Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (40 page)

Even under the sun, the giant puffballs and huge, clustering toadstools looked diseased. Other strange fungi, both hanging and dripping foul ichor, covered all the other things in sight. He could see the shrouded shapes of many vast trees, every inch covered with loathsome growth, the trees obviously dead, their tortured skeletons serving as a prop for the bloated life which covered them. All of the colors and shapes were painful to look at, none appearing natural or the work of things that grew by nature's design. Even as he watched, a bloated bag of some monster puff-ball sort exploded, and the view was momentarily darkened by the billions of tiny spores scattered for hundreds of yards.

Slowly he lowered the spyglass from his eye, then turned to his silent companion.

What can I do about this? The plant world wars against itself? This looks truly evil, but why not use fire, unless you fear it, of course? Surely this plague of fungi is not invulnerable.

Look again,
came her thought.
See if you can see anything moving.

He did her bidding, sweeping the distant area until at length he caught sign of a movement. Adjusting the focus, he watched carefully until he had located it again, then drew in his breath in a gasp.

Over a bare patch of ground between the forest and the blight, there flowed a thing, a monster made of living slime. It had no apparent head or limbs, but innumerable, waving organs rose, long and slender, from its soft back. Its gross body seemed composed of dark, rotted velvet, and the slender rods were tipped with something soft that glowed with a putrid orange fire. Yet it was not without purpose. Its intent, quick movements bespoke intelligence and organized will. Now, as Hiero watched, it suddenly paused, and all its long pseudopods or tendrils quivered. Then the whole mass wheeled and slid over the ground in a new direction, toward a clump of bushes at the edge of the still, living forest. From these bushes bounded a creature like a huge, short-eared rabbit, running for its life. It had delayed too long, however. One of the balls of reddish foulness on the end of a slender feeler touched it fleetingly. It gave a convulsive spring and fell dead, as if struck by lightning. The slime creature flowed on until it covered the body, no small one, as Hiero could judge. In only a few seconds it moved on again. Where the animal's body had been was nothing, not even grass, only a dampness festering on the bare earth under the rays of the sun.

Again the Metz lowered the far-looker.
Is there more?
his mind asked.

Much more,
came the answer.
That thing, and
(it is)
one of many, is only one weapon of the House.
Now into Hiero's mind there came a picture of a strange object, something perhaps like a peculiar building made of brown, still wet, soft mud. It had no truly straight lines, yet somehow it seemed to maintain a basic four-sided structure, which yet shifted from one detail to the next, though only in small ways. A vaguely rectangular wasp's nest, made of soft muck and big enough for many men to live in. But it was alive! Or at least it apparently moved and shifted, and ripples seemed to run across its surface.

If the slime-thing he had just seen was foul, at least it seemed to answer to the basic laws of life. But this object or creature was repellent beyond belief, repellent because it was utterly unnatural and ab-human in a way like nothing Hiero had ever seen before.

Then, and only then—he remembered the last cast of the symbols on the north shore of the Inland Sea. Here was the House! He looked at its image in Vilah-ree's mind again and shuddered.

The House and the Trees

I want my woman and I want the old man with the beard and I want the bear! And I want them now! I need them!

The curious disagreement and discussion had gone on for over an hour. Hiero had learned much about his task, but he had not been able to make his own will in the matter felt. Vilah-ree could not, or perhaps would not, see that he wanted at the very least to consult with his partners. To her, he alone was all that was needed. Suppressing as egotistic a thought that her ideas about him had more behind them than a desire to see him defeat the House, he returned to his patient argument.

