Scooping a few red-hot coals from the dormant fire with his broad spear blade, Hiero carefully emptied them over the wide, groping paw. There was a second of silence; then the paw was snatched back, and a hideous roar, almost deafening the Metz, crashed in turn over the barricade. It was followed by equally deafening snarls and growls and the crashing of brush and timber as the paw’s owner blundered about in pain and rage. While Hiero grinned hugely and the hopper still froze in panic, the noises died away downhill; the creature, whatever it was, sought distance and possibly the river to quench its burns.
For long afterward there was relative peace, and Hiero dozed, like his mount, crouched on his haunches, stirring only to renew the tiny fire at intervals. That the surrounding foothills were full of life needed no further emphasis. The night about them rang with howls and screams, as hunters and hunted fought through the dark hours. Sometimes the sound of great padded feet came from close by, and the man tensed, coming wide awake automatically. But most of the meat eaters seemed deterred by the fire, the barrier of wood, and perhaps the unfamiliar, mingled scent of man and hopper.
It did not pay to relax completely, and Hiero never did. This was just as well, for the next attack was unfamiliar and might have succeeded by its very strangeness.
The Metz had been conscious of an odd sound for quite a while before he grew alert. It was a soft, fluttering noise, like the flapping of a large fan waved with great speed, and seemed to come from out over the gorge to his left. Sometimes it went away and sometimes came quite near, so that the purling of the small river in the depths of the gorge was almost silenced. He only heard the noise when the chorus of the jungle had momentarily died down; but though it vanished at times, it always returned. Segi, if he noticed it at all, paid no attention, but drowsed, eyes half-shut, staring at the fireglow.
In the dark, just before the first coming of dawn, Hiero heard the soft flutter drifting toward their nook once more, and something impelled him to throw a few more sticks on the dying coals.
The sound grew suddenly louder, and the beat of monster wings forced a blast of wind into the little angle in which Hiero and Segi crouched, causing the fire to flare and the man to start to his feet, his gaze widening in amazement and horror.
Poised in the air before him hung a demon’s face, great fangs bared below glowing eyes, wrinkled snout, and ears carved as if in oiled leather. A naked body was held aloft by the roaring beat of the vast, leathery wings. The nightmare head alone was the size of a small wine keg.
As the savage jaws snapped at him, Hiero shrank back, his spear raised in defense. Again the thing wavered in at him, the giant fans of its finger wingers flapping the fire into yet brighter flame. The hopper gave a squeal of utter terror at the sight. But this time, the Metz warrior was ready.
His spear licked out in a short, vicious arc. Despite the ability of the giant bat-thing to change direction, the sharp edge cut deep, not in the face, but in one shoulder, where a great wing joined the hideous body. Screaming on an impossibly high note, the haunter of the night winds fell off and away, down into the misty canyon from whence it had flown in the first place. It was all over in seconds, leaving man and mount staring into the void. Then, even as they stared, Hiero saw the first paling in the east. The long night was over.
Limp with relief, yet not losing his grip on his spear, he slowly sank back to his knees. As the sky gradually brightened around him and the volume of noise shrank with the coming of day, he remained there, eyes shut and giving heartfelt thanks to the Almighty for his delivery from the perils of the dark. Crossbarred spear held before him, the priest prayed for the future, not only of himself but of all mankind and of the world of beasts and the untamed beauty of the land. He asked for strength in future trials and aid for his loved ones. At last, his orisons done, he fell asleep with the sun’s first rays just touching the cliff above his head.
Segi, all terrors forgotten with the approach of daylight, flicked his ears and reached for a tender weed. He would keep watch.
V. THE SPINNER AND THE WEB
When Hiero awoke, his head ached. He did not feel tired, exactly, but a bit sluggish and stiff. He wondered if it was due to the damp; the day was not cold—indeed it was quite hot—but a thin, light rain was falling. It was this which had finally awakened him, though he had slept in the rain, and heavy rain at that, many times before. Perhaps some miasma had risen from the river spray during the night. He enjoyed superb health as a rule. There was little disease in the old sense abroad in the world these days. Some of the ancient places of The Death still harbored plagues of horrid sorts, so the tales said, and all such were sedulously avoided when known to exist. But other than a cold or two and a broken leg, the hardy Metz had never known a day’s illness. Still, his head ached!
He shook it angrily, as if to drive the aching away by sheer force. It was not all that bad, just a dull throb, but he was unused to such things and resented it ail the more for that reason. He would have to do something, he supposed, if it persisted. That an ache might come from his subconscious as it battled on his behalf with an outside force never occurred to him. In his state of mental stasis, as far as his innate and taught powers were concerned, there was no way it could.
Meanwhile, he fed himself, thinking gloomily about Segi and the hours before as he did. A few more nights like that would put paid to both of them! Segi was strictly diurnal, and though Hiero could travel in the dark, it was a terribly dangerous thing to do in this unknown land. He thought of the flying horror of the night and whistled to himself. Never before had he been attacked from the air, unless he counted the great birds from whom he had saved Luchare. But that had been an artificial situation, the creatures being lured by human torturers to their prey.
