Chapter 17.
Farree winged back across the band of tangled vegetation and set foot on the ground not far from the two who waited. Lord-One Krip was busy with that bag which had been clipped to his belt through all their journeying. What he brought out now was not food as Farree had expected but rather a shining square of what seemed to be bright metal, well polished and no bigger than Farree's own hand.
He rubbed his fingers across the upper surface as if to remove some unseen covering and passed it to the Lady Maelen, who held it firmly and looked to Farree.
"Those patterns," she said, "are protective devices of a sort, yet they do not follow those which I have learned. I must see them."
Farree shifted on his perch. The more he looked at the entangled maze of dark greenery before them, the less he could conceive of cutting any path through that without any tools. Perhaps a laser might clear the way but otherwise —
"Look." She was holding up that square of metal. "Have you seen one of these before? The tourists use them for recording sights they wish to remember clearly. It works thus – or better have Krip show you, since this is not a thing of Thassa world."
He had taken the square back from her and now flipped it over to show two impressions on the back into which a man's forefingers might fit. "Let the reflection of what you would preserve so show in the mirror and then press here. Wait for the count of five and press again at this other spot and then it will clear and you can move to the next. It is simple and there is room for twenty shots before the power is exhausted and it must be recharged."
Lord-One Krip held it out and Farree accepted it gingerly. Yes, it sounded simple enough but he was unused to such off-world wonders and he only hoped that he could follow those directions without failure. Also there was something else to mind. He stood up, the picture square in his hands. He did not look to the tower in the lake, the very top of which was visible from where he stood, but rather back along the way they had come. Those who followed – surely they must be nearing now the end of that road through the mountain and might arrive at any moment. What then? Did they have time for such a task as they had set him now? What if those others could crouch in the rubble of the way and take both of the Thassa with their long-range weapons?
"Not so," Lord-One Krip answered his unasked question. "We keep guard and they, as always, will betray themselves by the nothingness their mind shields project."
"Still they will come – " Farree was as certain of that as he was now aware that he wore wings. Nor did he believe that even those could carry their prey away from those who followed.
"And we shall go," Lord-One Krip returned, "into that – " he gestured to the thick growth ahead.
"There is no way!"
The Lady Maelen smiled. "As long as the third ring holds, I have power, though my people would not have it so. However, since I have returned I have discovered it is not only the wand which controls, but rather the will and energy of the one who uses such. Yes, we can go but not from here. We shall move on to the north so that we give them no hint of what we have done. But you, winged brother, have that which will serve us best." She nodded toward the thing he now held.
Since he had no argument which would stand against her determination and self-confidence, Farree took off once more, rising above the screen of the thick brush and trees, heading for the island in the lake.
Only, as he winged so he felt naked and open to attack by the Guild hounds sniffing on their trail who could easily pluck him down with one laser blast. And he was glad when he settled again on the tower, a point from which he was sure he could record the best.
Slowly and with all the care he could summon he held the square of metal out over the first selection of the patterns below and pressed the depressions, counting aloud. He moved around the parapet of the tower, making sure that his record – if he was truly recording something – took in all those whirls, spirals, triangles, and arcs below. Having made the full circuit which would set those in order, he turned to the ones on the roofs and added them to his store.
They did not have much longer before Sotrath was gone and the third ring with it. Already that was fading into the grayish murk which preceded the sunrise. Clutching the picture taker to him, he arose aloft far enough above the lake as to hope to catch sight of the other two. But there was nothing in the place where he had left them nor anything to be seen along the northern edge of the forest ring. He dropped, to skim just a little above the tallest of the trees in that jungle, looking and then daring to send a mind call.
"The lake," came his answer. "Wait by the lake."
There was a ring of light gravel or sand between the edge of that jungle and the water. To that he dropped, folding his wings, still being surprised at how completely those crimped into place. There was yet some aching through his shoulders, but he judged that was from the use of muscles which had not been called into duty before and that it would vanish the longer he made use of his new appendages. The silent, undisturbed surface of the lake drew him now and he looked down into its surface as he might into a mirror.
He was – Farree could hardly believe what he saw there. For all his days he had gone misshapen and maimed among other life. Now he was complete. The tips of the wings arose a good five hands above that head which he was able to hold completely aloft. And the wings themselves were not dull but were covered with a satin-shining surface on which were dots and designs of a light green, the color of his skin. They were more magnificent, he thought, with the first swelling pride in himself that he had ever known, than any Lord's cloak of war or office.
He swung out farther over the water to see the better, and knew with every minute, every movement he was more and more what nature had always intended him to be. But what was he? Surely he had never been born on Grant's World, or someone in the Limits would have recognized him for what he was. Lanti – had he taken him there? For what reasons? Unless he had been meant to be sold to such as Russtif as a curiosity for showing after brutal training. There was something about his wings which brought a flash of memory. That brilliant scrap which the other Limits rogue had brought to Lanti too late to get an explanation. A piece of – wing! Surely that had been a piece of wing!
He felt cold. Perhaps it was from the predawn wind which had come to ruffle the mirror surface of the lake. But it might have been inside his small, spare body. Winged people hunted for their wings! It would not be the first time according to the legends often repeated in the Limits that a sentient race – and plenty of animals, too – had been wiped out for some special gain on the part of an off-worlder band. Maybe even Lanti had taken him to raise his own pair of wings so when the time came they could be harvested. Perhaps the spacer had wished to impress the Guild with treasure which was a part of Farree. Now that cold filled him, and he dropped back upon the apron of gravel between water and wood. To be hunted for his wings!
"Farree." The sharp mind call alerted him out of that momentary nightmare but he did not take to the sky. Stay on the ground, caution warned him, not let himself be seen by any hunter who had broken out of the mountain ways and now cast about for a fresh trail.
He saw, to his amazement, a quiver in that green wall, a lifting of branch, an uncoiling of vine, and then the Lord-One Krip came out into the open, leading Lady Maelen by one hand. She walked with her eyes open and staring ahead as one might walk mindlessly after some great shock. But she was also singing – a murmur of sound which had in its tempo something of the rustle of leaves, the scrape of branch against branch under a light wind. It would seem that even as her singing had wrought miracles in other places, even among the rocks, here it had tamed the ring jungle enough to let them through.