“No!” That was Jean. “The gun—we have to keep the gun—”
Out of the shadows pranced Lung, heading straight to Rita. He leaped and barked before her, trying with all his might to gain her attention. If the others had no welcome, it was plain the Peke did not agree. His joy at her coming was manifest.
“Get out of here!” Crocker shook off Jean, moved toward Rita, the knife out.
“Stop, Barry.” The Vicar stepped between. He looked to Rita, not the pilot. “Why do you come?”
“Do you not remember that I was once one of you? Should I not try to aid you now? You have done that which has brought the Dark Ones; you have dabbled in things you do not understand, to your own undoing.”
“She’s one of them! She wants to get at us!” Crocker pushed against Hadlett, but as if he did not quite dare to set the Vicar aside.
“I am of Avalon,” she replied. Once more her features were composed, she looked as emotionless as the Herald. “But you have opened gates, which are of the Dark Side, and you have not that in you which can close them again. You have used powers and you have no defense—”
“And while we talk here,” that was Lady Diana, “those out there will attack. We have to hold—”
“Your illusion?” Rita interrupted. “But that, which you strive against, is no illusion. Do you not understand? We of the Kin have our enemies. You have raised those. But you have not our weapons to defeat them. Look upon you—do you not already weary? It drains the energy to build an illusion. Granted that you now unite to do this and with some success—but how long can you continue? For those without are not bound by time, nor the frailties of bodies such as yours. They can wait and wait until you are brought down by your own lack of strength. And I say to you—better that you be dead than alive at the moment they overrun you.
“This is the beginning of the time of the Running Dark. From all the places of evil will come forth that which has been lurking there. Those it enspells become wholly its creatures. Others seek to run before it—those you have seen. And in the end it will be little better for them, for the sky hunters will take them.
“But to you have come the Dark Ones ahead of time. Avalon will not protect you, for you have refused its freedom. Put your iron to your throats, but even so there are those who can pour into your bodies, inhabit them, use them as clothing—”
“As you use Rita’s?” Crocker’s eyes were fires of fury.
“I am Rita. I am more Rita than I ever was before I accepted the freedom. Then I was as one asleep and dreaming, now I am awake—alive! Yes, I am Rita, though you will not believe it. I think that you cannot, for there is that in you which wants me to be the lesser. Is that not so?
“This day I have said to him who came with me that I was still heart-tied to you. Perhaps that was true—once. When I came to you before, my once dear friends, after my change, it was as a beggar, asking for your alms. But in that I erred. For what have you to give me now?”
“Perhaps nothing.” Hadlett, not the pilot, answered her.
She laughed. “How well you sum it up. Still—there are those here—” Rita glanced from one to the next. “You have such courage, even if it is wrongly rooted. I know you all well, even these two new ones come into your company. And, though you may not believe it, I wish you well. What I can do for you, that I will. But I warn you—it can be but little. You have not the freedom. And what you have provoked is very strong.”
“It was Avalon who gave me the first hint of using the mind power.” Nick spoke for the first time. “If this was such a wrong thing, then why did he do it?”
He thought Rita looked a little shaken. “I do not know. The Heralds have their purposes under the King. This is a change time—”
“So,” the Vicar said, “a time of alteration may bring things out of custom to pass? Logos once more faces Chaos. And you say that our strength will not hold to protect us?”
Rita shook her head. “It cannot. We with the freedom draw from Avalon itself. Look—it can be thus with us.” She stooped to set her hand to the floor. Under her touch the rock crumbled, leaving the imprint of her fingers. “That is no illusion, set your hand within if you do not believe me. But its like you cannot do, for your gift is small. Unite if you will, as you have, and there is still a limit, for the land will not nourish you.”
Lung, who had been crouched at her feet, leaped up again, and she smiled at his exuberance, laid her hand on his head, while from the shadows sped Jeremiah, wreathing about her ankles, purring so loudly they could hear. And for the cat, also, Rita had a touch. When she raised her head there was a faint trouble on her face.
“Some can accept freedom, others choose their chains. Why is it so?”
“Because,” Crocker burst out, “we are ourselves! We don’t want to be changed into—into—”
“Into what I am? But what then am I, Barry ?”
“I don’t know. Except that you are not Rita. And that I hate you for what you have done to her!”
“But I am Rita, the whole Rita. Fear walks with hate. You hate because you fear.”
Nick saw Crocker’s face go tight. A man might look so when he killed.
“You see?” Rita spoke to Hadlett. “His mind is closed because he wills it so. We build our own walls about us. What is your wall, Vicar?”
“My faith, Rita. I have lived with it as part of me all my life. I am a priest of my faith. As such I cannot betray it.”
She bowed her head. “You are blind, but your choice by your own standard is just. And you, Lady Diana?”
“Perhaps I can also say it is faith—faith in the past, in what made up my life—” She spoke slowly as if seeking the right words.
“So be it. And you, Jean? Yes, I can understand what ties you to danger and darkness.”
The other girl flushed, her mouth twisted angrily. But she did not speak, only moved a fraction closer to Crocker.
