Movement at her side made her turn, expecting an attack of some other animal. But it was nothing of the kind.
One of the little golden-furred lemurs approached her cautiously, pushing aside the tentacles with its furred palms. She sensed that if she made any kind of sudden movement, she would frighten it, so she remained completely quiet. It seemed fascinated by her; its huge green eyes were fixed on hers, and the careful grace with which it moved rather surprised her. She had not expected the creatures to be so lithe.
It sidled up to her, and reached out to touch her wrappings, then snatched its hand back quickly, all the while watching her face. When she did not move, and only reacted by making soothing and encouraging nonsense sounds, it ventured another touch. Finally it came to squat beside her, examining her wrappings minutely, but taking extraordinary care not to dislodge them. She was impressed by its intelligence, for obviously it had made the connection between the wrappings and the fact that the tentacles had not harmed her.
"Yes," she told it softly. "Yes, that's right, little creature. I want only to share your home for the night, if you do not mind. I do not want to hurt you, or frighten you. If you will let me stay, I will do nothing to make you unhappy."
The lemur seemed encouraged by this, and settled down at her side, blinking sleepily as the stars came out. After a few moments, she watched it tuck its head down between its knees, and wrap its long arms around its ankles-then the faint sound of snoring told her that it had, without a doubt, gone to sleep, curled in a cat-like ball of fur.
She continued to watch for the spiders, but the confidence the lemur had shown gave her a great deal more heart. She could not imagine the shy and delicate creature dozing off like that, unless it knew it was completely safe.
The mystery of the floating lights was solved, at least; once the sun set, the lights began to appear, but soon descended to within a few cubits of the ground. The owners of the lights were, indeed, a nocturnal cousin of the floating beasts of the day. These were, perhaps, more fantastic in form; they had huge mouths, many of them, or no mouths at all, and long, trailing tendrils beneath them. Some did not even seem to have a head, for they had no mouths or eyes. In fact they looked like a more tenuous version of the tentacle-beasts, with a glowing spot in the very center of them.
Finally, after watching until her eyes ached, she saw the first of the spiders appear, clambering out to hunt beneath the light of the full moon.
It climbed out of the heart of one of the spinach-like plants-and she shuddered as she realized just how close they had been to the horrid monsters all along. And yet- there had been none of the spiders in the heart of the spinach-forest. Did they live only here? Or did competition within the forest preclude their reaching this fantastic size? There was no way of knowing, really. She was just grateful that none of her party had ever disturbed one of the plants during the day.
The spider stalked directly to one of the tentacle-beasts, the one, she thought, that held Faro, and stood just outside of the reach of the tentacles, its mandibles clacking together angrily. It seemed to know that he was there, and it wanted him. But it would not brave the tentacles to get him. At that, her heart rose. She had been right! The spiders were afraid of the tentacle-beasts.
It was joined by another-then more-but they would not venture near enough to the tentacle-beasts to come within reach of the deadly caresses. For now, they seemed to be concentrating on Faro's beast. It occurred to her that perhaps he was moving about, taunting and testing them, taking the danger on himself to prove whether the tentacle-beasts were the safe harbor they hoped.
"Fah! You'd just love to eat me, wouldn't you, ugly!" Faro's voice said cheerfully from somewhere near the center of the beast. "Well, why don't you come in and get me? I've even got a couple of friends here for your dessert!" He made a rude noise, and the spiders danced in rage.
"Faro?" she called, and the spiders swung their attention away, looking for the source of her voice. "Are you doing all right? Don't tease them too much! If you get them too angry, they might rush you!"
"I'm right and tight, little mistress!" he called back, with a laugh. "I don't think you need to worry; I don't think there's anything that could tempt the ugly things into coming within reach of these beasts-you should see the tentacles on this side, waving as if there's a high wind. I think the beasts can sense when there's a spider around, and they are hungry for spider!"
Well,that was certainly comforting! She relaxed a bit more.
"There's a couple of those lemur creatures in here with me," Faro continued. "Cute little things, and they keep trying to offer me fruit or something."
"Don't take it, Faro," Ware said, from somewhere off to Xylina's right. "You don't know what it is. What is fine for them might poison you; we know nothing about this land and what is in it."
"I'd figured that," Faro replied. "I just take it for a minute, then give it back, and that makes them happy." He raised his voice. "Men! I think we've proved we dare to sleep tonight! How about a roll-call before we do?"
One by one the men called out their names, all but the ones already sleeping. All of them were fine, and more than Faro and Xylina seemed to be sharing their accommodations with lemurs. They seemed to be charmed by the golden-furred animals, who had not molested them or interfered with them in any way. Now Xylina was glad that she had discouraged killing or capturing the gentle beasts.
She turned her attention to the weird wilderness about them, and was gladder than ever that they had found this strange sort of shelter. More creatures than just the spiders were appearing to prowl the night under the full moon. There were long things with too many legs to count, covered in jointed armor that shone under the moonlight. There were some things like giant scorpions the size of ponies in faceted shells that glittered like gemstones. Beetles even bigger than the spiders scuttled across the sand like huge moving hills. But all of these alarming monsters avoided the proximity of the tentacle-beasts, and at last even the spiders gave up waiting for the humans to emerge.
The floating animals descended again, and now she saw the reason for the trailing tentacles and huge mouths. Many a battle took place under the moon, as the tentacles snared a giant insect and the floating creature carried its prey up into the sky. Many a beetle was attracted to the light on the nose of a beast, only to be snatched by the huge, toothy mouth. Even the spiders were not immune; Xylina silently cheered on the floating animals as they seized unwary or too-slow spiders and carried them off.
When the last of the arachnids had prowled away, their claw-tips making that dragging sound she had noticed last night, she looked over at her lemur-companion. It was still sound asleep, and her eyelids were getting so heavy she thought that she might as well follow its example.
"Good night, little one," she said, reaching out to stroke its fur as it had stroked her wrappings. Then, curling up in a ball in the sand, and covering her eyes to protect them from groping tentacles, she let her exhaustion overcome her.
She woke at dawn, as the huge insects of the night before were retreating into their hiding places. And this was when she saw how the lemurs earned their safe homes.
Her companion of the night was already awake, and looking alertly about. It was watching the insects, measuringly, although she could not for a moment imagine why.
Then, after a moment, a much smaller spider came ambling by; a spider just a little larger than her mule in the body, although with the legs added it seemed much bigger. The lemur suddenly darted out of cover, before she could do more than cry out in alarm. Why was it doing this? It had no weapons-the spider could move incredibly quickly, as she had learned only too well yesterday. The poor lemur would be devoured before her very eyes!