There was a wrongness somewhere. It disturbed her in her sleep, and her mind fought for it, tried to seize on it, and it seemed somehow elusive yet present and growing more and more ominous.
Mavra Chang awoke, lying motionless. She looked quickly around. They were all there; not only Tael and Renard, but even Doma snored.
She tried to figure out why she was suddenly wide awake. There was some sense of alarm, something that had her suddenly as clear-headed as ever when danger threatened. She reached for the source with her mind and eyes. It was chilly now, yes; it must be well into the night. But that wasn’t it.
Doma suddenly awoke and shook her great head. She snorted nervously. Mavra lifted her head a little, sure now that she wasn’t going crazy. The pegasus sensed it, too.
There it was. A noise. Scrunch-scrunch; scrunch-scrunch, over and over, a little louder each time.
Someone-or something-was walking rather calmly and steadily up the trail, something confident even in the night and snow.
Scrunch-scrunch, the snow was falling under its feet. It seemed to be big.
And now the noise stopped. Whatever it was was right outside the door, she knew. She started to call out, to warn the others, but somehow she couldn’t seem to make a move, only stare at that closed door. Even Doma seemed suddenly calm, but expectant. She was reminded of the Olbornian priest’s power over her, but this wasn’t like that. It was-something else. Something strange, completely new.
The door opened, surprisingly silently considering its rusting hinges and bad fit. A blast of chilly air hit her, and she felt the others stir uncomfortably.
A huge white furry shape was there. It was tall-tall enough that it had to bend a little to stick its head just inside the door. A face looked in at her, and smiled slightly. It raised a huge hairy white paw and put a huge, clawed index finger to its mouth.
GEDEMONDAS-A BACK TRAIL
Antor Trelig cursed for the thousandth time. One mishap after another on this damned journey, he thought sourly. Avalances hi front of them, the trail undercut-almost as if someone was trying to stop them or slow them down, although no one had been sighted of any kind.
The trail was a lot more obvious on the map than it was in reality; it wasn’t well maintained, some of the shelters were in disrepair and obviously had been so for years, and the trail often vanished without visible landmarks, causing the Agitar to have to probe gingerly ahead with their tasts. Their party of fourteen-twelve Agitar, he, and his not-so-loyal wife, Burodir-was now nine, still including Burodir, unfortunately.
But the landmarks were reasonably clear; the terrain was not bad, most of the climbing having been at the beginning, and as many times as the trail had vanished it had also been crystal clear, as if tramped down by the soles of many feet.
This had worried him at first, until he was reminded by the Agitar that this was, after all, somebody’s hex, and somebody had to live in it.
In a way, that thought was the most disturbing. They had neither seen nor heard a native in all this time, in all this way. It made no sense at all that there shouldn’t be some creatures somewhere along the way, except the occasional panic-inducing arctic hare, or whatever it was, and a few small weasellike creatures.
And yet-somehow, they’d made it. Somehow they’d kept to this trail. Somehow they were going all the way. He was, anyway. What the others did was up to them.
He studied the maps and aerial photos from the Cebu scouts. He knew pretty much where he was, although without the prescouting he would have been lost and dead now, he had to admit. The inner ring of mountains, slightly taller than the outer but hidden before now, was clearly ahead. And, just on the other side of that big, glacier-carved peak over there, and over a bit, was a U-shaped valley with a very important large object lying askew on a ledge.
They would not make it today, that was for sure. But sometime tomorrow afternoon, certainly, if nothing else happened.
ALONG THE INTERMOUNTAIN TRAIL
“Ifrit! My field glasses!” Ben Yulin commanded. The cow reached into the pack of her cowife and quickly extracted them.
“Here, Master,” she said eagerly, handing them to him. He took them without a word and put them to his eyes.
They were not merely binoculars; they had additional special lenses that helped his nearsightedness. With the already ground prescription snow goggles, they brought anything within their range into sharp, clear focus.
“Trouble?” growled a low voice next to him.
He looked away and over at the thing. It looked like a walking hairy bush, about as tall as he, with no apparent eyes, ears, or other organs. In actuality, it was not a single creature, but a colony of thirty-six Lamotiens, adapted to the cold weather and the snow.
“That shack up there,” he pointed suspiciously ahead. “Doesn’t look right, somehow. I don’t want any more tricks like that fake trail. We lost two good cows there.” Neither his, he failed to add.
“We lost thirty brothers, don’t forget!” snapped the Lamotien. “We agree it looks strange. What should be done about it?”
Yulin thought a minute, trying to find a good solution without risking his noble neck or his possessions. “Why don’t a couple of you go on up? Turn white or something and take a look around.”
