Enchantress from the Stars Page 9

  The Enchantress hesitated, and then she said, “I will not tell you that the Forest holds no peril. But I believe that this particular path, on this particular night, is the proper one for your purpose.”

  Georyn looked at her closely. “That answer is less direct than my question, Lady.”

  “My answer was not meant to be direct—which you knew, when you framed that reply to it,” the Lady said quietly.

  Thereupon Georyn was sure that her advice had been intended not as a suggestion but as a challenge, and for that reason he could not refuse it. What a strange thing, he thought, that after all the years of avoiding the Enchanted Forest, he should be obliged to set out into it in the dead of night, with no real knowledge of what he would meet except for a clear hint that it would be something frightening!

  But he kept a cheerful countenance as the Enchantress showed them where they could cross the river and pointed out the path on the opposite bank that they must take. And when they reached the other side of the log bridge Georyn looked back; the Lady stood at its far end, holding her own light aloft so that it shone upon her, turning her Emblem into a brilliant, flashing star. And this time, he raised his hand in a gesture that was more a pledge than a farewell.

  I stood on the riverbank watching Georyn’s small light disappear into that great dark forest that he truly believed was enchanted, and it was all I could do to keep from calling out to him. What if there really was peril there … peril other than the all-too-terrifying ordeal we had prepared for the brothers, which was in itself bad enough? What if they should lose their way? Suppose something unpredictable happened to them. We’d be responsible!

  Holding my own light in front of me, I started back along the now well-worn trail toward the hut. Then suddenly I stopped and switched it off for a moment, deliberately letting the darkness close around me as I had not done on any night since I had been alone. My eyes, dazzled by the former brilliance, could see nothing. It was scary! A little of the panic I’d felt during that first fearful night hit me, though I knew how to squelch it now. Of course, I reminded myself, I was still unused to the wilderness; I had grown up in a world where light was normal and essential. To the Andrecians it was an unheard-of miracle, and they had undoubtedly been in dark woods plenty of times before. But not in the Enchanted Forest. Not without a campfire, without starlight even, fresh from an encounter with an “evil demon” that had ended in a disheartening defeat.

  All at once I was struck with a fantastic idea—was it possible that they wouldn’t be defeated? Could they turn the tables on us and really overpower Evrek? It was two against one, after all. To my horror I realized that I was half-hoping that they could. Evrek, after all, was protected by the Shield and wouldn’t actually be harmed. Of course there wasn’t any danger of such a thing happening; Evrek was quite capable of keeping the upper hand.

  I hadn’t heard from Evrek all day long. I’d thought that being with him on Andrecia would bring us closer together, but it didn’t seem to be working out that way. The gulf between us was widening, not closing, despite the fact that I too was sworn. Our nerves were on edge, and we just weren’t communicating as well as we once had. Maybe it was because we were afraid for each other, and we were both trying to conceal it. Or maybe it was simply that we were wrapped up in our new and awesome responsibilities.

  I turned the light back on and carried it into the hut. Determinedly I sat down and opened a book, but I could not read it. Instead of printed characters I saw Georyn’s face. Why, I wondered, should it haunt me so? Georyn was quick to grasp ideas, but I’d met lots of smarter men at the Academy. He was bold, courageous, but in my Service friends I’d come to expect that as a matter of course. And as for looks, well, I’d known at least ten classmates who were far more attractive than Georyn.

  He suspected that I was testing him, I was pretty sure. But he wouldn’t be expecting me to put him through the sort of experience that was waiting for him tonight in the depths of those woods. He’d be stunned by it, and hurt. He might stop believing in me. Father didn’t think so. Father thought the brothers would come back to seek my aid again. He felt that if they didn’t trust me that far, if they hadn’t that much regard for my trust in them, then our relationship couldn’t be good enough to support what was to follow. Maybe he’s right, I thought. Maybe if I’ve done my job right, there’s no question … maybe it’s my success or failure that’s at issue here.

