Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) (63 page)

A good deal of Hiero's anger evaporated on the instant, for reasons hard for a non-telepath to understand. He
knew
at the very moment that he took the message in that whatever spoke to his mind was telling the truth. His mind had been too well schooled over the years, and particularly in the recent past, for him to be mistaken. The invisible being which addressed him was not lying. Everything that it had stated was true in the context of the creature's understanding. It was honestly puzzled. The relationship between man and mount was a complete mystery to it. The old, cool—why did he think of
that
adjective?—brain which questioned him was quite genuinely baffled. It was seeking an honest answer! He dropped the spear, almost without thinking, and then stood up, his own thoughts all askew.

Then he saw that, by the long rock offshore, the water was moving. The invisible voice had an owner. And, as the voice had promised, the owner was going to reveal itself at last.

A round, shiny surface, dull brown and glistening, broke the surface first. It was the top of an enormous head, several yards across. The eyes came next, large and round, with brown pupils and yellow rims. Above the eyes were two lumps of matter which extended slowly; as they rose, they became long tentacle horns with the same skin as the head. This in turn was smooth and yet grainy, all in mottled shades of brown. There was no nose, and the mouth was only a slit under the chinless head. Ears were also absent.

As the eyes steadily gazed at the fascinated man, the great head rose higher and higher on a smooth, columnar neck. Still the mighty neck rose, and now the head was inclined and looking down at him. The water moved before it as it advanced slowly and majestically. When it reached the rock, the neck lifted farther still, and the thickening of a giant body began to follow. When its body was partly out of the liquid, it stopped and came no farther. Runnels of lake water were pouring from its sides as it finally came to rest.

Now you see me, Two-Legs, with your own eyes and not in fear, as all the others, the countless others of the past, have done.

Hiero stared up at the titan. Whatever its mental powers, which he knew to be great, the colossal thing before him could have smothered a buffer bull like an ant. That its greatest bulk still lay below the surface was obvious. It was simply resting its forepart on the rock so that he could converse with it at ease. There seemed to be no limbs of any sort, unless one counted the two great pseudo-pods that extended and contracted over the eyes. For a moment there was a pause as the two beings examined each other.

It was the man who sent the next message. It was a somewhat confused one.

Who are you? What are you? The thing you killed was my
f
riend. It trusted me and came here at my bidding, though it did not wish to. Do you know what a friend
is? Even as he spoke to the mighty brain before him, he realized that of course he had answered his own last question.

Many, many questions again from the little Two-Legs.
Now that Hiero could see the actual possessor of the mental "sound," it seemed to boom and echo in his head, though this was only illusion,

I have never thought of who lam,
the giant of the lake went on.
I have always been alone. I preceive that if there are many of one kind, then there must be ways of distinguishing. But there are none like me. Call me what you will. I shall know who is meant.
It seemed to pause.

As to what I am, I cannot be sure. My memory goes back far, Two-Legs, so far that I had not even begun thinking. Back in the time of my beginning, I could not think, I could only feel! I was, I must have been, as one with the dumb beasts, my food of now, whose bones cover the land.

Hiero wondered how long it must have taken to pile up the countless skeletons he had seen and had stumbled over.

The lake creature caught his thought.
Yes, it took long. And longer than you think! For these bones that you have seen are but the latest. The whole shore on which you stand and all around and out of your sight, that too is bone, bone under the moss and the plants. When I began to feed, there was naught here but naked rock!

Hiero stood, silent and awed. How much time had there been, to have allowed the creation of the very shore of the lake from the detritus of this thing!

