Dare - rtf Page 4

  He turned his head away so she wouldn't see his face. His chest swelled until it seemed it would ex­plode from the half-hurt, half-thrill. Whatever was stuck behind his breastbone wanted to get out, and it wanted to get out fast.

  But he wouldn't allow it.

  Had he felt that way about one of the girls he'd squired around Slashlark -- and there had been several -- he would have acted with the thought. R'li, however, was at one and the same time an attraction and an obstacle. She was a siren, a female that men refused to name woman. Unhuman, deadly, believed to have all the attributes of the legendary half-animal charmers of the legendary Mediterranean and Rhine, she could not be approached without peril of life and soul. The State and the Church, in their vast wisdom, forbade man to touch a siren.

  But State and Church were far-off and shadowy abstractions.

  R'li was near and golden-brown flesh and purple-blue eyes and scarlet mouth and glittering hair and magnetic curves. She was look and laugh and bounce and sway and flash and shadow and come-on and get-away and I-know-you and you-don't-know-me.

  She broke into his tight-lipped silence.

  "Whatever are you thinking about?"

  "Nothing."

  "Wonderful! How do you manage to concentrate so fiercely on nothing?''

  Her joking helped him regain his balance. His chest quit hurting, and he was able to look R'li in the face. She no longer seemed the most desirable creature in the world; she was merely a -- a female who happened to embody -- and embody was the right word -- embody what a man dreamed of when he dreamed of a -- there was no getting away from the word -- of a body.

  But he had been close to. . . no. Never. He would not even think of it. He must not have thought of it. How could he? A few seconds before that black and aching fire flared up, he had been angry enough to strike her. Then fire on anger had metamorphosed into the shape of desire.

  What had happened? Had she cast a spell over him?

  Jack laughed, but he would not tell her why when she asked what was so funny. When he tried to blame his feeling on siren's magic, he was not being honest with himself. He was skeptical about sorcery, anyway, though, of course, he never mentioned it. No. She'd thrown no spell. Unless it was the witch­craft any good-looking female could practice without calling in the devil.

  Name the thing and let it die. Lust it was called, and it was nothing else.

  Swiftly, he crossed himself and swore silently that he would tell Father Tappan about his temptation at the next confession. And told himself that he lied and that he would never say a word of it to anybody. He was far too ashamed.

  As soon as he got home and was able to settle things with his father, he'd drive into town and see Bess Merrimoth. He could forget about R'li when he was with a nice lean human girl, that is, if, after such thoughts, his touch wouldn't befoul her. . . No! That was nonsense, he mustn't think like that. He loathed those who went around full of self-imposed guilt and would not allow God or anybody to forgive them. It was a form of self-pity, which, in turn, was a means of getting attention.

  Realizing he had to get out of the tightening spiral of introspection, he made an effort to talk again to R'li. She had, he knew, been evading the subject of the dragon. So he asked her about it.

  "It's just this," she replied. "You really owe your life to us, you know. The dragon told me you were trailing her with intent to kill. Several times she could have circled you and taken you from behind. But she didn't. Her contract with us says that only in case of defense, and as a last resort, may she --"

  "Contract?" croaked Jack.

  "Yes. Perhaps you've noticed a pattern in her so-called maraudings on the farms around Slashlark. One unicorn from Lord How's estate one week. Next week, one from the Chuckswilly farm. The fol­lowing, one from O'Reilly's. Seven days later, a beast from the Philippian monastery herd. Then one from your father's place.

  "After which the cycle starts again with Lord How, and so on, ending up with the stallion taken five nights ago from your father's pens. Aside from the pattern of rotation, the terms are: No plow or milk unicorns to be taken. No pregnant mares. Only those tagged for the meat market. Dogs and humans avoided as much as possible. No more than four unicorns a year from each farm. Only one dragon to an area. Same contract next year, but subject to alteration if circumstances demand it."

  "Wait a minute! Who said you horstels" -- the word sounded as if he spat it -- "could dispose of our property as if it were yours?''

  She glanced down. Only then did he realize his hand was on her arm. The skin was so smooth it seemed half liquid, smoother even (he could not help the treacherous thought) than Bess's.

