* * * * *
Finally they were out of the mountains, the blue forest moss squeaking
beneath their feet as they walked. Once they stopped for a brief sleep,
and although Eldon found it uncomfortably hot on the forest floor
Krasna kept her long cloak wrapped closely.
"Where are we going?" he asked, very tired of this hiking and of the
girl's reproachful glances. Even the little lemur-thing seemed to stare
disapproval at his lack of memory.
"To my people, of course. Perhaps they will allow me to return now.
Every one of us will be needed to counteract the two Earth minds
working with the Faith."
"Ugh!" Eldon grunted, furious over her reiterated hints that
Margaret--his Margaret, for she had come to him that last night on
Earth--was Of the Faith.
They continued walking in strained silence.
"Can't you remember anything?" she asked again, her lips trembling.
"About the Thin World? That you are El-ve-don?"
"No."
His tone was unintentionally sharp, for he was irked by his inability
to remember. There was something--something he couldn't quite grasp.
She responded by bursting into a flood of tears and he stared at her,
astonished. She had seemed such a well-balanced girl, one who did not
cry easily. And so healthy and active too. But now--
She was still sobbing intermittently when three heavily armed men
stepped from among the trees and approached with swords and blast rods
drawn.
Eldon tensed instantly at their hostile attitude, and though he was
unarmed he prepared to resist.
But Krasna grasped his arm. "No. They are my people. We must go with
them quietly."
With a guard on either side and the third behind they were hustled
through the forest. Krasna stumbled occasionally and Eldon took her
arm. They were not allowed to speak to each other, and the guards were
so watchful they seemed almost afraid of their unarmed prisoners.
Once three tubular silvery ships like the one which had hunted Eldon
on his first night in Varda cruised overhead in echelon formation.
Instantly their guards forced them into hiding.
"Kill both if they signal," the leading guard directed.
Neither Eldon nor Krasna had the slightest intention of signaling the
aircraft of the Faith, and with their captors they breathed a sigh of
relief when the ships vanished in the distance.
Their hurried progress continued, with Krasna panting and stumbling.
Perspiration beaded her face, but still she kept the heavy cloak around
herself.
Finally one of the guards whistled and almost at once they were
surrounded by armed men who stared at them in hostile silence for a
moment, then forced them into a black opening at the base of a tree.
The tunnel smelled musty and unused and the huge underground room
smelled the same. But the room was in use now, packed from wall to wall
with Forest People.
Sudden silence fell as the captives were led in, and hundreds of eyes
turned toward them. Krasna gasped and her face grew pale.
"Oh, Eldon! They think we--"
"Be quiet!" one of the guards snapped, prodding her roughly in the back.
Eldon's fists clenched despite the swords ringing him in, but Krasna's
look counselled to wait.
Something was very, very wrong with many of the Forest People. Their
skins were red and raw and their bodies were swollen and bloated, as
though they had been severely burned or were in the last stages of some
dreadful disease.
A woman--she might have been good looking at one time--pushed toward
them. Her feverish eyes were sunk deep in pockets of swollen flesh and
her poor, distorted face twitched uncontrollably.
"You did this, red witch of Sasso--and you, Earthman!" Her voice was so
cracked with hate that Krasna stepped back.
A middle-aged man put his arm gently around her, and she was sobbing
and leaning heavily upon him as he led her away.
"Sasso-creatures!" he growled, his eyes flashing venom.
All at once Eldon realized he could read thoughts, just as Krasna had
read his. He knew what these Forest People were thinking and his face
went tight as he felt their concentrated hate. For every one of them
believed that Krasna had been deliberately allowed to escape from
the Fortress as part of the Faith's dark plot. Didn't she carry the
slave-mark? And they were sure that he, Eldon, was as much Of the Faith
as his two fellow-worldlings.
The ancient, white-haired man in charge of the meeting pounded for
attention. He peered at the prisoners with searing loathing and spoke
to Krasna.
"The Council erred when it sentenced you to exile," he declared grimly.
"It should have been death. But this mistake which has cost so many
lives will be rectified."
There was a growl of approval.
"And this Earthman--"
Krasna straightened. "This Earthman is El-ve-don!" she shouted.
For a moment there was incredulous silence.
"You lie, Sasso-creature!" screamed one of the bloated, dying men.
"Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!" The chant roared deafeningly from
the low ceiling and the old leader made no attempt to stop it.
Krasna raised her arms high in a plea for silence. She got silence,
sudden and complete, but in an unexpected way. For as she raised her
arms the cloak fell open and the tattered and bloodstained clothing
beneath hid little. There was a startled gasp from the crowd, then a
hum of shocked comment.
But it was not her semi-nudity that caused the sensation. Her
condition, the heaviness of her body, were obvious.
She saw that her secret had been disclosed.
"This man is El-ve-don!" Her voice was firm and defiant now, pitched to
cut through the noise. "Though he has refused to save our world, which
only he can do, Varda must have another chance."
Eldon was held in outraged motionlessness as an angry mutter spread.
