As the voice entered his mind, Hiero became a changed man. Outwardly, he remained what in fact he had been for a long time, a prisoner of his own body, obedient to the will of that which had summoned him. But the strange voice in his brain had alerted all the long-silenced circuits that had been killed by the drug of the Unclean. They were not operating under his control, but they were activated. He could feel all his emotions again, sense the brain of that which addressed him, plan on the future with his full mentality, review the damage done by the drug, and, above all, feel that he was no longer a prisoner in his own skull. Yet he must obey.
He dismounted as he had been told. The hopper remained squatting on his haunches, as immobile as a statue, his great, gentle eyes fixed in a blank stare, as if he were seeing nothing. The man began to walk along the edge of the dark water, picking his way over the slippery masses of the crumbling bones with care. All the while, his brain was still captive, but racing furiously, considering the voice in his mind and the implications thereof.
It was no human voice, this mental alert. In some ways, it was not unlike the House, that amalgam of fungoid intelligence he had slain in the cavern to the north. The resemblance lay in a sense of coldness and of great age. But there it ended. The House had been all furious malignancy, hating and despising all that was not of its own foul nature, determined to swallow the whole world in its sporate growth. This mind was quite different, being as placid as the mountain tarn before him. It was remote, non-caring. It envied and despised nothing, too aloof and withdrawn from the scheme of things for such pettiness. If it had any deep emotions, it hid them well.
While Hiero was considering the voice and trying to sort out the burst of galloping thoughts created by the sudden awakening of his mind, he was still clambering over the moss and lichen-strewn bones. Presently, he came to the end and found himself in a little bay on the shore of the black lake. Over the water, the mist still clung to the damp air, wreaths and swathes of it folding and refolding in gauzy tendrils. The light was growing brighter as the sun once more began to make its appearance, and shades of pearly opalescence colored the fog.
Hiero seated himself on a convenient bank of thick, green moss and stared at a narrow ridge of grayish rock which had become revealed some yards from the shore as the mist cleared a little. The voice had been silent for some minutes now, and his brain registered nothing. Yet he was well aware that his summoner was not gone and also that he could make no move save with permission. Far back down the shore, whence he had just come, he heard the sound of a heavy splash. There was no other sound, and he wondered at the noise. While he sat in silent puzzlement, the voice came again to his mind.
So, Two-Legs, you are at rest. I feel in your mind that you do not hunger, nor do you thirst. Good. Very good. We can have speech with each other.
The strange voice was not speaking in words, but rather in instantaneous images. Moreover, the images were halting and somewhat labored, not at all like the clear mind speech Hiero could use with Gorm, the absent bear, his mutant comrade. It was as if the being had developed little or no skill in what it was doing. It had plenty of ability, but the ability was theoretic, not practiced.
You can speak to me, Two-Legs. Not to anyone else, at least not in this manner. And there is no one to speak to with sounds, as you do with your own sort. Here, in my place, there is none other. You must speak with me or with none.
Hiero tensed as he received this, then attempted to use mind speech. As he did so, he tried to throw up a guard as well, so that whatever addressed him could not read his hidden, innermost thoughts.
Who are you? he sent. What do you want? Why cannot I see you? What is this place?
He could swear he had felt amusement or at least irony from the voice. But there seemed to be no malice, no feeling of evil, directed toward him. Yet he knew the creature was right. He was sending to it alone. His powers had been restored only on this one “channel.” Aside from his unseen interlocutor, he was still cut off from the world of the mind.
Many, many questions, came the reply. There is no need for so much at once. But I will try to answer. You will see me in due course. I have my own reasons for waiting. You are most impatient—as are, I guess, all those like you? It ignored its own half question and went on. This is my place, the only place I have ever known. And perhaps ever will. I have brought you here, as I see you perceive, by pulling on your mind slowly at first and then with more power, increasing the pull by degrees. For I could see that your mind was not such as I have ever encountered before. Many wanings and waxings of the moon have come and gone since one of your two-legged kind was brought here. It has been so long that I have lost count. It did not seem important. Very few ever came, and their minds were blind and foolish, unthinking and so full of terror. In the end, when I could not reach them and their minds, I gave them peace. What passed for their brains was full of blood, full of fear, and yet cruel also, in a way that the simple beasts who come are not. So—like these others, they passed.
Hiero was made conscious of the sea of mossy bones. He felt a sudden chill. How long had this invisible presence been here, and was this damp charnel house what it meant by “giving them peace” and “passing”?
But the thing which spoke to him detected his fear at once, and he knew that in his present state no mind screen he erected could bar it from any of his thoughts.
Do not be afraid!’ it said with surprising emphasis. You are no use to me if you panic like the other things of your species. I mean you no harm. When I felt the strength of your thoughts, which burned in the atmosphere—for even though your mind is bent and silenced, I can still perceive its lost power—I tried to draw you here. You were very far away, Two-Legs, so far I could barely detect you at all. I had to strain my own senses to the uttermost even to reach you. It exhausted me, the first time such a thing ever happened. And then, when I found your brain, I found it blocked, sealed off from all thought outside, even mine. There was a pause, as if the voice were trying to assemble thought and concepts unused or never used before.
But the ones who shut your mind from the rest of the world—for I see that it was done to you, and not for your benefit—did not know of me. There was a note of actual pride in the message, Hiero noted in turn. The voice had accomplished quite a feat, and it knew it.
I found a small place that the blockage did not cover, a hole, you would think. And into this hole I sent my own thought, calling you to me. It took much energy. I was always hungry. Even now, after just feeding, I am hungry still. I must summon more food before we talk again. You also, Two-Legs, are ready to eat and rest. Go back to where you came from first and get the food that you have brought with you, then return here to eat and rest. Later we can have speech together. Fear nothing. I alone rule here, and no enemy or beast can enter or leave unless I desire it. None has ever left.
There was silence in his mind, Hiero realized. The voice was gone. He thought of the message and shuddered inwardly. “None has ever left.” Was this to be his fate as well, trapped by some nameless being in the far mountains, to perish alone and unknown in this lake of fogs, his quest undone, and Luchare and all who loved him never even to know? He crossed himself. If he ever needed the Lord’s protection, this was the time. It was not fear or even the loneliness of his plight which unnerved him. Rather, it was the thought that he had surmounted, so much, only to come to this obscure and hopeless end.