“There’s only one conclusion that I can draw,” Hiero said reluctantly. “If the maps are correct and the city is not a mile beneath us and is even remotely accessible—well, we’re too far to the west.”
“I fear you’re right. I am reaching the same unwelcome conclusion out of necessity.” Brother Aldo stared at the wall of repulsive fungi rearing itself over the low shrubs and bushes to the east. “We shall have to search more closely that way. And we shall have to be very careful, eh?”
“You’re not going without me!” Luchare seized Hiero’s arm. “Once was enough.”
“You’ll do what you’re told or be spanked.” Hiero’s tone was absent, his gaze bent on the distant but menacing barrier. “We will do exactly what we did before, Aldo. You and Luchare will serve as anchors, so to speak, again. Gorm ought to be better at reaching you this time, having had more practice. He and I will penetrate in that direction. Keep the men ready with the fire arrows.” He had been keeping the bear in touch by mind as he spoke.
This is the best way, Gorm said. We have no choice, he added.
Hiero kissed Luchare gently, repeated a brief orison for both of them, and started walking toward the masses of ugly color which walled off the east. Gorm walked about twenty feet to his right, seemingly unconcerned and sniffing busily. Behind them, the girl held tight on one side to the old man’s arm and on the other to Klootz’s bridle, and in back of the two, the sailors gathered under their leaders in a dense knot. Smoke curled from firepots they had kept kindled, and bowmen were ready in front.
As always when going into danger, Hiero felt the old thrill and the interest of what he was doing rise and suppress any natural fear. Carefully, ignoring the blight as if it did not exist, he searched the ground for any trace of humanity’s ancient presence. As he did, he maintained a constant mental link with his four-footed partner. Half an hour passed, and always they drew steadily nearer the mold lands of the House.
Wait/The command thrilled Hiero. He saw that Gorm had gone tense and now stood, weak little eyes peering about, emitting great “snoofs” and “woofs” through his twitching nose, as he sought for some elusive scent. There is metal somewhere, came his thought again. It is very faint, though; don’t move, and I will try to locate it.
Slowly the bear ambled forward. This part of the scrub and sand area had a few low mounds thrusting up through the flattish surface, and eventually Gorm halted before one of these, a rounded tumulus which rose some five feet above the surrounding plain. Thorn bushes grew from its summit, and tussocks of brown grass sprouted here and there. Gorm sniffed the base of the mound carefully and then began to walk around it. Hiero followed at a little distance, keeping the bear in sight, but not interfering with him in any way.
The eastern side of the mound, that which faced the fungus realm, was steeper and less rounded than that on the west. The blight growth itself was now only a few hundred yards away, and Hiero tried to repress a shudder as he thought of it. With an effort, he wrenched his mind back to the task at hand.
The bear rooted at a small pile of rock lying at the base of the mound. Still saying nothing, he moved a little farther on and loped down into a place where a long, low depression, still moist from the previous rains of two days back, lay before the now abrupt face of the hillock. Gorm rose on his hind legs and began to paw at the upright slope before him, using his long claws with a curious delicacy. A cascade of sand and small pebbles rattled down into the depression, and darker earth was revealed where it had been. Nothing daunted, the bear continued to pick away, as carefully as a woman doing fine embroidery.
Here, came his thought, as calm and unexcited as ever, here is metal, very, very old human work. I can do no more, and you will have to see what it tells you. He stopped his clawing and dropped down to all fours. Over his head, the priest now saw that a patch the size of a human face had been cleared of all earth. The smooth, blackened surface of some ancient, metal thing showed through, perhaps a wall, perhaps—even though he hardly dared to think this—a door!
The man looked thoughtfully at what Gorm had revealed. The bear sat watching, his task over, waiting for the next step. Hiero marveled at the fantastic power of scent his ally had displayed. Detecting the ancient, almost odorless metal under a good foot of earth, and at such a distance, was well-nigh incredible.
Humans simply have no noses, was the bear’s answer when he was thanked. I need your eyes often enough. We make a good team. But Hiero knew he was pleased all the same.
Next he summoned the others with his mind. Now that he was actually at the site of a vanished civilization, he felt awed and in need of some help. If he and the bear should manage to find a way down into the buried world beneath, they might be utterly cut off. It was time to take a few more risks, despite the House and the nearness of its creatures and creations.
While he waited for the others to arrive, he picked at the earth with the long dagger, his excitement rising. Slowly, a long, upright surface of dark, corroded metal, white underneath when scratched, began to appear, patinated by millennia of time and by secretions in the covering earth. Even as Brother Aldo and Luchare cantered Klootz around the corner of the tumulus, he finished his work. A door stood revealed, unmarked in any way, but with the smooth stump of what must once have been a handle on the right side.
“Well, we have a success. But we are very close to the House, or at least to its minions, aren’t we?” Aldo stroked the surface of the door. “Who knows what lies under this ancient thing? But—we are here and we had better make some quick decisions. Gimp and the men are coming on foot and will be here shortly. What are your ideas, Hiero?”
