Hiero's Journey

8. THE PERIL AND THE SAGE

The huge raft was even clumsier than Hiero had feared. Still, with patience, it was just possible to move it slowly along. The chief problem was the vast, tangled mats of vegetation which lay entwined on the water’s surface. He had to lean over and cut them aside with his sword, and he finally sat down and lashed the sword firmly to one end of his pole. He used leather thongs from his repair kit and tied everything twice before he was satisfied.

From then on, he could cut more easily, and without having a fear that something would seize his arm as he leaned far over the raft’s edge, and also without having to put down the pole.

Something bad near! suddenly came the bear’s mental voice. Not a human, something else which thinks and not-thinks.

Hiero rested on his pole, and so did Luchare. The great raft moved sluggishly forward for a few yards on momentum alone while all strained to hear the night, both with physical senses and mental ones. But there was nothing, nothing save the almost deafening chorus of frogs and insects, a medley of croaks, trills, and stridulations which made ordinary speech almost inaudible.

It is gone, Gorm sent. It was quick, like a moving fish. Now—nothing.

The priest did not delude himself into believing the bear might be mistaken. Gorm’s alertness had saved them several times already. If his quick mental perceptions, which after all were not human, had detected something, then something was there!

Thinks and not-thinks! There was no time to try and find out what the bear meant, not now. Worried and frustrated by the intangible menace, Hiero looked all around, taking in the still, dark water, the nearer buildings, and the patches of floating plants. He noted in passing that Klootz’ huge, flat antlers were hung with the last shreds of velvet and were now almost ready for use as weapons.

But under the pale moonlight, nothing stirred. At last Hiero signaled to Luchare and thrust his pole deep in the mud again. Once more, the ponderous raft slid forward, headed for the wide opening between two towering ruins. Frogs blinked and fell silent, their cold eyes goggling from huge lily pads and bladderworts as the cumbersome thing went by. Once it had gone, the renewed chorus broke out in its wake.

As they passed into the first shadows of the shattered monoliths, the raft met with its first major check, a tangled mass of some floating weed. Hiero ran to the front of the raft (it had no real bow) and began to hack with his pole-knife while Luchare aided him by thrusting the cut portions aside. Fortunately, there was deep water under the weeds; and, once cut, they were little trouble. Still, it was arduous work, for the raft had to be poled a few yards and then the cutting had to commence again. It was to be only the beginning of such work.

Through the night, the raft’s slow progress continued. Black windows and gaping rents in the rotted, ancient masonry leered down at the wayfarers as they struggled on. Once, a cloud of bats issuing from one such ruin and swirling up across the face of the moon made everyone jump, but beyond that, nothing happened but hard work.

On two occasions they encountered a bank of thick mud, risen up invisible under the water plants ahead, and were forced to backtrack and seek another opening through the maze of the old city. Fortunately, there was one available each time. Again, while crossing wide stretches of water (perhaps, Hiero reflected, the remains of ancient squares or parks), they had lost touch with the bottom entirely. He blessed God’s aiding his forethought in cutting the crude paddles. The silt-laden water was so clam that even these were sufficient to move the raft along until the poles could be brought into use once more.

As the first light of dawn came into the eastern sky, the Metz looked forward at his human partner, and somehow both managed to grin. They were both filthy, drenched in sweat, palms blistered by their pole work, and it seemed that not an inch of their bodies was unbitten by gnats and mosquitoes. But they were alive and healthy, and they must have come quite a distance, which was some satisfaction.

“I don’t want to travel by day, not in this place,” Hiero said aloud. “Look, over there, a sort of sloping place. We can spend the day there and still be at least partly hidden.”

The rapidly growing light revealed them to be in one of the numerous squares, as Hiero had come to call them. On three sides, vast and rotted stone structures loomed up far above their heads, pierced with countless windows and ancient scars and rents, black openings on nothing. Long vines and twisted lianas hid many other places.

The fourth side was more hopeful,, however. Some huge building had evidently collapsed under the weight of the countless years, and in the not-too-distant past. The result was a great pile of rubble and broken stone, thrusting up in an irregular mound from the quiet waters of the lagoon. A few large bushes grew in one place, probably survivors of the original structure, but otherwise it was quite bare of vegetation.

Soon the raft lay in a shallow cove next to the island mound. Leaves covered it, and to a casual inspection, it was one more tangle of drifted logs. The travelers, two- and four-legged, soon were huddled together under the clump of bushes, waiting in sticky irritability for the sun to rise even higher and add another dimension to their discomfort.

Gorm—what was the thing that frightened you? Hiero sent. The mind touch you caught as we started, I mean.

Something new, the bear admitted, as he tried to cover his sensitive nose from the crowding mosquitoes. Only one, whatever it was; a bad mind, quick, sly, full of hate for everything not like itself But not a human, not any animal I know either. Maybe—there was a pause as the young bear reflected—maybe, a little like a frog, but one that thinks!

While the others absorbed this, he added, It went away. Perhaps to find more. With this parting message, he covered his nose completely with his forepaws and fell asleep. His thick, black fur saved him from most of the other bites, and he seemed to have the ability to sleep anywhere, at any time.

“We’ll have to keep watch,” Hiero said to the girl. “Try and sleep, and I’ll take the first one.” He wiped the sweat from his eyes with a filthy hand and managed to get dirt in one of them. As he rubbed harder, Luchare pulled his hand down and from somewhere produced a damp and (relatively) clean cloth with which she sponged his face, cleaning his eye out in the process.

“There,” she said in a tone of satisfaction. “Now keep your dirty fingers out of it. What do you think Gorm felt, Hiero? Could he be imagining things? This place is enough to make anyone have bad dreams, even a bear.” She looked out at the brooding land, or rather waterscape, before them. Even under the now completely risen sun, the silent hulks of the past were not a pleasant sight. The green vegetation mats of water plants, the vines crawling up the buildings’ shattered faces, the trees and bushes on their pinnacles, all added to the feeling of desolation.

