Hiero's Journey

10. THE FORESTS OF THE SOUTH

Night lay over the ancient port of Neeyana. A few small craft moved on the surface of the moonlit harbor, mostly skiffs taking crews out to sailing ships at anchor. No cargo had moved on any of the long piers and wharves since sunset. In the narrow, murky streets leading to the harbor, a few dim lights glowed where a street held a few taverns for late roisterers. Now and again a furtive, solitary shape moved in the shadows, bent on some dubious errand or other, but no honest man ventured out at night in Neeyana unless well guarded or simply desperate. Too long had evil had its way with the old harbor town, and now only those under the protection of that same evil could walk unchallenged, save in broad daylight or in well-armed company. Yet cargo had to move, and no other seaport served this southeastern corner of the Inland Sea. Hence the east-west trade passed through Neeyana, in haste and fear on one side and grudging reluctance on that of the other, which ruled. A greater tribute could hardly have been paid the mercantile instinct of the human race than the fact that the trade continued and in some sense even flourished.

From high in a tower, indeed the actual highest point in Neeyana, two dark shapes watched over the nighted harbor below and the moon-rayed expanse of sea beyond, out to the black line marking the northern horizon.

“All seems useless against this fantastic crew of intruders,” a harsh voice said. “Whatever we do, whatever weapons we use, it seems to make no difference, The chief enemy bursts our bonds, evades our strokes, and destroys our ships without trace. Nothing seems capable of arresting his progress, even momentarily. A pretty pass we’ve come to!”

“I agree,” a second voice said, as like the first as a twin. “But consider. They, or he, for we have no idea what his allies actually represent, has now passed through two Circles. The Yellow, ours, lies before him, unless he turns back or goes elsewhere on a tangent. And both ideas seem to me unlikely. He has always moved in this direction since we first had word of his coming. And the Blue Master, S’duna, is also coming here!

“So he too will come here, our foe will, or at least near to here. In fact, I have news. He is coming. I just came from the instrument room. Two of the new Vocoders registered by the Blue Circle are moving this way across the sea. We have established that the Blue Brothers gave out four! Three to shipmen in this area, men we know well, led by Bald Roke. And one, mark you, to a Glith! The Glith was along to keep Roke under control if necessary.”

“And now?” The first harsh voice was eager.

“Two of the instruments are gone, destroyed, at a guess. Two are turned off, but, of course, still registering on our screens. I would hazard the four original owners, the Glith included, are now dead and that the enemy, unwitting, has pocketed the two remaining instruments, perhaps for study. A guess, but I think rather a good one.” There was a pause.

“Now, I believe, we can start to summon some of our own forces. The Yellow Brothers at least will not fail the cause!”

There was silence again as the two dark shapes, their hoods drawn in the moonlight, stared out over the old town. The stone parapet on which they leaned had long ago encircled the belfry of an ancient church, but the tall tower now housed only nightmare evil.

Far off in the east, a faint light gave promise of coming dawn. The figures turned and vanished from the tower.

“We will have to trust to our wits, at least as much as any Unclean chart, Hiero.” Brother Aldo’s long, dark forefinger pointed to a line on the map spread out before them. “For one thing,” he went on, “we can’t read all of it.”

The bear drowsed in a corner of the little cabin’s heaving deck, the flickering lantern light making him look larger than he was. At the round table, its base clamped to the deck, sat the Metz, Brother Aldo, Luchare, and Captain Gimp, all trying to interpret the secrets of the strange map.

“We Eleveners have learned to read some of their symbols, over the years, that is,” Brother Aldo went on. “But things such as these maps have seldom fallen into our hands in my lifetime, which is not a short one. This must be a precious chance.

“See here!” His finger traced a thin, crooked line from the Inland Sea which inclined roughly southeast by east. “This is a trail I have not used in many seasons. It lies to the north of the track over which you were brought, princess. That particular one is the major route between the Lantik coast and this sea of fresh water on which we now ride. It goes to Neeyana, here. “His finger indicated a circle.

“Now, as you felt in your bones, child, Neeyana is wholly given over to evil. This mark I know well, an enemy mark, unchanged for hundreds of years. It means ‘ours’ and, see here, it overlies the whole city. Still, trade, some of it quite innocent, passes through. The Unclean suffer it, taxing it not too heavily, but gathering a good deal of information and also using the traders as a cover for their own agents and schemes.

“Well, so do we! And I would wager we generally know more of their plans than they do of ours.

“But I wonder.” Again his gnarled finger traced the narrower line of the northern trail. “This goes through the forest, and Hiero, my friend, you have never seen our southern trees! Look here, now, look, a patch of another circle. Blue it is. Without trying to figure out the enemy color chart, I can tell you what that means. A desert, and deadly one, for it was caused by the radiation of The Death. These blighted deserts and similar strange, radioactive spots are generally shrinking, but they still exist, and a few even spread, so long was the life of the deadly cobalt bombs, and the stranger life they engendered. Hence the blue. For on our own maps these places are colored blue also, ‘cobalt’ being an ancient pre-Death word for that color.

