Then, as a delighted uproar burst out all about the hall, I said to Armandra, “And what, princess, if Northan had killed me? It seems to me a shallow sort of affection that risks a life for a barbaric code of existence!”
She leaned on me, her beautiful face pale and drawn as death. “Have I more faith in your friend Whitey than you?” she asked.
“Whitey? You mean youâ” I sought Whitey's face in the crush of people at the foot of the dais. He was grinning cheerfully, heavy eyebrows arched happily. “But why didn't heâwhy didn't
you
âtell me?”
“We did not want you to relax your vigilance for a moment.”
“Good old Whitey,” I grinned.
“He has earned my eternal respect,” she agreed. “But if you had died, I might well have had him thrown from the roof of the plateau!”
If I had thought that now the door would be open to Armandra's chambers, then I had thought wrong. I was her champion, certainly, with the right to attend her at any time during her waking hours and counsel her, and be counseled in return, but as for anything elseâforget it. We could not be together; there would not be, could not be, anything other than a sort of courting between us until I had proved myself yet again, in battle against those true enemies of the plateau, the Children of the Wind. And to be absolutely sure that the opportunity would not come for us to be alone together (perhaps she did not trust herself to adhere to the plateau's ancient rules), Armandra kept either Tracy or Oontawa with her constantly.
Not only was this extremely frustrating for me but it soon began to get on jimmy Franklin's nerves, too. Because of this, and the fact that by now Tracy was as much taken with Jimmy as he was with her, Armandra allowed the two to be together fairly regularly for short periods, but she never failed to ensure that Oontawa was there to give her moral support in Tracy's absence.
It wasn't very long before I became so unhappy with this situation that I would take myself off for long periods to the exercise cave to work off my frustrations in mock but nevertheless furious combat. Indeed, as the weeks stretched out, I began to believeâalmost to fearâ
that all serious battling was over and done with between the People of the Plateau and the wolf-warriors of Ithaqua, that I would never again be given the chance to fight for Armandra's favors.
Certainly I did not give much thought to the possibility of any real sort of crisis developing within the plateau itself. And yet, looking back on it, I recall that there were warnings enough. Whitey was nervous and jumpy, and kept going on at me to look out for the warlord and his friends.
It was during a session in the exercise cave that Jimmy Franklin brought me word of the trouble, of Northan's treachery. Since his humiliation the warlord had slowly but surely been losing his authority with the chiefs and headmen, and now only a few of his closest friends and lieutenants remained faithful to him.
I knew of this and had already put it to Armandra that perhaps I should formally replace Northan as head of the plateau's warrior army; should become warlord in his stead. She would not hear of it. She pointed out that if Northan were deposed, stripped of rank and military power completely, this would only make him hate me more, if that were possible. Also, it would leave him free to create a variety of mischiefs on the plateau's political side. There were still those among his few cronies who, having been elevated to positions of power by the warlord, would assist him in fresh ambitions rather than risk falling into obscurity along with him. He could also compromise certain of the elders, who feared for their own positions. Even in this alien world, politics were by no means free of corruption; though from what I knew of it, Northan was at the root of everything that was bad. Well, Armandra had stressed the fact that he was ambitious â¦
I had just landed two spears in the bull from a distance of about twenty-five yards when Jimmy Franklin ran into the vast, high-ceilinged exercise cave. There was blood on the right shoulder of his fur jacket; blood dripped from a deep gash in his left thigh.
“HankâTracy's hurt!” he gasped it out.
“Hurt? How badly?” I grabbed him by his good shoulder, searching his face anxiously. “What do you mean, she's hurt? Who hurt her?
How
is she hurt?”
“Northan,” Jimmy panted, “he's defecting! He sent three of his men after Tracy. They tried to take her while she was sleeping but she woke up in time to avoid whatever they had planned. She got one of them with a star-stone. Hit him in the ear with it. Damn near burned
half his head away! One of the others clubbed her unconscious. Then they split up, one heading one way to lead off any pursuit, the other making for the harbor area, where Northan's ship is tied up. He tried to take Tracy with him but it didn't work out. Her star-stones are gone, though.”
“You're not making sense,” I spoke urgently, firing questions at him. “What do you mean, he tried to take Tracy with him? Where is she now?”
“She's all right, Hank. As luck would have it I was on my way to see her. I saw this Eskimo with her across his shoulder. That was in the perimeter tunnel leading away from our rooms. When I challenged the Eskimo he had to put her down to deal with me. We had a bit of a fight and I got a few cuts,” he indicated his shoulder and leg wounds, “but the noise attracted a couple of Indian friends of ours. One of them was Charlie Tacomah. His room is somewhere above ours. Well, the Eskimo told Charlie that he was only carrying out Armandra's orders, but I said he must be lying. He made a run for it and Charlie brought him down with a spear. Apparently Charlie and his friend were on their way here to work out with you.”
“Right. I had arranged to meet them here. But where is Tracy now? And what about the third member of the group? And where's that dog Northan?” My voice trembled with fury.
“Charlie and his friend are taking her to Armandra,. They're raising the alarm along the way. Your other questionsâ” he spread his arms and shrugged. “You know as much as I do now.”
Then he swayed and half fell against me. I steadied him and noticed for the first time how much blood he was losing.
I caught him as he fell and carried him to a rest couch, telling the two astonished weapon masters, “Look after him, get him attended to immediately. I'm going to Armandra.”
On my way out I turned to Jimmy. “Thanks for everything, Jimmy,” I said. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I think so.”
“I reckon that Tracy's just about got to accept you as her champion now, eh?”