“He doesn’t imagine things,” the priest said. He was trying to ignore the dirty, but enchanting, face so close to his and concentrate instead on what he was saying.

“There’s something here, maybe a lot of somethings. I can’t tap the mental channels, but I can feel thought going on around me, do you understand. Maybe several kinds of thought. We’re going to have to be careful, very careful.” And lucky, very lucky, he added to himself.

Another long day passed. They ate and drank sparingly. The canteens were running low, and though Klootz and the bear did not seem to mind the lagoon water, Hiero tested it and it was foul, full of green matter and with a sickening smell. He did not intend to drink of it except as a last resort.

The sun reached zenith, and the afternoon began and slowly waned. Luchare finally slept, and so did both animals. Save for the humming insects, which never ceased their myriad assault, no sound broke the silence. The towers were empty of bird life, and none appeared in the blue, cloudless sky. Listening on all the mental channels known to him, the priest could detect no coherent thought. Yet all around him, intangible and in stealth, some spying, probing presence seemed to glare at them. A busy undercurrent of activity was at work; he felt it in his bones, but could neither actually locate nor identify it.

They had just repacked the raft and were easing the big morse aboard when they froze in their tracks. The light of late evening still let them see the buildings around them clearly, but their eyes could detect no movement. The frog chorus had barely begun.

From out of the distant east, in the direction they themselves wanted to travel, there came the same strange cry they had heard the previous evening. The frogs fell silent.

“Aoooh, aoooh, aaaoooooouh,” it wailed mournfully. Three times it came, and then there was silence once more, save for the insect buzz. Slowly the frogs began again, while the two animals and their human friends stood in the gathering dark, each immersed in his or her own thoughts.

“Oh, I hate this place!” Luchare burst out. “It’s not like the rest of the world at all, but some dead, wet, horrible wasteland full of moaning ghosts! The City of the Dead!” She broke into tears, burying her face in her cupped hands. Her long-held control had finally given way.

Hiero moved to her side and put his arms around her and patted her back, until at length her wet face was raised to his, a question in the great eyes which he had no trouble answering. He lowered his head and drank in the wild sweetness of her lips for the first time. Her strong, young arms rose and tightened around his neck, and when the kiss finally ceased, she buried her face in his jacket. He still stroked her back, saying nothing, his eyes staring sightlessly over her head into the gathering night. The bites of a dozen midges and mosquitoes were unfelt.

“What was that for?” came a muffled voice from his shirt. “A present for a frightened child?”

“That’s right,” he agreed in cheerful tones. “I do that to all the scared brats I meet. Of course, sometimes it recoils on me. I might even get to like it.”

She looked up at once, suspicious that he was laughing at her, but even in the last light of day, what she saw in his eyes was so plain that her face was jammed back into his chest once more, as if what she had read in his expression had scared her. There was another short silence.

“I love you, Hiero,” came a small voice from his chest.

“I love you, too,” he said almost sadly. “I’m not at all sure it’s a good idea. In fact, I’m fairly certain it’s a bad one, a very bad one. I have been set a task so important that the last sane human civilization may fall if I should fail to carry it out. I need a further distraction like a third leg.” He smiled down at the angry face which had popped up again.

“I seem to be helpless, however.” He tightened his grip around the firm body. “Win or lose, we stay together from now on. I’d worry more if you were somewhere else.”

She snuggled closer, as if somehow she could bind herself to him. They stood thus, the world forgotten until a mental voice whose very flatness made it seem sardonic broke in.

Human mating is indeed fascinating. But we are in a dangerous place to study it. That is something of which I feel certain.

This acted like a pail of cold water. They almost sprang apart. Studiously ignoring the bear, who sat looking up at them from the middle of the raft where he sat next to Kiootz, they seized their poles and pushed off into the humming, croaking dark. The moon had not yet risen, but the stars were out, and both of them had excellent night vision.

Once again, a night of toil and discomfort lay before them. Yet they detected no signs of an enemy, though there were moments when the appearance of one would have come as an almost welcome distraction. On and on through the drowned city they poled, hacked, and paddled their way. Hiero fell overboard once, but popped back up in a second, streaming foul, muddy water, at least cool for a few seconds.

The moon rose and made their task a little easier. The silent, black buildings stared down from a thousand ruined eyes as they struggled past. Perhaps they were following boulevards and esplanades which had once echoed to the tramp of vanished parades. All were buried now, forgotten and lost under the weight of centuries of mud and water.

Luchare and Hiero had become so inured to their toil that the first light of dawn was a surprise, brought to their notice by the fact that they could now see one another’s faces clearly.

“My love,” the priest said wearily, “if I look half as dirty and tired as you do, I must be the worst-looking thing around.”

“You look much worse,” was the answer. “I may never kiss you again, at least not until I can scrape you off with a knife first.” Tired as she was, the girl’s voice was buoyant with love and happiness.

“Look at that damned morse,” Hiero grunted, changing the subject. “He’s getting back at me for all the riding, galloping, spurring, and general hard labor I’ve put him through.”

Klootz was indeed asleep, only his great ears twitching under his antlers, giant legs tucked neatly under his barrel. Beside him, the bear also slept on, as usual allowing nothing to come between him and his rest.

“They’re supposed to be on watch. We could have been eaten by now with guards like that!”

“I know, Hiero, but we haven’t been. I’m so tired and dirty it would almost be a relief, anyway. Where are we, do you suppose?”

The raft was drifting slowly along what once must have been a mighty avenue. The close-packed buildings on either side were so tall, even in their antique ruin, that most of the sunlight never reached the water lapping at their sides. As a result, few plants grew here. The water, too, seemed much deeper. The two had been using the paddles for the last hour or so.

They could see light far ahead and equally far behind, but great, ruined structures hemmed them in on both sides. There were bays and gaps in the looming, moss-hung cliffs and walls of stone, shadowed niches and caves, but the general effect was that of being in the bottom of some vast canyon. As the daylight grew, this effect was heightened, rather than the reverse.

Hiero looked about him carefully. Then his eye returned to one spot; he saw something which sent a cold chill up his spine.

