They stopped. The blind air lay heavy with a subtle fragrance, spicy
and pleasant, yet somehow unclean. The water sighed lazily far below.
Somewhere ahead was a smooth rushing noise which Harker guessed was the
river inlet. But none of that was what Sim meant.
He meant the rippling, rustling sound that came from everywhere in
the cavern. The black surface of the lake was dotted now with spots
of burning phosphorescent color, trailing fiery wakes. The spots grew
swiftly, coming nearer, and became carpets of flowers, scarlet and blue
and gold and purple. Floating fields of them, and towed by shining
swimmers.
"My God," said Harker softly. "How big are they?"
"Enough to make three of me." Sim was a big man. "Those little ones
were children, all right. They went and got their papas. Oh, Lord!"
The swimmers were very like the smaller ones that attacked them by
the river, except for their giant size. They were not cumbersome.
They were magnificent, supple-limbed and light. Their membranes had
spread into great shining wings, each rib tipped with fire. Only the
golden-dandelion heads had changed.
They had shed their petals. Their adult heads were crowned with flat,
coiled growths having the poisonous and filthy beauty of fungus. And
their faces were the faces of men.
For the first time since childhood Harker was cold.
The fields of burning flowers were swirled together at the base of the
cliff. The golden giants cried out suddenly, a sonorous belling note,
and the water was churned to blazing foam as thousands of flower-like
bodies broke away and started up the cliff on suckered, spidery legs.
It didn't look as though it were worth trying, but Harker said, "Let's
get the hell on!" There was a faint light now, from the army below.
He began to run along the ledge, the others close on his heels. The
flower-hounds coursed swiftly upward, and their masters swam easily
below, watching.
The ledge dropped. Harker shot along it like a deer. Beyond the lowest
dip it plunged into the tunnel whence the river came. A short tunnel,
and at the far end....
"Daylight!" Harker shouted. "Daylight!"
McLaren's bleeding leg gave out and he fell.
* * * * *
Harker caught him. They were at the lowest part of the dip. The
flower-beasts were just below, rushing higher. McLaren's foot was
swollen, the calf of his leg discolored. Some swift infection from the
planny's claws. He fought Harker. "Go on," he said. "Go on!"
Harker slapped him hard across the temple. He started on, half carrying
McLaren, but he saw it wasn't going to work. McLaren weighed more than
he did. He thrust McLaren into Sim's powerful arms. The big black
nodded and ran, carrying the half-conscious man like a child. Harker
saw the first of the flower-things flow up onto the ledge in front of
them.
Sim hurdled them. They were not large, and there were only three of
them. They rushed to follow and Harker speared them, slashing and
striking with the sharp bone tip. Behind him the full tide rushed up.
He ran, but they were faster. He drove them back with spear and knife,
and ran again, and turned and fought again, and by the time they had
reached the tunnel Harker was staggering with weariness.