If I had felt the vibration as a physical sensation before, that was nothing to what engulfed me now. I have no words to describe what I felt. The best is to say that I swung out as if I were on a rope over some immeasurable abyss, that I so hung for a space beyond the reckoning of any time I knew, and then that all ended in total darkness and non-knowing.
But the period of unconsciousness came to an end, and a opened my eyes, to shut them quickly as violent nausea racked me. What I had seen bore no point of reference to anything I had known, was so alien to all I did know as to make me doubt my sanity.
Yet though I lay on some smooth, bard surface, I knew also that I could not remain so forever. I must make an effort, no matter how limited. Trying to keep control and master the raging fear inside me, I looked again.
I stared straight up at first, dreading to see what lay to right or left. There was no sun, no moon, only an existing grayness like that of an early summer twilight. Only it did not soothe as might that hour on a world normal to my kind.
Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head to the right. What I saw were not rocks such as had ringed me before. Rather there were geometric figures, some stationary, some moving. Of those that moved, a few drifted, apparently without purpose, slowly. Others jerked along zigzag paths. Their erratic
pace, together with their unearthly shapes, brought a return of nausea, so I had to close my eyes and struggle for control.
Though the air about me was gray, these forms were in clashing colors, some of them such as to sear the vision if one gazed at them too long or strove to inspect them closely. Now I turned my head without opening my eyes until I could see what lay left. Then I looked.
There were more of the stationary triangles, oblongs, and a few circles, with only one or two of the floating things, none moving fast. I braced my hands against the surface on which I lay and raised my body a little.
Though that action made my head whirl, I persisted, un-til the vertigo passed and I dared make another move. I seemed to be lying on a rock surface, cushioned here and there by drifts of shining motes, which, when my fingers dug into them, felt like the grit of very fine sand. Some of the glitter clung to my skin, outlining fingertips and palms when I raised my hands.
I had been aware mainly of what I saw. Now I was alerted by what I heard. Somewhere a child was crying, not in loud bursts born of rage or disappointment, but with a pitiful whimpering, as one who had been reduced past hope. And in the midst of this weird world I could not be sure of the direction from which that plaint came. But I guessed which one of my charges made it.
“Oomark – ” I called, aware that perhaps sounds in this place might also be dangerous. But I must answer that sobbing.
When I called his name the second time, there was a halt in his gasps, and he answered questioningly, as if he could not believe anyone was here, “Kilda? Please, are you Kilda?”
“Yes. Where are you?” I thought he must be to the left. And I hoped I need not face shooting things to find him.
Somehow I got to my feet, and after an instant or two of vertigo, I discovered I was able to shuffle on, my ankle still paining, worse than before.
“Where are you?” I repeated when he did not answer.
Then his voice came, very low and fearful. “I – I don’t know.”
“Is Bartare with you?” At that moment I hoped not. I was in no shape to face a struggle of wills. I needed time to pull myself together.
“No-”
“Can you tell me where you are? What is it like around you?” I tried to get some bearing on those figures apparently rooted enough to serve as landmarks.
There was a dark crimson cone that had not moved since I first sighted it and, a little beyond, a vivid green triangle, and to the left of those a cylinder of burnt orange. It seemed to me that Oomark’s voice came from that direction, and if he saw the same figures, I would have a guide.
“There’s a big tree – and a bush with yellow berries – and some rocks – ” His words were separated by sniffles.
But what he said was impossible.
“Are – are you sure, Oomark?”
“Yes! Yes! Oh, please, Kilda, come and get me! I don’t like this place! I want to go home – Please, Kilda – come!”
Certainly his voice did come from just beyond the crimson cone. But I shuddered to a stop as a blue rod with two hexagonal fins swooped past my head and skimmed the surface of the orange cylinder. What it was gone, I set out doggedly in its wake.
“I see you now, I do, Kilda!” Oomark called. A small figure came running. To my relief it was Oomark in his own proper human body, who caught and held to me tightly. I had half suspected that perhaps both of us might have been altered as much as the land about us. But apparently he, too, saw me as normal.
He clung so to me that I could not move. And I must confess that my return hold on him was a kind of anchorage. At last his sobs died away and his grasp was not so tight. I dared then to say more than the soothing sounds meant to comfort him.
“Oomark-”
He looked up. His face was dirty with dust and tears, but he was attending to what I said.
“Tell me – what is that?” I pointed to the orange cylinder.
“A bush – with berries – so many that the branches are bent way over,” he answered promptly.
“And that?” The green triangle was my next choice.
“A tree.”
“That?” The dark red cone came now.
“A big rough rock. But, Kilda, why do you want to know all that? You can see it – ”
Slipping to my knees, I put my arm about him, to draw him close. I must be careful of what I said now, but I would have to tell him the truth.
“Oomark, now listen closely. I do not see them so at all – ”
I paused, hardly knowing how to continue. That very admission might be enough to increase his fear. I knew he had turned to me as a safe anchor, and if I proved unstable, he might be lost.
“Fern seed – ” was his amazing comment.
It was so unexpected that I thought he had taken leave of his senses. But he nodded almost briskly, as if my words were proof of something important.
“What is fern seed?” I asked, with cautious gentleness.
“She gave some to Bartare once. If you get it in your eyes or eat it – you see things different. Bartare must have put some on me. What do you see, Kilda?” He asked that as if genuinely interested.
“Fern seed,” “She,” all more bits of a puzzle. I felt as if I might never solve.
“Your bush – to me it is an orange cylinder. The tree is a green triangle, and the rock a dark red cone.”
His eyes followed my pointing finger. “Then you don’t see right here, do you, Kilda?”
“Not as you do, Oomark. Now listen – you say that Bartare is gone, or at least she is not here. Where is she? Did you see her go?”
“I didn’t see her, not after I got here,” he said. “But I feel her – here!” He loosed his hold on me and raised his, right hand to tap the middle of his forehead.
“Do you think you can find her?”
He shivered. “I don’t want to, Kilda. She is – she is with her – the Lady.”
And who is the Lady, Oomark?”
He pulled away, turning away his head as if he did not want to meet my eyes.
“She-She is Bartare’s friend. I don’t like her.”
“Where did Bartare meet her?”
“First in a dream, I think. One day Bartare said we must do some things – sing some queer words. She poured layre juice on the ground and crumbled sweetie cakes and tore up some of Mother’s pretty feathers and mixed them all together. Then we sat down in the grass, and she told me to close my eyes and count to nine, then open them, and I would see something wonderful. Bartare did – but I never. The Lady, She told Bartare I didn’t have the right kind of eyes or something. But She came often after that and taught Bartare things. Then Bartare didn’t like me much any more, but she made me help her. But she didn’t want to play with Mayra or Janta or any of the girls. She used to pretend to go to see them, but instead she would hide and talk to the Lady. And she said the Lady promised her that if she learned the right things and tried hard, she’d be able to go into the Lady’s own world someday. And – ” He looked about, his mouth quivered, and his eyes began to fill again. “I guess that’s what’s happened. Only we had to come along, too. And I don’t want to stay here – Kilda, please, let’s go home!”