  And I mustn’t fail with Georyn! He had been afraid, yet he had smiled and waved to me. Terwyn tended to discount danger, to believe that nothing could possibly happen to him. Georyn was more realistic; he had gone into the Enchanted Forest with no illusions at all, unless his faith in me was an illusion.

  All along I’d known that, in theory, I would not want to see anything unpleasant done to Younglings, whether it was for the sake of their own world’s future or not. But there was nothing theoretical about the way I felt now. I knew that I was not going to be able to do anything except sit and worry until my protégés were safely back again.

  Dulard kept close tabs on what was going on in the colony, and he usually made the rounds of the camp each night before turning in. One evening, when he stopped to chat with Jarel and the other men quartered in the prisoners’ barracks, he seemed disturbed about something.

  “You’ve been hanging around these natives a good deal,” he remarked to Jarel.

  “Isn’t that okay?” Jarel asked.

  “Sure, go ahead, so long as you don’t let it interfere with your job. If you can pick up any of their lingo, it’ll be useful when it comes to moving them to a reservation.”

  “I don’t think,” Jarel said, “that they’re going to be very cooperative about that. Are you sure it’s practical, sir?”

  Dulard sighed, and Jarel sensed that although he obviously disapproved of friendliness toward the natives, he wasn’t really angry about it. He almost seemed sorry that his obligation to protect the colony required him to suppress any show of sympathy for them.

  “You medics are all alike,” Dulard said. “Sometimes I think you’d like to pull out whenever we find that a planet’s got natives. Jarel, these savages haven’t a chance.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what the devil are you worrying about? Since when can’t we arrange a simple treaty without starting trouble? They aren’t strong enough to fight us; if they were, we’d never have picked this planet in the first place. An undeveloped base isn’t worth risking our lives.”

  “Our lives? How about theirs?”

  “We’re not killing them off, are we? They’ll get a whole tract of free land.”

  Jarel laughed shortly. “Yes, free—on their own planet. Maybe two or three percent of the surface. Of course, it won’t be the most attractive two or three percent, but—”

  “Good lord, Jarel. You talk as if they were human.”

  “Maybe they are. Not by our standards, naturally, but maybe by theirs. Sure, they’re not too bright and they haven’t got civilization—anyway, not as we define civilization. But someday! What might they have become someday, if we’d kept out?”

  Dulard insisted, “You can’t look at it like that. That’s like looking at ancient history and saying what might other primitive tribes have become if the more advanced nations hadn’t taken over new continents.”

  “It’s not the same,” Jarel argued. “There wasn’t any independent future for separate cultures of the human race, our human race. Isolation was impossible on a single world; they had to merge or stop developing. But we don’t have to come here. In the long run it won’t make a bit of difference to the future of the Empire if we don’t claim this particular planet.”

  “In that case,” put in Kevan, “I should get me a soft job back home and breathe real air.”

  Dulard glared at them. To Jarel, he said, “I might say that you are hardly an addition to the morale around here.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Jarel said stubbornly, “but I can’t turn off my
feelings just because the inhabitants of this place don’t look exactly like us and therefore don’t have any rights under the Charter. I’ve watched them pretty closely, and they’re people. They didn’t walk into this camp just to gape, you know. They came to defend their village. They haven’t much idea what they’re up against; they think that the rockchewer’s alive, that it’s a—well, sort of a dragon.”

  “A dragon? Like in those old myths?”

  “Sure, like in those old myths our own people had once, before we ever heard of spaceships or ‘civilized’ planets.”

  “Say!” exclaimed Kevan. “I read some of those when I was a kid. The dragon’s always demanding that the people bring him a beautiful maiden so’s he’ll leave the village alone. I’ll bet if we—”

  Jarel scowled at him. “The dragon,” he said stiffly, “usually gets slain.”

