The Pool of Fire (The Tripods) Read Online Free PDF Page B

attract undue attention. It was also likely, Fritz pointed out, that, being accustomed to this particular climate, it might sicken and die in more northerly lands.
    He was, of course, quite right, but we spent two days wrangling before I could bring myself to admit it. And to admit, to myself at least, that it was the very bizarreness which had, in part, attracted me. I had been envisaging myself (poor Crest forgotten for the moment) riding through the streets of strange towns on the creature’s swaying back, and people flocking around to stare at it.
    With the same amount of money we were able to buy two donkeys—small, but hardy and willing beasts—and loaded our goods on them. We also had enough to purchase the wares of this country: dates, various spices, silks and finely woven carpets, which we sold very profitably later on. But we made few converts. We could buy and sell and barter in sign language, but one needed words to talk of liberty and the need to win it from those who enslaved us. Also, the cult of the Tripods was far stronger here. The hemispheres were everywhere, the larger ones having a platform under the Tripod figure at the top, from which a priest called the faithful to prayer three times a day, at dawn and noon and sunset. We bowed our heads and muttered with the rest.
    So we reached the river indicated on our map, a broad warm waterway which moved in sluggish serpentine coils through a green valley. And turned back toward home.
    •  •  •
    The return journey was different. We took a pass through a range of mountains and came out near the eastern shore of that sea we had glimpsed from theruined great-city that stood on the isthmus. We followed it around, to the north, and west, making good time and once more winning great numbers to our cause. The people spoke the Russian tongue, and we had been given some instruction in this, and notes to study. We traveled north, but summer was outstripping us: the land was bright with flowers and I recall one time when we rode all day long in the intoxicating scent of young oranges, ripening on the branches of huge groves of trees. Our schedule called for us to be back at the caves before winter, and we had to press on fast to keep it.
    We were moving back toward the City of the Masters as well, of course. From time to time, we saw Tripods, striding across the horizon. We saw none close at hand, though, and were grateful for that. None, that is, until the Day of the Hunt.
    •  •  •
    The Masters, as we had learned, treated the Capped differently in different places. I do not know whether the spectacle of human variety amused them—they themselves, of course, had always been of one race and the notion of national differences, of many individual languages, of war which had been the curse of mankind before their conquest, was utterly strange to them. In any event, although they prohibited war they encouraged other forms of diversity and separateness, and cooperated to some extent in human customs. Thus, in the Capping ceremony, they followed a ritual as their slaves did, appearing at a certain time, sounding a particular dull booming call, fulfilling prescribed motions.At the tournaments in France, and at the Games, they attended patiently throughout, though their only direct interest was in the slaves they would acquire at the end. Perhaps, as I say, this sort of thing amused them. Or perhaps they felt that it fulfilled their role as gods. At any rate, we came to a strange and horrible demonstration of it, when we were only a few hundred miles from our journey’s end.
    For many days we had been following a vast river, on which, as in the case of the river that had led us north to the Games, much traffic plied. Where the ruins of a great-city lay in our path, we detoured onto higher ground. The land was well cultivated, to a large extent with vines which had been recently stripped of grapes for the harvest. It was populated, and we stayed the night at