She did not speak again until we were within sight of the waiting women; then she turned to me. Her voice was low, and very sweet:
"Will you not tell me? Are we not equal, Dwayanu?"
"No," I answered, and left her to decide whether that was answer to the first question or both.
She mounted her horse, and we rode back through the forest.
I was thinking, thinking over what I had seen, and what it might mean, when I heard again the howling of the wolves. It was a steady, insistent howling. Summoning. The Witch–woman raised her head, listened, then spurred her horse forward. I shot my own after her. The white falcon fluttered, and beat up into the air, screeching.
We raced out of the forest and upon a flower–covered meadow. In the meadow stood a little man. The wolves surrounded him, weaving around and around one another in a witch–ring. The instant they caught sight of Lur, they ceased their cry—squatted on their haunches. Lur checked her horse and rode slowly toward them. I caught a glimpse of her face, and it was hard and fierce.
I looked at the little man. Little enough he was, hardly above one of my knees, yet perfectly formed. A little golden man with hair streaming down almost to his feet. One of the Rrrllya—I had studied the woven pictures of them on the tapestries, but this was the first living one I had seen—or was it? I had a vague idea that once I had been in closer contact with them than the tapestries.
The white falcon was circling round his head, darting down upon him, striking at him with claws and beak. The little man held an arm before his eyes, while the other was trying to beat the bird away. The Witch–woman sent a shrill call to the falcon. It flew to her, and the little man dropped his arms. His eyes fell upon me.
He cried out to me, held his arms out to me, like a child.
There was appeal in cry and gesture. Hope, too, and confidence. It was like a frightened child calling to one whom it knew and trusted. In his eyes I saw again the hope that I had watched die in the eyes of the Sacrifices. Well, I would not watch it die in the eyes of the little man!
I thrust my horse past Lur's, and lifted it over the barrier of the wolves. Leaning from the saddle, I caught the little man up in my arms. He clung to me, whispering in strange trilling sounds.
I looked back at Lur. She had halted her horse beyond the wolves.
She cried:
"Bring him to me!"
The little man clutched me tight, and broke into a rapid babble of the strange sounds. Quite evidently he had understood, and quite as evidently he was imploring me to do anything other than turn him over to the Witch–woman.
I laughed, and shook my head at her. I saw her eyes blaze with quick, uncontrollable fury. Let her rage! The little man should go safe! I put my heels to the horse and leaped the far ring of wolves. I saw not far away the gleam of the river, and turned my horse toward it.
The Witch–woman gave one wild, fierce cry. And then there was the whirr of wings around my head, and the buffeting of wings about my ears. I threw up a hand. I felt it strike the falcon, and I heard it shriek with rage and pain. The little man shrank closer to me.
A white body shot up and clung for a moment to the pommel of my saddle, green eyes glaring into mine, red mouth slavering. I took a quick glance back. The wolf pack was rushing down upon me, Lur at their heels. Again the wolf leaped. But by this time I had drawn my sword. I thrust it through the white wolf's throat. Another leaped, tearing a strip from my tunic. I held the little man high up in one arm and thrust again.
Now the river was close. And now I was on its bank. I lifted the little man in both hands and hurled him far out into the water.
I turned, both swords in hand, to meet the charge of the wolves.
I heard another cry from Lur. The wolves stopped in their rush, so suddenly that the foremost of them slid and rolled. I looked over the river. Far out on it was the head of the little man, long hair floating behind him, streaking for the opposite shore.
Lur rode up to me. Her face was white, and her eyes were hard as blue jewels. She said in a strangled voice:
"Why did you save him?"
I considered that, gravely. I said:
"Because not twice would I see hope die in the eyes of one who trusts me."
She watched me, steadily; and the white–hot anger did not abate.
"You have broken the wings of my falcon, Dwayanu."
"Which do you love best. Witch–woman—its wing or my eyes?"
"You have killed two of my wolves."
"Two wolves—or my throat, Lur?"
She did not answer. She rode slowly back to her women. But I had seen tears in her eyes before she turned. They might have been of rage—or they might not. But it was the first time I had ever seen Lur weep.
With never a word to each other we rode back to Karak—she nursing the wounded falcon, I thinking over what I had seen on the cliffs of Sirk.
We did not stop at Karak. I had a longing for the quiet and beauty of the Lake of the Ghosts. I told Lur that. She assented indifferently, so we went straight on and came to it just as the twilight was thickening. With the women, we dined together in the great hall. Lur had shaken off her moodiness. If she still felt wrath toward me, she hid it well. We were merry and I drank much wine. The more I drank the clearer became my plan for the taking of Sirk. It was a good plan. After awhile, I went up with Lur to her tower and watched the waterfall and the beckoning mist wraiths, and the plan became clearer still.
Then my mind turned back to that matter of Khalk'ru. And I thought over that a long while. I looked up and found Lur's gaze intent upon me.
"What are you thinking, Dwayanu?"
"I am thinking that never again will I summon Khalk'ru."
She said, slowly, incredulously:
"You cannot mean that, Dwayanu!"
"I do mean it."
Her face whitened. She said:
"If Khalk'ru is not offered his Sacrifice, he will withdraw life from this land. It will become desert, as did the Mother–land when the Sacrifices were ended."
I said:
"Will it? That is what I have ceased to believe. Nor do I think you believe it, Lur. In the olden days there was land upon land which did not acknowledge Khalk'ru, whose people did not sacrifice to Khalk'ru—yet they were not desert. And I know, even though I do not know how I know, that there is land upon land to–day where Khalk'ru is not worshipped—yet life teems in them. Even here—the Rrrllya, the Little People, do not worship him. They hate him—or so you have told me—yet the land over Nanbu is no less fertile than here."
She said:
"That was the whisper that went through the Mother–land, long and long and long ago. It became louder—and the Mother–land became desert."
"There might have been other reasons than Khalk'ru's wrath for that, Lur."
"What were they?"
"I do not know," I said. "But you have never seen the sun and moon and stars. I have seen them. And a wise old man once told me that beyond sun and moon were other suns with other earths circling them, and upon them—life. The Spirit of the Void in which burn these suns should be too vast to shrink itself to such littleness as that which, in a little temple in this little comer of all earth, makes itself manifest to us."
She answered:
"Khalk'ru is! Khalk'ru is everywhere. He is in the tree that withers, the spring that dries. Every heart is open to him. He touches it—and there comes weariness of life, hatred of life, desire for eternal death. He touches earth and there is sterile sand where meadows grew; the flocks grow barren. Khalk'ru is."
I thought over that, and I thought it was true enough. But there was a flaw in her argument.
"Nor do I deny that, Lur," I answered. "The Enemy of Life is. But is what comes to the ritual of the ring—Khalk'ru?"