United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I wonder...." Tau gazed beyond the Khatkan to the barren ground where leopard and rock ape had ceased to be. "This magic is a tricky thing, sir. It builds and feeds upon a man's own imagination and inner fears. Lumbrilo, having triggered ours, need not strive at all, but let us ourselves raise that which will attack us." "Drugs?" demanded Jellico.
"Perhaps a vast amount of difference," Tau replied. "A hereditary office may carry with it two forms of conditioning, one to influence its holder, one to affect the public-at-large. Your Lumbrilo may have come to believe deeply in his own powers; he would be a very remarkable man if he did not. It is almost certain that your people unquestionably accept him as a worker of wonders?"
If there is a canker of trouble on Khatka, then Lumbrilo is close to its root." "Nymani!" The Chief Ranger's voice was the crack of a lash. "Will you forget again that you are a man, and run crying for shelter against a shaft of light? As this off-world Medic says, Lumbrilo fashions such as that to drive us into our enemies' hands!"
"This, too, has no power any longer, man who walks in the dark." Dane opened his eyes. Those crowding wraiths were fading, losing substance. Lumbrilo crouched, his lips drawn back from his teeth, his hatred plain to read. "I am not clay to be molded by your hands, Lumbrilo. And now I say that the time has come to call an end "
The three from the Queen moved away from the parapet to meet the Chief Ranger as he came down the stairs. "A messenger has just arrived. The hunter was hunted indeed, and his going was witnessed by many though they did not see those which hunted him. Lumbrilo is dead; he came to his end by the Great River." Jellico started.
They must accept Tau's explanation; it was the only sane one. Asaki's features were suddenly convulsed with a rage so stark that Dane realized how much a veneer was the painfully built civilization of Khatka. "Lumbrilo!" The Chief Ranger made of that name a curse. Then with a visible effort he controlled his emotions and came to Tau, looming over the slighter medic almost menacingly.
The pillar of fire swayed, fluttered as if a wind drove it and was gone. Tau, unmarked, smiled. "Fire!" He pointed his fingers at Lumbrilo. "Would you try earth, and water, and air also, wizard? Call hither your whirlwind, up your flood, summon the land to quake. None of those shall bring me down!"
Raising both hands again the medic brought them down, curling inward, until he stooped and touched them to the ground. When he straightened once again the knife was in his grasp and he tossed it behind him. The smoke from the fire swirled out in a long tongue, coiled about Lumbrilo and was gone.
The Khatkan turned slowly, resting the weapon across his forearm. "I do not deny that, spaceman." "Then matters here are indeed serious " "They are so serious," Asaki interrupted, speaking not only to Tau but to the other off-worlders as well, "that what happens now may mean the end of the Khatka that I know. Lumbrilo is the most dangerous game I have faced in a lifetime as a hunter.
Two days later they stood once more on the same terrace where Lumbrilo had wrought his magic and met his first defeat. This time no lightning played along the mountain ridges and the blaze of the sun was so bright and clear that one could hardly believe in the fantastic happenings of that swamp clearing where men had fought with weapons not made by hands.
Word Of The Day