Haran wiped his face, smiling. "Two," he gloated. "No trouble, no one lost, not even a scratch. Even if we don't find a zerd the trip hasn't been a waste." He looked to one side at the sound of a rustle. "That must be the others. We might as well join them."

  Without nets there was nothing more they could do. Dumarest nodded. "We'll stay together from now on. Camp maybe and let the beasts lose their strength. Then we'll butcher and pack." He looked at the sky. "It'll be dark soon. We'd better hurry."

  The rustle sounded again, faded away as they moved toward it. Dumarest took up the rear, Haran just ahead, the two other men before him. They broke into a run at the sound of shouts and yells. There was a hissing and a man screamed in pain.

  "Wisar!" Haran lunged ahead, turned, snarling as Dumarest caught his cloak. "My brother! Let go, you—!" He tore free, lunged after the others, crashing through the scrub. Dumarest followed, protecting his face from the spines with uplifted arms. A second scream echoed as he burst into a clearing.

  Before him stood nightmare.

  It was big, vast—a creature from a prehistoric nightmare. The scaled hide was dull brown and green rippling on a fifty-foot frame, the head six feet above the ground. It hissed like a steam engine and the stench of its breath filled the air. Off to one side a smaller zardle lay struggling in a mesh of nets. Two men lay on the rocky soil—one broken, obviously dead, lying with his face in a pool of blood.

  "Wisar!" Haran surged forward, struggled as Dumarest gripped him, held him back. "Earl! That's my brother!"

  "No, it isn't," snapped Dumarest. "Wisar wore a scarlet cloak in bands. That's in stripes. Bernie wore it."

  Bernie, who had chuckled as he ate a zardle's brain.

  "Where's Arn? Wisar?" Haran relaxed and Dumarest dropped his hands. "I can't see them anywhere. Can you? I—?" He broke off as the monstrous creature moved. "Down!"

  Air whined as the tail lashed forward, hit a man, lifted him and threw him a broken bundle of rags into the clearing. His companion yelled and ran to where a spear lay on the ground.

  "Come back, you fool!" Dumarest half-climbed to his feet, crouched, watching.

  The man reached the spear, snatched it up and ran back toward the edge of the clearing. The rocky soil quivered as the monster lunged toward him. He twisted his head, screaming as the beast approached, tripping so that the spear flew from his hand as he hit the ground. Jaws gaped, closed, opened again to reveal red-stained teeth, red-stained rags.

  "God!" Haran retched. "It bit him in half! Bit him right in half!"

  Dumarest ducked as the tail swung again, cutting the spined scrub as a boy would lop a flower-head with a stick. "Arn!" he called. "Wisar!"

  "Over here!" An arm waved from the circling scrub. "We got a zardle," shouted the hunter. "Netted it and were walking away when its mate arrived. Bernie and Lough got it right away. We managed to run and hide out in the scrub. I figured on meeting up with you so we could tackle it together. You got any nets?"

  "No," yelled Haran. "Have you?"

  "Some. Enough I think if we use them right. Do we get together?"

  Dumarest lifted his head, shouted across the clearing. "No. If you try it and the thing attacks we wouldn't stand a chance. This way we can get at it from two directions. Get your nets ready. We'll distract it and you move in. Right?"

  "When you're ready."

  "Now!" Dumarest rose, sprang forward and picked up the spear. He ran toward the beast, gesturing with the weapon, shouting. "Run to the right, Haran. Confuse it but watch for the tail. Now, Arn! What the hell are you waiting for?"

  He heard the whine of air and sprang as the tail swept beneath him, whiplashed; jumped again as it swept back. A red eye glowed as the head turned. He aimed for it, flung the spear, grunted as the poorly balanced weapon glanced from a spined plate of horny armor. Again the tail lashed out. It hit the heel of his boot as he jumped, numbing his leg. Light glittered from the air as Wisar flung his net. It fell over the head, dropped to the ground. Another followed it, falling over the head, entangling one front leg. A third caught as the beast tried to charge. The force of its own effort sent it crashing to the ground.

  "We've done it!" yelled Arn. "By God we've done it!"