“Mrs. Clapp, then?” Rita continued. It was as if she must force a final denial from each and every one of them in turn.
“Well—perhaps it’s because I’ve been a churchgoing’ body all m’ life. If the Vicar thinks this wrong—then I’ll abide by what he says.”
“And you, Warden?”
“It’s like Lady Diana said—you make your choice ’bout who you stand with. That’s good enough for me.”
“And you?” Rita turned now to Linda.
“If one chooses Avalon, is there any chance of returning to one’s own time and world?” the American girl asked.
“That I do not know. But I believe that the will to remain will be stronger than the will to return. For one becomes a part of Avalon.”
“Then I guess it will be ‘no’! But has Lung chosen?” Linda’s eyes were now on the dog crouched at Rita’s feet.
“Ask.”
“Lung—Lung—” Linda called softly. The Peke looked at her and came, moving slowly, but he came.
“They have their loyalty also,” Rita said. “He will stay with you because he is heart-tied. Even as Jeremiah will share what comes to you, Maude Clapp.”
She was going to ask him now. Nick braced himself, because he knew what he would answer and what would come of it. Why must he take on this burden? He had no heart-ties, as Rita called them, yet he must go against all his inclinations, and for no reason he could put into words.
“I stay,” he said before she could ask.
Rita was frowning. “For you it is not the same. You say the words but something more may come of this. We shall see. However, in this much shall I aid you all now. That which waits without is but the first wave of what comes. Use your will with mine and I shall set a barrier—to hold for a little.”
“We want nothing from you!” Crocker flared.
“Barry, this is for all to decide,” the Vicar said. “I think, Rita, you mean this for our good. What say the rest?”
Crocker and Jean shook their heads, but the others nodded in agreement. So having decided, they linked thei
r power, standing within the cave, not knowing what it wrought outside, but feeling, too, the fierce surge of energy from Rita.
“This will not hold. It will only afford you a brief respite.”
“For as much as you have given us, we thank you,” Hadlett answered. “And, my child, we wish you well.”
Rita raised her hand and traced a design in the air that remained there for an instant, written in pale blue fire—the ankh.
“I wish you—peace. And that none may trouble you thereafter.”
Once more she wept, tears on her white cheeks. Then she turned and went from them, the shining envelope of radiance closing about her so they could not see how she disappeared.
“She wished us death!” Jean exploded. “You know that, don’t you—she meant that by her ‘peace’—death!”
“She wished us the best she could foresee for us.” Hadlett’s voice was very tired. “I believe she spoke the truth.”
“Yes,” Lady Diana agreed heavily. She did not add to that but went to stand by the fire, staring into it.
But Linda came to Nick. “There can be a way back—” she told him, an eager note in her voice.
“Back where?” He was hardly aware of her.
“Back to our own world.”
“How do you mean?” She had his attention now.
“If we can only get out of here—back to where we came in. Once there, why can’t we make a door and go through? If we could make soldiers and a machine gun, as we did”—she waved to the cave entrance—“then we ought to be able to get back by willing hard enough—all of us together. Don’t you see? It could work—it has to!” She ended as vehemently as if at that moment she could see such a door, the safe past behind it.
“Even if it would work,” Nick countered, “how are we going to get back to the forest to try? If we leave here—do you realize what is waiting out there? We couldn’t fight our way across country—not with those things waiting for us!”
“We can”—she was stubborn—“use illusions. Don’t you see—it is all we can do.”
“What is the only thing we can do?” Jean’s voice, hostile in tone, cut in.
“We have to try to get back to our own world. I was telling Nick—we can do it! If we go back to where we first came through—to where the jeep is—then make a door—we can go through! It’s a way we’ll have to try. Don’t you see, we have to!”
Her excitement grew as she talked. That she was wrong, Nick was convinced. But to his surprise he saw an answering spark arise in Jean.
“If it would work—” The English girl drew a long breath. “Yes, if that worked and he—we—could be free of everything here! It would be wonderful! That forest is a long way from here and with all that out there—”
“We’ve just got to try,” Linda urged. “She—Rita—you heard what she said about worse coming. If we stay here we’re caught. But if we can make it back—”
“Can’t do it.” Crocker had been drawn to their group. “If the country was free, yes, it would be worth a try. But we can’t fight our way through now.”
“So we just stay here”—Linda rounded on him—“and wait to be caught by those horrors? Is that what you want? There ought to be some way we can get through.”
She looked eagerly from one to another. Perhaps in Jean she still had an ally, but Nick knew how impossible such a trek would be. He had come cross-country under Rita’s protection and he had a very good idea that had it not been for that he would not have lasted long no matter how stiff a fight he had put up. With Mrs. Clapp, the Vicar, the wounded Stroud, to slow them, they would not have a chance.
“We have to get back,” Linda repeated. “I—I don’t want to die. And you were right, Jean. Rita wished us to die there at the last. She—the People won’t do any more to help us. We’ll have to help ourselves and the only way is to get back to our own world. Maybe—maybe you don’t have to go to the place you came through after all. Maybe we could make a gate right here!” Her words came faster and faster.
