He saw that Brother Aldo was looking at him expectantly and brought his attention back with a start.
“Sorry, I missed that last remark.”
“Well, Gimp knows of no harbor, at least none inhabited, on that coast where the northern trail comes down. He says it’s untouched forest right down to the edge of the sea. But we’d better try and find that trailhead all the same. Even overgrown, I feel it is our best chance, and it heads straight to that desert. And one thing about the great woods is that there we will be on my ground. The Unclean do haunt the forests at times, but even with their beast and Leemute allies, they do not know them, not as we do. And, Hiero, you are a woods ranger too, even if only of the smaller woods of the Taig, which we southerners know to be stunted and shriveled.” His laughing eyes made the others smile at the jest.
“All right,” Hiero said, folding the maps and stowing them away. “How far from Neeyana is that trail end, do you think?”
“If that map, or rather all them maps, are right, not much more’n fifty miles up the coast,” Gimp said. His small eyes stared beadily at them. “There’s sometimes a few savages in the woods around there, mostly a wee kind of red dwarf man with poisoned arrows, that like to shoot at ships when we come in for wood or fruit. I’ll do my best to get you in to where that line there ends, but how you’ll find it in them trees is beyond me. And the animals! Whew!”
“Good,” the old man said. “Never mind the beasts, Gimp. You’ll be safe enough in our good ship here. The high forest does not reach out into your beloved waters. Hiero, we have a little time now and we should make land in only a few hours more. What do you say we examine those mind locks which we captured from the enemy? I have them right here.”
In a moment the two strange devices were laid upon the table before them. Luchare looked at them with loathing, but Hiero and Brother Aldo with interest, while Gimp’s battered face seemed to reflect both attitudes.
The locks themselves were of the curious, oily-looking bluish metal which Hiero had noticed the Unclean favored. The heavy neck chains were of some other metal, lighter in weight, though the color was not dissimilar. The mysterious mechanisms lay inside square cases, about three inches around and a half inch thick. There were certain marks like writing incised on them, but no one there, not even old Aldo, could read them. Other decoration there was none. And there were only very faint visible seams and no catch, or opening, on them at all.
“Don’t you suppose,” Luchare said, looking closely at a fine seam line, “that it would be dangerous to break one? Are they guarded in some way, do you think, so that a person opening it wrong would be hurt?”
“That’s possible,” Hiero said. He lifted a case and held it to his ear. Was it his imagination, or did he hear an almost imperceptible humming inside?
“No, I hear nothing,” Brother Aldo said, on being asked, nor did the others. “But I know very little of such things,” he continued. “To be quite honest, few of my order do. We have concentrated on developing empathy with all life through our natural mental powers, and again, quite frankly, we dislike mechanical devices of any sort. This may be a mistake. I think myself we may have gone too far in the anti-machine direction. There’s no reason that a limited number of machines cannot help the world, if they are controlled and properly designed. And we had better figure out the working of many Unclean devices or we’ll be in real trouble. But I’m not the man to do it, I’m afraid. Actually, Hiero, you’ve had a lot of experience lately with their devices. You should know as much as anyone not actually in their ranks, I would think.”
Hiero stared gloomily at the two shining objects on the table. Once more something gnawed faintly at his memory, some random thought, but again it seemed too elusive to come to the surface of his mind.
“The only gadgets I’ve seen, that is, Unclean devices,” he said slowly, “weren’t much like this. There was Luchare’s lance, which is a thought amplifier as well, and that compass-thing I also took off S’nerg, way back up North. I had to destroy that; remind me to tell you about it later. Then there was the mind prober they tried to use on me at the Dead Isle. And the machine I call the lightning gun, which blasted me down. I think it shoots charges of static electricity, though God alone knows how. These are mind blocks and they must be miracles of design: they’re so small.”
He sighed. “I can’t figure them out at all, and yet something keeps telling me to be awfully careful of them. Maybe Luchare’s right; some explosive or poison or something of the sort lies inside for the unwary.”
“Well, I better go on deck,” Gimp said, rising. “Landfall can’t be many hours away, no, nor dawn neither. And I don’t want to run on an uncharted rock, not off this coast!”
