He spoke. "You need not try to move. You cannot, except as I would have you move."
The words seemed inherent to all the space about me; it was almost as though the words themselves were ponderable; but it was the thought of them—his thought of them—which like a net had me entangled. I struggled, if not to advance, then to retreat. I could do neither. The wave had coiled about me. Matter of a tangibility almost equal to that of my own body, it held me enmeshed. Yielding as I fought with it, but holding me as a delicate net will hold a struggling fish.
He spoke again. "Be still—both of you."
Both of us! I became aware that Bee was beside me. Floundering, swept inward toward me, to grip me at last and cling.
"Bee! Bee, dear."
"Rob! It's you! I'm so glad. I tried—I can't get away. I'm entangled—it's all around me. Both of us—we can't get away."
I had no coherent thought remaining, save relief that Bee was with me. I tried to think that I must escape—must kill this Brutar. Like an echo, as though I had shouted them aloud, the thoughts rebounded to beat against my brain with a pain almost physical. I could not think them again. A wall was around me reflecting them back—distorted, agonized echoes, impotent to pass the barrier. And I thought, "I must kill—I—I am glad Bee is with me. Everything is all right—Bee is with me." And yielded, to stand there helplessly clinging to her.
Around us—beyond Brutar's entangling engulfing whirl of thought—I perceived a dim vision of struggling shapes and confused sound. Far away—very far away—far away in distance—in Space; and in Time as well—Why of course—that struggle in the meeting house was in the Past—We were there no longer, either in Space or Time—That struggle in the meeting house had been, but it was not now.—
Bee was still clinging to me. Like submerged swimmers sucked away in an undertow, we swirled within that enveloping thought-wave. Brutar was near us. I could see him—see the grey hovering shape of him. Darkness was everywhere. Solidity gone, save the press of those hostile thoughts and the blessed tangibility of Bee within the hollow of my protecting arm.
A chaos of moving darkness. Or was it that the darkness was immobile and ourselves rushing through it? A chaos of things which I could not see; thoughts which I tried to think, but could not. Thoughts rushing past me; entities invisible, uncapturable.