Warlock. Part 2

'I am working my power to fuller perception,' the Shaker said. 'But there is something curious about these two.'

No one spoke, for it was only the Shaker's place to comment now at this penultimate moment of discovery.

It had begun to hail outside, and nut-sized b.a.l.l.s of ice pinged off the windows, rattled on the roof, like the feet of hundeds of dwarves performing some fairy dance.

'There seem to be precious few personality traits to grasp. I find the sheen of their conscious minds, but to penetrate them is difficult. And when I do delve within, there seems to be precious little there.'

The images on the silver plate remained indistinct. There were dark circles where eyes should have been, dark slits for mouths, dark holes for nostrils. There were whirls of dark hair, and a haze of mist filmed even this small vision.

'What is that?' Richter asked, pointing to fine lines that had begun to criss-cross the faces on the plate.

'Wires?' Gregor asked. 'Copper wires?' He looked at his master uncertainly, then returned his gaze to the faces.

By this time, both visions were woven through with a net of wires; here and there were small plastic squares that were transistors, but which no one in the study could identify.

The Shaker was straining now, bringing all his power to bear on the problem. But only the wires grew more distinct while the features of the two a.s.sa.s.sins remained unidentifiable. 'There does not seem! to be the mind! of! a man! in either! of those two! we see.'

'Not the mind of a man?' Belmondo asked, peering at the s.h.i.+mmering ghosts.

'Their minds are cold! unfeeling! but clever!'

'Demons you say?' Belmondo asked, his voice rising squeakily.

'Not demons, perhaps! but something! we cannot guess,' the Shaker said.

Then the silver plate flashed with a puff of incandescent gas, and the images were gone. There was only a silver plate, cut square and set flush in the round oak table, holding the reflections of their anxious faces.

Weary, Shaker Sandow pushed away from the table and slumped in his chair. Immediately, Mace went to the sideboard and poured him a stiff jolt of peach brandy brought it to him and placed it in his weathered, slim magician's hands. Sandow drank greedily of the liquor some color returned to his ashen complexion.

'You are reputed to be one of the most powerful Shakers in all of Darkland,' Richter said thoughtfully. 'And yet even you could not summon up the nature of our enemy. So we fight demons, not men. But how could the lands beyond the Cloud Range house demons for the Oragonians to make pacts with, when demons live in the bowels of the earth and not on the land itself?'

'The word 'demons' was the choice of your captain,' Sandow corrected. 'I have said that our killers are simply something different than men.'

'And what else does than mean but demons?'

'It could mean angels,' Sandow said.

'I would hardly think the beneficent sprites are responsible for the carnage we saw tonight'

'I was only offering an alternative,' Sandow said, 'as proof that there could also be a third.'

'What do you suggest?' the commander asked.

'I suggest nothing. I only report what information I obtain and leave the decision to you. It must be so, or I then become the commanding officer. And I do not want nor could I bear such responsibility.'

The room was quiet a long while before Richter said, 'We will leave tomorrow at dawn, as planned. If we went back to the Darklands, to the capital, days would be lost that we cannot afford. And the chances of more spies entering our ranks the next time would be no better for us.'

'Then perhaps we should get some sleep,' Sandow said. This night has given us very little rest with which to meet the mountain tomorrow.'

Slipping into their oiled leather coats, the two officers left the house, hurrying through the driving sheets of rain and the occasional stinging pellets of hail which still fell. The Shaker stood by the front door, watching them until they were out of sight down the cobbled slope.

'It will not be easy,' Gregor said. 'Not many will cross the Cloud Range.'

'Perhaps,' the master said. 'But the commander is more of a man than he even appears. He has that strength which negates the acceptance of defeat. There is a better chance with him than there would be with another officer.'

'Such as Belmondo,' Gregor said.

'I wonder at Richter's tolerance of that frightened youth,' the Shaker said. 'They are not like men.'

'Good G.o.ds!' Mace roared behind them. 'Must we stand here all night gossiping of soldiers. We've but two hours on the springs, if that!'

Gregor chuckled. 'Better make that an hour and a half Mace. If I know you, the activities of this night will drive you to devour twice your normal horse's breakfast.'