The Lamotien considered it. “Two each, we think. Arctic hares.” The creature seemed to come apart all of a sudden; breaking into small, equal-sized fuzzy masses. Two of the things came off one side and jumped to the snow; two others from the left. Yulin watched, fascinated as always, as the rest of the shaggy creature reformed and readjusted. It looked slightly thinner, but otherwise the same.
Now the two Lamotien in the snow ran together, seemed to blend into one big shaggy lump. The other pair did the same. Slowly, as if there were unseen puppeteer’s hands under the shaggy mops, there was a poking here, a wrinkle there, a bend here, a growth there.
Two arctic hares were there in less than two minutes. They scampered off naturally in the direction of the cabin. The rest waited; only the colony leader had a translator, so they’d have to reform before he knew the story. They didn’t have vocal communication, that was for sure. He wondered if they talked when they melded, became one being with common mind, or what. He’d asked, but the Lamotien told him not to worry about it, the concept was beyond him anyway.
The hares returned in a little more than ten minutes, disconnected, jumped back into the hairy lump, and melded again. The shape was silent for a minute, talking to the scouts or maybe absorbing the scouts’ brief memories.
Finally, it said, “The place is deserted. You’re right about it being funny, though. Lots of packs and supplies still there. Somebody was there not long ago, and left-not of their own will, we’ll wager. Too much stuff left.”
That had him worried. “Think they were the centaurs we’ve been following?”
“Probably,” the Lamotien agreed. “But whoever they are, they’re gone now.”
“Tracks?”
The Lamotien paused. “That’s the funny part. There aren’t any. We see their tracks, lots of snow disturbances where they unpacked, and all that. But no other tracks for hundreds of meters in any direction. None.”
“Well, they didn’t come back this way,” Yulin said, worried now. “So where did they go?”
They all looked around at the silent mountains.
“And with whom?” responded the Lamotien.
ANOTHER PART OF THE FIELD
It seemed that they had walked forever; they had frequent rests-their captors seeming to appreciate their need for more oxygen than the atmosphere now provided-but no conversation. A few grunts and a lot of gestures, none of which the translators would handle, but nothing else.
They were off any trails the Dillians knew, though. Trails so invisible at tunes that the great Gedemondans leading the way in sometimes crazy patterns seemed to be lost themselves. They weren’t, though; they simply knew, somehow, everything that was under the snow.
Doma, carrying both Mavra and Renard, was being led by Tael with the two Lata on her back. In front were four of the giant snow creatures; behind, four more. Others were visible now, here and there, sometimes a large number, sometimes one or two crossing paths.
Mavra still wasn’t sure what they were. They didn’t really remind her of anything, yet they somehow reminded her of everything. All snow white, not even the dirtiness that such thick hair usually displays so well. Tall-Tael was well over two meters, and they were almost a head taller than she-and very slender. Humanoid, yet their faces appeared doglike, snow white with long, very thin snouts and black button noses, their eyes set back, large but very human-looking, and an intense pale blue. Their hands and feet formed huge circular pads when closed, the palms and soles of a tough, white, pawlike material. But when they spread their fingers, their long, thin fingers, they had three and a thumb-although their hands seemed to be almost without bones. They could bend them any which way and flex them and the whole hand in any direction, as if they were made of some kind of putty. Fingers and toes had long, pink claws, the only nonwhite part of them other than the nose. Even the insides of their saucerlike ears were white.
They filled in the tracks by the simplest method imaginable. They wore flowing white capes of some animal fur, and it dragged behind them as they walked, the light top powder filling in behind them. They didn’t sink down into the snow nearly as heavily as they should have; the padlike feet acted almost like snowshoes.
Tracks weren’t a problem here; they knew they were being taken into the mainstream of Gedemondan life, whatever that was. This was the part hidden away from all comers, the part they never let you see.
And that made them wonder. Why them? Did the Gedemondans know they were coming? Were they being helped? Or were they prisoners to be interrogated about all these invasions before being tossed over a cliff? There were no answers, only more walking.
Occasionally the great snow-beasts would pop right up out of the snow. It was unsettling at first, until they realized that there must be trap doors of some kind-whether over ice caves, natural or dug, or rock caves, or even artificial dwellings that were covered with snow they didn’t know. It was clear, though, that one of the big reasons you never saw the population was that they were living and doing whatever it is they did below the snow cover, the art of camouflage coming naturally to them.
Night came, plunging this wintry world into an eerie glowing darkness. The night sky of the Well World reflected off the snowfields in distorted, twinkling wonder. New Pompeii wasn’t visible, but it might not yet have risen, or it might have set, or it might be out of sight behind the distant mountains.
They hadn’t had time to take any supplies. The Gedemondans had been gentle but insistent; when they had protested, they had been picked up as easily as Renard picked up a bag of apples, and plopped down on top of the two best able to carry them, Tael and Doma. Tael was too overawed and a little scared to protest much; Doma seemed curiously at home and docile around the strange creatures, as if they had some mysterious power over her.
