All this Dumarest explained as they stood on the floor of the wide colonnade.
"I know, Earl." Usan was impatient. "I know."
"Go in, find out what you can and return. This will guide you." Dumarest lifted the coil he held, a thin rope he'd made of plaited strands taken from a thicker coil. "I'll tie it around your waist. When you want to return take up the slack and follow the line. You understand?"
"Yes." She sagged a little, then straightened, her breathing harsh. "But hurry, Earl. Hurry!"
The line attached she stepped from the colonnade and beaded toward the mist. The line snaked from where it lay in a coil on the floor, the other end fastened to Dumarest's wrist.
Marek said, "A woman of courage, Earl, but as she said, what has she to lose? How long will you allow her to search?"
"Not long."
"Earl!" Sufan frowned as Dumarest looked toward him. "If anything happens to her, what then?"
"It hasn't yet."
"But if it does? She's old and ill and near collapse. She could die out there, but if she does we must continue to search. I insist on that."
Marek said, "She's gone."
The mist had closed about her, streamers and coils writhing, drifting, reforming as they watched. Dumarest felt a tug at his wrist and looked at the line. It was extended, taut as it vanished into the mist. Gently he tugged at it, again, the cord dipping to lie on the ground.
"How long will you give her?" said Marek. "An hour?"
"More," said Sufan. "We must give her a chance to search. The more we learn the better, and if-" He broke off, but there was no need of words. If danger lay within the mist and she should fall victim to it her death would at least warn the others.
All they could do now was to wait.
Pacula came to join them. She said, "How long are you going to leave her out there? It's been hours."
Hours? Dumarest said, "Get back to Embira."
"She's resting. Asleep. The sedatives-"
"Get back to her!"
Dumarest looked at the line. It lay thin and straight without movement of any kind. If Usan had found something and was examining it the line would present that appearance. If she was moving a little from side to side or returning it would be the same. But too much time had passed. She could have fallen to be lying unconscious or dead.
Marek said, "Hours? Earl, that doesn't make sense. But Usan-you'd better bring her back."
Dumarest was already at work. Quickly he drew in the line, feeling no resistance, continuing to pull it back until the end came into sight.
"She's gone!" Sufan's voice was high, incredulous. "Earl! She's vanished!"
"She untied the line." Marek stooped, lifted it in his hands. "See? No sign of a break. Maybe she saw something she couldn't reach and undid the knot. Now she's lost." He stared at the mist, the vast, shrouded area. "Lost," he said again. "Earl, what happens now?"
Dumarest said, "I'm going to find her."
Chapter Sixteen
The line had been extended and was firm about his waist. The others were watching, aside from Embira who was still asleep, but Dumarest didn't turn to look at them. Marek held the line and a loop was attached to a pillar. Sulfan had been full of instructions, heard and ignored. Dumarest would operate in his own way.
Beneath his feet the ground held a gentle slope, checked by a glance at the colonnade to one side. A saucer like depression, not a hemisphere or the ground would have held a sharper gradient. A shallow bowl then, why hadn't he noticed it before?
Around him the mist began to thicken.
It held a trace of pungency, an odor not unpleasant, slightly reminiscent of the fur of a cat, the tang of spice. It filled his nostrils as he breathed and stung his eyes a little, a discomfort which passed as soon as noticed. He had expected to be blinded by the mist but always, as he walked, it seemed to open before him. An area of visibility a few yards in diameter. The ground was smoothly even, yielding like a firm sponge beneath his boots, which left no trace of their passage.
"Usan!" The mist flattened his call. "Usan!"
She could be anywhere and finding her would be a matter of luck. Already he had lost all sense of direction, only the line offering a guide.
"Usan!"
A woman, old, sick, dying, but with greater courage than most. Kalin had been like that. Kalin, who had gained what Usan most desired, a new and healthy body, living as a host in another's shape. Using the secret he carried, the one given to her by her husband before he died, passing it on in turn.
Kalin-could he ever forget her?
And then, incredibly, she was before him.
"Earl! My darling! My lover-I have waited so long!"
She came from the mist, tall, her hair a scarlet flame, eyes wide, lips parted, hands lifted to grasp his shoulders. Against his chest he could feel the pressure of her body, her sensual heat.
"Earl, my darling! My darling!"
He felt the touch of her lips, her hands, the swell of breasts and hips, the long, lovely curve of her thighs. All as he remembered-but Kalin was dead. Kalin, the real Kalin-not the beautiful shell she had worn.
"Come with me, Earl." She took his hand and led him to a room bright with sparkling color. A wide bed rested on a soft carpet, flowers filled vases of delicate crystal, perfume hung on the summer air. From beyond the open window came the sound of birds. "Rest, my darling, and talk to me. But first-" Her kiss was warm with promise, her flesh inviting to his touch. "Again, my darling. Again!"
Dumarest drew a long, shuddering breath. He was a man and within him was sensual yearning, little desires and hopes building into fantastic imagery, the biological drives inherent in any normal human. To love and be loved, to need and be needed, to have and to hold. And yet-
"Is something wrong, Earl?" The woman looked at him, her eyes filled with stars. "Earl! Don't you remember me?"
Too well and in too great a detail. The line of her chin, the tilt of her head, the little quirk at the corners of her lips. He studied them again, his eyes dropping to the gown she wore, short, cut low, shimmering emerald belted with a band of scarlet the color of her hair. All real as the room was real, the flowers. He picked one, the crushed bloom falling from his hand.
"Earl?"
"No," he said. "No."
And was again surrounded by mist.
It looked as before, a swirling, bluish gray fog, smoke in constant motion as if with a life of its own. The smoke of fires remembered from earlier days when as a boy he had crouched over smoldering embers cooking the game fallen to his sling. A lesson learned then never to be forgotten. Eat or die. Kill or starve. Survive or perish. Childhood had not been a happy time.
But Earth was his home. Earth!
The mist parted and he stood on a meadow. The softness of lush grass was beneath his feet and trees soared in ancient grace to one side. A moment and he was among them to walk among the boles of a natural cathedral. The trunks were rough to his touch, the leaf he thrust into his mouth succulent with juices, the little wad of masticated fiber falling to the soft, rich soil.
The trees yielded to a clearing slashed by a stream fringed with willows, the tinkle of water over stone a somnolent music in the warm, scented air. In the azure sky hung the pale orb of the Moon, a silver ghost blotched with familiar markings.
Home. He was home!
Not the one remembered from boyhood, the bleak area of ravaged stone and arid soil, the haunts of small and vicious beasts, of poverty and savage men, but the one he had always been convinced must lie over the horizon. Earth as it had been. Earth as it should be. Warm and gentle and filled with enchantment. A paradise.
The only one there ever was or ever could be. "You like it?" A man rose from where he had been sitting at the edge of the stream. His face was shadowed by the cowl of his brown, homespun robe, his hands thrust into its sleeves. His voice held the deep resonance of a bell. "You?"