Nick walked away. He was tired with a weariness that weighed on him like a heavy burden. He did not believe that Linda’s suggestion had any hope of realization. And he was too worn out to argue about it. He sat down on the floor and was only aware of Mrs. Clapp when she handed him one of the wooden bowls that held some liquid with a sharp scent.
“Get that down you, lad. It’ll perk you up. An’ I want you to tell me somethin’ true—no fancying it up because I’m an old woman as should be told only good things. I’m old enough to know that there are some things that have no good in ’em at all. Those are made for our bearin’ when the time comes. Do you think there is anything we can do—you have been out an’ seen it all—to help ourselves?”
Nick sipped the drink. It was slightly bitter, which was in keeping with the situation at hand. But as it slid down his throat it brought warmth—though it did nothing to banish the inner cold rooted in his mind and body.
“I don’t think there is any more we can do than has been done. She said that the Dark Powers can draw men to help them. And I saw some out there that might be such. I don’t know how long the barrier will last.”
She nodded. “It is not what you’ve said, but all you’ve not. Well, there were the good years. But you young ones—it would be fairer to you if you had had longer. I wish Jeremiah had gone with her, an’ the little dog, too. It’s not right that good beasts have to be with us.” She sighed and took the empty bowl he handed to her.
Nick longed to go and stretch himself out on his scanty bed. But who knew when the protection Rita had raised would fail? It might be well to check on what was happening out there.
He dragged himself to his feet and went to the entrance, pulling up to the sentry station. No phantom machine gun was there now. But before him, about five feet away, a shimmering cloud, very visible in the gloom, made a curtain. If anything moved beyond he could not see.
Not that he doubted they were still there. And there they would wait until the curtain failed. When that happened—illusions that could not be held and—
Nick put his arm across a rock, laid his head on it, and closed his eyes. But he could not close out his thoughts. Rita and the Herald were right; these stubborn English, he, Linda, were throwing away life for nothing. He did not believe that Avalon was evil.
The power radiating from the ankh in the city had nearly killed him. But there was nothing of evil in it. It was only that he, as he now was, was too frail, too flawed a thing to hold such energy.
Now the Dark Tide swept the land. Only in the city, in those places with the freedom of Avalon, would there be light. And those who did not accept the light opened a door to the Dark. They had tried to use the gift of the light to their own purpose, and in that, Rita said they brought worse upon themselves.
But why had Avalon, the Herald, given Nick the hint that had led him to the discovery of the power? Certainly there was a purpose in that, a test, perhaps—wherein he had failed by the way he had made use of his discovery. It could well be.
In any event he would now have to face what lay before him and make the best of it. Perhaps Rita was also right in wishing them a swift death as the best she could offer.
Nick thought about death. Was it an end or a beginning? No one knew, only hoped for the best with the part of him that feared absolute extinction above all else. Death could be peace, in such a land as this.
“Nicholas—”
He raised his head. By the glow of the wall he could see Hadlett, though he could not read the Vicar’s expression.
“Yes, sir?”
“You were in the city, Sam told us. What is it like there?”
Wearily Nick spoke of the walls and streets, of those doors with their pictures that came alive at the touch, and, finally, of the great ankh and the energy that could slay when one was unprepared to face its force.
“The looped cross,” said the Vicar. “Yes, the key to eternity, as the Egyptians called it when they put it int
o the hands of their gods. A source of energy that only those who have surrendered to it can absorb.”
“They are not evil,” Nick returned. “I have seen evil and it does not lie in the city.”
“No. It is not evil, yet it demands the surrender of one’s will, of what one is.”
“As is also demanded by our own way of worship.” Nick did not know from where he had those words.
“But that is an older way, from which we turned long ago. To surrender again to its power, Nicholas, is to betray all our own beliefs.”
“Or to discover that there is only one source after all, but from it many rivers—” Again Nick was not aware of his words until he uttered them.
“What did you say?” Hadlett’s tone was sharp, fiercely demanding.
16
Nick was not given time to answer. For, from beyond the shimmering barrier, now came a sound he had heard before—the compelling, head-hurting summons that had drawn his former captors. He clapped his hands to his ears, but the sound was in his head.
Only this time it was not so severe. Nick gritted his teeth, braced himself against obeying the summons. In the faint light he could see Hadlett doubled up against the rocks, his hands also to his ears, his white head bowed.
Fight it! Nick marshaled his will to do that. He did not know in whose hand was that weapon, but it was evil. Then he was aware of someone pushing past him. He threw out his arm, tried to deter that other, reeled back from a blow.
He watched Crocker head to the barrier. Behind him scrambled the others: Jean very close to the pilot; Lady Diana, her face twisted, her hands to her tortured ears; finally Stroud lurching along, his gait that of a drunken man, or one so weak only intense purpose kept him going.
The four came to the barrier before Nick could move from where Crocker had shoved him, passed through, to be hidden from sight. Hadlett wavered forward, but this time Nick was prepared. He sprang to tackle the Vicar, bearing the old man with him down toward the cave entrance.