Liberator Of Jedd

Chapter Seven

Blade, after four trips through the computer, had learned his lesson well — lie still. If you were fortunate enough to be under cover, stay there. Look and listen. Begin the adaptation to a hostile environment.

He was lying naked on marshy land, a sort of tundra that moved and quaked beneath his weight. But not so barren as tundra. Quite the opposite, in fact, for he lay in coarse grass that grew close-spaced and towered over him. This strange grass was a reddish-brown in color and the blades half a foot across; by looking straight up he could see the tops, some thirty feet high, and beyond them a fast darkening sky.

There was violent movement somewhere out in that sea of grass and great trumpeting sounds of combat, a violent threshing about, a final roaring and a death screech. Then the sound, unmistakable, of enormous cruel jaws and teeth devouring something. Blade huddled in his grassy niche, unmoving. The noises were very like those played on Lord L's tapes.

Ogar! Where was Ogar?

Blade's altered brain began to function at full capacity. Already, like the chameleon J had compared him to, Blade was beginning to adapt to this new Dimension X. But where was Ogar? Strange that they had been separated, but then you never knew what the computer would do. He rose cautiously and peered about. Suppose Ogar had gone to another Dimension X? Or that this dimension in which Blade now found himself was not that from which Ogar had come. In that case Ogar was not likely to be much of a help. More a liability.

It was growing darker. All about him, in the giant swamp grass, the feral sounds continued. It was feeding time. Life or death time. To Blade's left something vast went crashing and staggering through the grass. To his right a sound of slithering and a long, drawn-out hissing. Blade realized that unless he found some sort of shelter, some protection, he would not last through the night.

Where in hell was Ogar?

Blade was taken by surprise. The grass parted and Ogar rushed at him. He had found a stout stick somewhere and he aimed a terrible blow at Blade's head, his fangs flashing as he snarled deep in his throat. Blade had found Ogar. But godhood was dead. Ogar did not remember him.

Blade took the blow on his forearm. It hurt and numbed the arm, but the bone did not go. Blade caught the stick and wrenched it away from Ogar. Ogar snapped at Blade's throat with his long teeth. Blade hit him squarely between the eyes with his fist, a terrible blow that would have felled a horse. Ogar slumped into unconsciousness.

Blade recovered the heavy stick, then knelt beside Ogar. He was not too surprised. Ogar's brain was that of a man-thing of 600,000 years ago on Home-Dimension scale; his cortex was primitive, lacking the thousands of convolutions of Blade's own, and Blade had noted the short attention span. The trip through the computer had completely obliterated Ogar's memory, such as it was. Blade made a wry face. Now he had it all to do over again. He dug with his hands into the marshy earth and found water six inches down. He began splashing it into the brute face.

Ogar's eyes flickered and he gazed up at Blade. Blade moved back two paces and waved the stick in menace. Ogar cowered away. He was beaten. Might was right and Ogar understood that Blade loosed a string of the guttural sounds, grunts, snarls and sign language that he and Ogar had used back in Home Dimension. He pointed to his mouth and rubbed his belly. Ogar got it immediately. He rubbed his own belly and pointed away through the grass. Blade nodded and pointed in the same direction with the stick. He was relieved. At least he and Ogar could still communicate to a certain degree. And Ogar seemed to know where he was — they had landed back in Ogar's dimension.

Ogar, on all fours, was banging his head against Blade's feet. Restored to godhood. Blade tapped a hairy shoulder with the stick and pointed again. Ogar got to his feet, still cringing, and waved a long prehensile hand at Blade. He growled. «Come on then. Follow me.» Blade supplied the words.

Ogar went slipping rapidly and skillfully through the grass jungle. The grass had sawtooth edges and Blade was cut in a dozen places before he learned to sidle through it as Ogar did. The creature moved swiftly and purposefully, and what few doubts Blade had had vanished. Ogar was on his home territory.

They reached an immense clearing in the grass. Here the tall-growing vegetation had been mashed flat, either by fighting or mating, or both, and near the center a spring welled and flowed and disappeared into the ground again. Ogar ran to the spring and threw himself flat and thrust his face into the water. Blade drank from his cupped hands. He was uneasy. This was obviously a watering place and, though the sounds in the grass jungle had died away for the time being, Blade did not want to linger.

Here in the clearing it was not so dark. Light still lingered in the sky, and somewhere beyond the grass the sun was lancing yellow and rose and mauve shafts of fire across this new world. Blade gripped his stick and waited for Ogar to finish drinking.