  “Well, these would-be heroes aren’t about to slay us,” Kevan stated flatly. “They haven’t any weapons besides spears and arrows and those crude swords.”

  Thoughtfully, Jarel said, “I wonder.”

  “Now look, Jarel—” Dulard began. He paused a moment, then went on. “The natives are not human, after all, and for more than one reason it would be a bad thing if any of you started thinking of them as if they were.”

  “I know,” Jarel answered. “They’ve no firearms, no nerve poisons, nothing like stunner rays. By the way, do we have to go on using the stunners?”

  “Why not?” demanded Kevan. “They have no permanent effects, and it saves putting bars on the place.”

  “How would you like to be shut in there unable to move around of your own volition? Sure, I know it’s painless. Animals don’t care. But what if they aren’t animals, Kevan? What if they turn out to have something we don’t know about? Something big?”

  “Such as what?”

  “I’m not saying there’s anything beyond future potential. But what do we really know about intelligence? Maybe technology isn’t everything; maybe there are races in the universe whose minds work differently. Maybe this one’s on a higher level than we think.”

  “You don’t believe that,” asserted Dulard.

  “No,” Jarel admitted. “I think I understand these people; I think I see where they fit in with the primitive species that have been studied at the Research Center. But I’m not sure. Suppose, for example, and I’m not saying this is possible, but just suppose that a race discovered how to use ESP, or something of that nature.”

  “ESP—mind reading? Ghosts and mediums and stuff? You’re kidding.” Kevan guffawed.

  “Maybe. But maybe it’s not ‘supernatural’ at all. There may be all kinds of things we haven’t discovered yet. And who’s to say what kinds of forces a people will discover and put to use first?”

  Dulard shook his head. “Jarel,” he said, “I don’t know how a guy like you got into this kind of work. But if it makes you feel any better, let me tell you this: the day your friends in there start reading minds, or doing things with forces we don’t understand, we’ll get our ship out of this solar system so fast you’ll hardly know we were ever here.”

  The Enchanted Forest was darksome indeed, for the trees met overhead, hiding even the stars from view. So thick was the undergrowth that the path was hard to follow despite the globe that Georyn held before him, the globe containing the wondrous piece of the Sun. The light made a safe circle around the brothers, illumining the ground at their feet and the nearby tangle of branches. But beyond that sanctuary, beyond the curtain of mist that encroached upon it, were black and unknowable things.

  “What if the light should fail?” whispered Terwyn. “What then would become of us? For to be here without it would be unbearable.”

  “I do not think,” said Georyn, “that the light will fail of itself; for it can be no less faultless than she who gave it to us. But we are dealing with enchantments, so we must be prepared to meet something unexpected. We cannot hope for our task to be straightforward. That is not the way of such things!”

  At that moment, the brothers sensed a movement on the path ahead, a dim suggestion of a tall, dark shape! “Hold up the light!” Terwyn said urgently. Georyn did so, yet still they beheld but little that lay before them. No need had they to see, however, for the same soundless speech that had challenged them on the previous night again flooded their minds. You must give me your piece of the Sun.

  “We cannot do that,” said Terwyn resolutely. Then, to Georyn, he said, “Let us go on as before; no doubt the result will be the same as it was with the last evil spirit we encountered.”

  “I am not so sure,” replied Georyn, “for we meet him here on his own ground, and his power may be the stronger for it; not for nothing is the reputation of this Forest so black. Nevertheless, we must try.”

  But ere they could make any move, the ominous thought of the wizard came again, more insistently. This time, I am not giving you a choice! I will take the light, whether you consent or no.

  With terrifying certainty Georyn knew that this was no bluff, for the thoughts of the demon were not like words, which might or might not have true meaning. It was very clear to him that while last night he had been offered a choice, tonight he would receive none; if the wizard could get the globe, he would do so. “We have but one hope,” he whispered to Terwyn. “If we put out the light, perchance he will not find it.”