  He yelled again as the tip of the tail slammed against him, knocking him to the dirt, smashing the air from his lungs. Only the padding he wore saved him from being lacerated to the bone.

  "More nets," said Dumarest. "Get more nets on the tail."

  "We haven't got any," called Wisar. "We'll have to finish it off the hard way." He ran forward carrying an ax. "If I can just get one good chop at the spine—"

  Dumarest ran forward and scooped up the spear. Again he dodged the tail and ran close to the head. The only way to finish the beast now was to puncture an artery and let it spill its life and strength on the ground. It had killed four men. That was more than enough.

  He poised the spear and struck. The crude blade turned from the thick hide. He poised it again, gripped with both hands and drove it into the throat with the full energy of his body. A fountain of blood followed the spear as he tore it from the wound. He poised it for a second blow, then heard Haran's screamed warning.

  "Earl! The tail! The tail!"

  He jumped to one side and felt the barbs rip at his cloak. He looked as it rose, judged time and distance, jumped again as it swept down. Jumped—and felt his foot slip on the spilled blood, saw the sky and the thin whip of the tail, saw it lash toward his face.

  Felt it strike with the brutal, stunning impact of a club.

  Felt the savage barbs tear into the flesh of his eyes.

  * * *

  Somewhere a metronome was busy at work. Tock! Tock! Tock! Tock! Tock! Tock!

  Dumarest relaxed, listening, wondering as to its rhythm. Too slow for a heartbeat, he decided, and too fast for minutes. An odd thing, he thought. One more odd thing to add to the rest. Why was he lying in bed between crisp sheets, for example. Why could he smell the unmistakable odor of a hospital? Why was he bandaged about the face? Why couldn't he see?

  See?

  Memory came rushing back on a thousand taloned feet.

  He couldn't see because he was blind.

  Blind!

  BLIND!

  He heard again the whispering voices as he swam up from darkness to a red-tinted hell of pain.

  "Is he dead?" Wisar's voice, strained, worried.

  "No, but it would be better if he was." Arn, coldly detached.

  "I've heard you talk this way before." Haran, harshly gruff. "When Crin got hurt you wanted to leave him, pass him out easy. One day someone might do just that to you."

  "They'd be doing me a favor. We'd be doing him one. Do you think he wants to sit around in the dark with a bowl, begging for his food? A man like Earl?"

  A movement, the sharp hiss of indrawn breath, Haran's voice. "God! Look at his face! His eyes!"

  "It's three days hard walking to get back to the village. We'd have to guide him every step of the way. More, we'd have to carry him, but that isn't the problem. He's been lashed with zardle poison. We haven't got an antidote. In a few hours he'll be going crazy with pain. In a week he'll be dead anyway. What's the point in letting him suffer?"

  Wisar spoke from one side. "He deserves his chance. We owe him that for Crin. He helped when he didn't have to. You're with me in this, Haran. Our brother owes his life to this man. We can't forget that."

  "But he's going to die anyway… His woman might be able… leave it at that then… chance… try… owe it to him."

  A mounting cacophony of blurred and meaningless voices drowned out by the pain of his lacerated eyes, the pain of his mental awareness, the searing agony of the nerve poison already at work.

  And then nothing but pain, pain, pain and screaming agony going on and on and on…

  Dumarest stiffened, nails digging into his palms, forcing himself to be calm. That pain and madness belonged to the past. It was over now. Done with. Only one thing remained.

  He was blind.

  Blind and stranded.

  The blindness in itself was nothing. Eyes could be repaired or replaced, but not without money. And he had no money, and without eyes, no hope of getting any.

  Blind!

  He heard the opening of a door, the scuff of feet, the blurred sounds of voices. Someone stood beside him and he felt the touch of cold metal. A snipping sound as scissors cut away the bandage. A glow of brightness, a sudden flood of light.

  He could see! See!