That devil bat was under no one’s control but its own, of that he was sure. What a place the world was, with things like that in it, unknown until they struck at one!
He eyed the gorge as he saddled Segi, but nothing flew there save some small birds resembling swallows, seeking insects in the drizzle and fog. The chorus of the night had gone too, only an occasional distant howl or roar attesting to the presence of the hungry bellies of their owners as they slunk back to their lairs. Strange birds sang sweetly or called in mocking echoes from the slopes above, the thin patter of the falling water hardly muffling the sound.
Nevertheless, Hiero was very cautious as he dismantled his barricade and led Segi out. But, save for some torn bushes, no trace remained of the brute which had clawed at the barrier. The man mounted, and the big hopper obediently set off down a narrow alley in the towering trees which gave promise of leading to a gentler slope upward.
A long time later, the two were deep in the folds and ravines of the rising hills. Hiero could not have said where he was going and, indeed, seemed to be proceeding at random. His headache had increased, but he paid it no outward attention. Had an observer been there to note what transpired, there would have seemed a strange look in the man’s eyes, one of puzzled concentration, as if some thought were being explained. Or imposed.
It was the beast and not the man who was growing uneasy. Long since, the last bird calls had died away behind them. The thin rain no longer fell, but swirls of increasing fog curled about their bodies now, and visibility had dropped to a few yards in front and to the sides. Great moss-covered stones loomed out of the mist at them and then fell away as they passed. The trees had been largely replaced by monstrous arums and broad-leafed plants like vast rhubarbs. Ferns were everywhere, some with trunks many feet thick and with heads far out of sight in the gray mist overhead. The footing was spongy, and the hopper’s pads made a flat squelching sound each time his weight hit the damp soil underfoot. His eyes rolled nervously and his long mule ears flickered constantly as he sought for some sound over the drip and plash of the water, the noise of laden rivulets trickling into their path from the surrounding gullies and heights far above.
Even a normal man without Hiero’s skills as a woodsma
n would have been nervous by now, whether or not he possessed any added powers of the mind. But Hiero seemed caught up in a trance. One part of his brain noted absently that they were in the bottom of a deep ravine or canyon which was leading them upward on a slow incline. Yet the fact was simply recorded as having no relevance of any kind. Segi’s snorts and fidgets were firmly but gently controlled, and the big beast, trembling yet obedient, went on at the man’s behest. His mingled affection and years of constant training mastered his fears and his animal awareness that all was not well.
For some hours more, they went on in this manner. The ground underfoot, or rather the mixture of moss and mud, began to level off. The upward incline ceased and now took, after a while, an equally shallow downturn. The dribbles of water through which they splashed began to run gently in the way that they themselves were going.
The silence was not oppressive. Save for their own breathing, the creak of leather, and the splash of Segi’s feet, nothing stirred in the mist about them. Only the lonely fall of water from heights above and the drip from the leaves surrounded them. It was as if they were lost in some strange world of silent fog, some place where active life never came, but which, since the beginning of time, had been given over to the pearl gray of the mists and the silent, watching plants. It did not seem a place that wanted or would endure movement and the bustle of everyday sounds and stirrings. Here there was only the still life of water and plant, moss and stone. Yet they continued, over marsh and boggy stretches, broken by reaches of smooth, wet rock where even the carpets of omnipresent moss could find no rooting. The mist, light in one place and darker in another, curled in ever-thicker coils around them, deadening even the sounds they made, as if trying to blanket them with its own silence.
Presently, Hiero knew, they were to come to a wider place. The pale fog was no thinner, but his inner knowledge was sure, They were no longer in a narrow ravine, but in some opening, a bowl of some sort in the heart of the hills. Here something waited for them, as it had waited for countless others. Here they had been drawn over vast and empty leagues for some purpose by that which ruled this land of mist. All thinking suspended, all purpose stilled, Hiero reined Segi to a halt and looked about him in idle wonder. The mists lifted slowly as he did so, and he saw the water.
Before them, black and smooth, a tarn stretched out of sight until the fog rolled in upon it and hid its farther shores. They were on a low bank, a sort of reef which projected out into the silent water, its basis something firmer than the moss and ooze through which they had come for so long. It was not rock, but mass upon mass of something white and rounded, with here and there a sharp projection rising above the other rotting matter. Stretching out around them as far as they could see was a shore of bones, moss-covered and old, with a few whiter and newer additions. They had come upon a graveyard of a strange and horrible kind.
How many generations, how many lives of the world outside, must have been spent to create that vast and moldering wrack of skeletons, not even the inhabitant of the lake could have said.
There was no discrimination among the relics of the past. Skulls of the giants, with crumbling tusks many yards in length, were piled in heaps, mingled with the slender crania of the hoofed runners on the grass. Savage fangs, half-buried under the lichen and mildew, showed that meat eaters were not exempt. The femurs and hoofs, the occipitals and astragali of hordes of smaller beasts were inextricably entwined through and over the huge ribs and metacarpals of the greatest brutes. From dead eye sockets, the ghosts of reptiles stared in empty equality at the mammals. All of evolution had met in the common fate of their mortality. The only conquerors were the dampness, the mold, and the swirling mist. The only epitaph was silence.