“I’m gong to bed, and so is Hiero,” Luchare said firmly. “We’ll need all our rest tomorrow, and only that lazy bear is getting a proper amount of sleep.”
“You’re right,” Aldo said, also rising. “But old men don’t need much sleep, princess, so I’ll walk the decks with our captain. Perhaps I’ll get a message or two.”
Hiero yawned and pulled off his boots, sitting on the edge of the bunk. Beside him, Luchare had already closed her eyes. She fell asleep like a child, he noted, in seconds. Damn it, what is there about those mind locks that worries me so? He glared at the things as they lay, still glinting on the table, then blew out the lantern. Whatever it was could wait.
The long, wailing cry. “Land—hooooo,” woke him up on the instant. Light, the gray light of dawn, was streaming in through an open cabin porthole. And then, as he sat up, he remembered! The memory was of the compass machine he had destroyed weeks ago, far up in the Palood! It had been a telltale, an Unclean homing device! And, for a dead rat’s skin, so too were these damned mind locks!
In an instant, ignoring Luchare’s startled cry, he was on deck, bellowing for the captain, yelling for Brother Aldo. Both appeared instantly and watched in horrified fascination as he smashed both locks on the deck, using a handy belaying pin. As he did so, he gasped out the reason, and the alarm flew in their eyes. Only when the deadly things were powdered metal did he look up and see where Foam Girl was heading.
The forest of the South! Not a mile away rose a rank of such trees as he had hardly dreamed possible, even though he had been warned what to expect. The actual shore was invisible, screened by rank growth, mostly bushes and shrubs, all of different shades of green. And behind them in turn reared up the giants of the forest, showing black boles, brown trunks, tan bark, and all the hues and permutations of brown to black, with reddish glints here and there. The Metz almost had to arch his back to see their incredible tops. Around some of the great trunks and hanging from the lofty branches, there twisted vines and lianas of every hue, some of whose girth looked greater than that of Foam Girl’s hull! Splotches of color, mostly blazing reds and yellows, here and there revealed the presence of giant, flowering plants which clung to the trees far up their enormous lengths. Through Gimp’s proffered telescope, Hiero could see a mass of intertwined, smaller plants festooning every vacant space between the boughs. The smells of the titanic forest reached out across the water to them, a medley of strange scents and musky perfumes. Beside Hiero’s head, Klootz suddenly bellowed from his pen, as if in greeting to a wood greater than any he had ever known. The answering call of some strange monster, a thunderous roar, echoed back faintly from the distant shore, and a flight of large, white birds rose from the foliage directly in front of them. A physical wave of warmth seemed to reach out to them.
“Can you get her in quicker?” The priest turned to Gimp in question. “I’m suddenly horribly afraid. We’ve given someone a constant clue to our position for over two days. And we’re not far from Neeyana, which they control.” He ignored Luchare, who now came on deck fully dressed and moved up to his side. But she seemed not to mind and bent to adjust her boots.
“Well, Master Hiero, you can see the sails are half-brailed,” the little seaman said. “I don’t dare go rammin
g in at full speed. We’ve got three good lookouts in the bows and forepeak. But there may be anything from sunken logs to nice, pointed rocks just under the surface. A few moments more should do, though.”
In the sun of early morning, the little ship sailed slowly in to the towering green wall of jungle ahead, a light breeze carrying her smoothly over the gentle swells. The hum of a tiny surf beating on the roots and tangled deadfalls of the shore now came to them.
Hiero finished a brief and private prayer session, but he was still nervous and inwardly cursing himself. Now he sent out his mind impulses, wishing he had thought to wake up hours before and start doing it to them. Beside him, Brother Aldo stood, eyes shut, seeming merely to breathe in the warm scents of the forest as they grew increasingly strong.
Hiero clutched the old man’s brown sleeve suddenly. Foam Girl was now only a few hundred yards off the tangle of plants which made up the actual edge where forest met sea.
“There’s something coming from the west! I can’t probe it! There’s a mind guard, a big one, like the one on that Unclean ship you sank! They’re coming fast.” He felt sudden anguish. What was there he had failed to do?
