Outside the rain was falling steadily. It had
begun at sunset and had continued. Nick could hear the even
breathing of those asleep around him in what was now a crowded
shelter. But he could not sleep, rather lay close to the door
staring out into the dark, listening.
The sound had started some time ago, very faint and far away.
But it had caught his attention and now, tense, he listened with
all his might, trying to separate that rise and fall of distant
melody from the gurgle of the Run, the rain.
Nick could not tell whether it was singing or music, he could
not even be sure it had not died away upon occasion and then begun
again, faint, far away—drawing—For, the longer he listened, the
more he was caught in a net of desire. A need to answer moved him,
in spite of the rain, the utter dark of the night in a hostile
land.
Sweet—low—but now and then clear and true. Nick thought he could
almost distinguish words. And when that happened his inner
excitement grew until he could hardly control it. Run—out into the
night—answer—
Nick sat up now, his breath coming faster as if he had already
been running. There was movement behind him in the shelter.
“Lorelei—” Hadlett’s precise, gentle voice was
a whisper.
“Lorelei,” Nick repeated and swallowed. He was
not going, he dared not. Caution born of his basic sense
of self-preservation was alert, warning—He dared not.
“A lure,” the Vicar continued. “The rain
appears to produce it. Or else the proximity of water. There is
this you must understand—part of those who are the permanent
inhabitants are well intentioned toward us, or neutral, others are
merely maliciously spiteful. A few are blackly evil. Since we
cannot guess which are which, we must be ever on guard. But we have
proof of the Lorelei—we witnessed the results of its—feeding. Oh,
not on flesh and blood—it feeds on the life-force. What is left is
an empty husk. Yet its lure is so strong that, even knowing what it
may do, men have gone to it.”
“I know why,” Nick said. His hands were balled into
fists so tightly that his nails, short as they were, cut into his
skin. For even as Hadlett had been talking that sound swelled. Now,
in growing fear, he raised his fingers to his ears, plugged out the
melody.
How long he sat so, or if the Vicar continued to talk to him,
Nick did not know. But at last he allowed his hands to fall, dared
to listen again. There was nothing now but the rain and the stream.
With a sigh of relief he settled back on the pile of dried stuff
that formed his bed. Later he slept and dreamed. But as important
as those dreams seemed, he could not remember them past waking.
For two days thereafter they might have been camping out on a
normal countryside with no sign that they shared the land,
untouched as it was by ax, uncut by road. Fishing was good, and in
addition there were ripe berries and a variety of headed grass
close to the grain of their own world, which could be harvested.
Nick learned that this shelter by the river was not the permanent
base of the party, but that they had a cave farther north they
considered their headquarters. They were engaged now in making a
series of exploratory trips.
Using the compass on the second day Nick managed to guide Stroud
and Crocker back to the jeep.
“Tidy little jumper.” The Warden considered the
machine regretfully. “No getting it out of that pinch
though.”
Nick had gone straight to the cargo, those cases of drinks and
the melons. But someone or something had been there before him. All
that remained were a couple of smashed bottles.
“Pity,” Stroud commented. “Not a pint of the
old stuff, maybe, but we could’ve used it. What do you say,
Barry—who nosed in ahead of us?”
The pilot had been inspecting the leaf mold around the stranded
jeep.
“Boots—army issue, I’d say. Those Chinese maybe.
They could have drifted down this way. But it was in the early part
of the evening, maybe the afternoon.” He squatted on his
heels, using a twig to point out what he could read stamped into
the ground. “There’s been a slinker here, its pads
cover one of the boot marks, and those don’t go prowling
until dark. Anything else worth taking?”
Stroud was searching the jeep with the care of an experienced
scrounger.
“Tool kit.” He had unrolled a bundle that he had
found under the seat to reveal a couple of wrenches and some other
tools. “That’s all, I’d say.”
Nick stood near the tree against which the jeep nosed. This had
been the middle of the Cut-Off. Yet looking around now he could not
believe it.
“What caused it—our coming through?” he asked,
though he did not expect any answer.
Stroud had rewrapped the tools, his face mirroring his
satisfaction in the find. Now he looked up.
“There was a talk I heard—about our world running on
electromagnetism. This brain who was talkin’, he said we were
all—every one of us, men, animals, trees, grass, everything—really
electrical devices, we vibrate somehow. Though most of us
don’t know it. Then he went on to say as how we have been
using more an’ more electricity an’ how now some small
thing like a radio or such can throw out force enough to stop a
much larger power source without meanin’ to.
“He was warnin’ us, said we were usin’ forces
we didn’t fully understand, without carin’. An’
something might just happen to lead to a big blowup some day. Maybe
these places we come through work that way. The Vicar, he thinks a
lot about it, an’ he said that once.”
“But we’ve been using electricity only close to a
hundred years, and people disappeared this way before that. Right
here.” Nick pointed to the trapped jeep. “We had
records of people disappearing here going as far back as when the
white men first moved in, and that’s about one hundred
seventy years. According to your Vicar it goes much farther back in
your country.”
