Slowly, ever so slowly, they edged closer to the border of crawling horror that was the blight. Still nothing stirred out in the nightmare world into which they looked and also sent their roving brain impulses.
Then—having lured its prey as close as it could by sheer inaction—the House struck! And it was the man who took the brunt of the blow.
Never in all his varied experience had Hiero felt anything quite like it. An actual chill seemed to settle through his body, paralyzing his will and numbing his nerve endings. Though his personally devised mind guard had been kept at full strength, the attack passed through his screens as if they were nonexistent. Yet not quite. The very last one, the one which guarded the control of his own mind, was untouched. But though he could see and hear, no muscle of his body could so much as twitch. Through eyes which happened to be looking half that way when the sweeping assault came, Hiero could see Gorm frozen, one forefoot raised. He knew that the bear was equally helpless, and in so knowing, he despaired.
For with the attack of the House there came knowledge of the attacker. And that knowledge chilled not the body, for that indeed was already numb, but the very soul, the inner being. Steeped in evil and all vileness and cruelty were the adept wizards of the Unclean. But they were nevertheless of human, ancestry, and thus, malign though they were, they yet preserved a tincture of humanity.
But the House was other. Somehow, after The Death, but in the ancient past, a strange and awful mating had taken place, triune perhaps, between a mycelial spore, an amoeboid slime, and, somewhere, somehow, an intelligence. Or perhaps the intelligence grew from the slime and gained the spore, then took a different direction from all other life. Whatever had happened, the result was abnormal, beyond normality in fact. In some ways like the Dweller in the Mist, that seeming embodiment of total evil, yet even further from the upward path to reason and logic was the House.
Fiercely, Hiero strained to free his limbs. At the same time, he tried to link his mind with Brother Aldo and Luchare, back in the forest. Neither effort was successful. He could not move and he seemed enclosed in a curious, icy mental shell, so that any outside contact was severed and cut off. His link with Gorm had vanished as soon as the attack began. His brain was still clear and unhampered except by the screen, yet he could neither move his body nor communicate with others.
Through the screen about him, now another attack, if that was what it was, began. The House was revealing itself. As the image of Vilah-ree had first appeared in his mind, despite any real method of communication, so now the misty outline of the thing itself began to build on the beslimed earth fifty yards in front of him. He knew it was not real, but only what he was being willed to see; that the physical body or structure, he did not know what, actually, of the House was nowhere near, but well hidden, somewhere out in the depths of the foul world it had built for itself. But stay—was that world so foul? Even as the wavering shape of the House began to condense and apparently solidify before his eyes, so too a new thought crept into his mind. The House was alien, different, yes. But was that enough to make it evil? Had it too not a right to live? The siren message infiltrated his own thoughts very, very subtly. His inner screen was not so much pierced, for the House seemed incapable of doing that, as persuaded, soothed, and his mind was thus ensnared. Yet not quite.
For as the glamour of the strange spell grew upon him, his inner being realized two things. First, the House was utterly alien, something which should not he; and second, the House was not one entity at all, but many minds of things all swarming like so many maggots in and through the gelid and gelatinous structure. The creatures, whatever they were, were both in and part of the ghastly thing which now reared itself to a height of many feet in front of him, to the eye as much real as his own hand.
And he was being invited to share, to join! He too could take part in the work to come, the great work of cleansing the surface of the earth, so that only the living House remained, surrounded by the monstrous, mutated fungi which were its weapons and its seed.
The House’s brownish, oily structure seemed to shake as he watched, horrified yet fascinated. Strange faces began to appear on its shifting surface, to leer invitingly at him, and to vanish again into the mass, only to be replaced by others, equally foul and evanescent. All invited him. Come, they seemed to say; leave your mortal shell and become one with us and live forever.
Then, in his despair, for though he was not tempted, he was utterly helpless, there came a new factor. It was the bear!
