In the Moons of Borea Read Free Page A

others and a bear. Quick as you can, choose the other men now. We get under way at once. The rest can break camp and head for home with all speed.'
    `But — where are we going, Lord?'
    `Into the forest,' Silberhutte answered at once. 'Where else? If that flying thing is what I think , it is — by God! — bear-brother, if only it is!' He gave a great cry and threw his arms wide.
    `Yes, Lord?' prompted Kota'na. 'What then?'
    `Then?' and Silberhutte's eyes were deep as the spaces between stars. 'Then, Kota'na, the Motherworld may not be as far away as I thought.'
    De Marigny set the clock down in a glade beside a pool. There was a curious absence of vegetation about that pool, and if he had been more observant, he might have noticed, as his vessel slowly descended and came to rest, a peculiar bluish withdrawal of something or things into the water. Before leaving the safety of the clock, he scanned the forest around him: no slightest thing moved, no birds called. That, too, might have warned him — did in fact caution him to a degree — but what could there possibly be to fear? He would only leave the clock for a few moments, and it would never be more than a pace or two away.
    His reasons for coming down here, at a fair distance from the encampment of primitives he had viewed from on high, were threefold. One: he wanted the humanoid natives of this world to have time to think about what they had seen, to assimilate the fact that the clock had done them no harm, before taking a closer look at them or trying to contact them. Two: following what felt like a thousand attempts to leave this alien time dimension into which he had erroneously entered, he was feeling fatigued. All of his efforts to leave had failed miserably, highlighting his inadequate beginner's grasp of the clock's refinements; now he wanted to rest both mind and body before trying yet again. And three: the pool had looked inviting and refreshing, the glade peaceful and quiet, and the forest itself had seemed to offer green walls of protection, looking for all the world like the familiar forests of Earth.
    Only now, stepping out through the clock's open frontal panel, did de Marigny become aware of the odd texture of the soil in the glade, its unnatural feel, crumbly and lifeless. A dozen or so paces took him to the water's edge where he went down on one knee, failing to note as he did so that the glade seemed to grow quieter still. Not a ripple disturbed the surface of that pool, and yet it failed to mirror the man who kneeled at its rim. He paused — his hand poised ready to dip, inches above the surface of water which carried an odd bluish tinge — and the quiet deepened tangibly. Now he felt it: the tension in the air, the sensation of a trap ready to spring shut!
    He threw himself back and away from the pool, sprawling in the crumbling soil, scrambling frantically away from water which was suddenly alive with awful activity. The surface frothed and parted and lumpish blue shapes slithered over de Marigny's booted feet, fastening to his legs through the thin material of his trousers. Half-lizard, half-leech, eight inches long and shaped like flatworms or bloated tadpoles, there, were thousands of the blue-veined creatures.
    The water boiled with them, these things whose appetites had stripped the glade of life. De Marigny tore them bloodily from lacerated limbs, kicked frantically back from the pool toward the clock where it stood behind him, gasped for air as shock and horror gripped him. The farther he struggled from the pool, the less certainly they slithered after him; but their lidless red eyes regarded him evilly and their razor mouths gaped hungrily. Finally he stripped the last of them from his legs, scrabbled upright, and turned to the clock — only to stumble into the arms of an apparition out of his wildest nightmares!
    Wolf-headed and terrible the figure stood, arms encircling him, staring from wild wolf eyes into his own fear-taut features.