Wizards’ Worlds (47 page)

No Kas. Which did not mean that he might not be lurking somewhere about, a disruptive
factor if his nature held true.

A warm arm swung up about her waist. Startled she looked down into green eyes, sea-green
eyes, eyes which knew her—and which also knew that other Tamisan. Below those very
knowledgeable eyes lips smiled.

“I think,” his voice was familiar and yet strange, “that this is going to be a very
interesting dream, my Tam-sin.”

She allowed herself to be drawn down beside him. Perhaps—no, surely—he was right.

Wizards’ Worlds

C
RAIKE’S
swollen feet were agony, every breath he drew fought a hot band imprisoning his laboring
lungs. He clung weakly to a rough spur of rock in the canyon wall, swayed against
it, raking his flesh raw on the stone. That weathered red and yellow rock was no more
unyielding than the murderous wills behind him. And the stab of pain in his calves
no less than the pain of their purpose in his dazed mind.

He had been on the run so long, ever since he had left the E-Camp. But until last
night—no, two nights ago—when he had given himself away at the gas station, he had
not known what it was to be actually hunted. The will-to-kill which fanned from those
on his trail was so intense it shocked his Esper senses, panicking him completely.

Now he was trapped in wild country, and he was city born. Water—Craike flinched at
the thought of water. Espers should control their bodies, that was what he had been
taught. But there come times when cravings of the flesh triumph over will.

He winced, and the spur grated against his half-naked breast. They had a “hound” on
him right enough. And that brain-twisted Esper slave who fawned and served the mob
masters would have no difficulty in trailing him straight to any pocket into which
he might crawl. A last remnant of rebellion sent Craike reeling on over the gravel
of the long-dried stream bed.

Espers had once been respected for their “wild talents,” then tolerated warily. Now
they were used under guard for slave labor. And the day was coming soon when the fears
of the normals would demand their extermination. They had been trying to prepare against
that.

First they had worked openly, petitioning to be included in spaceship crews, to be
chosen for colonists on the moon and Mars; then secretly when they realized the norms
had no intention of allowing that. Their last hope was flight to the waste spots of
the world, those refuse places resulting from the same atomic wars which had brought
about the birth of their kind.

Craike had been smuggled out of an eastern E-Camp provided with a cover, sent to explore
the ravaged area about the one-time city of Reno. Only he had broken his cover for
the protection of a girl, only to learn, too late, she was bait for an Esper trap.
He had driven a stolen speeder until the last drop of fuel was gone, and after that
he had kept blindly on, running, until now.

The contact with the Esper “hound” was clear; they must almost be in sight behind.
Craike paused. They were not going to take him alive, wring from him knowledge of
his people, recondition him into another “hound.” There was only one way, he should
have known that from the first.

His decision had shaken the “hound.” Craike bared teeth in a death’s-head grin. Now
the mob would speed up. But their quarry had already chosen a part of the canyon wall
where he might pull his tired and aching body up from one hold to another. He moved
deliberately now, knowing that when he had lost hope, he could throw aside the need
for haste. He would be able to accomplish his purpose before they brought a gas rifle
to bear on him.

At last he stood on a ledge, the sand and gravel some fifty feet below. For a long
moment he rested, steadying himself with both hands braced on the stone. The weird
beauty of the desert country was a pattern of violent color under the afternoon sun.
Craike breathed slowly; he had regained a measure of control. There came shouts as
they sighted him.

He leaned forward and, as if he were diving into the river which had once run there,
he hurled himself outward to the clean death he sought.

Water, water in his mouth! Dazed, he flailed water until his head broke surface. Instinct
took over, and he swam, fought for air. The current of the stream pulled him against
a boulder collared with froth, and he arched an arm over it, lifting himself, to stare
about in stupified bewilderment.

He was close to one bank of a river. Where the colorful cliff of the canyon had been
there now rolled downs thickly covered with green growth. The baking heat of the desert
had vanished; there was even a slight chill in the air.

Dumbly Craike left his rock anchorage and paddled ashore, to lie shivering on sand
while the sun warmed his battered body. What HAD happened? When he tried to make sense
of it, the effort hurt his mind almost as much as had the “hound’s” probe.

The Esper Hound! Craike jerked up, old panic stirring. First delicately and then urgently,
he cast a thought-seek about him. There was life in plenty. He touched, classified
and disregarded the flickers of awareness which mingled in confusion—animals, birds,
river dwellers. But nowhere did he meet intelligence approaching his own. A wilderness
world without man as far as Esper ability could reach.

Craike relaxed. Something had happened. He was too tired, too drained to speculate
as to what. It was enough that he was saved from the death he had sought, that he
was HERE instead of THERE.

He got stiffly to his feet. Time was the same, he thought—late afternoon. Shelter,
food—he set off along the stream. He found and ate berries spilling from bushes where
birds raided before him. Then squatting above a side eddy of the stream, he scooped
out a fish, eating the flesh raw.

The land along the river was rising, he could see the beginning of a gorge ahead.
Later, when he had climbed those heights, he caught sight through the twilight of
the fires. Four of them burning some miles to the southwest, set out in the form of
a square!

Craike sent out a thought probe. Yes—men! But an alien touch. This was no hunting
mob. And he was drawn to the security of the fires, the camp of men in the dangers
of the night. Only, as Esper, he was not one with them but an outlaw. And he dare
not risk joining them.

He retraced his path to the river and holed up in a hollow not large enough to be
termed a cave. Automatically he probed again for danger. Found nothing, but animal
life. He slept at last, drugged by exhaustion of mind and body.