Luchare! His mental voice jolted her as no spoken word could have. Don’t make a sound. Look at that opening to the right, at the water through the big hole in that building.

The gloomy light was nevertheless quite strong enough to delineate the place Hiero was staring at. A huge masonry wall, or possibly a vast gate, for it was hard to tell, had collapsed in a distant age. The water flowed through the wide gap and into a still pool, hundreds of yards across, completely surrounded by more shadowed and lofty structures as far as the two could see.

In the middle of the pool, directly opposite the entrance to the watery “street” on which now rode the raft, a tall, thin object rose directly from the surface of the quiet water. At first, Hiero had assumed that it was some inanimate structure of an unknown type, perhaps a spire of some long-sunk house. But his eye had strayed back to it, warned by a physical sense he could not define, and with a thrill of horror he saw that it was ever so gently moving. Then the shape, like that of a giant amber leaf, complete with ribs, or vanes, became clear. They were looking at a colossal fin, whose owner lay just under the turgid surface of the water. The sheer bulk of the creature defied the imagination.

It must lie there in ambush, Hiero sent, waiting for what passes. If we stay still, there’s a chance.

Indeed, a gentle current was taking them past the opening, although at a rate which seemed absolutely leaden. The two animals still lay in the center of the raft, apparently asleep. Yet both were not.

I heard you, came Gorm’s thought. What is the danger? I can see nothing.

Something very large, just under the water, came Hiero’s answer. Do not move. It watches. It could eat this whole raft, I think. I will try to reach its mind.

Try he did, on every mental band he knew, including the new one he had learned to use while on Manoon. But as the raft lazily drifted on, he had to acknowledge defeat. Whatever monster lay embayed back there, it sent out nothing he could distinguish from the thousands of other life essences in the waters around them. The size of the thing was no clue to its mental activity, and its sheer bulk gave off no mental radiation, at least not any that he could perceive.

They drifted until even the buildings around the place where they had seen the fin were out of sight. Then and then only did Hiero signal to Luchare to resume paddling. And both did so with great care, being careful to splash as little as possible.

They had still a very long way to go down the gloomy canyon when Hiero exclaimed aloud, “Push her over to this side. I see something we badly need.”

Between the two of them, they got the raft wedged into the angle of a great building which jutted out a little beyond its fellows. Hiero told Luchare to hang on and hold it there.

“Look,” he said, “we’re in luck—a copper band around this level of windows.”

He had glimpsed the sickly verdigris of the copper as the raft approached it and remembered their three-quarters-finished crossbows. Using his belt knife and the pole’s butt end, he managed to pry a strip weighing several pounds loose and onto the raft. Under the coating of verdigris, the metal was untouched.

“I think it’s bronze,” he said, looking carefully at it. “Better than copper too, lots harder. We have enough to tip a hundred arrows here. Lucky it lasts forever.”

Luchare shivered. “I’m glad too, but let’s get moving. I still find this place makes me sick. All those old windows seem to be watching us. And where are we going to spend today? The sun’s all the way up now, even if it looks so gloomy down here.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to keep paddling, that’s all. Maybe we’ll find an island or a cove or something. Perhaps an opening in the side of one of these buildings. One without an occupant,” he added.

Despite the steady increase of light, they had little choice, save to keep moving. The gentle current was growing stronger, for one thing, and for another, no more large breaks in the walls of stone occurred. The eddying stream helped now, though; the opening at the far end of the long line of buildings drew rapidly closer, far more rapidly than if they had been forced to propel themselves unaided. And the current also had prevented the formation of any mats of vegetation, so that no more cutting was necessary.

Still, it was almost noon when the raft shot from the darkness between the lines of towering ruins and out into the sunlight. For a moment the passengers were dazzled by the light, but when they saw clearly, Luchare let out an exclamation of delight and, dropping her paddle, clapped her hands together.

They had emerged into, and now were drifting in, a small lake whose clear blue water indicated great depth and a probable close connection with the Inland Sea. Around its fringe, many buildings formed a ring, save in one direction, the south, where a wide gap was evident.

But it was the middle of the lake that held their attention. A small, green island, covered with bushes and palm trees and showing patches of grass here and there, rose out of the lake’s waters. Bright-colored flowers, yellows and blues, glowed amid the herbage. And flocks of small birds circled here and there, while a raft of mingled geese and ducks, brown and white, fed in the shallows on the side facing the raft. After the days and nights in the gloom and stench, the insects and frogs, the fear and the labor, the place looked like Paradise.

“Come on, Hiero,” she urged. “Let’s get over there quickly. That place is big enough even to have a spring. We can get clean. Those trees may have fruit, and we can probably get a few ducks. Hurry!”

But the priest stood immobile, holding his paddle. True, the island did indeed look inviting. Perhaps too much so! He had not forgotten, tired though he was, the stealthy sensations of the past few days, the weird calling in the twilight, the feeling that the party were somehow being kept under observation. This place was still surrounded by the drowned city and its ravaged buildings, attractive though it looked.

But fatigue won over caution. They had to rest somewhere, and both he and Luchare were nearly at the end of their respective ropes. Also, the need for food, fresh food, and clean water was urgent. And the animals needed them both as well.

“Come on, then,” he said and began to paddle. “At least we can hide there for the rest of the day. But don’t talk so loudly! This place is no Abbey home for the aged and unwell! I still sense some strange mental undercurrent that scares me, that I can’t pin down.”

A gently sloping beach on one end made the little island almost perfect. And there was a spring, or rather a dew pond, filled with clear, sweet water, set in the island’s center and surrounded by tall ferns and sweet-smelling flowers. To make matters complete, Hiero found a bed of freshwater clams in the shallows of the beach, and the three carnivores feasted on the raw, juicy shellfish until they could hold no more. Klootz paid the clams no attention but began to put away pounds of grass and shrubbery at once.