“So, Hiero, the large Dead City you seek seems to lie near to that waste, or on its northern edge. In the distance are other Lost Cities, but much further on to the east. Still, I would feel better if I could see the map the Abbey rulers gave you. If you will trust me.”

There was a brief silence. The lantern creaked at the end of its short chain. No one spoke.

“Surely you trust the good Brother, Master Hiero?” Captain Gimp burst out. He banged his fist on the table. “Why, he’s saved all our lives a dozen times over in the past, and yours twice I knows of!”

Hiero laughed, his swarthy, hawk face clearing on the instant. “Sorry, Brother Aldo. You’re quite right, Gimp. I apologize. But Abbot Demero laid it upon me to keep this secret. My mission, I mean, or at least its ultimate goal. I find it hard to trust anyone at all. The Unclean have so damned many disguises!

“Still, if I can’t tell my real friends by now, I’d better give up! And I mean you too, Captain! Here’s the map, then. What do you think, Brother?”

“Ah!” For a minute or so, the curly white beard almost touched the surface of the Abbey map as the old man pored over it. Then he straightened and looked at the others, dark eyes glowing, the whites like new ivory.

“I thought so. This is a very old map, Hiero, or rather a new copy of an old map. There are things on here I did not know still to exist and others which I know for a fact not to exist at all, at least for many centuries.”

“In other words,” the priest said, “a quite unreliable guide?”

“Yes and no. Alone, with no other aids, definitely yes. But with me and with the Unclean’s own set of maps, perhaps not. For, as I said, there are things on here, on your map, which are now covered by ancient forest and evil waste and yet which could perhaps now be found again.”

They pondered this for a while as the even rhythm of the Foam Girl never changed, rocking up and down, up and down, as she rode the long swells running to the south. Above their heads, the lantern smoked and swayed in tune with the shifting motion. It was two days after their battle with the pirates.

A discussion of routes continued. Hiero had still not mentioned what he ultimately sought and he had no intention of doing so. The fewer people who knew, the better, even if utterly trustworthy. He could always kill himself if trapped, in which case the enemy would still be left uncertain as to his true goal. He knew more strongly, as each league rolled under Foam Girl’s keel, that the Unclean would lay a nation in ashes to gain one of the ancient computers. With such a device, they would be literally invulnerable.

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 ramming 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 white-capped 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.

A large beast indeed, came a placid thought from Gorm. And it was attacked by one almost as large, which it slew. Now it is very angry, I think I would tell the men to be quiet. Very quiet.

Hiero dashed to the nearest group, hissing for silence. One look at his face brought compliance. If the bear warned, he had learned, it was as well to listen. Soon all the men were waiting, weapons drawn, not moving, but simply crouched and staring nervously around and outward.

It comes, was the bear’s thought. Be ready.

The Metz stood next to Klootz, trying to shield Luchare, who faced the same way into the dark as he did. It was to the south, he noted idly, trying to detect the creature’s mind as hard as he could. Presently he thought he had found it. The brain was not too unlike that of the morse, but far, far more stupid, and now filled with insensate rage and much pain as well. Hiero tried to probe it, but the animal was simply too new to him. He had not realized previously how alien the minds of the great herbivores really were and how much simple affection and long, mutual training had to do with his control over the big morse. He tried again, but the brute mind was too full of mad rage for any inexperienced hand to take over its control. And Aldo was absent. No, I’m back, came a quick, clear thought. Get one of its mind.

Hiero, and leave me alone! I’ll try to turn it. Hurry!

Now everyone could hear the monster. A footfall, so ponderous it actually shook the forest floor, began to echo at a steadily increasing beat. Great snorts and grunts sounded.

Get away from the fires! came the old man’s thought.

Hastily Hiero passed it on, and Gimp and the men began to scurry away to either side. Luchare pulled Klootz’s head around, and the two tugged him off behind the buttress root of a great tree, clearing the flimsy camp barrier as they did.

Now the incredible steps broke into a crashing run, and almost at the same time, the creature gave voice. Its fight with the slain attacker must have been further away than he realized, the priest thought, as that awful, ringing bellow almost shattered his eardrums.

Out of the dark it came, perhaps just such a titanic bulk as must have peopled the earth for millions of years in the past, before the coming of man. Now, due to incredible hard radiation and consequent forced mutation, the same conditions of life had once again given such creatures another, second chance. Its great, brown head, short-trunked on a heavy, columnar neck and carrying upper and lower pairs of ivory tusks, towered up at least twenty feet above the terrified men. The close-furred giant body sloped from pillarlike front legs to shorter ones in the rear, and as it passed, the Metz saw its tiny tail, a mere afterthought, flapping in the air. Fresh wounds on its flanks gleamed red in the firelight, and the small, ruby eyes gleamed also as it sought for fresh enemies. But the fires seemed to distract it. It charged straight and hard at the nearest and careened right through it, sending burning logs spinning in every direction. Its voice rising to a new volume, it charged the next fire and scattered that also. Without ceasing its incredible rush, it blundered across the little clearing, through the barrier, and into a gap between two monster trees. Even as the light died, it vanished from sight. Everyone stood, appalled, in the gathering gloom, listening as it lumbered on and away, crashing a course off into the distance, still roaring hideously as the pain of its burned feet, added to the previous wounds, reached the tiny brain. Almost before one realized it, the sound had died away in the distance and the “normal” noises of the night forest once again resumed.

