Again the Metz lowered the far-looker. Is there more? his mind asked.
Much more, came the answer. That thing, and (it is) one of many, is only one weapon of the House. Now into Hiero’s mind there came a picture of a strange object, something perhaps like a peculiar building made of brown, still wet, soft mud. It had no truly straight lines, yet somehow it seemed to maintain a basic four-sided structure, which yet shifted from one detail to the next, though only in small ways. A vaguely rectangular wasp’s nest, made of soft muck and big enough for many men to live in. But it was alive! Or at least it apparently moved and shifted, and ripples seemed to run across its surface.
If the slime-thing he had just seen was foul, at least it seemed to answer to the basic laws of life. But this object or creature was repellent beyond belief, repellent because it was utterly unnatural and ab-human in a way like nothing Hiero had ever seen before.
Then, and only then—he remembered the last cast of the symbols on the north shore of the Inland Sea. Here was the House! He looked at its image in Vilah-ree’s mind again and shuddered.
11. THE HOUSE AND THE TREES
I want my woman and i want the old man with the beard and I want the bear! And I want them now! I need them!
The curious disagreement and discussion had gone on for over an hour. Hiero had learned much about his task, but he had not been able to make his own will in the matter felt. Vilah-ree could not, or perhaps would not, see that he wanted at the very least to consult with his partners. To her, he alone was all that was needed. Suppressing as egotistic a thought that her ideas about him had more behind them than a desire to see him defeat the House, he returned to his patient argument.
He had learned that the House—or whatever motivated it; Vilah-ree was not clear on this point—stayed hidden in the center of the fungus blight or infection. It had appeared, seemingly from out of the desert beyond, some time ago—again, how much was not clear—and at once had attacked the forest edge. Nothing seemed to harm it or its attendant fungi very much except fire, and it, or they, attacked and ate everything remotely organic. The spores raced up and rotted healthy, giant trees, the moving slime molds devoured all animal and small plant life, the toadstools grew from decaying plant matter overnight, and the great puffballs englobed smaller plants and somehow ingested them. Any organized attempt to interfere was met by bolts of mental? psychic? at any rate, invisible, force emanating from the House itself. Vilah-ree and her people were not warlike in any case and they were helpless before this foul onslaught. They had no physical weapons beyond small bows and spears; and, while they could blank out their minds to Hiero, the House somehow could always detect them and hold, them paralyzed until a giant slime mold was summoned to feed! And they needed the forest. Without the trees, they would die, Vilah-ree made that plain.
What about that very big animal guarding our trail, which you put there? Why not use that? he asked.
He had noticed that Vilah-ree never smiled, but now he detected something like humor in her mind, or at least a thinly veiled amusement. He was given a picture of one of her white-skinned women swinging a strange, flat, wooden device on a long cord, swinging it in great circles around and about her head. He had not seen one for many years, not since his childhood, but he recognized the bull-roarer he had once used to frighten his first girls. Its whirring roar sounded like a hideous monster indeed!
Your friend, whom you call the bear, had a picture of a terrible creature put into his mind. If such a creature truly lived, we would be helpless before it ourselves. Thus he convinced you in turn. He laughed, only half-bitterly. They had been ensnared by a bluff and a harmless sleep drug!
One other thing had Hiero learned, or rather, deduced. From his memory of the maps they carried, it appeared that the blight of the House covered much the very same area he wished to search! Here a pre-Death city supposedly lay hidden under the edge of the desert. This made him slightly more philosophic about his capture by the tree women of Vilah-ree. It looked as if a struggle, or at least a penetration of the horror caused by the fungus attack, would have been necessary in any case.
You attack the House with your mind, your mind which is so strong, came her thought again, reiterating this same simple theme. While you do so, we will burn the foulness of the House. Her green eyes revealed no feelings of any kind.
Hiero looked over the balcony again, over the forest roof at the distant splotch of livid colors which was her enemy. He sighed, wondering how he could get through to her. Perhaps, he thought, a new tack would be more useful.
What happens to us if we defeat the House? he sent bluntly. Will you let us go; help us in our journey?
For a moment she did not answer. Then her thought somehow seemed hesitant. Do you wish to go so much? There was something wistful and puzzled about her mental question, almost like the attitude of a child who cannot understand why it has been told to stay home alone.
The priest studied her as coldly as he was able to. She was lovely indeed, whatever she was, but her strangeness increased with acquaintance. The pale ivory body, the calm, sculptured face, and those emerald eyes were all enchantment. And. all, he reflected, seemed less and less to be human! Who was Vilah-ree, or rather, what?
Where are your men? On impulse his thought was sharp and quick. Why do they not fight for you and help destroy the House? Are they afraid? As he sensed her confusion and alarm at his questions, he continued to probe. But suddenly her mind simply went opaque, “vanished,” in fact, as it had when the travelers first had walked the trail far below. Unless she willed it, he could not even detect her thoughts, let alone interpret or control them.
They stared at one another, the very human man and the al-most-woman of another race, each entity seeming to make up his or her mind, each one dueling for position. It was Vilah-ree who weakened first, or appeared to do so, at any rate.