By mid-afternoon, washed, cleaned, and with full stomachs, all were fast asleep, save for Klootz, who still roved the island, selecting the finest bits of leaf and twig while mounting an alert watch at the same time. Even he had rolled in the clear water, and now he was engaged at intervals in rubbing the last of the soft velvet off his great rack of gleaming, black antlers. At times he paused and looked about, then, seeing nothing, fell to eating again.

So exhausted were the two humans that they slept through the afternoon and most of the entire night that followed. Hiero awoke in the darkness before dawn and realized at once what had happened. Before he could even form a self-reproach, the bear’s voice echoed in his mind. You needed the rest. Nothing has come near. But still—something watches. I know it, just as I know the sun rises.

We must be alert, Hiero replied. He stretched, feeling so stiff that he could hardly move, although the sleep had done him a lot of good.

Luchare awoke at the movement from her place nearby. “Is that today’s new sun, that dim glow? We must have had a long sleep. But I still feel like sleeping again. Is that wicked?”

“No, it’s not. We’re both still exhausted. I’m going to declare a rest day. I think we can finish those crossbows and cut some bolts for them too, which will make me feel a lot better. We’re going to need some missile weapons for hunting, if for no other reason,”

The day began more pleasantly than any in weeks. Hiero managed to finish his own crossbow and to cut some bolts from seasoned dead saplings washed up on the island’s shore.

Luchare was no help, for she spent most of the time arranging her hair, bathing, and pelting Hiero with bunches of flower petals whenever she caught him looking “too serious.” At mid-afternoon, he gave up on any further work simply to lie with his head in her lap while she gossiped about her past life and speculated on their future together.

“I hope we have a long and happy one, love,” he said at last. “But we’re a far and distant way from it now. And you’ve never mentioned, in all your gabble, just what led you to run away from D’alwah. An arranged marriage, one might guess?”

She gasped in astonishment. “I knew it! You were too peering into my mind!”

“No.” He smiled up at the indignant face and with his finger transferred a kiss on the end of the dark, aquiline nose. “You admitted you were no slave once before. You’re the daughter of one of your great nobles, I imagine, because, by your own admission, only the priesthood and the nobility get a chance to learn as much as you have. So it was a fairly easy guess. How great a noble is your father, in your own country’s terms, I mean?”

“The greatest,” she said in dull tones. There was a silence.

“The actual king, eh?” Hiero no longer smiled. “Now that’s a pity. Are you the only child? It might be important.”

“I had one older brother, but he was killed in a battle with the Unclean. My father wanted me to marry and cement an alliance with the next most powerful state. I knew, everyone knows, ail about Efrem of Chespek. He beats and tortures his concubines. His first queen went mad and he had her blinded, divorced her as not being legally married, since the kings cannot marry people who are physically maimed, you see, and put her in a nunnery. That’s what I was running away from.”

“Can’t say as I much blame you,” Hiero said, chewing a grass stem. “I rather was hoping to establish contact with various countries, especially yours, so that I could open a trade route and, more important, we could start to recivilize your area. Stealing a princess, the only princess, is a bad start.”

She bristled. “What do you mean ‘recivilize?’ I’ll have you know, Per Desteen, my bearded priestling, D’alwah is a great and powerful nation, with two walled cities and countless churches and other big palaces and buildings of stone. To say nothing of a great and brave army!”

Hiero smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. He rolled over on his stomach and still said nothing, his chin pillowed on his arms, apparently staring away off over the lake.

“I see,” she said after an even longer pause. “Those things aren’t enough to be called civilized by themselves, are they, Hiero?”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked. “They go along with a basis of chattel slavery, a stranglehold on wealth and education by a small, propertied class, crushing taxes, a state religion which seems to have degenerated, at least in part, into sheer superstition, and finally, incessant, bloody warfare with your neighbors. That last would be too silly and meaningless in any case, but it weakens your society terribly, just when it needs its strength the most to fight the Unclean and the ravening monsters of your own forests. Now, you tell me if that’s civilization. I’d call it pretty advanced barbarism and a plain path downhill to complete ruin.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “It’s just that, having been raised as the royal princess of D’alwah and flattered and lied to by everyone from the time I could talk, I had no way of knowing anything could, or should, rather, be any different.”

“I know,” he said, patting her shoulder. “The amazing thing, little princess, is that you turned out the way you did. Not only lovely but smart, smart enough to admit you don’t know everything. The only kind of brains worth having, that is.”

Her face bent over his, and he pulled her down. The tall grass hid them from any observation, and he breathed into her ear, “Now?”

“I’m afraid,” was the husky, low-voiced answer. “I’m a virgin. That’s one reason I was supposed to be so valuable.”

“You’ll be my wife when we can find another priest. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my wife right now. And my love. Forever and ever, until God calls us home. That’s what our marriage service says.”

Her lips came down on his then and silenced him. The grasses waved gently in the afternoon sun. Once there sounded a small cry, so soft and brief that even the bear could hardly hear it These humans! he thought. At least that’s over with and we can concentrate on other matters. He drowsed too in the warm sunlight, half-listening to the grinding sounds of Klootz remorselessly demolishing his cud, over and over. The island slept, the silence broken only by the muted call of birds and insect hum.

They both awoke in early evening, or rather were awakened. Neither one said a word as they quickly drew on their clothes. The messages from Gorm, Awake! They come! had hit their two sleeping brains like a thunderclap. In the instant that this took, the terrible wailing cry which had grown so familiar to them came again, louder than they had ever heard it, and this time it did not cease.

“Aoough, aaaouugh, aaaooough!”

Now, in great volume, it came from all around them. In the half-light over the twilight lagoon, their island no longer seemed a haven of safety, but a tiny morsel of helpless sanity in a chaotic and implacable world. Hiero himself spared a brief and regretful thought for their first love-making, sandwiched between perils and duties, a moment already pre-doomed to evanescence.

With the morse and the bear, they rapidly took stations in the center of their island. Around them, the booming menacing wail grew louder still. “Aoough, aaaooough, aaough!”

Now, clearly outlined in the yet strong light, the travelers saw their enemies, and all knew at once that they had been watched from the beginning of their voyage through the drowned metropolis.

