Wizards’ Worlds (51 page)

Craike contacted them subtly. They must not think
they were heading into an Esper trap! Plant a little hope, a faint suggestion that
there was a safe camping place ahead, that was all he could do at present. But so
he drew them on.

“No!” A ruthless order cut across his line of contact, striking at the delicate thread
with which he was playing the strangers in. But Craike stood firm. “Yes, yes, and
yes!”

He was on guard instantly. Takya, mistress of illusion as she had proved herself to
be, might act. But surprisingly she did not. The dugout came into view, carried more
by the current than the efforts of its crew. One lay full length in the bottom, while
the bow paddler had slumped forward. But the man in the stern was bringing them in.
And Craike strengthened his invisible, unheard invitation to urge him on.

B
UT
Takya had not yet begun to fight. As the dugout swung in toward the offering ledge
one of the Black Hoods’ guardsmen appeared there, his drawn sword taking fire from
the sun. The fugitive steersman faltered until the current drew his craft on. Craike
caught the full force of the stranger’s despair, all the keener for the hope of moments
before. The Esper irritation against Takya flared into anger.

He made the illusion reel back, hands clutching at his breast from which protruded
the shaft of an arrow. Craike had seen no bows here, but it was a weapon to suit this
world. And this should prove to Takya he meant what he had said.

The steersman was hidden as the dugout passed under the arch. There was a scrap of
beach, the same to which Craike had swum on his first coming. He urged the man to
that, beaming good will.

But the paddler was almost done, and neither of his companions could aid him. He drove
the crude craft to the
bank, and its bow grated on the rough gravel. Then he crawled over the bodies of the
other two and fell rather than jumped ashore, turning to pull up the canoe as best
he could.

Craike started down. But he might have known that Takya was not so easily defeated.
Though they maintained an alliance of sorts she accepted no order from him.

A brand was teleported from the tower fire, striking spear-wise in the dry brush along
the slope. Craike’s mouth set. He tried no more arguments. They had already tested
power against power, and he was willing to so battle again. But this was not the time.
However the fire was no illusion, and he could not fight it, crippled as he was. Or
could he?

It was not spreading too fast—though Takya might spur it by the forces at her command.
Now—there was just the spot! Craike steadied himself against a mound of fallen masonry
and swept out his staff, dislodging a boulder and a shower of gravel. He had guessed
right. The stone rolled to crush out the brand, and the gravel he continued to push
after it smothered the creeping flames.

Red tongues dashed spitefully high in a sheet of flame, and Craike laughed. THAT was
illusion. She was angry. He produced a giant pail in the air, tilted it forward, splashed
its contents into the heart of that conflagration. He felt the lash of her rage, standing
under it unmoved. So might she bring her own breed to heel, but she would learn he
was not of that ilk.

“Holla!” That call was no illusion, it begged help.

Craike picked a careful path downslope until he saw the dugout and the man who had
landed it. The Esper waved an invitation and at his summons the fugitive covered the
distance between them.

He was a big man of the same brawny race as those of Sampur, his braids of reddish
hair hanging well below his wide shoulders. There was the raw line of a half-healed
wound down the angle of his jaw, and his sunken eyes were very tired. For a moment
he stood downslope from Craike,
his hands on his hips, his head back, measuring the Esper with the shrewdness of a
canny officer who had long known how to judge and handle raw levies.

“I am Jorik of the Eagles’ Tower.” The statement was made with the same confidence
as the announcement of rank might have come from one of the petty lords. “Though,”
he shrugged, “the Eagles’ Tower stands no more with one stone upon the other. You
have a stout lair here—” he hesitated before he concluded, “friend.”

“I am Craike,” the Esper answered as simply, “and I am also one who has run from enemies.
This lair is an old one, though still useful.”

“Might the enemies from whom you run wear black hoods?” countered Jorik. “It seems
to me that things I have just seen here have the stink of that about them.”

“You are right. I am no friend to the Black Hoods.”

“But you have the power—”

“I have power,” Craike tried to make the distinction clear. “You are welcome, Jorik.
So all are welcome here who are no friends to Black Hoods.”

