Dr. Jones' peculiar yet subtly forceful hand again! "What price?"
"I will name it when the occasion arises."
Neq knew Tyl for an honest man. "Accepted."
"We travel north?"
"Yes." With Tyl along, they could manage. The search could resume. "Sol of All Weapons. The Weaponless. Var the Stick. A boy. All went north, none returned. Find one of these, and we may learn why Helicon failed. Var might have learned the truth from Soli, before he killed her; Sol might have gotten it from Bob of Helicon, before he killed him. The Weaponless... may have his notions, for he negotiated with Bob about the combat of champions. The boy--I don't know."
Tyl considered. "Yes. The secret lies between Bob and Soli. Too bad neither survived...." He trailed off, pondering something; but he did not amplify his thought.
Tyl had a gun, and was competent with it. Tyl had hands. Tyl had a way with strangers that Neq lacked. The trail reappeared.
And disappeared. They followed it to the northern ocean, where a forbidding tunnel went under, and there it stopped. "If they went in there," the natives opined, "they are gone forever. The machine-demon consumes intruders."
Tyl distrusted it for a more practical reason. "I saw strange things come from the tunnels as the mountain burned. Animals with tremendous eyes and mouths, that a sword would not stop. Rats with no eyes. Some of my men died after merely touching such creatures. Jim the Gun said they carried radiation kill-spirits; he heard them on his click-box. I would not enter such a place without an army, and then I would need good reason."
Neq agreed. He had seen strange corpses in the fringe passages beyond the burn-zone of Helicon, and many radiation markers, and at night he had heard the scamperings of things that could have been similar to those Tyl described. Had he not had strong motivation, he would never have completed the long chore of cleaning the underworld rooms and passages. It would be folly to brave this unfamiliar tunnel as anything but a last resort. Rumors of horror were often well-founded, these days.
So they quested north, along the coast--and the trail resumed! Two men, one grizzled and huge, the other pale and silent. No blotch-skinned sticker; no boy.
Then Tyl spied a nomad campsite. "See--they built a fire, here, and pitched some kind of tent here, with guides around it to lead off the water from rain. The locals don't do that; they stay in square houses."
"But this is recent. Five, six days, no more. It can not be our quarry."
"True. But what would nomads be doing here? We should question them."
"Question the locals. Some would have seen the nomads pass."
Tyl nodded thoughtfully. "Strange we have heard nothing of these before."
They questioned, the locals, and learned that two nomads, a man and a woman, had passed through, traveling south.
"South?" Neq demanded. "Where did they come from?"
The people only shrugged, not knowing or caring what the barbarians did or which direction they went.
Sol and the Weaponless had gone north; these others were from the north. Their trails might have crossed.
They made a rapid excursion south again, tracing the strangers, following a course that skirted dangerously close to posted radiation zones. A large, gruff man and a rather pretty woman who kept to themselves and made swift progress. Tyl would question native villagers--a village was a kind of stationary tribe, unique to this locale--while Neq scouted the countryside for further traces.
Neq looked up one such afternoon to discover a grotesque man watching him. Huge and shaggy, hunched-backed, with grossly gnarled hands curled about home-made singlesticks, and mottled skin showing under his heavy winter coverings--the man was more like a badlands beast that a nomad. But nomad he was, and he had already assumed a stance of combat. His long arms and heavy chest suggested enormous power; he would be savage with those sticks!
Mottled skin....
"Var the Stick!" Neq cried, amazed.
The other spoke, but it sounded more like a growl. By concentrating, Neq made out the gist. "You followed me for days. Now give cause why I should not drive you off."
Neq unveiled his sword. "Cause enough here. But first you must answer my questions, for I have sought you long."
"A changeling!" Var rasped, seeing Neq's arms. "Do you know the circle?"
Neq was surprised. "You speak of the circle? You, slayer of children?"
"Never!" Var roared, coming at him. There was something wrong about his legs; though he wore boots, he did not walk like a man. A true beast in nomad outfit... it was no longer a mystery why he had killed the young girl Soli. He had probably eaten her.
Var struck at him and Neq parried, smiling grimly. He had no fear of hand-hewn weapons, and a clumsy charge was the simplest to terminate. But first he needed information.
Var was more artful than his appearance suggested. As Neq dodged aside, so did he, so that they met squarely. One stick shot toward Neq's face while the other blocked his sword. Var had met many a blade before!
So much the better. Neq's pincers also blocked defensively while his sword whistled. He struck first at the other's weapon, seeking to cut a stick in half. He preferred to disarm this monster gradually, lingeringly, not hurting him much... until after the truth was known.
"Before I down you," Var grunted, "tell me your name."
"Neq the Sword." This courtesy of identification was due even for a beast.
Var fought for a while, quite skillfully, pondering behind his overhanging brows. "I know of you," he grunted. But he showed no fear, only caution.
It was increasingly apparent that this was no warrior of the decadent post-empire ilk. Var's technique was unconventional, but he was years younger than Neq, and much larger, so that even with his considerable stoop he stood taller. He had quick brute power, and the crude-seeming sticks were more solid than they looked, blocking sword-thrusts with considerable authority. The wood tended to catch the blade, holding it instead of bouncing it back, and that was dangerous indeed. The two sticks beat a tattoo on both his metal arms, their violent force bearing him back. Had his sword not been part of him, Neq could have been disarmed early, and certainly he was giving way before the onslaught.
Yet there was a certain eloquence about Var's attack, ferocious as it was. His balance was excellent. Without pausing, the man kicked off his boots and exposed homy bare feet--and then his footing was not clumsy at all. He was astonishingly agile for his bulk, yet his motions were economical.
A master sticker, in fact. Neq had encountered only two empire stickers with power and finesse like this. One was Tyl--greater on the finesse, less on the power--and the other was Sol... whose whereabouts Var must know.
But the sticks were not like the sword, and Neq's sword was not like others. His wrist was invulnerable. Though he was not young himself, he knew of no man who could match him in fair circle combat today, other than Tyl. Var might hold him off for some time, but Var had to tire, to make mistakes, to overreach himself. The real strength of a sticker lay in his endurance under stress and his continuing judgment. There was where Neq had him: experience.
Neq fended off the blows and maneuvered for a clean opening himself. This was difficult, for Var danced about on his hooves and ducked his shaggy head sometimes almost to the ground--without ever exposing it.
"You are skilled, man of metal hands," Var muttered. "As befits a chief under the Master."
Neq eased his fencing, spying an opportunity to leam something. If Var were attempting to lull him by conversation, he would fail. "You are skilled too. I heard the Weaponless trained you himself."
"The Master is dead," Var said, relaxing his attack.