The Mantooth Part 2

'Yes,' answered Kalus without thinking. 'I know him well---

'Sylviana!' he stammered. 'I speak! My mind is all around me.

How can these things be?'

'I'm not sure,' she replied honestly. 'But I'm grateful for your company all the same. I've been here alone for so long.....' She stopped when she saw the weary, washed-out confusion of his face. Though far from happy herself, she realized that in this moment his need was still greater.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered sadly, eyes to the ground. 'You have enough to think about already.' Slowly the words came to her.

'Try not to worry. Things will work out for us, you'll see.

Right now you should eat, then I'll check your bandages and you can sleep a while longer.' He nodded gratefully.

Sitting weakly on one of the steps, Kalus let his mind go blank.

Sylviana went to prepare a meal as best she could, and the he-wolf retired to a favorite corner to lie down. For the moment, at least, all was as it should have been.

A very rare moment, indeed.

Chapter 4

Kalus woke feeling strangely insecure. It was a feeling he had known before, and one he had come to respect. Rising quickly, he instinctively scanned his surroundings. At first he could not remember where he was. The events of the day before had struck so suddenly, and with such sweeping change that he found his mind racing, trying to put back the pieces of all that had happened, and think what he must now do in answer.

Slowly it came back to him. The piled furs on which he sat had been placed for him there by Sylviana, the young woman-child who lived in this place, some sort of wide underground pa.s.sageway. She had nursed his wounds and spoken strangely of a land he would never see. Of the rest he was still quite uncertain, but at least sensed that he was safe, a knowledge that helped quiet his fears, and soothe the angry horde of questions that kept pounding at his brain. Looking across the room he saw that the girl lay sleeping a short distance away, lying in a similar bed among the shadows of the far wall. She had tried to make him sleep there instead but he refused, it being so foolishly placed beneath the unprotected shaft. At her feet rested the he-wolf, Akar, the creature most largely responsible for his present plight. Seeing him Kalus remembered his banishment, an event which had yet to make its full impact upon him. He shook his head in dismay.

HOW WILL I STAY ALIVE? he found himself asking. EVEN THE WOLF BARELY LIVES, AND HE IS BY FAR A GREATER HUNTER THAN I.

Though the thought itself was depressing, Kalus marveled at how quickly and clearly it had formed in his mind. Forced to live without the certainty of words, all previous thought patterns had of necessity been based around images and memory, a slow, tedious process that had almost always stifled him in any attempt at higher thinking. He thought of the G.o.d whose voice he had heard---was that part real or imagined?---and of its strange powers inside him. BUT WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN? The question was too much for him. He put it from his mind.

His thoughts returning to his own survival, he began to search the chamber for food. The girl seemed well fed, and there must doubtless be a reason. He had known upon sight that she was not a hunter. Her eyes showed no trace of the desperate aggression so permanently ingrained in the predators of the Valley. There was a certain look a seasoned carnivore developed, a hardened gleam, hungry and haunting, that identified it instantly to others of its kind. Sylviana's eyes were peaceful and trusting, something which had puzzled him from their first meeting. And though he could not put the feeling into words, a part of him deeply resented the apparent ease with which she survived. HER body was clean and unscarred. Her stomach was full, and her muscles smooth and round. He knew without looking that his own body, though young and strong, bore countless reminders of his own, day to day struggle.

Finding no food in the curving, main chamber, he turned his attention toward a high arching gateway that led deeper into what he now recognized as a large cave. Though he had not been certain the night before, the soft light of an early morning sun now clearly illuminated its entrance, behind him and to his right, removing any fear that he had fallen into some dark and treacherous underground maze.

But the sheer size of the alcove he now entered, gave rise to a whole new series of questions, the answers to which he feared he would not like. For all around him lay great mounds of treasure, and strange artifacts his mind could not begin to identify. Piled bronze and silver coins, chalices studded with diamonds and emeralds, rusting weapons of every shape and description met his eyes.

Yet these were not what puzzled him. Such things could also be found along the banks of the river which led to the Island. No, again it was the sheer size of it all which troubled him. For both the entrance to the frontal chamber and the arch he had just pa.s.sed through, were easily large enough to give pa.s.sage to creatures infinitely more powerful than the girl. Why had they not claimed the shelter as their own, or at the very least, made short work of both the girl and her wolf companion?

Searching among the shadowy back reaches of the cave, he found his answer. There in the darkness, packed together in thick, faintly luminous cl.u.s.ters of yellow-green wax, lay several large deposits of sebreum, self-synthesized food of the giant praying mantis.

'So that is why she is so well fed,' he scoffed, though deep inside he trembled. 'She has been living from the labors of another creature's food supply.' It also explained why no predator, no smart predator at least, had ever dared enter the cave. He knew that somewhere just outside it, in plain sight for all to see, the ma.s.sive creature had left its unmistakable mark of possession---the jagged outline of a pyramid, burned into the rock by the acidic secretions of special glands in its throat. It was a mark none would dare question, and to trespa.s.s in such a place meant certain death.