The big warrior shrugged. “We can no longer run. If the time has come to make a last
stand, this is as good a place as any. My men are done.” He glanced back at the two
in the dugout. “They are good men, but we were pressed when they caught us in the
upper pass. Once there were twenty hands of us,” he held up his fist and spread the
fingers wide for counting. “They drew us out of the tower with their sorcerers’ tricks,
and then put us to the hunt.”

“Why did they wish to make an end to you?”

Jorik laughed shortly. “They dislike those who will not fit into their neat patterns.
We are free mountain men, and no Black Hood helped us win the Eagles’ Tower; none
aided us to hunt. When we took our furs down to the valley they wanted to levy tribute.
But what spell of theirs trapped the beasts in our dead-falls, or brought them to
our spears? We pay not for what we have not bought. Neither would we have made war
on them. Only, when we spoke out and said
it so, there were others who were encouraged to do likewise, and the Black Hoods must
put an end to us before their rule was broken. So they did.”

“But they did not get all of you,” Craike pointed out. “Can you bring your men up
to the tower? I have been hurt and can not walk without support or I would lend you
a hand.”

“We will come.” Jorik returned to the dugout. Water was splashed vigorously into the
face of the man in the bow, arousing him to crawl ashore. Then the leader of the fugitives
swung the third man out of the craft and over his shoulder in a practiced carry.

When Craike had seen the unconscious man established on his own grass bed, he stirred
up the fire and set out food. While Jorik returned to the dugout to bring in their
gear.

Neither of the other men were of the same size as their leader. The one who lay limp,
his breath fluttering between his slack lips, was young hardly out of boyhood, his
thin frame showing bones rather than muscled flesh under the rags of clothing. The
other was short, dark-skinned, akin by race to Kaluf’s men, his jaw sprouting a curly
beard. He measured Craike with suspicious glances from beneath lowered red lids, turning
that study to the walls about him and the unknown reaches at the head of the stair.

Craike did not try mind touch. These men were rightly suspicious of Esper arts. But
he did attempt to reach Takya, only to meet that nothingness with which she cloaked
her actions. Craike was disturbed. Surely now that she was convinced he was determined
to give the harborage to the fugitives, she would oppose him. They had nothing to
fear from Jorik and his men, but rather would gain by joining forces.

Until his wounds were entirely healed he could not go far. And without weapons they
would have to rely solely upon Esper powers for defense. Having witnessed the efficiency
of the Hooded Ones’ attack, Craike doubted a
victory in any engagement to which those masters came fully prepared. He had managed
to upset their spells merely because they had not known of his existence. But the
next time he would have no such advantage.

On the other hand the tower could be defended by force of arms. With bows—Craike savored
the idea of archers giving a Hooded force a devastating surprise. The traders had
had no such arm, as sophisticated as they were. And he had seen none among the warriors
of Sampur. He’d have to ask Jorik if such were known.

In the meantime he sat among his guests, watching Jorik feed the semi-conscious boy
with soft fruit pulp and the other man wolf down dried meat. When the latter had done,
he hitched himself closer to the fire and jerked a thumb at his chest.

“Zackuth,” he identified himself.

“From Larud?” Craike named the only city of Kaluf’s people he could remember.

The dark man’s momentary surprise had no element of suspicion. “What do you know of
the Children of Noe, stranger?”

“I journeyed the plains with one called Kaluf, a Master Trader of Larud.”

“A fat man who laughs much and wears a falcon plume in his cap?”

“Not so,” Craike allowed a measure of chill to ice his reply. “The Kaluf who led this
caravan was a lean man who knew the edge of a good blade from its hilt. As for cap
ornaments—he had a red stone to the fore of his. Also he swore by the Eyes of the
Lady Lor.”

Zackuth gave a great bray of laughter. “You are no stream fish to be easily hooked,
are you, tower dweller? I am not of Larud, but I know Kaluf, and those who travel
in his company do not wear one badge one day and another the next. But, by the looks
of you, you have fared little better than we lately. Has Kaluf also fallen upon evil
luck?”