  Her eyes flickered down to the withdrawing hand, then up to his flushed face as she said, coolly, "You forget that, according to the contract your grand­father made with my folks when they agreed to share the farmland, you men were to give us four unicorns a year. That has not been done, by the way, for the last ten years because we horstels have had enough from our own herds to eat. We have not demanded our rights because we are not greedy.''

  She paused and then added, "Nor have we said anything to the tax collector about the unarguable fact that your father has been claiming exemption for those four unicorns even though he's kept them for himself."

  Jack was not too annoyed to miss her attachment to the we of what human grammarians called the Particle of Ambiguous Contempt.

  Jack thought there was a flaw in R'li's explanation of the dragon's raids. If a contract had been made, why didn't they simply take the four unicorns and hand them over to the monster? Why go through the rigmarole of allowing the beast to make her dangerous night forays? The story didn't make sense.

  True, horstels seldom lied. But they did now and then. And their adults used child-talk when telling fiction; she had used it with him.

  That didn't necessarily mean she was lying, for she had taught it to him when they played together as children on the farm, and it was only natural she should continue using it.

  Egstaw, the Watcher on the Bridge, was standing on the road, close to the tall round tower of quartz-shot stone that was his home. He was painting on a large canvas supported by an easel.

  His wife, Wigtwa, was crouching about thirty yards away on the creek bank. She was skinning a scaly two-legged squamous about two feet long that she'd just hooked from the water. Near by, three youngsters played in the water. Ana, five years old, could not be distinguished from a human infant of her age except by very careful scrutiny. That would have shown the beginnings of a fuzz running from the back of the neck and down the valley of the spine.

  Krain, a boy of ten, had a backbone that flashed golden when it was at a certain angle to the sun.

  Lida, just thirteen, illustrated the next-to-the-last stage of horstel hairiness. Orange-red, inch-long, a roach divided her back and continued to hang a foot beyond her coccyx. Her pubes bore the first in­timations of the diamond and the disc. Water-darkened, they, plus the faint swell of breast, hinted at the coming glory of the siren.

  R'li gave a delighted shriek at seeing her aunt and uncle and cousins and ran to them. Egstaw put down his palette and brush and trotted toward her; Wigtwa dropped the squamous and knife and raced toward the bridge. Behind her, the children, screaming with joy, splashed through the creek.

  All embraced and kissed R'li many times, laughing and crying and hugging her and each other. In the midst of it, she began talking and waving her hands wildly as she tried to compress into a few minutes her experiences of the last three years.

  Jack hung back until her uncle came up to him and asked, in English, if he would care for fresh bread and a stein of wine or beer. Later they would have barbecued squamous.

  Jack replied he did not have time to wait for the meat. He would take a drink of wine and some bread, however.

  Egstaw said, "You won't be lacking human com­pany, either. We have another guest."

  He waved at a man who had just stepped out of the bridge tower. Jack was
surprised. Strangers in this frontier county were always regarded with curiosity or suspicion or both; especially one friendly enough with the natives to enter their dwelling.

  Egstaw said, "Jack Cage, meet Manto Chuckswilly."

  As they shook hands, Jack said, "Any relation to Al Chuckswilly? He has a farm close to ours."

  "All human beings are brothers," said the stranger gravely. "However, he and I could probably trace our ancestry back to the original Circassian whose name was, I believe, Djugashvili. Just as I can trace my first name back to Manteo, one of the Croatan Indians who came with the Roanokians. What about you?"

  Jack said mentally, "Damn!" and resolved to quit talking with the fellow as soon as possible. Evidently he was one of those who carried in their heads the whole family tree and who took great pride and much time in leaping from limb to limb and inspecting every twig, every leaf, and the veins and traceries in the leaves themselves. Jack thought it a futile piece of knowledge. All humans could claim descent from each and every one of the original kidnapees.