“All right, men,” Brother Aldo’s voice came cheerfully. “Let’s get those fires going again and build up the barrier. It won’t be back, but other things may. Hurry up now; no time for idling.” The old Elevener, appearing out of nowhere, stood in the middle of the clearing, helping Gimp and Hiero direct the work, until all was as before, except that the barrier was now chest-high at least. When new watches had been set, he told Gimp to turn over command to Blutho and join them. At this point they discovered that three men were missing, all ordinary seamen.

“Probably ran off in a panic and got lost or ate by something,” Gimp said philosophically. “If people won’t listen, what can you do? I tell them no-good swipes a thousand times, ‘Stay here with us,’ but they know better!”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Aldo said. “Let us be glad it’s not worse. At least I can detect no Unclean activity, only the Poros, that poor, simple beast which blundered into us.”

“Poor beast!” Luchare burst out. “That great horror!”

“Well, yes, I think so,” was the gentle answer. “This is his forest, you know, princess, not yours. He had just been in a terrible fight and he thought he saw more enemies in us. I sent him to bathe his burned feet in the Inland Sea,” he added, “and now he’ll feel better.” His tone was exactly that of a nurse whose spoiled charge had been soothed.

Hiero smiled to himself. The Eleveners were indeed the guardians of all life! He rather approved, he realized, though it would take a long time for him to see the Brobdingnagian Poros as the simple-minded child that Brother Aldo obviously did.

“Now that that’s over, I think I can keep us from being bothered by any more of the forest people, at least tonight. And I have found the trail, you’ll be glad to know.” The old fellow beamed at them in pleasure and stroked his curly beard affectionately.

“I’ll be glad to know a lot of things,” Gimp said aggressively, “such as who’s going to pay me for a new ship, not that there’s another like old Foam Girl, mind. And all her cargo, too, gone in a wink, plus the juicy plunder I claimed from Roke’s ship, and hard-won that was. All in all, Brother, I could have retired on that lot, and my men too. Who’s to pay us, eh, and when and also where? Are you going to wander about in this wood until we’re all ate by something like that walking mountain we just missed?” Despite his gloomy words, Hiero noted that the little seaman’s eyes were still bright and his ridiculous pigtail still perky. Though he would have died rather than admit it, Gimp was a pure romantic, actually one of those people who revel in constant excitement and new ventures. He liked pay, of course, if he could get it, but it was only secondary, and so was his grumbling. Now he cocked an eye from Hiero to the old man in question.

Brother Aldo knew his man. “Why, Captain, can’t your hardy men stand a little discomfort? Surely those who’ve ridden out gales and fought cannibal slavers and angry sea beasts aren’t afraid of a few days’ walk in the woods?”

Luchare and Hiero grinned at each other in silent companionship. “Few days’ walk in the woods” indeed! But it was the right note to strike with the squat little seaman.

“I’ve got the toughest crew afloat,” he boasted. “Why, Roke’s men would all have run when that big beast come rampaging through here. No, those men’11 follow me through hot pitch. But what about our pay? And where are we going now?” His voice was eager on the last question.

“Well,” Aldo said, “I have no real right to promise anything like this, but if, mind you, if our Ruling Council agrees with me, all your damages will be paid, including the loss of your ship. After all, you are on Eleventh Commandment business, are you not?”

“Your word’s good with me, Brother,” Gimp said. “You can’t say fairer than that. But what now?”

“I can supply some answers there, Gimp,” the Metz interjected. “We’re going southeast, the Brother and I, and I guess you and the crew had better come too.” He waved his hand around at the monster tree trunks and the shadows at their feet. “I don’t imagine your men are going to want to strike off alone, are they? Three are gone already. I’ve probed the night with my mind and so has Aldo, and we detect nothing. I fear they indeed have provided someone a quick dinner. Can you make this danger plain to those who remain? We must stay together.”

“Yes,” Aldo added, “and tell them Hiero will command the whole expedition from now on. This trip is land work, and we need land discipline and experience. I will assist him, of course, and you’ll remain in direct command of your own people.”

“Suits me,” the sailor said. “There won’t be no problem about that. I’ve got thirty men, no, twenty-seven; forgot those scourings that run off. Plus me and Blutho. We have food for two weeks, but only seven big water skins. How’s this place for water?”

“I’ll find you water and game too,” Aldo answered. “We’ll leave at dawn. The trail is less than a mile from here, overgrown but still a. good road. The beasts use it and so can we, but humans don’t seem to have been over it for a long time, at least as well as I can tell in the dark.”

As the moon gleamed through the far-off branches and the fires died down to orange coals, they talked on, planning as well as possible the next day’s march. At intervals, Hiero probed the night for enemy mind sweeps, but encountered nothing suspicious. The high forest teemed with life, but it was natural to it, predators and prey, fur, scale, and feather.

