Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Venture Science Fiction, July 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Evil men had stolen his treasure, and Raud set out with his
deer rifle and his great dog Brave to catch the thieves
before they could reach the Starfolk. That the men had
negatron pistols meant little—Raud was the Keeper....
THE KEEPER
by H. BEAM PIPER
When he heard the deer crashing through brush and scuffling the deadleaves, he stopped and stood motionless in the path. He watched thembolt down the slope from the right and cross in front of him, wishinghe had the rifle, and when the last white tail vanished in thegray-brown woods he drove the spike of the ice-staff into thestiffening ground and took both hands to shift the weight of thepack. If he'd had the rifle, he could have shot only one of them. Asit was, they were unfrightened, and he knew where to find them in themorning.
Ahead, to the west and north, low clouds massed; the white front ofthe Ice-Father loomed clear and sharp between them and the blue of thedistant forests. It would snow, tonight. If it stopped at daybreak, hewould have good tracking, and in any case, it would be easier to getthe carcasses home over snow. He wrenched loose the ice-staff andstarted forward again, following the path that wound between and amongand over the irregular mounds and hillocks. It was still an hour'swalk to Keeper's House, and the daylight was fading rapidly.
Sometimes, when he was not so weary and in so much haste, he wouldloiter here, wondering about the ancient buildings and thelong-vanished people who had raised them. There had been no woods atall, then; nothing but great houses like mountains, piling up towardthe sky, and the valley where he meant to hunt tomorrow had been anarm of the sea that was now a three days' foot-journey away. Some saidthat the cities had been destroyed and the people killed in wars—bigwars, not squabbles like the fights between sealing-companies fromdifferent villages. He didn't think so, himself. It was more likelythat they had all left their homes and gone away in starships when theIce-Father had been born and started pushing down out of the north.There had been many starships, then. When he had been a boy, the oldmen had talked about a long-ago time when there had been hundreds ofthem visible in the sky, every morning and evening. But that had beenlong ago indeed. Starships came but seldom to this world, now. Thisworld was old and lonely and poor. Like poor lonely old Raud theKeeper.
He felt angry to find himself thinking like that. Never pity yourself,Raud; be proud. That was what his father had always taught him: "Beproud, for you are the Keeper's son, and when I am gone, you will bethe Keeper after me. But in your pride, be humble, for what you willkeep is the Crown."
The thought of the Crown, never entirely absent from his mind, wakenedthe anxiety that always slept lightly if at all. He had been away allday, and there were so many things that could happen. The path seemedlonger, after that; the landmarks farther apart. Finally, he came outon the edge of the steep bank, and looked down across the brook to thefamiliar low windowless walls and sharp-ridged roof of Keeper's House;and when he came, at last, to the door, and pulled the latchstring, heheard the dogs inside—the soft, coughing bark of Brave, and theanxious little whimper of Bold—