E.C Tubb - Eye of the Zodiac

"Keep in step there!" he rapped. "Armand, lengthen your stride! Lambert, shorten yours! That's better. Left! Left! Left, right, left!"

One of the boys stumbled.

"Easy, lad." Eidhal was unexpectedly gentle. "Just keep your head up and your eyes straight ahead. Just remember that tomorrow, you'll be a man."

A man or a memory-a tear in a woman's eye, a hardness in a man's expression. Eidhal didn't like to think about it.

The houses fell behind as they marched through fields thick with well-tended crops. A figure rose to stare towards them, a man dressed in gray, his face blank, his hands hanging limply at his sides. A ghost, a thing Eidhal didn't like to look at or think about. He ignored the call from the figure which came shambling towards the column.

"Wait! I wanna come. I wanna…"

The gray figure stopped, one hand lifting to finger its mouth. The hand fell as, like an automarum, it turned away to resume the endless task of weeding.

"Sir!" One of the boys had heard the call. "Why can't he-"

"Keep moving, boy!" Eidhal snapped the command. "Later, you will understand."

The fields passed and now the end of the valley could be seen in greater detail. Slopes narrowing, rising, the ruby of thorn thick at the crests. A path led upwards toward the high places, kept clear by continual labor, another of the gray ghosts vanishing as they approached.

The pace was slower now. The sun, while low, was still high enough to grant a little slack and Eidhal was not a man who took pleasure in the discomfort of others.

Armand came towards Eidhal as he called a halt on a level space.

"You want me to go ahead Varg? Just in case?"

The lift of his spear was eloquent. There could be predators lying in wait-the boys had to have the best chance they could get.

"Go ahead. Take half the men with you and be careful. Yell if you see anything." Eidhal glanced at the sun. "I can give you the best part of an hour. Move ahead, but don't go past the crescent."

He sighed as they raced up the path to the crest, wishing he were with them, but command held duties and they could not be ignored.

"Sir! Could you tell us what to expect? Give us a hint?"

"What's your name, boy?"

"Clem Marish, sir. I-"

"You should have known better than to ask." Eidhal remembered him now. He had worn the yellow for a period, no blame in that, but blame enough now that he had broken the rule.

"Yes, sir. I know, sir. I'm sorry." Terrified, afraid of what was to come.

"Just stay calm," said Eidhal, quietly. Safe advice which he must have received already. No father would remain wholly silent, despite the tradition. "Keep your head, stay where we put you and be resolute."

The boy nodded, unconvinced, and Eidhal remembered something else. An older brother who had failed to return-no wonder the lad was scared.

"Up," he ordered briskly. To delay now would be cruel. Fear was contagious. "Up and on our way!"

Beyond the crest, a fan of cleared thorn ran up a gentle slope which rose abruptly into a mass of slender pinnacles of jagged stone. They ran in an uneven curve for the distance of a mile, the remains of an old ridge which had been shattered and eroded in eons past. Rocks were heaped at the foot of the spires, clumps of grass and scrub clinging to the detritus. A section had been cleared-the high places of the ordeal.

Eidhal led the way towards them, walking straight, seeing the figures of Armand and his men looking small as they quested among the rocks.

Dumarest watched them come. He leaned against a pinnacle, the woman slumped at his feet. Iduna was close to exhaustion, her hair soiled, her clothing grimed, her eyes bruised hollows in the pallor of her face.

"Earl!" she muttered. "Earl?"

"Men," he said. "Men and boys." He added, comfortingly, "It's all right, Iduna. We're safe now."

"Safe? With animals like the Candarish?"

"With people."

He moved, feeling the nagging ache of bruises, of muscles overstrained. The laceration on his scalp was a festering burn. Despite his reassurance, he was being cautious. If these men were from the valley he had searched for, they could have a short way with strangers. A people who wanted to remain secret could not afford to arouse curiosity. He stepped behind the pinnacle as Iduna rose to stand beside him.

"Boys," she said wonderingly. "Why are they here, Earl? What are they doing?"

The party had halted before one of the cleared fingers of stone. As they watched a boy climbed it, reaching the top to cling awkwardly to the jagged summit. Once settled, the others moved away to another pinnacle well away from the first.

"Earl."

"A rite," he said. "An initiation. Those boys will have to stay up there all night. They will have to stay awake, hanging on, wait until the dawn. They could be up there for days."

"But why?" She had spoken without thinking, too tired to correlate facts into an answer. "What is the point?"

"A tribal custom. Once they have passed the test, they will become men." Dumarest glanced at the party, the questing scouts. As yet they were unobserved. "We've arrived at a bad time."

"Will they kill us?"

It was possible. Strangers, in a sacred place, observers who did not belong. It would be better to hide, to wait until night. But even so, there could be guards and certainly there would be predators of one kind or another. Beasts waiting for tired hands to slip, young bodies to fall, easy feeding in this savage wilderness.

"Madness," she said, too numb to follow her question, to demand an answer. "To treat children like that. Why do they do it?"

