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They climbed up out of the stinking cold wet swamp until they found a promising branch about six thousand feet up. Ten days later, they came to a waterfall, the foot of which was five thousand feet below them. And here The Tree ended.
Ulysses felt a little dazed and a little unreal. He had gotten so accustomed to the world being one gigantic tree with its many levels of interfused and winding branches, seemingly sky-high trunks and dense vegetation, that he had thought of the world as only—Tree.
Now before him was a plain that stretched out perhaps fifty or sixty miles and beyond were the tops of mountains. On the other side of the range, if he could believe Ghlikh, was the sea.
Awina stood beside him, close enough so that her furred hip rubbed against him. Her long black tail moved back and forth, its tip sometimes tickling the back of his legs.
"Wurutana has spared us," she said. "I do not know why. But he has his reasons."
Ulysses was angered. He said, "Why can't you think of our success as being due to my powers as a god?"
Awina started and looked up at him sidewise.
Her eyes were enormous, as always, but the pupils had become slits.
"Your pardon, Lord," she said. "We owe you much. Without you, of course, we would have perished. Still, you are a small god compared with Wurutana."
"Size does not necessarily mean superiority," he said.
He was angry, he thought, not because she denied or depreciated his godhood. He certainly was not that insane. It was just that he wanted to get the proper credit for bringing them through. Credit as a human being, even if he was forced to speak in terms of his godhood.
He wanted Awina, more than anybody, to give him credit. Now, why should he wish that? Why should this beautiful but weird creature, this sentient but nonhuman being, be so important to him?
On the other hand, he thought, why shouldn't she? She had been his mainstay from the first day here, she had taught him his first language (in a ma
Yet, though he was often very fond of her, he sometimes felt repulsed by her. This occurred when she got too close physically. He moved away, and she looked at him with an unfathomable expression. Did she know what he was thinking? Did she correctly interpret his moving away?
He hoped not. Because if she did, she was intelligent and sensitive enough to know that the avoidance of physical contact was a defence on his part. And she would know, as he knew, why he had to defend himself.
He shouted at Wulka and the other chiefs. "Let's go! Follow me down off The Tree! We'll be on good solid dry ground soon!"
The descent went well enough, though he had to resist a tendency to hurry. The vast black-grey bulk of The Tree seemed to be even more threatening, now that he was about free of it, than when he had been inside it. But nothing happened; no Wuggrud or Khrauszmiddum boiled out of The Tree to make a final attack.
However, once they were out on the plain, they would be easily detected by the winged men. It would be best to stay inside the shade of The Tree until nightfall and then move out.
Fortunately, the ground at the base of the great Tree here was not so swamp-like. Once they had moved away from the branch down which the riverlet had run, they found dry ground. They made their camp on the northward side of a branch which rammed into the earth at a forty-five-degree angle. Ulysses studied the plain, which was covered by a shin high green-brown grass and was spotted with small stands of an acacia-like tree. There were great herds of grass and leaf eaters out there: horses, antelopes, buffalo, the giraffe- like animal which he thought had evolved from the horse, the elephant-like beast which could have evolved from the tapir, the giant heavily-legged rabbit, and the bluish curving- tusked long-legged swine. There were predators, too, the twelve-foot high roadru
That night, the party moved out from The Tree. They did not get far because they spent so much time in hunting. At dawn they made small fires inside a stand of acacia and roasted the meat. Then they slept in the shade of the trees while some stood guard.
The third day, they reached the mountain range. Ghlikh did not even have to be threatened with torture. He volunteered the information about a pass, and so they marched along the mountains for two days until they found the gap. It took two days to get through the mountains. Abruptly, just at dusk, they came around the shoulder of the mountain and there, sparkling far off, was the sea.
Then the sun was down, and the sky became black. Ulysses felt happy without knowing why. Perhaps it was because the mountain shut off the view of The Tree and the night kept him from seeing anything that reminded him that he was not in his own time and on the Earth on which he had been born. It was true that the stars formed unfamiliar constellations, but he could ignore that. Later, he was unable to ignore the moon. It was too huge and too bluish-green and white-flecked.
They rose at dawn, ate breakfast and then set off down the slope of the mountain. By dusk they had reached its foot, and the next morning they set out across the relatively flat land for the sea. This was heavily forested at first, but, the second day, they reached an area of many open fields, houses, barns and fences.
The houses were square buildings, sometimes two-storied, usually built of logs but occasionally of granite blocks, rough-hewn, set in mortar. The barns were part stone, part wood. Ulysses investigated several and found all unoccupied by anything except wild animals. There were plenty of wood and stone figures and some paintings, all primitive, but there were enough human figures to assure him that the artists had been men.
He used had been because there was no sign of any human body, living or dead.
Sometimes, he came across a house or barn which had been burned. Whether this was due to accident or war could not be determined.
The animals that had been in the unburned barns, and in the houses, had either escaped or died of starvation.
Nowhere was there even a human bone.
He spoke to Ghlikh. "What has happened here?"
Ghlikh looked up at him, shrugged his bony shoulders and spread his wings out as far as the string would allow them. "I do not know, Lord! The last time I was here, six years ago, the Vroomaw lived here. Aside from occasional raids by the Vignoom and the Neshgai, they led a peaceful life. Perhaps we will find out what happened here when we get to the main village. Now, if I were to be permitted to fly ahead, I could find out very quickly... ."
He cocked his head and smiled painfully. He could not, of course, be serious about his proposal, and Ulysses did not even comment on it. They were passing their first graveyard at that time, and Ulysses halted the column. He wandered through the yard, examining the headpieces of the graves. These were thick poles carved out of some reddish hardwood with the skulls of various birds and animals at the tops. There were no other means of identification on the graves, and Ghlikh and Khyuks did not know what the skulls were supposed to mean.
The column resumed its march down the narrow dirt road. The farms became more numerous, but all were deserted.
"Judging from the state of decay of the buildings and of the growth of vegetation around them, I'd say they were abandoned about a year," Ulysses said. "Maybe two years."