by Jeff Grubb
Mishra shook his head. “Not plague. War. Plague wouldn’t explain why there is no art. War would. The victors burned what could burn: paintings, books, bodies. Then they destroyed the rest. We have found ash pits among the various sites.”
“Those are the result of manufacture, not battle,” observed Urza. “And if you’re right, what became of the victors?”
“They became the scavengers,” retorted Mishra triumphantly, setting down his glass. “That’s what it has to be. A slave race of humans that destroyed the minotaur masters, then fell apart itself without the minotaur science to support them.”
Urza chuckled. “A perfect argument. Each point uses as proof another questionable point, which eventually requires you to believe what you are trying to prove in the first place. So, Brother, why didn’t these scavenger-survivors create any art after the war?”
Mishra frowned slightly, considering. “They hadn’t reached the point of gaining art,” he said finally. “So there is no art from the period.”
“Except for the drawings in the desert,” said Urza.
“Except for the drawings in the desert,” agreed his brother.
“Except they aren’t, you know,” said Urza with a small smile.
Mishra shook his head, looking puzzled. “Those are not drawings in the desert? Nothing natural could produce—”
“Those are not art,” interrupted Urza. “Oh, the humanish figures might be, or they may simply be a recognition of other races the Thran had met. But all the lines, angles, and squiggles, those are not art. They are instructions.”
Tocasia stared at Urza, intrigued as well. What had he discovered now?
Urza rose from the table and left the tarp without saying another word. He returned with a large map of the area, which he shook open over the table. The other students moved quickly to save the remains of the broiled desert hare and cantaloupe that would otherwise be covered by the sheet. The map showed the arc of ruins they had uncovered.
“Here are the locations of the various Thran outposts we have found,” he said, jabbing a thin finger against the map. He followed from one to another, following the curve of wreckage. “At each location, the collection of odd angles and lines seems to point in one direction. From our second encampment, it points slightly west of due north.”
Producing a stylus, the blond student sketched a practiced line extending north. “In the next one, farther west, a majority of lines also indicate a particular direction, this one slightly more northerly than the first,” he said, drawing another strong, arrow-straight line. “And the next shows yet another line, almost due north in direction; the next points north and slightly east; and so on for each of the discovered sites so far.” The stylus scratched out a number of new lines.
Urza stood back from the map so the others could see. The ruins were in an arc, as everyone knew, but the lines Urza had sketched all pointed to one particular location: the center of a circle, of which the ruined mounds were points along the perimeter.
“The Thran were not an artistic people,” said Urza, looking at his brother. “Why then leave art in the desert? The answer is, they did not. They left instructions. Instructions about where their larger settlements were. We saw the figures, which we recognized, and ignored the lines, which we did not. But the lines are more important.”
Mishra leaned over the map and scowled. “Lines on paper,” he snorted. “You saw the arc and calculated the center, then looked for justification in the lines of the various mounds.”
“So you disagree with my argument, Brother?” asked Urza quietly.
Mishra smiled, the whiteness of his teeth sharp against the surrounding beard. “But I love your argument, Brother! It’s perfect. Each point uses as proof another questionable point, which eventually requires you to believe what you are trying to prove in the first place! The argument I love! It’s your conclusions I think are wrong.”
Urza rolled up his map slowly. “I suppose that means you don’t want to come along tomorrow when I go find out?”
Mishra started, and even Tocasia looked sharply at the elder brother.
“With your permission, Mistress, I would like to take an ornithopter out to check this out,” Urza said. “Since my brother does not wish to accompany me, I can manage with one of the smaller craft—”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go,” interrupted Mishra sharply. “In fact, I think I should go along, if only to keep you from seeing ruins that are not there.”
Urza nodded with a determined smile. Then he ducked from beneath the tarp and strode into the growing dusk. “I have plans to make then,” he called over his shoulder. “Evening, all!”
In Urza’s wake the dinner table was silent. None of the other students wanted to comment on Urza’s theory, and Tocasia needed time to digest what the older brother had said.
Tentatively, the conversation returned to more mundane matters. One student ventured that his area of the dig was producing some interesting disks marked with Thran numerals. Another mentioned that his work was being delayed by a junior student that declared every uprooted rock to be some artifact of the ancient race. That brought a small laugh from the others and from Tocasia a tale of one student, a few years before, who thought that they should dig on mountaintops because if she were one of the Thran, that’s where she’d leave the most valuable items.
Mishra sat quietly just beyond the firelight and stroked his stubbled beard. After a few minutes he excused himself as well and left the table. He did not head for the quarters he shared with Urza, but rather turned down toward where the Fallaji diggers made their camp. Tocasia noticed that the younger brother had a worried look on his face, but at the time she paid it little mind.
That evening, after the dishes had been cleared, Tocasia worked on a su-chi leg assembly at her table. The design that they had discovered in the almost complete specimen was different than either Urza or she had anticipated. It was almost, she thought, as if the legs were mounted backward, the knees pointing toward the rear. Was this a design choice of the Thran, she wondered, or was this a model of their real appearance?
