Doggins said: “What’s that?”
They stopped, listening intently. Niall had heard nothing; the air was filled with the drone of bees and other insects. But as he strained his senses, he seemed to hear a sound like distant voices. Then a bee emerged from one of the purple flowers and buzzed past his ear; as soon as his concentration wavered, the sound of voices ceased.
“Can’t you hear it?” Doggins sounded strained and tense; Niall saw that his face had become very pale.
“Voices?”
“Children’s voices.”
Niall listened intently, and again seemed to catch the sound of distant voices; but it might have been the sound of running water, or the cry of some bird.
“I can hear something, but it’s a long way off.”
“Long way off?” Doggins looked at him in astonishment. “What are you talking about? It’s just over there.” He seized Niall’s forearm and tried to propel him in the direction of the voices.
“No, wait.” Niall resisted the pull; Doggins halted reluctantly. He was obviously in the grip of some powerful emotion. “First, tell me what you can hear.”
Doggins looked baffled and frustrated.
“You already know. Voices.”
“Are they close?”
Doggins stared at him as if doubting his sanity.
“Can’t you hear them?”
“I could hear something. But it’s stopped now.”
Doggins started. “You mean you can’t hear that?”
Niall said: “Listen to me. I think this is some kind of illusion.”
“Then why could you hear it too?”
“I don’t know. I think I was tuning in to your mind.”
“And you really can’t hear them? You’re not joking?”
“Of course not. What do they sound like?”
Doggins was now puzzled and worried.
“Children’s voices.”
“Your children?”
He shrugged. “All children sound alike.” But Niall was not deceived by the casual tone. He placed his hand on Doggins” shoulder.
“There are no voices. They’re inside your own head.”
It was obvious that Doggins only half believed him.
“Then what causes them?”
“I don’t know. But I think I know how to make them stop.” He pointed to the bush with the purple flowers, whose rich, heavy scent made him feel oddly breathless and depressed. “Try cutting that down with your Reaper.” Doggins stared at him blankly. “Do as I say.”
Doggins shrugged, and took several paces backward. He raised his weapon, made sure it was on the lowest setting, then fired. In the woodland shade, the beam looked like blue ice. The bush was so close to the ground that they could not see its trunk; but as Doggins moved the Reaper sideways, it shuddered, then slowly toppled to the ground. As it did so, Niall was suddenly overwhelmed by a series of emotions, a kaleidoscope of pity, terror, rage, grief, wretchedness — and, underlying them all, a hard tinge of cruelty. Then, as the bush struck the ground, and ceased to vibrate under the impact, these feelings passed, like a clamour of angry voices dying into the distance; suddenly, he felt strangely free and light-headed.
Doggins was staring at him in amazement. Niall said: “Well?”
“It’s stopped! What did you do?”
“You did it by cutting down the bush.”
Doggins stared at it. “What difference does it make?”
Niall shook his head. “I don’t understand. All I know is that these things can somehow get inside our minds — like that lizard creature. They can make us imagine things that aren’t there.”
He could see that Doggins found this very hard to accept; to his practical mind, “things that aren’t there” was a contradiction in terms.
“Why did you tell me to cut that one down?”
“Any one would have done. They’re like the spiders — if you destroy one of them, they all feel it.”
As he was speaking, it struck Niall that he could no longer smell the scent of flowers. He leaned forward and sniffed one of the orange blossoms; it was odourless.
“You see? Even the scent wasn’t real. It was inside your mind.”
It was a disturbing realisation: that his senses could be so easily deceived; it made the solid world around him seem unreal and treacherous. Yet as they walked on through the wood, he also felt oddly exhilarated, as if he was breathing cold, clean air. It was as if a burden had been lifted from his senses.
“Your brother’s voice — was that an illusion too?”
“I think it must have been.” His feelings found it difficult to accept, but logic told him it must be true.
“Why do they do it?”
Niall shrugged. “I think they were trying to make us go back.”
“But why?”
Niall made no reply. They were again descending a slope, and it was so steep that they had to walk slowly, leaning backwards to avoid slipping. The trees and bushes were now further apart. And then, quite suddenly, they had passed a line of trees and were out of the forest, looking down a bare slope that terminated in another area of woodland. And over the tops of the trees, less than a mile away, they could see the upper half of the great hill.
To Niall, it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. It had a distinctly rounded appearance, and at this distance it was obvious that the projection at the top was neither a tower nor a tree stump. It was twice as wide at the base as at the top, and it resembled the broken stalk of a vegetable, as if the hill were a giant bulb that had been half-thrust into the earth by some careless gardener. But the almost vertical upper slope on the northern side of the hill resembled a forehead, so the projection looked like an absurdly small hat. Now he knew why the hill produced a strange sense of foreboding; it looked like a living creature. As soon as he saw it, Niall knew beyond all doubt that this was what they were looking for. The wave-like vibration was no longer confined to the ground under his feet; he could feel it pulsing in the air around him, even though the air was perfectly still.
It was a curious sensation, and in Niall it produced a mixture of excitement and antipathy. The excitement was due to the sheer power of the vibration, which seemed as impersonal and as exhilarating as a storm at sea. The antipathy was a feeling that the force lacked delicacy or subtlety; it was like music played too loud.
When he glanced at Doggins, he was intrigued by the expression on his face; he looked as if he had encountered an unexpected and unpleasant smell.
“What is it?”
“Something. . . bad.” Doggins spoke with uncharacteristic hesitation. “Can’t you feel it?”
Niall was curious. “What does it feel like?”
Doggins started to speak, shrugged, and gave it up. He pointed at the dome-like hill.
“That’s what we’re looking for.” He looked at Niall. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s possible.”
Doggins’ lips twisted into a mirthless smile. He raised the Reaper, and adjusted the power to the maximum level.
“This ought to do it, even at this distance.”
Niall said quickly: “Wait.”
“Why?”
“It could be dangerous. Remember what happened when you fired into that pool.”
Doggins lowered the weapon. Niall knew he was deferring to the power of the thought mirror rather than to his argument. He was surprised at his own sense of relief.
They moved on down the slope. The ground was smooth and hard, like volcanic lava, and its surface was made more treacherous by thousands of tiny channels worn by rivulets of rain.
The wood that faced them was quite different in character from the one they had left behind. The tree-trunks were so twisted and distorted that few of them seemed to grow upright, and were so close together that their exposed roots were entangled. This meant that their branches and foliage — which was of a very light green colour — were so interwoven that they gave the impression of being a continuous roof. The wood stretched for several miles in both directions, and seemed to form an impenetrable barrier.
Half-way down the slope, Niall observed a curious phenomenon. Every step forward was becoming increasingly difficult, as if they were wading through water. Doggins glanced at him but said nothing. Both recognised the signs of an opposing will. A dozen yards further on, the resistance had become so strong that they no longer had to lean backwards against the slope; they had to walk bending forward, as if into a strong wind. Their feet slipped on the smooth surface as they tried to push their way forward. Finally, when they were within a hundred yards of the trees, further advance was impossible. It felt as if an invisible gale was holding them at bay. Niall bent double and tried to creep forward, but it was as if hands were resting on his shoulders, pushing him back. They both sat down on the ground, and looked at one another. Both were breathless, and perspiring heavily. Doggins grinned defiantly.