file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/James%20Blish%20-%20Thing%20In%20the%20Attic.txt
other. In the ponds of rainwater collected by the closely
fitting leaves of the bromelaids, tree-toads and peepers stopped
down their hoarse songs dubiously as the light grew. and fell
silent one by one. In the trees below the world, the tentative
morning screeches of the lizard-birdsthe souls of the
damned, or the devils who hunted them, no one was quite
sure whichtook up the concert.
A small gust of wind whipped out of the hollow above the
glade of horsetails, making the network under the party shift
slightly, as if in a loom. Honath gave with it easily, automat-
ically, but one of the smaller vines toward which he had
moved one furless hand hissed at him and went pouring away
into the darkness beneatha chlorophyll-green snake, come
up out of the dripping aerial pathways in which it hunted in
ancestral gloom, to greet the suns and dry its scales in the
quiet morning. Farther below, an astonished monkey, routed
out of its bed by the disgusted serpent, sprang into another
tree, reeling off ten mortal insults, one after the other, while
still in mid-leap. The snake, of course, paid no attention, since
it did not speak the language of men; but the party on the
edge of the glade of horsetails snickered appreciatively.
"Bad language they favor, below," another of the guards
said. "A fit place for you and your blasphemers, Purs&-
Maker. Come now."
The tether at Honath's neck twitched, and then his captors
were soaring in zig-zag bounds down into the hollow toward
the Judgment Seat. He followed, since he had no choice, the
tether threatening constantly to foul his arms, legs, or tail,
andworse, far worsemaking his every movement mor-
tally ungraceful. Above, the Parrot's starry plumes flickered
and faded into the general blue.
Toward the center of the saucer above the grove, the
stitched leaf-and-leather houses clustered thickly, bound to
the vines themselves, or hanging from an occasional branch
too high or too slender to bear the vines. Many of these
purses Honath kn6w well, not only as visitor but as artisan.
The finest of them, the inverted flowers which opened auto-
matically as the morning dew bathed them, yet which could be
closed tightly and safely around their occupants at dusk by a
single draw-string, were his own design as well as his own
handiwork. They had been widely admired and imitated.
The reputation that they had given him, too, had helped to
bring him to the end of the snap-spine tether. They had given
weight to his words among othersweight enough to make
him, at last, the arch-doubter, the man who leads the young
into blasphemy, the man who questions the Book of Laws.
And they had probably helped to win him his passage on
the Elevator to Hell.
The purses were already opening as the party swung among
them. Here and there, sleepy faces biinked out from amid the
exfoliating sections, criss-crossed by relaxing lengths of dew-
soaked rawhide. Some of the awakening householders rec-
ognized Honath, of that he was sure, but none came out to
follow the partythough the villagers should be beginning
to drop from the hearts of their stitched flowers like ripe seed-
pods by this hour of any normal day.
A Judgment was at hand, and they knew itand even
those who had slept the night in one of Honath's finest houses
would not speak for him now. Everyone knew, after all, that
Honath did not believe in the Giants.
Honath could see the Judgment Seat itself now, a slung
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