So much time,
it went on, catching his thought again,
that I, who have never had the skill or the need to measure time, cannot tell how long. But I can dimly recall something. And that something was fear! Even 1, the One, I too have known fear. There was a great light in the sky, and lesser lights passed across it. The earth trembled and the mountains fell. And there came a heat and a burning in the air. And the heat was strange and not of the normal kind, which comes from the sky in quickness when there is a storm. That heat I know well. But this other, this heat of long ago, it made the waters hot in turn. I had to leave the lake and burrow deep under hidden rocks. At last, I dared to come above and seek the light again and the cool waters. Now, all this my body remembers, but not my brain. Do you understand, Two-Legs?It was only then that I thought, "I am. "And I was not as large as you, not then, and I bore something with me, something which grew from me and which I needed for my own defense. Long, long ago that was. And as I learned to find food, for I suddenly needed much more, I discarded that which I bore. I grew too large to carry it. Yet I saved it, for it was all I had to remember the ancient days, the days of fear, when I too trembled as the mountains shook. I have it yet, for I keep it safe in my body. Perhaps this will tell you in turn of my age and the ages gone before.

A ripple seemed to pass down the giant neck. Then there came another and another, almost as if the vast body were somehow stretching. As the Metz watched closely, a bulge appeared—not large, but projecting upward from the motded brown of the smooth, slimy hide. From the place where the body merged with the water, the bulge traveled upward until it was at a level with Hiero's eyes. Then the skin simply split, and that which had caused the bulge was extruded to the surface. It lay on the great body, gleaming in the soft light filtered down through the mist, a lovely golden snail shell, no bigger than a small melon.

As the priest watched, the skin opened again, and the thing was gone. He could almost have smiled, had he not been struck with such wonder. A snail! This deity of the hills, this titan older than memory, was a snail!

He sobered quickly. Whatever the thing was, whatever it had been, it was certainly not to be despised now. And what had it not seen! Why, it was itself an actual, living child of The Death! For what were the fires and the heat, the passing lights and the shaken mountains, but a living memory of what had destroyed the Earth countless years in the past? Ever since that time, this creature had stayed here in the hills, growing and growing, accumulating wisdom as it grew in size, teaching itself by experience, wondering, studying, groping for knowledge. And always it was alone! What must it have been, that life of millennia, always alone? Hiero's pity was stirred, even as he considered that incredible existence. Here was living proof of the thesis of Brother Aldo and those of his fellow Eleveners that ail life had purpose. But yet what purpose was there to this?

All the while he thought, the great amber eyes, lidless and lashless, stared down, considering him in turn. And the brain of the giant was still logical, its memory of recent events still functioning.

I have tried, Two-Legs, to tell of what I am. I see that you have understood, as I had hoped you might. But there is yet the matter of the animal which bore you on its back. I took it for food. I removed the things it carried, for those I deemed to be of you and necessary to you. Then I drew it into the water. It felt no pain, but fell asleep. And I fed. Thus have I done since I first knew that I was. I meant you no harm, nor do I now. If I could restore the animal to life, I would do so gladly. I wish you contented, Two-Legs, for I did not bring you here to do you harm. I wish speech, the first speech I have ever had with a fellow mind, and that is my sole purpose in trapping you, as in ages past I learned to lure my food hither.

Not without an ache for Segi, Hiero dismissed all thoughts of vengeance. The tragedy of the hopper's death was no one's fault. The mind of the giant mollusc could not lie to him on this, if indeed on any matter. It had no training in lying, anyway. Why should it mask its purposes? The ages it had lived were enough evidence of its statements in themselves. Emotions had been foreign to this being that had lived without companionship for many thousands of years. In all that stretch of lonely time, it had possessed only one thing to keep it from going mad with boredom. This was its desire to gain knowledge of the world outside, to know what else there was to existence besides its lonely mere, lost and forgotten in the far reaches of the hills. A seeker after knowledge all his life, Hiero could not but sympathize with the desire of the titan for new learning. It had not meant harm, but only to bring to itself the brain it sensed for the first time in its history.

