FORERUNNER FORAY by Andre Norton
She nodded and slipped away. D’Eyree looked once more to the sea. The Voice—had D’Fani’s brother really repaired it? Or was it, as more likely, some trick of D’Fani’s to influence the council and the people to plunge back into the old ways from which D’Gan had raised them? The Voice was set on the highest peak within the Three Walls. In the old days it had predicted accurately the coming of storms. But custom had been its conqueror. For by custom only one line of the people serviced the Voice, understood its intricate mechanism. And when the Plague of the Red Tide Year had struck, those who had understood the Voice had been, for some reason, the first stricken.
For years it had continued to operate even though those who had once tended it were gone. And the people had been lulled into believing that it was indestructible. Then it slowed, became inaccurate by days with its warnings. Finally it stopped. Though men had labored for two generations now to relearn its workings, they had been uniformly unsuccessful. The belief had been held for a long time that, like the Lurla, the Voice answered to mental control—a control inherited by the one clan that no longer existed. There were no visible focus points of communication to be discovered, nothing like the Eyes.
The Eyes—and D’Huna had surrendered hers! Perhaps she had surrendered even more as D’Atey had suggested. Of course the Lurla no longer bred as they once did. But their number had always been carefully controlled as was needful. However, suppose that a mutant strain had developed, one not so quick to answer to the dominance of the Eyes? The people had changed over the centuries since they had ventured forth step by step from the sea. They were amphibians now. But the fear had always hung over them that if they were forced out of Nornoch, which was their grip upon the land, they would lose their hard-won intelligence and revert again to sea creatures who could not think of themselves as human.
To return to feeding the Lurla on food long forbidden—could that be right? D’Gan had taught that such practices were savage, reducing those who held them to the status of one of the fanged sea raiders.
The band that held the Eyes seemed to press so tightly on D’Eyree’s forehead that it was a burden weighting her head; she could not carry it proudly aloft as became her. She returned to the window slit, resting her head against its solid frame, the breeze from the sea cool and moist against her scaled skin. She was so tired. Let those who had never worn the Eyes, carried that burden, think of the powers and privileges of her position. The weight, fear, and responsibility of it was far heavier than any respect could bolster.
Why then not follow D’Huna, admit that the Lurla had been sluggish for her, that four had failed? But if she did that, she was surrendering another kind of wall to D’Fani and those who followed him. The only possible wearers of the Eyes were very young, easily influenced, and one was D’Wasa, whom D’Eyree did not trust.
No, as long as she could, she must not surrender to her weariness, the more so if the Feeding returned. Not only did her whole being shrink from the very thought of that horror for herself; she knew it would also be throwing open the gate to the worst of the people.
Yet if the Voice proclaimed another such storm ahead, and D’Fani called for a trial of power before that came—
She was like one swimming between a fanged raider and a many-arms, with cause to believe that each was alerted to her passing and ready to put an end to her. And she was so tired—
D’Huna—she would go to D’Huna. She must know more of the failure of the Lurla—whether the other believed what she herself suspected, that it was not the fault of the Eyes, but of a mutation in the Lurla themselves. Knowledge was strength and the more knowledge she could garner the better she could build her own defense.
Even if D’Huna had surrendered her Eyes, she would not have left her tower. That by custom she could not do until the new wearer entered into it and took formal possession. So there was yet time.
D’Eyree threaded a way along nacre-walled corridors, climbed down in one section, up in another. The majority of the people never came into these link-ways between the towers. The privacy of the wearers was well guarded, lest they be disturbed at some time when it was necessary to check upon the Lurla or otherwise use their talent. And with a council in progress and the possibility of the Voice making some pronouncement, the attention of most of Nornoch would be centered elsewhere.
She passed no one during her journey; the towers might be deserted. Though there were six wearers on permanent duty, two for each wall. If D’Caquk and D’Lov had heard the news, there was no indication they stirred to hear more. The pale glow of the in-lights shone above their doors as she passed. Then she came to D’Huna’s tower.
With her webbed fingers D’Eyree rapped out their private call code. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the slit door opened, and she stepped into a room the duplicate of her own. D’Huna faced her, looking strange without the Eyes. D’Eyree had never seen her without them since they had become wearers on the same day.
“Kin-close,” D’Eyree spoke first, a little daunted by the unfocused stare the other turned on her—as if D’Eyree were not there at all. “I have been told a tale I cannot believe.” Her voice trailed away.
“What can you not believe?” D’Huna asked in a voice as lacking in animation as her face. “That I have put aside the Eyes, that I am no longer to watch and ward? If it is of that you speak, it is the truth.”
“But why have you done this thing? All—all of us know that the Lurla can be sluggish at times, that it is hard to drive them to their task. Of late years this has grown more and more the case.”
“With the storm,” D’Huna did not answer her directly, “I learned what the Lurla have become. Three would not answer the Eyes, even when I used the full force of my will. Therefore I failed Nornoch by so much. Let another who can bring more force to bear take my place, lest the wall crack at last.”