His thought came obliquely somehow through the mental sphere of thought with which the monster had surrounded the priest. The strong mind was like a draught of cold air. lam here. It does not understand me at all, I think, and it uses a sending or a force which might indeed hold me if I were only what I seem, a creature of instinct and emotion, as once my people were. It is afraid of you, that I can feel, but not of me. The bear’s thought was full of mingled anger and also craft. Yet Gorm was giving away no points, nor counseling hasty action, Hiero realized, only waiting to see what he himself wanted.
They—or rather, it—grows impatient, came a fresh message. There are many very strange minds there, all mixed, but making one, like in an anthill or bees’ nest. It will not wait much longer, he added. It is tired of your refusing whatever it is it wishes. Now—it summons something from outside. The cool bear mind was calm, detached, as if what were happening had no relation to himself.
The Metz had drawn on his own inner resources at the same time, deducing, analyzing, forming conclusions. Simply knowing that he was not cut off had given him immense strength of purpose. There had even been time for a battle prayer of split-second length, but in due and proper form—God preserve his warrior through all trial. Amen.
Can you reach outside? Get Aldo and above all tell him to bring the weapon we have ready. I’m going to keep struggling and focus the attention of this thing on myself. Hurry!
He felt Goon’s mind withdraw and then he renewed his own struggle to escape, trying every level, every method he had taught himself or ever been taught, to pierce the web around him and free both his brain and his limbs.
The House now withdrew its sucking blandishments and its horrid appeals for alliance. It still sat before him, or rather, it kept its repulsive, mirage-simulacrum there, but it settled down to watchful waiting. Even as he renewed his apparently fruitless assault, he decided Gorm was right: the House was afraid of him, or at least wary. He must be something very different from anything it—or they—had ever encountered before. He wondered if the bear were having any success in reaching the Elevener. In a few moments they would know.
Now, through the ground itself, he felt a motion, hardly even a vibration, merely a faint stir, an almost imperceptible tremor. Something was on the move, and he knew, or guessed, what that something was. The slime-mold-things, or one of them, were coming to feed. His eyes locked on the House, not able to move at all, he saw and suddenly understood the cloud of bloated flies hovering in front of his face and realized then that they were the eyes of the House and had reported his coming. This, then, was how the thing penetrated the forest fringe and guarded its borders.
Suddenly the House vanished from his sight. In its place there appeared the quaking, soft bulk of the slime-thing it had summoned. He did not believe that its appearance directly before him and the envanishment of its ruler were accidents. Unable to move at all, by a refinement of cruelty he was to be made to see his destroyer coming and know what it was that devoured him alive.
Coldly, never relaxing his struggle to be free, yet to the outward eye simply standing still and peering forward, he watched the eyeless bulk glide toward him. The creature was far larger than he had realized when seen at a distance. The soft, plush mound towered far above his head, and the long rods which sprang from it, each tipped with that poisonous orange glow, were at least four times the length of his own body. It paused and then came on again, though more slowly. All the long rods were aquiver, their
lengths rigid and yet soft, as soft as the purple pile surface of the unearthly shape. Now it was just in front of him, blotting out the view of all beyond. He breathed a prayer and also continued the struggle without a second’s hesitation, wrenching his mind about its strange, invisible prison as an eel hurls itself against its woven willow trap, without success perhaps, yet never giving up.
Unflinching thus, he faced his doom and so he saw the horror struck down, even as it reared over him.
The blazing crossbow bolt had barely sunk to the feathers, deep into the pulpy flesh, when another followed, burying itself not a foot away from the first. Slimmer, longer arrows came in a sheet after that, each one with flaming tow tied tightly to the shaft. One of the most ancient devices of man, the fire arrow, was being used against a hell creature spawned out of science-wrought cataclysm and devastation.
Over his head, the rain of burning arrows continued, and he realized that Luchare and Brother Aldo must have brought the tree women to their aid, conquering somehow their fear of the blight.
The slime mold reared up and shook in its agony, and for an instant Hiero thought it would fall upon and slay him in its death throes. Fire ran in coruscating runnels down its rounded, shifting sides and leaped into blazing light on the phosphorescent pseudo-pod ends, the clean light of honest fire burning out the poisonous phosphorescence by which the thing slew its prey.