“I traveled safely with his caravan to the gates of
Sampur. How it fared with him thereafter I can not tell you.”

Jorik grinned and settled his patient back on the bed. “I believe you must have parted
company in haste, Lord Ka-rak?”

Craike answered that with the truth. “There were two who were horned. I followed them
to give what aid I could.”

Jorik scowled, and Zackuth spat into the fire.

“We were not horned; we have no power,” the latter remarked. “But they have other
tricks to play. So you came here?”

“I was clawed by a bear,” Craike supplied a meager portion of his adventures, “and
came here to lie up until I can heal me of that hurt.”

“This is a snug hole,” Jorik was appreciative. “But how got you such eating?” He popped
half a fruit into his mouth and licked his juicy fingers. “This is no wilderness feeding.”

“The tower is thought to be demon-haunted. Those taking passage down stream leave
tribute.”

Zackuth slapped his knee. “The Gods of the Waves are good to you, Lord Ka-rak, that
you should stumble into such fortune. There is more than one kind of demon for the
haunting towers. How say you, Lord Jorik?”

“That we have also come into luck at last, since Lord Ka-rak has made us free of this
hold. But perhaps you have some other thought in your head?” He spoke to the Esper.

Craike shrugged. “What the clouds decree shall fall as rain or snow,” he quoted a
saying of the caravan men.

It was close to sunset, and he was worried about Takya. He could not believe that
she had gone permanently. And yet, if she returned, what would happen? He had been
careful not to use Esper powers. Takya would have no such compunctions.

He could not analyze his feelings about her. She disturbed him, awoke emotions he
refused to face. There
was a certain way she had of looking sidewise—But her calm assumption of superiority
pricked beneath his surface armor. And the antagonism fretted against the feeling
which had drawn him after her from the gates of Sampur. Once again he sent out a quest-thought
and, to his surprise, was answered.

“They must go!”

“They are outlaws, even as we. One is ill, the others worn with long running. But
they stood against the Black Hoods. As such they have a claim on roof, fire and food
from us.”

“They are not as we!” Again arrogance. “Send them or I shall drive them. I have the
power—”

“Perhaps you have the power, but so do I!” He put all the assurance he could muster
into that. “I tell you, no better thing could happen then for us to give these men
aid. They are proven fighters—”

“Swords can not stand against the power!”

Craike smiled. His plans were beginning to move even as he carried on this voiceless
argument. “Not swords, no, Takya. But all fighting is not done with swords or spears.
Nor with the power either. Can a Black Hood think death to his enemy when he himself
is dead, killed from a distance, and not by mind power his fellows could trace and
be armored against.

He had caught her attention. She was acute enough to know that he was not playing
with words, that he knew of what he spoke. Quickly he built upon that spark of interest.
“Remember how your illusion guard died upon the offering rock when you would warn
off these men?”

“By a small spear.” She was contemptuous again.

“Not so.” He shaped a picture of an arrow and then of an archer releasing it from
the bow cord, of its speeding true across the river to strike deep into the throat
of an unsuspecting Black Hood.

“You have the secret of this weapon?”

“I do. And five such arms are better than two, is that not the truth?”

She yielded a fraction. “I will return. But they will not like that.”

“If you return, they will welcome you. These are no hunters of witch maidens—” he
began, only to be disconcerted by her obvious amusement. Somehow he had lost his short
advantage over her. Yet she did not break contact.

“Ka-rak, you are very foolish. No, these will not try to mate with me, not even if
I willed it so. As you will see. Does the eagle mate with the hunting cat? But they
will be slow to trust me, I think. However, your plan has possibilities, and we shall
see.”

T
AKYA
had been right about her reception by the fugitives. They knew her for what she was,
and only Craike’s acceptance of her kept them in the tower. That and the fact, which
Jorik did not try to disguise, that they could not hope to go much farther on their
own. But their fears were partly allayed when she took over the nursing of the sick
youngster, using on him the same healing power she had produced for Craike’s wound.
By the new day she was feeding him broth and demanding service from the others as
if they had been her liegemen from birth.