Dark Of The Woods

it beyond recognition, would compress its very bones into powder…
    He looked up at Leah, who seemed not to notice the slight wound on her own shoulder. She stared wide-eyed at him. He wondered if she realized what had happened, understood the depth of his actions in these last few minutes. He had risked his own life to save hers, had broken the conditioning of his social training and had resorted to violence. He had not even thought to wait for Proteus, to summon the machine to the task, for her life had been too precious to endanger for even the briefest of moments. In that first instant when he had seen her blood, he had ceased to think in terms of "you" and "me" but, instead, in the sense of "us." Her blood suddenly seemed as valuable as his own, and he had acted swiftly, insanely, without hesitation to protect this new extension of himself. Which meant it was not lust, as he had been working so hard to convince himself.
    He dropped the rat.
    He tried to say something, anything.
    He choked and fell forward into unconsciousness…
    Later, when she had finished using his speedheal ointments and bandages on their wounds and they had eaten alight lunch she prepared in the kitchen of the aviary where he was living, she leaned her elbows on the table, smiled at him, and said, "Can we go someplace special now, like I've been wanting? It will make the day seem a little happier after all the ugly things that have happened."
    He did not much feel like pursuing the research plan he had outlined for the day. His nerves still trembled from memory of the rat squirming and screeching within his hands, striking for his throat. And his mind was plagued with the realization that things had gone too far with Leah, entirely too far. They would have to be brought to an end before the silent attachment he felt for her—and, he thought, she felt for him—was brought into the open and made turning back impossible.
    "Where do you want to take me?" he asked.
    "To the temple."
    "Temple?"
    "You'll see."
    And when he got into the grav car to make the drive, she said, "Oh, I so wish you could fly."
    "So do I, Leah," he said, pulling the car into the drifting leaves that settled from the yellow trees onto the rough, black road. "So do I."
    The car hummed down the tree-shrouded lane.
    Proteus sat in back, inches above the seat, bored—if such an emotion were possible for a plasti-plasma robot.
    Davis knew the temple when they came in sight of it. Twin hills peaked breastlike against the backdrop of yellow mountains, and each was adorned with a giant structure. On the first hill there was a building composed of nine huge towers all joined in the middle to form a giant central chamber. Great teardrop entry portals split the gray-brown stone here and there. This was the temple. On the other breast, perched like a rakish nipple, lay the Sanctuary, a manmade block of ugly cement. Behind both, creeping close to them, were the terribly dense forests of the yellow mountains, the great, broad-leafed yil trees.
    They stopped the car before the temple and waited until it settled onto its rubber rim, then got out.
    Above the Sanctuary on the other hill several hundred yards away, half a dozen female angels floated on the breezes of autumn. The cool air carried their tinkling laughter to Davis and Leah: bells, Chinese wind chimes, water trickling into a jug.
    One of the angels flew at the thick trees, her wings dazzling with refracted sunlight. She turned fifty yards from the edge of the woods and flew back to the others who giggled and squealed with delight.
    Fascinated, Davis stood by Leah, watching them.
    Another of the Demosian beauties swept away from the group and moved to within ten feet of the forest, hung there an instant, came back to the others like a triumphant child who has walked a dark alley without collapsing of fright.
    The girls cheered.
    A third soared to the challenge, crossed over the trees and hovered over them, dipped and swayed just over the tops of the branches and the brilliant yellow leaves. She came back slowly, proudly. As she approached them, the other five cherubs went wild with excited chattering and squeals of laughter.
    "What are they doing?" he asked Leah at last, unconsciously taking her tiny hand in one of his giant, callused mitts and effectively swallowing it with his own hard flesh.
    "The legends say the woods are haunted. The girls are playing a game that is centuries old: Daring the Demons of the Woods."
    "You