«How is it, girl? Snug enough now?»
«Warm, Blade. So warm. I think I will sleep now. It is like being in my mother's womb again.»
Blade smiled, shook his head and went about the business of his own survival. He hacked off lengths of the entrails and forced himself to eat. He would need all his strength tomorrow. He wedged himself back into a corner of the little makeshift cave, then pulled the carcass, with Ooma inside it, over on top of him. Wind and sleet, cheated for the moment, moaned in constant threnody past the rock opening.
Richard Blade slept.
Two days later he and Ooma half slid, half fell, down the last rocky, shale-strewn incline and stood in a narrow ravine that led in turn into the lush valley of the Jedds.
It would be, Ooma said, some days yet before they came to the city of her people. As they left the ravine and came into the valley proper, she pointed about and explained: «This land is old, nearly as old as the Idol of Birkbegn. When my people first came here, after being driven from their own land because they disobeyed the Books, they resolved to do better and so set about creating new and better lives for all the people. So it is written in the Books. Of course it did not last. The Jedds are an ill-fated people.»
Blade, gazing far down the valley, felt a moment of regret that he would not be able to explore these ancient wonders. But his time was growing short — on the final descent into the valley he had been seized with that sudden sharp pain, the brain spasm, that told him Lord Leighton was groping with the computer. Any time now he could be snatched back to Home Dimension. Tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month. Or in the next minute.
He put an arm about Ooma's shoulders and gave her a hug. «The first thing we do,» he said, «is to find water and clean ourselves. If we come on any of your people looking as we do now they will either kill us for demons or die of fright.»
It was true. They were both covered with dirt and dried blood, and Ooma's hair was one great tangle. Blade had hacked the skin of the beast into two equal parts and made crude cloaks for them both, binding them around their waists with twists of gut. With the leftover scraps he made a pair of shoes of sorts for the girl — his own feet and legs were a mass of bruises, sores and still-oozing rock cuts. They were in truth sorry sights, both of them, but as Blade glanced back at the mountains he was not discontent. They were alive, with the barrier range and the Api behind them, and that in itself was miracle enough.
Over the valley, narrow and steep-sided and lushly rank with greenery out of control for centuries, there hung a great and perfect silence. Dry canals, choked with weeds, interlaced to make a great frond-choked net. Everywhere were deserted temples and desolate, leering images, some in the image of the Idol of Birkbegn, others merely grotesque. Ooma did not know their meaning or origin.
After some hours of walking, during which their thirst grew — the snow they had eaten in the mountains was gone — they at last found a temple which mirrored itself in a cool, steel-colored pond. It had no visible source and the water, when they plunged in, was icy cold. Blade guessed at springs on the bottom.
They drank and scrubbed and drank and scrubbed. Ooma made brushes of twigs and leaves and they washed each other. They flung away the raw skins. Ooma, a little to Blade's amusement, made a small prayer for the soul of the unknown animal that had saved them. Blade, by this time, had come to think of it as a Dimension-X version of a mountain sheep or goat.
Ooma was her old self again. This Blade knew when, being clean at last and their thirst slaked, she insisted on making love on an altar before one of the eroded idols. He held back for a moment, teasing her.
«You forget, girl. It is not yet dark and we have not yet eaten. It is against all the Jedd law and custom, so you told me. So it is written in the Books of Birkbegn.» He grinned and pointed around with a finger. «You see what happens when you disobey the Books? All this desolation.»
Ooma scowled at him and snatched at his penis, which was belying his words. «Do not tease me, Blade. It was you who begged me to break the laws, remember? And I did and I liked it. So I care not what happens now. Come, Blade, and carry me to the altar and we will celebrate being alive again. For we were all but dead and you know it.»
When they had made love and both lay satiated and content beneath the vacant stare of a long-forgotten idol, Blade said at last: «How far do you reckon it from here to the city of your Jedds?»
Ooma stirred lazily in his arms. She was nearly asleep. There was no sun, but a warm gray haze lay like a blanket over the valley and the air was silky against their newly-scrubbed flesh. When she did not answer, Blade nudged her. «Come, girl. This is no time for sleep. We must be on our way. For one thing there is the matter of food — I like your valley and it is warm and peaceful here, but there is nothing to eat. Your little stomach may still be content, but mine is not.» They had long ago eaten the last of the mountain beast, Blade taking the larger share since he needed it more and had had the burden of carrying Ooma over the most difficult trails.
«I seem to remember,» said Ooma, «that as we come near to the city there are fruit trees and bushes. I think there will be no food before that.» She yawned and stretched and bent quickly to kiss his now-shrunken organ. «I suppose you are right. We had better get on.»
Blade was not listening. His ears, as near to perfect as a man's could be, caught a faint sound in the undergrowth about them. He said nothing, but stared over Ooma's head at the spot whence the sound came.
He was never sure, never positive beyond a doubt that he had seen and heard what he thought he had. Not even when, back in Home Dimension, Lord L taped Blade's automatic memory and played it back to him.
The sound was a faint hissing. The sight, if indeed it was there at all, was that of a brilliantly colored snake, long and sinuous and diamond-backed, slithering away into the greenery. Blade shook his head, blinked, and when he looked again the thing was gone. Or had it ever been?
Richard Blade and Ooma began the trek down the valley, walking hand in hand and as naked as when they came into the world. Of his weapons Blade had only the little stone knife left, and this he carried in his hand. Ooma assured him that in this wasteland there was no danger, not until they reached the city or encountered a Jedd scouting party. Then the peril might begin again. She did not know. She did not know how Blade would be received by her people.
Blade had his own ideas about that.
They came at last to a wild orchard where trees bore an apple-like fruit as large as watermelons. He slashed one open and they devoured it eagerly, then another. The inner flesh was a soft and creamy pulp, reminding Blade of durian, the prickly-rind fruit he had eaten in Malaysia, yet without the bad odor. They both ate until their stomachs bulged.
Now there were clear streams of water tumbling into the valley from both sides, noisy falls that spilled ice cold water, and beside one of these, having drunk their fill, they fell asleep in each others arms.
Blade was first to awaken and he noticed the smell immediately. During their slumber a breeze had set through the valley and it carried to him, now, clouds of dirty gray smoke and the odor — of burning flesh? Human or animal?
Ooma was still sleeping peacefully and he did not disturb her. He felt a tenderness for the girl as he gazed at her, and ignored for the moment the smoke and the smell — knowing that both were a harbinger of trouble ahead and the end of this brief peace. She was lying curled up, her knees drawn up under her chin and her cheek cushioned on her two hands. In her thick, long hair were still the two wooden combs she had made. He smoothed her hair and she stirred and murmured something in her dreams. Ooma was, he thought watching her now in this caught moment of time, as lovely as any of the women he had ever known back in Home Dimension. Or, for that matter, in any Dimension X. And he had known many.