Then he passed by a hollow in the side of the tunnel and heard a whisper of stir there. He chilled. Though he was nor sure how he could be so sure of it, he was certain that in that hollow, well within reach of him as he pushed hurriedly past, were the furred, leggy creatures who had opened the other way in order to attack Bojor in the valley of his ship.
There was a rustling behind and he called on his sense as strongly as he could. Yes, it was the burrow lurkers, but they were not trailing him as he had feared, rather scuttling back toward the hole which led to the camp. Surely they would be a surprise to any who would come after them, but also they might now be engaged in filling the entrance to this escape route.
Farree quickened his pace as best he could, his arm up and ahead of him to feel out anything which might catch on his wings. But he did not touch any of the tubers which had hung from the roof in that other way.
Twice the passage took an abrupt turn, and on the second one he caught up with the rest of the party, hardly more than shadows in the very weak light which came from a crooked stick carried by the one who had overseen all this rescue. His head, in that dim light, looked nearly too large for his body, and his forearms and legs, which were incompletely covered by dull grey-brown, skintight clothing, were nearer stick thin. The rest of his body was haired with coarse black and thick clumps of bristles. His nose was nearly a snout, for his mouth was very large and he had no visible chin. In some ways he looked rather like the animal-masked one Farree had seen in his dream. His ears were pointed and placed well up a naked skull, the ends of them curved over a little. Farree, who had seen many strange wayfarers during his days in the Limits and a-travel thereafter, thought that his ugliness well passed the common.
Having once made the escapees free of this secret way he paid no more attention to them, but stamped ahead flatfootedly, leaving them to follow or not as they would.
The girl was behind Yazz, and she kept hold on Yazz's waving tail as if she needed touch with some creature less disagreeable than their guide. There was no room here to push up closer, so Farree continued to bring up the rear. They passed walls now where the soil rained down and there were streaks of moisture showing. The earth dweller hastened by those spots and they had to hurry, Farree very uneasy at those signs of possible disintegration.
One more turn and their path was much brighter. Unconsciously they all speeded up once more toward that and so they came out into a place so different from the cramped ways down which they had come that Farree stopped short, once he was through a break in the wall, just to stare about him.
Chapter Sixteen
The light was as brilliant as the full day's shine but not steady. As the lasers had flashed in the air earlier, here also shot shafts of rainbow glitter. He might have been back in that crystal castle of his first dreaming.
Only here the crystals were untamed. They had not been quarried or shaped by any will save their own. Great, sharp-pointed spikes stood taller than Farree, sprouting from the rock as if they had grown like trees. Some were as clear as mountain water save that they cut the light into rainbows. Others were footed in color—amethyst, clear yellow, smoke-silver. In the midst of this vast cave or hall there were many of grey but these were murky, not silver, resembling the ball, the Globe of Ummar, which had splintered.
These alone showed that they had been worked upon for a purpose. They were packed together, flat sides uppermost, a wall of high points at the back of a level stretch on which someone was seated.
The earth dweller who had led them here forged ahead, but those he had guided remained just within the entrance of this place of colored light, dazzled by its brilliance. Their guide shambled on, to stand at the foot of the piled crystals which had been fitted to serve as a seat—or a throne—
He bowed low and then looked up into a face—
Not a face, Farree thought, the chill once more upon him, but rather a countenance close to a skull, even if there was yellowish skin laid across the thrusting bone. The eye holes were not empty; there were tightly drawn lids across their sharp edges. And the skin on the two hands resting on flanking crystals was deeply wrinkled, showing long nails, curved beyond the ends of the fingers as might claws, all emblazoned by a bright scarlet which the play of the crystal light could not disguise.
The rest of the figure was muffled in a grey robe which did not look as if it were of material substance, but rather as if an armful of haze had been pulled about a skeleton body. Between the knees of the enthroned one was the massive hilt of a sword and at the hidden feet lay a skull, this one far larger than that of any man Farree had ever seen. Struck well into the dome of bone was the point of the sword—the device which had been so plainly displayed in the castle where Selrena had had her lurking place.
At the same time he noted that, Farree was aware of what might be the first stroke of a very strange battle—the throb of an invading mind send.
"Glasrant." That one word pierced his head as the sword pierced the skull before the seated one. There was a stirring, a pushing—such pain as he could not have imagined before strove to split his head open. Through the tears gathering in his eyes and running down his cheeks Farree saw that those tightly drawn eyelids were no longer flat and closed. Somehow they had vanished and, as he staggered forward to answer an unvoiced command his gaze was caught and tight held by what lay in the dark pits so uncovered: cores of flame, red, yellow, near white-hot– They reached into his head, hunted, sought, appraised, dropped aside as without value, summoned what the mist-robed one wanted and formed that into something which could think, and thinking, hear again.
"You were dead," observed the robed one.
"I was not dead." Farree felt as if some other had taken over his body, his mind. "Your earth grubbers were not thorough, Fragon. Then there was Malor—you were not well served, Fragon."
He kept his feet by sheer will; there was a burning hell of released thought and memory, which strove to carve more room that it might fill its proper place again.
"Ah, yes, Malor. One must often be reduced to using tools which are flawed." Now the skeleton's red-nailed hands met and bore down on the sword hilt. If that gesture measured some emotion it was not echoed on the skin-and-bone face in which only the fire of the eyes was alive.
"So Malor did not gain by his treachery?" There was a face in Farree's mind—sculptured to resemble his own, so much so he might have been the other's son—or brother?
"For a season he profited," Fragon said indifferently. "As a quas fruit he had that much. Then there was a naming and challenge; he thought himself invincible. The learning otherwise took but a short space. Quaffer had the better of a yield flight."
"And what then happened to Quaffer?" Farree asked as in his mind a second face formed, one for which he held no liking.
"Quaffer was a fool!" That answer had not come from the dead-alive Darda on his smoky crystal throne, but from one Farree had forgotten, the girl.
She must have followed him, for now she drew level with him, her eyes also on the Dark Darda.
"Quaffer was a fool." Agreement rang in Farree's mind.
"Fools and knaves, they rise like scum on a meat pot when it is set boiling. Quaffer made a pact with those of the Cursed Ones who had discovered this world. It was he who bought their aid with an offering—you, Glasrant. They sought you the world around. After that star ship rose from the earth, Quaffer swore you dead of the Cursed Ones' malice when the Bright Lady and the Sword Lord threatened him with a coat of iron.