Ogar did not want to finish. Already his belly was swollen and still he kept drinking. Blade kicked him lightly and gestured with the stick and rubbed his belly with his free hand. Ogar grunted and left the spring reluctantly. Blade pointed with the stick and did a little snarling of his own. Ogar got the message.

Ogar surprised Blade. He did not immediately lead the way out of the clearing. Instead he walked from one side of the clearing to the other and peered through the grass. Several times he did this, shielding his eyes with a hand, then suddenly he grunted and slapped his chest and beckoned to Blade.

When Blade joined him Ogar pointed through the grass. There was a path, well trodden and wide enough to provide a vista for some distance. At the end of the path — Blade judged the distance to be not more than a mile — there rose a line of dark cliffs. Blade stared. Smoke drifted above the cliflftops and he thought he detected the red flicker of a fire. The cliffs must be Ogar's home. That meant food and shelter, fire, protection from the monsters of the night. Blade grinned at Ogar and prodded him gently with the stick. He pointed to the cliffs and smiled. Ogar made a happy sound and rubbed his belly.

As Blade followed Ogar along the path he was content enough. Things were working out as J had projected them. So far. Blade had a friend and a guide. He could get right to work looking for the mineral wealth that would keep the Prime Minister happy and Lord Leighton in funds.

For just those few moments Blade was careless, not quite as alert as he might have been, and it cost him dearly. Ogar was hurrying along, no doubt scenting the odor of seared meat long before Blade would, and he did not look back. He was fifty yards ahead of the big man when Blade stepped into the quicksand.

Blade stopped and reared back too late. Already he was in the stuff halfway to his waist. Blade let out a bellow and Ogar turned and came back. He had known about the quicksand and avoided it without thought. It would never occur to him to warn Blade.

Blade did not panic. He never did. But he was afraid. It was a nasty way to die. And, as Ogar returned and halted on the edge of the quicksand and gazed at him, Blade wondered if perhaps he had underestimated his hairy companion. For there was a certain look in Ogar's small red eyes.

Blade did not struggle. He was sinking fast enough as it was. He tried to turn, wrenching his muscular torso around, and gauged the distance to the path he had just left. Not more than four feet No real danger with Ogar to help him.

Blade held out the stick. He made signs and sounds for Ogar to circle around the pool of quicksand and grab the stick and help Blade free himself. Ogar watched him and did not move.

Blade had a sinking feeling that he was no longer a god.

By now he was down nearly to his waist. It was like being caught in slimy wet concrete. Blade shouted at Ogar and made signs with the stick. Ogar began to search the ground around him for something.

Blade could not wait for Ogar. Could not trust Ogar. Whether or not the creature had led Blade into the quicksand deliberately, Ogar was now going to take advantage of the situation. Matters reversed themselves quickly in this Dimension X. Ogar was once again top dog.

Blade braced himself for a supreme effort. One end of the stick was sharp — if he could lurch back toward solid ground and manage to bury the point deep enough in the earth it would give him leverage of a sort. At best it wasn't much of a chance, but it was the only one he had. Ogar was gathering stones.

It occurred to Blade, even as he sweated and strained for his life, that this was an old game to Ogar and his people. They must kill game this way. Drive it into the quicksand and then stone it or beat it to death with clubs and axes.

The first stone bounced off Blade's ribs. It hurt. He glared at Ogar and bellowed and brandished the stick. Ogar flinched and retreated for a moment, then flung another stone that missed Blade and fell with a hollow plop into the quicksand. It was out of sight in a second.

There was a chill in Blade now and the faint wedge of panic. He fought it back. He would get out.

Ogar flung another stone. Blade was ready. He caught the stone and took aim and hurled it back with all his great strength. It caught Ogar in the pit of the belly. Ogar yelled and dropped his stones and clutched his stomach. He chattered obscenities at Blade.

Blade let his anger at Ogar fuel his final effort. He needed the extra incentive of his rage. He poised, raised the stick high over his head, summoned every muscle and lurched back for the path. He strained, grunting painfully, bone and sinew crackling, putting all his last reserve and hope into the lunge. He fell short.

The sharp end of the stick dug into the bank of solid ground, slipped and skidded back into quicksand. Blade was chest down in the stuff now, his face barely raised, his arms outstretched, and the stick was driving down into quicksand, nothing but quicksand.