Eventually they slept, though with watches set and regular changes of guard.

The next morning Klootz, to his annoyance, was loaded with supplies. Behave yourself, Hiero told him. I’ll get to ride you soon enough. The morse bull was, in fact, trained to carry burdens on occasion, so that his irritation was a matter of pride. He had carried urgently needed supplies to more than one isolated Kandan village in the past. Now he shook his great, black antlers and brayed until Luchare’s ears rang. The forest answered with a chorus of screams and yells, and the day’s march began.

First went Hiero and the bear, scouting the path. Next came the mate and his picked crew of axe and cutlass men, ready to cut through any bad obstructions. The main body of seamen under Gimp came next, all armed with swords and pikes. A small group of picked bowmen followed, and last of all, the morse, Luchare, and the old Elevener. While he disliked being separated from them, Hiero himself had chosen this march order as being the most sensible. It gave them a telepath at each end of the column, and danger was more likely to come from in front than the rear.

As Brother Aldo had promised, they soon struck the old trail. Hiero’s instinct told him that it ran almost due southeast; and although small bushes broke its surface here and there, it was still easy marching. The sailors cheered up and began to sing, songs which Luchare appeared determined to ignore while carefully memorizing some of the worst to try later on her lover. Part of the cheer, Hiero learned when they stopped for a noon meal, was due to a crafty rumor of Gimp’s that they were in search of a great buried treasure. This artless tale has seldom failed to arouse sailors of any time or nation, nor did it now.

Hiero could not help wishing as he strode along, alert for any movement, that he and Luchare were alone to explore the wonderful green world all about them. The heat had now come to seem normal and, in the shadows of the great trees, not even very oppressive. Stinging insects were surprisingly few, perhaps because bird life was so abundant and varied.

Monkeys, large and small, chattered overhead, and other small beasts, of unknown types to the Metz, scuttled up and down the looping vines and tendriled growths which shrouded the monster trees. Occasional huge footprints in the earth, none very new, renewed the knowledge that not ail the life of the forest was small. And once, the bear shied suddenly from what appeared to be a smooth, shallow ditch across the trail itself. Hiero raised a hand to halt the column and summoned Brother Aldo. The great, rounded fold in the leaf mold of the road was stunning in its implied message, but the old man confirmed it.

“Yes, my dear boy, a serpent. Let us hope we do not meet it. They are very hard to control mentally and almost invulnerable to any weapon. I should judge this one to be eighty feet.” He said no more and walked away. Hiero led off again, considerably shaken and now even more alert.

Occasionally, due perhaps to outcroppings of poorer soil or perhaps of hidden rock, the forest opened, and grassy glades filled with flowers formed sunlit breaks in the green gloom. It was in one of these that a new menace revealed itself.

The priest and his attendant, the bear, were halfway across the glade, which was no more than a hundred yards in extent, when something long and lean, or rather two somethings, erupted from the edge of the wood to their left and raced for the column at a speed so incredible that Hiero never could decide on it afterward. At first heading for him, the two creatures swerved and plucked the two leading axemen behind Hiero instead, sweeping them, off their feet without even breaking stride or hesitating. Before anyone could even raise a weapon, they were gone! A vague visual impression was left on Hiero’s forebrain of animals rather like giant, distorted foxes on legs like stilts, mottled dark brown on a fawn background, each one with a crewman gripped in great, grinning jaws. There had not been time even for the men to scream. Belatedly, he realized, he had used his mind to deflect the attackers from himself, used it subconsciously, as a man half-asleep raises an arm to defend himself from a blow. He explained this to Aldo when they all halted and also tried to excuse his conduct. But it was Luchare who snapped him out of it.

“Don’t be so stupid! I’m sorry those men were killed, too, but you didn’t kill them! And how many of us are alive because you have the abilities and courage to use them when you do! Now say a prayer for those two poor souls and go back to being our leader!” She turned on her heel and stamped off to the rear of the line again, Klootz following obediently in her wake.

“We’re down to twenty-five lads now, but she’s right, Master Hiero, she’s right, you know. Without you, there wouldn’t be none of us. No one blames you, I can tell you that.” Gimp had overheard the dialogue, and his earnest, perspiring face now expressed his feelings.

Brother Aldo patted his shoulder affectionately. “Hiero, why not blame me instead? I am supposed to know these woods and the dwellers in them. Yet I never even noted or felt the minds of those swift creatures which took those two. In fact, to be honest, they are totally new to me, and not yet in our records at the Central Institute, I suspect. So take heart. And remember, we all still rely on you.”

“All right, I suppose I couldn’t help it. But I feel damned inadequate to serve as leader all the same. Let’s go.” The seamen marched in silence for a long while after that.

At dusk, they found another campsite between three great trees and built a strong barrier around it. But late that night, something large reached over it and simply removed one of the two seamen posted as sentries. The man’s fading scream alerted the camp, but his mate had been facing the other way and thus had no real idea what had happened.