  "A first-class job." The doctor wore green and sported a small beard. Light flashed from an instrument in his hand. He clucked in self-satisfaction. "Perfect! As good a pair of eyes as anyone could wish." He snapped off the light, straightened, put away the instrument. "You're a lucky man," he said to Dumarest. "In more ways than one. The blow wasn't serious as it might have been; apparently you blocked most of it with a spear you were carrying. The eyes were ruined, true, but not so badly that we didn't have all the tissue we needed to grow replacements. You must have incredible fortitude and you have good friends. They carried you lashed in a zardle skin, your hands bound so that you couldn't tear out your eyes. The pain you must have suffered—" He shrugged. "I don't suppose you want to remember that. But your eyes are all right now. You are as fit as we can make you. And," he ended, "you have a visitor. I guess you want to see her alone."

  She had reclaimed the golden tunic and wore it with a proud defiance, aware of her beauty and aware of what the golden fabric did for it. Her hair was a blazing mass of rippling fire. Emeralds shone in her eyes.

  "Earl!"

  She was warm and soft and wonderful against the bare flesh of his arms and torso. Perfume wafted from her hair, accentuated her femininity. Around his body her arms were like steel.

  "Darling! I was worried," she said. "So worried. But everything's all right now."

  "Tell me."

  "They brought you back, Arn and the two brothers. They made a pact with each other. If they found nothing they would have killed you. Given you a merciful ending. But they found zerds. Enough to pay for Crin's operation, to buy you new eyes, to buy High passage for all of us. We're safe now, darling. Safe!"

  He sat up in the bed. He felt fit, healed, ready for anything. Slow-time therapy had compressed two days of healing into a single hour of sleep. The companion drug to quick-time which had the opposite effect. He swung long legs from the bed and caught the glitter of movement at the corner of his eyes. He turned, facing the sink, the dripping faucet which was his fancied metronome.

  He looked at the woman, wonderful with visual impact, warm and human with the promise of life.

  "Kalin," he said. "You are so very beautiful."

  Her eyes flickered, straightened. "Get dressed, Earl. Our ship is leaving soon."

  "You've booked passage? To where?"

  "To Solis, darling," she said. "To home."

  Chapter Twelve

  SHADOWS FILLED THE room: thick, clustering, broken only by the steady green eye of the signal light, the pale intrusion of the day outside. Mede's voice was a hypnotic modulation, relentlessly repetitive, a sonic drill to penetrate the fog of disoriented senses.

  "Where is Brasque? Tell me where to find your husband! Where is he hiding? Tell me where to find Brasque! Where is your husband? Where is your husband? Where is your husband?"

  Not in the house, not on the land around the house, not anywhere on the planet as far as the cyber could determine. And yet, logically, this was the place to which he would have run. To his planet, his home, his wife and friends. The prediction had a probability of ninety-nine percent, which made it a practical certainty.

  He had to be found!

  Mede turned from the woman, accepting temporary defeat. His voice was not enough but there were other ways. Instruments could smash through the coma and detachment, force a way to the receptive areas of the brain, reward cooperation and punish stubbornness. And, if the questioning killed her, it didn't matter, providing he gained what he wanted. What the Cyclan wanted and must obtain at any cost.

  Mede left the room, passed through the antechamber and nodded to the girl waiting outside in the open place facing the sea. "You may return to your place now."

  She dipped a curtsy, not quite knowing how to treat the enigmatic figure in flaming scarlet. He had the freedom of the house and access to her charge at all times and this by the direct order of the Master himself. And yet, despite his attention, the Lady Keelan showed no signs of improvement.

  She scuttled away as the cyber walked to the edge of the patio and stared down at the rocks and swirling water below. The sea was rough with winter memory, the waves savage as they boomed against the foot of the cliff, spume flying as they frothed about the stone. A faint wind carried the scent of brine and open spaces, teasing the edge of his cowl, so that at one minute it ballooned and the next was pressed hard against the bone structure of his face.

  He turned as Komis walked toward him across the open space. The Master of Klieg looked tired, haggard from a growing sense of the inevitable. It had been a long, hard winter.

  His eyes flickered to the closed door of the antechamber. "Any improvement?"

  "None, my lord."

  "It's been a long time," said Komis. "All winter, to be exact. I had hopes that perhaps you—" He broke off, shaking his head. "I hoped for too much," he admitted. "How could you succeed where physicians fail?"