Stroud shrugged. “Don’t know what works the traps.
But we’re here, ain’t we? An’ we’ll
probably stay, seein’ as how we ain’t goin’ to
get back across the ocean by wadin’. An’ what about
you, Shaw, any chance of your findin’ a way back from
here?”
Nick shook his head. The solidity of the tree he could touch,
the scene about him, was manifest. And no one had ever returned
from the Cut-Off once they had gone. The sudden realization of that
closed in on him as it must have on Linda earlier. He wanted to
scream, to run, to allow his panic some physical expression.
Somehow he did not dare, for if he lost control now, he was sure,
he could never regain it.
His fingers dug into tree bark. No—he was not going to
scream—was not going to break!
There was a sharp sound from the jeep. Stroud threw himself flat
on the seat. Crocker went to earth as quickly. Nick stared, not
understanding. Then he saw it lying on. the ground. A spear—They
were under attack. He crouched, sought cover.
Nick listened for another sound, warning of an outright attack.
He had no weapon, not even a stone, with which to defend himself.
The quiet was absolute, no birdcall, not even a rustle of breeze in
the foliage above them. Stroud and Crocker had their slingshots—but
what use were those here?
Nick studied the spear. It had made a dent in the side of the
jeep. That he could see. But the weapon was outside his own
experience. In the first place the shaft was shorter than he would
imagine it should be. The point was metal with four corners united.
He knew next to nothing of primitive weapons but he thought it was
not American Indian—if Indians did roam this world.
The spear, the silence—Nick found himself trying to breathe as
lightly as possible. This waiting—when would come the attack? And
from which direction? They could be completely surrounded right
now. His back felt very naked, as if at any moment another of those
weapons might thud home in his own body.
He could see neither Stroud (who must have squeezed himself to
the floorboards of the jeep), nor Crocker. The pilot must have had
training in such warfare, he had gone to earth so well. What did
they do, just sit here and wait for death to come out, either
silent, or in a wild roaring charge they could not counter with
bare hands?
Nick’s mouth was dry, his hands were so sweaty he wanted
to wipe them on his shirt, yet dared not move. What were
They waiting for?
What did break the silence was the last thing he expected to
hear—laughter.
So this enemy was so sure of them it could laugh! That cut
through his fear, made him angry. Funny was it?
Laughter and then a voice calling out in some incomprehensible
tongue. A demand for their surrender, a listing of what would
happen to them when they were overrun and taken? It could be
either, but Nick noted that neither of his companions made any
response to it. He could only follow their lead, hoping that their
hard-learned lessons might in turn teach him some answer to the
local perils.
Again laughter, light, mocking—But was it threatening? It
seemed rather to have the spirit of mischief in it. Something in
that tone made Nick less tense. So he was not startled when again a
voice called, this time speaking his own language:
“Out of hiding, fearful men! Did you believe the Dark Ones
were upon you? Scatter and hide, is that the way to greet us, you
who came tramping into our land without asking? No
courtesy?”
Nick watched Stroud heave his bulk out of concealment.
Apparently the Warden was willing to accept the harmlessness of the
questioner, or else there was a truce on. Crocker crawled out also,
and, still wanting some reassurance, Nick was shamed into joining
him in open sight.
He was beginning to wonder how good the aim of the unseen might
be. That spear had struck well away from any of them. It could have
been intended as a warning, a drastic announcement of arrival.
“We’re waiting.” Stroud’s voice held a
very audible note of exasperation. Nick could believe that the
Warden was angry at his own reaction moments earlier, though Nick
would think it was better in this country to cling to caution.
“No courtesy—yes,” countered the unseen. “So
you are waiting. What if we make a wall of waiting to enclose you,
spin a cage?” Now the voice was sharp in return.
Nick stared in the direction from which it appeared to come.
There was space there between the massive trees, but the speaker
could well be concealed behind any trunk. He could detect no
movement.
Shroud shrugged. “I don’t know who you are, or what
you are. You offered attack—” He was making a visible effort
to reply calmly, not to cause any more annoyance to the concealed
speaker. “We’ve shown ourselves—now it’s your
move.”
“Move, move, move!” the voice repeated in a rising
chant. “A game—the heavy-footed stumblers would play a game,
would they?”
Out of nowhere flashed a ball of light. It almost touched
Stroud, then halted in midair, bobbed up and down in a wild dance
around him. The Warden stood still, his hands loose at his sides.
Though he blinked when the ball seemed ready to dash into his very
face, he did not try to dodge its swift flurries of seeming
attack.
“A game—you play then, stumbler. Take your courage in your
thoughts and play!” The ball went into a dazzling flurry of
movement, becoming nearly too blinding to watch.
With a sudden leap it abandoned Stroud, made the same threat of
attack about Crocker, who presented a like impassive front. Now it
changed color with eye-searing rapidity—green, blue, yellow,
violet, and all shades rippling in between. Never red, Nick noted,
nor any shades of yellow bordering on that color, nor did it reach
pure white.
