The Three Suns of Amara Page 5

  It was the trap fear again. He recalled the trees which put out claws to grab him, the grass that clung about his ankles and tried to pull him down. He loathed their insistent attentions.

  Impulsively, he went back indoors, intending to have it out with her. He found her all contrition and tenderness, and his resolve melted. If only he didn’t love her so much…

  They became very close again.

  And later, more clashes of temperament. His lone walks in the garden became longer. One purple day he found himself standing at the edge of the grove of Melas trees, daring himself like a schoolboy to dart in and out, just out of reach of their branches.

  He began to understand why Lee had gone to prove himself. Why wasn’t it enough that Rosala was dependent on them for her very existence?

  It should have given them a sense of mastery. So far as he was concerned, it didn’t. There was even a mean sense of resentment; he was being used by a—well, parasite was the word she’d chosen.

  Again, he’d grown up under Reparism. Reparism said that the male was the accepted master of the household. Reparism said that there was a place for all persons, and that all must know their place.

  Rosala just wouldn’t stay put any place.

  To live contentedly with her, he felt that there must be something that he could do which she couldn’t do better. But why should he be forced to prove himself? In Na-Abiza, he could merely step back into his place in the Reparist system, and be respected for what the was.

  He turned his back on the Melas trees and walked back to the garden pool. That statuary stood solidly around him. There was more of it now—some of his own design, but fashioned through Rosala’s peculiar power and therefore not wholly satisfying. It was as if teacher had helped him.

  Yet he knew that if he were to leave Rosala, that work which had emanated originally from his mind would endure. As had the work of Lee and of other men. But all that which was solely of Rosala’s design, including the house itself, would very gradually fade to nothing as the designer lost belief in her own existence. Could he do that to her? Was Wilde right? Did each man have to kill the thing he loved?

  Yet she might not necessarily cease to exist. Many men had come this way before him. More were likely to come after him and give her full life again. But he knew—and now tried desperately not to know —that there was a point of no return. If Rosala did fade to complete non-existence, then it would be as if she had never lived. And then if all the men in her life came back to this garden and called aloud for her, they would be crying for the moon. She had told him that. No, he couldn’t risk doing that to her. Yet by remaining he was condemning himself to at least a partial death. The suffocating sensation came on him again. There was no way out.

  After the sickness had passed, he slouched depressedly back to the studio. She flung herself at him. “Sherry, dear! Oh, what a fool I am!”

  He held her tightly, knowing that he was more of a fool in saying what he was going to say, because he knew the answer and the attempt was futile. But hope is always irrational.

  “Forget it, Rosala. But we can’t go on like this, tearing ourselves to pieces. This place is a kind of prison for both of us. Let’s break out and go to Na-Abiza. There are men like myself there actively learning, exploring, planning, doing a job in life. Let’s join them. We’ll still go on with art, but you must understand that although I believe art is vital it’s still not the whole of existence for me. I have to express myself in my own way, too.”

  She went very still in his arms. Then she said, tensely, “But I told you. Each Petran is bom to his or her own area. We are not permitted to leave it. It’s the law.”

  “Break it, then. Is it so inflexible? You yourself said inflexible things only get broken here.”

  “Sherry, you don’t know what you’re saying. It would mean the end of me.”

  “In what way?”

  “I can’t tell you. We are forbidden to speak of these things.”

  “Did you speak of them to Lee?”

  “No. Nor to any man.”

  “Supposing Lee came back for you?”

  “I still couldn’t go away with him. He would have to remain here.”

  “What do you mean by that? What about me?”

  “I’m sorry, Sherry, but you would have to go. As I told you, I can live with only one man at a time. Lee was here before you. He would take precedence. It’s the law.”

  “Obviously you think more of your precious law and of Lee than you do of me. Well, that settles it. I shan’t stay around just waiting to be thrown out. I’m walking out— now.”

  He thrust her aside and walked away.