He had learned that the House—or whatever motivated it; Vilah-ree was not clear on this point—stayed hidden in the center of the fungus blight or infection. It had appeared, seemingly from out of the desert beyond, some time ago—again, how much was not clear—and at once had attacked the forest edge. Nothing seemed to harm it or its attendant fungi very much except fire, and it, or they, attacked and ate everything remotely organic. The spores raced up and rotted healthy, giant trees, the moving slime molds devoured all animal and small plant life, the toadstools grew from decaying plant matter overnight, and the great puffballs englobed smaller plants and somehow ingested them. Any organized attempt to interfere was met by bolts of mental? psychic? at any rate, invisible, force emanating from the House itself. Vilah-ree and her people were not warlike in any case and they were helpless before this foul onslaught. They had no physical weapons beyond small bows and spears; and, while they could blank out their minds to Hiero, the House somehow could always detect them and hold, them paralyzed until a giant slime mold was summoned to feed! And they needed the forest. Without the trees, they would die, Vilah-ree made that plain.

What about that very big animal guarding our trail, which you put there? Why not use that?
he asked.

He had noticed that Vilah-ree never smiled, but now he detected something like humor in her mind, or at least a thinly veiled amusement. He was given a picture of one of her white-skinned women swinging a strange, flat, wooden device on a long cord, swinging it in great circles around and about her head. He had not seen one for many years, not since his childhood, but he recognized the bull-roarer he had once used to frighten his first girls. Its whirring roar sounded like a hideous monster indeed!

Your friend, whom you call the bear, had a picture of a terrible creature put into his mind. If such a creature truly lived, we would be helpless before it ourselves. Thus he convinced you in turn.
He laughed, only half-bitterly. They had been ensnared by a bluff and a harmless sleep drug!

One other thing had Hiero learned, or rather, deduced. From his memory of the maps they carried, it appeared that the blight of the House covered much the very same area he wished to search! Here a pre-Death city supposedly lay hidden under the edge of the desert. This made him slightly more philosophic about his capture by the tree women of Vilah-ree. It looked as if a struggle, or at least a penetration of the horror caused by the fungus attack, would have been necessary in any case.

You attack the House with your mind, your mind which is so strong,
came her thought again, reiterating this same simple theme.
While you do so, we will burn the foulness of the House.
Her green eyes revealed no feelings of any kind.

Hiero looked over the balcony again, over the forest roof at the distant splotch of livid colors which was her enemy. He sighed, wondering how he could get through to her. Perhaps, he thought, a new tack would be more useful.

What happens to us if we defeat the House?
he sent bluntly.
Will you let us go; help us in our journey?

For a moment she did not answer. Then her thought somehow seemed hesitant.
Do you wish to go so much?
There was something wistful and puzzled about her mental question, almost like the attitude of a child who cannot understand why it has been told to stay home alone.

The priest studied her as coldly as he was able to. She was lovely indeed, whatever she was, but her strangeness increased with acquaintance. The pale ivory body, the calm, sculptured face, and those emerald eyes were all enchantment. And. all, he reflected, seemed less and less to be human! Who was Vilah-ree, or rather, what?

Where are your men?
On impulse his thought was sharp and quick.
Why do they not fight for you and help destroy the House? Are they afraid?
As he sensed her confusion and alarm at his questions, he continued to probe. But suddenly her mind simply went opaque, "vanished," in fact, as it had when the travelers first had walked the trail far below. Unless she willed it, he could not even detect her thoughts, let alone interpret or control them.

They stared at one another, the very human man and the al-most-woman of another race, each entity seeming to make up his or her mind, each one dueling for position. It was Vilah-ree who weakened first, or appeared to do so, at any rate.

Our men are
—
elsewhere,
came her thought suddenly.
They do not fight; no
(wrong meaning),
they cannot fight. Thus I was desperate/helpless until you came. Now
—
how soon can you fight the House?

Hiero leaned back against the wall and matched stare for stare. The question of her strange people's absent males had seemed to bother her, but the tree queen, if that were truly her role, recovered quickly.

Pay attention,
his mind said.
Listen carefully to what I tell you. Until the three, the woman, the old man, and the bear, are brought here and wakened, or I to them, I will do nothing. Do you understand? You know little of mind warfare, Vilah-ree. I need advice and help, help of a kind you cannot give. I will not bargain further. Release the three I named and we will try to aid you. And the others must be guarded and kept safe until the struggle is over in one way or another. They can neither aid nor hinder, but are in our keeping.