For the Mantis, though not the largest, was without question the strongest and most widely feared monarch of the Valley. Its triangular jaws could sever trees in an instant, and the sharp rows of teeth on the instep of its foreclaw could tear even the thickest hide to ribbons. He also knew that it must soon return to claim the shelter, and would not hesitate to kill them all if it found them still lingering near its jealously guarded treasure room.

Kalus paced nervously, trying to resolve an irresolvable conflict within him. Sylviana had said the night before that she could never leave this place, that she was somehow protected here from the perils of the outside world. Every instinct and emotion he possessed told him not leave her. But the Mantis..... He had no way of knowing that even now the question was being rendered academic.

Hearing Akar's deep growl, followed by a scream, he rushed wildly back toward the frontal chamber. Fearing the worst he drew out his crude stone knife. But at the thought of the Mantis it began to feel very small and useless in his hand. He turned the bend of the enclosure.

Though the creature he found there was not the one he expected, the danger was equally great. An enormous woolly land spider, too primitive to understand the markings above the cave's entrance, stood motionless on the ledge just beyond it, peering into the shelter with cautious uncertainty. Searching for a home, food had not been its main objective. But Kalus knew it could change its mind at any moment, and was quite capable of devouring them all.

'Sylviana!' he cried desperately. 'To the shaft through which I entered..... Quickly!'

But the girl, seeing the real-life manifestation of her darkest imaginings, could not find it within herself to turn and run. Instead she stood paralyzed in the center of the floor, staring with total disbelief into the eyes of certain death.

Only the spider's cautious hesitation saved them. Seizing her by the arm, Kalus forced her hurriedly toward the opening above her bed. Here the wall sloped sharply to meet it. Helping her up the pitted incline, they entered a broad and irregular chimney in the rock. Followed by the girl he began winding his way up through the spiraling, almost vertical pa.s.sageway.

'Wait!' cried the girl, regaining her senses. 'What about the wolf?'

'He will have to fend for himself!' retorted Kalus angrily.

Taking her by the arm once more, he forced her onward.

Seeing a pale yellow light filter down from above, he finally relented, slowing their pace. Stopping to rest on a narrow ledge far beyond the point where the spider could reach them, he felt his heart pounding uncontrollably. As it did so it sent angry waves of blood pulsing sharply through his veins, aggravating the deep head wound he had sustained the day before. The pain, though not excruciating, combined with the fear and frustration of the moment to form the totally negative and inescapably fatalistic frame of mind which had haunted him since childhood. All his thoughts, worded and otherwise, now seemed to crash in upon themselves like the breaking of a wave, crushing and smothering every positive impulse, every hopeful thought inside him. Hanging his head in a gesture of forced surrender he breathed heavily, mouth open, and waited for the feeling to pa.s.s.

Seeing his despair, Sylviana was moved in a way she could not explain.

Having lived most of her life in sheltered seclusion, all such powerful emotions had existed for her only in books, and always seemed somehow pretentious and unreal. To see it now in undeniable reality, affected a dual response within her. She felt at once both selflessly compa.s.sionate, and selfishly afraid. Again she thought of her friend.

'Kalus?' she asked softly, trying hard not to upset him. 'What will happen to the wolf?' He started to answer gruffly, but seeing her anguish, mellowed his tone.

'He will be all right,' he said. 'Akar knows the ways of escape like no other..... The spider has the mind of an ant. He is not in danger.' Though he had stretched the truth, he hoped she would believe him. In his heart he knew that the wolf was probably dead, or at best, trapped in some dark corner of the cave, hoping the spider would not find him.

But if he intended to calm her he had failed miserably. Something he said unknowingly, had upset her even more. 'Are all the insects of your world as large as the spider?' She asked sincerely, hoping to G.o.d the answer was no. The thought of a swarm of giant ants had sent a chill straight through her.

'Insects?'

'Crawling things with many legs.'

'Of course not,' he said, shaking his head at her ignorance. How could she have lived so long and still know so little of the ways of the Valley? But he was no longer angry with her. The intensity of the pain dying down, he had actually begun to derive some new sort of pleasure from hearing the sound of her voice.

'Except for the spider and the mantis,' he continued, 'They rarely grow to be much longer than your hand.' Though the answer was hardly rea.s.suring, at least she sensed that he meant well, something she had not been at all sure of before.

'Come,' he said, feeling unusually benevolent. 'There is a small cave just ahead. We will be safe there.' Taking her by the hand, they climbed the remaining distance carefully, coming at last to the wide, shoulder-high cavity that had given him refuge once before.

He searched it quickly before letting the girl enter. But finding it uninhabited, he helped her up, then lay down and basked in the first real safety he had known for several days, seeming to take no further notice.

But Sylviana could find no such release. Crouching on one knee in the light of the smaller cave's entrance, she could think only of her friend, the gentle wolf, trapped beyond all help in the lower cave.