"Yeah?" Faintly, hoarse, echoing.
"There's land here, Sim. Good land."
"Yeah."
"Sim, we'll find a way...."
Sim was singing again. The sound grew fainter, diminishing downward
into distance. The words were lost, but not what lay behind them. Matt
Harker buried his face in the green grass, and Sim's voice went with
him into the dark.
* * * * *
The clouds were turning color with the sinking of the hidden sun. They
hung like a canopy of hot gold washed in blood. It was utterly silent,
except for the birds. Birds. You never heard birds like that down in
the low places. Matt Harker rolled over and sat up slowly. He felt as
though he had been beaten. There was a sickness in him, and a shame,
and the old dark anger lying coiled and deadly above his heart.
Before him lay the long slope of grass to the river, which bent away
to the left out of sight behind a spur of granite. Beyond the slope
was a broad plain and then a forest of gigantic trees. They seemed to
float in the coppery haze, their dark branches outspread like wings and
starred with flowers. The air was cool, with no taint of mud or rot.
The grass was rich, the soil beneath it clean and sweet.
Rory McLaren moaned softly and Harker turned. His leg looked bad. He
was in a sort of stupor, his skin flushed and dry. Harker swore softly,
wondering what he was going to do.
He looked back toward the plain, and he saw the girl.
He didn't know how she got there. Perhaps out of the bushes that grew
in thick clumps on the slope. She could have been there a long time,
watching. She was watching now, standing quite still about forty feet
away. A great scarlet butterfly clung to her shoulder, moving its wings
with lazy delight.
She seemed more like a child than a woman. She was naked, small and
slender and exquisite. Her skin had a faint translucent hint of green
under its whiteness. Her hair, curled short to her head, was deep blue,
and her eyes were blue also, and very strange.
Harker stared at her, and she at him, neither of them moving. A bright
bird swooped down and hovered by her lips for a moment, caressing her
with its beak. She touched it and smiled, but she did not take her eyes
from Harker.