In turn, she debated with herself. Her next thought was cold, but her anger nevertheless came through it.
I could slay them all, and you with them. Why should I not?

Go ahead; I quite agree that you can. But since you need us, I marvel at the stupidity of such a thought.

Again their eyes met. He saw an emotion in the green depths this time which surprised him. It was more like the anger of a woman, almost, he would have said, a jealous anger. But it passed, leaving nothing but gold bars on pellucid emerald.

Yes,
she replied.
We will meet at the foot of this tree. Wait, while I go to see to it.
She turned and was gone, flipping right over the side of the balcony in a way that made Hiero's heart catch a beat. He rushed to the rail in time to see her pale shape dropping through the branches along a tangle of great vines at a speed he would have thought impossible. In an instant she was out of sight, but a chorus of golden, chiming notes poured up through myriad leaves. It was answered on all sides, though he could see no one, and he knew a host of the tree women must be concealed in attendance all around.

Having descended more slowly, helped by two women to his annoyance, an hour later he was embracing Luchare, while Gorm blinked in the background and Brother Aldo beamed impartially at the score of armed, cold-faced, naked dryads who surrounded them. He seemed actually delighted by the discovery of the tree people, pleased to such an extent that their own mission appeared minor by comparison. He actually patted Vilah-ree on her shapely rump, just as one might pat a dog; and stranger still, she did not appear to mind and even patted him back, her face immobile!

"Lovely, Hiero, just lovely! Imagine, a whole new race of these lovely beings produced by The Death. They must have lived here a long time, to be so adapted to tree life. Remarkable! And aren't they pretty things, too? Vilah-ree, my dear, you must tell me about your people when we can talk together, eh?"

"I can't stand the way they look at me, especially that one," Luchare whispered against Hiero's chest. She meant Vilah-ree, who was indeed staring at her with uncommon interest.

Tell your woman I wish to speak with her. Alone.
Vilah-ree's mind was glacial but utterly clear. Before the priest could even frame a query, she added,
Tell her she will not be harmed in any way. But I must talk to her!
The intensity of the last thought was such that Hiero, who was unprepared, was almost stunned by it.

"She wants to speak with you privately. She says it's terribly important, though I have no idea why. Are you able yet to keep a closed channel with a strange mind?"

"I think so," Luchare said slowly. Something of the tree woman's passion seemed to have reached her, for, with no more ado, she released her lover and followed Vilah-ree, who strode away into the forest. Hiero watched the contrasting light and dark bodies, Luchare's being only minimally covered by her shorts and jerkin, until they were out of sight around a huge tree bole.

"Now what do you think that means?" he asked Aldo. "I have a feeling Vilah-ree is trying to pull something clever. She won't hurt Luchare, will she? If she does, by God . . . !"

"Calm, maintain calm," was the old man's soothing answer. "I cannot read her mind, my boy, but I can read other things, attitudes, faces, eyes, even muscle tension. These curious tree women have no gift for intrigue, I am sure of that. And I think lying is almost impossible for them. On whom would they practice it?

"No, this is something female, purely female, if my guess is right. Vilah-ree wants more information about us and decided we stupid males couldn't give it, or perhaps understand exactly what she wanted, that's all."

To Hiero's relief, the two reappeared after not too long a time and came walking back to the group at a brisk pace. Luchare was actually smiling, though for some odd reason, she had trouble meeting her lover's eyes. Vilah-ree paid him no attention, but seemed, to a casual glance, to be more relaxed.

"Oh, she just wanted to talk. Never seen a woman before, I guess. She's not so bad," was Luchare's vague answer to the priest's question. "Goodness, how lovely it must be, living here in this great woods and never seeing another soul." Her lovely aquiline profile, etched in dusky clarity against a drooping, light green frond, seemed pensive. Whatever had happened, Hiero thought, it at least had not frightened her. He wished momentarily he had eavesdropped, but he knew he could not have lived with himself afterward, had he done so.