Part 9 (1/2)
'Soon,' Shaker Sandow agreed.
Soon what? he wondered. Just what is all this about and what are we walking into here?
And then the region which the birds had reported was fully upon them. In the s.p.a.ce of half a dozen steps, the ratio of gems to living plant flesh grew markedly greater until, abruptly, there was not the least sign that anything here was alive. Everywhere: bright. Everywhere: images of themselves. Everywhere: wealth!
Great palms thrust upward in petrified beauty, their boles semi-transparent with millions of tiny facets. The palm fronds overhead were feathery constructions, crystallized into the most delicate laces. The sun came through them and was transformed into a rainbow aurora, making the floor of the forest seem like the inside of a mammoth cathedral with the largest stained gla.s.s windows in the world. In the uppermost levels, the wind and the rain had taken their toll on the fronds, had shattered them completely or had made them ragged. But further down, they remained intact, a spectacle to make the eyes seek darkness and comparative comfort.
Around their feet, glittering ferns stood at brittle attention, their undersides coated with tiny, crystallized spores that each looked like a bead of solidified wine. When a foot touched them, they shattered and sprayed up, went down with a tinkling reverberation that was like the laughter of small children-or of evil spirits.
The orchids and other flowers here had also been transformed, and the smooth petals now stood permanently open, permanently fresh, colored a very slight purple. The stamens and pistils were like the hobby work of a watch-maker, intricately perfect, carved from diamonds by a madman with the eyes of a hawk and the sense of precision of a ballet dancer. Some of the men carefully plucked blooms and tucked them into their lapels. The crystals made the undersides of the men's chins s.h.i.+ne with color!
It was Shaker Sandow who made the unpleasant discovery.
He was prowling along a small lane between the scintillating plants, examining the wide variety of forms which had been frozen in detail for eternity. He had noticed that rocks and soil had not been affected, only whatever plant life had been about. He had also noticed, here and there, pieces of metal breaking the ground, rusted and eaten through, but impressive nonetheless. It seemed as though they were roofbeams the size of the wooden ones beneath the s.h.i.+ngles of his own house back in Perdune, but made of steel. Clearly, here were the remains of the buildings that had existed before the Blank, back in times now lost. He felt his pulse quicken as he examined these bits and pieces of ancient times.
But these things were not what made him stand straight, his eyes wide and his spine suddenly cold.
The thing that did that was what appeared to be a tiger.
It was crystallized.
Shaker Sandow took a step backward, his eyes riveted to the beast which did not advance on him, could never advance on anything again.
The tiger stood upon three legs, the fourth foot braced against a tree where it had crystal claws sunk into crystal bark. On its face, there was a look halfway between rage and agony. It seemed that the disease had struck quite suddenly, too fast for the tiger to drop and writhe in its death throes-yet too slow to keep it from expressing its confusion and despair in at least this small manner.
It was striped, as tigers should be. It carried a very slightly orange cast, with darker umber streaks through it, though it was more transparent than anything.
Mace, who had been nearby-as always-had apparently seen his master's surprise. He had come along the narrow trail with swift, easy grace. 'What is it?' he asked.
Sandow pointed.
Mace looked, grumbled, bent and touched the frozen creature of the jungle. 'Can it do this to us?' he asked the Shaker.
'That's what I have been wondering,' Sandow said. 'That's the same nasty thought I've just had: we might all remain here like this tiger if we don't break out quickly!'
17.
With amber head and green body, crimson hands expressing his emotions better than his words did, fingers moving in quick flight before him, Commander Richter considered the danger they might all be in, and he tried to weigh it all correctly before taking any action that might be adverse rather than helpful.
Multi-colored, his men listened and watched.
There eyes were kaleidoscopes.
They were still flesh, but the light from the prisms which so gayly colored them made them feel as if the first taint of the crystal blight had already gotten within their blood. Perhaps, already, minims of gem structures swirled through their blood!
'But would we not already have changed?' Richter asked the Shaker, hands flitting, face melting honey.
'I have no way of knowing that, But the fact remains that we a.s.sumed that only the plants had been transformed-when it was the animals, too, that were stricken, all living things.'
They had found a dozen birds perched rigidly and eternally upon the glittering branches of the trees. Their colorful plumage was even brighter in the death than it could ever have been while they lived and flew. They watched the a.s.sembled men with hard, s.h.i.+ning eyes that saw nothing at all.
There was a snake, too. It had been found alongside the little clearing in which they now stood. It looked like nothing so much as a diamond walking stick.
'If we take the gems with us and manage to escape with our flesh intact,' Richter mused, 'will the jewels we carry away be deadly? Will they, at some later time, transmit this disease to us and bring about our destruction? And perhaps the destruction of the Darklands where we will take them when our mission's done?'
'Again,' the Shaker said, 'we can only guess.'
'Then we shall not risk it,' Richter said, though he clearly loathed breaking his promise that all the men would know some wealth when they returned across the mountains.
That will not be necessary!
They turned, in all different directions, seeking the source of the words all of them had heard. In the fantasmagorical fountain of jewels, there was no one but themselves.
'Who spoke?' Mace asked, his hand upon the hilt of his knife, his eyes s.h.i.+fting about through the trees.
I have no name to give you, the voice said. the voice said. In a thousand years, you see, one loses the need for a name and soon forgets who he was! In a thousand years, you see, one loses the need for a name and soon forgets who he was!
'There is a real voice,' Richter said. 'We are hearing a Shaker's tongue inside our heads.'
'Not a Shaker,' Sandow said. 'It is too smooth, too a.s.sured, too easily performed telepathy for a Shaker. Alas, we are not so well-talented as our visitor.'
'If you have no voice and no name,' Richter said to the air around them, 'perhaps you have no form, either. But if you should have features like other men, show them to us so that we may rest easy that we don't speak to demons.'
Above you, the stranger said. the stranger said.
They looked overhead in time to see the face forming on the fronds of the glazed palm trees, spread over an area of six feet, the face of a minor G.o.d looking down on them, from some equally minor heaven. It was an indistinct face in some ways, chiseled by the sharp edges of the crystalline structures. But they could make out this much about it: the eyes were very blue and deepset beneath a broad forehead and above a strong, patrician nose; the chin was square and strong and set with a dimple; the lips between the nose and the chin were very thin and not the least bit sensuous; it was a man, a young man with a flowing mane of yellow hair which curled down the nape of his neck and concealed his ears.
His lips did not move as he said: I hope this is better. I had forgotten that men still of the flesh expect to view those to whom they speak. I hope this is better. I had forgotten that men still of the flesh expect to view those to whom they speak.
'You said something about the jewels we see around us,' Richter reminded the spectral visage. 'Are they safe, or does our fate soon become the equal of the tiger's fate -or of yours?'