Sheri Tepper - Grass

The stallion moved up and down hills, along the sides of ridges, always walking, not hurrying, ears alert, as though someone were whispering his name. When he slowed at last, it seemed to be in response to other sounds, ahead of them. When he stopped, he went down on his side all at once, without the signal. She drew her leg from beneath his upcurved body and stood up, staring at him. He flattened himself, ears still alert, watching her.

“All right,” she whispered. “So now what?”

He made no sound, but his skin quivered, flicked, as though stung by flies. Danger. All around them.

Marjorie felt it, could see it on the horse’s skin, could smell it. The trip recorder said that they had come in the general direction Sebastian had indicated. A repetitive sound, not loud but persistent, made Don Quixote move his head about, seeking its source. It was not the violent thunder of the previous night, but rather an organized series of moans and cries, rhythmic both in occurrence and volume. Quixote’s nostrils dilated, his skin jerked as though from a terrible itch. The wind had gusted toward them, bringing the sound clearly and a smell… a smell of something totally strange. Not a stink. Not a perfume. Neither attractive nor repellent. Marjorie got out her laser knife and cut armfuls of grass, laying these across Don Quixote’s body, hiding him, perhaps hiding his smell. Then she fell to her belly and crawled through the taller grasses toward the sounds the wind brought, down from a low ridge to the south. As she crested the ridge, she lay quiet, peering through the grass stems.

Toward the smell the wind brought. She breathed it in, lungs full. The sky dilated and she fell simultaneously upward toward it and downward, crushing herself.

Under her chin her arm flattened, becoming no thicker than a sheet of paper.

Something stepped painlessly on her head, smashing it.

Her body vanished. She tried to move a finger and could not.

Hounds. A shallow, grassy bowl of hounds, seated hounds, crouched hounds, gray and algae green and muddy violet, heads back and lips drawn to reveal lengthy fangs and a double row of teeth down each side of the massive jaws from which the grunting, rhythmic chorus came. Their hides danced, plunged, were jabbed at erratically from within, as though they had swallowed living things which fought to gain release. Blank, white orbs of eyes stared at the sky. The open, falling sky.

The smell. The shallow bowl of earth was full of the smell. She lay at the edge of that bowl. Her tongue lolled on her lower teeth, dripping.

There, across the bowl, an abrupt, vertical wall, the wall pierced with tall, evenly spaced openings through which the morning light intruded to reveal a cavern beyond. Hippae moved there, one or two, in a pattern, weaving, prancing, feet high, heads back, barbs clashing.

Among the crouching hounds, heaps of pearly spheres the size of her head. Migerers there, moving the spheres, shifting them so that all lay in the sun evenly, turning them over, holding them up in horny forepaws and listening to them. What were they then? Eggs?

There, also, in the bowl outside the cavern, some dozens of the sluglike peepers, only the rippling movement of their hides betraying that they were living things.

The smell seemed to press her down. She was two-dimensional, a limp cloth lying flat behind the grasses, a cloth with eyes.

The hounds were large, very large. As large as draft horses, though not so long in the leg. The peepers were huge ones, twice the usual size. Within the cavern, a myriad of tattered shapes danced on the air, dark batlike creatures with a fringe of fangs. One of them landed on the back of a hound’s neck, fastening itself there. After a time it detached and began its jerking, erratic flight once more.

One of the hounds began to pant, then to howl. The howling faded into a whining cry, then the panting began once more. On the sunlit soil, the peepers drew themselves into spherical masses, all wrinkles smoothed away. So familiar. She had seen it before. Somewhere. Somewhen.

Gradually, all sound ended. The creatures seemed frozen in their immobility. The violent motion inside the hides of the hounds ceased. There was quiet, long quiet.

A Hippae emerged from the cavern, pacing slowly, feet raised high at every step, nostrils flared, lips opening to emit breathy barks, warning sounds. After a time, the other Hippae came out to confront the first, neck swollen, jaw pulled back against the arching neck, eyes roiling wildly as it joined in the brusque, hostile sounds.

They backed away from one another, turning their heads, bowing their necks, the wicked neck barbs bristling to one side like a fan of sabers as they moved back, back, the distance widening between them. Then they charged one another, each array of barbs passing through the other, to gouge long wounds along the other’s ribs and flanks. Long streaks of blood appeared on their sides, and they pawed the ground with razorlike hooves, hammering at it before they turned to charge again. Again the flashing barbs and the streaks of blood. Marjorie cowered, mentally, as they thrust at one another, rearing high, hooves flashing.

Until, at last, one of the Hippae fell to his knees and was slow to rise to all four feet again.

The other animal backed away to the front of the cave and rummaged there. It turned its back on its enemy, kicked backward, sending black missiles flying. What was it kicking at its defeated opponent? Black things. Powdery black things that broke when they landed. Like puffballs, bursting into clouds of black dust when they struck. Kicking dead bats at one another. The thing Sylvan had said…

Silent. A game. The game. In silence.

The victorious Hippae tossed its head, sought with its teeth for new missiles from around the entrances to the cavern, laid them out in the open, then turned to kick back once more. One of the missiles struck the head of the kneeling beast, covering it in black dust. The defeated one bowed low, struggled to its feet, and departed, walking up the bank of the hollow and away.

It had had the pace and finish of ritual. A ritual battle. Now over.

And then sound. The wind was blowing from behind her. One of the swollen peepers ripped open. Protruding from the torn skin of the peeper was the triangular, fanged head of a hound. The peeper skin ripped further. Two hound forelegs emerged, and then, very gradually, the entire beast.

It looked small and ridiculously fragile as it staggered to its feet and stumbled through one of the vertical openings into the cavern, carefully avoiding the heaped eggs. Marjorie heard the sound of lapping from within. After a long pause, the creature emerged once more with dripping jaws, already more sure upon its feet, already sleek, its body distended with moisture. The Hippae stood upon the edge of the hollow, whistling. The young hound climbed to meet it, nibbling, as it went, at the low, blue grasses which grew there. Even as Marjorie watched, the beast seemed to enlarge in size, gaining both stature and bulk. After a time it went away, slowly though purposefully. The wind was blowing harder.

Another ripping sound drew her eyes across the hollow. As a hound had emerged from the torn skin of a peeper, so now a Hippae was emerging from the torn skin of a hound. Metamorphosis. Through the sundered skin of one of the huge hounds a row of barbs protruded, tiny blades which slit the skin, allowing the Hippae head to emerge. The process stopped when the head was out, its eyes closed and unseeing. All was silent.

What was she doing? The wind was strong now, blowing the smell away. What was she doing? Lying there? Flat? Only her eyes had dimension. Only her eyes.

They hurt. She blinked, noticing that they were dry, aching. She hadn’t blinked, Not for a long, long time. The skin on the back of her neck itched, as though something were watching her. She turned, trying to see through the curtaining grasses. Something was out there. She couldn’t see it or hear it, but she knew it was there. She wriggled back down the slope, stumbled through the grasses to find Quixote where he lay as she had left him but with his head up, ears erect and swiveling, nostrils twitching. The sun was falling toward the horizon. Tall grasses feathered the hollows with long, ominous shadows. She urged him up and mounted, letting him have his head, trusting in his ability to bring them both home if they were ever to come there again.