Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

The smaller river they followed now was not on anybody’s list of known features, and that was one reason why nobody liked their position. Still, over the week since they’d turned back north, it had been growing progressively narrower, and the creeks that they had to contend with that fed into it tended to be small, shallow, and easily manageable. It seemed obvious that either they were going to reach its source fairly soon or that it would cease to be a real obstacle and allow a ford. The current was swift, but already it seemed quite shallow.

In the evenings, Littlefeet liked to go near the shore and watch the water. He wasn’t at all sure why he found it fascinating, but more than once he wished that people could somehow get in and move around in a big river or lake even if it was so deep you couldn’t touch bottom. There were stories about folks who could do that, but he was one who had never believed it possible. Certainly nobody in this Family knew how to do it.

Still, in the early evening or again in the predawn light, if he was up he would watch it, almost as if hypnotized by its rippling power, and he watched things float by on their way down to the sea. Leaves, even some logs, all sorts of stuff that fell in the river seemed to float along the top and go for some distance downstream before mostly hitting the bank or some built-up reef and sticking there.

He began to wonder why you couldn’t find a log that would hold up a person and float on top of the water. It would be risky, sure, and scary, since when it finally hit something you might fall off or, worse, get stuck out in the middle, but the thought stuck in his mind. The other warriors found the idea interesting but hardly practical. Besides, why in heaven’s name would you ever want to? What would be the purpose or the need? It seemed to them to be all risk and no reward.

He supposed that they were right, but it still seemed like there should be some use for it. Suppose you were out here, scouting, say, and got cut off by Hunters? You couldn’t make it back and you were outnumbered, but if you could jump on something and float with the river, you could escape them and maybe get back since they would lose the ability to track you. It was a thought, even if his limp kept him out of the scouting business for now. He began to try and figure out how to prove his idea.

The nightmares came and went, but as they moved north there was a certain heightened intensity to them when they involved the demon images themselves. You could always tell when you were eavesdropping on demon thoughts; there was a curious fish-eye appearance to everything, where every view seemed grossly distorted, and almost always from above. Not too far above the ground, it was true—but above the level of the highest things that grew. The colors, too, were off, and the vision was often double or even triple. He hadn’t been sure whether these were really things he was getting from other creatures or whether they were in his own head, but as they progressed he got his answer.

Others now were having them, too, and more often than not the images were strikingly similar to his, if not as detailed or vivid. He began to talk of it with the other young men, all of whom were equally worried.

“There are demons ahead on this path,” Big Ears agreed. “Demons ahead, and water on the other three sides. This is not good.”

“It is as if we are being forced into their arms, if they have arms,” Hairy Toes put in. “They clouded our Elders’ minds, and those of the scouts, to put us into this trap. They mean to take us, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll die before I let any demons take me!” Littlefeet told them firmly. “I’ll not be caged and made into some mindless thing for their amusement!”

The others murmured agreement, but all knew as well that their first responsibility wasn’t to their own welfare but to the welfare of the Family.

“They may just want the women, to breed their foul mixed-breed monsters,” Great Lips suggested. “You know, like they tell in the ancient stories.”

“Well, we’ll fight ’em all the way, no matter what the cost!” another warrior told them, and they all nodded sagely. There was a certain comfort in talking this way as a group, but, later on, almost all of them would consider what they had said and wonder how they with their spears and blowguns could possibly stop the demons from taking anything and anybody they wanted.

Not that they hadn’t all seen demons, at least once. At great distances, of course, and without a lot of definition, but they could hardly be missed, particularly some clear nights, when they sped across the sky in their moon ships and did things that everyone knew were impossible, like streaking so fast you could hardly see them and then stopping in an instant, and making sharp right and sharp left turns at great speed. That was supernatural power, there was no doubt of it.

Even in the daytime they could occasionally be seen, their ships less distinct, more blurry, but still doing what they did, like gigantic glowing seeds. They almost never took an interest in anybody on the ground, though, or so it seemed. Few could think of a time when one actually went right over either a camp or a march, and none could remember one so much as pausing, let along stopping, in the vicinity. Still, they were there ahead, that was for sure, and the young men of the Family could sense them.

In a few more days, they found out why, as the ever shallower and ever narrowing river led them to the very edge of the great groves of demon flowers.

Even Father Alex knew that they could not be that far off course. The huge flowers took up the whole center of the bowl-shaped region of the continent, but never close to the Families, or accessible to them. He summoned Littlefeet.

“No, Father, this could not be where I saw the great demon flowers,” he concurred. “This must be new.”

Father Alex sighed and nodded. “So that’s it, then. They are expanding their groves, and they have diverted rivers to ensure that their cursed flowers get the water that they need. Such effortless power, and for what? Giant flowers!”

“Why do they do this, Father? Why do they grow these and not care about us or anything else?”

Father Alex shook his head. “Who can know how a demon thinks, my son? I am not even certain that we would understand it if we did know, nor, perhaps, should we spend much time trying to imagine what demons think. Know only that they exist to thwart the will of God and corrupt His creations, for that is the nature of rebellion.” He turned and looked away from the huge flowers. “I believe we should consider other questions of a more practical nature,” he added.

“Sir?”

“We cannot go in those groves. Now, at least, we can be reasonably certain that this confusion was not directed at us but rather was the result of their meddling further with creation. We dare not go into the grove. Those who go into the groves tend to go mad. We must risk crossing the river. It appears shallow enough at this point, but it is still wider than I would like, and you never know about such things. Let’s see—who is the tallest warrior in the Family? Walking Stick?”

“Yes, Father. He is a head taller than even you.”

“He will do. Bring him to me, and we will see if this river can be crossed along this point.”

Littlefeet started to go find the tall man, but then he stopped. “Um—Father?”

“Yes, my son?”

“What if it can’t be crossed here?”

“We must cross it. Otherwise, our Family will surely perish, trapped in this area with too little food and far too little land. Our protection against the Hunters is the expanse of our territory. Here—well, sooner or later, Hunters will find us. No, we must cross. We must.”