There were things roosting or living in those trees which added raucous squeakings and hootings to the disturbance I made. Twice something flew directly into my face, once scoring my bruised cheek with either bill or talons. I tried to protect my face with my arm as I chopped a path. Sweat flowed down my face, plastered my too-well-worn undershirt to my body. It was stifling under those trees and I gasped for breath, yet I fought on.
A fight it was. I began to believe that these trees possessed an awareness of who and what I was and were determined to prevent my invasion. I fancied I heard faint cries, as from a distant battle. I was near overcome by the heat and my own exertions. Still I kept on because something in me took command and sent me forward, until at length I stumbled up a last hard slope, nearly losing my balance, breaking past the last thorn-studded limb of a tree into the open.
9
I had reached the crest of a ridge bare of any growth, thus could look some distance ahead. There was no sign of either Gathea or Grau—only bare rock. Not too far away a cliffside led upward again. I listened, wondering if cat and girl still struggled as I had to fight a way free of the trees and if I had outpaced them. There came no sound to tell me that was so. They might have been snatched up bodily or perhaps vanished through one of those “Gates” I had come to distrust.
Slowly I advanced across the open. The moon was on the wane; it offered just light enough to see the ground, where I tried to pick up some track left by either girl or cat. On this ledge of stone there was little hope of that.
So I approached the cliffs foot to see what had not been visible from afar. Deep cut into the surface of the stone was a series of regular holes large enough for hands and feet. However, I could not believe that Gathea had taken this path with such speed as to be out of sight completely before I had reached the end of the wood. Surely, I would have seen her still climbing!
Like a hunter who has lost the trail, I cast about. If she were yet in the wood, then to go on would serve no purpose. Finally I had to accept that she was indeed beyond my finding—unless I tried that rude stairway.
Slinging the straps of both wallets over my shoulders, making sure that my sword and belt knife were well anchored in their sheaths, I began to climb. It was not easy, for I discovered that the spaces between those holds had been designed for someone taller than myself, so that I had to stretch to reach each hold. How Gathea might have managed this ascent confused me.
Doggedly I kept on and up, testing each fresh hollow before I shifted my weight. My fingers scooped deep into dust filling those pockets, so I become convinced that the girl had not come this way. However, I determined to get to the top and from there gain a wider view of the countryside.
Breathing hard, I pulled myself over the lip of that cliff, to stare ahead at what faced me. This was not the top of the rise—rather a platform ledge which had been leveled by the work of some intelligence.
What dominated that space towered so above me, that I had to hold my head well back to view it in entirety. Great skill had gone into its making. At the same time the very finish of that skill suggested that whoever, or whatever, had conceived such a portraiture had been of an alien turn of mind, perverse, ill-tuned to consort with my own kind.
The represented form, which had been cut from the cliff’s face so deeply that it was enclosed in an arched niche, stood erect on hind feet. However, it had only its stance in common with human beings, for it was clearly avian in form, and just as clearly female—blatantly so. It went unclothed, unless a wide and ornate collar could be considered covering of a sort.
The slender legs were stretched far apart, and its hands were outstretched from the ends of upper limbs, reaching forward, while the face beneath an upstanding crest of tall feathers was barely like my own. There were two eyes, but these were overlarge and set slanting in the skull; also they had been inlaid with red stones, perhaps gems, which glowed in the dim light as if they carried at their core a spark of burning fire.
Those reaching hands were claw-fingered, taloned. Looking upon them I thought of that lump of torn flesh I had buried back on the plain, though these were not mere skin and bone as that had been.
The expression the unknown carver had given the face agreed with the menace suggested by those claws, for most of it was a great beak, slightly open as if to tear, while the whole of the upper part of the body stood framed by wings which drooped, only a quarter open, behind each thin shoulder.
Between those arching legs a dark hole had been left as a doorway into the cliff. As I crouched where I was, staring, from that black archway wafted an odor which was rank and foul. Some beast of unclean habits might well lair there. My gaze kept, in spite of me, returning to those red eyes. I had a growing uneasy feeling that something watched me.
I did not accept that Gathea had gone into that hole. This was no Moon Shrine with a feeling of peace and well being. No, this was as threatening as the Silver Singers, or those crawlers in the dark who had menaced us in our first camp on the plain.
Slowly I arose, and, with a real effort, broke the bond of gaze those eyes had laid upon me. I would not take that door the thing guarded. There must be another way ahead.
It was then I discovered I was averse to turning my back on that carved figure. The sense of a waiting intelligence had been so well caught by the sculptor I could believe that, stone or not, it only remained here at its own choice. Thus I moved along that wide ledge crab fashion, so I could both search for another path and yet keep a wary eye on the leering bird-female.
Here were no more carved handholds to aid my escape. At the northern end of the smoothed ledge there was, however, a break in the cliff which might afford me a way to climb beyond.
I had no more than reached that promising crevice and was giving a last wary look to the figure when there was a stirring within the dark hollow between its legs. I swung swiftly about, my back to the wall and my sword out. There was a rustling, and then a loud hoot.
Into the wan light crawled a thing misshapen and hunched. It crouched for a moment before pulling upward to stand on clawed feet. Unlike the figure which guarded its lair it was a male and much shorter—near bone thin, still it possessed the same talons, the same beak.
The head turned on crooked shoulders (it appeared to be deformed when compared with the statue—and closer to the alien even than that). Only its eyes were as red and glowing—and utterly evil!
Those wings sprouting from its shoulders did not open to the full as it came about to face me squarely. The creature seemed to use its pinions as a balance as it leaped at me, making for me, talons outstretched and ready. At the same moment it let loose a deep scream.
Now fanning the wings, it attacked. I was ready with my blade. Whether the thing had ever been fronted by a determined fighter before I could not tell, but it left itself open to my counterblows as if it had expected no opposition at all.
The cutting edge of my sword struck true, between the rise of one wing and the thing’s throat as its talons shredded the straps of the wallets, grated and scraped along my mail.
That head flopped onto the other shoulder as great gouts of dark stuff sprouted high, some drops hitting my hand, to sting my skin like fire. The creature stumbled back, striking fruitlessly into the air with both armored forepaws, wings now fully extended and beating hard so that their activity lifted it from the ledge and it was actually airborne. I thought that blow must bring death when it fell just as I aimed it, but it appeared far from ending our duel.
The head now dropped onto its chest, attached still to the body only by a strip of flesh and cartilage. Blood spouted fountain high about it as the creature came again at me. I might have to hew it to pieces to stop its attack.