Winded though he was, the black swerved for me like a hunted hare. A twitch of the reins, and he was sliding and turning, his hooves scarring the green verdure of the road. In no more than a breath, we had reversed our track and were pounding back toward the things that pursued us. Whether Jonas understood my plan then I do not know, but he fell in with it as though he did, never slackening his own pace.

One of the fluttering creatures swooped, looking for all Urth like a hole torn in the universe, for it was true fuligin, as lightless as my own habit. It was trying for Jonas, I believe, but it came within sword reach, and I parted it as I had before, and again felt a gust of warmth. Knowing from where that heat came, it seemed more evil to me than any vile odor could; the mere sensation on my skin made me ill. I reined sharply away from the river, fearing a bolt from the uhlan’s lance at any moment. We had no more than left the road when it came, searing the ground and setting a dead tree ablaze.

I pulled my mount’s head up, making him rear and roar. For a moment I looked for the three dark things around the burning tree. They were not there. I glanced toward Jonas then, fearing they had overtaken him after all and were attacking him in some way I could not comprehend.

They were not there either, but his eyes showed me where they had gone: they flitted about the uhlan, and he, as I watched, sought to defend himself with his lance. Bolt after bolt split the air, so that there was a continual crashing like thunder. With each bolt the brightness of the sun was washed away, but the very energies with which he sought to destroy them seemed to give them strength. To my eyes they no longer flew, but flickered as beams of darkness might, appearing first in one place then in another, and always nearer the uhlan, until in less time than I have taken to write of it all three were at his face. He tumbled from his saddle, and the lance fell from his hand and went out.

Chapter 13

THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR

I called, “Is he dead?”, and saw Jonas nod in reply. I would have ridden away then, but he motioned for me to join him and dismounted. When we met by the uhlan’s body, he said, “We may be able to destroy those things so they can’t be flown against us again or be used to harm anyone else. They’re sated now, and I think we might handle them. We need something to put them in — something water-tight, of metal or glass.”

I had nothing of that kind and told him so.

“Neither have I.” He knelt beside the uhlan and turned out his pockets. Aromatic smoke from the blazing tree wreathed everything like incense, and I had the sensation of being once more in the Cathedral of the Pelerines. The litter of twigs and last summer’s leaves on which the uhlan lay might have been the straw-strewn floor; the trunks of the scattered trees, the supporting poles.

“Here,” Jonas said, and picked up a brass vasculum. Unscrewing the lid he emptied it of herbs, then rolled the dead uhlan on his back.

“Where are they?” I asked. “Has the body absorbed them?”

Jonas shook his head, and after a moment began, very carefully and delicately, to draw one of the dark things from the uhlan’s left nostril. Save for being absolutely opaque, it was like the finest tissue paper.

I wondered at his caution. “If you tear it, won’t it just become two?”

“Yes, but it is sated now. Divided, it would lose energy and might be impossible to handle. A lot of people have died, by the way, because they found they could cut these creatures, and choose to stand their ground doing it until they were surrounded by too many to fend off.”

One of the uhlan’s eyes was half-open. I had seen corpses often before, but I could not escape the eerie feeling that he was in some sense watching me, the man who had killed him to save himself. To turn my mind to other things, I said, “After I cut the first one, it seemed to fly more slowly.”

Jonas had placed the horror he had drawn out in the vasculum and was extracting a second from the right nostril; he murmured, “The speed of any flying thing depends on its wing area. If that weren’t the case, the adepts who use these creatures would tear them into scraps before they sent them forth, I suppose.”

“You sound as though you’ve encountered them before.”

“We docked once at a port where they’re used in ritual murders. I suppose it was inevitable that someone would bring them home, but these are the first I’ve seen here.” He opened the brass lid and laid the second fuligin thing on the first, which stirred sluggishly. “They’ll recombine in there — this is what the adepts do to get them back together. I doubt if you noticed it, but they were torn somewhat in going through the wood and healed themselves in flight.”

“There’s one more,” I said.

He nodded and used his steel hand to force open the dead man’s mouth; instead of holding teeth and livid tongue and gums it appeared to be a bottomless gulf, and for a moment my stomach churned. Jonas drew out the third creature, streaked with the dead man’s saliva.

“Wouldn’t he have had a nostril open, or his mouth, if I hadn’t cut the thing a second time?”

“Until they worked their way into his lungs. We’re lucky, actually, to have been able to get to him so quickly. Otherwise you would have had to slice the body open to get them out.”

A wisp of smoke called to mind the burning cedar. “If it was heat they wanted…”

“They prefer life’s heat, though they can sometimes be distracted by a fire of living vegetable matter. It’s something more than heat, I think, really. Perhaps some radiant energy characteristic of growing cells.” Jonas stuffed the third creature into the vasculum and snapped it shut. “We called them notules, because they usually came after dark, when they could not be seen, and the first warning we had was a breath of warmth; but I have no idea what the natives call them.”

“Where is this island?”

He looked at me curiously.

“Is it far from the coast? I’ve always wanted to see Uroboros, though I suppose it is dangerous.”

“Very far,” Jonas said in a flat voice. “Very far indeed. Wait a moment.” I waited, watching, as he strode to the riverbank. He threw the vasculum hard — it had almost reached midstream when it dropped into the water.

When he returned I asked, “Couldn’t we have used those things ourselves? It doesn’t seem likely that whoever sent them is going to give up now, and we might have need of them.”

“They would not obey us, and the world is better without them anyway, as the butcher’s wife told him when she cut away his manhood. Now we’d best be going. There’s somebody coming down the road.”

I looked where Jonas had pointed, and saw two figures on foot. He had caught his destrier by the halter as it drank and was ready to climb into the saddle.

“Wait,” I said. “Or go on a chain or two and wait for me there.” I was thinking of the man-ape’s bleeding stump, and I seemed to see the dim votive lights of the cathedral hanging, crimson and magenta, among the trees. I reached into my boot, far down where I had pushed it for safety, and drew out the Claw. It was the first time I had seen it by full daylight. It caught the sun and flashed like a New Sun itself, not blue only but with every color from violet to cyan. I laid it on the uhlan’s forehead, and for an instant tried to will him alive.

“Come on,” Jonas called. “What are you doing?”

I did not know how to answer him.

“He’s not quite dead,” Jonas called. “Get off the road before he finds his lance!” He lashed his mount.

Faintly, a voice I seemed to recognize called, “Master!” I turned my head to look down the grass-grown highway.

“Master!” One of the travelers waved an arm, and both began to run.