Part 12 (1/2)

”It is always so where Those Others have been. They leave behind them the thoughts which breed such dreams to trouble the sleep of those who are not of their kind. Let us go. I would like to be out of this place under the clean sky, where no ancient wickedness hangs to poison the air and thought.”

Either the merman had miscalculated the direction of their route or the river mouth was much farther from the inland city than they had believed, for, though they pushed on for what seemed like weary hours, they came to no upward slope, no exit to the world they knew.

Instead Dalgard began to realize that just the opposite was true. At last he could stand it no longer and broke out with what he feared, hoping that Sssuri would deny that fear.

”We are going downhill!”

To his disappointment the merman agreed. ”It has been so for the last thousand of our paces. It is my belief that this leads not to the sun but out under the sea.”

Dalgard missed a step. To Sssuri the sea was home and perhaps the thought of being under its floor was not disturbing. The land-born human was not so prepared. If he had experienced discomfort under the river, what would it be like under the ocean? His terrifying dream of a lid being pressed down upon him flashed back into his mind. But his companion was continuing:

”There will be doors, perhaps into the sea itself.”

”For you,” Dalgard pointed out, ”but I am no dweller in the depths.”

”Neither were Those Others, yet they used these ways. And I tell you”--in his earnestness the merman laid his hand once more on Dalgard's arm--”to turn back now is out of the question. The death which haunts the darkness is still sniffing out our trail.”

Dalgard glanced involuntarily over his shoulder. By the faint and limited light of the purple disks he could see little or nothing. An army might creep there undetected.

”But--” His protest was in answer to the merman's seeming unconcern.

Sssuri at the first intimation that the hunters were behind them had shown wariness. Now he did not appear to care.

”They had fed,” he replied. ”Scouts follow because we are something new and thus suspect. When hunger rises once more in them, and their scouts report that we are meat, then is the time to draw knives and prepare for battle. But before that hour we may have won free. Let us search for the gate we now need.”

However confident the merman might be, Dalgard could not match that confidence. In the open air he would have faced a snake-devil four times his size without any more emotion than a hunter's instinctive caution. But here in the dark, unable to rid himself of the belief that thousands of tons of sea water hung over his head, he found himself starting at any sound, his knife bare and ready in his sweating hand.

He noted that Sssuri had stepped up the pace, pa.s.sing into his sure-footed glide which made Dalgard exert himself to keep up. Before them the corridor stretched without a break. The merman's promised exit, if it existed, was still out of sight.

It was difficult to gauge time in this dark hall, but Dalgard thought that they were at least an hour farther on their way when Sssuri paused abruptly once more, his head c.o.c.ked in a listening att.i.tude, as if he caught some whisper of sound too rarefied for his human companion.

”Now--” the thought hissed as if he spat the words, ”they hunger--and they hunt!”

He bounded forward with a spurt, which Dalgard copied, and they ran lightly, the dust undisturbed in years puffing up beneath the merman's bare, scaled feet and Dalgard's hide boots. Still the unbroken walls, the feeble patches of violet in the ceiling. But no exit. And what good would any exit do him, Dalgard thought, if it opened under the sea?

”There are islands off the coast--many islands--” Sssuri caught him up. ”It is in my mind that we shall find our door on one of those.

But--run now, knife brother, for those at our heels awake and thirst for flesh and blood. They have decided that we are not to be feared but may be run down for their pleasure.”

Dalgard weighed his knife in his hand. ”They shall find us with fangs,” he promised grimly.

”It will be better if they do not find us at all,” returned Sssuri.

A burning arch of pain encased Dalgard's lower ribs, and his breath came in gusts of hastily sucked air as their flight kept on, down the endless corridor. Sssuri was also showing signs of the grueling pace, his round head bent forward, his furred legs pumping as if only his iron will kept them moving. And the determination which kept him going was communicated to the scout as a graver warning than any thought message of fear.

They were pa.s.sing under one of the infrequent violet lights when Dalgard got something else--a mental thrust so quick and sharp it was as if a sword had cut through the daze of fatigue to reach his brain.

Yet that had not come from Sssuri, for it was totally alien, wavering on a band so near the extreme edge of his consciousness that it p.r.i.c.ked, receded, and p.r.i.c.ked again as a needle might.

This was no message of fear or warning, but of implacable stubbornness and ravening hunger. And in that instant Dalgard knew that it came from what was sniffing out their trail, and he no longer wondered that the hunters were immune to other mental contact. One could not reason with--that!

He spurted forward, matching the merman's acceleration of speed. But to Dalgard's horror he saw that his companion now ran with one hand brus.h.i.+ng along the wall, as if he needed that support.