“You do not care to play then? But the sport would be poor
with you, stumblers!” The ball withdrew, bobbed up and down
vertically some distance away. The glow increased so its movement
wove a pillar of light, a light that continued to hold when the
ball itself disappeared.
Now the column of light winked out as a blown candle flame,
leaving a small figure. Perhaps he did not top Nick’s
shoulder, even with the upstanding feather in his cap, a feather
that quivered with every slight movement. But he was completely
humanoid in form, and by his appearance an adult male. His face was
smooth, young, and yet about him was the feeling of age and
boredom. He wore dull green breeches, the color of the leaves. They
were very tight-fitting breeches and they were matched by calf-high
boots of the same color, only visible because they were topped with
wide turn-over cuffs.
His tunic, which laced up the front and had no sleeves, was
green also and exposed his small muscular arms. The lacings were
glinting gold, as was the elaborate buckle of his belt, and the
clasp that fastened his cloak, which was flung back over his
shoulders to allow his arms full freedom.
The cloak was scarlet, lined with green, and his cap was of the
same shade. Fair hair fell to his shoulder. And the hair held a
light of its own, surrounding his head with a gleaming mist. He had
well-cut, handsome features, only Nick saw, where the locks of hair
were swung back behind his ears, that those were large out of
proportion, rising to very discernible points.
There was a short sword, or long knife, sheathed at his belt,
and he carried a second spear, twin to the one lying by the jeep.
His expression was one of malicious amusement. But he did not
speak. Instead he pursed his lips to whistle. And there was
movement behind him, shadows detached themselves from the tree
boles to flit forward.
Humanoid the little man might be, but the force he captained was
not. There was a shambling bear that sat up on its haunches, its
forepaws dangling, its red tongue lolling between only too-evident
teeth. Beside that crouched a spotted cat—but what was a leopard
doing in these woods? Those two of the company Nick could readily
identify—but there were others—
What name did you give a creature with a catlike, spotted body,
but with four limbs ending in hooves, a canine-inclined head,
bearing great upstanding twin fangs in its lower jaw and double
horns sprouting at the beginning of a horse mane just above its
wide, fierce eyes? There was a second beast beside it that might be
very remotely related to a wolf, save that it had a more fox-like
head, a very slender body, the talons of a giant bird in place of
fore-paws; the hind paws and bushy tail normal enough, if anything
might be termed normal in such a mixture.
The four creatures sat at ease, their glowing eyes, for even the
bear’s eyes glowed red, intent upon the three by the
jeep.
“You see,” the small man with a graceful wave of his
hand indicated his hoofed and clawed, and pawed companions,
“our strength. Now we ask of you your absence. This is our
domain and you have not asked our permission to enter
it.”
To his own surprise Nick found himself answering:
“We did not want entrance. We came without it being our
will.” He pointed to the jeep. “One minute that was on
a road in my own world—the next it was here.”
The small man lost the smile that was close to a taunt. In fact
all expression faded from his face. He held out his hand and the
spear he had flung earlier arose in the air, went to him, fitting
its heft neatly into his grasp. If he made some sign to his company
Nick did not catch it. But the four oddly assorted animals arose
and faded away into the gloom, where they were instantly lost as if
they had turned into nothingness.
“You are, being what you are,” the stranger said
slowly, “not for our governing. But I say to you, get you
hence, for this is a forest under rule and not a wild wood open to
wanderers.”
He lifted the spear once again as if about to cast it. But it
would appear that was only to underline his order. For a moment he
held it so, then the blaze of his cloak, the mist about his hair
billowed out like smoke from a fire, clouding his body to hide it
utterly. The vapor drew back again on a center core, then vanished.
They were alone. Nick turned to his companions.
“Who—what—?”
Stroud reached back into the jeep and jerked out the bundle of
tools, hurrying so fast to unwrap it again that he almost dropped
it. He drew out a small wrench and a screwdriver. Crocker grabbed
the latter, holding it at chest level as if it were a weapon or
shield. Stroud thrust the wrench at Nick who accepted it with
surprise.
“Hold that in plain sight,” the Warden ordered.
“Why? What—what was that?”
“Why—because it’s iron. An’ iron is out
an’ out poison as far as the People are concerned. If
we’d had this in sight he wouldn’t have dared even
sling that toothpicker at us. As to who or what he is—you’d
better ask the Vicar. We’ve seen his like a couple of times
before. People of the Hills, the Vicar calls ’em—the Old Ones
who have always been here according to what he says. They can get
at a man alright—not with those spears an’ swords of theirs—but in his mind—makin’ him see whatever they want him to.
An’ if they say this place is theirs they mean it. We’d
better get out—”
Stroud was already two strides along the back trail, Crocker
matching him. Nick hurried to follow. The others did not look
around. If they feared any ambush they showed no sign of that. He
would be governed by them. Iron—iron was poison, was it? He held
the wrench in sight. Good enough—if showing this was a form of
protection he was willing to comply.
