It was light, and warmer. With one impulse the two boys fell on the tray. It was piled high with food; the luscious grapes they had seen growing, nuts with soft shells which Larry managed to open with the broken blade of his small knife, some soft, spongy, earthy things which smelled like excellent honey. They made a substantial meal, then put the tray down and looked at one another, neither wanting to be the first to speak of the apparent hopelessness of their position.
Larry spoke first, examining the intricate carving of the tray: “They have tools?”
“Oh, yes. Very fine flint knives—I’ve seen them in a museum of nonhuman artifacts in Arilinn,” Kennard returned, “and some of the mountain people trade with them—give them knives and tools in return for certain things they grow: dye-stuffs, mostly, certain herbs for medicines. Nuts and fruits. That sort of thing.”
“They seem to have a fairly complex culture of their own, then.”
“They do. But they fear and hate men, probably because we use fire.”
Larry, thinking of the forest fire—only a few days ago—could not really blame the trailmen for their fears. He examined the cup which had contained the honey. It was made of unfired clay, sun-baked and rough. What else could a culture do without fire?
There were still some fruits and nuts remaining on the tray, so abundant had been the meal. He said, “I hope they’re not fattening us up for their Sunday dinner.”
Kennard laughed faintly. “No. They don’t even eat animals. They’re completely vegetarian as far as I ever heard.”
Larry exploded, “Then what the mischief do they want with us?”
Kennard shrugged. “I don’t know—and I’m damned if I know how to ask them!”
Larry was silent, thinking that over. Then: “Aren’t you a telepath?”
“Not a good one. Anyway, telepathy transmits worded thoughts, as a rule—and emotions. Two telepaths who don’t speak the same language have such different concepts that it’s almost impossible to read one another’s minds. And trying to read the mind of a non-human—well, a highly skilled Hastur-lord, or a leronis (a sorceress like the one you saw at the fire) might be able to manage it. I couldn’t even try it.”
So that, it seemed, was that.
The day dragged by. No one came near them. At evening, another tray piled high with fruit, nuts and mushrooms was slid into their prison, and the old one deftly extracted. Still a third day came and went, with neither of the boys able to imagine a way to get out of their predicament. Their jailer entered their hut, now to give them food and take away their empty dishes. He was a large and powerful creature—for a trailman—but walked with a limp. He seemed friendly but wary. Kennard and Larry discussed the possibility of overpowering the creature and making their escape, but that would only land them in the trailmen’s city—with, perhaps, hundreds of miles of trailmen’s forest country to be traversed. So they contented themselves with discussing plan after futile plan. None of them seemed even remotely feasible.
It seemed, by the growing light, to be noon of the fourth day when the door of their prison opened and three trailmen entered, escorting a fourth who seemed, from their air of deference, to be a person of some importance among them. Like the others, he was naked save for the belt of leaves about his waist, but he wore a string of clay beads mingled with crimson berries, and had an air of indefinable dignity which made Larry, for some reason, think of Lorill Hastur.
He bowed slightly and remarked in perfectly understandable, though somewhat shrill Darkovan dialect: “Good morning. I trust you are comfortable and that you have not been harmed?”
Both boys leaped to their feet as if electrified. He spoke an understandable tongue! The guards surrounding the trailman personage put their hands to their flint knives, but seeing that neither boy made a move toward the man, stood back.
Kennard shouted, “Comfortable be damned! What the mischief do you mean by keeping us here anyhow!”
The trailmen murmured, twittering, in shock and dismay, and the Personage spun on his heel in obvious offense; Kennard instantly changed his tactics. He bowed deeply.