an anchored ship. But what he saw was very different. At first he thought of the illusions of Estcarp — could what lay below be projected from his own mind, some old memory brought to life for his bafflement? Then a closer inspection of that sharp, clean curve of metal told him that, while it bore some faint resemblance to craft he had known, this was as different from anything in his previous experience as the counterfeit hawk was from the real.
The thing was clearly a sea-going craft, though it had no sign of any superstructure, mast, or method of propulsion. Sharply pointed both fore and aft, it was shaped as might be a cross section, taken length-wise, of a torpedo. There was an opening on its flat upper surface and men stood by that, three of them. The outline of their heads against the silver sheen of the ship were those of the Falconer bird helms. But Simon was equally sure no true Falconers wore them.
Once again the eternal mystery of this land, for the traders’ ships at Sulcarkeep had been masted vessels of a nonmechanical civilization; this ship could be taken out of the future of his own world! How could two so widely differing levels of civilization exist side by side?
Were the Kolder responsible here also? Alien, alien — once more he was on the very verge of understanding — of guessing—
And for that instant he relaxed his vigilance. Only a stout helm plundered from Karsten stores saved his life. The blow which struck at him out of nowhere dazed Simon. He smelled wet feathers, something else — half blinded and dizzy he tried to rise — to be struck again. This time he saw the enemy wing out to sea. A falcon, but true or false? That question he carried with him into the black cloud which swallowed him up.
II
TRIBUTE TO GORM
The throbbing beat of a pain drum filled his skull, shaking on through his body. At first, Simon, returning reluctantly to consciousness, could only summon strength enough to endure that punishment. Then he knew that the beat was not only inside him, but without also. That on which he lay shook with a steady rhythmic pound. He was trapped in the black heart of a tom-tom.
When he opened his eyes, there was no light, and when he tried to move Simon speedily discovered that his wrists and ankles were lashed.
The sensation of being enclosed in a coffin became so overpowering that he had to clamp teeth on lips to prevent crying out. And he was so busy fighting his own private war against the unknown that it was minutes before he realized that wherever he might be, he was not alone in captive misery.
To his right someone moaned faintly now and again. On his left another retched in abject sickness, adding a new stench to the thick atmosphere of their confinement. Simon, oddly reassured by those sounds, unpromising as they were, called out:
“Who lies there? And where are we; does anyone know?”
The moaning ended in a quick catch of breath. But the man who was sick either could not control his pangs, or did not understand.
“Who are you?” That came in a weak trail of whisper from his right.
“One from the mountains. And you? Is this some Karsten prison?”
“Better that it were, mountain man! I have lain in the dungeons of Karsten. Yes, I have been in the question room of such a one. But better there than here.”
Simon was busy sorting out recent memories. He had climbed to a cliff top to spy upon a cove. There had been that strange vessel in harbor there, then attack from a bird which might not have been a bird at all!
Now it added up to only one answer — he lay in the very ship he had seen!
“Are we in the hands of the man-buyers out of Gorm?” he asked.
“Just so, mountain man. You were not with us when those devils of Yvian’s following gave us to the Kolder. Are you one of the Falconers they snared later?”
“Falconers! Ho, men of the Winged Ones!” Simon raised his voice, heard it echo hollowly back from unseen walls.”How many of you lie here? I, whom am of the raiders, ask it!”
“Three of us, raider. Though Faltjar was borne hither limp as a death-stricken man, and we do not know if yet he lives.”
“Faltjar! The guard of the southern passes! How was he taken — and you?”
“We heard of a cove where ships dared land and there was a messenger from Estcarp saying that perhaps supplies might be sent to us by sea if such could be found. So the Lord of Wings ordered us to explore. And we were struck down by hawks as we rode. Though they were not our hawks who battled for us. Then we awoke on shore, stripped of our mail and weapons, and they brought us aboard this craft which has no like in the world. I say that, who am Tandis and served five years as a marine to Sulcarmen. Many ports have I seen and more ships than a man can count in a week of steady marking, yet none kin to this one.”
“It is born of the witchery of Kolder,” whispered the weak voice on Simon’s right. “They came, but how can a man reckon time when he is enclosed in the dark without end? Is it night or day, this day or that? I lay in Kars prison because I offered refuge to a woman and child of the old race when the Horning went forth. They took all of us who were young from that prison and brought us to a delta island. There we were examined.”
“By whom?” Simon asked eagerly. Here was some one who might have seen the mysterious Kolder, from whom he might be able to get some positive information concerning them.
“That I cannot remember.” The voice was the merest thread of sound now and Simon edged himself as far as he could in his bonds to catch it at all. “They work some magic, these men from Gorm, so that one’s head spins around, spilling all thoughts out of it. It is said that they are demons of the great cold from the end of the world, and that I can believe!”
“And you, Falconer, did you look upon those who took you?”
“Yes, but you will have little aid from what I saw, raider. For those who brought us here were Karsten men, mere husks without proper wits — hands and strong backs for their owners. And those owners already wore the trappings they had taken from our backs, the better to befool our friends.”
“One of them was taken in his turn,” Simon told him. “For that be thankful, hawkman, for perhaps a part of the unraveling of this coil may lie with him.” Only then did he wonder if there were ears in those walls to listen to the helpless captives. But if there were, perhaps that one scrap of knowledge would serve to spread uneasiness among their captors.
There were ten Karsten men within that prison hold, all taken from jails, all caught up for some offense or other against the Duke. And to them had been added the three Falconers captured in the cove. The majority of the prisoners appeared to be semi-conscious or in a dazed condition. If able to recall any of the events leading up to their present captivity, such recollections ended with their arrival at the island beyond Kars, or on the beach of the cove.
As Simon persisted in his questioning however, a certain uniformity, if not of background, then of offenses against the Duke and temperament among these prisoners began to emerge. They were all men of some initiative, who had had a certain amount of military training, ranging from the Falconers who lived in a monastic military barracks for life and whose occupation was frankly fighting, to his first informant from Kars, a small landowner in the outlands who commanded a body of militia. In age they were from their late teens to their early thirties, and, in spite of some rough handling in the Duke’s dungeons, they were all able-bodied. Two were of the minor nobility with some schooling. They were the youngest of the lot, brothers picked up by Yvian’s forces on the same charge of aiding one of the old race who had been so summarily outlawed.
None of those here were of that race, and everyone declared that in all parts of the duchy men, women and children of that blood had been put to death upon capture.
It was one of the young nobles, drawn by Simon’s patient questioning from his absorption with his still unconscious brother, who provided the first bit of fact for the outworld man to chew upon.
“That guard who beat down Gamit, for which may the Rats of Morc forever gnaw him night and day, told them not to bring Renston also. We were blood brothers by the bread from the days we first strapped on swords, and we went to take him food and weapons that he might try for the border. They tracked us down and took us,