Our men are—elsewhere, came her thought suddenly. They do not fight; no (wrong meaning), they cannot fight. Thus I was desperate/helpless until you came. Now—how soon can you fight the House?
Hiero leaned back against the wall and matched stare for stare. The question of her strange people’s absent males had seemed to bother her, but the tree queen, if that were truly her role, recovered quickly.
Pay attention, his mind said. Listen carefully to what I tell you. Until the three, the woman, the old man, and the bear, are brought here and wakened, or I to them, I will do nothing. Do you understand? You know little of mind warfare, Vilah-ree. I need advice and help, help of a kind you cannot give. I will not bargain further. Release the three I named and we will try to aid you. And the others must be guarded and kept safe until the struggle is over in one way or another. They can neither aid nor hinder, but are in our keeping.
In turn, she debated with herself. Her next thought was cold, but her anger nevertheless came through it. I could slay them all, and you with them. Why should I not?
Go ahead; I quite agree that you can. But since you need us, I marvel at the stupidity of such a thought.
Again their eyes met. He saw an emotion in the green depths this time which surprised him. It was more like the anger of a woman, almost, he would have said, a jealous anger. But it passed, leaving nothing but gold bars on pellucid emerald.
Yes, she replied. We will meet at the foot of this tree. Wait, while I go to see to it. She turned and was gone, flipping right over the side of the balcony in a way that made Hiero’s heart catch a beat. He rushed to the rail in time to see her pale shape dropping through the branches along a tangle of great vines at a speed he would have thought impossible. In an instant she was out of sight, but a chorus of golden, chiming notes poured up through myriad leaves. It was answered on all sides, though he could see no one, and he knew a host of the tree women must be concealed in attendance all around.
Having descended more slowly, helped by two women to his annoyance, an hour later he was embracing Luchare, while Gorm blinked in the background and Brother Aldo beamed
impartially at the score of armed, cold-faced, naked dryads who surrounded them. He seemed actually delighted by the discovery of the tree people, pleased to such an extent that their own mission appeared minor by comparison. He actually patted Vilah-ree on her shapely rump, just as one might pat a dog; and stranger still, she did not appear to mind and even patted him back, her face immobile!
“Lovely, Hiero, just lovely! Imagine, a whole new race of these lovely beings produced by The Death. They must have lived here a long time, to be so adapted to tree life. Remarkable! And aren’t they pretty things, too? Vilah-ree, my dear, you must tell me about your people when we can talk together, eh?”
“I can’t stand the way they look at me, especially that one,” Luchare whispered against Hiero’s chest. She meant Vilah-ree, who was indeed staring at her with uncommon interest.
Tell your woman I wish to speak with her. Alone. Vilah-ree’s mind was glacial but utterly clear. Before the priest could even frame a query, she added, Tell her she will not be harmed in any way. But I must talk to her! The intensity of the last thought was such that Hiero, who was unprepared, was almost stunned by it.
“She wants to speak with you privately. She says it’s terribly important, though I have no idea why. Are you able yet to keep a closed channel with a strange mind?”
“I think so,” Luchare said slowly. Something of the tree woman’s passion seemed to have reached her, for, with no more ado, she released her lover and followed Vilah-ree, who strode away into the forest. Hiero watched the contrasting light and dark bodies, Luchare’s being only minimally covered by her shorts and jerkin, until they were out of sight around a huge tree bole.
“Now what do you think that means?” he asked Aldo. “I have a feeling Vilah-ree is trying to pull something clever. She won’t hurt Luchare, will she? If she does, by God… !”
“Calm, maintain calm,” was the old man’s soothing answer. “I cannot read her mind, my boy, but I can read other things, attitudes, faces, eyes, even muscle tension. These curious tree women have no gift for intrigue, I am sure of that. And I think lying is almost impossible for them. On whom would they practice it?
“No, this is something female, purely female, if my guess is right. Vilah-ree wants more information about us and decided we stupid males couldn’t give it, or perhaps understand exactly what she wanted, that’s all.”
To Hiero’s relief, the two reappeared after not too long a time and came walking back to the group at a brisk pace. Luchare was actually smiling, though for some odd reason, she had trouble meeting her lover’s eyes. Vilah-ree paid him no attention, but seemed, to a casual glance, to be more relaxed.
“Oh, she just wanted to talk. Never seen a woman before, I guess. She’s not so bad,” was Luchare’s vague answer to the priest’s question. “Goodness, how lovely it must be, living here in this great woods and never seeing another soul.” Her lovely aquiline profile, etched in dusky clarity against a drooping, light green frond, seemed pensive. Whatever had happened, Hiero thought, it at least had not frightened her. He wished momentarily he had eavesdropped, but he knew he could not have lived with himself afterward, had he done so.
Vilah-ree conversed briefly with some of her attendant women, and now she came up to them again. Puzzled by her new attitude, Hiero watched her stroke Luchare’s arm in passing, noting that Luchare seemed in no way annoyed by the caress. Women! Who knew what they were thinking?
