“I’m hungry,” he announced a moment or so later.
His recovery from the abject terror and mindless state of a short time earlier seemed very rapid. I marveled at it a little, wondering whether it were natural or another manifestation of the change in him.
“Good enough. I have rations.” I put my hand to the bulge of things I had stored in the front of my tunic.
He made a face. “Not that rubbish – real food.”
“It’s real enough,” I assured him, “even if it is a little banged about. Let’s find a place away from these stones, and we’ll eat.” Now that he mentioned food, I found I was also hungry.
The area of stones became stretches only of sand and gravel. But this was the most colorful thing I had yet seen among the greens and whites, for many of the smaller pebbles were of deep, warm colors, reminding me a little of the brilliance through which we had earlier come.
Oomark released my hand and darted away, then stooped to root something out of the ground. He returned holding a fan-shaped growth that was dark purple – its fleshy leaves veined with green.
“Good!” He waved it before me, and a torn strip of his sleeve fluttered to show his arm where the growth of fine gray hair looked to be even thicker and longer than before. He carefully broke the plant in two and offered me one section, nibbling at the other with every evidence of enjoyment,
I shook my head. I was sure I could not force his half from him. But to mouth that strange thing myself I could not.
He chewed and swallowed. “But it is good!” he urged, plainly surprised at my refusal.
“You can have it. But save some room for real food.” Again my hand went to my tunic front to reassure myself I carried what he needed there, though how long that small store could last, I did not know. It was probably only a matter of time before I would be driven to consume just such a thing as that Oomark now relished.
We found a resting place. I thought it safe, for we were in the open, with no cover more than a boulder waist high to me – and I could see on all sides. Oomark was willing enough to halt there.
As he sat down on the ground, he pulled at the seals of his boots. “My feet hurt. They feel as if my boots don’t fit any more. I’m going to see why – ”
His buoyant return to normalcy after his fright still amazed me a little. I would not have believed his recuperative powers so great, but I was thankful this was so.
As he unsealed his boots, I took out the various containers I had crammed into my tunic. And though I could really have eaten all in sight, I opened only one package, breaking the thick slab it contained into two portions. It was one of the fruit-protein cakes, giving high energy level. The taste was very good.
Yet when I picked up my portion and held it to my lips, I found its faint odor offensive. It was necessary to force myself to chew and swallow, and I took no pleasure in its taste. I remembered Oomark’s earlier aversion to the choc. And I wondered if, having sampled the food or drink of this world, one was left with a strong dislike for one’s natural food. Stubbornly I ate the chunk. And the longer I worked at it, the less obnoxious it became, so that the last bite or two was normal tasting.
“This is yours.” I held the other half out to Oomark.
He shook his head. “Don’t want it. It’s spoiled or something. I can smell it’s bad clear over here. You oughtn’t eat a mess like that, Kilda. It might make you sick.”
And he absolutely refused to sample any of the supplies I had. Since I could not feed him by force, I had to accept that he had been sufficiently satisfied by the plant he had eaten.
Perhaps later, if he found no more such and was really hungry – I slipped off my outer tunic and made a bag of it that I could attach to my belt. The storage bag must remain a weapon. The air was warm and caressing against the skin of my arms. Though I had on only an under tunic, sleeveless and low-necked, above the waist, I was not cold.
The gray light seemed to give my bared skin a new color. I was not gray as Oomark; rather my naturally brown skin was even darker and more ruddy brown. It had a gloss as if polished with oil. Yet to the touch it felt normal. I wished for a mirror, and ran my hands over my head and face in its lack, trying to guess by touch what I looked like.
The result was not instantly horrifying as it had been when I had faced that terrifying reflection in my bedroom, but it was startling enough. In the first place, my hair, which had always curled so tightly that I had trouble dressing it and so kept it cropped closer than fashion dictated, was now in straight strands. I pulled one loose – not dark brown any more, but green. Unmistakably so!
Under my touch, my eyes, nose, mouth were, as far as I could guess, as always. For so much I was thankful.
“That’s better!” Oomark had pulled off his boots, tossed them to one side, as if he never wanted to see them again, and stretched his legs out before him.
His feet-no! At that moment I could have screamed denial of what I saw, except that I was too frightened to utter any sound at all. They were no longer human feet. Rather the toes had grown together, so that what I looked upon was something midway between a deformed foot and a cloven hoof, while the furry hair above it was much longer and thicker.
“Oomark – ” Though I shrank from doing so, I made myself reach out and touch the homy section of hoof and slide up to the fur above it. I had hoped, wildly, that this was an optical illusion, that I would feel a normal foot.
But it was not so. Oomark’s hoofs, his haired legs, could be felt as well as seen – just as my green lank hair had been real when I plucked it from my scalp.
“I can walk a lot better now,” he announced. Apparently the sight of hoofs did not in the least bother him. He might have expected to see such when he pulled off his boots. He kicked out his feet, as one might do when released from punishing restraint.
As I surveyed him closely from those hoofs to the top of his head, I saw something else. Those bumps on his temples were appreciably larger. They were no longer round or covered with skin. Instead, they were curved, tipped, a cream-white – they were horns.
There comes a time when one has been faced by too many shocks, and thereafter the not-to-be-believed can be accepted passively. I had somehow progressed to that point. Or else I was in such a state of shock that I found nothing abnormal. Strange, yes, but it did not add to my fear.
When we started on, I again had that feeling that we were followed. But the veil of mist was so thick that I could only make sure, by frequent glances behind, that whoever or whatever skulked there was not in close range.
Oomark did not pick up his discarded boots, but left them lying where he had thrown them. Twice more he jerked the purple plants free of the soil and munched on them, each time offering me some. I wanted none of them. The one time I took a bit to examine it more closely, I found the smell as offensive as he seemed to find the supplies. Even the touch of its leaves against my fingers made me brush them back and forth across my breeches after I had thrown it away.
“How far are we from Bartare?” I demanded when it seemed there would come no end to our journey. This country was open meadowland with thick, lush grass, not even a bush to break the open lines of it. The grass had odd peculiarities, for there were circles, seemingly exact in their marking. Their rims were indicated by a taller and noticeably darker green growth. I saw that Oomark avoided stepping on any of those darker bands when he crossed them. And I followed his example, partly because inborn wariness suggested all precautions were good.
We were in the middle of one such when I asked my question. He had taken the lead. Now he glanced back over his shoulder, his horns even more evident. Also I saw his once small ears were elongated, rising to a very noticeable point at the top.