Blade groaned aloud. He had failed and it was an inglorious death for such a man as himself. There was still no panic in him, but fear clotted his guts and he cursed himself for a fool. To die so — in a stinking little patch of sand before his new adventure had fairly begun.

The sharp end of the stick hit something solid and held. Blade summoned new strength from somewhere and applied tremendous pressure. The stick bit deeper and deeper and held. It had reached solid ground where the path shelved out into the quicksand, which was shallow around the edges of the pool.

Blade began to drag himself back from death. Cautiously and very slowly. If he dislodged the stick again he was done for. The entire work fell on his forearms, shoulders and biceps. He gritted his teeth, tensed and staked his life on his muscles. Now — and again — and now!

Muscles corded and lumped, a slithering of blue serpents beneath the smooth-tanned hide. With an aching slowness Blade dragged himself out of the quicksand and onto solid ground. He glanced around. Ogar was gone. Gone to fetch others like himself. Cousins, members of his tribe or clan. Ogar had figured that out. Together they would bring larger stones and clubs and kill Blade.

Blade allowed himself a minute to catch his breath. Then he scraped most of the sand from his body, found the stick and pulled it out of the ground, circled the pool and took off in a long, swinging lope for the line of cliffs. The sun was gone now, all but a wraith of final afterglow, and along the base of the cliffs he could see the sparking of a dozen fires.

He had covered five hundred yards when he heard Ogar scream. He had not gone to get help in killing Blade. He had been watching from cover. Watching so intently that he had forgotten the menace all about him.

Blade was too late to be of any help. He watched, feeling sick, as the monstrous thing went through the rites, so obscenely ceremonial, nearly sacerdotal, of having its supper. Dining on Ogar. With Blade as a reluctant witness and fascinated against his will. Never, in all the dimensions he had visited, and certainly not in Home Dimension, had he seen anything like this.

The animal was not an anteater, yet it had a scarlet ribbon of tongue some twenty feet long. The tongue was rough and covered with tiny suction cups. The tongue was wrapped around Ogar, who could not scream because his bones were crushed and he was being swiftly drawn into a gaping maw. Instinct, automatic compassion, sent Blade starting forward. Then sense prevailed and he stopped. He could not fight this thing with only a pointed stick.

The thing's jaw was hinged. That hinge came unjointed now and the mouth gaped wider and the obscene tongue pulled Ogar in, whole and in one piece. The thing swallowed. Ogar made no sound as he disappeared. There was a lump in the thing's belly as it slithered around on great clawed feet and contemplated Blade.

Blade hoped Ogar had been already dead. Or, this failing, that the stomach acids would kill him quickly.

The brute made no move to come at Blade. It huddled there, watching with cold, enormous eyes. To Blade it seemed part serpent, part crocodile, with scales and short, stumpy legs. He reckoned it at thirty feet long, including the scaled tail, and five feet high. It was very still. It watched him. Blade did not move.

The thing was like something out of mythology, a never-never product of man's imagination. Basilisk? Cockatrice? Gorgon?

Blade grimaced and watched it. He had no idea what it was, except that it sure as hell wasn't a product of his imagination. The problem was how to get past it and continue on the path to the cliffs. It would soon be totally dark. He dare not venture into the thick grass again. As it was, he had only the distant fires to guide him.

The problem was solved for him. Another of the things slid out of the grass and attacked without warning the one that had devoured Ogar. There was a tremendous sound of hissing as they locked tongues and went into a death struggle, rolling and clawing and butting at each other. They fought off into the tall grass. Blade ran.

Blade was badly shaken by what he had seen. He was not yet fully adjusted to this new world. That would come, as it always did, and he would take such things in his stride. But at the moment he still felt a strong and painful empathy for poor Ogar. It did not help much that such sudden death, and the manner of it, must be commonplace in Ogar's world. Blade's now. It was still a sickening way to die — as bad as quicksand.

Blade stepped up his pace. He did not look behind him, confident that he could outrun any of the huge, lumbering creatures frequenting the high grass. His salvation lay ahead in the fires and the caves.

Once a great furred head peered at him over the highest of the grass. Huge eyes glinted and the sound was a rumbling roar that tapered into a whine. Blade ran faster. At last he broke clear of the grass and was on barren ground, still marshy and springy beneath him. but free of obstruction. He could see the fires clearly now, dozens of them up and down the dark line of cliffs and scarcely a quarter of a mile off. Blade began to slow his pace. Time to reconnoiter. What manner of welcome, if any, lay ahead?