Var the Stick (14 page)

    A man was coming up the walk to the hostel, treading the frozen path the crazies had cleared. Obviously intending to night inside.

    Var had had perhaps half an hour hardly enough for strength to creep back into his limbs, more than enough to make his ankle a torment. But he dragged himself up, hastily winding a section of crazy sheet around his leg so that he could stand on it more firmly. He and Soli had remained hidden until this time, but he knew their secrecy would be gone if anyone saw her now. They had lost a day of travel, and the Master would be very close; any exposure could bring him here within hours.

    The approaching steps were not those of the Weaponless. They were too light, too. quick. But Var could tolerate no man inside this hostel not while Soil lay ill, not while they both were vulnerable.

    He scrambled into his heavy winter coat, pulled its hood tight around his face to conceal the discoloration above his beard, lifted his sticks, fought off the agony that threatened to collapse his leg, and pushed through the spinning door to meet the stranger outside.

    It was bright, though the day was waning; the snow amplified the angled sunlight and bounced it back and forth and across his squinting eyes. It took a moment to make out the intruder.

    The man was of medium height, fair-skinned under the parka, and well proportioned. He wore a long, large knapsack that projected behind his head. His facial features were refined, almost feminine, and his motions were oddly smooth. He seemed harmless a tourist wandering the country, broadening his mind, a loner. Var knew it was wrong to deny him lodging at the warm. hostel, especially this late in the day, but with Soli's welfare at stake there was no choice. The Master could get the word and come before she recovered, and they would be doomed. He barred the way.

    The man did not speak. He merely looked questioningly at Var.

    "My my sister is ill," Var said, aware that his words, as always with strangers, were hardly comprehensible. When he knew a person, talking became easier, partly because he was relaxed and partly.. because the other picked up his verbal distortions and learned to compensate. "I must keep her isolated."

    The traveler still was silent. He made a motion to pass Var.

    Var blocked, him again. "Sister sick. Must be alone," he enunciated carefully.

    Still mute, the man tried to pass again.

    Var lifted one stick.

    The stranger reached one hand over his shoulder and drew out a stick of his own.

    So it was to be the circle.

    Var did not want to fight this man at this time, for the other's position was reasonable. Var and Soil had fought together for their right to occupy any hostel at any time. Lacking an explanation, the other man had a right to be annoyed. And Var was in poor condition for the circle; only with difficulty did he conceal the liability of his leg. And he was quite tired generally from his day's labor. But he could not tell the whole truth, and could not risk exposure. The man would have to lodge elsewhere.

    If the stranger were typical of these outland warriors, Var would be able to defeat him despite his handicaps. Particularly stick against stick. Certainly he had to try.

    The man preceded him down the path to the circle. This was a relief, for it meant Var could conceal his limp while walking. The man kicked the circle free of loose snow, drew out his second stick, removed his tall backpack and his parka, and took his stance. Suddenly he looked more capable; there was something highly professional about the way he handled himself.

    Var, afraid to reveal his mottled skin, had to remain fully dressed, though it inhibited his mobility he entered the circle.

    They sparred, and 'immediately Var's worst fears were realized. He faced a master sticker. The man's motions were exceptionally smooth and efficient, his blows precise.

    Var had never seen such absolute control before. And speed those hands were phenomenal, even in this cold.

    Knowing that the had to win quickly if at all, Var laid on with fury. He was slightly larger than his opponent, and probably stronger, and desperation gave him unusual skill despite his injury and fatigue. In fact, he was fighting better than ever before in his life, tbough he knew he would lose that edge in a few minutes as his resources, gave out. At this moment, Tyl himself would have had to back off, reassess his strategy, and look to his defenses.

    Yet the stranger met every pass with seeming ease, anticipating Var's strategy and neutralizing his force. Surely this was the finest slicker ever to enter the circle!

    Then, abruptly, the man took the offense and penetrated Var's own guard as though it were nonexistent and laid him out with a blow against the head. Half conscious, Var fell backwards across the circle. He was finished.

    His face sidewise in the snow, Var heard something. It was a noise, a shudder in the ground, as of ponderous feet coming down: crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. An earless attuned to the wilderness could not have picked it up, and Var himself would have missed it, had his ear not been jammed to the land, It was the distant tread of the Master.

    The victor stood above him, looking down curiously. "Stranger!" Var cried, half delirious "Never have I met your like. I beg a boon of you" He was incoherent again, and had to slow down. "Let no man enter that hostel tonight! Guard her, give her time"

    The man squatted to peer: at him. Had he understood any of it? it was unprecedented for the loser to beseech terms from the winner but what else could he do now?

    "A badlands grub she will die if disturbed" And Var himself would die if he didn't drag himself away immediately. Then who would take care of Soli? Would the Master linger to help her? Not while the vengeance trail was warm! No it had to be this stranger, if only he would. Such exceeding skill in the circle bad to be complemented by meticulous courtesy.

    The man reached out to touch Var's injured leg. The sheet had come loose and a section of swollen skin showed.

    He nodded. This man would have won anyway but he could not be pleased to discover he had fought a lame opponent. He stood and stepped out of the circle, leaving Var where he lay. He donned his parka, then his pack, putting the sticks away. He walked down the trail 'in the direction the Master was coming from.

    He was leaving the cabin to Var.

    Var did not question the stranger's act of generosity. He climbed to his feet and limped back to the cabin, turning several times to watch the man's departure. At last he entered and shut the door.

    The' stranger would meet the Master. Var was at his mercy now. Who was this silent one, and how had he come by such fabulous fighting skill? Var knew that no sticker in all the empire could match this warrior.

    But the Master was not a sticker. What would pass between them when' they met? Would they fight? Talk? Come to this cabin together? Or pass each other, and the Master would come to find the fugitives here?