Aldo instantly turned and rapped out an order to the captain. “Gimp, put us ashore, the ship too, and get your crew mustered. Hurry, or we’re all dead men!” There was no benevolence on his face now, and the high, black cheekbones were ramparts of the decision. His great eyes blazed with imperious will.
Gimp now volleyed orders in every direction, at the same time aiding in rigging the arrow engine personally. The one-eyed mate, Blutho, took the helm as the two great crescent sails rose and were hauled up full so they filled to the breeze. Foam Girl put her nose into a trough, rose on the next long swell, and rushed headlong for the tree-girt shore.
Over the hubbub on deck and the swirl of activity, Hiero became aware of Luchare pressed against his side, buckling on his weapons. I failed, he thought to her as he adjusted his battle helmet. It did not occur to him to speak.
Nonsense, came her calm, answer. No one else warned us at all. You’ve carried all the weight, mostly alone, for weeks. Even as his brain received the answer, he felt wonder at both the ease of her message and the closeness of their combined mental-physical contact. Being completely male, he could not help his mind going further. I wonder if we could yet, he thought, toying with the idea of love-making simultaneously by mind and body, something he had not so far dared attempt.
Probably, came the prompt answer, but this is no time for it, you clown! Go get Klootz ready. I’ll watch the bear. It was like a (friendly) dash of ice water. He blinked and came back to the present.
The big morse was wild with excitement, and Hiero had to use his own mind hard, like a curb, to quiet him down. Barely was he saddled when they struck.
Foam Girl nosed straight and hard into a solid mass of outthrust roots and stunted, mangrovelike trees with a prolonged, grating” crunch. Many men on deck, who were concentrating on their tasks, were jolted off their feet, but nothing worse happened. Fortunately, the sea ran deep here, right up to the shore, and this made their crash landing fairly easy.
“Ashore, everyone!” came Gimp’s stentorian shouting. He had conferred with Aldo constantly as they raced in, for, like any really good gambler, he never hesitated a moment to cut his losses, A squad of hardy rascals hurled themselves off the bowsprit, chopping madly with axes and heavy cutlasses at the packed vegetation. Nothing but a rat or small monkey could have got through that tangle of growth unaided. Behind this gang gathered most of the crew, now armed and loaded with hastily snatched-up supplies and emergency gear. Gimp and Blutho led them, and behind them, in turn, were Aldo, the girl, and the priest, who led the morse and the bear, though “led” was not how Gorm saw it. All of the humans, save those using the axes, were watching down coast to the west. As they looked, the black, slim shape they had grown to dread appeared, nosing around a point not a mile away, white foam curling under the sharp prow.
At the sight, Gimp himself seized a broadaxe and, shoving his men aside, fell upon the green matter before him like a fury, using great hewing strokes which severed foot-thick vines like so much string. Those of the men who could find a footing near him redoubled their own efforts. Brother Aldo noticed the arrow engine crew still stoutly manning the machine on the poop and now ordered them away with the others.
From the Unclean ship, now coming like a storm, a distant-screech came down the wind. At the same time, a flare of vivid blue light winked from her foredeck.
“The lightning gun!” Hiero and Luchare cried together. A hundred yards off the stern, a column of steam rose suddenly from a whitecapped swell.
“Come on now,” Gimp screamed, now out of sight in the green growth. “We’ve cut a path for you and it widens. Shake your stumps, you lazy bastard whoresons!” This latter epithet was addressed to his loyal crew, who now scrambled off the bowsprit like so many ants. Behind them, Hiero led and urged Klootz forward, Luchare walking on the other side of the bull’s head. Gorm leaped off the deck and followed the men in a second. Brother Aldo, nimble as a cricket, clambered after him.
Klootz trod warily over the tangle of ropes and discarded gear at the bow. The priest and the girl soothed him with soft words as the great brute cautiously examined the jungle ahead. Only Aldo was yet still in sight, beckoning them eagerly on. For some reason, the forest’s warmth struck Hiero only now; it was as if they were entering a furnace, though a damp one. Klootz paused, hindquarters bunching.
