She opened her eyes. The darkness of the night was held at bay just beyond her body by the radiance of the flower. Now the sky overhead was cloud filled and curtained against even the distant sparks of the stars.
For a long moment Brixia lay so. Then whatever summons had drawn her out of slumber once more insinuated itself into her mind. She got to her knees, groped with one hand for the spear. Her body did not seem a part of her anymore—it was the need to get on which mattered.
On her feet, she started down the way. The glow of the flower only showed a step or two beyond. What might be waiting there was hidden. Yet she must go this path and there was a reason for haste. Brixia searched for that reason within herself. Was it so needful that she catch up with those others? Or was this a subtle warning that she must not linger in a dangerous territory? What had made a trap for her once might well so work again.
There were odd sounds to be heard out of the darkness. At first she thought of the birds—and their mistress—and then of the half seen serpent-like things which had done battle with those. There were also the night ranging toads—There could be dangers in the dark so countless that no man could list them in days—and nights—of time.
Only, as she listened, the main part of what she heard came more and more to puzzle her. It was as if someone, just beyond the reach of hearing intelligible words, spoke—some one? Many voices, some high, some low and with more force. Brixia strained more and more in the hope of making out a single word, of learning whether she did catch the muted speech of her own kind. Yet if there was such company she approached it no closer even though she was walking faster, drawn on in spite of herself by the hope of finding perhaps the three that she sought.
This was as if the busy life of a dale flowed about her just beyond her ability to touch it, to make contact with what lay forever in shadow. Or was she the shadow-trapped in that fashion from the real world?
One could imagine anything in the night. Especially if one were light-headed from lack of food and water. The scent of the flower might even have addled her mind somewhat—even as the juice or fruit of some growths could drug and even send mad the unwary.
Still Brixia walked, and listened to the voices always just beyond her understanding. Once she nursed a fancy that the mounds about her covered the ruins of some keep and those who filled the dark with whispering sound were the soul-shadows of those who had lived there. Such things had been known among the legends of her people.
Oddly enough she no longer felt any fear. It was as if the purpose which had sent her on also enveloped her spirit, encasing her with a sense of protection. Right, then left, the way would turn, and her feet with it. And all around ever the darkness.
Did she walk all the rest of the night? Brixia could never afterwards be sure—nor did she know how long she had lain in exhausted sleep before she had started on. One foot was set before the other mechanically now. She did not even try to see what lay ahead, the will which moved her superseded her own.
Nor was she aware at first that the country around her was changing. The mounds were growing fewer, but such as remained gave her, though she could see little of them through the dark, a feeling of being much higher. Then the butt of the spear which she used for a support thudded home not on soil but on something hard, which gave forth a ringing sound that stirred her out of the half dream in which she moved.
Brixia raised her head. There was a dull gray in the sky. She dropped to her knees, released a little from the compulsion to keep on. So the light of the flower fell directly on the ground about her. There was a wide stretch of blocks, fitted one to the other in a manner which could only mark a road. Across the nearest ran a drift of soil. While planted in the midst of that, with the firmness of something stamped with a purpose, was the clear mark of a cat’s paw.
7
Almost timidly Brixia put out a finger tip to touch that track. It was real, not some trick played by her eyes in the very dim early light. Uta—if Uta had left this sign—then she herself must have won through the trickery—at least for a time—which had been played on her. If she hurried—then surely she could find the others, she would not be lost alone in a place of witchery against which she had only a flower to use in her own defense.
Brixia wavered again to her feet and staggered forward. The flower itself was once more closing, but more slowly than it had opened. Enough light still spread from it to give her a clear sight of the path. So she continued to spy other markings surely left by Uta wherever there was patch of soil to play her guide.
The mounds no longer closed her in. Also here was something else—a stand of thorned bushes, growths she recognized. Though protected with long thorns as was the fruit still clinging to those branches, Brixia was ready to fight to fill her mouth, know the relief of the tart juice from crushed berries to ease the torment of both thirst and hunger. She ate ravenously, paying no attention to scratches as she jerked whole handfuls of the dark globes from their stems at once. They were poor fare, sour and small. But at that moment she thought them better than any banquet of a high feast day.
Not only did she eat until she was unable to swallow more, but she pinned together some of the leaves, plucking the thorns to do so, and filled as best she could the unsteady bag which resulted from her labors. There was no promise that she might have such overwhelming luck again.
The first streamers of the sun were painting the sky when she had done what she could to assemble her supplies. So having recruited her strength somewhat, she now gave a more detailed survey to the land around her.
Whether or no the mounds through which she had come had been the remains of some ancient ruins, there was evidence enough around that she did follow a way of the Old Ones. Traces of walls projected here and there, and it was plain that a paved road stretched ahead to where some heights greater than the mounds, stood dark against the sky northward.
Since Uta’s tracks pointed in that direction it was where she must go, much as her fast awakening distrust of everything to do with the Waste made her wary. There was no “feel” to this place, however—she sensed neither the peace and welcome which lay about some of the old remains, nor the warning shrinking which was the foretaste of evil to come. The road ran straight ahead, its blocks easy to see, though covered in parts with soil in which grass, even bushes, had taken root to cloak it.
By the clear light of day Brixia faced those higher hills and went forward, but not without such caution as she had learned, until she reached those hills. Like the mounds they were covered with grass, dull green and rather withered looking. While these were only the first of a barrier of rises which grew taller and taller ahead. The road headed straight towards a break between two of the hills.
On either hand stood a pillar of stone. These towered high enough to match the crowns of the wailing hills. The pillars were square with eroded corners, bearing the same signs of great age as had the carvings on the cliff she had descended into the Waste. On the tops had been set figures.
To the right, in spite of the wear of wind and weather, was a representation of a toad thing. It had been fashioned, with unmistakable menace and perhaps warning, in a crouching position as if about to leap from its post to bar the path.