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"The difference is that if you'd been blind and deprived of your high position as master, you would not have adapted so well. If you're such a complainer in your present position, so vindictive, what would you have been like in her place?"
"We're not talking about possibilities," the Yawtl said. "We're talking about facts!"
"Some things are not realities," the Archkerri said. "They appear to be facts because the individual thinks they ought to be. To him, they must be. But let me ask you this. Don't you have any feeling, any ability to put yourself in Feersh's skin, which would enable you to identify yourself with her?"
"That bitch!" Hoozisst said.
Sloosh threw his hands up and said, "O Shemibob, you speak to him."
"It would be useless," The Shemibob said. "I believe, though, that the humans have spoken up for her, though only from a utilitarian viewpoint. However, they do have some potential for empathy. Though empathy can be a dangerous thing, leading to a false attitude toward reality.
"Still, the basic question here is one of usefulness. So, ignoring the other aspects of the question, I say that Feersh has been, is, and may continue to be of service to us. I therefore say that she will go on with us."
Deyv and Vana had expected that the witch's fate would be put to a vote. Apparently, The Shemibob hadn't considered this. But she had at least asked their opinion. Moreover, she had in some unspoken ma
Still, they could understand quite well Hoozisst's stand.
Vana, however, stated it well, Deyv thought, when she said, "Our baby is contributing nothing, and he is a definitely heavy liability. Why didn't Hoozisst demand that Thrush be left behind?"
40
THE pall cast by The Dark Beast was not quite at its heaviest when Phemropit and its riders came around the shoulder of the mountain. Below them was a valley. Two valleys, actually, for there was a smaller one in the center of the large one. Out of the inkiness of the former rose The House of the Flying
Figures. It was a vague bulk, an intimation of vastness from which soared a dimly lit column or tower.
Its upper part was brighter, nimbused by the horizon light flowing through a notch in the mountain range opposite.
They were silent for a while, staring through the darkness, trying to put a shape to the structure below the column. The wind had died; not a sound was to be heard. Ever since they had crossed the boundary of The Dead Place, the only noise had been that which they had made or, sometimes, the wind's sobbing or shrilling through peculiar rock formations or the thunder and lightning of storms and the splash of rain. Other than themselves, they'd not seen a living creature—no plants, no insects, no birds, no beasts.
Even the stones looked lifeless compared to those outside this land. Somehow, they gave the impression that something had been drained, or sucked, from their stony essence.
Yet, a sick thing had to be still living. They often came across a small rock, or a large boulder, or a stratum in a mountainside that appeared to be infected. From irregularly shaped patches on these slowly oozed a foul-smelling liquid, cloudy, irresistibly analogous to pus. They had scraped at the dripping patches, thinking that they must be lichen of some sort and thus The Dead Place was not entirely dead.
But they got only particles of stone which were, for some reason, darker than the main body of the rock.
Now, after a long journey made circuitous because there were so many steeps up which Phemropit could not climb, so many passes to find, they were almost to their goal.
Vana shivered and broke the terrible silence. "I wish we'd stayed on the highway toward home, Deyv."
He did, too, but he only said, "This is the coldest place I've ever been."
The Shemibob flowed down off Phemropit's back and signaled that it should start the descent. After a while the going became so steep that the others also got off. They stayed behind Phemropit so that if it started sliding, they wouldn't be crushed by it. By sleep-time, however, they had reached the floor of the valley without mishap.
Just as they did, they were startled by a great noise, a booming metallic note like that which the giant bronze gong in The Shemibob's castle gave when struck by a hammer. Its echoes rang around the valley.
They shivered and clutched their hearts.
When all was silent again, except for their heavy breathing and the pulse of blood in their ears, Sloosh spoke. His buzzing seemed almost sacrilegious; there was something in the place that might resent it. Or so it seemed to Deyv at the moment. A thing, he was convinced, brooded here and did not want interruption.
Sloosh said, "I wonder if that could be an alarm of some sort? Perhaps there are detectors here, and when we entered their field, they set off this, warning signal."
"Warning whom?" Deyv whispered.
The baby began crying then. Vana tried to hush him up, but he would not quit until she had given him her breast. Deyv started to.ask if they should bed down or push on. Another vast note rang through the valley, and its echoes raced around the mountains. The baby quit feeding to scream. Why it had not been frightened when the first note sounded, no one knew. Perhaps it had been too scared to voice its fear. Or perhaps it had been only half-awakened.
The echoes died; Thrush continued to yell. Vana petted him and said soothing words and finally got him to drink again. Shortly after the silence came again, it was shattered by another metallic roar.
The Shemibob said, "I counted twenty-one seconds between the sounds."
The Yawtl said, "So what?" But when the fourth bellow was followed by the fifth, he said, "You're right."
There was, by unanimous agreement, no use in going toward The House while the terrible noise continued. They expanded the cube and all but the plant-man and the snake-centaur got inside and closed the door. These two said they would stand guard until they could stand the noise no longer. Those inside could hear nothing with the door shut, so they managed after a long while to get to sleep. Deyv did awake a number of times, startled by that brazen thunder. But he had only dreamed it.
He was awakened after a too-short sleep when the door was opened. Sloosh stuck his head in and said,
"The noise has stopped."
Deyv asked, "Are you sure?"
Sloosh said, "What?"
He was deaf, and so was The Shemibob. But their loss of hearing was only temporary, and it had not been complete. They had been able to detect all vibrations, though they'd been very feeble at the end.
"But if they'd gone on much longer, we'd have had a permanent injury," The Shemibob said. "I counted one thousand and fifty strokes with twenty-one seconds between each."
There was no use asking the meaning of this. Perhaps there was none. They wouldn't know until they got to The House, and probably not even then. All Deyv was sure of was that he was very uneasy in this place, where it was either too silent or too noisy.
The baby was fussy and didn't want his milk. Vana said that she'd been so upset that her milk had probably soured. The Shemibob took a bottle from her bag and from it produced a tiny pill. She told
Vana that she should get the baby to swallow it. He would then calm down, probably sleep much, but the drug wouldn't harm him. After some hesitation, Vana took the pill. Thrush spit it out several times before accepting it. Vana then asked if she could have one. The Shemibob refused, saying that Vana wasn't an infant, though she sometimes acted like one. This made Vana so angry that she lost her tiredness and regained her courage.