“We are to go now and inspect the enemy,” Aldo said. “I have been talking to her majesty here, for your guess was right, Hiero. She’s the queen and apparently sole ruler. She wants us to eat first, though.”
After a delicious but hasty meal of the fruit, vegetables, and bread which the tree women served, they were on the way through the aisles of the mighty trees. If they were following a trail, it was apparent only to their guides, a dozen of whom ranged in front, while a similar group brought up the rear. Even Hiero, trained hunter and accustomed as he was to forests and silent movement, had never seen anything like Vilah-ree’s people. Like lovely, pale ghosts, they slipped through the lofty ferns and over the huge, moss-hung logs, never disturbing a leaf and making less sound than a hovering moth.
Twice they paused for brief rest periods. It was around mid-afternoon when the tree women scouting in front began to fall back, joining the main party. Ahead, the humans could see a much brighter light, and they knew the edge of the forest must be here at last.
Gorm, to whom the whole situation had been carefully explained, halted, sat up, and then sniffed the breeze. Dirty air, came from his mind. Something long dead, but not-dead, up there in the light.
Long dead but not-dead! The Metz drew in a deep breath and exhaled long and hard. On his palate now lay a faint film of corruption, an evil stench of some vileness or other. Drifting through the sweet scents of the forest it came, a wavering miasma of rotten life and seething putrescence, unnatural simply because it was alive and not dead, as anything so decayed long should have been. The odor of the House!
We dare go very little closer, came Vilah-ree’s message. We have lost many of our people, whom the House somehow caught and held unmoving while they watched from the forest edge. Then, those things you saw came—and fed!
Now Hiero began to put into effect the plan he previously had worked out with the others. He advanced with caution, his mind probing for any sign of reasoning life, though not neglecting any lesser creatures either. With him the bear went prowling, and the priest could feel his strange mind also reaching out, feeling for alien or inimical contact of any sort.
It had been agreed that this would be the order of their approach, if not of actual battle. Remaining behind them with Vilah-ree, Aldo and Luchare would link minds and prepare to aid if they were needed. But this first move was intended to be a reconnaissance, nothing more.
“Still, we may get drawn in by this thing,” Hiero said, when they had discussed the possibilities. “Gorm and I are old veterans now, but we still really know nothing of this House creature, not even what it is, let alone what it actually can do. Remember, it can detect the tree people, by their minds apparently, and we can’t! That’s enough to make one cautious.”
“Then why can’t I come, too, and help you? I won’t be left in back!” Luchare was furious.
“Listen, love, we’ve been over this a dozen times. You haven’t the mental training, although you’re learning. You know that Gorm can use his mind better. Brother Aldo has to stay here to help try and anchor our minds if we need him. And you can help only there, by adding your mental energy store to his.” His voice was patient, since he knew the sole reason for her anger was fear of his going into danger without her. Eventually, with Aldo helping, she had been argued into acquiescence, however unwilling. The plan made so much sense that she could really argue no longer.
As man and bear slowly advanced over the moss and through the undergrowth which ringed the great tree bases, the sunlight grew steadily. Hiero paused, seeing for the first time at close range the shrouded skeleton of a forest giant, bulging with repulsive growths, through a gap in the yet living trees ahead. There were no large animals in the area, not even small ones detectable by his mind. The exceptions were a few enormous greenish flies, their plump bodies shining in the sun with iridescent hues as they buzzed over the plants about them. Hiero brushed one away, a fluttering, pulpy thing almost three inches long, which hovered near his face for a moment.
Still his mind met nothing. Whatever lurked out there in the foul profusion of rot was quiescent. Cautiously, the two went on, their thoughts neatly overlapping as they spread wider and wider, like ripples in a pool.
As they approached the actual border of the living forest, the dead trees, each festooned with horrid growth, became more evident. For some time, the reek of the strange fungi had been growing in their nostrils, and now Hiero switched over to breathing through his mouth alone, so foul and purulent had the odors become. No warning of any attacker could penetrate that frightful ste
nch, so why not cut it off at the source? Noses were no good here.
The great flies were still common, indeed seemed to be increasing in number, but nothing else moved. At last, unable to go further, they paused behind the last living tree near them and stared out over the awful panorama spread before them.
Directly in front, a vast puffball, its pocked, white circumference many yards in diameter, reared up in bloated isolation. To the left, a forest of monster toadstools, sterns brown and broad, mottled umbels a sickly orange, stretched out of sight, broken only by the pulp-covered columns of the dead trees rising in their midst. On the right, the dead trees thinned, for here a finger of the outer desert had long ago crept closer to the woods. But now an uneven mound of various smaller fungi, of all shapes and ocherous and bilious colors, extended into the middle distance. There was no normal growth in view, not even grass, nor any bare ground not covered by some slime or smear or leprous muck.
No sound, save for the muted buzzing of the flies, broke the silence. Under the great heat of the afternoon sun, they saw faint steams and moist clouds rise at intervals from the surface of the noxious growths.
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