The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

distinguishable from the air. Yet Thorvald had planned this journey as if he had already explored their escape route and that it was as open and easy as a stroll down Tyr’s main transport way. Why was it so necessary that they try to reach the sea? However, since he had no objection to voice except a dislike for indefinite information, Shann did not question the other’s calm assumption of command, not yet, anyway.
    As they embarked and worked back into the current, Shann studied his companion. Thorvald had freely listed the difficulties lying before them. Yet he did not seem in the least worried about their being able to win through to the sea—or if he was, his outer shell of unconcern remained uncracked. Before their first day together had ended, the younger Terran had learned that to Thorvald he was only another tool, to be used by the Survey officer in some project which the other believed of primary importance. And his resentment of the valuation was under control so far. He valued Thorvald’s knowledge, but the other’s attitude chilled and rebuffed his need for something more than a half partnership of work.
    Why had Thorvald come back to Warlock in the first place? And why had it been necessary for him to risk his life—perhaps more than his life if their theory was correct concerning the Throgs’ wish to capture a Terran—to get that set of maps from the plundered camp? When he had first talked of that raid, his promised loot had been supplies to fill their daily needs; there had been no mention of maps. By all signs Thorvald was engaged on some mission. And what would happen if he, Shann, suddenly stopped being the other’s obedient underling and demanded a few explanations here and now?
    Only Shann knew enough about men to also know that he would not get any information out of Thorvald that the latter was not ready to give, and that such a showdown, coming prematurely, would only end in his own discomfiture. He smiled wryly now, remembering his emotions when he had first seen Ragnar Thorvald months ago. As if the officer ever considered the likes, dislikes—or dreams—of one Shann Lantee. No, reality and dreams seldom approached each other. Dreams.…
    “On any of those shoreline maps,” he asked suddenly, “do they have marked a mountain shaped like a skull?”
    Thorvald thrust with his pole. “Skull?” he repeated, a little absently, as he so often did in answer to Shann’s questions unless they dealt with some currently important matter.
    “A queer sort of skull,” Shann said. Just as vividly as when he had first awakened, he could picture that skull mountain with the flying things about its eye sockets. And that, too, was odd; dream impressions usually faded with the passing of waking hours. “It has a protruding lower jaw and the waves wash that…red-and-purple rock—”
    “What?”
    He had Thorvald’s complete attention now.
    “Where did you hear about it?” That demand followed quickly.
    “I didn’t hear about it. I dreamed of it last night. I stood there right in front of it. There were birds—or things flying like birds—going in and out of the eyeholes—”
    “What else?” Thorvald leaned across his pole, his eyes alive, avid, as if he would pull the reply he wanted out of Shann by force.
    “That was all I remember—the skull mountain.” He did not add his other impression, that he was meant to find that skull, that he must find it.
    “Nothing.…” Thorvald paused, and then spoke slowly, with a visible reluctance. “Nothing else? No cavern with a green veil—a wide green veil—strung across it?”
    Shann shook his head. “Just the skull mountain.”
    Thorvald looked as if he didn’t quite believe that, but Shann’s expression must have been convincing, for he laughed shortly.
    “Well, there goes one nice neat theory up in smoke!” he commented. “No, your skull doesn’t appear on any of our maps, and so probably my cavern does not exist either. They may both be smoke screens—”
    “What—?” But Shann never finished that query.
    A wind was rising in the desert to blow across the slit which held the river, carrying with it a fine shifting of sand which coasted down into the water as a gray haze, coating men, animals, and raft, and sighing as snow sighs when it falls.
    Only that did not drown out another cry, a thin cry, diluted by the miles of land stretching behind them, but yet carrying that long ululating howl they had heard in the Throg