Chapter twelve
Over the Snarly HillsOver the Snarly Hills we flew swift and straight as a lance stroke.
Below us the rain forest and the jungle reeled past. Those frightful hills up which we had toiled and then struggled down only to clamber up again, passed like models in a child’s playroom. High above those clearings we soared where the pools of water, oily with poison, reflected light in a queasy way. The last pool in its clearing also carried that betraying sheen of evil. The Slaptra, the plant that struck lethally at sound, flattening the ground around the pool and gouging deep spadelike depressions in the mud — the Slaptra was gone.
“Someone’s been doing a spot of gardening,” observed Seg.
Before I could reply, San Aramplo said in his haughty Khibil way: “There is evil in the wat