At this moment, the mind control vanished. The House, unnerved by this sudden and unexpected onslaught, released its prisoners. No less alert than Hiero, Gorm instantly turned on his own stout length and scuttled for his life, the warrior-priest racing hard on his furry heels. In a few seconds they had reached and passed the clean wood’s edge. In an instant more, Hiero again was squeezing the life out of his dark love, while to her right and left, Aldo and Vilah-ree directed the dryad archers as they still launched their blazing shafts out into the territory claimed by the House, Gorm promptly sat down and began to lick himself.
Satisfied that Luchare was unharmed (and that so was he), Hiero turned to look back, still keeping one arm firmly about the D’alwah girl’s shoulders. It was a wonderful and awful sight.
The ravening molds and fungi of the blight all shared one terrible weakness. How the House had guarded its territory from chance lightning, Hiero could not imagine, but it must have had some method, for now the whole border of the foul infection was ablaze. Fire wrapped the scorched body of the giant, predatory slime mold, now writhing feebly in its death agony. But yellow flames raced over the ground, smeared and barren as well and bloomed on the mushroom forest, causing the great, stalked umbrellas to explode as the heat scorched them. The colossal puffball in the middle foreground exploded as the fire struck it, and each tiny spore became an instant coal, a second later a cinder mote. The great, murdered trees became living candles of flame as they too burned, from the caught fire of the shrouding growths which had slain them. Black, greasy smoke, foul and reeking with all the unpleasant scents of the burning fungi, wreathed the scene and began to drift into the forest beyond, where it met and drowned the perfumes of the wood.
Hiero looked at Vilah-ree anxiously. Is your wood dry? Will the fire spread?
Better to burn than be killed by that, was her answer. But the forest is moist. Only two nights ago it rained. And we know how to keep water moving through the ground, my people and I. She did not elaborate and turned away to watch the holocaust of the blight. He could sense the exaltation in her almost inhuman mind and spirit as the enemy of her beloved trees and her strange people suffered the flames.
As dusk grew, though occasionally choking and coughing, they still watched the destruction of the foul growth from their vantage point at the forest’s edge. When night came, the smoke and filthy vapors hid most of the stars; but at length, when the moon rose, there came a breeze out of the north, which drove much of the shroud away before it out into the waste. To their surprise, no fire was now visible in the distance.
“Do you think it raced through the whole area that quickly?” Hiero was frankly puzzled. Aldo looked thoughtful.
“No, I think not, not from what you have told me. And there is the question of the lightning, which we discussed also. I’d judge this House creature had found a way of quenching the fires and has withdrawn, hurt perhaps, but not dead. We won’t know until morning how far the fires actually went. So let’s wait, or rather, rest while we can.”
Soon all three humans were wrapped in cloaks and bedded down on the soft moss under a clump of fern. The bear was already-snoring a few yards away. As he drifted off into slumber, Hiero’s last thought was of Vilah-ree, watching the stars as the smoke cleared. Once, through half-shut lids, he saw her watching him as well, her lovely face seemingly chiseled from alabaster under the moon’s rays. Then he fell asleep.
His dreams were vague and formless for a long time; then—slowly they began to take a shape, to tell a story, half still a dream, half lovely reality, but all enchantment. He was awake in the dream, walking through the darkling woods under the pale stars, all alone. Nothing menaced him and he carried no weapons. Indeed, he wore no clothes and seemed to need none. Great fireflies lit his way, and patches of pale, luminous blossoms seemed to mark a path for him under the shadow of the vast trees. On and on through the titan forest he seemed to drift. He was going somewhere, but where he knew not, save only that journey’s ending meant delight. Enticing scents both followed and led him on the breeze.
At length, in a moss-hung bower under the arching branches, he caught a glimpse of an ivory form. He sped toward it, calling out, only to have it flee. But from a few yards away rang out a rippling chorus of golden notes, questing, calling, mocking.