He could not draw level with the others until they were well
away from the jeep. Nick himself kept looking around suspiciously,
certain at one time or another he would catch a glimpse of one of
the animals slinking behind to make sure they were leaving what was
a haunted forest. Yet he never saw anything except the trees. Not
even a unicorn this time.
When he finally joined Stroud he had another question.
“What about the animals? I can understand a bear—though
leopards are African animals. But those other two—they
weren’t real—they couldn’t be—”
He heard Crocker grunt. “You tapped it right there, Yank.
But it doesn’t matter how ‘real’ they are, you
know. Here they’ll be real enough to tear your throat out if
that Green Man back there gave the order. You’ll see worse
than them. You heard him mention the Dark Ones? Those nobody wants
to see! They have most power in the dark as far as we can
tell—” He turned his head to look full at Nick, his face
haunted by some memory. “Iron beats them, too. Ask Jean and
Lady Diana sometime. They were berry picking and came upon a
tower—it looked like a tower. That was late afternoon an’ a
cloudy day, so perhaps those in there were more active than they
would have normally been. Jean saw one—full on—an’ she, well,
we had to wake her up at night for awhile. She had nightmares that
near sent her around the bend! We’ve learned a lot—mostly the
hard way—about what you can an’ can’t do here.
An’ you’ve just had your first lesson—when you’re
warned off you go!”
In spite of their zigzag path they made far better time getting
out of the forest than Nick and Linda on their first journey. But
when they came out into the comparative open Crocker gave a cry of
alarm.
“Down!”
Seeing Stroud throw himself belly flat and half roll under a
bush almost large enough to give him complete coverage, Nick tried
to follow suit, though his own hastily won protection was smaller
and thinner than that which sheltered the Warden. He saw Crocker a
little beyond, also flat, but with his head supported on his
crooked arm, looking out and up over the water.
“No—not a flying saucer!” Nick’s protest was
said aloud. And a vengeful-sounding hiss from his left reminded him
to keep his mouth shut. Only he could not believe what he was
seeing. Somehow this was harder to accept than those mixed up
beasts in the forest.
The thing—machine—illusion—whatever it was—hung silver bright
and stationary well above the surface of the water. It was saucer
shaped in part, though the upper half swelled to near dome
proportions.
Unmoving, it hung. Then, from the south, there sped another sky
craft of an entirely different model. This one was cigar shaped and
moving at such speed it arrived almost in the wink of an eye. It
swooped at the waiting saucer and from it shot a brilliant beam
that should have struck full upon the swelling upper half. Instead
the beam hit an invisible wall a good distance from the skin of the
vessel.
The cigar backed off in another of those incredibly swift
maneuvers, rose over the stationary craft to strike from a
different angle. This was not a duel, for the saucer made no
attempt to retaliate. It merely hung there in the open, well
protected by whatever shield it carried, while the other craft, in a
frenzy of effort, aimed its weapon-beam from various angles. Nick
could imagine the frustration building up in the attacker—to launch
his—or its—greatest power and not even awaken a slight response
from the attacked must be infuriating.
Finally the cigar climbed directly above the saucer and hung
there as motionless as the craft beneath it. There were no rays
stabbing downward from it now. Instead there was an instant of
sparkling light, a flash that was gone so quickly Nick could not
even be sure he had sighted it at all.
Slowly the cigar began to descend, straight down on the saucer.
What this maneuver might be Nick could not guess, nor had he any
help from his companions. So slow was the descent that it was
plainly ominous. The pilot of the upper ship now must be using the
ultimate weapon at his command.
Down, down—was he going to ram the other—as did the Japanese
pilots of World War II who died willingly to take an enemy plane or
battleship with them? Down—
Nick saw a tremor in the lower ship. And then—
It was gone!
Exploded? But there had been no sound, no shock wave, no debris.
It was just gone.
The cigar lurched, gave an upward jump. It circled the lake
twice as if trying to make sure the enemy was no longer there. Once
more it returned to hover over the site of the attack. Then it
left, streaking away with a speed that took it out of sight in
seconds.
Crocker sat up, holding his screwdriver in one hand before him as
a worshipper in church might hold a candle.
“Fun and games,” he commented. “So
they’re out to burn each other down now. That good or bad for
us, I wonder?”
“What was he trying?” Nick wanted to know.
“Coming down on the saucer that way?”
“I would guess, and it’s just a guess, mind you,
that he was going to use his force field against whatever one that
other ship had. The flyers—they’re years—centuries ahead of
us with their technology—just as the People are with their
‘magic.’ Anyway the other plane decided it
couldn’t take it.”
“I know one thing”—Stroud crawled on hands and knees
between them—“that’s plain now, m’boyos.
We’re gettin’ out of this here country. With the
Nasties back flyin’ overhead, this ain’t a healthy
place for us to be. An’ we’ve been warned out of the
woods so we can’t go kitin’ in there to be safe. Get
started out as soon as we can.” He was on his feet, his pace
near a run, as he headed up the open land toward the river camp.
Yet even if it were needful to make speed, Nick noticed, he kept as
much as he could to cover, as did Crocker. And Nick copied their
caution.