Or, they hoped, because she could perceive no threat.
Still they didn’t go hungry. Just after darkness fell they were led to a large cave they would have never known was there, and other Gedemondans brought familiar fruits and vegetables, from where they couldn’t guess, served on broad wood plates, and a fruit punch that tasted quite good.
They even seemed extra concerned about Mavra’s problems. Her dish was higher and thicker, the easier to reach it, and the punch was in a deep bowl so she could drink as she wished.
Renard had not used his electrical powers at Mavra’s suggestion; they were, after all there to contact the Gedemondans, and this was, if nothing else, contact. But he couldn’t resist it, finally, and reached over to a close relative of an apple and applied a small charge that baked it.
The Gedemondans didn’t seem impressed. Finally one who was sitting against the cave wall got up and walked over to him, then crouched down across from him, the plate in the middle. A clawed hand reached out, touched the plate. There was a blinding flash lasting only a fraction of a second, and the plate and fruit just weren’t there any more. Renard was dumbfounded; he reached over, felt the spot where it had been. It wasn’t even warm, yet there were no char marks, debris, or anything but a tiny little odor of ozone or something. The snow-creature snorted in satisfaction, patted him patronizingly on the head, and walked off.
That ended the demonstrations of power.
They were bone-tired and chilled, but they did not spend the night in the cave. Although they didn’t run, it was apparent that their captors were on some sort of schedule, and that they had a particular place for their captives to be at a certain time.
It was several more hours before they reached it, and by that point Tael was complaining to the silent leaders loudly that she couldn’t go a step farther.
It was a solid rock wall, looming ominously ahead in the near-darkness. They started for it, expecting to turn any minute, but it didn’t happen. Instead the wall opened for them.
To be precise, a huge block of stone moved slowly back, obviously on a muscle-powered pulley, and bright lights shone into the darkness. They went on, into the tunnel.
The light was from some glowing mineral that picked up torchlight and magnified it a hundredfold. It was bright as day inside.
The inside of the mountain was a honeycomb; labyrinthine passages went off in all directions, and they were quickly and completely lost. But it was warm-comfortable, in fact-inside, the heat coming from a source they never did discover, and there were strange noises of a lot of work being done-but what was going on it was impossible to see.
Finally, they were at their destination. It was a comfortable, large room. There were several big beds there, filled with soft cushions of fabric, and a large fur rug that was perfect for Mavra. There was only one entrance, and two Gedemondans stood there, conspicuous yet as unobtrusive as possible. This was it, then.
They were too tired to talk much, to even move, or worry about what was in store for them. They were sound asleep in minutes.
The next day all awoke feeling better, but with some aches and pains. Gedemondans brought more fruits, a different punch, and even a bale of hay which could be used by both Tael and Doma. Where that came from there was little mystery; it was a ration at one of the trail cabins.
Mavra stretched all four limbs and groaned. “Oh, wow!” she said. “I must have slept solid and unmoving. I’m stiff as a board.”
Renard sympathized. “I’m not feeling too great myself. Overslept, I think. But we’re the better for it.”
The two Lata, who always slept motionless on their stomachs, still had their own complaints, and Tael said she had a stiff neck. Even Doma snorted and flexed her wings, almost knocking Tael in the face.
The Gedemondans had cleared away the breakfast dishes; now only one was in the room, looking at them with a detached expression.
Vistaru looked at him. Her? No way to tell with them. “I wish they’d say something,” she muttered, as much to herself as to the others. “This strong, silent treatment gives me the creeps.”
“Most people talk too much about too little now,” said the Gedemondan, in a nice, cultured voice full of warmth. “We prefer not to unless we really have something to say.”
They all almost jumped out of their skins.
“You can talk!” Horsuru blurted, then covered, “That is, we were wondering …”
The Gedemondan nodded, then looked at Mavra, still on her side on the rug. “So you are Mavra Chang. I’ve wondered what you would look like.”
She was surprised. “You know me? Well, I’m pleased to meet you, too. I’m sorry I can’t give you my hand.”
He shrugged. “We were aware of your problem. As to knowing you, no. We were aware of you. That is different.”
She accepted that. There were lots of ways of getting information on the Well World.
Tael could not be restrained now. “Why haven’t you ever talked to us?” she asked. “I mean, we had the idea that you were some kind of animals or something.”
Her lack of subtly did not perturb the Gedemondan. “It’s not hard to explain. We work hard at our image. It is-necessary.” He sat down on the floor, facing them.
“The best way to explain it is to tell you a little of our own history. You know, all of you, of the Markovians?” That was not the word he used, but he was using a translator and that’s the way it came out.