From every side but the open south they came, in small, narrow craft, half raft, half canoe, apparently made of tightly bound reeds, pointed at either end. From out between the encircling buildings, across the quarter mile of open water around the island, the strange craft surged, propelled by their owners’ webbed hands, as well as paddles. And the white heads in the water between the boats showed where many more were coming fast by simply using their native element.

A new Leemute! Take a frog, Hiero thought, and stand him up; give him a high-vaulted skull and a pallid skin, white and sickly-looking. Give him evil black eyes, like huge bubbles of sparkling, vicious jet. Give him almost man size. Give him knives of bone, as white as his skin, and spears offish bone and bleached bone clubs. And give him hate! As the things came steadily on, the priest thought of Gorm’s first impression. A frog that thinks. Must have been a scout and we’ve been stalked.

The wailing, sobbing cry which had filled the air suddenly ceased. And only then did Hiero realize that the frog-things themselves were utterly silent. The strange noise had come from the buildings all around them but not from the creatures themselves. Was it a signal to attack? Who had made it? Many other questions filled his mind, but there was no time for any of them. The first attackers had reached the island and were swarming ashore.

The priest’s first instinct had been correct: get away from the lagoon and meet the frog creatures on dry land. They ran awkwardly, half-hopping, half-scuttling, and were obviously far less at ease with solid dirt under their great, webbed toes than with the swamp ooze or water. Still, there were many of them and only four of the travelers. But now Hiero had lapsed into the cold killing fit of his Abbey training. Defeat was not even a consideration. Luchare got the first one. Her long lance, the extendible javelin Hiero had taken from the Unclean priest, licked out, and a frog-thing’s throat opened in scarlet. A shower of the barbed bone spears came whistling and everyone ducked. One struck Hiero full on the breast and he gasped. It had hardly penetrated the skin! The amphibian Leemutes were no spearmen. Apparently their skinny arms were not shaped for throwing. Even so, though this was a boost to morale, quickly communicated to the others, there were apparently hundreds of the ugly creatures swarming up the gentle slope from the water. And they will be getting harder to see. Hiero thought, for the light was now fading fast.

But again, the things’ own physical characteristics worked against them! As the light died, they became more, not less, visible! A strange, spectral glow emanated from their dank, squamous skins, and they were thus outlined in their own luminescence. A weird and frightening sight, no doubt, but not to trained fighters, and by this time Luchare was one too!

Klootz! Hiero sent. To me!

The big morse had been guarding the left flank while the bear held the right, keeping his ground and scything with his great antlers at any Leemute who ventured near. They were afraid of him, and few of them tried that side.

Now he lunged forward between Hiero and Luchare and, at a word, crouched. Both swung up into the big saddle, one spear couched to the left, the other to the right.

“Charge!” the priest shouted. Around the island, you big clown, sent his mind. Clean up on them! Follow us, Gorm!

Hiero had suddenly seen the best, indeed the only, method of attack. Once the strange characteristics of the frog-things became apparent, it was obvious. Individually no menace, they yet swarmed in such numbers that they might pull down an immobile foe if allowed to. But if attacked, and on solid earth where their weak land legs made them doubly vulnerable, things might be different!

The giant bull morse was a creature such as they had never seen, and he was almost invulnerable to their feeble darts, which could barely do more than annoy him. The low bushes and the few trees were no impediment to his charge at all, and he simply tore through the glow of the crowding frog creatures as if they were not there. Their gaping mouths, rimmed with needle fangs, opened voicelessly in terror and rage. But save for the stamping, snorting, and grunts of the morse, the growling of the bear, and the gasps of the humans, the strange battle was fought in utter silence. Even as he thrust savagely with his spear, Hiero wondered at the creatures. He had been able to detect no mental activity at all, and since they seemed voiceless, how on earth did the creatures communicate? Twice around the islet they charged, scattering havoc through their phosphorescent foes.

Suddenly, they had won, at least for the present. With no signal that either human could see or hear, a scuttling, shambling rush back to the lagoon began. One instant they were surrounded by a hideous, glowing pack of nightmare demons; the next, innumerable blobs of living light were ebbing away to the water’s edge. Even as Hiero signaled a halt, he observed that the dead and wounded were being taken too. Probably to eat, he thought sourly, unwilling to concede any decent values to the squattering Leemutes.

“They’re gone,” Luchare breathed, bloody lance resting across the saddlebow in front of her.

“Yes, but not very far; look!”

The island now was surrounded by a ring of cold fire! The amphibian horde lay in the water, aboard their reed boats or simply floating; it was hard to tell in the dark. But one thing was obvious: they were not going away. “I think they’ll be back all right, come first light probably,” the priest continued. “Anyone hurt here?” Are you all right, Gorm? Klootz, any wounds?

Their weapons are weak. I thought they might have poison on the points, but there is nothing. I am not even scratched.

Klootz shook his great antlers angrily. Drops of dark, evil-smelling blood flew back and caught his two riders in the face.

“Phew! I guess you’re all right too?”

The man and woman dismounted and stood looking through the night at the weird cordon of light for a moment.

“Come on,” Hiero said at length. “Let’s clean our weapons and get some food into us. Then we can rest again. I’ll take first watch. I’ve almost finished my crossbow, and I want to start to cut and trim some quarrels and bolts. The moon’s rising again, and there should be enough light.”

“I’m not staying asleep while you work!” his young lady stated flatly. “Maybe we can finish both of the bows between us.”

The love and trust in her voice caused a pang deep in Hiero’s breast. He had not admitted how forlorn it all looked, even to himself. What could the morning bring but another attack, one in overwhelming numbers this time? His ideas about completing the crossbows were only to avoid having to face the inevitable. Ringed by water and countless aquatic foes, what help could they count on in escaping? None.

A true Killman never gives up, said one part of his training. A priest trusts in God, said another. You’ve been stuck before; look at Manoon, now, said a third. He laughed, a quick, short bark, and Luchare looked curiously at him. But she said nothing. She was learning that her strange lover was a man of moods.

