What is a power-pull? Well, it's a part of the makeup of everything with an electromagnetic field. Every world has numerous, shifting points in its gravitational matrix. There, certain machines or specially talented people can plug in and act as switchboards, batteries, conderisors. Power-pull is a handy term for such a nexus of energy, a term used by people who can employ it in such a fashion. I didn't want to use one until I was certain as to the nature of the enemy, however, for all Namebearers normally possess this capability.
So I let the fog dampen my garments and take the sheen from my boottops, when I could have dried out. I walked with my staff in my left hand, my right one free to draw and fire.
Nothing attacked me, though, as I advanced. In fact, after a time no living thing crossed my path.
I hiked until evening, making perhaps twenty miles that day. The dampness was all-pervasive, but there was no rain. I located a small cave in the foothills I was then negotiating, cast my flimsy--a ten by ten sheet of tough plastic material, three molecules in thickness--for insulation against the dirt and some of the dampness, ate a dry meal and slept, my gun near my hand.
The morning was as bleak as the night and the day before, and the fog had thickened. I suspected an intent behind it, and I moved cautiously. It struck me as just a bit too melodramatic. If he thought he was going to shake me up with shadow, mist, chill and the alienation of a few of my creatures, he was wrong. Discomfort just irritates me, makes me angry and fixes my determination to get at its source and deal with it as quickly as possible.
I slopped my way through much of the second day, topped the hills and began my downward trek. It was along about evening that I picked up a companion.
A light appeared off to my left and moved parallel to my own course. It hovered anywhere from two to eight feet above the ground, and its color varied from pale yellow through orange to white. It could have been anywhere from twenty to a hundred feet away at any given time. Occasionally, it disappeared; always, it returned. A will-o-the-wisp, sent to lure me into some crevass or marshy bog? Probably. Still, I was curious, I admired its persistence--and it was nice to have company.
"Good evening," I said. "I'm coming to kill whoever sent you, you know.
"But then you might just be marsh gas," I added. "In which case, you may dismiss my last remark.
"Either way," I went on, "I'm not in the mood to be led astray just now. You can take a coffee break if you'd like."
Then I began whistling _It's a Long Way to Tipperary_. The thing continued to pace me. I stopped and sheltered beneath a tree, to light a cigarette. I stood there and smoked it. The light hovered about fifty feet away, as if waiting. I tried to touch it with my mind, but it was as if there was nothing there. I drew my gun and thought better of it, reholstered it. I finished my cigarette, crushed it out, moved ahead.
Again, the light moved with me.
About an hour later, I made camp in a small clearing. I wrapped myself in my flimsy, my back against a rock. I built a small fire and heated some soup I'd brought along. The light wouldn't carry far on a night like this.
The will-o-the-wisp hovered just outside the circle of firelight. "Care for a cup of coffee?" I asked it. There was no reply, which was a good thing. I had only one cup with me.
After I'd finished eating, I lit a cigar and let the fire go down to embers. I puffed my cigar and wished for stars. The night was soundless about me, and the chill was reaching for my backbone. It had already seized my toes and was gnawing on them. I wished I'd thought to bring a flask of brandy.
My fellow traveler stood vigil, unmoving, and I stared back at him. If it wasn't a natural phenomenon, it was there to spy on me. Dared I sleep? I dared.
When I awoke, my chrono showed me that an hour and a quarter had passed. Nothing had changed. Not forty minutes later, either, nor two hours and ten minutes after that, when I awoke again.
I slept out the rest of the night and found it waiting in the morning.
This day was like the previous one, cold and blank. I broke camp and moved on, reckoning that I was about a third of the way to my destination.
Suddenly, there was a new development. My companion moved from my left and drifted slowly ahead. It turned right then and hovered, about sixty feet before me. By the time I reached that spot, it had moved on, anticipating my path.
That was a thing I didn't like. It was as though the guiding intelligence were mocking me, saying, "Look here, old boy, I know where you're headed and how you intend getting there. Why don't you let me make the way a bit easier?" It was a successful mock, too, for it made me feel like a complete fool. There were several things I could do about it, but I didn't feel like doing them yet.
So I followed. I followed till lunchtime, when it politely halted until I was quite finished; till dinnertime, when it did the same.
Shortly thereafter, however, the light again changed its behavior. It drifted off to the left and vanished. I stopped and stood still for a moment, for I'd grown used to it. Was I supposed to have become so conditioned to following it all day that fatigue and habit would combine to lead me after it now, off my intended path? Perhaps.
I wondered how far it would lead me if I gave it the opportunity.
I decided that twenty minutes of walking after it would be quite enough. I loosened my pistol in its holster and waited for it to come again.
It did. When it repeated its previous performances, I turned and followed. It hurried ahead, waited for me to catch up, hurried on.
After about five minutes, a light rain began to fall. Though the darkness deepened, I could see without using my hand torch. Soon I was soaked all the way through. I cursed and sloughed along, shivering.
Approximately half a mile further along, wetter, colder, darker the day, stronger still the feeling of alienation, I was left alone. The light went out. I waited, but it did not return.
Carefully, I made my way to the place where I had last seen it, circling in from the right, gun in hand, searching with my eyes and my mind.
I brushed against a dry tree-limb and heard it snap.
"Stop! For the love of God! Don't!"
I threw myself to the ground and rolled.
The cry had come from right beside me. I covered that area from a distance of twelve feet.
Cry? Had it been a truly physical sound, or something within my mind? I wasn't certain.
I waited.
Then, so softly that I wasn't certain how I was hearing it, there came to me a sound of sobbing. Soft sounds are difficult to pinpoint, and this was no exception. I turned my head slowly, from right to left, saw no one.
"Who is it?" I asked in a shrill whisper, for these, too, are without direction.
No answer. But the sobbing continued. Reaching out with my mind, I felt pain and confusion, nothing more.
"Who is it?" I repeated.
There was silence, then, "Frank?" said the voice.
This time I decided to wait. I let a minute go by, then said my name.
"Help me," came the reply.
"Who are you? Where are you?"
"Here ..."
And the answers came into my mind, and the nape of my neck crawled and my hand tightened on the pistol.
"Dango! The Capel Knife!"
I knew then what had happened, but I didn't have guts enough to turn on my torch and take a good look. I didn't need to, though.
My will-o-the-wisp chose that moment to return.
It drifted past me, rose high, higher, brightness increasing in intensity to a level far beyond anything it had exhibited earlier. It hovered at a height of fifteen or twenty feet and blazed like a flare. Below it stood Dango. He had no choice but to stand.