"That was glamorie."
The three of them raised their heads to stare at Farree. Maelen and Vorlund wore expressions of no comprehension but Zoror's eyes glowed.
"Ah, glamorie," he repeated.
"Do not ask me questions!" Farree threw at him. His hands again bracketed his aching head. "I do not know where I find these words, or why—"
"It is no question," Zoror continued. "Rather this is a part of the old legend of the 'Little Men.' In many tales and fragments of tales, which have been gathered from the planets where the old Terran breed settled, there are such small scraps to be harvested. One of the stories which is told over and over again consists of two main elements. First, that the People of the Hills (and you were very right, younger brother, in giving them that name) had a different reckoning of time. To be in their presence for perhaps a night took a mortal man or woman away for a year from the life they knew, to stay under the hills for a year meant several centuries passing for the captive or guest from the outer world.
"The other strange gift they had was that of glamorie, of allowing those of the upper and outer world to be deceived easily, thinking they saw something very different from what was real. One of the People might pay for service in coins of gold, the one paid only to discover in his pocket not long after dried leaves or a twist of grass. The People could produce a great dwelling worthy of a high noble and he who feasted there with them would wake in the morning to find himself in a ruined and deserted pen for the safe keeping of animals. Also it is said that if a human was by some chance able to see through these webs they spread he or she might be blasted sightless when this knowledge was betrayed."
"Then they were always avowed enemies of other races?" Vorlund wanted to know.
Zoror's horny fingers rasped along his lower jaw. He shifted his stand a little so he was facing directly north.
"They were, according to the old tales, ever changeable. Some that were not of their race they would aid freely, making common cause with them against danger. Others were for their sport and suffered from their careless cruelty—"
"In other words," Vorlund said as the Zacanthan's voice trailed away, "they were much like us after all—save they perhaps used weapons which we could not wield."
"True," admitted Zoror. "What they would do with us now—for that we must wait and see."
"See!" Maelen was not repeating Zoror's word, but rather summoning their attention.
It was well into early evening. The sun had been cut off so that only the fading of a deeply rose-blue swath across the sky marked it. However, there was other light in the cup valley. Points of glimmer touched the top of each of the mounds as a flame might spring from a candle. They differed in shade or color from one another—here there was a rose shading nearly into crimson, there was one which flared first blue and then green; beyond was yellow, scarlet, even a deep rich purple. Only that largest mound was different yet.
There the blossoming light was not a candle flame; rather it flowered into a circle, from the rim of which shot spears of gemlike brilliance. In color it was different also, being a frosty silver such as might appear on a winter snow bank when a full moon stretched across ice crystals. The points of each of those spears flashed also blue and green.
"A crown," Maelen said softly.
Farree bit hard upon his lower lip and fought for control. Just as that summons had taken him into the air and out over the unknown land, so now was another compulsion gathering within him. Without knowing what he did his hand stretched out—although the mound was far away from him in reach– his fingers crooked as if setting grip upon the crown. Then he shook his head as one who strove to drive away some inner fog, and his hand folded into a fist.
"Staver's Bane—" His voice was hardly above a whisper. "Take up that and the world is one's for the having!" Then he raised his voice in a shout which carried out over that display of jeweled flame. "I do not trouble you, Old One! I want no power from you! Sleep again, Havermut—your time has not come!" He was shivering, one hand clinging to Togger who somehow provided an anchorage in a place of whirling strengths rising to battle one another.
He leaned over the rail of the ramp, and then there came from his twisted mouth those ugly obscenities which had studded the language of the Limits. Farree cursed the crown of light, those night candles about it, and fear fought anger in that cursing.
As if his words, expanding outward, possessed some visible power in themselves, the flames flickered. But that which he had hailed as Staver's Bane swelled larger and larger, embracing more and more of the hillock on which it was the crest, the silvery radiance of it slipping farther and farther down the rounded sides of the rise. No longer did it resemble a crown—rather it was a wheel which began to spin, so that the lights of its spear points became circles undistinguishable one from the other.
Farree, hoarse from shouting, caught at the rail of the ramp. He had only to– No! another part of him shouted in his brain, drowning out the first—it was truly a bane to him who would lay hand upon it. For this was no crown of the blue moon, it was rather a trick, a trap, bait to catch the foolish! Of that much he was sure.
The circle now had reached the ground level, forming a wall about the mound. There was a haze arising from it—
Farree shuddered. With one hand still upon Togger to anchor him safely to the here and now, he fumbled with the other in the air, jerking fingers back and forth as if he were able to so erase what he saw. ,
High above the wall of the cup from where night had gathered with racing speed, there came a shaft of light like the force of a laser beam. It sped across the still gleaming candles and struck, full upon those who stood at the top of the ramp. Zoror cried out and slumped down. A rainbow of sparks shot from Maelen's fingers. Vorlund caught her as she stumbled back, and held her against his own body. In that moment the spacer appeared the strongest of them all. But Farree was held motionless, as if pinned within the space he occupied by that needle of light.
It came from the north, and, though he looked into the full glare of it, unable to turn either head or eyes away, he saw not the blasting of the light but behind and beyond. There was a balcony, set into a wall and on that stood others—he could see no faces, no bodies clearly, yet he knew them for what they were—these were the masters of this world and to them, all who came in ships were dreaded enemies.
Chapter Nine
A moan sounded. Farree rubbed smarting eyes and turned his head. Vorlund leaned against the wall of the door port to Farree's left, Maelen was limp and motionless in the spacer's arms. Her eyes were closed and yet she moaned again feebly and tried to raise one hand.
Zoror had reached that point of what might be temporary safety before them. He was sitting up, his head clasped between his two hands, his fanged mouth open as he panted, drawing in breaths as if he had been on the point of being strangled. Still, as Farree glanced outward once again, the light was there, yet stopped at the port through which they had come as if some tangible force had cut it off. Zoror pulled himself up on his knees. He was still breathing heavily, yet it would appear that his condition did not keep him from the quest for knowledge which was the ever-present employment laid on his species.