Children of the Gates Read online

  “But your smoke—you talked about bait. What—or who—were you trying to catch?’”

  Stroud grunted. “Not the flyers or the Herald, you can bet. No, we came across some tracks yesterday, mixed, women an’ children. We got to thinkin’ it was another crowd we could meet up with an’ not get shot at. Of course, they might be dream things. But we figured it wouldn’t do no harm to set up a signal an’ see what came lookin’.”

  “They set traps,” Crocker commented. “We thought we’d try one, but not for Them.”

  “You meant the hunters?” Nick was confused. After Stroud’s story of the flyers he wondered that these people wanted to pull such a menace down on them.

  “No, either the other drifters, or else the changed ones—if they were changed an’ not just born that way.”

  “We saw—or thought we saw,” Nick said slowly, “a unicorn when we were back in the woods. Was that what you mean by changed ones?”

  “Not quite,” the Vicar answered him. “We’ve seen a good many strange beasts and birds and things that combine two or more species. But such do not threaten us, and we believe they are native here. Perhaps from time to time in the past they strayed into our world to leave legends behind them. We have yet to meet a dragon, but I would not swear that none exist here. The changed ones—they are human for the most part in general appearance. It is the small details—certainly their ‘powers,’ which is the best word to use for their abilities—that betray them. The People of the Hills are very old.”

  “We stay near the woods”—Stroud nodded at a stand of trees not more than a few strides away—“because the flyers can’t get in under those to reach us. So far we haven’t seen many of ’em. They come in waves like—we’ll have a sky full of them for a few days—then they’re gone. An’ as long as we keep away from the cities we’re all right. The flyers got a hate for the cities—try to bomb ’em.”

  “Not bomb, I told you, Stroud!” Crocker cut in. “They don’t bomb. In fact I don’t see what they do—though it must be some type of raid the way they come over. Whatever they try to accomplish, it doesn’t cause any damage—none that we can see. The cities are safe.”

  “For them as wants to be changed,” Mrs. Clapp observed. “But we ain’t them.”

  Nick felt as if his head was spinning. It would seem that life here was complicated past even the many perils that now threatened his own time and space. This band, which had continued existence together as a group, displayed great hardiness and determination. Undoubtedly he and Linda had been lucky in this meeting. What if they had wandered on, on their own, to face all these threats without warning?

  He tried to express his relief at their good fortune, and the Vicar smiled gently.

  “You, yourself, have a part in your future, my boy. You have managed to adjust to a situation that might indeed have threatened your reason. We have seen the pitiful ending of one man who could not accept his transition. Acceptance is necessary.”

  Nick saw Linda and Jean coming back along the bank of the Run. So much had happened. Had he really accepted as Hadlett said, or was this all some kind of crazy dream from which he could not wake? Would there come a time when it would hit him as it had Linda, and he must make his peace with what seemed insanity?

  4

  Outside the rain was falling steadily. It had begun at sunset and had continued. Nick could hear the even breathing of those asleep around him in what was now a crowded shelter. But he could not sleep, rather lay close to the door staring out into the dark, listening.

  The sound had started some time ago, very faint and far away. But it had caught his attention and now, tense, he listened with all his might, trying to separate that rise and fall of distant melody from the gurgle of the Run, the rain.

  Nick could not tell whether it was singing or music, he could not even be sure it had not died away upon occasion and then begun again, faint, far away—drawing— For, the longer he listened, the more he was caught in a net of desire. A need to answer moved him, in spite of the rain, the utter dark of the night in a hostile land.

  Sweet—low—but now and then clear and true. Nick thought he could almost distinguish words. And when that happened his inner excitement grew until he could hardly control it. Run—out into the night—answer—

  Nick sat up now, his breath coming faster as if he had already been running. There was movement behind him in the shelter.

  “Lorelei—” Hadlett’s precise, gentle voice was a whisper.

  “Lorelei,” Nick repeated and swallowed. He was not going, he dared not. Caution born of his basic sense of self-preservation was alert, warning—He dared not.

  “A lure,” the Vicar continued. “The rain appears to produce it. Or else the proximity of water. There is this you must understand—part of those who are the permanent inhabitants are well intentioned toward us, or neutral; others are merely maliciously spiteful. A few are blackly evil. Since we cannot guess which are which, we must be ever on guard. But we have proof of the Lorelei—we witnessed the results of its—feeding. Oh, not on flesh and blood—it feeds on the life-force. What is left is an empty husk. Yet its lure is so strong that, even knowing what it may do, men have gone to it.”

  “I know why,” Nick said. His hands were balled into fists so tightly that his nails, short as they were, cut into his skin. For even as Hadlett had been talking that sound swelled. Now, in growing fear, he raised his fingers to his ears, plugged out the melody.

  How long he sat so, or if the Vicar continued to talk to him, Nick did not know. But at last he allowed his hands to fall, dared to listen again. There was nothing now but the rain and the stream. With a sigh of relief he settled back on the pile of dried stuff that formed his bed. Later he slept and dreamed. But as important as those dreams seemed, he could not remember them past waking.