“His mind doesn’t exist,” Hiero said in a low voice after a moment. “He’s dead, thank God. What are we going to do, Aldo? We can’t go on this way. By odds it ought to be one of us next. These poor devils are getting grabbed because they have no concept of what dangers to expect. Should one of us stand watch, do you think? I’m at my wits’ end!”

Eventually it was decided that Hiero and Luchare (she insisted on that) should keep a waking, if not talking, watch half the night, and Brother Aldo and the bear, who were great friends, the other half. This in addition to two seamen, who would walk guard on roughly each quarter of the night. It seemed to work, since for the next two nights there were no attacks, though Hiero felt that this was due to luck more than anything else.

On the fourth day since leaving the coast, they came at length to a fork in the trail. Both the left and right paths seemed to go roughly in the direction they wanted, but one inclined somewhat to the east, the other more to the south.

They called a halt to consider this matter, since in any case it was almost time for the noon break and meal. Hiero’s and the girl’s crossbows, and their heavy, bronze-tipped quarrels, had supplied them with plenty of small game, got by ranging only a little wide of the trail. The local wild creatures, though often savage enough, were singularly unwary of men, a fact that Brother Aldo and the priest found encouraging, for it showed that few human travelers had used this country.

As they inspected all of the maps, Brother Aldo looked increasingly doubtful.

“No fork shows here at all! Long ago, but, mind you, my memory is still fair, I used this road and there was no such fork then. Yet roads made by game, and this trail simply took one over, you know, don’t change much over the centuries. Not unless the land itself does, if a river, say, should dry up or a new volcano arise.”

He walked over to the fork and peered down at the actual junction of roads, where a colossal tree, against which he resembled a fly on a wall, towered up at the apex of a broadening triangle of forest. The men were eating silently, watching as their leaders debated. Overhead, the unending canopy of green shielded them from the burning sun. The mighty wood lay somnolent under the hush of noon, only an occasional bird song drifting down through the leaves.

Aldo came striding back, his eyes still downcast.

“We’ll take the southern fork, I think, unless there’s an objection. It would seem to skirt the desert on the map more than the old road did. I never went that far myself, but turned off before the open spaces began. But I am still puzzled as to why a plain fork like this should exist on a road no one human uses, for animals simply don’t do such things.” Thus they crossed over the border into the realm of Vilah-ree, unknowing.

For some miles, the new road, or rather trail, for it was no different from the one they had been using, marched steadily on, winding around and through the great tree trunks as it had for days. But late in the afternoon, Hiero became conscious of a change and held up a hand to halt the column and at the same time to summon Luchare, Aldo, and Gimp to him.

“So you’ve noticed too,” was the old man’s comment. “What do you think?”

“We’re going down a very long, gentle slope, into a river valley, I guess. The trees are mostly the same, but there are many more hanging mosses and lichens and great ferns too. The ground isn’t wet, but the air’s damper. And I hear a lot of new bird calls and songs. What have you noticed, Aldo?”

“That animals are very few, and mostly far up in the trees. No large beasts use this trail at all, no dung, no footmarks, nothing. And yet I seem to feel something hovering at the edge of my thought, almost in reach but not quite. Your mind, boy, is more powerful than mine in many ways. Try using it and see what you can pick up. But do be careful!”

Luchare looked anxious for a second; then her ebony face became a mask as she assumed the role of the king’s daughter. Gimp looked nervously about them at the leaf-strewn ground. This was out of his sphere of knowledge entirely. Hiero closed his eyes and leaned on his spear, which he had thrust point downward into the soft earth, while he sent his mind abroad.

He touched upon the minds of many small, shy creatures at first: birds high above, lizards on tree limbs, toads and snakes in the mold of the forest floor. Wider and wider he sent his mental net, seeking for any trace of intelligence with every atom of his powerful brain. At length he was sure that, for very many miles in a circle from where they now stood, no mind existed which he could contact on an equal level. He began to withdraw mentally, closing and tightening the mental circumference of his “net,” but still watching closely for any trace of an observer, spy, or enemy.

Then a strange thing began to happen. He caught no trace of coherent thought, no actual communication, but he knew all the same that someone was there! And in his mind a face commenced to form! The face of a woman!

Or was it? he wondered. The face was long, the chin pointed, as were the small ears, just visible under the helmet of hair. And the hair itself? If it was hair, he wondered. The tight, almost caplike covering looked as much like feathers as it did anything else and seemed to ripple with almost a life of its own. And the eyes! Long and slanted, with vertical, yellow pupils, their color was a shifting, opalescent green. No human had such eyes! Green indeed was the overall impression which the face conveyed. The pale, smooth skin and the strange hair seemed to have overtones of green, as if the forest had exuded a mist which covered the creature who watched him. Yet it was a female presence which observed him.

For he was under observation. That much was clear. The strange and beautiful (for it was both) face saw him, and although he could detect neither mind speech nor mental contact of any sort he knew, yet he was sure that the entity behind the strange eyes was fully aware of him and his companions. And he knew too that he had been allowed to see the face of his watcher. As this thought stirred in his mind, the image vanished, like a burst bubble, one moment clear, the next utterly gone. But still the watch over them was not relaxed. This also he knew. He brought his mind back to the trail and opened his eyes, to find the others still watching him.

