Even that blazing flare of hope seemed too late, for how could his bound arms
detach the bag from his belt, open it, open the crock inside, and give this
predatory plant a message it might understand?
Answer: he could not.
He could, however, dying, jerk his forearm four or five inches. He did, again
and again, breathless, dying, losing consciousness but still moving, puncturing
the leather bag again and again and banging the point of his knife off the pot
which was smooth, glazed, well made, and 0 damn it all too damned hard\
It broke. Shards punched through knife holes and widened them to let quicklime
spill down in a candent stream. Hanse was sure it hissed in the moist grass
about the moist base of the strangler plant – but Hanse could not hear that
hissing or anything else save the roar of a surf more powerful than life could
withstand.
He slumped, dead now with streamers of caustic steam rising above his legs – and
a suddenly frenetic shrub began waving and snapping its tendrils about as if
caught by the very Compass Bag itself, whence issues the wind of every direction
at once. In those whipping throes it not only released its prey, it hurled him
several feet backwards. He lay sprawled, away from the plant and clear of the
smoking corrosive death about its base, and the soles of his buskins smoked.
Rain pelted his face and he lay still, still, while the killer plant died.
It was not raining in Sanctuary but out of a clear night sky came a sizzling
bolt that hardly rocked the structure that grounded it. The graven name
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