The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

slowest were so disposed of. The others withdrew into underground ways such as this, venturing forth only in the dark of night.”
    “But if they are intelligent,” countered the scout, “why can they not be reached by the mind touch?”
    “Through the years they have developed their own ways of thought. And these are not the simple creatures of the sun, or such as the runners. Once they were taught to answer only to Those Others. Now they answer only to each other. But”—he spread out his hands in one of his quick, nervous gestures—“to those who are cornered by one of their packs, they are sudden death!”
    Since they could not, by Sssuri’s reckoning, turn back, there was only one course before them, to follow the passage they had chanced upon. The merman was certain that it underran the river and that eventually they would reach the sea—unless some side turn before that point would make them free in the countryside once more.
    Dalgard doubted if it had ever been a well-used way. And the presence of earth falls here and there, over which they stumbled and clawed their way, led him to consider the wisdom of keeping on to what might be a dead end. But his trust in Sssuri’s judgment was great, and as the merman plowed forward with every appearance of confidence, he continued to trot along without complaint.
    They snatched moments of rest, taking turns at guard. But the walls about them were so unchanging that it was hard to measure time or distance. Dalgard chewed at his emergency rations, a block of dried meat and fruit pounded together to an almost rocklike consistency, and tried to make the crumbs he sucked loose satisfy his growing hunger.
    The passageway was growing damper; water trickled down the walls and gathered in fetid pools on the floor. Dalgard’s dislike of the place grew. His shoulders hunched involuntarily as he strode along, for his imagination pictured the rock above them giving away to dump tons of the oily river water down to engulf them. But though Sssuri avoided splashing through the pools wherever he might, he did not appear to find anything upsetting about the moisture.
    At last the human could stand it no longer. “How much farther to the sea?” he asked without any hope of a real answer.
    As he had expected him to do, Sssuri shrugged. “We should be close. But having never trod this way before, how can I tell you?”
    Once more they rested, choosing a stretch which was reasonably dry, munching their dried food and drinking sparingly from the stoppered duocorn horns which swung from their belts. A man would have to be dying of thirst, Dalgard thought, before he would palm up any of the stagnant water from the passage pools.
    He drifted off into a troubled sleep in which he fled beneath a sky which was a giant lid in the hand of an unseen enemy, a lid which was slowly lowered to crush him flat. He awoke with a start to find Sssuri’s cool, scaled fingers stroking his shoulder.
    “Dream demons walk these roads.” The words drifted into his half-awake mind.
    “They do indeed,” he roused to answer.
    “It is always so where Those Others have been. They leave behind them the thoughts which breed such dreams to trouble the sleep of those who are not of their kind. Let us go. I would like to be out of this place under the clean sky, where no ancient wickedness hangs to poison the air and thought.”
    Either the merman had miscalculated the direction of their route or the river mouth was much farther from the inland city than they had believed, for, though they pushed on for what seemed like weary hours, they came to no upward slope, no exit to the world they knew.
    Instead Dalgard began to realize that just the opposite was true. At last he could stand it no longer and broke out with what he feared, hoping that Sssuri would deny that fear.
    “We are going downhill!”
    To his disappointment the merman agreed. “It has been so for the last thousand of our paces. It is my belief that this leads not to the sun but out under the sea.”
    Dalgard missed a step. To Sssuri the sea was home and perhaps the thought of being under its floor was not disturbing. The land-born human was not so prepared. If he had experienced discomfort under the river, what would it be like under the ocean? His terrifying dream of a lid being pressed down upon him flashed back into his mind. But his companion was continuing:
    “There will be doors, perhaps into the sea itself.”
    “For you,”