To weed out the unfit, to test courage, to make manhood a prized estate. A crude method, perhaps, but one which worked. Dumarest had seen it before, tests by fire, water, the ability to go without food and to live off the land. A means to ensure physical stamina, to eliminate destructive genes from the line.

No small community could afford to carry the burden of the handicapped. No sensible culture would permit destructive variations in the gene plasm to survive.

Had Leon refused to participate? Running, a victim of his own terror? It was possible-if he had come from the valley which lay beyond. If the valley was Nerth.

"Earl!"

He spun at Iduna's cry, seeing a multilegged thing, spined tail upcurved, mandibles champing. A scorpion-like thing a foot long, which scuttled forward towards her foot. It squelched beneath the impact of his heel, but the damage had been done.

"Eidhal! Here!"

Armand came running, spear leveled, men at his back. Dumarest stooped, picked up two stones, fist-sized rocks which he held in each hand. He threw one to either side, waiting until they fell, their rattle distracting the guards. Then, as they hesitated, he stepped forward, hands uplifted, palms forward in the unmistakable sign of peace.

Armand threw his spear. It was a slender shaft five feet long, the tip cruelly barbed. Sharp metal which glinted as it flashed, straight and fast towards Dumarest's chest. His hand dropped, caught it as he turned, continuing the movement so that he spun in a complete circle, running as he faced the man before him.

"Eidhal!"

Armand stepped back, caught his foot on a stone, and fell as Dumarest lunged towards him. He saw the face, tense, smeared with dirt and dried blood, the vicious tip of the spear flashing towards his throat. He felt the sharp prick as it came to rest touching his windpipe.

"No!"

"Hold!" Eidhal came running toward. "Don't kill him! You men there! Hold your spears!"

He halted close to Dumarest, looking at the man on the ground, the drop of blood showing beneath the point of the spear.

"Press on that shaft and you die! I swear it." His eyes lifted, saw Iduna, took her for a man. "Both of you die."

"You would kill a woman?"

"A woman?" Eidhal looked again, caught the swell of breasts beneath the stained tunic, the curve of the hips. "She too, if you kill Armand. You hold three lives in your hand."

Neatly put-and he meant it. Dumarest looked at the ring of guards, the scared and wondering faces of the boys yet to climb the pinnacles. They were well-trained, not one had moved, and guards had remained at their station.

"I came in peace. I showed empty hands, yet he tried to kill me. Why?"

Armand swallowed as Dumarest lifted the spear from his throat a little.

"I saw movement. There are predators-and you wear gray."

The mark of a ghost, he was not to blame. Eidhal glanced at Dumarest, saw his face, remembered the incredible speed with which he had avoided the thrown spear. No ghost this, no matter what he wore.

One of the guards cleared his throat.

"Varg, the boys?"

A timely reminder, already shadows were gathering in the hollows. Unless the initiation was canceled, they would have to move fast.

"Continue. Split up the men and work at speed." Again Eidhal studied Dumarest and the woman. Strangers-and the rule was clear. But the boys would be watching and, as yet, they were not men. "Where are you from?"

"That way." Dumarest jerked his head as he stepped back, still holding the spear.

"From there? The north?" Eidhal was incredulous. Nothing human could have come from that direction.

"We were on a raft and had an accident. Three survived. One died when we were attacked by a beast."

Eidhal sucked his his breath as Dumarest described it.

"A tirran! And you killed it?"

"Rilled it and lived on its flesh." Dumarest looked at the pinnacles, the young, watching faces. "Don't you get them here?"

"Rarely. The last one I saw was years ago, and I counted myself fortunate that it did not attack." Eidhal looked at the pair with respect. "Here we get codors- smaller, but just as vicious in their way." Too vicious, but he did not like to think of that. And his duty remained to be done.

Down towards the valley, he decided. On the level place in the path. The boys would not be able to see the swift execution, and the bodies would have vanished by dawn. A pity, the man held strength, and the woman could provide healthy children. The rule was sometimes hard.

"You had best come with me," he said. "The boys must wait alone. Armand, your spear."

Dumarest retained it, looking from one to the other, judging distance. He could kill at least two, perhaps more, but if he fought now the end would be inevitable. And there could be no need to fight. He looked at Eidhal, the green he wore.

"A question, you will answer it?"

"Yes." A man, soon to die, should be treated with courtesy.

"I am looking for Nerth, have I found it?" He saw the blank expression and felt a momentary unease. Yet, if these were the Original People they would be reluctant to admit it. He said, quickly, "I come bearing a message from Leon Harvey. You know him?" Without waiting for an answer he produced the photograph. "I will give it to her."

* * * * *

There was a comfort in the Council chamber, as if time itself had been halted and trapped in the thick stone of the walls, the massive beams of the roof. Thick laminations of wood constructed with loving care. Signs of the ancients were on all sides, faces carved in timber which seemed to move and shift in the dancing flames of lanterns, to smile, nod and, sometimes, to frown.

A fantasy, Phal Vestaler knew. Inanimate things could not pass judgment, but if the stones could speak surely they would protest now. The thud of his gavel demanded silence.

"Gentlemen, you will please remember that you constitute the Council. We are not at festival, but at deliberation. Aryan, you may speak."