The stench grew stronger, and I came out at last, not by the trees where I had seen the winged ones eating, but rather at an open space in which there were far more of these growing. They marked each side of an open corridor or road that led to a pool or small lake that was triangular in shape, too even not to be artificial.
Seeing that water, I thirsted, but it was not for me. Water into which fell the fruit of such trees, for I could see the rotted spheres floating in it, would not be fit to drink. So I turned along the narrow space between the mounds that ringed this area and the tree grove. Soon the trunks and branches made a thick wall between me and the water. The faint echo of the calling had ceased, urging me to a tired trot. If the things had been released from whatever hold the voice had on them, they might be already sniffing out my trail.
It was while I was pushing to my greatest efforts that I came across a trail. Surely those hoof slots in the earth had been made by feet much smaller than that of the nightmare creature and were more like those Oomark would leave. Heartened by that belief, I turned to follow them. But I kept ever on the outlook, listening for hunters. I heard a distant baying, though not such a cry as the one the four-footed thing had given in answer to the call from the mound top. This sound held a note of ghastly triumph, as if it were close to the kill in some chase. I gasped and tried to run faster, wanting to reach the open.
Chance, or perhaps something else, played in my favor, for I stumbled past a mound to see open grassland ahead. Not only that, but again those small hoof marks were deep printed in a patch of uncovered soil. I knew, or thought I did, that Oomark had come this way.
I burst into top speed, putting the sinister collection of mounds behind me, though I feared at any moment to hear, too close, that baying on my trail. When it did not come, I wondered what it had been hunting. The why and wherefore of that opportune intervention I could not guess.
What had moved to my rescue back there? The thought of that shaggy creature who had begged for food and dogged our way suddenly occurred to me. Perhaps it was so intent upon getting its hand paws on the supplies I carried that it would save me from its fellows in order to gain all the loot for itself. The idea was enough to add more speed to my pace.
How long I had wandered in the mound maze, I had no way of telling. In fact, as I considered it now, time within this alien world did not appear to be measured in any way I understood, though it might be that those periods when the mist closed in and those when it withdrew might parallel the night and day of more normal existence. If so, I would have to face, sooner or later, another indraw time. And past experience warned me of the advisability of finding one of those rings of refuge that Oomark had shown me. But though I searched the ground in every direction as I ran, there were no telltale rises of darker green.
The need for water and for food gripped me. I began to feel such fatigue as I had not known since my too limber toes had drawn sustenance from the ground itself. The bindings around my feet were wearing and loosening. Very soon I would have to improvise substitutes. I had seen no more tracks and had no idea whether I was still following Oomark or not. All in all, my case was a hard one, and I could not keep on going much longer.
It was one of the foot wrappings that settled the matter at last. It flapped loose, caught between my ankles, and sent me sprawling. I lay, jarred by that fall, and then pushed up – to see I must rebind my feet, sacrificing more of my tunic to the business.
I was also certain, as I looked about me, that the mist was closer than it had been when I broke from the mounds. Soon it would shut down completely.
The branch! It had been in my hand when I had fallen. I looked for it quickly. The long stem was snapped in two. But the unfaded leaves and the unwithered flowers were all right. And the grass under my touch was moist, as if the mist was a gentle rain for my refreshment. I laid the branch on the turf and brought out my supplies. So little! It was only the fact I had packed generously when we had left, thinking to share some of the sweets with Oomark and his friends, that gave me as much as I had. I mouthed a single wafer. It was a torment instead of an alleviation of my hunger, making me so avid for the rest that I had to bundle it away in a hurry, lest temptation utterly overwhelm caution.
Making that bite last as long as I could, I unwound the raveled and worn coverings on my feet I had tried to place my feet on the bag of stone so that they would not touch the ground. But again I had no control over them. Before I could reach for the flowered branch, they wriggled to the turf.
I could not free them then. The toes had turned down, digging into the soil in a way that nailed me fast. I fought fiercely, tearing painfully at my own flesh. Then I was overcome by my body, for once more that energy spread up from my toes. Such a feeling of well-being followed that I surrendered weakly.
But only for a time did I cease the struggle. Perhaps I was able to use my returning strength to good purpose. I picked up the branch, holding it against me breast high, bending my head over it. When I did that, my mind seemed to clear, and I could feel again the resolution that would not yield. To allow my body to command would, some instinct told me, mean the end of me, Kilda c’ Rhyn, as I was and had been. And that I would not allow.
So bolstered, I was able to touch my feet with the flowers, then drag my toes from the ground and rest them on the bag of stones. But it frightened me to see, as I rubbed away the sticky earth, that my toes were very dark and even longer and thinner than they had been the last time I looked at them. I hated to touch them, as if they belonged to someone who had contracted a loathsome disease.
I tore at my tunic, a hard task without cutting tools. In the end, I achieved two doubled layers of cloth. Between those I laid, smoothed and flattened, pieces of coverings of the food concentrates, doing all I could to toughen the improvised foot coverings. These I bound on with the greatest care, fearing lest they might come loose and I find myself barefooted on the ground. When they were fastened with the last knots, I tested them gingerly by setting my right foot on the soil. The toes remained quiescent. It would seem I had successfully isolated them.
But all this had taken time, and though I was stronger than when I had fallen, the mist was well closed in. I was averse to wandering blindly through it. I listened, but I could hear nothing. However, the lack of sound was in no way reassuring. And my imagination was very quick to supply me with disturbing suggestions – 1 could perhaps be visible to the normal inhabitants of this world and might at this moment be the focal point for some stalk.
I curled myself together, the branch once more resting on my knees, where the perfume from it soothed my overwrought nerves. The supply bag was fastened to my belt, my weapon under my hand. I waited, though for what – save disaster – 1 could not have told.
10
I did not sleep. In fact, I was aware that I had not felt sleepy for some time now – a tiring of the body, yes, but no desire to sleep. But I could not move until the mist lifted, so I had only thoughts to occupy me. I had some small tatter of memory napping deep in me – perhaps something I had learned in Lazk Volk’s storehouse of knowledge.
Lazk Volk – my past on Chalox now appeared so remote that I might have been looking down a long, long corridor to a half-open doorway at the far end. But somehow, remembering him brought my thoughts more into focus. I tried to imagine I was sitting before him, about to report on some study tape, marshaling my words into order, ready to make my points of weight and value.