“Are you sure that another can do better?”
At that sharp question life showed in D’Huna’s face; there was a flicker in her large eyes. She stared at D’Eyree as if she still wore the Eyes, was attempting to bring their strength to bear on her sister wearer, to read her thoughts.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Have you sensed no difference in the Lurla?” D’Eyree might be grasping now for a small scrap of hope, but if she could make D’Huna question her own self-judgment perhaps there was a way out for them all. “As I have said, they have been sluggish of late. Perhaps it is not that our powers fail, but that the Lurla are more armored against us.”
“Be that so—then it will be also said that the Feeding once made them obey, that without it they are beyond our holding. Let another who is newly trained, perhaps stronger, stand in my place and try.”
The Feeding! So D’Huna was half converted to that belief. But did she not understand the danger in allowing that thought to spread? Perhaps she, D’Eyree, should keep to herself the observations she had made, or she would be giving ammunition to the enemy.
But even as she reflected, D’Huna’s expression changed. She threw off that blankness and her interest awakened.
“So—you have found them sluggish. Tell me—how many failed you this time!”
“Why should you—“
“Why should I think that?” D’Huna countered. “Because you are afraid, D’Eyree. Yes, I can read it in you, this fear. You sought me out, wishing to learn why I put off the Eyes. That being so, I think that it follows that you have also found your power failing you. There is no place for a wearer whom the Eyes fail. Would you be humbled before all the people by being forced to a trial? Set aside the Eyes by your own will; let them not be torn from you so that all may see a piteous thing worthy of contempt!”
“It is not so easy.” D’Eyree longed to deny the other’s accusation. But one cannot tell untruths to a wearer. “D’Fani speaks with the council. He urges a return to the Feeding; he promises the Voice will speak—“
“Suppose that it does and it tells of another storm such
“It is not pride, no—nor fear, save a little,” D’Eyree protested. “If we revert to the Feeding, then, I believe, it is better we quickly, cleanly, return through wind and wave to that which brought us forth, not sink back by degrees, forgetting all D’Gan taught. For the Feeding is evil, that I believe above all!”
“Which is strange coming from one sworn to nurture the Lurla above even her own life!” It was a man’s voice.
D’Eyree spun around to face the speaker.
D’Fani! she shaped his name with her lips but did not utter it aloud.
12
He stood there arrogantly, taller than most other males, if less robust of body. His quick, dominant mind blazed through his eyes. At that moment D’Eyree in a flash of intuition knew what made him a threat to her and all her kind. D’Fani had part of the power, not as the wearers had it, but enough so he resented that he had not the right to the Eyes. Because he lacked them he was her enemy.
D’Fani was no warrior either. He was inept with any weapon save his tongue and his mind. But those he had sharpened to his use so that he had gained ascendancy over others with greater strength. In their world he had carved a place, now he aspired to a greater one.
In this moment of their eyes’ meeting, D’Eyree knew this. Now she not only feared for herself, and vaguely for Nornoch; she feared for a way of life that D’Fani would destroy so that he might rule.
“You are sworn to defend the Lurla,” he repeated when she made no answer. “Is that not so, Eye Wearer?” There was in him that same strain of cruel maliciousness which D’Atey showed, save that here it was a hundred times the worse.
“I am sworn so,” D’Eyree answered steadily. “I am also sworn to the way of D’Gan.” Her future might be forfeit now. She had feared such a meeting, yet at this moment she drew upon some inner strength she had not known she possessed.
“If the Lurla die, then where do the precepts of a man already long dead lead us?” He had assumed the mask of someone being reasonable with a child or one of little understanding. But D’Fani classed all females as such.
To argue with him was folly; she could make no impression, that she knew. And that he would force a trial on her was probable. Would any of the other wearers support her? She thought that she dared not count on that, not after this exchange with D’Huna. It would seem she had dragged disaster upon herself by this impulsive visit here. But, that being so, she must waste no time in regrets but turn her whole mind to the struggle D’Fani would make her face. As much time as she had—
Time? Something dim, a wisp of memory stirred deep in her mind—a strange memory she did not understand. Time was important, not only to her but to someone else -- Just as in that flash D’Fani’s motives had been clear for her to read, so now did she have an instant of otherness—a sensation of being another person. It was frightening, and her hands went to her forehead, to press above the Eyes.
What had she seen, felt, in that moment of disorientation? It was gone, yet it left behind a residue of feeling, or urgency that she must accomplish some necessary act. With the techniques of a wearer she willed that away. Only D’Fani was important now.
“Do those weigh heavily upon you, Wearer?” he demanded. “There is a remedy. Put them off. Or would you have them taken from you for failure, after proof before the people that the Lurla will no longer answer you?”
“There can be no such proof!” She held her head high. That teasing memory-which-was-not-true was gone. “Who are you to presume to judge a wearer’s fitness?”
She was reckless, excited, as if she were forced to challenge him so that no more time would be wasted. And her words reacted on him as one of the mind-thrusts did upon a Lurla. He did not visibly twist under it, but the color of his scaled flesh deepened.