  “Sherry, Sherry, please, you can’t…”

  Over his shoulder he said brutally, “Don’t worry—I shan’t leave you to die. I’ll find dear old Lee and send him back to you, and you can live happily ever after—

  under your idiotic law. And if Lee turns out to be dead, I’ll find you another sucker and send him along.”

  He chose some stout shoes from the many they’d made together. The barefoot life was over. While he gathered his other belongings, she hovered around him like a persistent fly, importuning, poignant. He steeled himself to ignore her. He walked out into the garden for the last time, hard-faced. Yet there was inward shame; he knew he’d forced this particular quarrel and the issue.

  He left her crying at the door, between the two naked effigies of herself in her more full-figured days. Lee had created those, through her, to his taste. Sherret realized now how much he had unconsciously resented that. He walked grimly along the path leading out of the garden. Momentarily, he was expecting a pulverizing blow between the shoulder blades hurled at him in anger and despair.

  But it never came.

  And so he resumed the trek to Na-Abiza, a free man again. He knew that the path led to the northwest, through the mountain pass where Lee might still be, living or dead. And where the Three-people were.

  If Lee could face the Three-people, then so could he. It was something Rosala had admitted she would not care to do. It would show her the stuff he was made of. He walked at a furious pace. Maybe this energy was generated by the feeling of sudden release. He tried to believe that. Maybe he was trying to put enough distance between himself and Rosala to weaken the temptation to return to her. He tried not to believe that.

  There was little in the landscape to divert his attention. The distant foothills were darker than the mountains and appeared to be wooded. Between him and them, however, stretched leagues of flat and mostly barren land. Small chance of meeting anyone on the way. Rosala had explained why the river country was neither popular nor populous.

  Under a cloudless, burning orange sky he marched until he was lurching with fatigue. He rested, then set off again. At last he reached the first slopes of the foothills when Red reigned supreme and all the world was drenched in a crimson sunset glow.

  It made the woods look black and sinister indeed, and by now he had become wary of trees of any kind. He camped some distance from the woods and slept again. He awakened to see the high frosted peaks looking like pale green icebergs afloat on the smooth, greener ocean of the sky.

  The sky-sea ran down into a V-shaped bay—the pass, and the gateway to Na-Abiza. He made his way up the slopes towards it. The woods closed around him. The trees were all unfamiliar types, hung with blossom, and in this cooler light they looked not so much threatening as indifferent. All the same, he remained cautious.

  The undergrowth was so thick in parts that he had to do heavy work with the machete.

  Steadily, he climbed higher.

  After several hours, every arm and leg muscle was aching. There was another worsening ache, also—for Rosala. Perhaps rest and time would cure it, too. He was looking around for a likely clearing to camp in, when he came across some further Amaran phenomena.

  There was a dead tree split neatly down the middle, its two halves leaning apart. Struck by lightning, he thought. But the split wa
s unusually clean. It was as though some giant, seeking firewood, had taken a swipe at it with a razor-edge axe, then left it.

  Then he noticed several other trees had been sliced, all cleanly but not all down the center. Some of the trees had fallen clear apart. Others merely had boughs lopped off. The giant hadn’t bothered to collect any of the kindling; the ground was cluttered with branches of all sizes.

  Some of the cuts were obviously old and new twigs were sprouting from the stumps. Others were so recent that the oozing sap was still sticky. He shrugged, and continued his ever-slowing climb. Very soon he came upon what he was looking for—a wide clearing, open to the sky. He wasn’t going to sleep under any trees. He spread his waterproof and tried to get comfortable. It was chilly at this altitude. Moreover, a cold north wind was pouring steadily through the mountain pass and there was no escaping it.

  He swore, trudged back down the slope, returned with a load of the smaller chopped branches. He built and lit a fire, rigged the waterproof on a couple of branches to form a screen against the wind, and settled down between it and the fire. He rested and ate. Life became tolerable. He yawned and lay back. Sleep came fast, and with it dreams.

