“What know you of flying men, you creeper in the dirt?”
But Arskane was smiling proudly, his battered face alight, his head high.
“We of my tribe are sprung from flying men who came to rest in the deserts of the south after a great battle had struck most of their machines from the air and blasted from the earth the field from which they had flown. That is our sign.” He touched almost lovingly the tip of the outstretched wing. “Around his neck now does Nath-al-sal, our High Chief, still wear such as that made of the Old One’s shining metal, as it came from the hand of his father, and his father’s father, and so back to the first and greatest of the flying men who came forth from the belly of the dead machine on the day they found refuge in our valley of the little river!”
As he talked the outrage faded from the Black Bobe’s face. He was a sadly puzzled man now.
“So does all knowledge come—in bits and patches,” he said slowly. “Come within.”
But it seemed to Fors that the law man of the Plains-people had lost much of his hosility. And he even held aside the door flap with his own hands as if they were in truth honored guests instead of prisoners, reprieved but for a space.
Once inside they stared about them with frank curiosity. A long table made of polished boards set on stakes pounded into the earth ran down the center and on it in orderly piles were things Fors recognized fiom his few visits to the Star House. A stone hollowed for the grinding and bruising of herbs used in medicines, its pestle lying across it, together with rows of boxes and jars—that was the healer’s property. And the dried bundles of twigs and leaves, hanging in ordered lines from the cord along the ridge pole, were his also.
But the books of parchment with protecting covers of thin wood, the ink horn and the pens laid ready, those were the tools of the law man. The records of the tribe were in his keeping, all the customs and history. Each book bore the sign of a clan carved on its cover, each was the storehouse of information about that family.
Arskane stabbed a finger at a piece of smoothed hide held taut in a wooden stretcher.
“The wide river?”
“Yes. You know of it, too?” The law man pushed aside a pile of books and brought the hide under the hanging lantern where oil-soaked tow burned to give light.
“This part—that is as I have seen it with my own two eyes.” The southerner traced a curved line of blue paint which meandered across the sheet. “My tribe crossed right here. It took us four weeks to build the rafts. And two were swept away by the current so that we never saw those on them again. We lost twenty sheep in the flood as well. But here— my brother scouted north and he found another curve so—” Arskane corrected the line with his finger. “Also—when the mountains of our land poured out fire and shook the world around them the bitter sea waters came in here and here, and no more is it now land —only water—”
The law man frowned over his map. “So. Well, we have lived for ten tens of years along the great river and know this of its waters—many times it changes its bed and wanders to suit its will. There are the marks of the Old Ones’ work at many places along it, they must have tried to hold it to its course. But that mystery we have lost— along with so much else—”
“If you have ridden from the banks of the great river you have come far,” Fors observed. “What brought your tribe into these eastern lands?”
“Whatever takes the Plainspeople east or west? We have the wish to see new places born in us. North and south have we gone—from the edges of the great forests where the snows make a net to catch the feet of our horses and only the wild creatures may live fat in winter—to the swamp lands where scaled things hide in the rivers to pull down the unwary drinker—we have seen the land. Two seasons ago our High Chief died and his lance fell into the hand of Cantrul who has always been a seeker of far lands. So now do we walk new trails and open the world for the wonder of our children. Behold—”
He unhooked the lamp from its supporting cord and pulled Fors with him to the other end of the tent. There were maps, maps and pictures, pictures vivid enough to make the mountaineer gasp with wonder. They had in them the very magic with which the Old Ones had made their world live for one another.
“Here—this was made in the north—in winter when a man must walk with hide webs beneath his feet so that he sinks not into the snow to be swallowed as in quicksands. And here—look you—this is one of the forest people— they lay paint upon their faces and wear the hides of beasts upon their bodies but they walk in pride and say that they are a very ancient people who once owned all this land. And here and here—” He flipped over the framed parchment squares, the records of their travels set down in bright color.
“This—” Fors drew a deep breath— “this is greater treasure than the Star House holds. Could Jarl and the rest but look upon these!”
The law man ran his fingers along the smooth frame of the map he held.
“In all the tribe perhaps ten of our youth look upon these with any stir in their hearts or minds. The rest— they care nothing for the records, for making a map of the way our feet have gone that day. To eat and to war, to ride and hunt, to raise a son after them to do likewise—that is the desire of the tribe. But always—always there are a few who still strive to go back along the old roads, to try to find again what was lost in the days of disaster. Bits and pieces we discover, a thread here and a tattered scrap there, and we try to weave it whole.”
“If Marphy spoke now the full truth,” the harsher voice of the healer broke in, “he would say that it was because he was born a seeker of knowledge that all this”—he waved at the array—“came to be. He it was who started making these and he trains those of like mind to see and set down what they have seen. All this has been done since he became keeper of the records.”
The law man looked confused and then he smiled almost shyly. “Have I not said that it is in our blood to be ever hunting what lies beyond? In me it has taken this turn. In you, Fanyer, it also works so that you make your messes out of leaves and grass, and if you dared you would cut us open just to see what lies beneath our skins.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. Dearly would I like to know what lies beneath the skins of these two that they have crossed the Blow-Up land and yet show no signs of the burning sickness—”
“I thought,” retorted Arskane quickly, “that was the story you did not believe.”
Fanyer considered him through narrowed eyes, almost, Fors thought, as if he did have the southerner opened for examination.
“So—maybe I do not believe it. But if it is true, then this is the greatest wonder I have yet heard of. Tell me, how did this thing happen?”
Arskane laughed. “Very well, we shall tell our tale. And we swear that it is a true one. But half of the tale belongs to each of us and so we tell it together.”
And as the oil lamp sputtered overhead, guards and prisoners sat on the round cushions and talked and listened. When Fors spoke the last word. Marphy stretched and shook himself as if he had been swimming in deep water.
“That is the truth, I think,” he commented quietly. “And it is a brave story, fit to make a song for the singing about night fires.”
“Tell me,” Fanyer rounded abruptly upon Fors, “you who were lessoned for knowledge seeking, what was the thing which amazed you most in this journey of yours?”
Fors did not even have to consider his answer. “That the Beast Things are venturing forth from their dens into the open country. For, by all our observations, they have not done so before in the memory of men. And this may mean danger to come—”
Marphy looked to Fanyer and their eyes locked. Then the man of medical knowledge got to his feet and went purposefully out into the night. It was Arskane who broke the short silence with a question of his own.
“Recorder of the past, why did your young men hunt us down? Why do you march to war against my people? What has passed between our tribes that this is so?”
Marphy cleared his throat, almost as if he wished for time.
“Why? Why? Even the Old Ones never answered that. As you can see in the tumbled stones of their cities. Your people march north seeking a home, mine march east and south for the same reason. We are different in custom, in speech, in bearing. And man seems to fear this difference. Young blood is hot, there is a quarrel, a killing, from the spilled blood springs war. But chiefly the reason is this, I think. My people are rovers and they do not understand those who would build and root in one place within the borders of a land they call their own. Now we hear that a town is rising in the river bend one day’s journey to the south. And that town is being settled by men of your blood. So now the tribe is uneasy and a little afraid of what they do not know. There are many among them who say that we must stamp out what may be a threat to us in time to come—”