“You have found something,” Aldo said instantly. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Something, yes, or someone. We are under close observation. But I can feel no mind touch at all, which is strange and, frankly, makes me nervous. Even the Unclean mind shields are detectable as an impression or shape, though the thoughts they hide are not. But here…”

As he tried to explain the picture he had received, he saw a storm of fury begin in his love’s eyes and instantly stopped the narrative to take hold of her shoulders and shake her gently.

“Now look, foolish one, a female seen once is no cause for jealousy. I said she was lovely in a way, yes; but, I feel, not altogether human either. So stop the female anger, eh, and let me go on?” His clear gaze met her eyes, and at length she smiled.

“All right, I guess I am jealous. But I don’t like beautiful green women, whom I can’t even see, looking at my man!”

“Quite so,” Brother Aldo said impatiently, “but we have other concerns, princess. Hiero, does this strange creature, who must be one of a group, seem dangerous?”

“I don’t know, frankly. But I do feel there is power there, and power of a kind I can’t even grasp, behind that face. That in itself is quite enough to make me nervous.”

“But what are we to do? Shouldn’t we go back, before this invisible witch or whatever casts a spell on us?” What little he could grasp of Hiero’s tale made Captain Gimp very nervous. He was a man who could face any physical danger with a bold face, but unseen (to him) green faces and mental warfare were something else again.

You know, he may have a point. This was Aldo’s mind speaking directly to Hiero. Maybe we are being warned and should go back, retrace our path, and take the other trail. But he was interrupted from a strange source.

You cannot go back, came the bear’s calm message. The way is guarded now. You can only go forward, where the—(his thought was untranslatable, but conveyed an impression of great power) wish you to. His mind said nothing more, and he simply sat up on his haunches and sniffed the damp airs drifting down the trail.

Can you hear—whoever is watching—us? Do they, or she, talk to you? Do you know their purposes?

I cannot tell you how I know, Hiero, was the answer, I was told to say what I said, but not by the way you use your mind. It is the same way I know which is the way home. I just KNOW, that’s all. Gorm’s thought conveyed the idea that the process he was talking about was quite inexplicable in human terms. As a matter of fact, he was partly wrong, for Hiero’s own sense of direction was almost as good as the bear’s. But the sub-mental communication wave or channel being used was certainly nothing either the old Elevener or the Metz priest had ever dreamed of.

What blocks the return path? was Hiero’s next question.

Listen, came the answer.

From far back up the long, gradual slope down which they had lately come, there echoed a cry. The rippling calls of the strange birds above them were hushed, and only the cry could be heard, though it came from a long, long way. It was hard to describe. Luchare called it a “cross between a moan and a growl.” Hiero thought it sounded more like the howl of an inconceivable wolf in great pain. Brother Aldo kept his own counsel. Whatever it was, it had to be very large, and the note of savagery in its voice was unmistakable. One word that subsumed all others in describing the sound might have been “disquieting.”

It is a great beast, greater than anything I have ever seen. And it guards the back trail for those who sent it. We must go on. The bear’s message was unequivocal.

Hiero looked at Brother Aldo, who shrugged. For the first time since they had met, the priest thought the old fellow looked tired. Again he wondered how old Aldo was.

“Let’s get the men moving, Gimp,” Hiero said. “Tell them a big animal’s behind us, that’s all.”

“They know that all right, Master. They can hear that much as good as you!” He turned away and barked an order.

As they marched on, the great clumps of green and brown moss, some of it lovely, others simply grotesque, increased in number. The area to the right and left of the path became obscured, both by the mosses and huge ferns but also by a greenish haze, not a fog, Hiero thought, but more as if the light off the trail had some different properties, which ordinary eyes could not penetrate. He tried probing with his mind, at random intervals, both forward on their route and back, as well as to both sides, but gained no knowledge. He could not even tap the mind of whatever horrific beast waited behind them. Those who controlled it also shielded its thoughts. A great feat, he thought glumly. His own. hard-won powers seemed those of a child by comparison.

You are needed, suddenly came a thought from Gorm.

Who—me? Hiero was startled.

Yes. I don’t know why. Those who speak to me are not clear, perhaps do not wish to be. But you, and no one else in the party, have a task to do. Or else we all are trapped.

Hiero kept marching, crossbow slung loosely over one arm, his spear over his shoulder. Only his helmet was missing, too heavy for long marches for him to be instantly battle-worthy. Needed for a task? This grew stranger and stranger. He was wanted, personally, and if he failed, why, the whole party perished! He said a few soldiery words into his mustache, then crossed himself and automatically asked God’s pardon for blasphemy. Neither attitude struck him as contradictory. On they went, accompanied only by rippling bird song.

Just as the light faded, they emerged into a large, moss-floored clearing. The men suddenly shouted as they saw what stood there, but Hiero, Gimp and the one-eyed mate beat them back, cursing and shoving until some semblance of discipline was restored. Still, it was hard to blame them, as Gimp said.