“Vilah-ree,” he called, or seemed to, “Vilah-ree! Don’t be afraid! Don’t leave me.” Again the golden-throated notes, the song or speech of some magicked paradise bird, rang out. Driven now by burning desire, Hiero followed down the aisles of the moonlit forest, his feet seeming to have wings, seeking nothing but the maker of the song, oblivious to all else.
Now he glimpsed her poised tiptoe on a low branch, next a marble arm beckoned from a fern thicket, but always when he pursued, she would be gone.
Yet he seemed in the dream to grow in strength, not weaken; and at length, in a tiny, open glade, where short-stemmed flowers made a soft carpet of the floor, the dancing white form seemed to falter and even stumbled as she fled from him. The next instant he had caught and held her. In the strange, green eyes now raised to his, he saw such a storm of passion that almost, for it was but a dream, he woke in fear. Then his own fires flared again and he covered her soft lips with his own, crushing the cold, slim body to him, forgetting everything except the miracle of desire.
And so the dream went and so the dream ended, for Hiero lost the thread, and all the lovely images and feelings went swirling and dissolving, down into oblivion.
It was mid-morning when he awoke. To his surprise, his first sight on opening his eyes was Captain Gimp, standing and bellowing at some of his men to “look alive there, you binnacle-butted slop-eaters.”
Peering around, the priest saw that only a few of the tree women were in sight, standing together against the far side of the clearing. There was no sign of Vilah-ree, and he sighed, remembering his dream. But all of the seamen were mustering before him, looking well and hearty, as Blutho and Gimp shouted and bullydamned them into place. And Klootz was snorting nearby, tethered to a stump. Hello, you big clown, his master sent, eyeing the great, polished antlers and sleek hide appreciatively, have a good rest? A wave of affection came from the bull’s mind in answer, affection and a wordless question which was still very clear to Hiero. When do we leave, when do we go, when do we fight, move, get on with the struggle? All these sentiments welled from the mind of the morse and he snorted loudly, pawing the soft earth into great clods.
“I see our big friend wants to leave. Have you had enough sleep, or at least some sweet dreams?” Brother Aldo stood smiling down at him, having quietly
come out from the forest behind.
“Where’s Luchare, and the bear too?” Hiero got up and stretched, still feeling curiously though not unpleasantly tired despite his long sleep.
“I believe she and Gorm were invited and went for a little visit to Vilah-ree. They should be back soon. As you can see, the seamen and Klootz are in fine fettle. The men think they got drunk and have just waked up, and I have not disillusioned them. I did, however, mention that the tree women were not to be touched, being under a protective spell which would kill anyone who did so. It seems to have proved effective. Curiously, the men appear satiated and uninterested in women. Odd for sailors, wouldn’t you say?” Hiero looked suspiciously at the old man, but Aldo met his eyes frankly, his high cheekbones gleaming darkly over the spotless white beard.
“What shall we do now?” Aldo went on, changing the subject. “Would you like to see the waste where the fire killed the fungus plague? I have some ideas about the next move, but I’d like yours as well. Why not have a bit to eat first, though?”
The men greeted Hiero boisterously and obscenely as he picked up some cold rations and beckoned Gimp to follow him. They all felt they were living in some strange and incomprehensible world to which he was the only sure guide, and they felt fine as long as they could see him and his companions, meaning the girl, the Sage, the bear, and the bull morse, all well and ready for anything.
“What’s going on here, Master Hiero?” Gimp asked as they picked their way to a burned-over mound where a forest giant had fallen in flames the previous night. From this eminence, whence tiny curls of acrid smoke still rose into the sunlight, they looked out over the late battlefield.
Far away, rolling and undulating, the land stretched, blackened now and scorched by the cleansing flames. But in the remote distance, yet well before the crags and lofty sand dunes of the desert proper, the fire had come to a halt. Even with unaided eyes, they could see that the strident ochers, repellent mauves, and sickly orange hues of the House’s crop were still in existence. From a quick glance around, Hiero figured that the House somehow had saved about a third of its realm. He pulled out his far-looker and adjusted the lenses, The edge of the fired area was five miles off at least.
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