Berreau laughed shrilly. “Is it madness that the Lords even now voice their wrath against you? You hear it in your mind, but you are afraid to listen! Be afraid, Farris! There is reason! You have slain trees, for many years, as you have just slain here— and the forest knows you for a foe.”
“Andre!” Lys was sobbing, her face half-buried in her hands.
Farris felt his mind cracking under the impact of the crazy scene. The ceaseless, rushing pulse of light and darkness, the rustling uproar of the seething forest around them, the vines creeping snakelike and branches whipping at them and giant banyans rocking angrily overhead.
“ This is the world that man lives in all his life, and never sees or senses!” Berreau was shouting. “I’ve come into it, again and again. And each time, I’ve heard more clearly the voices of the Great Ones!
“The oldest and mightiest creatures on our planet! Long ago, men knew that and worshipped them for the wisdom they could teach. Yes, worshipped them as Ygdrasil and the Druid Oak and the Sacred Tree! But modern men have forgotten this other Earth. Except me, Farris — except me! I’ve found wisdom in this world such as you never dreamed. And your stupid blindness is not going to drag me out of it!”
* * *
Farris realized then that it was too late to reason with Berreau. The man had come too often and too far into this other Earth that was as alien to humanity as thought it lay across the universe.
It was because he had feared that, that he had brought the little thing in his jacket pocket. The one thing with which he might force Berreau to obey.
Farris took it out of his pocket. He held it up so that the other could see it.
“You know what it is, Berreau! And you know what I can do with it, if you force me to!”