The sky was gray when he roused, swung cramped arms, stretched. Craike had awakened
with the need to know more of that camp. He climbed once again to the vantage point,
shut his eyes to the early morning and sent out a seeking.

A camp of men far from home. But they were not hunters. Merchants—traders! Craike
located one mind among the rest, read in it the details of a bargain to come. Merchants
from another country, a caravan. But a sense of separation grew stronger as the fugitive
Esper sorted out thought streams, absorbed scraps of knowledge thirstily. A herd of
burden-bearing animals, nowhere any indication of machines. He sucked in a deep breath—he
was—he was in another world!

Merchants traversing a wilderness—a wilderness? Though he had been driven into desert
the day before, the
land through which he had earlier fled could not be termed a wilderness. It was overpopulated
because there were too many war-poisoned areas where mankind could not live.

But from these strangers he gained a concept of vast, barren territory broken only
by small, sparse, strips of cultivation. Craike hurried. They were breaking camp.
And the impression of an unpeopled land they had given him made him want to trail
the caravan.

There was trouble! An attack—the caravan animals stampeded. Craike received a startlingly
vivid mind picture of a hissing, lizard thing he could not identify. But it was danger
on four scaled feet. He winced at the fear in those minds ahead. There was a vigor
of mental broadcast in these men which amazed him. Now, the lizard thing had been
killed. But the pack animals were scattered. It would take hours to find them. The
exasperation of the master trader was as strong to Craike as if he stood before the
man and heard his outburst of complaint.

The Esper smiled slowly. Here—handed to him by Fate—was his chance to gain the good
will of the travelers. Breaking contact with the men, Craike cast around probe webs,
as a fisher might cast a net. One panic-crazed animal and then another—he touched
minds, soothed, brought to bear his training. Within moments he heard the dull thud
of hooves on the mossy ground, no longer pounding in a wild gallop. A shaggy mount,
neither pony nor horse of his knowledge, but like in ways of each, its dull hide marked
with a black stripe running from the root of shaggy mane to the base of its tail,
came toward him, nickered questionly. And then fell behind Craike, to be joined by
another and another, as the Esper walked on—until he led the full train of runaways.

He met the first of the caravan men within a quarter of a mile and savored the fellow’s
astonishment at the sight. Yet, after the first surprise the man did not appear too
amazed. He was short, dark of skin, a black beard of wiry, tightly curled hair clipped
to a point thrusting out from his
chin. Leggings covered his limbs, and he wore a sleeveless jerkin laced with thongs.
This was belted by a broad strap gaudy with painted designs, from which hung a cross-hilted
sword and a knife almost as long. A peaked cap of silky white fur was drawn far down
so that a front flap shaded his eyes, and another, longer strip brushed his shoulders.

“Many thanks, Man of Power—” The words he spoke were in a clicking tongue, but Craike
read their meaning mind to mind.

Then, as if puzzled on his closer examination of the Esper, the stranger frowned,
his indecision slowly turning hostile.

“Outlaw! Begone, horned one!” The trader made a queer gesture with two fingers. “We
pass free from your spells—”

“Be not so quick to pass judgment, Alfric—”

The newcomer was the Master Trader. As his man, he wore leather, but there was a gemmed
clasp on his belt. His sword and knife hilt were of precious metal, as was a badge
fastened to the fore of his yellow and black fur head gear.

“This one is no local outlaw.” The Master stood, feet apart, studying the fugitive
Esper as if he were a burden pony offered as a bargain. “Would such use his power
for our aid? If he is a horned one—he is unlike any I have seen.”

“I am not what you think—” Craike said slowly, fitting his tongue to the others’ alien
speech.

The Master Trader nodded. “That is true. And you intend us no harm; does not the sun-stone
so testify?” His hand went to the badge on his cap. “In this one is no evil, Alfric,
rather does he come to us in aid. Have I not spoken the truth to you, stranger from
the wastes?”

Craike broadcast good will as strongly as he could. And they must have been somewhat
influenced by that.

“I feel—he DOES have the power!” Alfric burst forth.

“He has power,” the Master corrected him. “But has he striven to possess our minds
as he could do? We are still
our own men. No—this is no renegade Black Hood. Come!”

He beckoned to Craike, and the Esper, the animals still behind him, followed on into
the camp where the rest of the men seized upon the ponies to adjust their packs.

The Master filled a bowl from the contents of a three-legged pot set in the coals
of a dying fire. Craike gulped an excellent and filling stew. When he had done, the
Master indicated himself.

“I am Kaluf of the Children of Noe, a far trader and trail master. Is it your will,
Man of Power, to travel this road with us?”

Craike nodded. This might all be a wild dream. But he was willing to see it to its
end. A day with the caravan, the chance to gather more information from the men here,
should give him some inkling as to what had happened to him and where he now was.

C
RAIKE’S
day with the traders became two and then three. Esper talents were accepted by this
company matter-of-factly, even asked in aid. And from the travelers he gained a picture
of this world which he could not reconcile with his own.

His first impression of a large continent broken by widely separated holdings of a
frontier type remained. In addition there was knowledge of a feudal government, petty
lordlings holding title to lands over men of lesser birth.

Kaluf and his men had a mild contempt for their customers. Their own homeland lay
to the southeast, where, in some coastal cities, they had built up an overseas trade,
retaining its cream for their own consumption, peddling the rest in the barbarous
hinterland. Craike, his
facility in their click speech growing, asked questions which the Master answered
freely enough.