Outside the rain was falling steadily. It had
begun at sunset and had continued. Nick could hear the even
breathing of those asleep around him in what was now a crowded
shelter. But he could not sleep, rather lay close to the door
staring out into the dark, listening.
The sound had started some time ago, very faint and far away.
But it had caught his attention and now, tense, he listened with
all his might, trying to separate that rise and fall of distant
melody from the gurgle of the Run, the rain.
Nick could not tell whether it was singing or music, he could
not even be sure it had not died away upon occasion and then begun
again, faint, far away—drawing—For, the longer he listened, the
more he was caught in a net of desire. A need to answer moved him,
in spite of the rain, the utter dark of the night in a hostile
land.
Sweet—low—but now and then clear and true. Nick thought he could
almost distinguish words. And when that happened his inner
excitement grew until he could hardly control it. Run—out into the
night—answer—
Nick sat up now, his breath coming faster as if he had already
been running. There was movement behind him in the shelter.
“Lorelei—” Hadlett’s precise, gentle voice was
a whisper.
“Lorelei,” Nick repeated and swallowed. He was
not going, he dared not. Caution born of his basic sense
of self-preservation was alert, warning—He dared not.
“A lure,” the Vicar continued. “The rain
appears to produce it. Or else the proximity of water. There is
this you must understand—part of those who are the permanent
inhabitants are well intentioned toward us, or neutral, others are
merely maliciously spiteful. A few are blackly evil. Since we
cannot guess which are which, we must be ever on guard. But we have
proof of the Lorelei—we witnessed the results of its—feeding. Oh,
not on flesh and blood—it feeds on the life-force. What is left is
an empty husk. Yet its lure is so strong that, even knowing what it
may do, men have gone to it.”
“I know why,” Nick said. His hands were balled into
fists so tightly that his nails, short as they were, cut into his
skin. For even as Hadlett had been talking that sound swelled. Now,
in growing fear, he raised his fingers to his ears, plugged out the
melody.
How long he sat so, or if the Vicar continued to talk to him,
Nick did not know. But at last he allowed his hands to fall, dared
to listen again. There was nothing now but the rain and the stream.
With a sigh of relief he settled back on the pile of dried stuff
that formed his bed. Later he slept and dreamed. But as important
as those dreams seemed, he could not remember them past waking.
For two days thereafter they might have been camping out on a
normal countryside with no sign that they shared the land,
untouched as it was by ax, uncut by road. Fishing was good, and in
addition there were ripe berries and a variety of headed grass
close to the grain of their own world, which could be harvested.
Nick learned that this shelter by the river was not the permanent
base of the party, but that they had a cave farther north they
considered their headquarters. They were engaged now in making a
series of exploratory trips.
Using the compass on the second day Nick managed to guide Stroud
and Crocker back to the jeep.
“Tidy little jumper.” The Warden considered the
machine regretfully. “No getting it out of that pinch
though.”
Nick had gone straight to the cargo, those cases of drinks and
the melons. But someone or something had been there before him. All
that remained were a couple of smashed bottles.
“Pity,” Stroud commented. “Not a pint of the
old stuff, maybe, but we could’ve used it. What do you say,
Barry—who nosed in ahead of us?”
The pilot had been inspecting the leaf mold around the stranded
jeep.
“Boots—army issue, I’d say. Those Chinese maybe.
They could have drifted down this way. But it was in the early part
of the evening, maybe the afternoon.” He squatted on his
heels, using a twig to point out what he could read stamped into
the ground. “There’s been a slinker here, its pads
cover one of the boot marks, and those don’t go prowling
until dark. Anything else worth taking?”
Stroud was searching the jeep with the care of an experienced
scrounger.
“Tool kit.” He had unrolled a bundle that he had
found under the seat to reveal a couple of wrenches and some other
tools. “That’s all, I’d say.”
Nick stood near the tree against which the jeep nosed. This had
been the middle of the Cut-Off. Yet looking around now he could not
believe it.
“What caused it—our coming through?” he asked,
though he did not expect any answer.
Stroud had rewrapped the tools, his face mirroring his
satisfaction in the find. Now he looked up.
“There was a talk I heard—about our world running on
electromagnetism. This brain who was talkin’, he said we were
all—every one of us, men, animals, trees, grass, everything—really
electrical devices, we vibrate somehow. Though most of us
don’t know it. Then he went on to say as how we have been
using more an’ more electricity an’ how now some small
thing like a radio or such can throw out force enough to stop a
much larger power source without meanin’ to.
“He was warnin’ us, said we were usin’ forces
we didn’t fully understand, without carin’. An’
something might just happen to lead to a big blowup some day. Maybe
these places we come through work that way. The Vicar, he thinks a
lot about it, an’ he said that once.”
“But we’ve been using electricity only close to a
hundred years, and people disappeared this way before that. Right
here.” Nick pointed to the trapped jeep. “We had
records of people disappearing here going as far back as when the
white men first moved in, and that’s about one hundred
seventy years. According to your Vicar it goes much farther back in
your country.”
