The Game of Stars and Comets (69 page)

Boxes, some full, some dead, a numberless procession of them, and that was only along the one aisle. I could not sight the far end of the place in which I stood because—

I blinked, wiped the lenses of the glasses against my thigh, put them to my eyes again. There
was
a definite limit, far from here—but no wall. Rather a thick mist, as if the small cloudlets overhead had their birth there, breaking from a greater mass which touched the floor.

And—

I began to back down the side aisle which had brought me away from my companions. I had not just imagined that! My eyes were too distance-wise to be deceived. The foggy mass was on the move, in our direction!

At the same time I made sure of that, I was swung back against on the boxes, hurled off balance by a ring of fire about my throat. The glasses fell from my grasp as I threw up my hand to tear at the necklet. But I did not lose my hold on the stunner.

With that circle of pain eating into my flesh I was no longer Bart s'Lorn. Or rather I was he battling what I could not see, hear, feel, but which was in me. I must go forward—this was needful—I was—

Food?

The conception was such a shock that it broke the hold of the pressure on my brain. That small recession of struggle let me marshal my forces. I turned and staggered back, wavering from side to side, slamming with bruising force from the boxes on one edge of the walkway to those on the other.

The necklet did not feel hot to my fingers, but there was my own blood welling from the frantic scratches of my nails striving to pull it open.

"Bart—?"

Illo was pulling herself up to her feet with one hand on a box where brittle stems turned to powder at her touch. "Bart—!" Her eyes were large, staring at me as if I had suddenly put on a monster's mask. Then she fairly sprung away from the box to meet me; with both hands she caught mine as I clawed so futilely at the necklet.

It was Illo—truly it was Illo—not that other—that other with her mouth twisted open to voice a hideous scream. Dark hair—light hair—one face over another—and then gone again. I was going mad—the whole world was twisting around me, assuming one shape which melted into another, and then another—

There was a hag! No, she was not old—young, young and evil, and her mouth gaped open to show teeth ready to tear wolfishly at my flesh. No—she was old—old with all the evil knowledge gained during a vicious life in those burning eyes, and she had a knife—a knife to match that which was already sawing at my throat.

She led the pack. I must get away—run—I brought up my fist and sent it crashing into her face. Then the face was gone. I could run—run to meet
them,
the others—those who waited—who needed me.

This was like trying to run through a viscous flood rising higher and higher about my legs. I was wading now. The level reached my knees, clung about my thighs. I could not see it! I threw out both hands, strove to cast the invisible off. My hands met nothing. Still it was there, slowing me down, holding me back so that they could catch me.

They—they were everywhere! There was no escape! My heart pounded in great jolts, trying to break through the cage of my ribs, tear its own path out of my body. The pain at my throat—my head was being forced up and back, a garrote might be slowly closing about my neck.

I screamed like a tortured animal:

"Almanic! Almanic!"

He was here somewhere. I had been loyal—I had carried the summons to the kin—I had obeyed orders—thus I deserved his help.

The tide of the mist—the death mist—rolling forward to meet me. Food—the cursed creations needed food. They had taken and taken—and taken—

"Almanic!"

It was hard to keep my feet with that sucking flood rising about me. Ahead I could see them—the Outer Company—the defenders—I must reach them before the gate closed—I must!

Those others—storming at my heels, creeping in from the sides. This was their place, they knew it. The things they had spawned from their own black delving into the forbidden reached greedy tendrils for me.

A lashing out—I was jerked back, not by the cord about my neck, but that which hurled from one side, which tightened about my waist, crushing in about my body until pain was a red mist rising in my head, blotting out everything.

"Almanic!" I cried in despair. The gate was closing. I had fallen to my knees. There was none who dared leave his place and come to aid me. Too few—they were needed, needed to hold the sanctuary. To sacrifice themselves if the need came. I must watch all hope shut away.

But the eaters would not get me! Or else they would get my body when it no longer mattered. My key—my life key! My hands up to that.

