CHAPTER 12
The stories of Old-earth are shared among the people of Old-earth. Even I, Saluez, can identify elephant and whale, ostrich and eagle, serpent and wolf, though they exist no longer. I know that they were and now are not, because of mankind. So, when I wakened under the stone on Perdur Alas to a terror not dreamed but real, I recognized the creatures bringing it upon us.
Snark and Lutha heaved me up, one on either side, and they supported me as we fled. Lutha seemed lost in some apocalyptic vision, concentrated on senses I did not share. Not so Snark. Nothing quenched her insatiable interest, or her avid commentary on each thing it touched.
“Old Tempter,” she said as we fled down the valley toward the beach. “Old Tempter sent ‘em. Wanted to be sure, he did, we knew what was coming. Righteous vengeance, that’s what they’re after!”
Her words rang like the gong by the House Without a Name, awaking dissonant echoes, evoking monsters! The Kachis had also been sent by the tempter. They, too, had been a cacophony of bestial noises and the gleam of fangs!
“You notice Mitigan?” Snark muttered. “Mad! That man is so rageous he’s about to kindle. Sure never figured he’d get beat by snakes! High-and-mighty Asenagi, with Leely spit all that’s keeping him living. Has to be hard for a proud man!”
The fact that she could notice such things while we fled for our lives cut through my panic. If Snark could keep her senses during this wildness, then so could I. I concentrated all my thought and energy on calm, on focus, on breathing slowly, moving deliberately, on noticing what was happening.
It actually helped. It took me out of myself to look at the others, imagining what they felt. Mitigan, as Snark had said, was blazingly angry. So was Leelson, though probably for a different reason. Fastigats like to make sense out of what happens, but Leelson couldn’t get beyond his Firster viewpoint to make sense of this! Jiacare Lostre wore a thin smile, like a seer who knows what is happening, perhaps, or someone who thinks it doesn’t matter. Lutha, of course, wasn’t with us at all. She stared into the distance like one ensorcelled, an inhabitant of some other world.
We halted on the beach, hemmed in on three sides by creatures, on the other by ocean. There we gasped, waiting for what would happen next. I drew the night air deep into my lungs, amazed at the feeling of it, the scent of it! Like the air of a new world! The wind came wildly fresh, with a keening mist and a bluster of cloud.
Snark leaned close against me, supporting either me or herself. Her face was ecstatic as she murmured, “Oooh, they’re lovely. Like flowing gold, snakes.”
She meant it! Inexplicably, she was enraptured!
She nudged me, pointing. “And see the wolves—it’s like I can see them better in the starlight than even in full sun. Look at their fur, Saluez! Soft as clouds, full and sleek. Teeth silver sharp in those laughing jaws. Eyes two smoky mirrors full of what ought to be. Oh, you can see Eden in those eyes! You can see a world stretching away, all green and misty! You can almost hear ‘em, nose up, hollering the moon! They make me feel guilty, like Old Tempter meant ‘em to, but they make me feel more than just that!”
Lutha came to herself abruptly. “Is this your paradise?” she gasped. “Are you finding it in the eyes of wolves?”
“Maybe so,” said Snark. “Are you scared?”
“I’m past being scared,” Lutha replied with a shivery giggle, half-hysterical, that built into a spate of wild laughter, quickly hushed. “Long past!”
Snark laughed with her. “Me too. This is sort of mazy, isn’t it. Like a dream where you’re in deadly trouble, but you go along, kind of floating, and the thing coming after you is monstrous terrible; its eyes fall on you like a horrid light; but it’s righteous! You know how it’s going to come out and all you can hope is you’ll wake up in time or it won’t hurt too much. Like that.”