“All right,” he said, “let’s get busy, then. Our two fur people can keep watch.”

It must have been well after midnight when Hiero suddenly stiffened, his sensitive hands pausing, immobile over their work of cutting vanes for the crossbow bolts. A strange mental signal had come to him. Something inimical moved in the night, but behind a shield he could not penetrate. Yet he was conscious of it coming, like a menacing cloud, which still conceals whatever lies within its heart.

Quickly he woke the others, for Luchare had long since collapsed, exhausted, despite her earlier boasts.

I feel it too, came from the bear. What it is I cannot tell, but you are right; it comes through the dark in our direction. It comes from there. He indicated the south, where the open water lay.

“Unclean!” Hiero burst out in despair. “These damned frog Leemutes must be more of their allies. The feeling hung around them like an evil stench, and I couldn’t put two and two together!” We should have tried to leave earlier, even if it meant fighting our way through the line out there. At least the danger from those things only hits at the body!

Patience, was the bear’s calm reply. You chose the best way you knew. You are our leader. We have escaped other traps. There was a pause, as if the strange, literal, ursine mind was considering something new. Then there came a note of something surprising to Hiero—a touch of humor. Let us not die before we truly are killed.

Hiero probed the star- and moonlit night, using all the new power of his own mind. The inchoate force continued to approach steadily, and at last, just before dawn, he too was able to pinpoint its direction, the same as that which the bear had found. With the coming of daylight, he guessed what he would see. The familiar “feel” of the enemy, even masked and hidden, was unmistakable.

Quietly, he gave his instructions to the others, not even excluding Klootz.

Luchare stared at him, wide-eyed. “Must we die, beloved? Is there no way out, no other hope?”

“I see none, dearest. They took me alive before, and they will make no mistakes this time. From my brain, from all our living brains, they could force knowledge, a knowledge which would probably ensure their ultimate triumph. The ancient weapons I seek would be an irresistible force in their hands, plus whatever the bear knows and my own new skills in mind-fighting.” He smiled sadly down at the dark, haunting face, ringed by its tight, black curls. “I have two death pills,” he went on. “Here is one. Klootz will not be taken alive.” Gorm, can you die fighting? Will you?

If necessary, was the answer. My Old Ones laid that on me, just as yours did. When you give the word, that is enough. Still, let us wait for the dawn.

Luchare understood him. “A false dawn,” she said bitterly. “And one which means only night and death.”

Hiero mastered his grief for her, so young and lovely, and spoke calmly, concealing what it cost him. “Gorm is right. Let’s not die before our time. Who knows what may happen?”

His arm over her shoulder, they stood on the highest knoll of the islet and waited for the morning light. The two animals waited patiently by their sides, the giant morse “snoofing” loudly at intervals as he tested the dawn breeze. The phosphorescent glow of their enemies’ bodies faded as the east grew pale and the sun rose. Their ring of reed skiffs and slimy, white shapes still covered the water, however, and they gave no sign of moving.

For the last time, the four now heard the awful wail which for them had come to symbolize the city.

“Aaaough, aaaooough, aaaooough,” it rang out, from all about, its source as mysterious as ever. Far over the ruined towers it sounded, seeming to defy the very day itself. At last it fell silent, and the red disc of the sun appeared down one of the distant avenues of far-off buildings.

And those who had hunted the four so long also came with the morning. Out of the opening in the south came the hated black shape of that strange vessel which had caught Hiero. Perhaps, the priest thought, it was another like it, but it made no difference. In that black hull lay their destruction, sure and inescapable.

The pallid Leemutes, their slippery, pale forms gleaming in the morning light, paddled and swam away from the prow of the oncoming ship. A channel formed in their ranks, and the black vessel came slowly through it until, its speed diminishing, it coasted slowly toward the island. The guardian circle of monsters re-formed behind it. And all the other frog creatures followed, drawing in from all sides until they occupied only one, massed in deathly white on the side in which the black vessel lay and a hundred yards beyond it.

Hiero had never ceased sending mental darts at the ship, indeed had continually done so, even before it actually appeared. Now, as it came to a halt only a few hundred feet offshore, he ceased and merely held his own defense ready, waiting on the faint off chance that the Unclean might drop their barrier. He knew well the chance was infinitesimal. He could feel Luchare’s body trembling, but he shot a sideways glance and noted proudly that her high-cheekboned face was impassive.

The adept who stood on the open bridge, surrounded by human aides and several Hairy Howlers, spoke aloud in batwah. He was not S’duna, but again the physical resemblance was uncanny. Yet Hiero was not fooled by the shaven head and the close approximation.

“Priest, we have you fast and your grimy crew as well, including your wench. Are you ready to yield without a struggle?” The voice, like S’nerg’s and S’duna’s, was resonant, ironic, and powerful. Its purpose was to intimidate, to weaken confidence, to inspire fear. It succeeded in none of its purposes. Instead, Hiero laughed.

“Still want my brain, eh, Baldy?” he said. The distance was so close that he hardly needed to raise his voice. With relish, he saw the pale skin of the other redden, while the Howlers started to chatter angrily. Hiero spared a glance at the foredeck. He frankly hoped the lightning gun he saw there would be used on them. The silver amulet which had guarded him before was no longer in place, and that had been a million-to-one chance anyway. It would be a quick end, and they would feel nothing.

But the two hooded men who manned the contrivance were well-disciplined. They simply stood at its controls, waiting for an order from their master.

The adept waved a hand negligently, and the noisy Howlers fell silent. The shining head inclined gracefully toward Hiero, and the priest was surprised.

“You are bold, priest of a forgotten god, courageous too. Qualities the Brotherhood values. We have you in our grip, but we need not close our hand. What if we still offered alliance? I confess it freely, we could indeed use your mind, one of power and indomitable will. S’duna sent me, S’carn, one of scarcely less authority, to reason with you, though why you still cling to the animals, especially that stupid bear, I utterly fail to see.” There was genuine puzzlement in this last.