As quiet now as the dead around them, man and hopper waited. Even Segi had stopped his nervous trembling and had lapsed into a cowed stillness. Hiero simply sat, a copper statue on a bronzed steed. The two heads stared before them at the dark lake, seemingly as patient as the hills which held them captive. The mist dripped unregarded from the leather headband of the Metz. He had discarded his now useless hat days before. His dark eyes looked fixedly forward at the water, never wavering, with no emotion stirring in their depths. He was waiting for a summons. Yet when it came, it came so strangely that his body trembled with the shock. For it came in his mind.
Welcome, Two-Legs! You have been a long time upon your journey, as you and yours count time. That which bears you has helped to bring you to me. Leave the animal now. It has served its purpose, or part of its purpose. It has no further use in our dealings together. Follow the shore around to the right and you will be more comfortable. We have much to discuss, we two.
As the voice entered his mind, Hiero became a changed man. Outwardly, he remained what in fact he had been for a long time, a prisoner of his own body, obedient to the will of that which had summoned him. But the strange voice in his brain had alerted all the long-silenced circuits that had been killed by the drug of the Unclean. They were not operating under his control, but they were activated. He could feel all his emotions again, sense the brain of that which addressed him, plan on the future with his full mentality, review the damage done by the drug, and, above all, feel that he was no longer a prisoner in his own skull. Yet he must obey.
He dismounted as he had been told. The hopper remained squatting on his haunches, as immobile as a statue, his great, gentle eyes fixed in a blank stare, as if he were seeing nothing. The man began to walk along the edge of the dark water, picking his way over the slippery masses of the crumbling bones with care. All the while, his brain was still captive, but racing furiously, considering the voice in his mind and the implications thereof.
It was no human voice, this mental alert. In some ways, it was not unlike the House, that amalgam of fungoid intelligence he had slain in the cavern to the north. The resemblance lay in a sense of coldness and of great age. But there it ended. The House had been all furious malignancy, hating and despising all that was not of its own foul nature, determined to swallow the whole world in its sporate growth. This mind was quite different, being as placid as the mountain tarn before him. It was remote, non-caring. It envied and despised nothing, too aloof and withdrawn from the scheme of things for such pettiness. If it had any deep emotions, it hid them well.
While Hiero was considering the voice and trying to sort out the burst of galloping thoughts created by the sudden awakening of his mind, he was still clambering over the moss and lichen-strewn bones. Presently, he came to the end and found himself in a little bay on the shore of the black lake. Over the water, the mist still clung to the damp air, wreaths and swathes of it folding and refolding in gauzy tendrils. The light was growing brighter as the sun once more began to make its appearance, and shades of pearly opalescence colored the fog.
Hiero seated himself on a convenient bank of thick, green moss and stared at a narrow ridge of grayish rock which had become revealed some yards from the shore as the mist cleared a little. The voice had been silent for some minutes now, and his brain registered nothing. Yet he was well aware that his summoner was not gone and also that he could make no move save with permission. Far back down the shore, whence he had just come, he heard the sound of a heavy splash. There was no other sound, and he wondered at the noise. While he sat in silent puzzlement, the voice came again to his mind.
So, Two-Legs, you are at rest. I feel in your mind that you do not hunger, nor do you thirst. Good. Very good. We can have speech with each other.
The strange voice was not speaking in words, but rather in instantaneous images. Moreover, the images were halting and somewhat labored, not at all like the clear mind speech Hiero could use with Gorm, the absent bear, his mutant comrade. It was as if the being had developed little or no skill in what it was doing. It had plenty of ability, but the ability was theoretic, not practiced.
You can speak to me, Two-Legs. Not to anyone else, at least not in this manner. And there is no one to speak to with sounds, as you do with
your own sort. Here, in my place, there is none other. You must speak with me or with none.
Hiero tensed as he received this, then attempted to use mind speech. As he did so, he tried to throw up a guard as well, so that whatever addressed him could not read his hidden, innermost thoughts.
Who are you? he sent. What do you want? Why cannot I see you? What is this place?
He could swear he had felt amusement or at least irony from the voice. But there seemed to be no malice, no feeling of evil, directed toward him. Yet he knew the creature was right. He was sending to it alone. His powers had been restored only on this one “channel.” Aside from his unseen interlocutor, he was still cut off from the world of the mind.
Many, many questions, came the reply. There is no need for so much at once. But I will try to answer. You will see me in due course. I have my own reasons for waiting. You are most impatient—as are, I guess, all those like you? It ignored its own half question and went on. This is my place, the only place I have ever known. And perhaps ever will. I have brought you here, as I see you perceive, by pulling on your mind slowly at first and then with more power, increasing the pull by degrees. For I could see that your mind was not such as I have ever encountered before. Many wanings and waxings of the moon have come and gone since one of your two-legged kind was brought here. It has been so long that I have lost count. It did not seem important. Very few ever came, and their minds were blind and foolish, unthinking and so full of terror. In the end, when I could not reach them and their minds, I gave them peace. What passed for their brains was full of blood, full of fear, and yet cruel also, in a way that the simple beasts who come are not. So—like these others, they passed.
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