He tried to expand his wings, centering in his mind his vivid memories of free flight. However, though he might have freed his body, he was not successful with his wings. They remained cramped, as tightly furled as bones and flesh would allow.
Still holding onto the table Farree surveyed the room carefully. The haze which he remembered had now vanished, although all the corners of the chamber were dark and shadowy. Walls were cloaked with stiff panels which bore both dim pictures and lines of runes. There was another chair and a smaller table by the far wall, and, beyond the large table, a piece of furniture which he also had seen in Zoror's rooms: This was a tall standing rack, each shelf divided into a number of small cubbies, many holding rolls which matched that one outspread upon the table. Zoror had very ancient rolls fashioned from the skins of beasts (from many worlds and scores of years) which he stored so. Farree had seen some of them—those the Zacanthan had consulted in his search for the People.
To his left there was one wall bare of any drapery and broken by a large window, now curtained, though that curtain stirred as if wind plucked at it. Here was a bench fitted into place. Farree drew away from the table, testing his ability to walk alone. He staggered, grasped again at the table, and then, taking steps with care, he made for that promise of an opening beyond. If there was a door to the room it was hidden somewhere behind those lengths of stiff folds.
He reached the bench, ever listening for any cry of alarm from the flutist. However, when he edged partly around to see, the creature had not stirred, though it was watching him. The sill of the window was high, again not suited to one of Farree's small stature. He pulled himself up on the bench and then got to his feet, one hand to the wall to steady himself while with the other he tugged at the curtain, dragging it a little aside.
There was darkness beyond, the gloom of night, perhaps even a storm-summoning one. In spite of the fact he could not see much or clearly, Farree believed that this room was well above the ground and that there was no way out. For upon the moving of the curtains he sighted a barrier which was a web of silvery metal patterned in the form of entwined vines, the leaves of which glimmered as if drawing some light from beyond.
He shook the web, or tried to, but none of the metal shifted, being too well rooted in the stone about it. Then he flinched back, nearly falling from his perch. For driving straight at the window was one of the flying lizards such as had escorted him back to the valley where his ship had finned in. It uttered a grating cry and swerved just as it appeared that it was going to hurl itself against the bars of the vine. At its full-lunged screech Farree hurriedly loosed his hold on the curtain and dropped back to the bench.
The fluttering notes of the flute sounded. But the creature had left its perch upon the footstool and was moving in a queer way which was not a walk but a skittering kind of dance.
It was not coming towards him but rather was headed toward the wall behind the chair. And before it quite reached that goal it shimmered, its outlines becoming unclear. Then it was gone. Farree rubbed his hand across his eyes and drew a deep breath.
Of course this might all be a dream, as his other venture among these people had been. Perhaps they had indeed taken over his mind and he saw only what they desired to show him. Had he fought that battle which had freed him from what he believed was a trance—or had they only allowed him to do so in order to test him in some way? Was he waking or asleep?
He hunkered down on the bench, leaning well forward to accommodate his furled wings. Could one dream such reality? He clipped a good pinch of skin on one wrist between his fingers and applied full pressure. Pain—
Still Farree huddled where he was and fear such as he had never known, even in the worst days in the Limits, stirred within him. Who was he? Was he here at all or had some other mind taken over, putting all this into his mind? Perhaps he was even back at the ship bodily—and here in another form, no matter how real this seemed!
Sliding down from the bench he once more approached that crowded table. Deliberately he leaned forward and cupped his hands about the clouded globe, which was nearest. He had to draw closer to the edge in order to hold it.
There was an answer to his touch. Within the globe there burst a fiery circle. Then the flames died. He was looking straight at Zoror, but companied with the Zacanthan was the Lady Maelen. Her eyes widened and Zoror blinked. Farree was sure that even as he viewed them they could also see him. Then the Zacanthan edged aside, and only Maelen stood there. She raised a hand and from each fingertip there flashed a light which darted straight toward Farree. The globe trembled in his hold and such a heat seared him that he had to jerk back. But the flames continued to coil about in the crystal globe, slipping along the inner surface as if that fire fought for a way to reach him.
Chapter Twelve
There was a burst of the flame within the globe, and all sight of Maelen was seared away. From somewhere sounded a piercing note, sharp and jarring, bearing no resemblance to the tinkling music of the flute; this was an alarm. The globe moved in Farree's hold, seeming almost to twist itself into freedom. It forced itself between his fingers and fell, not to the top of the table but to the floor beneath.
A thunderous sound followed. The ball had splintered at impact, shards flying. The light it had held vanished and the pieces on the floor turned a dull black as if a real fire had burned within it. Only for a moment or two they lay so, then crumbled, becoming a pile of dust. There puffed from those last remains a strong odor of burnt meat. Then that, too, was gone. Farree stood, his smarting hands to his mouth as he blew upon them, trying to abate the pain, though there was no sign of any burns on his flesh.
Suddenly there was more light, this time snapping into life in the clear crystal which had accompanied the murky one. This pulsed irregularly as once more sounded that piercing note. Farree dared not try to take the other one into his hands, but he leaned forward, staring into its flutter of light, striving with all his might somehow to summon again Maelen or the Zacanthan—to no avail.
However, the light began to take on form. He was again looking into eyes, but, though they were in a woman's face, they were not Maelen's. There was no age to her; she might have been young or old, for her skin was as fair as it was unmarked. What he could see of her hair was part of a dull brown braid which formed a crown above her wide brow. Her eyes were dark, so dark Farree could not have named their true color, while her lips were a brown-red, thin and tight at the corners. There was no brightness of welcome in her, only something of a faint expression which spoke of cold curiosity. Inwardly, Farree shivered. Even if he could not read her thoughts, there was a strangeness there. She was so alien he could not even think of a meeting mind to mind.
Still that was what followed, shaking him as if each word was a blow aimed at rocking him. Once more he saw only through a haze which clouded sight, and even cloaked his mind.
"You are not Langrone—" It was not a question but a statement. "Throstle?" That was a question but he had no time to answer it if indeed he could. Instead he felt as if he had been gathered up bodily and hurled through time and space in an instant.
Again he crouched in all his filth and rags against the wall in an alley of the Limits, suffering the hurt of Togger as the smux was disciplined by the master of that unsavory show of pitiful wild things beaten into submission. Once more Maelen and Vorlund came to him. Memory spun on—he was reliving in a series of flashes his life with those to whom compassion of the heart was abiding. He was in Yiktor seeking out some needful thing. There was Maelen about to fall from the mountain trail. His hand went forth once more, just as it had on that real moment in the past. He felt the split of that thick growth on his shoulders which had pressed him forward through all the time he could remember as one who went hump backed. He had a flashing moment of wonder once again, as that tightened, itching skin broke, releasing the wings he had never known he carried.