Fors screwed his eyes against the sun. “My people? We are but a small tribe of few clans and often in the winter we needs must go lean and hungry for the mountains are a hard country. But above all do we love knowledge, we live to loot the ruins, to try to understand and relearn the things which made the Old Ones great in their time. Our medicine men fight against the ills of the bodies, our teachers and Star Men against the ignorance of the mind—”
“And yet these same people who fight ignorance have made of you a wandering one because you differ from them—”
For the second time Fors’ skin burned red. “I am mutant. And mutant stock is not to be trusted. The—the Beast Things are also mutant—” He could not choke out more than that.
“Lura is mutant also—”
Fors blinked. The four quiet words of that answer meant more than just a statement of fact. The tenseness went out of him. He was warm, and not with shame, nor with the sun which was beating down on him. It was a good warmness he had not remembered feeling before— ever.
Arskane propped his chin on his and stared out over the tangle of bush and vine. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that we are like the parts of one body. My people are the busy hands, fashioning things by which life may be made easier and more beautiful. The Plainspeople are the restless, hurrying feet, ever itching for new trails and the strange things which might lie beyond the sunrise and the sunset. And your clan is the head, thinking, remembering, planning for feet and hands. Together—”
“Together,” Fors breathed, “we would make such a nation as this land has not seen since the days of the Old Ones!”
“No, not a nation such as the Old Ones knew!” Arskane’s answer was sharp. “They were not one body—for they knew war. And out of that warfare came what is today. If the body grows together again it-must be because each part, knowing its own worth and taking pride in it, recognizes also the worth of the other two. And color of skin, or eyes, or the customs of a man’s tribe must mean no more to strangers when meeting than the dust they wash from their hands before they take meat. We must come to one another free of such dust—or it will rise to blind our eyes and what the Old Ones started will con- • tinue to live for ever and ever to poison the earth.”
“If that could only be—”
“Brother,” for the first time Arskane used the more intimate word to Fors, “my people believe that all the actions in this life have behind them some guiding power. And it seems to me that we two were brought to this place so that we might meet thus. And from our meeting perhaps there will be born something stronger and mightier than what we have known before. But now we linger here too long, death may still sniff at our heels. And it is not to my mind that we shall be turned from the path marked out for us.”