Whoever was aiming the lightning gun finally got his range. There was a ripping crash, and looking back in horror, the humans saw the after half of the little cabin simply vanish in a cloud of white incandescence. The wave of awful, attendant heat almost scorched their back hair.
The bull morse let out a terrified bawl and sprang straight forward off the ship, dragging the two with him as they clung frantically to the reins. More by luck than anything else, the animal headed straight into the ragged gap cut by the crew in the foliage. Brother Aldo leaped aside just in time to avoid being trampled to death and, picking himself quickly up, scuttled in their wake. In a second, the empty Foam Girl, sails and cordage slatting in the offshore breeze, was the only sign that anyone had been there. The smoke of a brisk fire ascended into the morning sunlight from her blazing cabin and midships. With a sudden rush, the fire ran up the stays to the peak of the main mast, and in another instant, the peaked sail burst into a flaming blossom of orange light. The crackling bolts of the lightning gun continued to strike through the smoke and haze, but the electric charges simply blasted holes at random in. the green curtain of plants on the shore; for the gunners, though now very close, could actually see nothing. At length the order to cease fire was given. The black ship lay hove to, close in; while from her deck, sharp eyes tried in vain to discern through the smoke what had become of their prey. It was a patently useless exercise, and soon the lean hull turned, the hidden engines started, and the Unclean ship swept away back down the wooded coast to the west. In a few minutes she was out of sight. The now furiously burning Foam Girl sent a column of reeking black smoke high in the air, from whence it was bent inland by the wind, over the tops of the enormous trees. Nothing moved on the shore, save a few small birds.
Far away, in a crypt deep under the earth and cobbles of old Neeyana, a figure turned away from, an instrument board with an exclamation of disgust. “Is this your vaunted efficiency?” the hooded shape hissed to another standing near. “The Yellow Circle would show the Blue, eh? I’ll have a word with your Masters in due season!” S’duna of the Blue Circle, enraged and frustrated, left the chamber, his cold rage going before him like a noxious cloud. All who felt it shrank away and hid themselves, but elsewhere in the Unclean citadel, new orders were given and the servants of the Yellow Circle sprang to new action. Another stroke unaccountably had failed, but the chase would not be given up, not while one of the Dark Brotherhood remained.
The camp that night, set deep in
the canopy of the great trees, was not a cheerful one. The seamen, long used to the open air, felt the dank heat and the smothering darkness as doubly oppressive and frightening, even though Gimp and Blutho maintained a stern discipline and also continually pointed out that no lives had been lost. Both Hiero and Luchare nursed bad bruises from being dragged through the thickets for a hundred yards in Klootz’s initial panic. Two small fires kept some of the gloom away, and a low barrier of fallen logs and branches encircled the camp, providing at least some psychological protection, if nothing more.
But the vast tree trunks rising out of the limit of firelight into the upper dark, the mysterious cries and sounds of the encircling jungle, and the blazing eyes which stared out of the night at the fires, all combined to make the men huddle together and talk in low tones or not at all.
“We were lucky to find this clearing,” Hiero said, stoically trying to avoid noticing his battered arms and legs. He knew Luchare was equally in pain and also saying nothing, and his heart went out to her. They sat a little apart, with the bear and the morse, the latter now peacefully chewing his cud.
Brother Aldo had vanished earlier, saying only that he would be back before moonrise, “Not that the moon will shed much light down here,” he added.
“I guess he went to find that trail, that is, if anyone can find it,” the girl said. Her dark face was drawn and tired in the light of the flames.
“Listen to that, will you!” Hiero said, springing to his feet, hand on sword. All the others had leaped up, too, as a perfectly appalling racket burst out not far away, hideous, earthshaking screams of rage rising above a deep, hoarse bellowing, as if the father of all cats had attacked the granduncle of all bovines. The bellowing sound alone made Klootz’s loudest efforts sound like a baby’s squall. As suddenly as they had begun, the frightful sounds died away, leaving everyone half-deafened. The ordinary screeches, yells, and howls of the night resumed, aided by the sounds of countless stridulating insects. The men slowly settled down again.
Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) Page 28