He thought rapidly,
You tell me that without knowing you slew my beast, who was dear to me in a way that you cannot know. I think I believe you. But in addition to this deed, and I will admit that you were ignorant, you spoke also of repairing the harm that you have done. You may have done more harm than you know, even now. For I am on a mission, a journey. There is great need for haste so thai my enemies, the enemies of all that is good, will not achieve what they plan. From this path you have diverted me, for you have drawn me countless leagues from my true path, which lies in the far North. Both this and the death of my hopper stand against you, if your mind is honest.

The reply was instantaneous.
I
have told you the truth, if truth is what 1 believe. I have no way of measuring the truth, as you call it, though I perceive that you have and that so do others. Attend, then.
The creature paused once more, in what Hiero now knew to be its way of marshaling its thoughts in order. It did not like disorder, this solitary mind! And as he thought this, a name came to his lips almost involuntarily. "Solitaire."

The great, cool voice again reverberated in the endless corridors of his mind.
So—you have given me a name in your sounds! I, who have never had or needed a name, accept it. Solitaire!
To the man's continued amazement, the actual letters of the word were formed, in good Metz writing, in his brain! The titan was still sending a message, however.

I
have learned much, so much from your mind already! I took such knowledge as your brain would release easily while you slept. I feel
—
and that is new in itself
—
that you understand what this means to me. I have new thoughts, new concepts, thousands of them!

The burst of enthusiasm was almost like the shout of a giant in the man's head.

Now listen to what I have found out while you lay in sleep. Hiero.
Again, the actual name floated in formed letters in the astonished human head. But the thought went on, unheeding his marvel.
There is a risk, but I think a small one. With much to gain for you, if you are willing to make the attempt. If you have the strength and will continue to trust me, to believe I mean no harm but only that which is to your benefit, then perhaps, but not certainly, for I do not know all that I should, lean help your mind.

The Metz was seated again, comfortably lounging back on a mound of deep moss while he stared up into the soup-bowl eyes looming over him. But his brain was racing as soon as the last statement registered.

Help my mind?
His black eyes flickered away, out over the vapors of the lake and then back again.
My mind, if you mean my powers of thought, my ability to see far off, to communicate with others, is dead. My enemies killed the power with a drug. This is the main reason I am a fugitive in this wilderness and not leading my people in more open battle. And, Solitaire, you yourself have told me that you found only one small gap, with much effort, by which you could reach my thoughts. What, exactly, do you mean?

The great, calm voice was reassuring.
I
mean this, my
— There was an almost shy hesitation—
_:
friend. In the endless time since what you call The Death, the terrible fires that your folk once loosed—for I know now that it was you, small and feeble though you seem.
—
I have had much time to learn. I did not simply draw the lower animals to me for food, though at first that was the only reason. I did other things with them, as I did also with the plants.

Your name for what I did is—study!
And once more the fiery letters formed.

With your bones inside and your hot blood, your furry coat and your quick movements, you are not so unlike the beast which carried you. Yes, and the hordes of others which have come before. I have looked into their minds, Hiero, and I have learned much. I can do things you have not seen as yet, things with my own body, things I have taught myself. For when I began to grow in size, my mind was not so strong. When the fires stopped and life returned to the hills, there came many great beasts as well, some no doubt quickened to new life, even as I. 1 was not alone in the heart of the hills then! There came things then which hungered also for food, even as when I was small and bore my only defense upon my back. I had to hide often then, so far back in time! But I studied my own body and I learned a great truth concerning that body. I learned that such as I can mold the basic units of life, what you call cells! Yes! Even as the smallest and lowest of the tiny things that swarm in the waters about me, so too can I!

Riveted to his seat, Hiero watched what followed in new wonder. That such things were possible was beyond his dreams.

From the mighty neck, if Solitaire possessed a true neck, there began yet another bulge, such as had heralded the shell. But this one was much larger. It continued to grow and reach, as thick at the base as a great tree. Soon the huge tentacle or pseudopod was as long as the trunk of such a tree. It waved in the air above the man's head, its end a tapered point no bigger than his hand, dripping cool water on him as it did so. Then, with a movement that took his literal breath away, it swept down.