Eventually it was decided to leave the quiescent monster alone, but to maintain a constant watch and guard upon it. But the question of how to do this was more difficult. All four, Luchare, Aldo, Hiero, and the bear, were absolutely determined to go below if entrance could be gained. Who, then, would transmit orders to the men at the surface? Suppose trouble were encountered far below, how would any help be summoned?
A compromise was made possible by a suggestion of Luchare’s. Her suggestion was simple: why not try and see if any of them, but most especially the bear, could communicate at all with Captain Gimp by using mind speech? This radical but obvious solution had been overlooked.
At once they began to practice, after Gimp had been carefully coached in what was to happen. The tough little skipper was very nervous, but he was no coward. When he was assured by the three humans he had learned to trust that he would suffer no harm, he relaxed and made his mind as receptive as possible.
He flinched visibly when Hiero’s thought of a simple “good day” reached his consciousness. Finding it did no harm, he soon rallied and, screwing up his face, tried his hardest to send messages of his own. This proved impossible, though the faces he made had Luchare in stitches. But in a very short time, really, he could “receive” from all four of them. They tested his reception of the bear’s thoughts over and over, at Hiero’s special insistence.
“If we encounter, God forbid, the House or anything else down there, then Gorm may be the only one to get through. I would have been dead—-and he also—if he hadn’t reached you the last time. His mental channel is so different from a human’s, it never seems to occur to an enemy it’s there at all.”
All was in readiness at length, and they began to work on the door. It was a sort of white bronze, to all appearances. Iron or steel would not have lasted so long, they knew, but this metal was new to them. Not even the Metz priest had examined the particular Abbey archives which spoke of aluminum alloys.
Despite their carefully cleaning all the remaining dirt away from the metal frame, the door refused to budge. “Small wonder!” Luchare said. “If I’d stayed shut that long, neither would I.”
Two spearheads were broken in attempts to lever the stubborn portal open. Its faceless slab continued to defy them. It was the little mariner who solved the puzzle, using hi
s common sense. Gimp had been peering ail along the crack between the door and its jamb, his eye glued to the crevice as he followed it.
“See here,” he said suddenly. “That there’s a catch of some sort, that is. But it’s not on the side near that little knob, but down here on the bottom!”
A quick glance showed them that the sailor was right. A heavy shadow showed where a bolt had been rammed into the hole in the metal jamb. And better yet, the jamb seemed slightly warped there. Another hastily requisitioned spear was jammed into the slot. The tough ash stem bent and creaked, but slowly, groaning and protesting, the door began to rise in the air! No one spoke as Hiero and Gimp got their hands under it and continued to force it up. As it rose, previously invisible lines formed across it, and it began to buckle. It was a folding door, of a kind none of them had ever seen before; and as it rose, it bent at regular intervals and then slid back into a recess just above its own top. Fortunately, no dirt had sifted into the narrow storage space above, a tribute to its ancient builders.
A last shove pushed the door up and as far in as it could be made to go. The two men stepped back, perspiring and breathing hard, for the effort required had been a strong one.
Before them all, as they stood in silence under the hot afternoon sun, a dark opening yawned. From it came a breath of cool air, not unpleasant, but vaguely stale, like that of a suddenly opened and long-unused attic or closet. More to their interest were the broad metal steps which could be seen gently curving down to whatever lay below. One seaman started a halfhearted cheer, but he was hushed by his fellows. Who knew what they had opened? They felt the moment was too solemn for any cheering.
“What about light?” Luchare said practically. No one had thought of it, of course, and they looked dismayed. But common sense triumphed. Two of the earthenware firepots were produced, which left three more in reserve. Luchare took one unlit, and Brother Aldo the lighted other. The extended wicks gave about as much light as a candle, which was deemed enough. At any rate, it was the best they could do.
Gorm went first, his small eyes gleaming with excitement for once. Then came the old man, clutching a light and his heavy staff. Hiero, sword ready, followed close. Last came Luchare with the reserve light and her spear ready, the one which Hiero had taken from S’nerg so long before and so many miles distant.
As they descended, the light from behind grew dim, until it vanished altogether. Soon they were relying entirely on the pottery lamp. Luchare carried a small skin of oil, hopefully to replenish these, but no one knew how long their quest would last.
The stair wound downward for an apparently interminable distance. Gorm’s nose could detect no sign of life, and Hiero’s periodic mind sweeps caught nothing either. They paused at intervals to make sure they could still reach Gimp and his men, and each time the contact with the sailor’s mind proved easy. He was not alarmed, having been warned they would attempt this.
Eventually, after what seemed hours, the stair emerged from its tunnel onto a broad surface. The fleeting shadows showed that they were in a large, open space of some kind, and their very footfalls seemed to echo in the distance. Both Hiero and Gorm detected movement at the same time, high up and far away. A ghostly chittering and squeaking came ever so faintly to their ears.
“Bats!” Brother Aldo said. “This place communicates with the outside air somehow.” The implications were disquieting. Where did the other entrance to this buried realm lie? And who or what had access to it?
Luchare had been examining something she had noticed while the others talked. Now she called them over to see it. On a sheer wall were set a large group of switches, each one numbered in some archaic script.
“I’m frankly scared to touch these,” the priest said. “What do you think?”
