Once they came to a place where a series of long sandbars, strewn with logs and other storm wrack, lay in the sea, just off the mouth of a small creek. On these bars, some of the great snappers, their dark gray shells crusted with growth and algae, lay basking and sunning themselves. They hardly blinked their evil eyes, however, as the little party went on by along the beach and splashed their way across the stream.
“Do you have those in your country?” the priest asked as they watched the comatose monsters warily.
“Yes, and much worse things,” was the answer. It seemed that the very sewers had to be screened with great iron bars and grills of massive stonework, even in her own proud city. Otherwise, foul things, water-borne and avid, emerged at night to devour whatever and whomever they could. Bridges, too, had to be covered with strong barriers and roads near streams strongly stockaded when possible. Even with all that, heavily armed, mounted patrols went continually about on regular beats, looking for intrusive jungle creatures and repelling incursions of Leemutes. Hiero was used to a life of fairly constant strife, but he began to feel that he had always lived in peace and quiet after hearing about everyday existence in distant D’alwah.
That night they camped on a high, rocky knoll, from which, at early evening, Hiero could see well inland to the beginning of the Palood, its night mists rising in the still air. Far on the distant air, as he watched, came the faint bellow of one of the monster amphibians, a grim warning not to venture back into the great marsh.
As they sat talking after their evening meal, which consisted of one of the last snapper eggs and some chunks of the cooked antelope which they had carried along, the Metz priest suddenly fell silent.
Very faintly, out at the edge of his mind, his psychic consciousness, he had felt something, a touch, a thought, plucking. It was hardly enough even to notice, but he was becoming more and more aware of his widening powers in this area. He now could “hear,” without even thinking about it, the “voices” of little birds and small, hiding animals they passed as they rode along. Luchare he did not probe, out of courtesy and decency, but he felt sure that he could do so if it should become necessary.
The dark girl noticed his intent look and started to speak, only to have him wave her into silence with a peremptory hand.
Concentrating very hard, he tried his best, using all his newfound (and hard-won) knowledge to pinpoint and identify what he was “hearing,” but it was useless. Yet he had a more than strong feeling that whatever it was, it was finding him, albeit very gently and subtly!
Hiero got quickly up and went over to the packs. Coming back, face set, he carried the strange metal antenna-spear of the dead S’nerg and, sitting down, opened the thing out to its fullest length and drew out the two forehead contact rods. With these on his head, he felt the power he possessed within himself expand suddenly, and almost felt something else!
Greeting, Enemy! came a surge of evil force. The priest felt at the same time a wave of power as the person or entity on the “sending end” tried to use his strength to pinion Hiero and enclose his mind with an intangible, yet very real, block. He had been incredibly lucky, he now knew, when he had first activated this thing. If the power on the other end of the communication band had then tried this trick at once, he would probably have been caught. But now, armed with his new-won strength and knowledge, it was easy to fend the other off, as a fencer wards a sword stroke, and at the same time keep open, the message level so that he could either listen, or talk.
You are strong, Enemy, came the next grudging thought. Are you a renegade brother of ours or perhaps a new mutation we know nothing about? We have continuously watched and guarded this wavelength since we realized that you had slain our brother and stolen his (indecipherable name or symbol) communicator.
Hiero sent no answering thought. The other knew he was listening, however, and he had a feeling that the Unclean, almost certainly one of their wizard lords, would not be able to stop talking. It was obvious that they had no idea who or what he might be. They were arrogantly sure, though, that he must have their kind of twisted, sick mind, whatever he was, and the idea that one of their despised foes, an Abbey priest, had such power was obviously alien to them.
You are not one of the disciples of the tree-worshippers, the soft Earth lovers, who call themselves the Eleventh Commandment Seekers, that is plain, came the thought. We know their mind patterns, and you are far more like us in power and cunning.
A dubious compliment, another section of Hiero’s mind recorded, at the same time making note of the fact that the Eleveners, while implacable foes of the Unclean, yet apparently were also in some kind of communication with them.
We lost you in the great marsh, came the cruel thought. And we sent an uncertain ally, now also seemingly lost, so that perhaps, though he is very strange, even to such as we, you slew him as well In an case, you found, the (undecipherable), which you also took from our brother’s body, And you silenced it. There came a pause.
Will you not speak? The thought was sweet now, with the evil, persuasive sweetness of uncatalogued sin. We, our great Brotherhood, acknowledge you as a full equal. We wish you to join us, be one of us, share our power and our purposes. Do not fear. We cannot find you unless you wish us to. We wish only to exchange thoughts with a mind of such power as yours, and one so different. The thought was soft and honey, sickly, sweet. Speak to us, our Enemy, whom we wish to make a friend.
The priest held his mental barrier raised high, as a gladiator secutor once held a shield against the deadly net of the retiarius. He remembered the Elevener, Jone, who had died to save Lu-chare and his remark, “In all your thoughts and deeds there are lies.” Further, Hiero was by no means sure that the other and his crew could not locate him, should he try and speak to them as they asked. In fact, he decided, maybe they can even trace me now, while I just listen to them. Who knows what they can do?
He tore the contacts off his head and slammed the antenna back in and telescoped the main rod shut, all in one motion. The alien voice stopped abruptly. Yet at the very edge of his mind once more, he could feel the faint (and irritating) plucking and twisting as it still attempted contact.
He concentrated, thinking hard. Perhaps if he altered the basic mind shield he had been taught at the Abbey, so—then, using his new powers, next activated another, different mental shield, causing that one to overlie the other, thus.
It worked. As his new barrier fitted over the old, the voice or mind touch ceased abruptly, like the light of a snuffed-out candle. He was no longer conscious of any contact at all, and he was sure he had shaken off the enemy.
He looked up. It was full dark again, but the moon was bright, and Luchare and Gorm sat together a few feet away, in silent companionship, waiting for him to return to them. The morse could be heard as he fed himself down at the bottom of the rock, as usual keeping an unsleeping guard.
Hiero rubbed his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The Unclean were just trying a few games. They can’t do it any more, and I’ll be all the more ready next time.”
“Are they following us? Are they able to—to talk with your mind?” the girl asked hesitantly.