They reached Will. Bee gasped, "He—he is hurt! Oh Will—it's you! Help him—his mind struggles to leave us! He is wounded. I think—I think he is going to die!"
She seemed crying as she flung herself into Will's arms. "I don't want him to die. He is my friend—so gentle, so lovable—I don't want him to die!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE REALM OF DEATH
I must tell again of that moment when we—Bee and I—were standing beside the lolos field with Brutar and Eo. Brutar had turned away. Eo—prompted, I had no doubt, by Bee—murmured, "This is evil! We will escape—"
My arm reached for Bee. I told myself intensely that now we must escape ... now I must fling my thoughts—my mind—out into the void.... And stay with Eo; he would lead us....
I think my groping hand never reached Bee. I felt a swishing sound. A swirl of thoughts struck me—like feathers blown against me in a gale. But they seemed to cling. Invisible, imponderable—barely palpable; dimly I could feel these thoughts like a net entangling me.
I was floundering. Surging through blackness. Where was Bee? I thought I saw her and Eo whirling near me. But it was a thought unreal—hallucination; for as I tried to grip it and make them visible, they were gone. My thought of them dissolved into a realization that I did not see them, for they were vanished.
But Brutar I saw; a distorted wraith of him ... his grim, menacing face ... grim with combat....
I was rushing through blackness. But as an undertow may suck the strongest swimmer, something was pulling me back ... a hampering net around me ... materializing into greater ponderability ... holding me firmly.... The blackness about me was taking form. I strove to think I saw the Big-City. Told myself that that hovering shape above me was Thone—the friendly Thone; not Brutar.