The Torian Pearls

Chapter 3

Slowly Blade realized that his molecules no longer darted about in the great dark void. He felt them slowly assembling themselves into the body and mind he knew so well. Then slowly that mind and body began to be aware of more than the void.

His head throbbed as if it really had been crushed and then roughly put back together. Every throb seemed to send a wave of pain through the rest of his body, so that all his bones seemed to shake in rhythm with the pounding in his head.

He lay still and let other sensations join the headache. Wetness was under him and all around him, except for his face. Some of it was a sticky, clinging wetness, like thick mud. Some of it felt more like warm muddy water.

All of the wetness smelled strongly of decaying vegetation. The warm air that blew over Blade's face smelled even more strongly and far more unpleasantly of dead animals, the foul scum on stagnant ponds, methane oozing from the black depths of swamps, a faint hint of sulphur.

Blade cautiously opened his eyes and sat up, ignoring the pain in his head. He sat motionless, bracing himself with his arms, until the pain in his head faded. Then he surveyed what lay around him.

He sat near the top of a half-submerged slope of black mud and dead, yellowing grass. His legs were submerged. The mud under him sucked and squelched unpleasantly every time he moved. Slowly he got his legs under him and started to rise. For a moment he had the unpleasant feeling that the mud would grip him and hold him here, as he'd been held in the chair under the falling cliff. Then the grip of the mud broke and he stood up.

All around him was a broad expanse of water, broken here and there by hillocks like the one he was on or by dead and dying trees. The surface of the water shimmered as if it had been polished. A closer look showed Blade that the water was dark with mud and spotted with floating bits and pieces. Blade saw dead animals, patches of dead leaves, floating bits of wood too straight to be natural, but nothing alive. He began to feel that he was looking out over a land just emerging from the waters of a universal flood-or perhaps slowly vanishing under those waters. Everywhere he looked, Blade could see no land rising more than a foot or two above the gently lapping water.

The western horizon was beginning to swallow the glowing ball of the setting sun. Blade noticed for the first time the incredible colors spreading across the sky. The sun itself was a raw red-orange with a faint tinge of gold and a stronger tinge of purple. Long streaks of crimson, purple, and salmon stretched along the horizon, layer on layer of color rising steadily upward. Everywhere Blade saw hints of other, less common colors-a rich mahogany tinged with red, an unmistakable shimmering green. The few clouds that hung in the western sky were tinged blue and pink-not a delicate blushing pink, but a raw, almost bloody color. Behind everything swirled a dozen shades and mixtures of gold and orange. The sky was so beautiful that it was almost frightening.

Blade stared at the western sky until he found the display of colors growing hypnotic. With a painful effort he lowered his gaze to the line of the horizon itself. That line showed humps and waverings, black against the flaming sky. It did not look like much-perhaps only a line of hilltops not drowned quite so deeply as the rest of the land around here. But it was certainly more than Blade could see in any other direction. If dry land lay anywhere within sight, it lay off toward that impossible and monstrously beautiful sunset.

Blade wasted no time in setting off. He had no idea how far he might have to go and he suspected that darkness would come fast when the sun vanished. He walked up over the crest and down the other side of his own hill. Before he'd gone a hundred yards the water was up to his knees. He picked up a floating branch and used it to feel his way along. Another two hundred yards and the water was up to his waist. A few yards more and the bottom became so oozy that he found it easier to start swimming.

Blade set an easy stroke, one he knew he could keep up all night and most of the next day if he had to. Every few minutes he stopped briefly, treading water as he looked around him to take his bearings. The last thing he wanted to do was end up swimming in circles as darkness swallowed up the swamp. Each time he looked, the wavering line of dark humps was still there. At least it wasn't an optical illusion.

Once when Blade stopped he raised his eyes to look again at the display of colors in the sky. They were slowly fading, some lingering longer than others. The whole display was still something to take a man's breath away, and Blade found himself wondering what might be the cause. He remembered that volcanic dust in the atmosphere often led to such unnaturally colorful sunsets.

As he watched, he suddenly saw five lean winged shapes glide across the sky, black silhouettes against the blazing colors. They soared lightly and easily, sweeping upward from the horizon and losing themselves in the twilight that was spreading from the east. Blade watched them until they faded from sight, and did not much care for their looks. He had an impression of twenty-foot wings, long beaks, and spiked tails. Birds, bats, or giant reptiles of some sort? Certainly they looked like meat-eaters. Blade hoped they weren't hungry.

He swam on. He'd covered about a mile when he felt his feet strike into sticky mud. A few more strokes and he was able to walk again. He strode forward, water and mud and trailing weeds dripping from him, until the water was no more than knee deep. He passed a clump of trees with wilted green leaves still hanging from their branches. A few birds twittered cheerfully to themselves in the branches as they settled down for the night. Their sound made Blade feel better. They were the first healthy living things he'd seen or heard in a Dimension that otherwise seemed to be almost nothing but water and mud and weirdly glowing sky.

Blade walked through the knee-deep water across what once must have been level ground for nearly a mile, past several more clumps of trees. Far off to the left he saw what looked like the ruins of farm buildings. In the gathering twilight he could not be sure, and he had no time to spare for side trips.

Another three hundred yards, and the water began to deepen again as the ground sloped away under him. Blade could clearly see his goal to the west now. It was unmistakably a hilly, wooded shoreline. It seemed no more than three or four miles away, although it was hard to judge distances in this land. A long swim in the darkness, but worth it-Blade wanted dry land under him before he stopped for the night.

He covered another hundred yards, then the light was gone from the sky and the ground from under his feet. He started swimming again, looking up at the sky to see if there were any stars he could use to guide himself. There were none, and no moon either. Fortunately Blade's sense of direction was excellent. He focused his mind and body totally on swimming in a straight line and kept moving.