    Soil stirred and he forgot all else. "Var.. . Var," she cried weakly, and he rushed to her side. She was recovering! If only they were granted the night, They were. Though Var listened apprehensively for footsteps outside, no man came to the hostel, in the morning Soil was well, though weak. "What happened?" she asked.

    "You were stung by a badlands moth its winter grub," Var said, though this was only conjecture. "It came alive when we warmed the ground, and got on you. I brought you here."

    "What are those marks on you?"

    "I fought a man who would intrude." And that was all he told her, lest she worry.

    This time they picked up extra sheeting, so as to make possible a double layer on the ground and keep moisture and grubs out entirely. Var explained that they had lost time and had 'to move; he did not clarify how close he knew the Master to be, but she caught his urgency.

    So they resumed their desperate trek. Soli was weak, but she could walk. In her residual disorientation she was not aware of Var's limp.

    As they left the hostel, Var looked down the path once more, mystified. Who was the noble, dazzling, silent man who had made their escape possible? Would he ever know?

    CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They marched northward through winter and emerged at last in spring far beyond the crazy domains. Here they found complete strangers: men and women who carried some guns and bows but not true weapons, and who did not fight in the circle, and who lived in structures resembling primitive, dilapidated hostels. They burned wood to warm these "houses" because there was no electricity, and Illuminated them with smoky oil lanterns. They spoke an unpleasantly modulated dialect, and were not especially friendly. It was as though every family were an island, cultivating its own fields, hunting its own preserve, neither attacking nor assisting strangers.

    Still the Master followed, falling behind as much as a month, then catching up almost to within sight, forcing them to move out quickly. Now the silent man Var had fought accompanied the Nameless One. The scattered news reports and rumors described him well enough for Var to identify, though he said nothing to Soil about this. If she knew that a warrior of that quality had chosen to accompany the Master...

    Had those two fought, and the Master had made the stranger part of the empire? Or had they joined forces for convenience, in the dangerous hinterlands?

    Summer, and the country remained rugged and the pursuit continued. Soil was taller and stronger now, growing rapidly, and was quite capable. She learned from him how to make vine traps in the forest and capture small animals, and to skin them and gut them. How to strike fire and cook the meat. She learned to make a deadfall, and to sleep comfortably in a tree. Her hair grew out, black and fine, so that she resembled her natural mother more than ever.

    Soli taught him, in return, the rudiments of the weaponless combat she had learned from Sosa, and the strategies demonstrated by her father Sol. For they both knew that eventually the Master would catch up, and that Var, despite his reservations, would have to fight. The Nameless One would force the combat.

    "But it's better to run as long as we can," she said, seeming to have changed her attitude over the months. "The Weaponless defeated Sol in the circle, long ago when I was small, and Sol was the finest warrior of the age."

    Var wondered whether Sol could have been as good as the sticker now traveling with the Master, but he kept that thought to himself.

    "It was the Weaponless who struck my father on the throat so hard he could not speak again," she said, as though just remembering. "Yet you say they were friends."

    "Sol does not speak?" Var's whole body tingled with an appalling suspicion.

    "He can't. The underworld surgeon offered to operate, but Sol wouldn't tolerate the knife. Not that way. It was as though he felt he had to carry that wound. That's what Sosa said, but she told me not to talk about it."

    Var thought again of the fair stranger, the master sticker, now almost certain that he knew the man's identity. "What would your father do, if he thought you were dead?"

    "I don't know," she said. "I don't like to think about it, so I don't. I miss him, and I'm really sorry" But she cut off that thought. "Bob probably wouldn't tell him. I think Bob pretended I was being sent on an exploratory mission and didn't return. Bob almost never tells the truth."

    "But if Sol found out"

    "I guess he would kill Bob, and" Her mouth opened. "Var, I never thought of that! He would break out of the underworld and"

    "I met him," Var said abruptly. "When you were ill. We did not know each other. Now he travels with the Master."

    "Sol is the Nameless One's companion? I should have realized! But that's wonderful, Var! They are together again. They must really be friends."

    Var told her the rest of the story: how he had fought Sol, and tried to send him back to oppose the Master. About the strange generosity of the other man. "I did not know," he finished. "I kept him from you."

    She kissed his cheek-a disconcertingly feminine gesture.

    "You did not know. And you fought for me!"

    "You can go back to him."

    "More than anything else," she said, "I would like that.

    But what of you, Var?"

    "The Master has sworn to kill me. I must go on."

    "If Sol travels with the Weaponless, he must agree with him. They must both want to kill you now."

    Var nodded miserably.

    "I love my father more than anything," she said slowly. "But I would not have him kill you, Var. You are my friend. You gave me warmth on the mesa, you saved me from illness and snow."

    He had not realized that she attached such importance to such things. "You helped me, too," he said gruffly.

    "Let me travel with you a while longer. Maybe I'll find a way to talk to my father, and maybe then he can make the Nameless One stop chasing you."

    Var was immensely gratified by this decision of hers, but he could not analyse his feeling. Perhaps it was this glimmer of a promise of some mode of reconciliation with his mentor, the Master. Perhaps it was merely that he no longer felt inclined to. travel alone. But mostly, it could be the loyalty she showed for him-that filled an obscure but powerful need that had made him miserable since the Master's turn about to have a friend that was the most important thing there was.

    The sea came north and fenced them in. with its salty expanse. The pursuit closed in behind. The unfriendly natives informed them with cynical satisfaction that they were trapped: the ocean was west and south, the perpetual snows north, and two determined warriors east.

    "Except," one surly storekeeper murmured smugly, "the tunnel."

    "Tunnel?" Var remembered the subway tunnel near the mountain. He might hide in such a tube. "Radiation?"

    "Who knows? No one ever leaves it."

    "But where does it go?" Soil demanded.