Steppe

fetching a knife. But the thing only touched a round knob.

Coincidentally, Alp's power of motion left him.

Magic! He should have expected that, though there seemed to be no way to avoid it. He had hardly believed in magic when alive, knowing most shamans to be charlatans. Of course he had professed belief so as to stay clear of unnecessary complications. But this was death, and different laws prevailed. These creatures might be laughable as physical fighters, but in their own black arts they were matchless.

It was a necessary reminder that no entity could safely be held in contempt. The Kirghiz were too dull to master literacy, yet were formidable warriors. The demons could not compete with Alp physically but possessed the skills of another realm. If he hoped to survive this state, he would have to make a special effort to understand its laws.

The first demon, seeing Alp immobilized by the spell, now screwed up his courage and set the gross helmet over his head. Alp's sight was blotted out. He strove to break free but could not move. Still, he was not suffocated; evidently the demon did not realize that the prisoner's head was the wrong shape for such torture.

Actually, suffocation would be one way to escape this region. If he died here, he would proceed to the next level of the afterlife, never to return. Perhaps his fortune would be better, there.

No—it was not in the Uigur to surrender! Better to fight for this life—which might not be a bad one, once he escaped these demons. Perhaps this was no more than the initiation test: only the capable visitor managed to remain.

Something strange was happening. It developed slowly, like the barely perceptible rising of the sun at dawn —but like the sun, it spread its influence pervasively. Alp began to understand things about these demons.

They did not consider themselves demons. In their own odd language they were 'Galactics'—human beings from far away, representatives of a mighty empire than spanned a much greater region than did the Uigur realm at its height. That empire extended over planets and systems and constellations—though these were concepts of such sorcerous complexity and incongruity as to baffle his mind. He knew them to be pretense and illusion nevertheless—because demons were things of the fundament, not the welkin. Soil-grubbers, not sky-flyers. So that much he could set aside as irrelevant.

Or could he? Again he had to remind himself that the rules of his own realm did not necessarily apply. Conceivably demons did master heaven, here—or thought they did.

The demons spoke a language of their own. Not Uigur, not even Chinese. Their speech had no writing. They had 'machines' to do their bidding, these devices being jinn-like entities housed in metal, capable of phenomenal wizardry.

The demons were engaged in a war that was not a war but a game, in which those killed did not really die yet could not exactly return. Reincarnation was the only possibility—but for this they had to pay a fee.

It was too much! Alp closed his mind to this madness—but found there was no escape from it. The helmet was not a suffocation device after all; its torture was more subtle. It crammed unacceptable information into his shuddering brain, destroying his comfortable patterns of belief.

The helmet claimed it was actually a force-education device that was radiating demon-information into his head like a shower of arrows. True torture of hell!

Finally they took the thing off, but Alp remained frozen in place. Had the spell not been on him, he would have fallen to the floor.

'He should comprehend now,' one demon said. 'Though you never can tell, with an actual barbarian.'

So it was like that, Alp thought grimly. The Kirghiz had figured him for a soft civilized fool, and these Galactic- demons figured him for a stupid primitive.

'Release the stasis,' another said. 'We can't interrogate him this way.'

So they meant to question him—and could not release his jaw without nullifying the entire spell. Already he was grasping the limits of their magic!

A touch of the box—and the spell was broken. So that was the instrument: a machine! Alp was free— completely. He verified this by flexing muscles that did not show: calves, buttocks, back of the neck. All in order.

But he put his hand slowly to his head as if dazed. When he acted, that magic box would be a prime target!

A Galactic stepped toward him, an ingratiating smile on his shaven face. 'Salutations, warrior.'

Alp returned the creature's gaze dully. Demons were always fairest of speech when they intended mischief! He grunted.

'I knew it!' one of the others said. 'Stupid. Can't orient.'

'Terrified, more likely,' another said. 'Primitives are normally superstitious, afraid of sorcery. All his life on the plains he never experienced anything like this in his narrow existence. Give him a chance. We've invested heavily to fetch him here.'

'Understatement of the century!' the third muttered. 'A time-snatch of a millennia and a half—we'll all be broke if this doesn't pan out!'

'I'm in debt already,' the last muttered.

A millennia and a half, Alp thought. Millennium, correctly; the demon usage did not precisely match the helmet language. Significant? In his terms, at any rate, fifteen hundred years, or thirty lifetimes. But time stretched two ways. Was it the period before man had arisen on the plains, or after man had passed?

'Speak, warrior,' the demon in front said. 'We wish to know about you and your society.' There was that in his manner that suggested insincerity. The language of facial expression and bodily posture transcended man-demon distinctions.

'Uhg,' Alp said, still feigning ignorance. They didn't want to know about him nearly as badly as he wanted to know about them! Obviously they were not omniscient, and they also thought they could lie to him, which meant they could be fooled themselves. What did they really want?