"Ullagath nu ploz—" Words which would release me, by their tones alone, to a final dissolution.
They
could come upon me now but what would lie to their hands would be of no use to them—They must have their meat alive!

"—fa stan—" I must remember! Why did the proper words fade in and out of my mind? I had known them beyond any forgetting since I was old enough to wear a key as a man and a warrior. "—fa stan—"

What was next? By the Will of the Fourth Eye, what was next? I must have it! Now—before they cut me down, bound me, drew me back to serve their bestial appetites.

"—stan dy ki—" It was coming again—I must hold on. I realized dimly that my shoulder was jammed against a wall of some sort—that around me was an awful stench of death and decay—that that pressure about my middle was pulling tighter and tighter, until pain ran hot fingers up into my brain—I could not remember! I must!

"—ki nen pla—"

Someone was calling. Not the one of the Outer Company. They had gone, the gate was closed.

"Bart—!"

I shook my head. It troubled me, that word—a name—yes, it was a name. But it had no meaning! I must remember—

The pressure about my waist gave way. I sprawled forward, crashing hard against an unyielding substance. I could not remember—I would be meat, meant for the half-men! With a last dying hope I sought the bar resting against my throat. If I could only remember! Instead, I plunged into the dark—perhaps the Power was merciful after all, and I had gained death without the ritual, I thought, as I surrendered to that engulfing wave.

I was moving,
but not on my feet—rather I half sat, half lay on the back of a living creature that bore me forward. There was a mist—a cloud which had seeped into my mind. I could not think. Who was I? The citadel had fallen and the half-people had loosed the growing death—fed it horribly. No! I dare not think! Let me slip back once more into that nothingness of non-memory—non-mind!

This body being borne forward—was not mine. Let me be free of it! Free—

I tried to move and found that I was a prisoner—in bonds. The half-men had taken me!

Then from my forehead there began to spread a coolness, driving back the fire which ate at me, in me. Very, very far away I heard sounds rhythmically repeated. Sounds?—words? Words which had no meaning—alien words. The half-men would lock me with their word spells, even as they had bound me with their living ropes. I tried to close my mind to those words—so to keep the ill in them from me. What was the chant of protection? I could not remember it! That was gone, stripped from me, as a prisoner is stripped of all weapons. And still those sounds continued:

"Return—Bart, Bart, Bart—return!"

The coolness spreading into my head, waning, pouring over, smothering, the chaos whirling in my brain which would not let me think!

"Return—you are Bart s'Lorn! You are Bart s'Lorn. Awake and remember! Return—Bart s'Lorn!"

Bart—that was a name—a name I knew once. When and where? Who had he been? Some comrade-in-arms—kinsman? Who—who?

If I could grasp the memory of Bart then I would have a key—A key—there had been a key, too—A key! A necklet which I wore! But that was mine—given me when I had become a man to serve—to serve—

My head was filled with pain worse than any hurt of body, as if a war raged in the very channels of my brain itself—as if two fought there in desperate battle.

"Bart s'Lorn! Wake, Bart—wake!"

The cool pressure on my head—that was not of the evil of the half-men. It was beneficent, healing—Healing? There had been one who was a healer. For just a moment it was as if a face, serene, untouched by any of the raging conflict I knew, was clear in my memory—a young face—the face of one who was a mender, not a destroyer.

"Bart—"

I was not only thought—I was also body. My body contained me—it must obey my commands. I was a person—I was—With a great forcing of will I made the body obey me. I opened my eyes.

The world about me was dim, fogged—as if the parts of this body answered only sluggishly to my will. See! I ordered—see, for me—now!

Now the fog broke. I could see! I was riding on the back of a large animal. Only I was not alone. There was one who sat behind me on that broad back, whose hands were up, pressed against my forehead. It was from them that the blessed healing coolness reached into me.

More and more of the space around us cleared to my sight. We rode down an aisle between beds of vegetation, keeping an exact middle path. For from those beds arose whips of vine tentacles which reached vainly to ensnare us, flowers the color of open wounds leaned far forward seeking to engulf our flesh—to feed—to smother—to kill!