The Metz hesitated not a second. “You lie, S’carn, and so do all your dirty tribe! S’duna even now fears me, or else he would have come himself, to see my capture or to watch my doom. You have a machine in your ship to keep my mind from slaying all of you. Well, come and try with your weapons! I defy your Unclean crew, your filthy, perverted Brotherhood, and above all, you, shave-pated master of foulness. If you have us fast, come and take us!”

For a second, staring over the calm water at the ship, only a stone’s throw distant, Hiero thought he had succeeded. S’carn’s face became a livid mask of horrid rage, and his hands twitched on the rail of the bridge. But, to Hiero’s intense regret, the adept controlled himself and did not order the instant death the priest sought for himself and his friends. His voice was now low and grating, filled with venom and hatred.

“You seek a speedy death, priest, and when we have you on Manoon, you will pray to your foolish, nonexistent god for it. And it will not come, no, it will not come!” He turned to his swarming followers, who had stood in silent obedience behind him. “Put the ship’s bow on the beach and take them! Take them alive!”

Hiero freed his right arm and raised his crossbow, which had hung from the left, a new-made, bronze-tipped quarrel in its slot, the bow cocked. He drew aim on S’carn, who with his head turned saw nothing of his doom. But he never loosed.

“Peace!” The new voice speaking in batwah was so strong and vibrant that, by comparison, that of the evil adept seemed weak and sickly, With one word, the voice took the whole situation under its control.

Hiero lowered his bow and frankly gaped, amazed at what he saw.

Around a corner of the islet, unseen by anyone, there had come a small wooden canoe. In its stern there sat an aged man, a paddle in his lap, his long, white beard and hair flowing over his plain dress of brown cloth shirt, pants, and soft boots, He seemed quite unarmed, save for a small belt knife. His skin was very dark, as dark as Luchare’s, and his long, snowy-white hair was also just as much a mass of tight curls as hers.

The Unclean leader seemed as stunned as Hiero by this appearance. It was a second before he could gather his wits. His glance darted about as he sought for other enemies, it seemed impossible that one ancient had come alone into his power, as if out of thin air.

“What are you doing here, Elevener?” he demanded. “Are you mad to come between me and my prey? Even your bands of crazy sentimentalists know what we can do to those who oppose us!”

Elevener! Of course! Hiero thought. One of the Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment. But what was he doing here? Was he indeed mad, to thrust himself into his enemies’ power? A thousand questions jostled in his mind.

But the old man was speaking again. “Servant of evil, you and your brute horde are summoned to depart. Go at once and cease molesting these wanderers, two-legged and four. I, Brother Aldo, tell you so, on penalty of your immediate death.”

This was too much for S’carn. Indeed, Hiero himself was becoming sure the old fellow had lost his wits. To threaten a huge ship full of devil’s weapons. Leemutes, and Unclean warriors, while sitting alone and unarmed in a canoe was certainly madness at its peak.

“We are favored by fortune, dotard, for we have you in our net as well as these. Cease your senile maunderings and approach at once to surrender, lest I lose my patience.”

Brother Aldo, as he styled himself, rose and stood erect in his canoe. He revealed himself as being very tall and lean; despite his age, he balanced easily.

“We slay no one gladly, child of the Unclean, not even such as you.” His arm thrust out, forefinger extended. “For the last time, I tell you, begone, lest I loose a destruction upon you! Can you not see your allies have fled, summoned by that which rules them?”

Hiero stared in fresh amazement. It was true. As the talk had taken this new turn with the sudden appearance of the old Elevener, the frog Leemutes were gone! Stealthily, silently, their living ring of bodies had vanished. Not a reed boat or leprous white shape remained. The black ship and the tiny canoe, a hundred yards separating them, were alone on the blue, dancing surface of the lagoon-Even S’carn seemed taken aback. His crew, too, began to mutter audibly, and one of the Howlers let out a piercing wail. But the adept still ruled.

“Silence, you chattering cowards! And as for you, you old troublemaker, enough of your lies and Elevener gibberish! Approach and surrender or I will slay you!” Yet a new, sudden fear showed in his ivory face, despite every effort to control it. The old man had frightened him. Brother Aldo dropped his hand, and an expression of sadness crossed his dark, lined face. “So be it. The One knows that I do this unwillingly.” With that he sat down quickly in the canoe and raised his paddle.

And the black ship rose in the air!

Rose up, held in the pointed jaws of a fish of such bulk that it dwarfed the imagination. The thing’s gleaming, ivory teeth, Hiero saw in numb fascination, were each as long as his own body! Not a sound came from the crew. It was too quick.

For one second the ship hung ten spans above the heaving, foaming surface; then the incredible monster shook its vast head once and the big vessel simply broke in half. As the two fragments struck the surface, the leviathan vanished in a boil of water. From out of this, there emerged a forked tail easily a hundred feet across! With a smash that almost pierced the eardrums, it came down on the lagoon squarely on top of the broken pieces of the Unclean ship and the surviving men and Leemutes who now struggled and screamed in the water.

Brace yourselves; hold Klootz’s legs, Hiero sent, seeing what was coming. A great wave rushed up the islet’s beach, and in an instant the two humans and the bear were waist-deep in the surging water. The priest’s warning had come in the nick of time, for the big morse held firm and they with him. Gorm had flung his strong forepaws around a leg as well, and Hiero had held on to both a leg and Luchare.

The water raced back as swiftly as it had come, and the travelers stared out at the transformed lagoon. There was a long smear of oil, a growing slick, and vast rings of racing, foaming ripples, all coming from the place where the Unclean ship had been. Of the ship and its sinister crew, nothing remained. In less than thirty seconds they had been totally obliterated, as if they had never been. Only the small canoe, now half-full of water, lay rocking on the surging water a few hundred feet away, its solitary occupant staring sadly at the fouled area of lagoon.

Hiero let go of Luchare and strode down through the soggy grass and shrubbery to the water’s edge. As he reached it, he saw the canoe shooting in toward him, propelled by vigorous strokes of the paddle. In an instant its prow grated on the sand and its tall occupant stepped onto the beach, his vigorous movements belying his apparent age.

