Read Online Children of the Gates by Andre Norton - Free Book Online Page A

Old Ones who have always been here according to what he says. They can get at a man all right—not with those spears an’ swords of theirs—but in his mind—makin’ him see whatever they want him to. An’ if they say this place is theirs they mean it. We’d better get out—”
    Stroud was already two strides along the back trail, Crocker matching him. Nick hurried to follow. The others did not look around. If they feared any ambush they showed no sign of that. He would be governed by them. Iron—iron was poison, was it? He held the wrench in sight. Good enough—if showing this was a form of protection he was willing to comply.
    He could not draw level with the others until they were well away from the jeep. Nick himself kept looking around suspiciously, certain at one time or another he would catch a glimpse of one of the animals slinking behind to make sure they were leaving what was a haunted forest. Yet he never saw anything except the trees. Not even a unicorn this time.
    When he finally joined Stroud he had another question.
    “What about the animals? I can understand a bear—though leopards are African animals. But those other two—they weren’t real—they couldn’t be—”
    He heard Crocker grunt. “You tapped it right there, Yank. But it doesn’t matter how ‘real’ they are, you know. Here they’ll be real enough to tear your throat out if that Green Man back there gave the order. You’ll see worse than them. You heard him mention the Dark Ones? Those nobody wants to see! They have most power in the dark as far as we can tell—” He turned his head to look full at Nick, his face haunted by some memory. “Iron beats them, too. Ask Jean and Lady Diana sometime. They were berry picking and came upon a tower—it looked like a tower. That was late afternoon an’ a cloudy day, so perhaps those in there were more active than they would have normally been. Jean saw one—full on—an’ she, well, we had to wake her up at night for awhile. She had nightmares that near sent her around the bend! We’ve learned a lot—mostly the hard way—about what you can an’ can’t do here. An’ you’ve just had your first lesson—when you’re warned off you go!”
    In spite of their zigzag path they made far better time getting out of the forest than Nick and Linda on their first journey. But when they came out into the comparative open Crocker gave a cry of alarm.
    “Down!”
    Seeing Stroud throw himself belly flat and half roll under a bush almost large enough to give him complete coverage, Nick tried to follow suit, though his own hastily won protection was smaller and thinner than that which sheltered the Warden. He saw Crocker a little beyond, also flat, but with his head supported on his crooked arm, looking out and up over the water.
    “No—not a flying saucer!” Nick’s protest was said aloud. And a vengeful-sounding hiss from his left reminded him to keep his mouth shut. Only he could not believe what he was seeing. Somehow this was harder to accept than those mixed-up beasts in the forest.
    The thing—machine—illusion—whatever it was—hung silver bright and stationary well above the surface of the water. It was saucer shaped in part, though the upper half swelled to near dome proportions.
    Unmoving, it hung. Then, from the south, there sped another sky craft of an entirely different model. This one was cigar shaped and moving at such speed it arrived almost in the wink of an eye. It swooped at the waiting saucer and from it shot a brilliant beam that should have struck full upon the swelling upper half. Instead the beam hit an invisible wall a good distance from the skin of the vessel.
    The cigar backed off in another of those incredibly swift maneuvers, rose over the stationary craft to strike from a different angle. This was not a duel, for the saucer made no attempt to retaliate. It merely hung there in the open, well protected by whatever shield it carried, while the other craft,