I waved Simmle on—
"Find him, girl." I gave her the order which sent her racing ahead, and I followed, bewildered, shaken wondering what had changed in that short time when I had sought my own sorrow and forgotten about the purpose which had brought me here.
KRIP VORLUND
XI
I lay on the earth and around me the smell of it, of the things that grew, roots set deep in its substance, and of the life that walked it, burrowed through it, was thick, teasing, testing. How far was I now from the Valley, how long the road I skulked along, I did not know as I lay and licked sore paws. I was now more Jorth than Krip Vorlund.
Man? Was there any longer a man who had once been Krip Vorlund? The priests of Umphra reported no party out of Oskold's territory with the husk of a man. Why, then, had I been brought to the Valley? What purpose had I been meant to serve for Maelen's desire, not mine? When I heard the priests talk among themselves suspicion had leaped into life, and I thought with new understanding of my interview with Orkamor in the garden of peace.
We talked of worlds beyond, but always he wanted to know of the men who sought out such worlds, of what made them become star rovers. And it seemed to me that he had been trying to learn what manner of man would become a barsk to save his life—as if, by such a chance, I had taken a step from which there might be no return, and if I would accept such a fate for all time.
When Maelen spoke of the exchange, there had been a kind of logic to it. She knew the dangers, ah, how well she knew them. For the priests I had overheard not only spoke of my missing body, but also discussed Maelen and what brought her to the Valley, not once but again and again. There had been another who had run in a beast's body, at her bidding perhaps. And there had been no return exchange. So the man's body husk now dwelt in the Valley, and of the beast they did not speak. Or was that unfortunate one caged among her little people?
That perfectly trained company—were they all, or most, once men and women, not animals? Was that how the Thassa recruited their beast shows? Perhaps the name they had given to their performers—"little people"—was entirely apt.
She had long wanted to add a barsk to the company, she admitted that. And I had walked into her trap with the naivete of a trusting child. Or had she brought to bear on me some of her power when my mind had been bewildered? What mattered now was not what had happened and could not be changed, but what might still be done. My body—my man's body—where was it? If it still lived at all– And to find out I must search Oskold's land. What I would do if I found it, I had no idea. But for the present the burning need to find it possessed me utterly, past logical reasoning. Perhaps I was no longer quite sane—
Hunger and thirst were dim urges stirring now. I scented man, the odors of a farm holding. And, wincing as I rose on my sore pads, I slipped through the underbrush. How much of the beast served me, I did not know. Man's knowledge might be an awkward leash upon my hunting skill. In dim twilight, as I stole from shadow to shadow along a wall of loosely piled stone, I was drawn by the messages my nostrils caught and classified.
Meat—saliva dripped from my tongue, my belly growled its emptiness—the scent of meat.
I crouched between two bushes, peering underneath them to an open farmyard. A kas stood stamping heavy hoofs. There were also four of those domesticated animals—forsphi—whose long-fleeced coats provided the raw material for the weaving of a highly weather-resistant cloth. They appeared uneasy, turning their long necks, bending their heads at queer angles, to survey the wall near which I crouched. And one of them voiced deep, coughing grunts of alarm. Just as I scented them, so must they also have picked up my presence.
But what I sought was not one of those, half again as large as I. A fowl picked an erratic path much closer to my hiding place. It was a long-legged creature with a sharply pointed bill which it repeatedly stabbed into the ground. I tensed as it neared. Unlike the animals, it appeared not to have any sense of danger. I burst from my bush and charged it. The bird whirled with a speed which I had not thought possible, and I felt a sharp and piercing pain above one of my eyes. Only a quick flinch saved me from another attack and I fled, blood blinding me on the left, aware that only happy chance had saved my sight.
The clamor of the animals rose as I ran back along the wall and into such cover as I could find. I ran a long distance before my sore paws and laboring lungs forced me to a halt.
Barsks were supposedly wily hunters. But I was not a barsk, I was Krip Vorlund.
I had one advantage not shared by my man body, the night did not blind me. The dark might be my day, which it probably was for a barsk. And before morning I fed, ravenously, certainly not daintily, on a reptilian creature I pawed out from between two stones in a stream bed. Then I found a hollow between a fallen tree and a rock and slept, waking now and then to lick my paws and hope that they were not too raw to carry me onward.
It was better, I decided, to switch traveling by day when I might be sighted to night, which was the natural time for barsk prowling. So I dozed throughout the light hours and limped on when the moon was high.
The Three Rings about that lunar disk were very bright tonight. My barsk head went up and, before I could subdue the impulse, I bayed—my deep cry echoing oddly until it sounded, even to me, more than just that of a night runner saluting the sky rider. There was something in that splendid display which drew and held the eyes, and I could understand why those of Yiktor attributed psychic powers to the rare phenomenon.
Three-Ringed moon meant power—but there was only one power I wanted and that was to regain my own body. I returned to the stream and hunted again, with slightly better results, for this time I flushed a warm blooded animal I surprised drinking at a pool. As Jorth I feasted, thrusting man-memory away during that meal. Then I drank my fill and started across country in search of a road which might be my guide.
I came upon an east-west path running through the woods. For a wide space on either side of the thoroughfare underbrush and saplings had been cut back, leaving open space. I kept just within this cover going west.
Oskold's land did not appear to be thickly settled, at least not in this section. Before dawn I passed, giving it wide berth, another fort such as the one I had been imprisoned in. But this one had a settlement by it, though the houses, or rather huts, were very roughly built as though meant to be only temporary shelters.
It was an encampment, I thought, barracks for more men than the fort could house. Sentries walked beats on the eastern side, and there were several lines of riding kasi pegged out, not grazing free. I believed Oskold's forces were alerted, as if to repel some invasion. I passed too close to a kas, which snorted and then gave voice to a roar, making its comrades highly vocal in turn. Men shouted and lanterns flashed along the hut lines. I slipped away hurriedly.
If the outer limits of the domain were empty land, prairie uncut by the plow, the same was not true of the country into which the road now led me. And it had been wise to change from day travel to night. After leaving the camp, I skirted before dawn a village of some size, slinking through the fields which sustained it. Harvest had bared most of the land. But as I skulked by a farmhouse, I was startled by a sharp yapping and read in that the warning of a long-domesticated hound-hunter. Other animals took up the alarm until the village rang with their cries, and I saw once more lights on, heard a shout or two aimed at the wildly baying yard dwellers.
The reaction of the people of Yim-Sin and the words of Maelen had assured me that a barsk was a rare and dreaded creature. Suppose I was sighted, or some farmer turned loose hounds to hunt the strange disturber? To go on into thickly settled territory could be suicidal folly. I paced up and down within the thicket I had chosen for the day's layup. And I heard myself whining a little at my thoughts. But somewhere—somewhere in Oskold's land was the answer to the fate of my man body, and that I must know!