick swirling bands at the zenith of the sky, were the stars, those dazzling malign white fires that gave no warmth. “I’m going outside, Minbain.”