  Dreams of Earth, of deep space and the stars, of a garden crowded with statues of Rosala. The dreams took a nightmarish turn. The Melas trees were all around him again, and he had no strength to run and no breath to scream. Then, smashing among the trees, snapping off branches right and left, stamping with feet of steel, came a giant. A blood-drinking ogre from long ago, frightening nursery nights, all teeth, staring eyes, and black hair, crying as he came, ridiculously yet chillingly,

  Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum.

  For my wood I come.

  The ground shook under the nearing feet, and Sherret quivered with it, a terror-stricken child again.

  Thump. Thump. THUMP.

  At the last and heaviest thump, Sherret started awake and stared around, wild-eyed. Beneath a tree at the very edge of the clearing a massive branch was rocking gently on the scanty grass. It had just fallen, and had been amputated neatly at a crotch.

  He sat rigid, watching it. It rocked itself to stillness. Now nothing was stirring anywhere. There was dead silence in the woods.

  He must have slept long, for the light had changed and all things were blue-washed.

  Cautious and trembling, he got to his feet, peering all around the clearing. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he felt that something was there. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he’d seen neither animal nor bird in the woods. Did they shun the woods because they knew they were dangerous to life?

  Was something hiding behind the trees, watching him covertly? Yet, if the something had sliced these trees as though they were carrots, it must be huge. Too huge to be able to conceal itself behind any tree.

  Something invisible, then? A monstrous vandal, mutilating senselessly? But anything of that size must surely have left its tracks on the ground, even if it were itself invisible. He had noticed no tracks.

  He stuck a B-stick between his teeth, gripped his machete and tip-toed over to the fallen branch. Beyond it, among the trees, he saw other newly severed branches, mostly large, recently fallen. His dreaming mind had interpreted the impacts of their landing as the thumps of approaching feet.

  That realization was a relief. He began to clutch at straws. Probably the monster was all imagination. Could be the trees had some disease which caused them to rot and fall apart in this peculiar manner.

  But could this happen to a number of individual trees almost simultaneously? The odds were against that.

  Common sense told him to waste no more time in speculation, but to get to hell out of the woods. He went back to the still smoldering fire, gathered his things, shrugged on his rucksack. Then he quitted the clearing, intent on making for the pass.

  He’d gone maybe fifty yards when from close behind him came Thump. Thump. Thump.

  And the swishing of leafy boughs and the crackle of breaking twigs. He spun around.

  A great invisible knife was stalking him, blazing its trail as it came—literally. Slices of bark were falling from the trees as it cut its way after him, and, emphatically, whole major limbs. These evidences showed it was pursuing an implacably straight line—that was aimed directly at Sherret.

  Frozen, he watched it. The very evenness of its pace was unnerving. It threatened an inevitable doom, as though the unseen wielder of the knife were thinking, “Run if you like. Run till you drop, But I shall catch up with you… in my own good time.”

  A tree just in front of him, not twenty feet away, was suddenly completely bisected. The halves fell apart and crashed.

  He came to life with a yell of alarm and leaped aside. There was a rapid blur of movement and a row of saplings beyond the tree were simultaneously uprooted and flung down.

  What had moved? It had been lightning quick. In the dull blue light of these shadowy woods, it had been impossible to discern a definite form. Now it was a totally invisible again.

  Sherret gulped, turned, and ran.

  And met it approaching from the opposite direction. Thump, thump, thump went the slices of tree-wood, falling steadily along the new path towards him. He slid to a halt. “Oh, God!”

  He flung himself around, and began to run back. Almost immediately, there it was again, dead ahead, cutting its ruthless path to meet him. Groaning with fear, he stopped, then looked wildly back over his shoulder. The menace he’d fled was still behind him, still slashing its way after him. There were tioo invisible knives, closing on him inexorably from opposite directions. It was as though he were caught between the blades of immense shears. Panic scattered his senses. He heard someone shouting, but was so confused that he didn’t know whether it was himself or another. He began swinging the machete around him, slashing madly at the seemingly empty air, blindly on the defensive. Somewhere a shout sounded again.

