Spherical Harmonic Read Free Page A

shadowed forest below.
     
     
Hatred!
     
     
I almost stumbled back off the precipice.
     
     
The arthrop clicks stopped. The world went silent. Waiting. Again I saw ghostly waves; back in the forest, they coalesced around a tripod tree, forming a human shape. It detached from the tree and moved through the dusk, gnarled arms hanging at its sides. I couldn't see it well, but I felt its seething anger. I vibrated with it. My mind recoiled and then overextended, spreading too thin, ebbing…
     
     
Ebbing…
     
     
Ebbing…
     
     
Dismayed, I struggled to focus. Had the world gone crazy? My mind slammed down a barrier, muting the rage of the approaching creature. Until this moment, I hadn't even known I could protect my mind that way.
     
     
It kept coming, tangled in its rage. As it left the forest, I saw it more clearly. Its shape was humanoid, but its torso was an armored trunk, its legs narrower trunks, its arms a tangle of long roots. Its face resembled tree bark, and its hair hung in a snarl of moss. With the cliff at my back, I had no place to retreat. My stomach churned.
     
     
The creature emanated fury. It came forward, closer and closer, until it stopped in front of me, its moss eyes staring down at my face.
     
     
"What do you want?" My voice rasped, low and husky.
     
     
It didn't answer. Instead it grasped my upper arm and closed its other hand around my neck. My heartbeat hammered. With clenched fists, I pounded its shoulders and chest. Although it jerked, it kept bearing down on my neck, cutting off the blood flow. I clawed at its arms. As spots danced in my vision, I knew I had no time left. I was going to die.
     
     
No.
     
     
I saw only one chance. I stepped back— off the cliff.
     
     
The creature had one instant to decide; release me or go over the edge. Whether it actually chose or simply had too little time to act, I didn't know. But we fell together through a chasm of air. I had a strange sense of suspension, as if we were drifting, undulating in this slow-mode gravity while we dropped past the cliff face.
     
     
Then I hit water, cold water. The impact tore me away from my attacker, and I plunged deep into the lake. With a hard kick, I slowed my descent. More kicks sent me upward through skirling, swirling water, but it wasn't fast enough. I needed air. In reflex, I gasped, sucking in cold water—
     
     
Suddenly I broke the surface, choking and coughing. Before I could catch my breath, arms grabbed me from behind. Thrashing in that air-stealing grip, I twisted around— and came face to face with a very living, very human man. No creature, this. The shock of hitting the lake had pulled my mind back from its limbo and thrust me into cold, human reality.
     
     
Water cascaded off his head. He had green eyes and dark hair that brushed his shoulders. His skin wasn't bark, but he held his face as stiff and implacable as the armor on the tripod trees.
     
     
Then he shoved my head under the water.
     
     
Thrashing in his grip, I kicked his legs and arms. But I had too little strength to escape. Desperate, I planted my feet against his torso and pushed. It sent me upward even as it thrust him deeper into the lake. I just barely managed to break the surface, amid slow sprays of water.
     
     
The treeman exploded out of the water next to me. He grabbed my hair and jerked me forward, making me gasp. As we fought, water whipped around us, turned red by the sunset. The liquid sprayed up in great arcs, then fragmented into a rain of fat spheres, glittering like slow rubies. I choked, unable to gulp in air. Ai! I had to breathe. But again he pushed me under. Frenzied now, I twisted in his hold… needed air… lungs hurt… don't want to die…
     
     
Suddenly I sagged, as if I had passed out. My act almost became reality, as I began to black out. Then, mercifully, his grip loosened. With a last surge of energy, I set my feet against his thighs and launched upward. This time I shot through