A shadow appeared at the entrance of the tarp, and she looked up suddenly as Ahmahl entered. Old Ahmahl as he was known now, she reminded herself; his hair had turned gray in rivulets along either side of his face. Lately he had been complaining that his age was finally catching up with him. Tocasia knew he was a grandfather, and someday soon he would leave the encampment. Tocasia would miss him, for he represented all she felt was admirable among the Fallaji people. He was direct, forthright, and honest.
Now, from the stern look on his face, Tocasia got the feeling she was about get a messy dose of the last quality.
“I hear your young men are flying into the mountains on the morrow,” he said, his desert accent still thick after all these years among the Argivians.
“How did…” Tocasia started, then realized where Ahmahl got his information. Mishra would have asked him about the ring of ruins and the center point of the arc that Urza had located. And that news had obviously disturbed the elder Fallaji.
She nodded and motioned toward a camp chair. The old leader of the diggers sat himself carefully down upon it, as if either he or the chair would break from the experience.
“Urza has some ideas about finding the wreckage of a large Thran settlement there.”
Old Ahmahl looked at the worn, dusty carpeting beneath his feet. “I do not think it is a good idea. The Fallaji would frown on it.”
Tocasia knit her brow. Ahmahl and his diggers had never expressed the idea of taboo land before. Indeed, in most of the tribal settlements she had visited the inhabitants were exceedingly proud to show off, if not actively trade, the Thran artifacts they had discovered.
“Not all the Fallaji,” Ahmal continued. He looked up quickly at her, as if he could read her thoughts in her eyes. “Most of us are modern enough, are wise enough to know there is nothing in the mountains that is not in the desert. But there are those
who are concerned about the spirits of the Thran. About their heart. It is said that their secret heart lies in the mountains, and we Fallaji stay well clear of them.”
“Ahmahl,” said Tocasia gently, “you have never mentioned anything like this before nor complained about our previous digs.”
“That is because it is in the desert, and the desert belongs to all who can endure her,” said Ahmahl. “The Fallaji claim all this land but are willing to share it with others who respect it. The high mountains, however, the inner mountains themselves, are dangerous, and not only for the great ruq-birds found there. We claim them as Fallaji territory, but we do not visit them. Nor do we recommend others do so.”
Argive claims those mountains as well, thought Tocasia, though she did not voice that opinion. Most of the Argivians were coastal people to begin with, and the broad expanses claimed by the noble factions were just lines on a map.
“If we are violating some taboo—” she began.
Ahmahl held up a hand. “Not a taboo exactly, Mistress. A desire. A concern. Most of the diggers do not believe the stories of their grandmothers, but some do, and they may make things difficult. Hajar, my own assistant, believes in genies, ghouls, and the great dragons, the mak fawas, which haunt the night.”
“Ahmahl,” said Tocasia, smiling slightly, “you know that standing in either brother’s way when he has determined to do something is like trying to turn aside the desert wind. They will go looking. And now that you have brought me your concern, I will go with them. My question for you is, should we find something and need to investigate further, will you come along as well to aid us?”
Old Ahmahl sat bolt upright, surprised. Tocasia had phrased the question just right—short of an insulting accusation, but direct enough to demand an answer. He sputtered for a moment, then turned stern again.
“I will be wherever you need me to be,” he said coldly. “I have learned more about the ancient days from working with you than I would in a lifetime of roaming the desert. We have moved too much earth, you and I, for us to part ways over a grandmother’s story.”
Tocasia allowed herself a small grin, then turned a stern face to the old man. “Go, then, and find out among your diggers who believes in grandmothers’ stories and who does not. Discover who would go to a dig site in the mountains and who would remain. Do not challenge their pride or their courage, for then even those who think it sacrilege would come along, and feel the worse for it. I do not know if we will find anything, but if we do we will investigate it.”
Ahmahl nodded and rose to his feet. “I did not think you would shy away from any challenge, Tocasia. You are like a man in that regard.”
Tocasia rose as well in respect. “I did not think you would hide any information I needed to know from me. Thank you.”
Ahmahl bowed and was gone. Tocasia shook her head as she watched his shadow join the others of the early evening. You are like a man, he had said, and meant it as a compliment. Typical desert dweller, after all these years. Yet he was still willing to defy old stories and give her a warning.
Tocasia shook her head again and returned to intricacies of the su-chi’s leg mechanisms.
* * *
—
They left the next morning, packing enough rations for a day and a half’s flight out and back. Both of the young men accepted Tocasia’s companionship without comment, and neither suggested that she not come along. She left Kantar—one of the more promising older students of that season—in charge while she was gone and told him not to argue with Ahmahl or Hajar and to defer any disputes or major decisions until they returned.
The ornithopter was the original one they had rebuilt years ago. Now the forward housing was enclosed by a larger wooden frame containing more than enough room for the three explorers and their supplies. The control levers remained in the middle of the housing, so either young man could handle them. The power of the stone was nearly inexhaustible, but human flesh was otherwise. After about four hours of flight they would have to change operators.
