Maelen opened the back flap of the van and climbed in. A man of the plainspeople, wearing a black robe which was crosshatched on back and breast with white and yellow, came with her. He was smiling and chatting in the village dialect, but, through Maelen, the sense of his words filtered to me.
'We are indeed fortunate, Freesha, that you have chosen this season for your return! The harvest has been good and the people plan a festival for thanksgiving. The Elder Brother wishes to make a happy time for all. He will open the west court for you and will pay all fees, so that your little people may give joy to all with their cleverness.'
'The Elder Brother is indeed a maker of happiness and a force for good in this so-blessed village.' Her reply sounded formal. 'Does he permit that I loose my little people that they may stretch their legs in freedom?'
' But certainly, Freesha. Aught you may need is at your call—the third-rank brothers will serve you.' He raised his hand. Fastened to thumb and forefinger were two flat pieces of wood and these he clicked loudly together. Two more heads crowded into view at the tail of the van. The closely clipped hair, the Hand of Umphra branded into their foreheads, marked them as priests, though they were only boys.
They were smiling broadly, and apparently well pleased to serve as Maelen's assistants. She opened Simmle's cage and the cream-coated venzese came out, swinging her tail eagerly, while Maelen fitted her with a show collar flashing small gems. Borba and Vors were so accoutered and loosed, and then Tantacka, to whose collar was added a kind of frontlet of richly embroidered red cloth, pointed forward between her ears. It would seem that the animals were old friends as the young priests greeted each by name, but with a gravity which suggested that Maelen's little people were far more than mere animals. Then she put her hand to the latch of my cage and the senior priest leaned forward as if to see me better.
'You have a new friend-in-fur, Freesha?'
'I have indeed. Come forth, Jorth.'
As I passed around the door she opened, the priest's eyes went wide and his breath hissed between his teeth. 'A barsk!'
Maelen was busy putting about my neck the collar she had sewn at our last camp, a strip of black with mirrorlike stars glittering in a scattered trail along it.
'A barsk,' she agreed.
'But—' His astonishment had become half protest.
Maelen straightened, her hand still resting lightly on my head.
'You know me, Elder Brother, and my little ones. This is a barsk in truth, but Jorth is no longer a flesh eater and haunter of trails, but our comrade-in-fur, as all others who travel in my shadow.'
He looked from her to me and then back again. 'Truly you are one who accomplishes strange things, Freesha. But this is yet the strangest of all— that a barsk should come to your call, suffer you to lay hand upon his head, that you should name him and make him of your company. But if you so speak—that it will not give way to the evils of its kind—then shall man believe you. For the gifts of the Thassa are like unto the laws of Umphra, fixed and unchanging.'
Then he stood aside and I went with Maelen, leaping down from the tail of the van. The young priests hesitated and drew a bit apart, their amazement more open even than that of their superior.
They allowed us to precede them. The other animals came to join us, Simmle beside me, aiming a quick lick at my cheek as I fell into step with her. We went out of the courtyard in which the van had halted into another walled space through a double-leafed gate, only one half of which was open for us. The inner area was paved with black stone veined with yellow, and empty, save along the walls where trained vines and trees grew from beds of earth bordered by fitted stone. At the far left was a fountain, the water boiling out of a stonehead into a pool.
One of the animals headed for the pool and lapped from its bounty. The water was cool, tasting good. Tantacka dipped in not only her blunt muzzle but also forepaws, flipping them up to send showers of drops flying in all directions.
I sat back on my haunches to look around. At the other end of the area were three broad steps which led to a columned porch, and in that was another door, intricately carved with a sprawling design I could not figure out. That gave entrance to a building which I thought must be the center portion of the temple. There were no windows to break the sweep of wall, only more carved panels, in alternating white and yellow stone, to pattern the black of the walls.
Maelen directed the boy priests who carried some boxes from the van to set them along the steps, and I noted that they continued to glance at me with some awe. When they had done, Maelen dismissed them with thanks and sat down on the lowest step. I lost no time in joining her.
'Well?' There was only one thing I wanted to know—had she gained any news of Oskold's men and that which they were transporting.
'They have not passed this way,' she answered me. 'Nor was I sure they would. If they needed to appraise their lord of what had happened they would have gone eastward and thus come on the other road which leads to the V alley.'
'You seem very sure they want to get to this Valley.'
Maelen put her hands to either side of my barsk head and raised it so she could better look into my eyes.
'Accept this, star rover: of the ways of the people of Yiktor I do know much. They are set to patterns which they do not break, not when there is naught to endanger them. Rest assured Oskold or his men will not alter
'Ah, Freesha, so it is true.'
The voice behind us rang in my ears as if Maelen spoke and I was startled, for this was the first time I had 'heard' so as to understand except through her intermediacy. I jerked out of her hold and snarled involuntarily as I looked up the steps.
A man in priestly robes stood there. He was old, bent a little, leaning on a support which was more staff of office than cane, for it was almost as tall as his age-bared skull. His face was open, yet that of a man who had seen so much of sorrow that he would be colored with its gray wash to the end of his days. Only now he smiled, and in