"Bart!" She whom I could not see, who rode behind me, called that name yet once again. The touch of her hands upon my head tightened, but not with that terrible compelling pressure I had known in the earlier assault which had sent me whirling thankfully into the dark.

I drew a deep breath; I began to understand at last. Though I had been—somewhere else—and I had
been—
been another—I was truly who she now hailed: Bart s'Lorn. Even as I knew that, the other identity in me made a last despairing attack, but this time her touch gave me strength to hold.

"Illo!" I cried her name, and that was another key, unlocking more of the past. My task was like trying to patch the holes in a tattered strip of weaving, so that the design would once more be whole and right.

"Bart!" There was a joyful note now in her answer. Though I could not see her face, I thought that she was triumphant—that I had fulfilled some task she had longed for me to accomplish by my own efforts.

Task? For a moment only that other gave a last shadowy cry of thought—the task—duty—
I had failed!
Only that was not so—I was here, in the here and now—I was Bart s'Lorn!

Slowly I found words, but, as I spoke aloud, my voice sounded weak as might that of one who had been ill a long time.

"What happened?"

"You were not yourself," she answered promptly. "I do not know what or who possessed you. You said that we must reach the Gate before we were taken. One of the vines caught you. I stunned it free—and then we got on Witol and we rode. I have been trying to draw you back. And who is Almanic? You called that name many times."

"Almanic—" I repeated. Yes, once more a shadow thought curled quickly and was gone before I could seize it. "I think he was a friend but also a war leader. I believe he was the one who ordered me—No, not
me—
but perhaps he who once wore this necklet—to do something. And the wearer was too late."

I was still weak inside, but I could now see clearly. We were still transversing one of the aisles, though here all the boxes were planted with vigorous growth, growth which moved and twisted as we rode by. I knew the reason for that unnatural life and it set me shivering.

"What is the matter?" Illo demanded instantly. Her hands were no longer pressed against my forehead, but rested, one on each of my shoulders, as if it were necessary that she keep close contact with me.

"They fed—these things were fed—on—flesh and blood! This was the place—no, I cannot remember!" Nor did I want to. Save that, in me, the cold horror grew stronger and stronger. I had to fight with all the will power I could summon to keep myself from sheer panic.

"Do not try!" Her command was sharp. Once more her hands were on my forehead, and, with her healer's skill, she drove away that evil out of me.

I looked steadily ahead. There had been a thick mist there—surely I remembered that now. The cloudlets still floated overhead, but the fog which had been so dense when I last remembered surveying the far part of this garden (if one can call such a forcing place that) was gone. I did not know how far we had come, but before us now was a doorway—a closed doorway.

There were plants as tangled there as they had been in the splotch of upper jungle. I had a queer, fleeting impression that once they had swarmed here as a tide, trying to beat a way through that portal. A great patch of them spread out from that to the right, forming a thick river of growth which reached up and up, past the network of lights, a column steady now with the matted substance of seeking vegetation standing against the wall to reach out—up and out!

However it was toward the door they guarded we headed.

As at the open portals we had seen there was a curved arch carrying the intricate unreadable script of the unknown. I eyed the mass of vegetation warily.

"The stunner, where is it?"

"Here," once more her hands dropped from my forehead. A moment later she reached around before me with the weapon. I checked its charge. The unit was full.

"I used the last of the other one." Illo explained, "to ray that vine which was squeezing you to death. It is recharged but we have only two more charges."

I made the setting carefully, adjusting it from wide to a narrower beam. Witol paused just beyond the reach of the waving vines and branches. Here the plants were far more active, greedy, demanding. They were larger, too, with a bloated look to them.

Squeezing the button I sent the first ray at a particularly active vine which had twice lashed at us, only to sprawl short by just a fraction, not knowing whether this weapon would still serve us. The vine jerked as might a man who had taken a hit. Then it looped limply down, and those behind it also started to wither. Encouraged, I played the ray back and forth across the whole width of the door, watching the mass droop and die.