He managed a grin. “She was going to anyway,” he said.
Racing through the plateau's labyrinthine ways, I could see that Charlie Tacomah had been busy alerting the entire place. Indians wearing the insignia of guardsmen were hurrying to positions at the
base of the outer wall; powerfully built, squat Eskimo warriors were padding along the corridors leading to the snow-ship harbors; the entire plateau was alive to emergency measures that had been in force for hundreds of years. There was no aimless milling about; these men were moving in military precision, reacting to whatever dangers the plateau now faced, hurrying to their battle stations.
“
Hank
!” Armandra's urgent thought came to me. “
Tracy is with me now and she has just regained consciousness. Charlie Tacomah has told me what he knows. Are you coming to us? Do you know what has happened?
”
“
I'm almost with you now,
” I told her, “
and I know what happened. That dog Northan; has he really defected?”
“Yes, with two dozen of his officers and men. His snow-ship is no longer at its mooring. They are fleeing now across the white waste, heading for Ithaqua's altar.”
I let my disgust at the thought of the traitor flare in my mind. “
He tried to take my sister with him, as an offering to Ithaqua, no doubt. Can we get after him? I want to be aboard the first snow-ship out of the plateau.”
“
You cannot, Hank
,” she answered as I raced by her Eskimo guardsmen and their bears. “
We are making no pursuit. My father; Ithaqua, is back on Borea; Northan. was waiting for him to return. He chose the hour of his treachery well
.”
“Then the dog gets clean away?”
“
Not so,
” ominous undertones showed in her thought patterns. “
I am sending a wind after him even now!
”
I ducked through the curtains and entered Armandra's chambers. Oontawa. was tending to Tracy who lay propped up on a couch. My sister had a bump like a hen's egg on the side of her head. Armandra, eyes closed and face grim, head tilted back, held out her arms before her while her hands described forward, stirring motions.
“Armandra,” I began, stepping forward. But at that precise moment her entire face started to glow bloodred while the hair of her head rose up to undulate above her as in an updraft of air. A wind blew out from her, thrusting me aside as it raced across the room to set the curtains flapping violently. A moment more this phenomenon continued, then Armandra's hair settled down again, the flush left her face. the wind ceased. She lowered her hands and opened her eyes.
“Come,” she said. “We will see what games my familiars can play with Northan's snow-ship.”
“Wait,” I answered, hurrying through into a second room, Armandra's resting chamber, to fetch my binoculars. Then we went out, back along the corridor to the viewing balcony with its widely spaced bars. Tracy and Oontawa followed us. I put an arm around my sister and asked her if she was all right.
“Yes. A bit dizzy, that's all. That was quite a bump I took.”
“Not nearly as painful as the bump I'll deal the ex-warlord when next we meet!” I promised her.
“
If
you meet him again Hank,” Armandra grimly put in. We had arrived at the balcony and now she pointed out through the bars. “See ⦔
Through the binoculars I saw the snow-ship fleeing, already two-thirds of the way to the circle of totems with its central altar. Atop that altar I could see the Snow Thing, and he too was watching the snowship's progress. At that distance the monster's outline was indistinct, but the flaring of his eyes was clearly discernible. I turned my binoculars back to the snow-ship, seeing that the vessel fairly leaped across the snow.
“See,” Armandra said again, “the winds are answering my father's call and Northan's ship flies on their wings. But I, too, have sent a wind, one to vex the warlord's flight!”
Now, building up behind the snow-ship, growing out of the frozen white surface of the plain, the gray funnel of a tornado raised itself up, twisting and bending furiously as it rushed down upon the fleeing vessel. Closer to the ship the pursuing tornado roared, the howling of its passage coming back to us like the mad wail of some vengeful god.
Then Armandra cried out in anger and frustration, “Ah! My father is curious ⦠he joins the play ⦠Ithaqua displays his power!”
And sure enough the figure atop the pyramid altar had held up a massive hand to the onrushing tornado, and with a sweeping contemptuous gesture he
brushed it aside!
The tornado, towering high and threateningly over the snow-ship, suddenly swerved aside and teetered crazily, blindly in the wrong direction. The snow-ship sped on. Armandra began to close her eyes, set her jaw stubbornly and raised her armsâthen shook her head and let her arms fall.
“What is the use?” she asked. “He is not to be denied his mastery of the winds.”
Out over the white waste the tornado came to an abrupt halt. Ithaqua, from atop his pyramid altar, dismissed it with a wave of his hand. It collapsed in upon itself and spilled to the ground as a fine haze of snow and ice particles.
“But won't Ithaqua kill Northan and his crew?” I asked.
“No, Hank” Armandra turned to me. “Northan was the plateau warlord; he knows all of the secret ways, the many tunnels that lead from the base of the plateau to its halls, barracks, recreation caves and dwellings. He will be a mine of information to Ithaqua's priests and soldiers. When they are ready, he will lead them against the plateau, have no doubt of it.”
“Will he try to come back for you?”
She shook her head grimly. “No, my father would never allow it. He would destroy everyone on Borea first. Ithaqua is a lonely creature, Hank. He desires a friend to walk the winds between the worlds with him.” For a moment her face glowed with a strange passion. “And sometimes,” her voice was suddenly far away, “sometimesâ”
Without knowing why I felt a strange chill grip me. Instinctively I focused upon the horror atop the distant altar. His eyes were burning brightly, staring directly at the plateau. I knew then that he saw us, if not physically, certainly with his mind.
“Stop that!” I cried, taking the Woman of the Winds into my arms and kissing her tenderly. “Stop it. You're not his, Armandra, you're mine!”