  Then his machete jarred against one or other of the closing knife-edges with a flat, dull sound, as if he were hitting stone. The shock all but jolted it from his grasp. A thin crack appeared in the blade.

  There came a rush of feet and a loud clang behind him. A powerful arm caught his shoulder and shoved him headlong into the undergrowth. Dazed, he scrambled for a few yards on hands and knees, then looked back. The spectacle was quite fantastic.

  Two enormous shapes, each as wide as a house and tall as the tallest tree in the woods, seemed to be attempting to make physical contact with each other. They were curiously flat-looking, resembling a cross section of a sponge. Between them a tall, naked man, muscled like a gymnast, danced a ballet of defiance. He bore a crusader-type shield, thin as pasteboard and glimmering faintly in the blue underwater light. Deftly, he kept the shapes apart, slamming alternately at each of them with the shield. It rang like a gong at every blow. Amazingly, the two shapes backed slowly away from him. They began to sink into the ground.

  The man laughed harshly, then came bounding towards Sherret.

  “Get up, you poor fool!” he exclaimed in Amaran. “Do you want to be sliced up for a Creedo’s dinner? Follow me.”

  He leaped lightly past. Sherret picked himself up, annoyed and ashamed. He resented the other’s contemptuous tone, and was ashamed of his resentment. After all, the man had saved his life. With mixed feelings, he blundered along a path made easy for him by this stranger smashing down the undergrowth with his shield. The man was burning up energy at fourfold Sherret’s rate. But it was Sherret who first began to gasp for breath, with slack, hanging jaw. At last, after a mile of zig-zagging among trees across sloping ground, he swallowed his pride and grunted,

  “Wait for me.”

  The man waited for him to catch up. He was a handsome imperious brute.

  “Do you want me to carry you?” he sneered.

  Sherret drew whooping breaths, then complained, “Easy for you to talk. You’re not carrying a load on your back.”

  He jerked a thumb at the bulging rucksack.

  The man
looked at him reflectively.

  “Hold that for a moment,” he said suddenly, and proffered the thin shield. Sherret took it automatically. The totally unexpected weight of it dragged him to the ground. The man laughed boomingly.

  Sherret sat on the shield and wiped sweat from his face. Then he smiled wrily.

  “You’re an objectionable bighead, but let’s face it, you do have something to be conceited about. Thanks for getting me out of that jam, anyhow. Any chance of those perambulating guillotines catching up with us?”

  “You mean the Creedos? Don’t worry about them. Take it easy. As long as you’re sitting on the shield, you’ll be safe enough.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “They’ve gone underground. They may still be after us or they may not. But they could suddenly surface here. It’s a favorite trick of theirs to attack from below, when you can’t see them coming. That way, they could finish me. But the shield would save you; they can’t cut through it.”

  “H’m,” said Sherret, and studied the big man curiously. His face was a striking as his magnificent body. He, too, was bearded, but by comparison Sherret’s beard was a limp wisp. Color was always difficult to name precisely in the changing light of Amara but this man’s beard seemed jet black and thrust itself from his chin like a rock spur. His nose was equally forceful; he looked the most imperious of Caesars. His eyes were like Rosala’s in her stormiest mood. Power radiated from him. Shakespeare’s lines came to mind.

  “Nature might stand up,

  And say to all the world, ‘This was a man.’ ”

  Other memories and comparisons came to mind also, and gave Sherret no comfort.

  “What’s your name?” he asked flatly.

  “Lee-Gaunt-Lias-Nolla. You may have heard of me.”

  “I have.” Sherret felt spiritless. He got to his feet, looking down at the shield. Shakespeare had another apt comment. “The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep

  The battery from my heart.”

  “I think we have some matters to discuss,” said Sherret, “in another part of the forest. Not here.” Lee picked up the shield easily with one hand. “I know a place. Come.”