  Chuckswilly was very dark, about thirty, was clean-shaven, and had a long jaw, thick lips, and a large, high-bridged nose. His clothes were expensive: a white felt hat, broad-brimmed and tall-crowned; a jacket of dark-blue werewolf pelt; a copper-studded broadbelt from which hung a copperwood knife and a rapier. His short kilt was linen, white with scarlet pin stripes. Kilts had long been worn in the capital city, but they had not yet become popular in the outlying rustic districts. Calf-length brown boots completed his garb.

  Jack asked to see the rapier. Chuckswilly whipped it from its sheath, threw it in the air, and left it to Jack to catch. Smoothly, Jack seized it by its hilt. He did not like the stranger's gesture of trying to catch him off guard and make him look clumsy. Big-city airs, he thought, and shrugged.

  The shrug did not escape the keen black eyes, for Chuckswilly's thick lips lifted to expose teeth as unhumanly white as a siren's.

  Jack assumed the pose he'd been taught in the Slashlark Academy for Bladesmen, saluted the stranger, and then lunged at an imaginary foe. He shadow-fenced for a while, trying it out until he had its feel. Then he turned the rapier.

  "Wonderfully flexible," he commented. "Made out of that new Bendglass, isn't it? I'd sure like to get one. I've never seen any around here. But I've heard the Slashlark garrison is going to be equipped with all the newest inventions. Glass helmets, cuirasses, jambs, and shields! Spears and arrowheads, too! And I've heard that they've made a glass that'll stand up to powder charges! That means guns! Though I understand the barrels can only be used a dozen or so times before they have to be thrown away."

  He stopped short at a barely perceptible nod of the stranger's head in the direction of the approaching Watcher.

  "Only rumors," said Chuckswilly. "But the less the horstels know about it, the better."

  "Oh, I see," mumbled Jack. He felt as if he'd betrayed a state secret. "What did you say you were doing?"

  "As I was telling Egstaw here," the dark man spoke smoothly, "I am one of those fools who like to seek the Holy Grail, the Unattainable, the Never-to-be-found. In other words, I'm a prospector, an iron-sniffer. The Queen pays me to search for that fabulous mineral. So far, as might be expected, I've not seen even a shaving of iron around here. Or any place."

  He cocked his head and smiled at Jack so that big crinkleflowers grew around his eyes.

  "By the way, if you were thinking of turning me in for having entered a horstel dwelling, save your breath. As a Government mineralogist, I'm legally empowered to do so, provided, of course, the Wiyr concerned invites me."

  "I wasn't thinking of any such thing!" said Jack, flushing.

  "Well, you should have. It's your duty."

  Cage almost turned and walked away. What an un­pleasant fellow! But the desire to save face and to im­press the stranger stopped him. As a reply, he whipped out his scimitar and held it up so the sun bounced off it.

  "What do you think of that?"

  Chuckswilly looked envious and a trifle awed. "Iron! Let me touch it, hold it!"

  Jack threw it up in the air. The dark man caught it deftly by the hilt, thus disappointing Jack, for he'd hoped Chuckswilly would miss it and grab its edge and cut his hand. What a stupid and childish trick! He should be too big to ape city gestures.

  Chuckswilly slashed the air around him. "This would take off the heads! Snip! Snip! What the Queen's men couldn't do if they had weapons like this!"

  "Yes, couldn't they," said Egstaw drily. He watched the scimitar returned to its owner. "Frankly, I'm very doubtful of any good results if you should find an iron mine. However, as I un­derstand it, the general contract made with the Dyonisan government says that any qualified humans may search anywhere for minerals, provided they get consent from the local Wiyr. As far as I'm concerned, you may go up into the Thrruk Moun­tains and look.

  "But werewolves are numerous there, and dragons are allowed by contract to attack any human they find there. Moreover, if any Wiyr you meet cares to kill you, he may do so without fear of retaliation from his own kind. The Thrruk is, in a sense, sacred to us.

  "In other words, no one will hold you back from the mountains. But neither will anyone help you. You understand?''

  "Yes, but what about companions? How large a group may go?"

  "No more than five. Any more automatically breaks the agreement. I may as well tell you that several times in the past, large bands have illegally gone up into the Thrruk. None were ever seen again."

