It was like a draught of water to soothe a dry mouth and throat: from that lightest of touches spread a cooling.
"I have never been here before," Farree answered in words, "yet I know!"
He felt Vorlund stir beside him, but it was Zoror who spoke: "Know what, little brother?"
"This country—or part of it!" Farree swung out his arms to indicate not only the valley but what lay beyond. Then he looked around to see Zoror still studying him. It was difficult to read expression on that scaled face so different from a humanoid's, but he thought that the Zacanthan's usual one of wide interest was now narrowed into a beam like the Darthor's fiery tongue, reaching out to him with the same force that flying creatures had used.
He closed his own eyes momentarily, in a hope to shut doors against the other's unspoken probe. Farree could not rid himself of the feeling that Zoror was willing an answer out of him.
"Where did you go, brother?" He had been too closely observant of the Zacanthan to note that Maelen was now also here. Her fingers pointed to Farree himself.
"Up," he answered dully, gesturing towards the gem-banded cliffs. Too much had happened to him. He wanted a time of quiet, or the ability to shut out the lingering tumult in his mind. "There is a large, very large valley over there." Now he gestured westward. "Animals—I think they are animals. Something like a road worn by heavy wagons—then"—he lifted both hands in a hopeless gesture—"there was the fog—the wall—"
He strove to make plain the nature of that barrier but he had hardly finished when it was Zoror's time to question.
"Why did you so leave us, little brother?"
Farree answered with the truth. "There was a call. I had to answer."
"And—" prompted Zoror.
"With the wall it was ended—that call."
"Ended so that this Darthor might take its place? Perhaps," suggested Vorlund, "you did not answer quick enough. The impulse to incite you was not strong—"
"No!" Farree interrupted sharply. He moved a little so he was facing to the north, to that sky finger of a peak now completely hidden. "They are not the same!"
"What are they?" Maelen's voice was soft and low, and she did not strive to touch mind to mind. For that Farree was deeply thankful.
"There is—" He looked down at his hands and then was aware of a sharp tug at his boot. The ill-bane grew in a thick mat but it was trampled here and Togger was easily seen. He stooped and caught up the smux, holding him tightly. In all this maze of wounded memories Togger remained real, alive, and an anchor Farree could cling to.
He cradled the smux, taking pleasure in feeling the creature's body pressed close to his own. "It comes only in bits. It hurts to think," he said slowly. "But I believe that there are two forces here which do not work together.
Fragon—and do not ask me to tell who or what that name is given to—controls the haze—and has spies along the land. The Darthor projects visions of what happens on the ground by cruising along the haze. I think"—he was frowning and the smux wriggled a little as if he were now grasped too tightly for even his tough skin to take—"I think that there is something beyond the haze—that which or who summoned me. And that other is in great peril and needful of aid."
"Which this Fragon would not allow to be given?" Vorlund wanted to know.
Farree nodded. "Only I could not go through the haze– it was a wall. And perhaps another exists here—for the Darthor could not come to us. Two—two forces—" His voice trailed away.
Farree recognized the listening look Maelen wore. This was the Lady as she appeared when in contact with one of the animals or birds which were her lifelong other-being.
Zoror and Vorlund were quiet now, also watching the Moonsinger. Shadows were swinging closer as the sun descended, reaching easily the cliffs they could not climb. Her hands showed the beginning of a flush. Farree guessed that she was taxing to the utmost one of the few defenses her people had kept when they had destroyed a dangerous and contorted past to become wanderers on the earth of the planet they once had ruled.
She began to hum, and that faint sound throbbed also in him as her flush traveled over her skin and grew deeper.
Maelen opened her eyes. "There is something there. It does not yield to any search my people know. But it is aware—of us. It—" She did not complete what she would have said then but her hands no longer held straight. Rather they tilted towards the mound on which they stood.
Farree caught his breath even as he heard a whisper of hiss from Zoror. Then from beneath them as they stood—! It was as if something climbed with ponderous movement up towards them, its passage setting the earth to rock with warning.
Farree's hand swept out, knocked up Maelen's fingers. He knew that what might now be awake and stirring was no friend to such as disturbed its slumber.
He dared to shake Maelen hard, as if he could force her to throw off bonds of a compulsion. Then she spoke directly to Farree.
"What comes to my call?"
A source outside his consciousness supplied an answer and as he gave it, he was also entirely convinced of its truth.
"The Sixth Champion of Har-le-don. He who shall rise in the last days of the Far hosting, no longer oath bound to any lord, but shadowed by the binding—" He cried out then, and threw back his head to look up into the evening sky. There was no flutter of wings there, no heart-rousing song of battle to face.
"Come not the dark for our day is not yet dawning!" He knew the meaning of the words he cried aloud, but he did not speak in the common language of the trader tongue.
It was Zoror who moved first. A scaled arm wrapped about Maelen's shoulder and she was swept from the mound top while Vorlund leaped outward, putting a side distance between him and the hillock.
"Farree!" His voice and Zoror's rang together. However, it seemed to the one they had left behind that the herb growing so profusely there entangled his feet and would not free him. Still he sensed what stirred beneath the ground. With that came something else, a thrust—though weak—into his mind. Not painful this time, rather cold, diffused. What or who might have aimed that might be only a little aroused—not yet returned to—
Using all his strength Farree repelled, defended. His wings opened to bear him aloft, but not toward the ship where he had thought to go: rather as if he had received an order he could not disobey. Farree landed on the next of the mounds, then after only a breath or two of resting, he was aloft again. Once more gripped by compulsion he crossed the open space, flying from one mound to the next, some large and some small, until he came to the northern cliff wall. The hold on him was broken there. He turned and flew back to the ramp of the ship. When he touched down there he felt free, as he had not been since they had made landing. What had forced him to make that flight he could not have told. He clamped his wings down into folds and walked, for the first time suspicious of the pinions he wore, back into the ship, trailing after those who had already gone in that direction.
Nor did he wish to look over his shoulder, to see if the Great Mound showed any of the disturbance which was troubling it from below.
He found the others in the pilot's cabin, Zoror holding a reader, his large eyes fastened upon a screen smaller than the palm of his narrow hand.
"'People of the Hills.'" His voice was half hiss as it was always when he was excited. "That is the ancient name– People of the Hills. And their kingdoms, their places of refuge, were often said to lie under mounds!"