For as the glamour of the strange spell grew upon him, his inner being realized two things. First, the House was utterly alien, something which should not he; and second, the House was not one entity at all, but many minds of things all swarming like so many maggots in and through the gelid and gelatinous structure. The creatures, whatever they were, were both in and part of the ghastly thing which now reared itself to a height of many feet in front of him, to the eye as much real as his own hand.
And he was being invited to share, to join! He too could take part in the work to come, the great work of cleansing the surface of the earth, so that only the living House remained, surrounded by the monstrous, mutated fungi which were its weapons and its seed.
The House’s brownish, oily structure seemed to shake as he watched, horrified yet fascinated. Strange faces began to appear on its shifting surface, to leer invitingly at him, and to vanish again into the mass, only to be replaced by others, equally foul and evanescent. All invited him. Come, they seemed to say; leave your mortal shell and become one with us and live forever.
Then, in his despair, for though he was not tempted, he was utterly helpless, there came a new factor. It was the bear!
His thought came obliquely somehow through the mental sphere of thought with which the monster had surrounded the priest. The strong mind was like a draught of cold air. lam here. It does not understand me at all, I think, and it uses a sending or a force which might indeed hold me if I were only what I seem, a creature of instinct and emotion, as once my people were. It is afraid of you, that I can feel, but not of me. The bear’s thought was full of mingled anger and also craft. Yet Gorm was giving away no points, nor counseling hasty action, Hiero realized, only waiting to see what he himself wanted.
They—or rather, it—grows impatient, came a fresh message. There are many very strange minds there, all mixed, but making one, like in an anthill or bees’ nest. It will not wait much longer, he added. It is tired of your refusing whatever it is it wishes. Now—it summons something from outside. The cool bear mind was calm, detached, as if what were happening had no relation to himself.
The Metz had drawn on his own inner resources at the same time, deducing, analyzing, forming conclusions. Simply knowing that he was not cut off had given him immense strength of purpose. There had even been time for a battle prayer of split-second length, but in due and proper form—God preserve his warrior through all trial. Amen.
Can you reach outside? Get Aldo and above all tell him to bring the weapon we have ready. I’m going to keep struggling and focus the attention of this thing on myself. Hurry!
He felt Goon’s mind withdraw and then he renewed his own struggle to escape, trying every level, every method he had taught himself or ever been taught, to pierce the web around him and free both his brain and his limbs.
The House now withdrew its sucking blandishments and its horrid appeals for alliance. It still sat before him, or rather, it kept its repulsive, mirage-simulacrum there, but it settled down to watchful waiting. Even as he renewed his apparently fruitless assault, he decided Gorm was right: the House was afraid of him, or at least wary. He must be something very different from anything it—or they—had ever encountered before. He wondered if the bear were having any success in reaching the Elevener. In a few moments they would know.
Now, through the ground itself, he felt a motion, hardly even a vibration, merely a faint stir, an almost imperceptible tremor. Something was on the move, and he knew, or guessed, what that something was. The slime-mold-things, or one of them, were coming to feed. His eyes locked on the House, not able to move at all, he saw and suddenly understood the cloud of bloated flies hovering in front of his face and realized then that they were the eyes of the House and had reported his coming. This, then, was how the thing penetrated the forest fringe and guarded its borders.
Suddenly the House vanished from his sight. In its place there appeared the quaking, soft bulk of the slime-thing it had summoned. He did not believe that its appearance directly before him and the envanishment of its ruler were accidents. Unable to move at all, by a refinement of cruelty he was to be made to see his destroyer coming and know what it was that devoured him alive.
Coldly, never relaxing his struggle to be free, yet to the outward eye simply standing still and peering forward, he watched the eyeless bulk glide toward him. The creature was far larger than he had realized when seen at a distance. The soft, plush mound towered far above his head, and the long rods which sprang from it, each tipped with that poisonous orange glow, were at least four times the length of his own body. It paused and then came on again, though more slowly. All the long rods were aquiver, their lengths rigid and yet soft, as soft as the purple pile surface of the unearthly shape. Now it was just in front of him, blotting out the view of all beyond. He breathed a prayer and also continued the struggle without a second’s hesitation, wrenching his mind about its strange, invisible prison as an eel hurls itself against its woven willow trap, without success perhaps, yet never giving up.
Unflinching thus, he faced his doom and so he saw the horror struck down, even as it reared over him.
The blazing crossbow bolt had barely sunk to the feathers, deep into the pulpy flesh, when another followed, burying itself not a foot away from the first. Slimmer, longer arrows came in a sheet after that, each one with flaming tow tied tightly to the shaft. One of the most ancient devices of man, the fire arrow, was being used against a hell creature spawned out of science-wrought cataclysm and devastation.
Over his head, the rain of burning arrows continued, and he realized that Luchare and Brother Aldo must have brought the tree women to their aid, conquering somehow their fear of the blight.
The slime mold reared up and shook in its agony, and for an instant Hiero thought it would fall upon and slay him in its death throes. Fire ran in coruscating runnels down its rounded, shifting sides and leaped into blazing light on the phosphorescent pseudo-pod ends, the clean light of honest fire burning out the poisonous phosphorescence by which the thing slew its prey.
At this moment, the mind control vanished. The House, unnerved by this sudden and unexpected onslaught, released its prisoners. No less alert than Hiero, Gorm instantly turned on his own stout length and scuttled for his life, the warrior-priest racing hard on his furry heels. In a few seconds they had reached and passed the clean wood’s edge. In an instant more, Hiero again was squeezing the life out of his dark love, while to her right and left, Aldo and Vilah-ree directed the dryad archers as they still launched their blazing shafts out into the territory claimed by the House, Gorm promptly sat down and began to lick himself.