  “But we may not be able to make it burn again!” exclaimed Terwyn. “We would then have to travel through this Forest in the dark. We could not even build a fire, for we have promised not to stop.”

  “That cannot be helped now,” Georyn declared, and he turned the ball at the base of the globe firmly. As the Enchantress had predicted, the light was instantly extinguished. There was not even any glow, as with fading coals; it was as if there had never been any piece of the Sun at all. The world around them was now totally obscured; yet still the brothers felt the demon’s presence, and they were aware that he was moving toward them.

  There was no sound. Georyn clutched the darkened globe, and together he and Terwyn walked forward in the desperate hope that at the last moment the wizard would step aside as he had done before. And the cloaked figure must indeed have either stepped aside or dissolved into nothingness, for at no time was it within touch of them. Yet as they had been bereft of their swords by sorcery, even so was the globe wrenched from Georyn’s hands; and to their great dismay it disappeared into the impenetrable shadow of the Enchanted Forest.

  Blindly, then, did Georyn and Terwyn charge ahead, intending to fight this demon at whatever cost to themselves; well they knew that loss of the thing that had been entrusted to their care would be a defeat past bearing. But valor was useless, for neither the wizard nor the globe was anywhere to be found! The chilling thought assailed them: There is no use in searching, for you will not find it. You will not find me, either. You must accept your failure. And with that, the evil spirit departed; its very thought was gone from the place, and thus was Georyn at last convinced that they were now in truth alone.

  The brothers were overcome by despair. They had not really believed that such a thing could befall them. Though for some time they continued the search for the vanished globe, in their hearts they knew it would avail little. And all the while Georyn was thinking, This is a riddle that has no answer. She would not set us an impossible task. For he could see no way in which he could have withstood the magic that had been used against him, if willingness to die in defense of the light had not been enough. And that meant that the Enchantress must be either less well-intentioned than he had thought, or less omnipotent—but neither of those could he believe.

  “Terwyn,” he said, “there is but one thing we can do now. We must return to the Enchantress and tell her what has happened.”

  “But she may be very angry,” objected Terwyn. “That Lady has great power, Georyn, power past our understanding. Though she seems gentle, I have no doubt that she is dangerous if her wrath is aroused. Even more dangerous than
demons in dark cloaks, perhaps.”

  Georyn knew that if he had misjudged her good purpose, this might very well be true. As an enemy, the Enchantress would surely be formidable; logic told him that to walk into her trap, if it had been a trap, would indeed be rash. But this was not a matter for logic. “We still must go to her,” he told Terwyn. “We cannot return to the Starwatcher without the thing for which he has asked, and we will not find it here by hope alone. Besides, she trusted us with the light, and I will not deceive her.”

  “Nor will I,” admitted Terwyn. “You are right; it is the only course we can take if we are to continue with this quest. Let us camp here, and set out at first light of dawn.”

  “We must return now,” Georyn declared firmly. “To wait for dawn would be a violation of our promise.”

  “But the condition has already been violated.”

  “Not by our will. And it must not be, if we are to hope for any further aid from her.”

  So the brothers stumbled back through the darkness, retracing the way they had come. If following the trail had been difficult before, it was almost impossible now, and they proceeded very slowly. More than once they blundered off the path, but the undergrowth was so dense elsewhere that they were able to feel their way back to it. At last a welcome sound swelled before them, and they broke out of the forest onto the stony riverbank. The log bridge was barely visible and the crossing of it was hazardous; yet they pressed forward and met with no mishap.

  There was still a light within the Enchantress’s hut; resolutely Georyn and Terwyn approached the doorway and stood just outside it, looking in. The Lady’s dark head was bent over an awesome thing that could be naught but a book of magic spells; Georyn could see that its pages were covered with strange markings, and he was overcome with wonder. Yet at that moment she looked far more like a mortal maiden than a witch. He deemed her to be entirely innocent of any ill intent, and he knew also that he desired her friendship more than he had ever desired anything.