  "I know. And you say you can't tell me if you Wiyr have found any traces of iron there?"

  "Not can't. Won't."

  Egstaw smiled as if he knew he were being exasperatingly mysterious.

  "Thank you, O Watcher on the Bridge."

  "You are welcome, O Smeller-Out of Trouble."

  Chuckswilly frowned. Stepping closer to Cage, he muttered, "These horstels. . . But the day will come."

  Jack ignored him to watch R'li, who had come from the tower. She carried a ball of green soap made of totum fat and an armful of freshly cut softgrass.

  He couldn't keep his eyes off her swaying hips and the sweep of her horsetail as it swung back and forth like a sensual pendulum in contrarhythm to the hips. He wanted to watch her bathe in the creek, but he noticed that the stranger was regarding him with narrowed eyes.

  "Fear the soulless siren as an abomination. Lie not with her, for she is a beast of the field, and you know what is commanded be done to the man caught with her."

  Jack replied to Chuckswilly's softly spoken question. "A cat may look at a queen."

  "Curiosity killed the cat."

  "Sharp nose shows sharp brain. Mind-your-own-business gathers money," retorted Jack, and won­dered how silly he could get. Proverb-trading would make you no richer, either.

  He walked away to examine Egstaw's painting.

  The Watcher followed and explained it in child-horstel. "That is an Arra showing this planet to the first Terran. He is telling him that here is his chance to get away from all the diseases, poverty, op­pression, ignorance, and wars that have scabbed the face of his home-earth. The catch is that he will have to co-operate with the beings that already live there. If he can learn from the horstels, and they from him, then he will have proved he is capable of being allowed to develop in greater directions.

  "It is a more or less controlled experiment, you see. Notice the somewhat threatening left fist. That symbolizes what may happen to man, both here and on Terra, if he has not reformed by the time the Arra return. Man has about four hundred years to found a society that will have co-operation as its basis, not cutthroat hate and aggression and prejudice.

  "Man will have on Dare no superior weapons to slaughter the backward natives, as he is doing on Earth. Here almost all the iron and other heavy elements disappeared a millennium before man's coming.

  "The ravaged society had been one that used steel and fire and explosives on an inconceivable scale. Wiyr traveled in flying machines, talke
d across thousands of miles, and did many things you Darians consider to be witchcraft. But this world was blown apart; only a pittance of people were left, though, luckily, the most intelligent. Most of the plants, in­sects, reptiles, and animals were wiped out by weapons whose nature we do not today know.

  "But the Wiyrs created -- not rebuilt -- a new type of society and a new type of sentient being. The sur­vivors decided they had come close to exterminating themselves because they did not know what they were or how they functioned. So they determined to find out first and then, if necessary, build a technological society. First, to survive and progress, they would know themselves, nood stawn, as we say. Later would come the unveiling of Nature.

  "They succeeded. Out of the ravage they formed a world free of disease, poverty, hate, and war -- a world that went along as smoothly as could be ex­pected from self-determined individuals. That is, un­til the Terrans came."

  Jack ignored the remark. When truth and politeness struggled on a horstel's tongue, the truth almost always won.

  He looked at the painting closely. He had seen few, since pigments for paint were scarce on this iron-poor planet. He did recognize the Arra, however. The creature had been described enough at school, and he had seen charcoal copies of the original charcoal por­trait of an Arra made by the original Cage from memory shortly after the Terrans had been dumped on this world. The Arra looked something like a cross between a man and a tailbear (an "ursucentaur," Father Joe had called it).

  Egstaw said, "You will notice that, despite the benignity on its great face, it also looks threatening, perhaps sinister. I have tried to portray the Arra as a symbol of the universe.

  "This immense and nonhuman creature stands both for the physical, which works best with man if he is not vicious or arrogant, and also for that beyond the material face of things. Many of us definitely feel there are such -- should I say super­natural? -- powers, though we use that term in a dif­ferent sense than Darians, that some are powerful but kindly, and that they are likely to use means terrifying but seemingly hostile to men in order to teach them their lesson. If man won't learn, so much the worse for him.