“Fuusu, Foruw, Frono, Fyngri, Fubbi—” Fubbi being she who had led me here.
“Kemoc Tregarth,” I answered, as was proper. Then I added, which was of the custom of Estcarp, but not might be so here:
“No threat from me to the House of Fuusu and her sister, clan, or rooftree, harvest, flocks—”
If they did not understand my good-wish, they did the will behind it. For Fuusu made another sign, and Foruw, who sat upon her right, produced a cup of wood and poured into it a darkish liquid from a stone bottle. She touched her lips briefly to one side of the cup and then held it out.
Though I remembered Dahaun’s injunction against drinking or eating in the wilds, I dared not refuse a sip from the guesting cup. I swallowed it a little fearfully. The stuff was sour and a little bitter. I was glad that I need not drink more of it. But I formally tipped the cup right and left, dribbled a few drops over its brim to the moss carpet, wishing thus luck on both house and land.
I put the cup down between us and waited politely for Fuusu to continue. I did not have to wait long.
“Where go you through the moss land, Kemoc Tregarth?” She stumbled a little over my name. “And why?”
“I seek one who has been taken from me, and the trail leads hither.”
“There have been those who came and went.”
“Went where?” I could not restrain my eagerness.
The Mosswife shook her head slowly. “Into hidden ways; they have set a blind spell on their going. None may follow.”
Blind spell? I did not know what she meant. But perhaps she could tell me more . . .
“There was a maiden with them?” I asked. Fuusu nodded to Fubbi. “Let her answer; she saw their passing.”
“There was a maiden, and others. A Great Dark One—”
A Great Dark One; the words repeated in my mind. Had I guessed wrong? Not Dinzil, but one of the enemy . . . ?
“She was of the light, but she rode among dark ones. Hurry, hurry, hurry, they went. Then they took a hidden way and the blind spell was cast,” Fubbi said.
“Can you show me this way?” I broke in with scant courtesy. Danger from Dinzil was one thing, but if Kaththea had been taken by one of the enemy . . . ? Time—time was also now an enemy.
“I can show, but you will not be able to take that way.” I did not believe her. Perhaps I was overconfident because I had already won so far with success. Her talk of a blind spell meant little.
“Show him,” Fuusu ordered. “He will not believe until he sees.”
I remembered to pay the proper farewells to Fuusu and her court, but once outside her tree house I was impatient to be gone. There was no longer a candle-lighted way, but Fubbi put out her hand to clasp mine. Against my flesh hers felt dry and hard, as might a harsh strand of moss, but her fingers gripped mine tightly and drew me on.
Without that guiding I could not have made my way through the moss grown forest. At last it thinned somewhat and there was dawn light about us. It began to rain, the drops soaking into the moss tangles. I saw in patches of earth and torn moss the markings of Renthan hooves and knew I was again on the trail.
As the trees dwindled to bushes and the light grew stronger I saw a tall cliff of very dark rock. It veined with a wide banding of red and was unlike any rock I had seen elsewhere. The trail led directly to it—into it. Yet there was no doorway there, not the faintest sign of any archway. Nothing save the trail led into the stone, over which my questing fingers slid in vain.
I could not believe it. Yet the stone would not yield to my pushing and the prints, now crumbling in the rain’s beat, led to that spot.
Fubbi had drawn her hair about her cloakwise, and the moisture dripped from it, so she was protected from the downpour. She watched me and I thought there was a spark of amusement within her eyes.
“They went through,” I said aloud; perhaps I wanted her to deny it. Instead she repeated my words with assured finality. “They went through.”
“To where?”
“Who knows? A spell to blind, to bind. Ask of Loskeetha and mayhap she will show you her futures.”
“Loskeetha? Who is Loskeetha?”
Fubbi pivoted, one of her thin arms protruded from her cloak of hair to point yet farther east. “Loskeetha of the Garden of Stones, the Reader of Sands. If she will read, then mayhap you shall know.”
Having given me so faint a clue, she drew all of herself back into the mass of hair, and padded away at a brisk trot, into the brush—to be at one with that before I could halt her.
* * *
* * *
VIII
THE RAIN WAS fast washing away the tracks of those who had ridden into the wall. I hunched my shoulders under its drive and looked back at the moss forest. But all within me rebelled against retreat. To the east then. Where was this Loskeetha and her Garden of Rocks? Legend did not identify her for me.
I took the edge of the black and red wall for my guide and tramped on, already well wet by the rain. If any road led this way it was not discernible to my eyes. What grew here were no longer trees, or even grass and brush, such as I had seen elsewhere: but, instead, low plants with thick, fleshy cushions of leaves and stems in one. These were sharply thorned, as I found to my discomfort, when I skidded on some rain-slicked mud and stumbled against one. They were yellow in color and a few had centermost stalks upstanding, on which clustered small flowers, now tight closed. Pallid insects sheltered under those leaves and I disliked what I saw of them.
To avoid contact with this foliage, I wove an in and out track, for they grew thicker and thicker—taller, too—until those center flower stalks overtopped my head. A winged thing with a serpentine neck and reptilian appearance, though it was clothed in drab brown feathers, dropped from the sky and hung upside down on one of those stalks, feasting on the insects it plucked with tapping darts of its narrow head. It paused for only an instant as I passed, showing no fear of me, but staring with small, black beads of eyes in curiosity.
I liked its looks no better than I did of the territory in which it hunted. There was something alien here—another warn-off territory such as the stone forest had been. Yet I did not sense that this was an ensorceled place, rather one unkindly to my species.
The rain dripped and ran, puddling about some of the fleshy plants. I saw tendrils like blades of grass reach out to lie in those puddles, swell, carrying back a burden of water they sucked up. It seemed to me the thick leaves swelled in turn, storing up that moisture.
I was hungry, but I was in no mind to stop and eat in that place. So I quickened pace, hoping to get beyond the growths. Then I came to an abrupt end of planting. It was as if I faced an invisible wall: here, were the plants; beyond, smooth sand. So vivid was that impression that I put out my hand to feel before me. But it met only empty air. The rain about me cut small rivulets in the ground. But—over that sand no rain fell; the sand was unmarked.
I turned my head from left to right. On one side was the cliff wall of black and red. South lay a stretch of the cushion plants. Ahead, to my right, was a line of rocks fitted together into a wall, and between that and the cliff was the smooth sand and no rain.
I hesitated about venturing out on that unmarked surface. There are treacherous stretches about the Fens of Tor which look to the eye as firm as any sea strand. But let a body rest upon them and it is swallowed.
Looking about me, I found a stone as large as my hand.
That, I tossed out, to lie upon the sand some lengths ahead. The stone did not sink. But—more weight? My sword, together with its scabbard, was heavier. I hurled it ahead.
The sword lay where it had fallen. Then I noted the other peculiarity of this ground. Ordinary sand would have been soft enough to let that weight of leather and metal sink in a little. But not this. It was as if the surface, which looked to be fine sand, was indeed a hard one. I knelt and put a fingertip cautiously upon it. It felt as soft as it looked, close to powdery, in fact. But, for all the pressure I could put into that fingertip, I could not push it below the surface.