'I may just eat yours as well,' Mace said. 'And then without a morning's vittels in that skinny stomach of yours, you'll be blown right off your mount!'

'Enough, enough!' the Shaker said. 'Let's get our sleep while we can. The days to come might not provide much time for rest.'

6.

It was some seven miles across the small valley, even by the shortest route, to the foothills of the Cloud Range. Since horses could also be employed for the first three thousand feet of the ascent, where the land was rather gentle and worn through with many paths, Commander Richter had rented enough of the beasts for the party, along with several tenders to feed and water them and bring them back to Perdune when the Banibaleers should find the way too rugged to proceed in any manner but by foot.

With the village streets shrouded in drifting ma.s.ses of white mist, the expedition set out that autumn morning: seventy-six enlisted men, Sergeant Crowler, the commander and the captain, and Shaker Sandow and his two young a.s.sistants: eighty-two in all, if one did not count the four Perdune horse tenders accompanying them on the first leg of their long journey. The horses' hooves clacked hollowly on dewy street stones, and the sounds of men s.h.i.+fting in their saddles to find comfortable positions complemented this to break the otherwise grave-like silence of the town.

Within twenty minutes, they gained the banks of the icy Shatoga River and forded it without incident-though their mounts made great whinnying protests at the near-freezing temperature of those waters. On the other side, they struck south as well as inland, breaking from the thick stands of pines into the rock-strewn foothills, where the going became more difficult.

Some four hours after dawn, Commander Richter called a halt while the horses were watered and given a meal of grain and bruised apples. The Shaker dispatched Mace to speak with the commander and compare notes of observation on the morning's ride. Sandow had seen nothing suspicious, and he rather doubted the commander would have noticed anything that he did not. Even though the commander was certainly a clever man, the Shaker was far cleverer.

Gregor was set the task of checking the condition of the Shaker's magic devices to be certain they remained well-padded and strapped properly in place in the rucksacks their horses carried.

Sandow wandered back through the line of riders, noting with approval the businesslike dress that had replaced the foppish, colorful costumes of the previous day. Each man wore tough leather britches which were tucked and banded into rugged boots. They wore coa.r.s.e, long-sleeved s.h.i.+rts and soft but sufficiently warm neck scarfs. Each man owned an oiled leather artic coat which was folded into a bulky square and strapped over the gear-stuffed rucksack. All in all, they looked the efficient mountaineers they were reported to be.

'You're Shaker Sandow, aren't you?' a blond-haired, blue-eyed man asked, stepping around a horse's rump to intercept the Shaker. He was in his thirties somewhere, not nearly so slim and willowy as his fair skin and hair made him appear. There was a ruggedness beneath the clothes he wore, and a heartiness in those sky-chip eyes.

'That is so,' Sandow acknowledged. 'But I fear you have the advantage here.'

'Aye, and excuse me,' the man said. He grinned, and the pleasant smile which split his face seemed the prototype of the theatrical mask of the comic. His teeth were broad, very white. 'My name is Fremlin, and I am the master of the birds-the Squealers who will be our eyes in advance of our feet.'

'Squealer masters are always portrayed as dark and mysterious, intense men who actually commune with their charges.'

'I commune with them, beyond the verbal level,' Fremlin said. 'But the similarity ends there.'

'Are the birds nearby?' Sandow asked.

'Back here but a few paces, sir. Would you like to have a look at the brooding devils?'

'That I would,' the Shaker said. He was not merely being polite, for he had always been curious about the odd feathered creatures man had come to use as advance scouts in war and on hazardous ground.

Fremlin led him to a great chestnut stallion whose rump was slung across with a cargo strap. From each end of the strap hung a wicker cage which was further secured by cord to the saddle to keep it from slapping the beast's flanks as it walked. In each cage, there were two birds. Each was perhaps twice as large as a man's hand, and each stared through the wooden bars of its prison with pitch black, intelligent eyes that seemed to examine Shaker Sandow with speculative interest. They looked much like ravens, except that there was a crimson streak down the center of the small head, fanning intricately across the orange beak. On the center of each breast was a white diamond.

'Handsome, aren't they?' Fremlin asked, obviously proud of his four winged friends.

