Kandid came to a halt, and likewise grabbed hold of a liana; breathing heavily, he listened and watched the odd people piled up on the road, flailing their arms about, dragging their Seveneyes out of the bog by leg and head. Gurgling and snoring sounds filled the air. Two robbers were already moving toward Kandid, knee-deep in the black sludge, testing the quagmire with their staves. They were avoiding the root-snags. Lies again, thought Kandid. You could cross the swamp by a ford and everybody said you could only do it by the road. They used the robbers as bugbears, good Lord, what bugtoears!
Nava tugged his arm. "Let's go, Dummy," she -said. "What're you standing there for? Let's go quick ... or maybe you want to fight a bit more[9] Wait then and I'll find you a good stick, then you can beat these two and the Others'11 get scared. Though if they don't, then they'll get the better of you, 'cos you're only one, and they're one ... two ... three ... four..."
"Go where?" asked Kandid. "Will we get to New Village?"
"We'il get there very like," said Nava. "I don't know why we shouldn't get to New Village..."
"G" forward then," said Kandid, who had got his breath back by now. "Show me the way."
Nava lightly sprang off into the forest, into the very depths of the green fog of undergrowth.
"I'm not too sure which way we should go or how," said she as she ran. "But I've been here once, or maybe not once but more. Hopalong and I used to come here, before you came... Or no, you were here, only you were still going about witless, couldn't understand anything, couldn't talk, looked at everybody like a fish, then they gavie me to you, I married you, but you don't remember anything, likely..." Kandid jumped after her, striving to keep his breathing regular and keep exactly to her footprints. From time to time he glanced back. The robbers were not far off.
"I came here wilth Hopalong," continued Nava, "when Buster had his wife abducted by thieves, Hopa-long's daughter. He always used to take me with him, wanted to exchange me maybe, or just wanted to take me as his daughter, anyway he went with me into the forest, 'cos he was wasting away with grief for his daughter..."
The lianas stuck to their arms, lashed their faces, and dead tangles of them dragged at their clothes and tripped them up. From above, detritus and insects rained down, and sometimes heavy, shapeless masses accumulated and plunged downward through the tangle of greenery and swayed about above their heads. To left or right could be glimpsed sticky purple clusters. fungi of some sort, or fruits, or some repulsive creatures' nests.
"Hopalong used to say, that there's a village somewhere here..." Nava spoke lightly as she ran, as if she weren't running at all but lolling on her bed at home: it was obvious straight away she wasn't a local girl, the locals couldn't run. "Not our village and not New Village, some other, Hopalong told me the name but I've forgotten, it was a long time ago, after all, before you came ... or no, you were here, only you couldn't think, and they hadn't given me to you yet... And use your mouth when you breathe, no sense in using your nose, you can talk fine that way too, this way you'll get out of breath, we've a long way to run yet, we haven't got past the wasps, where we'll have to run fast, though maybe the wasps have gone from there since... They were the wasps of that village I was telling you about, but Hopalong used to say there's been no people in the village for ages, the Accession's happened there, he says, so there's no people left... No, Dummy, I'm lying, he was talking about another village..."
Kandid had got his second wind and running was easier. They were now in the very heart of the forest, the very depths of the thickets. Kandid had been as deep as this only once, when he had attempted to straddle a deadling, so as to reach its masters on its back, the deadling had galloped along, it was as hot as a boiling kettle and Kandid had finally lost consciousness from the pain and fallen off into the mud. He had suffered for ages afterward from burns on chest and palms.
It was getting darker and darker. The sky was no longer visible at all, the air became more and more stifling. At the same time, the stretches of open water became rarer, mighty clumps of red and white moss appeared. The moss was soft and cool, and extremely springy, it was pleasant to step on.
"Let's... have a rest..." breathed Kandid. "No, what are you thinking of. Dummy," said Nava. "We can't possibly rest here. We have to get past this moss as quick as we can, it's dangerous moss, it's a sort of animal lying down, like a spider, you go to sleep on it and you won't wake up anymore, that's what sort of moss it is, let the robbers rest on it, but likely they know that you mustn't, otherwise that'd be good..."