In the center of the clearing were three long, wooden tables. There were not seats, but none were needed. The tables were laden with steaming earthenware platters, all carefully covered against the evening damp, and on them too, at regular intervals, great clay flagons reared up, stoppered in a suggestive manner.

After almost a week of constant danger and a diet of hardtack and tough, wild game, it was an incredibly seductive display.

“Wait a minute!” Gimp screamed, waving about the heavy staff he had been carrying. “Suppose it’s been dosed, you sorry catamite bastards! D’you all want to choke on poisoned grub, you miserable, mother-delighters?”

Eventually, with even Brother Aldo and Luchare, of both of whom the men were in great awe, helping, things quieted down. When they did, and he got a chance to look more closely at the food, Hiero received another message, again from Gorm.

The food is safe. We can all eat. I tell you, Hiero, the Old One says you are needed! From the bear’s mind came a picture of the strange female face! So this was the Old One of whoever held them, the leader of the unknown forest creatures whom they could not even sense!

With Hiero’s assurance passed on, all fell to, the majority cautiously at first, but after Hiero had tasted each dish, with more confidence. Indeed, the food was delicious, mostly strange, cooked vegetables and tubers, but also piles of some sweet bread, all very subtly flavored. There was no meat. And the clay flagons contained an odd, herb-flavored wine which managed to grow upon the palate as one drank.

“There’s no poison,” he told Aldo. “I’m trained to detect it. There’s nothing to harm anyone, I’m sure of that. We’re being helped, that’s all, but why?” He had told the old man of Gorm’s message, but it meant nothing to him or to Luchare either, except that she refused to move more than a foot from his side, determined that he was not going anywhere to see anyone without her.

At length, satiated, the seamen stretched out on the soft grass, groaning. Surprisingly, no one was drunk, for the strange wine seemed only to exhilarate. As night fell, under the canopy of the trees, the men were soon asleep, save for the two walking a watch and Hiero and Luchare, who shared the first guard, The bear and Brother Aldo also slept.

It was an utterly still night. No birds called any longer, no animals moved in the undergrowth. Overhead, no life could be detected. The whole forest seemed to lie under some hushed spell. Even the great, rounded piles of moss suddenly seemed tense and expectant to Hiero, as if listening in the dark. One small fire was all that could be got to light, and it sputtered dismally as the far mists of night closed in.

Hiero first felt his legs growing weak, with considerable surprise. But there was no poison! his mind cried out, even as he slumped into the mossy ground. His fading sight showed him Luchare lying next to him and, beyond her, the two sailors, also fallen. And then into his mind came only a green haze, which swirled in clouds and wreaths across his vision. He felt that some secret lay behind it, but what it was remained unreachable.

Then the mists cleared. He opened his eyes and looked into those of Gorm’s “Old One,” the strange creature who had watched, guided, and finally trapped them all.

He lay in a room, long, narrow, and high-ceilinged, which moved under him somehow. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, for such it was, and looked about him in amazement. In a backless chair before him, staring calmly at him, sat the woman, for such she was, whom he had seen first in his own mind and second in that of the bear. She was nude, her small, firm breasts erect and provocative. Other than a necklace and a slim belt, both of which looked like fine metal mesh, she wore no ornaments. Her greenish-white body was utterly hairless, he noted, and the strange covering on her head seemed a cross between oval, green feathers and tiny brown leaves. Yet it was unmistakably part of her, a natural growth, not a cap.

She was indeed very beautiful, yet even as the manhood in him rose to the sexual challenge of her shape, he was also driven off, repelled by her alienness. For she was not really human at all, and the lovely outward appearance of her body seemed a mask for something utterly different. To his still-dazed mind came an unbidden thought. Why, it’s as if a tree or a flower had tried to be a rabbit or a cat!

Now he could see that the room was lit by candles, fat candles, which burned in wall sconces and cast a strange perfume as they burned. Save for the chair, a small table on which stood some wooden goblets and a jug, and the carved wooden bed on which he now sat, the room was empty. And it swayed! Even as he realized suddenly where he must be and the motion of the wooden floor shook him, a thought came into his mind and he knew that his captress was speaking to him.

We (are) in the trees, high, high above, as you (guessed?), /(can) tell (what) you think but not speak/tell/talk back (?) except by an (effort). We do not speak so/thus/in a manner. Her thought was painfully slow, and looking into the green, slanted eyes, Hiero realized that it was actually physically painful to use her mind this way. She was forcing herself to do it, despite the hurt it caused her.

How do you speak, then? Who are you? his mind asked. He was feeling clear of head and he noticed that he still had his sword-knife and dagger. His strange captors had not restrained him in any way, apparently, and he was becoming intrigued as he lost any fear.

She trilled at him. A string of golden syllables came from her lips, as lovely as the rippling of a woodland waterfall, tinkling over polished stones. “Vilah-ree” was as close as he could come in speech, and he said it softly. “Vilah-ree.” Now he knew one source of the continual bird music they had heard.

At his attempt, she shook her head and sang again. Her teeth were dainty and small. Again he tried to imitate her voice and then gave it up. Vilah-ree, he thought, I can’t say your name properly, I fear, not in your language. You’ll have to accept my mind speech instead or let Vilah-ree do.