“There is one way to judge a wearer—a trial. And since D’Huna has relinquished her Eyes, there is already one arranged. It would seem you will have a part in it also.”
Did he expect her to beg off? If so he would be disappointed. Half-consciously she had known this would be the end. Her voice was still even and controlled as she answered:
“So be it, then.”
Whatever mission had brought him to D’Huna’s quarters seemed forgotten as, with a gloating look at D’Eyree, he left. When he was gone D’Eyree turned to the other woman.
“You gave him an open door when you put aside the Eyes.”
“And you gave him another,” D’Huna replied. “I was obeying the law when I could no longer control the Lurla. If you do no better, then the longer you hold the Eyes, the more you are at fault.”
“And if D’Fani sweeps the council and the people with him back to the old dark ways? Do you not remember the Chronicles of the Wearers—who were the first to be subjected to the Feeding? Are you martyr enough to ask for that? How much better can D’Fani make plain his power than by such a spectacle?”
“We vowed when we put on the Eyes to abide by the law—“
D’Eyree flung out one hang in an impatient gesture. “Do not quote law to me—not when it means the Feeding! Not when it serves D’Fani to climb to the rulership of Nornoch! Though do not fear—if he has his will I shall furnish the banquet—not you.”
She turned her back on the other; any more words between them would give D’Fani weapons to use against her. And she was not what she had accused D’Huna of being, a willing martyr.
Back she went to her own tower, trying to think, to control those fears D’Fani brought to her mind. But it was when she looked from the sea-window that she was shocked out of her preoccupation. There were the signs she had been trained to read—another storm was on the way.
For one to follow so quickly upon the last was unnatural. And the Lurla were tired; they should have rest and the nourishment of their specially grown food. Also—D’Huna’s section of the wall now had no warden.
The Lurla -- D’Eyree used the Eyes to look into their burrows. They lay flaccid, thick rolls of boneless flesh, upon the flooring. There was not even a twitching. She tried a thought probe. One—two—raised their fore-ends a little. The rest lay supine, inert. And they did not have that bloated look of afterfeeding.
For the first time D’Eyree did then what it was against all custom to do. She allowed her thought-sight to invade the Lurla pens of the other wearers. In each she noted those which seemed well fed, but there were a far greater number who were not. and some of those in the other pens were moving restlessly, angrily. If this were reported—more fuel for D’Fani!
Her weather-wise eyes told her there was perhaps a day before the storm gathered to full strength. Long enough for D’Fani to strike. There was nothing she could do—or was there?
The Lurla fed on cultures blended by a time-tested formula devised by D’Gan. But before that -- She used the Eyes again in a manner she had never tried before, not certain whether they could so serve her, not to watch, to encourage the Lurla—but rather to trace through the walls and the rock of this island certain ancient channels she knew of only by tradition. And to her relief she found she could do this.
Heartened by her first success, D’Eyree explored farther and farther, concentrating on those hidden ways so they also formed pictures in her mind. At last she found the outer gate, and it did give into the sea, well under the surface waves. Now—
D’Eyree gathered her power. There was plenty of life force in the water, though she could not distinguish the separate forms which emitted it, only the impact of the life itself. She began to use thought even as she used it to send the Lurla to labor. But this time she strove to entice, to draw it after her as a fisherman pulls a loaded net.
She played, angled, worked with concentration. In hardly daring to believe that she was succeeding, D’Eyree retraced those long forgotten and unused inner tunnels, bringing the life down them, and so
How much life she had so snared she could not tell, save that the vigorous force of it registered. Now D’Eyree turned her attention to one of the unfed Lurla—that nearest to the pool. As she would urge it to work during the storm, she used her talent as a lash to push it toward the pool. It moved weakly, as if so far spent that the least effort exhausted it, but it did move.
Then—
It had reached the pool side. There was a quiver of interest, of awakening. A moment or so later she knew that the first part of her experiment was working. The Lurla was aroused to feed, and it was absorbing the life force.
Not only that but the radiation of its satisfaction was reaching its fellows. They were beginning to crawl toward the pool, to share the feast. Exhausted, she threw herself on the soft carpet, sundering contact with the Lurla in order to strengthen her control. If the Lurla fed well and throve on the bounty of the sea, then D’Fani would be answered and would not dare propose the Feeding. They need only activate the old food tunnels. Of course, in time they would face the same problem which D’Gan’s generation had known before them: the inability to continue to feed the Lurla with natural food in quantity enough to build up their strength, especially after great storms had driven the sea dwellers into the depths. But a breathing space in which to defeat D’Fani’s immediate plan was all she wanted now.
Time—
Again she was shaken by an uncurling of strange memory. Something far buried in her clamored for expression. D’Eyree sat up, drawing her bent knees close to her breast, her arms about them, huddling in upon herself as she battled with that part of her mind that seemed to be an invader. There was no time -- Why did that haunt her so? Yet she would not explore behind that thought; she was afraid to do so with a fear as deadly as her distrust of D’Fani.