Very close at hand all illusion vanished, and there were many winding ways at the roots of those pillars. To pass along those made the wayfarer feel small and lost.
Even here Oomark did not walk straight, but wound from side to side down one of those ways. Twice he turned completely around, as if starting out again. Yet somehow he brought us deeper into the maze. I grew fearful, thinking we might come upon such as had fronted me in the mounds. Perhaps the mounds had once been like this, but the pillars there had crumbled.
The illusion that this was a city continued to hold, save that it was a city without any inhabitants on its streets, no heads at the windows, no sign that any living beings save ourselves moved here.
In me grew a longing to call out, to learn if we were alone. But there was an awe-inspiring silence. And all I could hear was a whispering from Oomark; he could have been repeating words in a singsong chant. Perhaps he had been doing that since we began this odd method of progression. But I had not been aware of that before.
He halted, so quickly that Kosgro bumped into him, and I, in turn, brought up against the other’s broad shoulder. We could see the city ahead, the pillars around us, nothing else. Oomark was grinning again, that unpleasant, unchildlike grimace that was not born of goodwill.
“There is a wall now,” he reported.
I could see nothing of the sort. Kosgro dropped my hand, though he retained hold of Oomark, and stretched out his arm. It was very apparent that his fingers flattened against some unseen surface. He felt up and down, exploring it.
Oomark tried to pull away from him. “There is a wall,” he repeated. “The way in, the out way, can’t take us past it. I’ve done all I can do. Let me go now!”
“We have not reached Bartare,” I pointed out.
He scowled at me, openly hostile. “You can’t now. I’m not a Great One. I can’t break through that.”
“No, you can’t,” Kosgro agreed. I was dismayed, not only because he agreed, but also because I realized that I had come to depend upon him, perhaps too much, to the threatening of what I must do.
“We can’t, but perhaps she can.” Kosgro moved a little to let me face that invisible barrier. “Try the notus.”
12
I looked to the branch. It was fading fast now, the flowers yellowing, drying up, and the scent was no longer so strong. But as I took it from my belt, Oomark cowered away.
“No!” I think he would have tried to run, only Kosgro caught him.
“Touch the wall,” the latter ordered me, restraining the boy.
I felt – my finger touched a smooth surface. It was warm, and my fingertips pricked as they slipped across it, as if some current of energy flowed there.
Then I held out the branch. There was a blast of light, a crackling. Energy might be short-circuited so.
“Yes.” Kosgro nodded. “I thought so. That is why they fear the notus – it destroys their power creations. And since they spin the energy from themselves, this may recoil on them now. Let us go on.”
Oomark wanted none of that. He had stopped kicking and struggling, but he hung his head sullenly and refused to talk when Kosgro questioned him.
“Can’t we just go straight on?” I was impatient.
“I think not. This is one of those places that is overlaid with their illusions. Unless – ” Kosgro looked to the branch again. It was shriveled badly, flaking into gray ash when I moved it.
“Are any of the flowers left?” he asked.
I examined it carefully. In the very center were six, withered but still intact.
“Give me three. You take the others,” he said. “Rub them across your eyelids.”
I hesitated. Sight is very precious. I had no mind to endanger mine, for I remembered only too well how I had fared in the place of blazing geometrical forms.
“If you want to find a road here” – it was his turn to be impatient – “then this is your only chance. I tell you their form of illusion holds too well. We can be entangled and held prisoner by it.”
He believed what he said – that I knew. Slowly I raised the crumpled blossoms, closed my eyes, and rubbed the lids with those bruised petals. Held this close to my face, I could still sniff that scent, which, as usual, gave me a feeling of well-being.
I opened my eyes-
There were no tower-pillars about me. I gasped, for it would seem I was back among the mounds where the monsters prowled. About me were heaps of tumbled blocks cloaked with growth of turf and bramble, while the way, which had run straight ahead before, was only a narrow path winding in and out amongst those blocks.
“What do you see?” Kosgro demanded.
I glanced at him, then away quickly – almost ill, dizzy. The hairy figure that I knew wavered, was sometimes – this and then that, until I could not be sure of anything about it Did I see a human man, misty and ill-defined? Or the haired creature? Or even – in flashes – a huge purple triangle?
“Don’t!” I held out my hand in appeal, in hope that he might settle down into a stable form.
“What do you see?” Again he asked.
“You – you aren’t stable. What – what are you?”
“Not me!” That voice came out of that bewildering swirl of shapes, which flowed from one into another. “What do you see around you?”
“Mounds – ruins.” I studied now what did appear to be concrete and fixed.
“There is a road?”
“A small path.”
“Then lead us along it – and don’t look back!”
I was only too ready to obey. To keep my eyes ahead steadied me, and I began to recover from the panic that had filled me upon witnessing what had happened to Kosgro.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Just as before. I have not used the notus – yet.”
Perhaps he was right. Were he to have the double, triple sight of me, of Oomark, it might lead to trouble.
“You have the boy?”
“Yes. What lies ahead?”
I did not quite know why he wanted that information, but I gave it to the best of my ability, describing the crumbling mounds. Yet one was so much like the next, there was very little in the way of landmark. Only the path was trodden, so it Seemed in regular use. There were marks like hoof slots, and others not far removed from booted feet. Always I spoke to Kosgro of what I sighted, but he asked no more questions.
This maze of mounds appeared to extend a long distance. Finally Kosgro did break silence.
“What lies ahead?’
“Nothing but more mounds.”
“Yet we see a taller stand of towers. I think we must be dose to the heart of this place.”
As if his words turned a key, I did perceive a change, for we passed around a curve in the path and before us was an erection that had suffered less from passing time. No turf greened its sides. The blocks of its walls were naked, and the path we followed led through a massive open gateway in that wall. If it had been dark within that gate, I do not think I would have so readily entered. But beyond streamed light, brighter than anything I had yet seen in this mist-shrouded world.
So we came into what must be the heart of that place. There was no roof overhead. Set about the walls at spaced intervals were rings of silver metal, and those held balls which glowed. These were no stronger than the moonlight of a normal planet, but united, the radiance was considerable. We stood on a pavement akin to that of the road Kosgro had mastered. It was made up of blocks of various colors of stone, some silver, some green, some crystal. But there were none of black or red as there had been in the road.
The pavement was a square about a platform raised the height of two steps above it. This was all of crystal and emitted a soft light of its own, a thin haze, which, at the four corners, rose in trails as if fires burned there.
On the platform, at its center, a haze gathered and ebbed, then gathered again, to form vague masses, only to disappear, and then reform. To watch that ebb and flow held one’s eyes and –
“Kilda!” A jerk at my arm turned me away, and I heard such urgency in Kosgro’s voice as brought me aware of him quickly. Nor did I need any more warning. This was a place in which to be ever on guard.