That they are. And valuable, I would say. We will want to know much about the way ahead once we reach the far side of the Cloud Range.'

The smile faded from Fremlin's face, and though he did not allow a scowl to replace it, the evidence of such an unpleasant expression was there, just behind the skin. 'Perhaps not so valuable in comparison to a Shaker,' the bird master said. 'You could do a reading and perhaps see the way more clearly than any Squealer could.'

'Perhaps,' the Shaker said. 'But it requires ritual and energy to perform a reading. There will be instances when we do not have the time for that, or when I will not have the energy.'

'I hope you will permit my charges to make their reports first. They are proud creatures, and more clever and understanding than most men give them credit for. If they are merely to be kept in their cages while a Shaker does their work, they will soon become dispirited and ill.'

'Have no fear,' the Shaker said. 'And remember that, even if I should have the energy and time for a reading, the power in me does not always work. Sometimes the picture is unclear. Other times, there is no picture whatsoever.'

The bird master seemed to relax a little. 'It is with you as all other Shakers, then. I have heard of your power, and feared there would be no limitations on it at all.'

Shaker Sandow bent to the cage before him, touched a finger to the wicker bars. 'What say you, friends?'

The two creatures inside danced along the perching rungs and came close to him, c.o.c.ked their heads to engage him with one large black eye each. But neither of them spoke.

'I had hoped to hear them,' he said to Fremlin.

'Not on your first meeting,' the bird master explained. 'They must come to trust you before they will speak. And even then, you would not understand their language.'

'I've been given to understand,' Sandow said, 'that as their trainer picks up the Squealer tongue, they begin to use our tongue.'

'That they do. But little of it. Their mouths are not made for complicated tongues. It is more than mimickry, however, for they use the words correctly and with some sense of humor.'

'Mounting now!' Commander Richter called back the line. 'Mounting now!'

'I hope to see you later and to hear your birds,' the Shaker said, nodding to Fremlin and turning for his own horse.

'All is packed well yet,' Gregor said from his own horse ahead of the Shaker.

Behind the Shaker, Mace reported: 'Commander Richter neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. As we thought.'

'As we thought,' Shaker Sandow agreed. And then the train was moving forward again.

As they joggled along the hilly countryside, climbing steadily higher on a double-back trail, Sandow carefully considered the bird master, Fremlin. Could he possibly be one of the killers, that rather timid man who went to such care to conceal the size and the power of his musculature beneath ill-fitting garments and also, beneath the air of fragile boyishness he wore? Was his concern for the birds nothing more than a ruse, and would he, before they were finished with this trek, have the blood of more men on his hands?

Or what of the others? Could the deadly pair even be Commander Richter and Belmondo? No, that seemed improbable. If they had lolled the twenty-four soldiers in the hotel, the commander could have used that as an excuse to turn back. Instead, he forged ahead, more determined than ever. Yet! yet, if the two officers were the guilty parties, what would it matter if they went ahead? They could insure the destruction of the party anywhere along the way, or even at the end of the journey, thus wasting more of General Dark's time before a second expedition could be dispatched. Yes, both those men were still suspect.

Sergeant Crowler? His rage at the murders, Mace had said, seemed quite genuine and deep. And yet, wouldn't such a man, such a master of espionage, also be a good actor? And if it was the sergeant, who might his partner be? No, the sergeant must be removed from the list. His partner would have to be an enlisted man or someone who had slept with a mate in the inn, for the sergeant had slept alone-and everyone had vowed for his mate, which meant the killers had roomed together. Unless, perhaps, there were three of them: the sergeant and two enlisted men.

The Shaker gave up on that, for it led nowhere but to paranoia, to seeing killers and demons everywhere. Demons? Yes, something strange, indeed. What were those two creatures, posing as men, which he had turned up during his reading in the dark hours of the morning?

Overhead, thunder boomed along the low sky, and the s.h.i.+fting ma.s.ses of gray clouds scudded faster to the west. It seemed as if the night's storm was about to return. And would it bring the night's carnage with it again?

The Shaker decided that, this night, secretly, he and Gregor would again take a reading. They were going to need every sc.r.a.p of advantage that they could dig up to combat the inhuman a.s.sa.s.sins loose among the ranks.

7.

