“Put your hand on what is left of the branch!” Again Kosgro’s order sent me groping for those fragments of stick, leaf, and flower. Part of the small bits left now crumpled into a dry dust upon which my fingers and palm curled and held tightly.
Only dimly was I aware of a chanting in Bartare’s child voice. The words were strange. I tried to shut my ears, realizing that to hark was to further the illusion she spun.
So I looked only at the crumpled flowers. And in the punishing grip of Kosgro’s hand, I read the effort that held him tense, into which he was pouring all his energy.
Then – the blossoms wavered in my sight, even as had Kosgro and the woman who was not a woman. There were no flowers lying there – but lasers, much like those I had seen many times on my own world.
Kosgro broke grip with me. I watched him stoop and catch up those weapons of another space. One he held in a hand that no longer assumed any other shape. The other he gave, butt foremost, to me. This I gripped, though I had never held such before.
“Stop her!” He made, I thought, to fire at Bartare. But I had another idea and stepped ahead of him to the foot of the platform. I hurled the ashy stuff of the dead flowers straight into the girl’s face. Some of it reached its mark. The rest shifted down in a cloud of particles, looking far more than the scant handful I had thrown.
She screamed horribly. The sword-wand fell from her hand, struck the edge of the platform, and broke in two. Bartare swayed, her fingers clawing at her face. Then she took a tottering step or two straight for me and leaned over, her other hand still shielding her eyes, as if to grope for her broken sword. Instead, she fell almost into my arms, and I held her fast.
Beyond her that pillar of mist whirled madly, and I tore my gaze from it. Still holding the girl, now limp in my arms, more of a burden than I could support for long, I backed away. She did not struggle: For that I was thankful. I could not have compelled her had she fought.
“Back!” That was Kosgro. He moved in between me and the others there. His form was stable now, the same hairy humanoid he had always been. He held the laser at firing ready.
The crowd continued to eye us in utter silence. Not one moved in our direction. I could not believe in such continued good fortune. Were they just going to let us walk out with Bartare?
Oomark was still huddled on the ground as I had left him when I had shaken free to attack Bartare. Now he began to crawl on his hands and knees, as if he lacked strength to get to his hoofs. I longed to help him up, but I could not manage both children at once.
There was a flapping in the air. The whirling mass on the platform had sent out a long strip of green to fly at us. I saw the bright flash of the laser cut it through. And the cut-off portion fell to the pavement But it did not lie still. Instead, like some evil life form, it wriggled toward us.
Kosgro fired again and split it in two. Now both portions made reptilian advances. Still no one in the company moved. Their faces were impassive. It might be that any quarrel we had with the entity on the platform was none of theirs. For their curious neutrality I rendered thanks, but we dared not build on its holding.
We were under the arch of the wall opening now. And it would seem that, save for those crawling green ribbons, we were to be allowed to retreat unopposed, unless some danger waited outside-
But beyond the gate were only the mounds – Mounds? No! The glitter of the crystal spires evolved from dissolving mounds. That clear sight given me by the notus was wearing off. I cried out.
“What?” Kosgro was quick to ask me.
“I see the towers again.”
“We were lucky it lasted as long as it did, but perhaps our luck has run out.”
I knew what he meant. Not having clear sight, I might not be able to lead us out again. But if I could not – what of Oomark? He had come to me again and was holding me in the tight finger lock of a terrorized human child, though he wore the guise of the furred creature still. Bar-tare was limply unconscious.
“I cannot carry her much farther – ”
“No. Let me have her.” Kosgro took her from my aching arms and swung her over one of his thick shoulders, steadying her there with his left hand. The right still held the laser.
I drew Oomark to his feet. He moved unresisting in my hold. Leaving the rear guard to Kosgro, I swung the boy around and faced him toward a road that seemed to run straight out between those lines of towers.
“Oomark, you must lead us!”
I looked at the palm of the hand that had held the ashes of the notus. There was a little film of stuff still there. It might help, so I smeared it across my eyes.
What I faced now was a wavering world, first one thing and then another. It took all my strength of will and purpose I could muster to keep my eyes open and not shut them to that sickening mingling of changing forms. I steered Oomark with one hand on his shoulder toward the road I saw only in bits. He began to walk, staring straight ahead, as if he had no will of his own but moved by mine only.
I saw enough to use my laser. A green thing had curled out to entangle our feet, and a second snapped out of one of the mounds. Both times the things I fired at were parted but not destroyed, the sections wriggling after us.
“Do they follow?” I called to Kosgro.
“No.”
A small part of my mind wondered at that. But I concentrated mainly on our road.
In and out we went, while about us tower became mound, mound tower. But once more the tower part became more solid and lasted longer, and I guessed that the dust was now failing me also.
However, Oomark kept moving, even when once more I saw only the illusions, and we had to pin our escape hopes on him. He had not spoken since we had passed the unseen barrier coming in, and he moved now in what seemed to me a trancelike state.
Whether we were following the same road we had come, I did not know. The need to be free of this place was so great that I would have run if I could. But Oomark could not be urged to a faster pace, nor could Kosgro keep to it carrying the burden of Bartare.
Then came a moment when the laser vanished from my hand. I heard an exclamation from Kosgro and guessed that his weapon was also gone. Like the other gifts of the notus, the weapons had only been loaned us for a space. But at least they had started us on our escape. Now I looked to either side fearfully, dreading to see one of those green ribbons in ambush.
That journey seemed to go on forever. Fear chilled me. Yet the emotion was a goad to keep me moving. And Oomark marched so determinedly that I held to the hope he would bring us free. In the end he did, out into the open country.
I threw myself on my knees and pulled him to me, holding him close in thankful embrace. Then I looked to Kosgro.
“We made it – we’re safe!”
13
He shook his shaggy head. “Far from it. In fact, we have moved into greater danger.”
Such was his tone that I felt frozen, as if an ice wind had curled lash-wise about me.
“But we are out of that city!” I protested.
He shifted Bartare’s limp form on his shoulder. “Do you not remember what she said about our being intended as a tribute to the Outer Dark?”
“And what does that mean?”
“If what I think, it is serious. The Folk are not supreme here, though they try to boast that they are. Two ways war in this world, and the Dark Ones take their toll. I have heard it whispered that even the Great Ones of the Folk pay a price to keep what they rule. And I think they have marked us for that price.”
“If – if we can get back – ”
“Yes, our only hope is escape to our own world. And these two children opened a gate once. We must hold to the very thin hope that we can learn from them how to return. But we must not linger here.”