From the ground the borders of the Great Desert were a low undulating waste of blown dust marred with frequent rocky outcroppings. The region was barren, claimed by the coastal states with intermittent and vague borders far inland. The Fallaji also claimed the wastes, but they enforced that title only when seeking to shake down a few valuables from merchants and explorers in the desert. It seemed an inhospitable and barren world.
From aloft it was transformed. The rocky spires became sentinels, marking the passage of time as their shadows swept beneath them. The deep and uncrossable canyons turned into rainbows of colored granite and sandstone. The dry lakes were transformed into glittering patches of salt. The desert wind plucked at the ornithopter’s control wires as they sailed effortlessly northward.
With Urza at the controls, they flew straight across the sky, fixed on the course that he had set. Occasionally he called out to Mishra to check the coordinates. Inevitably, after checking with map and compass, and taking a reading on the sun, the younger brother declared all was well. Each time Urza nodded, as if he would be surprised by any other result.
When Mishra was piloting, they roamed more, still keeping to the general north and slightly westerly direction but wandering back and forth along that line. If an interesting formation caught Mishra’s eye, he steered toward it until Urza warned him they were off course. Then the younger brother sighed and brought the prow of the craft back on track. Occasionally they had to reengage the wings to regain lost altitude. Then Urza would check three times to make sure of their position.
Once they passed over another series of lines. These held no humanoid figures, only spirals and angles juxtaposed against one another. Mishra circled the site as the older brother sketched, then nodded in confirmation. The angles pointed in the direction they should travel.
At the end of the first day they set down on a particularly high mesa. Far from the protection of the stockade and its grapeshot catapults, they camped without a fire and slept within the ornithopter’s housing. Though Tocasia had not had to man the control levers during the flight, she was worn by the continual motion. Her head ached from the tinny rush of the wind over the wires. She slept without dreams that evening and awoke stiff from the cramped quarters. The young men were already outside, Urza stretching to elongate his back, Mishra bending at the knees. After a cold breakfast they set out again.
The Thran center, what Ahmahl had referred to as its “secret heart,” could not be missed from the air, though it would not be reached easily from the ground. It was at the end of a long, winding canyon leading west, the trail of some ancient long-dead river that had split the low mesa and cradled the ruins.
And ruins they were—long processions of shattered building foundations and tumbled walls. Some of the ruins resembled manor houses from Argive. Others were akin to the onion-domed temples of distant Tomakul. Still others resembled nothing the three investigators had seen before: a framework of metal that supported nothing at all, a pile of discarded plates, each the size of a man, with serrated edges, or a tangle of what looked like blue metallic worms. Along the far canyon wall was what looked like a nest of broken bronze-colored spiders. The entire cavalcade of wreckage was buried beneath the sands carried out of the desert to the west.
“Do you doubt my calculations now, Brother?” said Urza with a smile.
“Only a fool would doubt his own eyes. Well done, Brother,” said Mishra, his grin even wider.
“The Thran’s secret heart,” murmured Tocasia. Mishra flinched slightly at the phrase and his smile faded, but Urza only nodded.
“The old Argivian word for secret was koilos,” said Urza. “Let that be the name of this hidden land. Circle around it, Brother. We can best see the lay of the land from up here.”
Mishra nodded and was just pulling on the controls when suddenly a shadow passed over the ornithopter housing. It could have been a cloud but for the fact that the desert sky was clear.
Tocasia knew what it meant. She shouted at the same moment that Mishra pitched the flying craft into a steep, banking dive. Urza was taken by surprise and let out a curse as he was flung against the inner side of the craft’s housing.
The roc dove through the space that moments ago had been occupied by the ornithopter. The bird was a huge representative of its race, a species reputed in old legends to snatch elephants from the plains for supper. Nearly three times the size of the ornithopter, its passage almost flipped the craft.
The roc recovered as soon as it had passed, gaining altitude quickly to make another dive at the craft.
“Why is it attacking?” shouted Urza.
“We’re large, and we’re moving!” replied Tocasia, screaming above the wind. “It probably thinks we’re another roc.”
Mishra cursed and pulled both levers back as far as they would go. “I don’t think we can get above it! It’s too fast for us!”
The roc was already over them again, making another dive. Mishra reengaged the wings and jinked the craft to the right, but the roc was ready for the maneuver. It shifted slightly; there was a horrendous rip along the right side, and Tocasia saw that one of the wing struts had been ripped loose and was now fluttering in the wind. Better than the entire wing missing, thought Tocasia, but enough to cripple them.
“We can’t outfly it!” yelled Mishra. “I’m going to put us down.”
“Over there!” shouted Urza, pointing to the nest of broken metal spiders. “I think there’s a hole in the cliff wall.”
“Won’t make it!” shouted Mishra, pulling first one lever, then the other, trying to shake the roc off their tail.
“That’s because you’re flying like a bird!” snapped Urza, shoving his brother aside and grabbing the control levers himself. “Fly it like a machine and we’ll make it.”
Under Urza’s control, the craft no longer zigzagged across the sky but instead rocketed forward, swooping low over the wrecked landscape of Koilos. The roc, its simple avian brain expecting the craft to act like another flier, expected it to dodge or to turn. The bird hesitated before pursuing. Its indecision was all the time that the three needed.