By four o'clock in the afternoon, they had reached the middle of Shatoga Falls. Before them, the white eater smashed into a thick, jutting shelf of stone, bounced outwards, and continued downward for nearly three thousand feet to explode in the origin of the Shatoga River. Above, there was another three thousand feet of tumbling water until the point where the river spilled out of the mountains and began its descent. All that above them would have to be scaled by traditional mountaineering methods, for the horses could go no further. And even when they reached the top of the waterfall, they would be but a fraction of the way up the Cloud Range toward the cut they wished to use.

It looked impossible.

But no one wanted to think about that.

They stood in the whirling rain, watching the tenders lead the horses down out of the steepest regions where they would tie them up for the night and complete the return to Perdune in the morning. When the last of the swaying beasts was out of sight, everyone was forced to return to the reality of the sheer stone walls ahead of them.

A thousand feet above, the rock face was cleft eighty feet deep and more than a hundred long. A shelf of granite overhung this cleft, providing protection from the storm for the night ahead. Commander Richter had decided to get the party up there, despite the waning light and the driving force of the rain which would make the going more difficult Shatoga Falls had been tumbling out of the Cloud Range for some centuries, and it had worn its way deeper and deeper into the rock. It had cut a channel, like a great shaft, some twenty-five feet deep into the face of the mountain. The booming water occupied but ten feet of this depth, leaving open rock walls on either side of its plunge. These walls were shattered and rugged, made so by the constant vibration of the river as it beat its way down the mountain. Indeed, the roar of it was so loud that conversation became impossible, and what orders were given had to be delivered in a loud, forced shout. Close to this roar, and using the nearest of these shaft walls, the party was to ascend to the sheltered cleft a thousand feet overhead.

A group of six men went first, roped together, their oiled leather coats streaming with water. Here, in the draft of the falls, it was impossible to distinguish between the rain and the thick mist splashed outward from the tumbling waters. Fog and mist combined with the slowly growing darkness to make the first party disappear from view when they had ascended some six hundred feet. The sound of their pitons being hammered into the stone to make supports for later teams, was lost in the first two hundred feet, so that now there was no way at all to judge their progress.

Below, the men waited tensely for the sight of flailing, cras.h.i.+ng bodies spinning downward, through the shaft, to end up eternities away, at the foot of the falls, crushed by the weight of the water or speared by the stones below or drowned in the vicious, surging currents of the Shatoga River.

But, in time, a good sign came rather than a bad. The climbing rope dangled into view, sans sans its men, but with a red scarf tied to its end. They were all safe on the shelf above. its men, but with a red scarf tied to its end. They were all safe on the shelf above.

The inexperienced climbers-the Shaker, Gregor and Mace-were taken up separately, each in the middle of a group of Banibaleers, and all reached the night's lodging place safely. Each man brought his pack on his back, but extra supplies were raised on a second rope which the first team soon established. Despite the fact that he and his step-sons had reached safety, Shaker Sandow did not rest easily until his bags of ritual devices were delivered safely to the ledge and into his slim, white hands.

On the deep shelf, the sound of the falls was muted. The overhang deadened the sound from above, and the platform they rested on did much to blank the booming chaos below. Conversation was again possible, though still uncomfortable. When Commander Richter and Belmondo were secure in the cleft, brought up with the next to the last team, the older officer permitted himself a smile and a few words with Sandow. 'It goes better than I hoped,' he said.

'None of them dead. It would have been the perfect place for another a.s.sa.s.sin's game, eh?'

'But there will be many such places,' the commander said gloomily. 'And demons will be in no hurry to take advantage of them. Okay, okay. Not demons. But I wish you would provide me with some other term to think of them as. Being around young Belmondo all day, one unconsciously picks up the verbalizations of his fears.'

The Shaker was about to ask the old man about such a timid officer's presence among such a hearty group as the Banibaleers, but he was interrupted by a piercing chorus of terrified screams that lasted a moment, faded, and then was gone.

'Commander!'

The voice was that of the private named Barrister whose duty it was to monitor the ascension of the climbing teams and help the leader of each gain the lip of the cleft more easily. He was a big youth, perhaps none too bright, but a good climber and a conscientious soldier.