“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Bad, I thought. But the tree dew has helped. It is not so inflamed now.”
Cautiously he flexed his muscles. “You must be right. There is far less pain now.”
I sacrificed more of my tunic. This was the last length I dared rip from it. Once more I wet that patch at the trees and took it to Oomark.
“Let me wash your face.” He jerked and would have dodged. But Kosgro held him. Again I touched delicately, knowing the child’s fear of the notus. He did not cry out as I thought he would, but endured what I did to him, his body trembling.
Once more I collected the precious moisture. When I came back, Bartare was on her feet, scuffling with Kosgro.
“Don’t do that!” she shrieked as I advanced on her. “If you do, you’ll be sorry! I can’t find your old gate for you – I’ll, I’ll be Between – Between!” So frantic were her struggles and cries that I stopped.
“But you’ll need water, Bartare, and I’ve discovered this dew is the same as having plenty to drink.”
“Make me do it then,” she flung at me, “and see what happens. The notus makes the Folk forget if they use it. I tell you I’ll forget everything – all you need me most to remember!”
It was plain she believed what she said, and I dared not take the chance of proving it. If Bartare needed water, she would have to wait until we were able to travel on and could find some pool or stream.
But I folded the dampened cloth I had not been able to use and tucked it between my belt and my skin under the curtailed length of my under tunic.
Kosgro untied a bundle from his belt, our food. When he passed it to me, I opened it – so much less than we needed. I offered some to the children. Bartare refused with exaggerated gesture of revulsion. But to my surprise, Oomark accepted a wafer. He ate it in small bites, which he chewed as if he mouthed something bitter, but still he ate.
Watching him, I felt a small spring of hope: Perhaps the notus had wrought something of a change. That he had taken a step back along the right road I was sure.
The portion Kosgro and I shared was very small indeed. But somehow my body did not crave more. Then I inspected the wrappings on my feet. The strips frayed and wore through so fast. I must have something to protect them better. I was examining what I did have ruefully when Kosgro spoke.
“Why not try those?” He pointed to where a drift of the ribbon-like leaves lay under the nearest tree. They were yellow and sere, but when I picked up a handful and pulled and twisted it, I discovered that the leaves were unbelievably tough. Straightway I gathered a lapful of them.
“Let me.” Kosgro took some, and though his fingers jerked and muscles quivered as if he found the occupation painful, he began to braid and weave them together with more skill than my fumbling attempts could equal. I followed his example until together we had achieved two sets of mats, four in all, thick as the width of my thumb, and some rough cords also twisted out of leaf fibers.
The sandals I bound on my misshapen feet in the end were no master works of art, but they certainly gave me protection, perhaps better than any I had had since I had discarded my boots. I sat surveying them with no small satisfaction while I tied the last cord firmly.
How long they might last I did not know, but in any case I must be prepared for when they did give out. I set about making a bundle of leaves, laying them straight and tying them together, intending to carry them with me.
I regretted the bag of stones that Kosgro had dropped at the site of the worm struggle. Not only was it our only weapon, but I had also stuffed into it Oomark’s discarded clothing, which might have had good use now. I began to think about it.
“What do you plan now?”
I was so startled at what seemed a reading of my thoughts, or rather of very hazy intentions, that I stared at Kosgro. That he would agree to trying to retrieve the bag, I thought unlikely, but I did want it.
“We left the bag back there.”
“And you propose to go after it – a bag weighted with stones?” He laughed harshly. “You think it a treasure worth returning for?”
I was stung. “It served you well enough with the worm. If it had not been for that, you – we’d all be dead!”
“You have no idea of what is back there now.”
“I have the notus – ”
“Do not become overconfident because of that. There is such a thing as ambush. You do not know the kind of things that lurk here. Such senses as we have to serve us are not able to alert us in time to protect against some prowlers. Notus or not – ” He threw up his hands in an odd little gesture. “But if one cannot argue with you – if you must face fate – ”
Oddly enough, it was his surrender, the feeling in his tone that I could not identify, which decided me. I have always believed that the foolhardy is no hero, and sometimes far worse than a coward. The few advantages that the bag might have given us would not outweigh embroilment with monsters. I remembered vividly that it had been only the surprise in Bartare’s eyes that had saved me from the warty thing stalking behind my back.
“You’re right.”
His big gash of a mouth smiled. “May the fates witness this historic moment – a woman admits she is wrong.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Not so! I did not say I was wrong – I said you are right.”
“So that is your way of dodging the issue, Kilda? Well, even so much will satisfy me. Do not grieve for your bag of stones. I may be able to rum up some better weapons and a lot less clumsy, too.”
He stood up, flexing his thick arms. It was plain he could move with more vigor than he had when we had reached the grove. Seeing that, I grew more confident.
Then he began to move around the edges of the clearing, stooping to search among the fallen leaves, covered in some places by a snow of faded blossoms.
16
Having made a circuit of the clearing, he returned with a gleaning of sticks, fallen branches of trees. Now he tested them. Two broke under his flexing, but three held. Two of those were as thick as two of my fingers laid together, but the third was of greater size, and, at one end, had stubs of branchlets protruding.
Kosgro switched the three through the air and thrust in and out with them as I had seen swords used in tridee tapes made on primitive worlds.
“Not much compared to a laser,” he commented, “but an improvement on your stone bag.” And he sketched a gesture in my direction, which, made by a less brutish body, might have been the formal bow-of-courtesy of an inner planet man.
Puny and weak those looked when I thought of them being employed against any of the monsters. But they were of notus wood, which might give them more value than mere wooden rods.
“You can handle these,” I observed. “But earlier, when you tried to touch the branch – ”
“Yes! It is true the notus no longer bothers me. The food – this” – he touched his new bandage – “are all working!”
I had noted no outward change in him as had occurred in me when I first took up the notus. But then I had not been so long nor so deeply under the influence of this world.
“This and this, I think.” He dropped one of the thin branches, but kept hold on the other two. “There is something else we may try.”
Back he went to the trees, gathering up handfuls of the withered blossoms. Again it appeared he could now handle such without danger as he brought them back to me.
“We rub these along the sticks,” he said, sitting down cross-legged to use half his harvest for just that purpose, while I followed his example with the other branch.
Mashed in my hand, the flowers became an oily pulp. The odor was very strong, too sweet. But I rubbed with a will, and the mess in my hand seemed to be absorbed by the wood so worked upon. Also the white bark glowed with phosphorescence, so that when we shook the last sticky fragments from our hands, we had not only crude weapons but also torches of a kind.