Stroud shrugged. “Don’t know what works the traps.
But we’re here, ain’t we? An’ we’ll
probably stay, seein’ as how we ain’t goin’ to
get back across the ocean by wadin’. An’ what about
you, Shaw, any chance of your findin’ a way back from
here?”
Nick shook his head. The solidity of the tree he could touch,
the scene about him, was manifest. And no one had ever returned
from the Cut-Off once they had gone. The sudden realization of that
closed in on him as it must have on Linda earlier. He wanted to
scream, to run, to allow his panic some physical expression.
Somehow he did not dare, for if he lost control now, he was sure,
he could never regain it.
His fingers dug into tree bark. No—he was not going to
scream—was not going to break!
There was a sharp sound from the jeep. Stroud threw himself flat
on the seat. Crocker went to earth as quickly. Nick stared, not
understanding. Then he saw it lying on. the ground. A spear—They
were under attack. He crouched, sought cover.
Nick listened for another sound, warning of an outright attack.
He had no weapon, not even a stone, with which to defend himself.
The quiet was absolute, no birdcall, not even a rustle of breeze in
the foliage above them. Stroud and Crocker had their slingshots—but
what use were those here?
Nick studied the spear. It had made a dent in the side of the
jeep. That he could see. But the weapon was outside his own
experience. In the first place the shaft was shorter than he would
imagine it should be. The point was metal with four corners united.
He knew next to nothing of primitive weapons but he thought it was
not American Indian—if Indians did roam this world.
The spear, the silence—Nick found himself trying to breathe as
lightly as possible. This waiting—when would come the attack? And
from which direction? They could be completely surrounded right
now. His back felt very naked, as if at any moment another of those
weapons might thud home in his own body.
He could see neither Stroud (who must have squeezed himself to
the floorboards of the jeep), nor Crocker. The pilot must have had
training in such warfare, he had gone to earth so well. What did
they do, just sit here and wait for death to come out, either
silent, or in a wild roaring charge they could not counter with
bare hands?
Nick’s mouth was dry, his hands were so sweaty he wanted
to wipe them on his shirt, yet dared not move. What were
They waiting for?
What did break the silence was the last thing he expected to
hear—laughter.
So this enemy was so sure of them it could laugh! That cut
through his fear, made him angry. Funny was it?
Laughter and then a voice calling out in some incomprehensible
tongue. A demand for their surrender, a listing of what would
happen to them when they were overrun and taken? It could be
either, but Nick noted that neither of his companions made any
response to it. He could only follow their lead, hoping that their
hard-learned lessons might in turn teach him some answer to the
local perils.
Again laughter, light, mocking—But was it threatening? It
seemed rather to have the spirit of mischief in it. Something in
that tone made Nick less tense. So he was not startled when again a
voice called, this time speaking his own language:
“Out of hiding, fearful men! Did you believe the Dark Ones
were upon you? Scatter and hide, is that the way to greet us, you
who came tramping into our land without asking? No
courtesy?”
Nick watched Stroud heave his bulk out of concealment.
Apparently the Warden was willing to accept the harmlessness of the
questioner, or else there was a truce on. Crocker crawled out also,
and, still wanting some reassurance, Nick was shamed into joining
him in open sight.
He was beginning to wonder how good the aim of the unseen might
be. That spear had struck well away from any of them. It could have
been intended as a warning, a drastic announcement of arrival.
“We’re waiting.” Stroud’s voice held a
very audible note of exasperation. Nick could believe that the
Warden was angry at his own reaction moments earlier, though Nick
would think it was better in this country to cling to caution.
“No courtesy—yes,” countered the unseen. “So
you are waiting. What if we make a wall of waiting to enclose you,
spin a cage?” Now the voice was sharp in return.
Nick stared in the direction from which it appeared to come.
There was space there between the massive trees, but the speaker
could well be concealed behind any trunk. He could detect no
movement.
Shroud shrugged. “I don’t know who you are, or what
you are. You offered attack—” He was making a visible effort
to reply calmly, not to cause any more annoyance to the concealed
speaker. “We’ve shown ourselves—now it’s your
move.”
“Move, move, move!” the voice repeated in a rising
chant. “A game—the heavy-footed stumblers would play a game,
would they?”
Out of nowhere flashed a ball of light. It almost touched
Stroud, then halted in midair, bobbed up and down in a wild dance
around him. The Warden stood still, his hands loose at his sides.
Though he blinked when the ball seemed ready to dash into his very
face, he did not try to dodge its swift flurries of seeming
attack.
“A game—you play then, stumbler. Take your courage in your
thoughts and play!” The ball went into a dazzling flurry of
movement, becoming nearly too blinding to watch.
With a sudden leap it abandoned Stroud, made the same threat of
attack about Crocker, who presented a like impassive front. Now it
changed color with eye-searing rapidity—green, blue, yellow,
violet, and all shades rippling in between. Never red, Nick noted,
nor any shades of yellow bordering on that color, nor did it reach
pure white.