  "The Cyclan has methods of its own, my lord," said Mede smoothly. "I have tried verbal stimulation and hypnotic techniques but they are not enough. The stimulus must be stronger. With your permission, my lord, I would like to try certain devices much used on worlds dedicated to mental care."

  Komis hesitated. "Instruments?"

  "Sensory stimulators, my lord. Have I your permission?"

  "No," said Komis; yet where was the harm? "I must think about it," he temporized. "I do not wish my sister to be the subject of experiments. Leave it for now."

  Mede bowed. "As you wish, my lord. In the meantime I have been working on certain problems regarding matters we have spoken of earlier. The question of diverting land and labor to other uses than the rearing of horses. The predictions are highly favorable and—"

  "Later, cyber." Komis felt a sudden relief. If the man had really worked out a system by which they could gain wealth, then his worries were over. Money to expand, to build, to provide what Keelan must have. "We will discuss it after dinner," he said. "Now I intend to relieve Mandris so that she can attend church."

  "Church, my lord?"

  "Yes. Some monks of the Brotherhood are here with a portable church. They come several times a year and ease the souls of those who have sinned." He smiled a little as he thought of the girl. "Mandris is not what I would call a sinful girl but it will do her no harm to bend her knee and eat the bread of forgiveness."

  * * *

  Dumarest stretched, filling his lungs with the scented air of spring, glancing at the green of rolling hills. The landing field was small but large enough for a planet with little trade. It was well-tended, the crushed gravel clean and without unwanted growth. Beyond the fence lay the town, a place of long, low buildings made of logs and stone, a few of concrete, still less of mortared brick. Pens stood to one side, warehouses the other.

  "A nice planet," he said to Kalin. "It should grow nice people."

  She smiled and led him through the gate. A man stepped forward as they approached. He was big, dressed in rough weave from a hand-operated loom and his hair was as red as the girl's.

  "Transport, sir?" Green eyes swept over them as he touched one finger to his forehead.

  Dumarest looked at Kalin. "Do we need it? How far must we go?"

  "Too far to walk. The house of Klieg," she said to the driver. "You know it?"

  "A long flight, my lady."

  "I did not ask that. Do you know where it is?"

  He bowed. "I know, my lady. You wish to be taken to the house?"

  "A moment. Is there a public communicator close to hand?"

  A booth stood at the edge of the field close to the gate. Dumarest waited as she made her call. She was in the booth for a long time, and when she came out, she was solemn. Silently she climbed into the cabin of the waiting flier. Dumarest followed her and the driver locked them in.

  "The thren are most dangerous at this time of year," he explained as he took his seat. "The canopy is proof against their attacks, but if you should forget, open it a little—" He shrugged. "Their beaks are long," he said. "The risk not worth taking."

  Dumarest settled back as the flier climbed into the sky.

  "Earl!"

  He looked at his arm, the fingers digging into his flesh; the wide, frightened eyes. Gently he eased her fingers. "You're doing it again," he accused. "Why? What good does it do to know just what is going to happen?"

  "If you knew," she said, "would you refuse to look?"

  "No," he admitted. "Probably not. But, to me, the future is what I make it. I can win or I can lose, but I will always try." He smiled and dropped his arm about her shoulders. "Be cheerful," he urged. "You're almost home."

  "We're almost home," she corrected. "I hope you like the house of Klieg. It is big and warm and comfortable. Strong too. When the winds really blow you can feel the walls fighting back and when the snow falls the roof seems to shrug as it accepts the burden. It's a nice house, Earl. A wonderful house."

  His arm tightened around her shoulders. "It isn't the place that's important. It's who you are with."

  She smiled and traced a pattern on the back of his hand with the tip of a finger. "Earl, how important is physical beauty to you? I mean, if a woman was old or ugly, could you love her? Really love her?"

  "I don't have to," he said. "Not while I have you."

  "Please, Earl! I'm serious!"

  "And so am I." He turned so as to stare into her face, meet the emerald of her eyes. "You are you," he said slowly. "If you were to have an accident, lose your beauty in some way, it would make no difference to the way I feel. I didn't fall in love with a pair of green eyes, some white skin and red hair. I fell in love with a woman."