Theotormon took a few steps towards him on his rubbery legs and then halted. Vala looked down at the thing and smiled. Luvah snatched the broken sword from her scabbard and went into the water. At that, Vala laughed, and she followed Luvah in. She came back up, took Wolff’s dagger, and dived back down. She and Luvah went to work on the tentacle a few feet from the mouth. The shaft parted; Wolff pulled himself on out with the amputated mouth-part still ensocked on his foot.
The two pieces of flesh could be eaten only after being pounded against the treetrunk to tenderize them. Even then, eating them was almost like chewing on rubber. But it was more food in the stomach.
Afterwards, they advanced gingerly over the plain. At the point by the first butte where the hairs began to cluster thickly, they halted. Now they could see their goal. A half-mile away, on top of a tall butte, was the pair of golden hexagons.
Wolff had picked up the branch that Vala’s fall had broken off. He threw this hard as he could and watched it come down in the hairs. The whole area reacted at once and far more violently than the less haired area. The skin stormed.
“Oh, Los!” Ariston said. “We’re done for! We could never get across that.” He shook his fist at the sky and shouted, “You, our father! I hate you! I loathe you, and abominate the day that you jetted me from your foul loins! You may think you have us where you want us! But, by Los and crooked Enitharmon, I swear that we’ll get to you yet!”
“That’s the spirit,” Wolff said. “For a moment, I thought you were going to whine like a sick dog. Tell the old bastard off! He can probably hear you.”
Ariston, breathing hard, fists still clenched, said, “Brave enough talk. But I still would like to know what to do.”
Wolff said to the others, “Any ideas?”
They shook their heads. He said, “Where is all the diabolical cleverness and weasel agility of mind that the children of Urizen are supposed to have? I’ve heard tales of each one of you, of how you have assailed the stronghold of many a Lord and by your wits and powers have taken his universe from him. What is the matter now?”
Vala said, “They were brave enough and clever enough when they had their weapons. But I think they’re still recovering from the shock of being taken so easily by our father. And of being deprived of their devices. Without those, they lose that which made them Lords. Now, they’re only men, and pretty sorry men at that.”
“We’re so tired,” Rintrah said. “My muscles ache and burn. They sag as if I were on a heavy planet.”
“Muscles!” Wolff said. “Muscles!”
He led them back to the tree. Despite the flame in his back every time he pulled on a branch-agony from the talon-wounds-he worked with a will. The other Lords helped him, and each soon had a bundle of branches in his arms. They returned to the rim of the overgrown area and here began to cast the sticks as far out into the feelers as they could. They did not do it all at once but spaced their throws. The skin reared up like a sea in a hurricane. Waves, craters, wavelets coursed back and forth.
But as the skin continued to be activated, its ragings became less. Near the end of the supply of branches, it began to react feebly. The last stick got no more than a shallow hole and a weak and quickly subsiding wave.
Wolff said, “It’s tired now. Its rate of recovery may be very swift, however. So I suggest we get going now.”
He led the way, walking swiftly. The skin quivered and humped up in response to the warnings from the feelers and broad three-or-four-inch deep holes appeared. Wolff skirted them, then decided he should trot. He did not stop until he had reached the foot of the butte. This, like the first they had passed, seemed to be an excrescence, a huge wart on the skin. Though its sides rose perpendicularly, it was wrinkled enough to give hand and footholds. The ascent was not easy but was not impossible. They all got to the top without mishap.