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FOR a little while, no one spoke. Feersh smiled broadly as if it was all she could do to keep from laughing.
Then Sloosh moved toward her. As if that broke the spell, Hoozisst leaped at her with both hands halfclosed.
The plant-man had expected this, which was why he had stepped over to the witch. Sloosh's great hand closed on the Yawtl's shoulder, and Sloosh lifted him up.
Hoozisst, feet kicking, his face bent with both anger and pain, screamed, "Let me down! I'll kill her!"
"I'll release you when you promise to keep your promise," Sloosh said.
"But she tricked us! I told you she would!"
"That's a good point, but it's our fault. Mostly mine, since I should've been intelligent enough to make sure she didn't trick us. However, we must ascertain that she is indeed telling the truth. If she isn't, the agreement is no good."
The Yawtl looked at Sloosh. His anger was gone, though the pain in his shoulder was still there.
"Let me down. I won't touch her."
His feet on the floor, Hoozisst rubbed his shoulder. He said, "I think you could squeeze the truth out of her. Very well, how do we find out if she's telling the truth? She doesn't have a soul egg."
"Any soul egg will do."
Vana and Deyv said, "What?"
Hoozisst said, "You're crazy! Only her own egg would be in phase with her mind! Everybody knows that!"
"This is one of those many cases among you flesh-sapients where what 'everybody knows' is only what everybody says. When I lived with the People of the Striped House I made an experiment. I talked two people into exchanging eggs temporarily, though they were very reluctant to do so. And I found that any egg would do as a lie detector."
Deyv felt that the statement was close to blasphemy. But, knowing by now that Sloosh wouldn't lie, he said nothing.
Hoozisst yanked an egg-cord off a slave, breaking it and felling the slave to his knees. He strode to the witch and thrust it into her hand. "Hold that in your fingers so we may see what the egg shows!" he shouted. "Hold it against your flabby breast, you bitch!"
Feersh went gray under the dark-brown skin. She spoke steadily enough, however. "I only half-lied. It's true that the eggs and crystal are not on the tharakorm.
They are not, though, in the fungus around the tree. I placed them in a cave high on a mountainside. The mountain is on the other side of the river you took to get to the forest."
"Put the egg against your breast!"
She did so, and she repeated what she'd said. The egg turned blue shot with writhing starlike figures.
"So!" the Yawtl said. "You thought we'd go to that tree, and by then you would've escaped us. You would be safe someplace where you could laugh at us."
"She may have meant to cheat us," Sloosh said. "That is the way of witches. But I doubt it. She had another reason for not telling us the truth. Witch, what is it?"
Hoozisst translated.
Feersh said, "It's a long story. The main reason I sent this thief out to get the eggs is that I had to have people of a certain character to do something for me. Only they might be able to complete my mission.
Hoozisst was my tool, a good one, but I wasn't about to reward the greedy creature with the Emerald of
Anticipation. He says he's wearing it now, so he has been paid off. He shouldn't bear a grudge. If he'd been in my place, he would have done the same. Wouldn't you, Yawtl?"
Hoozisst bared his sharp teeth, but he nodded. "I was a little hasty in wanting to get rid of you," he said.
"I forgot that you'd also promised to show me how the stone works."
"Which I'll do. Anyway, all this business has to do with The Shemibob."
Sloosh buzzed amazement through his beak. "She still lives?"
Hoozisst translated this.
"As far as I know. The last one to see her alive, to be able to tell about it, that is, was a slave of hers. She is the only one who's ever escaped from The Shining House of Countless Chambers."
She paused, undoubtedly for dramatic effect.
"I was that slave!"
Sloosh was delighted. "There is so much you can tell me about The Shemibob. We Archkerri haven't been able to get any data about her from our vegetable kin for a long time. The Jeweled Wasteland has been steadily, if slowly, growing, and where it is, there are no plants. Eventually, as you must know, The
Wasteland will cover all the land mass."
"We can get those details later," Deyv said impatiently before Hoozisst could translate. "Tell your story as it concerns those whose eggs were stolen."
"Those details, as you call them, are a vital part of my story. When I was a very young woman, I went into the dreaded land of The Shemibob, which some also call, with good reason, The Bright
Abomination. My mother had tried to kill me because she found out that I was pla
Shemibob of some. I had heard that she had a great treasure of them. That's not surprising, since she had a long time to collect them and had many to begin with."
"How 1ong?" Vana asked.
"Your language doesn't have the words for it."
"Tell her, Hoozisst, that I've taught you three of the terms," Sloosh said. "Your minds know them, even if they can't grasp their meaning."
Feersh said, "The Archkerri's words are not the same as mine. But The Shemibob has lived on Earth almost ten thousand sleep-times multiplied by a thousand plus ten thousand. How old she was when she came here from a distant star, I don't know."
"Almost as old," Sloosh said.
"Old enough to get a few wrinkles," Feersh said. She smiled, but Deyv didn't know if she meant to be fu
"Only a very young, foolhardy, and ignorant girl would have done what I did," Feersh said. "I would've been better off if I'd hidden in the jungle around my mother's House and watched for a chance to get back in it and kill her. But I was ambitious. I thought that if I could rob The Shemibob, I would then be the most powerful witch in the world. So I dared to enter the land of The Shemibob. And The Shemibob caught me, though she did say I'd gotten deeper into her land than anyone else.
"I was her slave for a long time. It wasn't a hard life, once I got used to her terrifying appearance. Unlike the other slaves, I was very curious, and I tried to learn everything I could from her. She liked to talk with me. Sometimes I thought that the only reason she lured people into her land was so she'd have somebody to talk to. While I was there I prowled around a lot, keeping my eyes open, and picked out those possessions I wanted to take with me. But there were so many that I had to select just a few. I couldn't have carried one-thirtieth of what I desired and what could be removed. Many of the possessions were surrounded by safeguards which I dared not pass.
"She once told me that she was not inherently long-lived. One of her treasures was the secret of longevity. But she did not have that hidden somewhere in The Pulsing Castle. It was not in a concealed chamber set all around with traps. She carried the secret in her mind.
"I asked her why she didn't give it to her slaves. Then she wouldn't have to depend upon catching wouldbe robbers to keep up her supply of slaves. She smiled—a most ghastly smile—and she said that if she'd done that long ago, the slaves might have become as wise as she and then would either have killed her or run away with her artifacts.
"Also, there would be no use in telling the slaves now, even if she changed her mind about keeping the secret to herself. What good would it do? Within a comparatively short time, Earth would be torn apart by the power of stars too .near. And then all stars and star dust, everything, would fall together and become an unimaginably enormous ball of fire. This would explode and then—"