Then, even as they gazed at one another, the thought of Lu-chare and his companions came to him. What was he doing, talking like an idiot, while his love and his friends were drugged and helpless, God knew how far away! Were they even alive?

The calm expression vanished from Vilah-ree’s face as well, and her full-lipped mouth opened in apparent distress. A stream of golden, chiming notes poured forth as she tried to tell him something. Realizing that it was futile, she fell silent, and he felt her thoughts on the edge of his mind again.

No (you are) wrong! We (have) hurt none of the other/untrans-latable/(earth-plodders?). Look into/at my mind!

As she became more practiced, the flow of message and pictorial communication between them became easier, just as it once had between himself and the bear, though indeed he always felt the bear to be the less alien of the two. Next she showed him the camp where he had fallen into a drugged dream, but now it was guarded by a high fence of some thorny bushes. And around it at intervals stood silent, white figures, so like Vilah-ree as to make it plain they were her people. All, he noted absently, were female, and he thought, God help them if the crew ever wakes up!! Luchare, Brother Aldo, and the bear lay apart, on a great bed of leaves, and even the bull morse slumbered in an angle of the thorn stockade, looking as if he had been newly slain, save for the rise and fall of his great sides.

We need you, my people and I, Vilah-ree thought, when he had satisfied himself that all of his party were well and unharmed. Her golden-pupiled, fathomless, green eyes were close to his as she drew her chair nearer. A faint, lovely scent—of flowers? bark? honey?—came to him, and her strangeness seemed to ebb, leaving her both vulnerable and desirable.

What do you want? His counterwrought deliberately was harsh, as he strove to break through the glamour, the witchery, of her near presence.

She considered him a moment, then rose gracefully to her feet, pale, rounded hips swaying as she walked to the end of the room.

Come—I will show you. She drew aside a long wooden shutter on a track, and sunlight poured into the room. She beckoned with one white arm, and he rose and joined her, striving to mask his wonder as he looked out.

They were in the top of one of what must have been the tallest trees in the great forest. Below them for miles stretched a green canopy of leaves and branches, some of the latter themselves as immense as normal trees. The room in which they stood was partly hollowed out, partly built into one such, in a way Hiero did not quite fathom, but which seemed to be a graft onto the living tree itself, one which Vilah-ree made plain did not injure it. But he had not been brought just to see the beauty of the daylight on the roof of the forest. She pointed, and he looked to the east and saw her enemy.

Far away, fringing the eastern horizon, lay a great, barren expanse of empty sand and rock, its pinnacles and jagged buttes glinting in the morning sun. But closer, between the desert and the forest, part of neither and repelling both, lay something else.

A vast, ugly splotch of color, composed of mauves, dull oranges, oily browns, and sickly yellows, it seemed to have eaten into the green edge of the tree world like a hideous, running sore. Without thinking, Hiero reached into his belt pouch and brought out his far-looker. With the eyepiece adjusted, the strange area was brought up close, and involuntarily he shuddered. It was indeed an evil landscape.

Even under the sun, the giant puffballs and huge, clustering toadstools looked diseased. Other strange fungi, both hanging and dripping foul ichor, covered all the other things in sight. He could see the shrouded shapes of many vast trees, every inch covered with loathsome growth, the trees obviously dead, their tortured skeletons serving as a prop for the bloated life which covered them. All of the colors and shapes were painful to look at, none appearing natural or the work of things that grew by nature’s design. Even as he watched, a bloated bag of some monster puff-ball sort exploded, and the view was momentarily darkened by the billions of tiny spores scattered for hundreds of yards.

Slowly he lowered the spyglass from his eye, then turned to his silent companion.

What can I do about this? The plant world wars against itself? This looks truly evil, but why not use fire, unless you fear it, of course? Surely this plague of fungi is not invulnerable.

Look again, came her thought. See if you can see anything moving.

He did her bidding, sweeping the distant area until at length he caught sign of a movement. Adjusting the focus, he watched carefully until he had located it again, then drew in his breath in a gasp.

Over a bare patch of ground between the forest and the blight, there flowed a thing, a monster made of living slime. It had no apparent head or limbs, but innumerable, waving organs rose, long and slender, from its soft back. Its gross body seemed composed of dark, rotted velvet, and the slender rods were tipped with something soft that glowed with a putrid orange fire. Yet it was not without purpose. Its intent, quick movements bespoke intelligence and organized will. Now, as Hiero watched, it suddenly paused, and all its long pseudopods or tendrils quivered. Then the whole mass wheeled and slid over the ground in a new direction, toward a clump of bushes at the edge of the still, living forest. From these bushes bounded a creature like a huge, short-eared rabbit, running for its life. It had delayed too long, however. One of the balls of reddish foulness on the end of a slender feeler touched it fleetingly. It gave a convulsive spring and fell dead, as if struck by lightning. The slime creature flowed on until it covered the body, no small one, as Hiero could judge. In only a few seconds it moved on again. Where the animal’s body had been was nothing, not even grass, only a dampness festering on the bare earth under the rays of the sun.

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.