"Forest People!" Krasna lifted her voice. "The Earthman is the father
of my child--although he himself did not know it until now!"
Eldon wanted to shout a denial. But he understood why she had been so
unsure of her footing descending the mountains, why she had tired so
easily.
"This Earthman _could be_ El-ve-don of the prophecy if he would. He
will not. But some day--if the Gateway can be held long enough--perhaps
our child will accept the burden its father has shirked. The child will
inherit characteristics of a Closed World mind. It was all I could do
for Varda."
Her voice broke in a sob.
Eldon read a thought in her mind, a thought intended for him alone.
"And besides, I love him."
His brain was awhirl. It was all utterly impossible. But his confusion
was interrupted by a stir in the back of the hall. Bolan entered,
shoved his way to the dais. He spoke to the old leader and there were
cries of angry protest from those near enough to hear.
"But--" the old man began.
"A trick to regain our confidence," someone broke in loudly. "Even
Luvans would be sacrificed to defeat us."
The old man spoke to Bolan again, and Bolan turned to stare at his
sister with disbelief changing to undisguised loathing.
"But she is the only one who knows the arrangement of the Fortress," he
said aloud. "Kill her and you doom our attack to failure."
There was a babble of disagreement.
"I say this not as her brother--if she has chosen a mate outside our
own People I hereby declare her no longer my sister--but as chosen
leader of our attack."
Amid the ensuing uproar the old man made a gesture to the guards, and
with his newfound telepathic ability Eldon caught the thought-command.
"Take them to the side rooms, apart from each other. We must consider
this."
* * * * *
Alone in a tiny cell Eldon tried to bring his whirling thoughts to
order. Krasna had lied. She must have lied. Why? But for a moment
her mind had been so open to his telepathic sense that lying was
improbable. And--
He felt a sudden mental wrench, a dislocation, a twisting--a million
ideas spun through his brain--and he _remembered_. Memories of the
Thin World--those very memories whose lack had made Krasna cry so
bitterly--all at once. They had been there all the time, but buried,
and the quick series of emotional shocks had brought them to the
surface. Gone was the irksome, nagging feeling that had made him speak
so harshly to the poor girl, replaced by a sense of surety and power.
Krasna had returned to the Chamber, to their real bodies, while he had
remained in the Thin World. It could have--must have--happened that
way. He remembered the secret, knowing smile she had worn, and the
hints he had detected in her mind. And thought was a powerful force in
Varda, controlling material objects. And time in the Thin World was
different, variable.
It had been her patriotic urge to give Varda a chance at no matter what
cost to herself. But he suspected there was also a shrewd feminine
attempt to involve him emotionally in the fate of her world. It was
most disconcerting.
Then that other thought--that most surprising thought of all. So she
loved him. So what? He had not encouraged her.
He tried to shrug it off, tried to tell himself he had no
responsibility whatsoever in the matter. But his heart spoke otherwise.
He tried to grow angry at Krasna for the unfair advantage she had
taken--and failed miserably.
* * * * *
He made no resistance as he was led back into the hall. Memories of the
Thin World, of the nature of interacting bound charges, were arranging
themselves in his mind. And he understood how to use that knowledge.
His was a triple mind with an understanding of Earth, of Varda, and
of the Thin World. But somehow there was little satisfaction and no
happiness in the belief that soon he could return to Earth.
The old man began, for the benefit of the crowd, with a lengthy
explanation that there was still some doubt in Krasna's case. She had,
after all, given them the Luvans' secret, and she was necessary to the
plan to infiltrate the Fortress and assassinate the leaders of the
Faith. But still she bore the slave-mark.
"She will be kept under guard and her mind will be intensively probed,"
the old man announced. "The child with the Earth taint will be
destroyed at birth."
"No!" Krasna shrieked. "No!"
Eldon felt a twinge at her frantic, pitiful cry, but he hardened his
heart and did not face her.
He did not wait for the inevitable death sentence to be pronounced upon
him. He turned away, almost casually, and walked toward the passage. He
must find Margaret, attend to the matter of Victor, and then return to
Earth. And he must go first to the dread Fortress of Sin, for he would
have need of the Gateway.
But he was filled with a deep sadness for Krasna and her--their--unborn
child.
At first the Forest People did not guess his intention, for he screened
his thoughts. Then two warriors leaped to block his path with upraised
swords. Eldon _thought_, and for the fragment of time it took to pass
them they remained immobile. A knife whistled toward his unprotected
back. He _felt_ it coming and with incredible swiftness whirled and
caught it in mid-air.
"Up! Up! Higher!" Eldon concentrated as a blast rod was drawn somewhere
behind him. The sizzling lethal charge passed over his head and tore
a gaping scar in the plastic ceiling as the aim of the operator was
disturbed by his penetrating thought.
He risked one look at Krasna. She was struggling to tear loose from her
guards and follow.
"El-ve-don!" she called. In her voice was the anguish of one who has
lost hope.
Then he ran, knowing that as soon as the Forest People recovered from
their surprise he would be no match for their massed mental powers.