“So am I,” the old man said after some debate. “But I think we must. Our oil may not last long, even if we husband it. There must be other sources of light down here, and we desperately need them. I feel we must take a chance. Our whole venture is a terrible risk. This is only another such,”
Hiero smothered his doubts and pressed the first switch. For a second, nothing happened. Then, to their gasps of wonder, around them grew a dim glow of light. It grew steadily brighter by degrees, until it finally stopped, well short of direct sunlight, but casting an effulgence perhaps equal to that of a very overcast day.
They were standing on a platform set high on one wall of an immense cavern.
12
An End and a Beginning
The view of the mighty cave of the ancients was one to make a first sight a quiet and reflective one. How far below the earth they were, they could not imagine, but it must be a very long way indeed. Yet this giant’s delving was apparently artificial! The long, dimly glowing bars of pale light hanging far above from the invisible roof (reminding Hiero of the blue lights on Manoon) which now illuminated the whole great space showed that clearly, though there were obvious dark gaps where they had failed.
The walls, stretching out of sight almost, were geometric and regular, sharply cut in the shape of a pentagon from the bedrock of the planet. Above a certain height they were unfinished stone, but below that, to a distance of some thirty feet above the floor, they were smoothed and polished. The glint of metal showed where many of them were actually paneled. A wide circular space ran all around the structures in the center, separating them from the walls.
“Look at those things, will you!” Hiero’s voice was low and reverent. The many great, shrouded shapes, standing about the floor, covered with the dust of countless centuries, were vast, almost beyond the comprehension of men of a later day. There was spiritual fear both in his voice and in his mind. These must be the actual devices of the legendary pre-Death era. Perhaps they themselves had helped loose The Death upon the cowering world above! Ingrained in every reasoning human, save for the Unclean, of course, was such a horror of The Death that gazing upon things such as this was very like a glimpse of Hell itself. Brother Aldo’s face was rigidly controlled and might have been carved of jet, but the repulsion in his eyes was clear. Luchare had actually fallen to her knees. At only seventeen, even after all she had been through, an actual glimpse of the titan engines of the legendary and horrific past weakened her legs as perhaps nothing else could.
Hiero bent and helped her up, and as they moved together to the heavy metal rail of the platform for a better look, he kept an arm about her.
As they looked up, they also saw a spider’s maze of slender catwalks and beams, strung from wires and metal cables, but so far off in the upper gloom that many of them looked suspended on nothingness. The hush of many centuries brooded over them. Above them, higher yet, glowed the lights, in turn hiding the ceiling from which they hung.
“You could put a regiment, ten regiments, of Metz Frontier Guards in here and lose them,” was Hiero’s awed comment, half to himself. His mind was staggered by the immensity of the place. And more than that. He knew what he was supposed to be looking for—the computers, if they still existed. But how to find them? Or anything else, in a place so huge and alien? True, he knew certain names, certain symbols in the dead languages, but would they be obvious, would they even be legible? His task, now that he had actually arrived at one of the ancient sites, suddenly seemed impossible.
Luchare had left him, and she and the white-bearded Elevener were now examining something on the far side of their platform, where a metallic, boxlike structure thrust itself out on the floor. As he was about to join them, he felt Gorm’s sudden thought.
The bats have all gone. Where did they go? There is something I don’t like about this place, Hiero. Bad air is entering far off on the other side. I smell, very faintly again, the sort of deadness which yet moves.
Hiero used his far-looker while sweeping the area with his mind as well. There was no real sentience in the ether, but the small minds of a few of the bats were revealed, far away and getting further still. They had left by an invisible ceiling hole, some natural
crevice perhaps, and were impossible to read for direction. The far-looker showed not one opening indeed, but several, black tunnel entrances, two, perhaps a half mile off, on the opposite, eastern side of the man-made grotto. As he looked, he saw yet another far off to the left, on the south side of the cavern. And around one of those on the west were things which did not appear artificially constructed. There seemed to be dark stains, perhaps pools of moisture, there, as well as he could see from that distance and in the poor light, the upright objects arranged in clumps. He had been in caves and seen stalagmites and stalactites before, but these appeared different somehow. Was there not a dim glow about them? However, he forgot them as Aldo spoke.
“Hiero, come here,” the old man said. “I think we have a way to get down, if we can still trust the incredible mechanics of a long-dead age. I have seen drawings of things like this. This box-thing goes up or down on this track set against the wall. That is why the stairs, which I imagine were only an emergency exit, go no further. Come and look.”
He explained to the three of them, using his mind, how an elevator worked. He and Luchare had been cleaning off the control switchboard of its accumulation of dust, and the three buttons were now easy to see. He next tested them by reaching around and in, while himself remaining on the platform. With a creak, the ancient thing began to move slowly down. He stopped it quickly.
“I thought so! I know the words. The bottom black button is ‘down,’ the top ‘up.’ The red one I don’t know, but red was often used for danger, so we will ignore it. Let’s get in. Hiero, what are you doing now?”
“Maintaining communication with the surface. Gimp and his crew are still all right. They’re camped now and set up for the night. I wanted a last mind check before we got into that thing.”
Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) Page 34
