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The day was becoming overcast, with a hint of rain to come in storm clouds building towers far to the south. As they left the mound, they speculated on the chance of carrying fire further into the territory of the House and what that vileness might do in retaliation if further provoked. "I don't think it's at the end of its resources, frankly," Hiero said. "Indeed not, if what you tell of its strength is true, and also what I could feel of the mental barrier it was able to erect between us. How I hate to leave a wicked, unnatural thing like that alive. In a few years, perhaps even less, it will attack again, and we will not be here to save these women and their tree world the next time." "Have you asked where the tree women's men are?" Hiero said, his mind off on a tangent. "No, and if I had, I'm sure the answers would have satisfied 276 HIERO'S JOURNEY no one. These strange, lovely creatures have a secret. Perhaps their males are very ugly, perhaps timid, or perhaps the women dominate them so, they are never allowed out in public. Why not simply accept it and not waste time on profitless speculation? They seem to be our friends at any rate." "Yes." Hiero sighed. "But I had a strange dream, strange but beautiful. It was " He ceased suddenly, for Gimp was looking at him oddly and had stopped walking. "Did your dream have one of them white-skinned gals in it, now, Master Hiero? Just you and her maybe? A real nice dream?" "As a matter of fact, yes." Hiero was too old to blush, but he felt embarrassed. "How did you guess that, Gimp?" "Because me and Blutho and all of the boys, mark you, even old Skelk, who's a bleeding grandfather, we all had the same dream. Each one of us had just one gal, see, and all to ourselves. Nicest dream we ever had, we all agrees. And do you know, none of them naked wenches will even tafk to us this morning! How's that for a peculiar situation, eh?" His snub-nosed face looked both pleased and regretful. As they walked on, Hiero was very thoughtful indeed. At length, when they were back in the cathedral shade of the great trees, Brother Aldo asked to see the Unclean map again, and the three of them bent over it. "The scale is not quite the same as the Abbey map," the priest said, producing that one also. "But it seems to me that the area I must search is quite close to us." He indicated the symbol marking the site of the ancients. "It must be here, I think, in the angle somewhere between the true desert, the southern comer of the blight caused by the House, and the very end of the forest. I'd put it, at a rough guess, between twenty-five and thirty-five miles away. You're used to charts; what do you think, Gimp?" The squat little sailor stared hard at both maps before answering. "That's close to my reckoning also." "And mine." Brother Aldo folded the maps and returned them to Hiero. "Now comes a time for hard decisions, my boy. Have we fulfilled your agreement with Vilah-ree? The House is wounded and driven off but hardly destroyed. And yet 1 feel time presses. There were great waves of mental force used yesterday, both by us, mainly yourself, of course, and also by THE HOUSE AND THE TREES 277 that foul thing out there. In Neeyana and perhaps nearer, too, there are both instruments and evil minds which would take great interest in such phenomena. You have been ruthlessly pursued by the Unclean overlords since you slew that adept far up in the North. Do you think they have given up entirely?" "Not S'duna, at any rate! He swore he'd kill jne or die himself, and 1 believe him. You can't lie at that close range and deceive anyone as trained as 1 am. No, they haven't given up. And S'duna was apparently a person of great power in their councils." "So I think as well. The main eastern trail to the Lantik Sea lies to our south, perhaps no more than four days' good march. If I were the enemy, I would be hurrying eastward along that trail even now, and when I had gone as close as possible to the area, that is, our area, whence came the mental disturbance I had detected, I'd head north. Let us say, to be on the safe side, that a week from yesterday divides us from our foes. Maybe more or maybe less, but a week seems safe." Yet while the old Elevener spoke, his words were being refuted. All that he had said was quite correct, but he, and Hiero too, had gravely underestimated both S'duna's cunning and his malice. An armed and armored host had been collected in the country east of Neeyana, and that host had been on the march for four days, even as the three took counsel! But of this development they were ignorant. As they debated, the clouds overhead grew darker, and a moist wind from the south seemed to promise that rain would come soon. Sooner than the rain, though, came Luchare. They heard her singing to herself, some song of D'alwah, apparently, for Hiero could not understand it. She emerged from a path under the trees and came up to them, her face soft and dreaming. Around her upper arm she wore a lovely, twisted torque of gold, with gems, mostly green, carved as leaves, set in its surface, so that the effect was that of a vine. "Like my present?" she smiled at Hiero and linked her arms around his sinewy neck. "Vilah-ree's farewell gift to me. Gorm's still talking to her. She thinks he's the most interesting of all of us and wants him to come and live here." "Exactly why should Vilah-ree give you a present?" he mused, fingering the heavy armlet, which possessed some of 278 HIERO'S JOURNEY the strange beauty of the giver. "She didn't give me anything, did she?" "Oh 1 loaned her something she wanted. And maybe she did give you something." Her face was now pressed into his buckskin shirt and he could not read her eyes. He felt his suspicions growing as the bits and pieces of evidence in his mind fell suddenly into a pattern he had been trying not to see. He straightened up and held the lovely, dark face firmly between his two hands, so that she was forced to look at him. The other two tactfully had moved away out of earshot. "Where are Vilah-ree's menfolk, my little vixen princess?" His voice was half-angry, half-amused, as he studied the black, defiant eyes. There was a silence, and then she made up her mind. "There aren't any. Her people live a long time, though, when they stay in and near their trees. And they need men, poor things, to have children. But the children they do have are always more girls. They hope that someday, somehow, a boy will be bom. They don't even seem to know how they first appeared here or who or what they are. But they know that human travelers pass south and east of here. And sometimes when a lone traveler or just a few camp for the night, they well..." "Have a very nice dream?" Hiero asked. But he was smiling at her and, encouraged, Luchare somewhat timidly smiled back. "So you made a deal, and I got put out to stud. For a bracelet. Well, it's a nice one, I'll say that." She wrenched herself loose, her breast heaving violently. "Oh you man! I suppose you think I liked the idea of your making love to her! And I never heard of the bracelet until this morning!" She tore the lovely thing off and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |