I ran up the mound as fast as I could. Bartare had gone down the other side and stood at the foot. It was plain she was undecided and had not yet run into the unknown. Before she could move, I was over and down and had locked a handhold on one of her wrists.
She pulled and fought me, though only to free herself. It was plain she was in deadly fear of any touch from the branch. And though she protested every step, I dragged her with me, the mound to my left shoulder, watching ever for any attack out of the mist. So we struggled back around the end of the mound to the side I had first approached.
I had Bartare, and I thought I could keep her prisoner, at least for a space. But whether we could ever now find the others, I did not know. And the possibility that we were indeed lost was an added burden. Bartare’s struggles continued, and finally I rounded on her hotly.
“If you do not be quiet, I will use this!” I waved the branch in her face, so she averted her head as far as she could.
I was in such a state then between fearing the return of Shuck, perhaps with reinforcements, and the loss of Kosgro and Oomark that I meant it She must have read the determination in my face, for the fight went out of her instantly.
15
“You do not know what you would do!” Again her voice was not that of a child. “With that you can destroy me!”
“As you would have destroyed us,” I reminded her. “Were you not leading an attack against us in that city?”
She sent me one of those sly, sidewise looks such as Oomark used when farthest from his human self – only this was even more alien – to chill me anew.
“But” – shrewdly she grasped the flaw – “you do not want to kill me. You want to keep me prisoner. Therefore, you will not use that – ”
I both saw and felt her body tense as she prepared to renew a struggle, so I was quick to answer her, hoping both my voice and expression would carry conviction.
“No, I do not want to kill you, Bartare. But I can use a light touch, and I think it will govern you – or make you helpless and unconscious as you were before.” I advanced the branch, and she shrank back. But she was not yet conquered.
“You cannot tell me to do this or that. I am of this world as you are not. And if you try to drag me back to that other be warned, I shall fight you to the end – you and that sniveling creature who calls himself my brother. Brother-As if I am kin to him! And that Between who crawls and begs and will do anything to be allowed to lick crumbs from your food bag. You three – to think you can stand against the Folk!”
“As we did when we brought you with us?” I reminded her. But my heart was heavy. I did not see how we could continue to drag her with us if she remained so defiant. As for finding out how to escape – unless – A thought rooted in my mind to grow.
“You can be truly rid of us for all time – ”
“As we shall” – she flashed – “when Melusa brings you to an accounting.” She laughed. “Do not think to put a spell on her by shouting aloud that name. It is not her true one, any more than Bartare is mine. You cannot so control us.”
“You can be rid of us and suffer no hurt by it,” I told her. “But if we have to defend ourselves, we shall, as we have already proven. Show us a way out of this world, and we will give you no more trouble.”
“You, maybe, and perhaps the Between one. Oomark – he is too much one of us now. And, besides, I have no key to any world gate – not from this side.”
I felt a stab of fear. What if the gates could be opened only from the other side?
“But your Melusa does. How else could she have found you over there?”
Bartare licked her lips. She no longer pulled against my hold. “And if Melusa does this, you will truly go and trouble us no more?”
“That is certain.” The last thing I ever wanted to see again was this nightmare world. But neither did I have any intention of leaving Bartare. I could not honestly believe she was of unearthly blood, left on Chalox for some purpose of their own. Rather when the time came, I had every intention of seeing she went with us. It was the old, old space law that had operated since my kind had lifted from their parent world – that legendary Terra. It did not matter if your companion was your blackest enemy – you did not leave him behind on an alien planet. You fought to the death to get him free and off.
I had no affection for Bartare, but neither would I leave her here if we ever did have the great good fortune to find a gate. How I would manage to transport Oomark in his changed state and her, I did not know. Now it was enough to make a pact with her to keep her less a burden.
“I do not altogether believe you,” she said. “However – ” What she might have added, she did not say. Instead, her expression changed, and I had only that much warning to turn and face what crept there.
Shuck had managed to summon a partner, or else he now had a thing to dispute his prey. As one who. had had access to Lazk Volk’s library of weird wonders, I thought that nothing could astound me, but this gibbering monstrosity was the worst I had yet seen.
My species has an inborn aversion to the reptilian, though since we have taken to space, we have managed to modify it in the case of such races as the Zacathans and one or two others, whose ancestors wore scales when ours wore fur. But enough of that primeval horror was in me now to hold me for what might have been a fatal second or two.
The thing was a nauseous mixture of humanoid and reptile. It had a green-skinned body studded with warts and swellings. Its outstretched hands were tour-fingered with a disk sucker on the inner side of each digit. The body was bloated, mostly hanging stomach, its legs short and bowed as if by the weight of that paunch. The head was large and round, with eyes planted well to the top and very large. There was no sign of ears, but a mouth gaped, and from the inner part of that-
Instinct, perhaps heightened by all that had gone before, saved me. At the moment of attack I held up the branch, and that long, slippery cord of a tongue that whipped out, dripping evil yellow slime, touched one of the flower clusters.
It snapped back instantly into the mouth, which also clapped shut. The thing, with a curiously human gesture, brought both of its hands over that mouth, staggered back and away, tearing at the thin bands of darker green that marked its lips, shaking its bubble head from side to side, plainly in agony.
“Come!” Bartare pulled at me. I went, though in part I faced the creature as I retreated. It had fallen back against the mound and was still tearing at its mouth, for the moment seeming no longer aware of us.
We scraped along the earthen wall as fast as we could. But what if Shuck waited beyond? After a last wary glance at the green thing, I looked ahead. No black form there. However, were we to head into the mist, anything might come at us unseen.
And besides, how could I find Kosgro and Oomark without any guide or landmark? Or – I looked to Bartare.
“Can you find your brother?” If he had been able to trail her across this world, surely she ought to be able to do the same.
When she did not answer at once, I wondered if I could ever force such information out of her. My hold over her, if I had any at all, was very slight.
“You have that which will keep off Dark Ones,” she said at last. “But not all of them can be controlled. I do not think, your being what you are, you will go and leave them with me. That is not the way of your kind. And – perhaps I have been in a small way changed by living with your people after all. Yes, I can find Oomark – and if he is with the Between one, that one also. Come!”