High Sorcery Read Online Free Page B

wares for a tribute to be offered to the tower demon.
    Craike hitched stiffly to a point where he could witness that sacrifice. But when he assessed the contents of their dugout, the heaping basket piled between the paddlers, his hunger took command.
    Fob off a demon with a handful of meal and a too-ripe melon would they? There were three haunches of cured meat and other stuff on board.
    Craike voiced a roar which could have done credit to the red bear, a roar which altered into a demand for meat. The paddlers nearly lost control of their crude craft. But one reached for a haunch and threw it blindly on the refuse-covered rock, while his companion added a basket of small cakes into the bargain.

    â€œEnough, little men,” Craike’s voice boomed hollowly. “You may pass free.”
    They needed no urging; they did not look at those threatening towers as their paddles bit into the water, adding impetus to the pull of the current.
    Craike watched them well out of sight before he made a slow descent to the rock. The effort he was forced to expend warned him that a second such trip might be impossible, and he inched back to the terrace dragging both meat and cakes.
    The cured haunch he worried into strips, using his pocket knife. It was tough, not too pleasant to the taste and unsalted. But he found it more appetizing than the cakes of baked meal. With this supply he could afford to lie up and favor his leg.
    About the claw rents the flesh was red and puffed. Craike had no dressing but river water and the leaves he had tied over the tears. Sampur was beyond his power to reach, and to contact men traveling on the river would only bring the Black Hoods.
    He lay in his grass nest and tried to sort out the events of the past few days. This was a land in which Esper powers were allowed free range. He had no idea of how he had come here, but it seemed to his feverish mind that he had been granted another chance—one in which the scales of justice were more balanced in his favor. If he could only find the girl, learn from her—
    Tentatively, without real hope, he sent out a questing thought. Nothing. He moved impatiently, wrenching his leg, so that his head swam with pain. His throat and mouth were dry. The lap of water sounded in his ears. He was thirsty again, but he could not crawl down slope and up once more. Craike closed his eyes wearily.
    V
    Craike’s memory of the hours which followed thereafter was dim. Had he seen a demon in the doorway? A slavering wolf? A red bear?
    Then the girl sat there, cross-legged as he had seen her on the mesa, her cloak of hair about her. A hand emerged from the cloak to lay wood on the fire. Illusions?
    But would an illusion turn to him, put firm, cool fingers upon his wound, somehow driving out by touch the pain andfire which burned there? Would an illusion raise his head, cradling it against her so that the soft silk of her hair lay against his cheek and throat, urging on him liquid out of a crude bowl? Would an illusion sing softly to herself while she drew a fish-bone comb back and forth through her hair, until the song and the sweep of the comb lulled him into a sleep so deep that no dream walked there?
    He awoke clear headed. Yet that last illusion lingered. She came from the sun-drenched world without, a bowl of fruit in her hand. For a long moment she stood gazing at him searchingly. But when he tried mind contact, he met that wall. It was not unheeding, but a refusal to answer.
    Her hair was now braided. But about her face the lock which the guardsman had shorn made an untidy fringe. Around her thin body was a strip of hide, purposefully arranged to mask all femininity.
    â€œSo,” Craike spoke rustily, “you are real.”
    She did not smile. “I am real. You no longer dream with fever.”
    â€œWho are you?” He asked the first of his long hoarded questions.
    â€œI am Takya.” She added nothing to that.
    â€œYou are Takya, and you are