The two men stared at each other in appraisal. Hiero looked up at a face so strong and yet so calm that it seemed to have grown almost beyond what could be called human. The very dark brown, almost black, skin was lined by a thousand wrinkles, yet the skin itself was clear and healthy. The broad snub nose surmounted a sweeping, curly mustache which merged into the white beard imperceptibly. The frizzy white locks fell evenly to the old man’s shoulders and were neatly combed.

But the eyes were the clue to the whole countenance. Black as night, dancing with light, they seemed to bubble with humor and yet to be grave as a granite monument at one and the same time. They were eyes which loved life, which had seen everything, examined everything, and were still searching for, and finding, new things to examine. In them could be read great age and wisdom and also the gusto and joy of healthy youth.

Hiero was won over on the instant. He extended his right hand, and a long, lean hand met it in a grip as firm as his own, met it and held it.

“Per Desteen, I believe, of the Kandan Universal Church,” the deep voice said. “A man currently much sought for, by many sorts of people, for good and ill.”

With a shock, Hiero realized that Brother Aldo was speaking Metz, fluently and with no accent at all. Before he could say anything, the old man smiled sheepishly.

“Showing off again, Per Desteen. I used to be good at languages and I learned all I could long ago. And whom have we here?” He turned and gave Luchare a stare as frank as that he had given her lover.

She smiled and held out her hand. “You have killed our enemies. Father, and we thank you for saving us.”

“Yes, princess of D’alwah, I had to kill.” He sighed, taking her extended hand in his own left, for he still kept Hiero’s in his right. He ignored the girl’s gasp at his knowledge of her.

“Killing is sometimes necessary,” he went on in the same batwah, now looking keenly at both of them. “But it ought never to be a pleasure. We do not need to kill for food each day, as do the lower animals. A burden on my mind, all those souls, weary with vice and evil though they were.” He released their hands.

“We have much to talk of, we three. Or rather, 1 should say, we four.” Greeting, friend, came the thought directed at Gorm, who had ambled up and now sat gazing at the old man.

Greeting, Old One, the bear brain answered. We have much to thank you for. A debt is incurred. It will be repaid.

If you feel so, a debt there is, was the courteous reply. Now let us speak to one another. l am, as the two humans have heard, Brother Aldo, an Elder, albeit humble, of the Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment. I was sent to find you, if I could, and bring you to a place of safety.

Why? It was Luchare who asked, her thought pattern ragged, but quite intelligible, evidence of her increasing confidence.

Why? Brother Aldo looked hard at her. Have you forgotten one who promised you safety long ago and passed into the enemy’s hands to save you?

“How could I?” She broke into speech in her agitation. “You mean Jone, don’t you, Father? Is he alive? Did you save him too?”

Yes, I meant Brother Jone, child. And I did not mean to sound so reproving. And although l am indeed vastly older than any of you and probably all of you at once, call me “brother.” The fur-man here, and he indicated Gorm, knows me as an “Old One. “So I am. But being a father implies responsibility of a kind I don’t have or want. A father directs: I guide, at best.

“Per” means “father” in an old language. Hiero sent in somewhat truculent meaning.

I know, and I think your church makes a mistake using it. But why do I wander so? I must be getting dimwitted. Let us sit and exchange thoughts.

When they were comfortably arranged on the fast-drying sand, Hiero asked the next question.

Are we still in danger, immediate, I mean?

No, or I should not sit here. My brother out yonder will wait if I choose. He nodded his head toward the still water. As they looked, first one battered piece of wood broke the quiet ripples and then another. As they watched, a growing collection of flotsam continued to surface.

How do you control that thing? I never dreamed a creature that size existed, or that if it did, that a level of intelligence that low could be mastered.

You have a few things to learn, then, Per Desteen, was the almost dry answer. It would take a lot of training to teach you, and I don’t mean to disparage your own powers. But it happens, in this case, to be neural rather than cerebral. And it’s not always reliable. But let’s say that control of our younger brothers and communication with them are and always have been specialties of ours. We are continually seeking contact with any life form we can reach. Brother Aldo wrapped his arms around his knees before continuing.

Look—time is important. Before we go further, I need information. This whole part of the world is in a turmoil, mental and physical, and all because of you four. Now, then, Per Desteen, you lead this party. Suppose you tell me briefly what you are doing here and the recent history of this group. I’ll try not to interrupt.

Hiero considered briefly. The question was, how much could he trust the Elevener? He had always liked the men of the order he had met, but this was no quiet teacher or animal doctor, but a most formidable old man, whose mental powers were of an order which made the Metz awe-struck. While he ruminated, Brother Aldo waited patiently.

At length Hiero looked up and met the dark, wise eyes.

“I don’t know what the Abbey Council would say, Brother,” he said aloud in Metz, without thinking, “but I think you are honorable and trustworthy. I will keep one secret, the reason for my mission, if you please. The rest is yours.”

I appreciate the compliment, was the mental answer. Use your mind, please, for it saves time. Also, we must all listen and understand. Do not worry about a mind search by the enemy. That which lairs in the Dead City was withdrawn, both itself and its creatures, the frog Leemutes, as you call them. Nothing else is left to hinder us, at least nearby.

So, as the morning climbed into the sky, Hiero related the history of his journey with Klootz, adding the others as they had joined him. He started at the Abbey with old Abbot Demero and hid nothing, save exactly what it was he had been sent to find. On and on went the story, through the Taig forest, the Palood, the shores of the Inland Sea, the Dead Isle of Manoon, and at last, the coming to the drowned city.

When he was through, Hiero looked at the sun and was amazed that he had only taken about a quarter of an hour, for it had hardly moved.

Brother Aldo sat quietly and stared at the sand. At last, he looked up at all of them. Well, a good tale. You should all be proud of yourselves. Now I have a tale, less exciting and more historic. But one you should know, indeed, must know, before we go further. And it starts, not two months ago, or even two years, but five thousand and more, in the ancient past, before the coming of The Death.