  For two days thereafter they might have been camping out on a normal countryside with no sign that they shared the land, untouched as it was by ax, uncut by road.

  Fishing was good, and in addition there were ripe berries and a variety of headed grass close to the grain of their own world, which could be harvested. Nick learned that this shelter by the river was not the permanent base of the party, but that they had a cave further north they considered their headquarters. They were engaged now in making a series of exploratory trips.

  Using the compass on the second day Nick managed to guide Stroud and Crocker back to the jeep.

  “Tidy little jumper.” The Warden considered the machine regretfully. “No getting it out of that pinch though.”

  Nick had gone straight to the cargo, those cases of drinks and the melons. But someone or something had been there before him. All that remained were a couple of smashed bottles.

  “Pity,” Stroud commented. “Not a pint of the old stuff, maybe, but we could’ve used it. What do you say, Barry—who nosed in ahead of us?”

  The pilot had been inspecting the leaf mold around the stranded jeep.

  “Boots—army issue, I’d say. Those Chinese maybe. They could have drifted down this way. But it was in the early part of the evening, maybe the afternoon.” He squatted on his heels, using a twig to point out what he could read stamped into the ground. “There’s been a slinker here, its pads cover one of the boot marks, and those don’t go prowling until dark. Anything else worth taking?”

  Stroud was searching the jeep with the care of an experienced scrounger.

  “Tool kit.” He had unrolled a bundle that he had found under the seat to reveal a couple of wrenches and some other tools. “That’s all, I’d say.”

  Nick stood near the tree against which the jeep nosed. This had been the middle of the Cut-Off. Yet looking around now he could not believe it.

  “What caused it—our coming through?” he asked, though he did not expect any answer.

  Stroud had rewrapped the tools, his face mirroring his satisfaction in the find. Now he looked up.

  “There was a talk I heard—about our world runni
ng on electromagnetism. This brain who was talkin’, he said we were all—every one of us, men, animals, trees, grass, everything—really electrical devices, we vibrate somehow. Though most of us don’t know it. Then he went on to say as how we have been using more an’ more electricity an’ how now some small thing like a radio or such can throw out force enough to stop a much larger power source without meanin’ to.

  “He was warnin’ us, said we were usin’ forces we didn’t fully understand without carin’. An’ something might just happen to lead to a big blowup some day. Maybe these places we come through work that way. The Vicar, he thinks a lot about it, an’ he said that once.”

  “But we’ve been using electricity only close to a hundred years, and people disappeared this way before that. Right here.” Nick pointed to the trapped jeep. “We had records of people disappearing here going as far back as when the white men first moved in, and that’s about one hundred seventy years. According to your Vicar it goes much farther back in your country.”

  Stroud shrugged. “Don’t know what works the traps. But we’re here, ain’t we? An’ we’ll probably stay, seein’ as how we ain’t goin’ to get back across the ocean by wadin’. An’ what about you, Shaw, any chance of your findin’ a way back from here?”

  Nick shook his head. The solidity of the tree he could touch, the scene about him, was manifest. And no one had ever returned from the Cut-Off once they had gone. The sudden realization of that closed in on him as it must have on Linda earlier. He wanted to scream, to run, to allow his panic some physical expression. Somehow he did not dare, for if he lost control now, he was sure, he could never regain it.

  His fingers dug into tree bark. No—he was not going to scream—was not going to break!

  There was a sharp sound from the jeep. Stroud threw himself flat on the seat. Crocker went to earth as quickly. Nick stared, not understanding. Then he saw it lying on the ground. A spear—They were under attack. He crouched, sought cover.

  Nick listened for another sound, warning of an outright attack. He had no weapon, not even a stone, with which to defend himself. The quiet was absolute, no birdcall, not even a rustle of breeze in the foliage above them. Stroud and Crocker had their slingshots—but what use were those here?

  Nick studied the spear. It had made a dent in the side of the jeep. That he could see. But the weapon was outside his own experience. In the first place the shaft was shorter than he would imagine it should be. The point was metal with four corners united. He knew next to nothing of primitive weapons but he thought it was not American Indian—if Indians did roam this world.

  The spear, the silence—Nick found himself trying to breathe as lightly as possible. This waiting—when would come the attack? And from which direction? They could be completely surrounded right now. His back felt very naked, as if at any moment another of those weapons might thud home in his own body.

  He could see neither Stroud (who must have squeezed himself to the floorboards of the jeep), nor Crocker. The pilot must have had training in such warfare, he had gone to earth so well. What did they do, just sit here and wait for death to come out, either silent, or in a wild roaring charge they could not counter with bare hands?

  Nick’s mouth was dry, his hands were so sweaty he wanted to wipe them on his shirt, yet dared not move. What were They waiting for?

  What did break the silence was the last thing he expected to hear—laughter.

  So this enemy was so sure of them it could laugh! That cut through his fear, made him angry. Funny was it?

  Laughter and then a voice calling out in some incomprehensible tongue. A demand for their surrender, a listing of what would happen to them when they were overrun and taken? It could be either, but Nick noted that neither of his companions made any response to it. He could only follow their lead, hoping that their hard-learned lessons might in turn teach him some answer to the local perils.