How long he swam in that state of concentration and how much distance he covered, he never knew. He only knew that in time he saw the land begin to rise ahead of him, dark enough to stand out even against the dark water. He also knew something much less pleasant. He was no longer alone in the water. Something large was swimming purposefully along behind him. He could hear the ripple of water around it, an occasional splash, and the sound of slow heavy breathing.

Blade fought down a moment's feeling that turning around would make the creature launch its attack, stopped, and looked behind him. He saw a broad head rising from the water and a bony crest rising above the head. Two eyes shone dimly on either side of a long snout. The snout lifted and Blade heard another puff of breath. He also saw the creature's jaws open to display two rows of teeth. He was relieved to see that the teeth were broad and blunt, not long and sharp. In spite of its size the creature was a plant eater. That meant it wouldn't be interested in him as a meal.

It was interested in him, though, and it seemed to be a good forty feet long. Something that big could be dangerous out of curiosity or even playfulness. Blade turned and started swimming again. Behind him he heard the steady breathing and splashing as the creature did the same.

The naked man and the scaled creature swam slowly and steadily toward the land. Blade took great care to swim smoothly and steadily, with no jerky movements the creature might misinterpret. The teeth in its jaws might be blunt, but those jaws were powerful enough to crush his bones if they ever closed on him.

After too many long minutes, Blade again felt his feet strike oozy mud. He knew he could move faster if he kept swimming. He swam on, fighting the temptation to put on a last burst of speed and get out of the water. The creature might be amphibious, quite able to follow him into the shallows or even a short distance onto the land.

At last the water grew too shallow for swimming. Blade stopped and turned, resting on hands and knees with only his head above water as he looked back at the creature. It was still on his trail, floating submerged up to the eyes, apparently stopped.

Slowly Blade rose to his feet. Even more slowly he turned toward the land and started walking. He tried to walk without making a splash or even a ripple.

Foot by foot Blade moved toward the land. The water crept down his thighs until it reached his knees. Now he could take longer strides without making any noise. A dozen more steps should have him out of the water entirely. One, two, three, four-

On the fifth step Blade's right foot came down on a submerged root. Before he could react it broke under him, sending him lurching forward. He went to his knees with a splash.

To Blade's strained hearing the splash seemed to roll across the water like an explosion. It was certainly loud enough to reach the creature behind him. Blade heard a hissing roar as massive lungs took in air. Then came the tremendous splashing of a huge body heaving itself forward through the water.

Blade ran, charging through the last few yards of water in a few seconds, throwing up spray like a motorboat. His feet came down on drying mud and then on damp grass. Behind him the creature gave another hissing roar. Blade kept going. Even if it couldn't follow him onto the land, that long neck could reach well up past the waterline.

A bush loomed in his path, and this time he did jump. He landed on a moss-grown log which rolled out from under him, spilling him to the ground. A thick layer of dead leaves broke his fall.

As he rose the creature drove itself hard into the mud with a tremendous squelching splash. A miniature tidal wave poured up onto the land, reaching halfway to where Blade stood. The creature roared in surprise at finding itself aground, roared even louder at finding itself stuck fast in the mud, and began thrashing around frantically. Its tail lashed the water into foam, and its head struck here, there, and everywhere along the shore, its jaws snapping furiously.

Now that he could see it more clearly, Blade saw the creature had no legs, only flippers ending in long bony spurs. No doubt they would do a good job rooting up the water plants or striking at rivals or enemies, but they wouldn't take the creature a single inch on dry land.

Blade turned his back on the stranded creature and walked off inland. He rather hoped it would get itself unstranded before too long. It hadn't really done anything to him, so he had no reason to wish it dead. He also didn't want the creature's struggles to get afloat to attract unwelcome visitors, either animal or human.

Apparently it succeeded. At any rate the roars and splashes died away by the time Blade was out of sight of the water. Trees began to rise more and more thickly on either hand. Blade realized that he'd climbed out onto a fairly substantial stretch of dry land, more than the crests of a few hills.

In that case it was time to stop for the night. He was tired, he was thirsty, and daylight was the time to explore what lay ahead.

Blade picked a nearby tree and scrambled up to where two thick branches jutted out from the trunk. Their bases formed a broad, solid platform. He could have slept more comfortably on the ground, but he didn't want to take the risk if he didn't have to. Not all of the large and bad-tempered creatures in this Dimension might be water-dwelling plant-eaters.

He shifted about, trying to find a position where his arms and legs didn't dangle and nothing dug painfully into his skin. The tree was taller than most of its neighbors, and through gaps in the leaves Blade could catch glimpses of the forest spreading away in all directions.

To the north and the west he saw beyond the forest the faint loom of more and higher hills. He saw hints of jagged summits, a thin silvery plume of steam or smoke, and then something that made him stop and look again.

In the shadows along the flank of one hill a small circle of orange light flickered. It was impossible to be certain what it was or how far away it lay. It might be volcanic activity, but Blade had also seen circles of campfires that looked exactly like this from a distance.

He looked again, and saw that the darkness behind that hill and its neighbors on either side was not quite perfect. A dim, diffused glow with a faint tinge of orange seemed to be spread along that portion of the horizon. More campfires-the campfires of an army whose scouts he could see on this side of the hill?

Blade started wedging himself firmly into place. He wasn't going anywhere tonight, even if a city of solid gold lay under that distant orange glow. He knew the value of doing his exploring with a rested body, a clear head, and the light of day to help him.

He willed himself to ignore the hardness of the branches under him, the roughness of the bark against his skin, the continuous whine of insects and the occasional raucous screech of a night bird. Slowly the world faded away, and he slept.