“You do not care to play then? But the sport would be poor
with you, stumblers!” The ball withdrew, bobbed up and down
vertically some distance away. The glow increased so its movement
wove a pillar of light, a light that continued to hold when the
ball itself disappeared.
Now the column of light winked out as a blown candle flame,
leaving a small figure. Perhaps he did not top Nick’s
shoulder, even with the upstanding feather in his cap, a feather
that quivered with every slight movement. But he was completely
humanoid in form, and by his appearance an adult male. His face was
smooth, young, and yet about him was the feeling of age and
boredom. He wore dull green breeches, the color of the leaves. They
were very tight-fitting breeches and they were matched by calf-high
boots of the same color, only visible because they were topped with
wide turn-over cuffs.
His tunic, which laced up the front and had no sleeves, was
green also and exposed his small muscular arms. The lacings were
glinting gold, as was the elaborate buckle of his belt, and the
clasp that fastened his cloak, which was flung back over his
shoulders to allow his arms full freedom.
The cloak was scarlet, lined with green, and his cap was of the
same shade. Fair hair fell to his shoulder. And the hair held a
light of its own, surrounding his head with a gleaming mist. He had
well-cut, handsome features, only Nick saw, where the locks of hair
were swung back behind his ears, that those were large out of
proportion, rising to very discernible points.
There was a short sword, or long knife, sheathed at his belt,
and he carried a second spear, twin to the one lying by the jeep.
His expression was one of malicious amusement. But he did not
speak. Instead he pursed his lips to whistle. And there was
movement behind him, shadows detached themselves from the tree
boles to flit forward.
Humanoid the little man might be, but the force he captained was
not. There was a shambling bear that sat up on its haunches, its
forepaws dangling, its red tongue lolling between only too-evident
teeth. Beside that crouched a spotted cat—but what was a leopard
doing in these woods? Those two of the company Nick could readily
identify—but there were others—
What name did you give a creature with a catlike, spotted body,
but with four limbs ending in hooves, a canine-inclined head,
bearing great upstanding twin fangs in its lower jaw and double
horns sprouting at the beginning of a horse mane just above its
wide, fierce eyes? There was a second beast beside it that might be
very remotely related to a wolf, save that it had a more fox-like
head, a very slender body, the talons of a giant bird in place of
fore-paws; the hind paws and bushy tail normal enough, if anything
might be termed normal in such a mixture.
The four creatures sat at ease, their glowing eyes, for even the
bear’s eyes glowed red, intent upon the three by the
jeep.
“You see,” the small man with a graceful wave of his
hand indicated his hoofed and clawed, and pawed companions,
“our strength. Now we ask of you your absence. This is our
domain and you have not asked our permission to enter
it.”
To his own surprise Nick found himself answering:
“We did not want entrance. We came without it being our
will.” He pointed to the jeep. “One minute that was on
a road in my own world—the next it was here.”
The small man lost the smile that was close to a taunt. In fact
all expression faded from his face. He held out his hand and the
spear he had flung earlier arose in the air, went to him, fitting
its heft neatly into his grasp. If he made some sign to his company
Nick did not catch it. But the four oddly assorted animals arose
and faded away into the gloom, where they were instantly lost as if
they had turned into nothingness.
“You are, being what you are,” the stranger said
slowly, “not for our governing. But I say to you, get you
hence, for this is a forest under rule and not a wild wood open to
wanderers.”
He lifted the spear once again as if about to cast it. But it
would appear that was only to underline his order. For a moment he
held it so, then the blaze of his cloak, the mist about his hair
billowed out like smoke from a fire, clouding his body to hide it
utterly. The vapor drew back again on a center core, then vanished.
They were alone. Nick turned to his companions.
“Who—what—?”
Stroud reached back into the jeep and jerked out the bundle of
tools, hurrying so fast to unwrap it again that he almost dropped
it. He drew out a small wrench and a screwdriver. Crocker grabbed
the latter, holding it at chest level as if it were a weapon or
shield. Stroud thrust the wrench at Nick who accepted it with
surprise.
“Hold that in plain sight,” the Warden ordered.
“Why? What—what was that?”
“Why—because it’s iron. An’ iron is out
an’ out poison as far as the People are concerned. If
we’d had this in sight he wouldn’t have dared even
sling that toothpicker at us. As to who or what he is—you’d
better ask the Vicar. We’ve seen his like a couple of times
before. People of the Hills, the Vicar calls ’em—the Old Ones
who have always been here according to what he says. They can get
at a man alright—not with those spears an’ swords of theirs—but in his mind—makin’ him see whatever they want him to.
An’ if they say this place is theirs they mean it. We’d
better get out—”
Stroud was already two strides along the back trail, Crocker
matching him. Nick hurried to follow. The others did not look
around. If they feared any ambush they showed no sign of that. He
would be governed by them. Iron—iron was poison, was it? He held
the wrench in sight. Good enough—if showing this was a form of
protection he was willing to comply.