  Again laughter, light, mocking—But was it threatening? It seemed rather to have the spirit of mischief in it. Something in that tone made Nick less tense. So he was not startled when again a voice called, this time speaking his own language:

  “Out of hiding, fearful men! Did you believe the Dark Ones were upon you? Scatter and hide, is that the way to greet us, you who came tramping into our land without asking? No courtesy?”

  Nick watched Stroud heave his bulk out of concealment. Apparently the Warden was willing to accept the harmlessness of the questioner, or else there was a truce on. Crocker crawled out also, and, still wanting some reassurance, Nick was shamed into joining him in open sight.

  He was beginning to wonder how good the aim of the unseen might be. That spear had struck well away from any of them. It could have been intended as a warning, a drastic announcement of arrival.

  “We’re waiting.” Stroud’s voice held a very audible note of exasperation. Nick could believe that the Warden was angry at his own reaction moments earlier, though Nick would think it was better in this country to cling to caution.

  “No courtesy—yes,” countered the unseen. “So you are waiting. What if we make a wall of waiting to enclose you, spin a cage?” Now the voice was sharp in return.

  Nick stared in the direction from which it appeared to come. There was space there between the massive trees, but the speaker could well be concealed behind any trunk. He could detect no movement.

  Stroud shrugged. “I don’t know who you are, or what you are. You offered attack—” He was making a visible effort to reply calmly, not to cause any more annoyance to the concealed speaker. “We’ve shown ourselves—now it’s your move.”

  “Move, move, move!” the voice repeated in a rising chant. “A game—the heavy-footed stumblers would play a game, would they?”

  Out of nowhere flashed a ball of light. It almost touched Stroud, then halted in midair, bobbed up and down in a wild dance around him. The Warden stood still, his hands loose at his sides. Though he blinked when the ball seemed ready to dash into his very face, he did not try to dodge its swift flurries of seeming attack.

  “A game—you play then, stumbler. Take your courage in your thoughts and play!” The ball went into a dazzling flurry of movement, becoming nearly too blinding to watch.

  With a sudden leap it abandoned Stroud, made the same threat of attack about Crocker, who presented a like impassive front. Now it changed color with eye-searing rapidity—green, blue, yellow, violet, and all shades rippling in between. Never red, Nick noted, nor any shades of yellow bordering on that color, nor did it reach pure white.

  “You do not care to play then? But the sport would be poor with you, stumblers!” The ball withdrew, bobbed up and down vertically some distance away. The glow increased so its movement wove a pillar of light, a light that continued to hold when the ball itself disappeared.

  Now the column of light winked out as a blown candle flame, leaving a small figure. Perhaps he did not top Nick’s shoulder, even with the upstanding feather in his cap, a feather that quivered with every slight movement. But he was completely humanoid in form, and by his appearance an adult male. His face was smooth, young, and yet about him was the feeling of age and boredom. He wore dull green breeches, the color of the leaves. They were very tight-fitting breeches and they were matched by calf-high boots of the same color, only visible because they were topped with wide turn-over cuffs.

  His tunic, which laced up the front and had no sleeves, was green also and exposed his small muscular arms. The lacings were glinting gold, as was the elaborate buckle of his belt, and the clasp that fastened his cloak, which was flung back over his shoulders to allow his arms full freedom.

  The cloak was scarlet, lined with green, and his cap was of the same shade. Fair hair fell to his shoulder. And the hair held a light of its own, surrounding his head with a gleaming mist. He had well-cut, handsome features, only Nick saw, where the locks of hair were swung back behind his ears, that those were large out of proportion, rising to very discernible points.

  T
here was a short sword, or long knife, sheathed at his belt, and he carried a second spear, twin to the one lying by the jeep. His expression was one of malicious amusement. But he did not speak. Instead he pursed his lips to whistle. And there was movement behind him, shadows detached themselves from the tree boles to flit forward.

  Humanoid the little man might be, but the force he captained was not. There was a shambling bear that sat up on its haunches, its forepaws dangling, its red tongue lolling between only too-evident teeth. Beside that crouched a spotted cat—but what was a leopard doing in these woods? Those two of the company Nick could readily identify—but there were others—

  What name did you give a creature with a catlike, spotted body, but with four limbs ending in hooves, a canine-inclined head, bearing great upstanding twin fangs in its lower jaw and double horns sprouting at the beginning of a horse mane just above its wide, fierce eyes? There was a second beast beside it that might be very remotely related to a wolf, save that it had a more foxlike head, a very slender body, the talons of a giant bird in place of forepaws; the hind paws and bushy tail normal enough, if anything might be termed normal in such a mixture.

  The four creatures sat at ease, their glowing eyes, for even the bear’s eyes glowed red, intent upon the three by the jeep.

  “You see,” the small man with a graceful wave of his hand had indicated his hoofed and clawed and pawed companions, “our strength. Now we ask of you your absence. This is our domain and you have not asked our permission to enter it.”

  To his own surprise Nick found himself answering:

  “We did not want entrance. We came without it being our will.” He pointed to the jeep. “One minute that was on a road in my own world—the next it was here.”