He could not draw level with the others until they were well
away from the jeep. Nick himself kept looking around suspiciously,
certain at one time or another he would catch a glimpse of one of
the animals slinking behind to make sure they were leaving what was
a haunted forest. Yet he never saw anything except the trees. Not
even a unicorn this time.
When he finally joined Stroud he had another question.
“What about the animals? I can understand a bear—though
leopards are African animals. But those other two—they
weren’t real—they couldn’t be—”
He heard Crocker grunt. “You tapped it right there, Yank.
But it doesn’t matter how ‘real’ they are, you
know. Here they’ll be real enough to tear your throat out if
that Green Man back there gave the order. You’ll see worse
than them. You heard him mention the Dark Ones? Those nobody wants
to see! They have most power in the dark as far as we can
tell—” He turned his head to look full at Nick, his face
haunted by some memory. “Iron beats them, too. Ask Jean and
Lady Diana sometime. They were berry picking and came upon a
tower—it looked like a tower. That was late afternoon an’ a
cloudy day, so perhaps those in there were more active than they
would have normally been. Jean saw one—full on—an’ she, well,
we had to wake her up at night for awhile. She had nightmares that
near sent her around the bend! We’ve learned a lot—mostly the
hard way—about what you can an’ can’t do here.
An’ you’ve just had your first lesson—when you’re
warned off you go!”
In spite of their zigzag path they made far better time getting
out of the forest than Nick and Linda on their first journey. But
when they came out into the comparative open Crocker gave a cry of
alarm.
“Down!”
Seeing Stroud throw himself belly flat and half roll under a
bush almost large enough to give him complete coverage, Nick tried
to follow suit, though his own hastily won protection was smaller
and thinner than that which sheltered the Warden. He saw Crocker a
little beyond, also flat, but with his head supported on his
crooked arm, looking out and up over the water.
“No—not a flying saucer!” Nick’s protest was
said aloud. And a vengeful-sounding hiss from his left reminded him
to keep his mouth shut. Only he could not believe what he was
seeing. Somehow this was harder to accept than those mixed up
beasts in the forest.
The thing—machine—illusion—whatever it was—hung silver bright
and stationary well above the surface of the water. It was saucer
shaped in part, though the upper half swelled to near dome
proportions.
Unmoving, it hung. Then, from the south, there sped another sky
craft of an entirely different model. This one was cigar shaped and
moving at such speed it arrived almost in the wink of an eye. It
swooped at the waiting saucer and from it shot a brilliant beam
that should have struck full upon the swelling upper half. Instead
the beam hit an invisible wall a good distance from the skin of the
vessel.
The cigar backed off in another of those incredibly swift
maneuvers, rose over the stationary craft to strike from a
different angle. This was not a duel, for the saucer made no
attempt to retaliate. It merely hung there in the open, well
protected by whatever shield it carried, while the other craft, in a
frenzy of effort, aimed its weapon-beam from various angles. Nick
could imagine the frustration building up in the attacker—to launch
his—or its—greatest power and not even awaken a slight response
from the attacked must be infuriating.
Finally the cigar climbed directly above the saucer and hung
there as motionless as the craft beneath it. There were no rays
stabbing downward from it now. Instead there was an instant of
sparkling light, a flash that was gone so quickly Nick could not
even be sure he had sighted it at all.
Slowly the cigar began to descend, straight down on the saucer.
What this maneuver might be Nick could not guess, nor had he any
help from his companions. So slow was the descent that it was
plainly ominous. The pilot of the upper ship now must be using the
ultimate weapon at his command.
Down, down—was he going to ram the other—as did the Japanese
pilots of World War II who died willingly to take an enemy plane or
battleship with them? Down—
Nick saw a tremor in the lower ship. And then—
It was gone!
Exploded? But there had been no sound, no shock wave, no debris.
It was just gone.
The cigar lurched, gave an upward jump. It circled the lake
twice as if trying to make sure the enemy was no longer there. Once
more it returned to hover over the site of the attack. Then it
left, streaking away with a speed that took it out of sight in
seconds.
Crocker sat up, holding his screwdriver in one hand before him as
a worshipper in church might hold a candle.
“Fun and games,” he commented. “So
they’re out to burn each other down now. That good or bad for
us, I wonder?”
“What was he trying?” Nick wanted to know.
“Coming down on the saucer that way?”
“I would guess, and it’s just a guess, mind you,
that he was going to use his force field against whatever one that
other ship had. The flyers—they’re years—centuries ahead of
us with their technology—just as the People are with their
‘magic.’ Anyway the other plane decided it
couldn’t take it.”
“I know one thing”—Stroud crawled on hands and knees
between them—“that’s plain now, m’boyos.
We’re gettin’ out of this here country. With the
Nasties back flyin’ overhead, this ain’t a healthy
place for us to be. An’ we’ve been warned out of the
woods so we can’t go kitin’ in there to be safe. Get
started out as soon as we can.” He was on his feet, his pace
near a run, as he headed up the open land toward the river camp.
Yet even if it were needful to make speed, Nick noticed, he kept as
much as he could to cover, as did Crocker. And Nick copied their
caution.