by Andre Norton
And Fors, gorged and content, met that confidence with his own.
8. WHERE ONCE MEN FLEW
They slept fitfully that night on piles of moldering fabrics they dragged together, and on rousing ate and drank again from the supplies in the storeroom. Then they climbed once more until the steps ended in a platform which had once been walled by large glass windows. Below the city spread out in all its broken glory. Fors identified the route he had pioneered on entering and pointed it out. And Arskane did the same for the one he had followed in the east.
“South should be our road now—straight south—”
Fors laughed shortly at that observation.
“We have yet to win free of this one building,” he objected. But Arskane was ready with an answer to that.
“Come!” One of his big hands cupped the mountaineer’s shoulder as he drew Fors to the empty window space facing east. Far below lay the broad roof of a neighbor building, its edge tight against the side of the tower.
“You have this.” Arskane nipped the end of the mountain rope still wrapping Fors’ belt. “We must go down to those windows just above that roof and swing through to it. See, south lies a road of roofs across which we may travel for a space. These Beast Things may be cunning but perhaps they do not watch the sky route against escape—it hangs above the ways they seem to like best. It is in my mind that they hug the ground on their journey-ings—”
“It is said that they best love to slink in the burrows,” confirmed Fors. “And they are supposed to be none too fond of the open light of day—”
Arskane plucked his full lower lip between forefinger and thumb. “Night fighters—eh? Well then, day is the time for us—the light is in our favor.”
They made the long climb down with lighter hearts. A story above the neighboring room they found a window in the center of the hallway which faced in the right direction, broke out the few splinters of glass still set dagger-wise in the frame, and leaned out to reconnoiter.
“The rope will not be needed after all,” Arskane commented. “That drop is easy.” He took a strong grip on the window frame and flexed his muscles.
Fors crossed to the next window and set an arrow on his bow cord. But, as far as he could see, the roof below, the silent blank windows were empty of menace. Only-he could not cover all of those. And death might fly from any one of the hundreds of black holes, above, below—
But this was their best—maybe their only chance of escape. Arskane grunted with pain from his shoulder. Then he was out, tumbling down to the surface below. As quickly as he had taken the leap he dodged behind the high parapet.
For a long moment they both waited, frozen. Then, in a flash of brown and cream, Lura went through, making a more graceful landing. She sped across the roof, a streak of light fur.
So far—so good. Fors freed himself from quiver, Star Man’s pouch, and bow, tossing them through in the general direction of Arskane. Then he hoisted himself on the sill and swung. He heard Arskane’s shout of warning just as he let go. Startled, he could not prepare for a proper landing but fell hard—with a force which jarred him.
He squirmed over on his back. A dart quivered in the frame of the window where his hand had rested. He rolled into the safety of the parapet with a force which brought him up with a crack against Arskane’s knees.
“Where did that come from?”
“There!” The southerner pointed at the row of windows in the building across the street. “From one of those—”
“Let us go—”
Belly flat, Fors started a snake’s progress toward the opposite end of the roof. They could not go back now— to try to climb up to that window would be to present a target which even a fumbling marksman could not miss. But now the hunt was on and they would have to make a running fight of it through a maze which the enemy knew intimately and they did not know at all—a maze which might be studded with traps more subtle and more crueF than the one which had imprisoned Arskane—
A thin fluting—like the piping of a child’s reed whistle-cut the air somewhere behind. Fors guessed it to be what he had dreaded most to hear—the signal that the quarry had been flushed out of hiding and was now to be pursued in the open.
Arskane had forged ahead. And because the big man seemed to know just what he was going to do next Fors accepted his lead. They came into a corner of the parapet between the east and south sides of the roof. Lura had already gone over it; she called softly from below.
“Now we must trust to luck, comrade—and to the favor of Fortune. Slip over quickly on the same instant that I move. It may be that if we give them two targets they will not be able to choose either. Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“Then-go!”
Fors reached up and caught the top of the parapet at the same moment Arskane moved. Together their bodies went over and they let themselves roll across the second roof, painfully shedding some skin in the process. Here the surface was not clear. Blocks, fallen from a taller building beyond, made a barrier which Arskane greeted with an exclamation of satisfaction. Both gained the protection of the rubble and squatted down to listen. The pipe of the whistle sounded again, imperatively. Arskane rubbed dust off his hands.
“Beyond here lies another street, and below is the river valley which you crossed—”
Fors nodded. He, too, could remember what they had seen from the tower. The river valley made a curve, cutting due east at this point. He shut his eyes for an instant the better to visualize the old train yards, the clustered buildings—
“Well,” Arskane shook himself, “if we give them more time they will be better able to greet us in a manner we shall not relish. Therefore, we must keep on the move. Now that they expect to find us on roof tops it might be wise to seek the street level—”
“See here.” Fors had been examining the rubbish about them. “This did not fall from above.” He dug into the pile of rubble. Set in the roof was a slanted door. Arskane pounced upon it joyfully.
They dug as furiously as ground squirrels in autumn until they cleared it. Then they tugged it open and looked down into a musty darkness from which old evil odors arose. There were stairs, almost ladder steep. They used them.
Long hallways and more stairs. Although all three walked with the silence of forest hunters their passing sent small thuds and old sighings through the deserted building. Now and again they stopped to listen. But Lura manifested no signs of uneasiness and Fors could hear nothing beyond the fall of plaster, the shifting of old boards their tread had disturbed.
’Wait!” He caught Arskane as the latter started down the last flight of stairs. Fors’ swinging hand had struck lightly against a door in the wall and something in the hollow sound which had followed that blow seemed promising. He opened the door. They stepped out on a kind of ledge above a wide cavern of a place.
“By the Great Horned Lizard!” Arskane was shaken and Fors gripped the rail which framed the platform.
They looked down into what once must have been a storage place for the heavy tracks which the Old Ones had used for transportation of goods. Ten—fifteen of the monsters stood in line waiting for the masters who were long gone. And several were of the sealed engine type which had been the last invention of the Old Ones. These appeared unblighted by time, still perfect and ready for use.
One of them had its nose almost against a wide closed door. A door, decided Fors instantly, which must give upon the street. A wild idea began to flower in his mind. He turned to Arskane.
“There was a road leading down into the valley of the trains—a road which was mostly steep slope—”
“True—”
“See that machine—the one by the gate? If we could start it out it would roll down that street and nothing could stop it!”
Arskane licked his lips. “The machine is probably dead. Its motor would not run and we could not push it—”
“We might not need to push. And do not be sure that the motor would not serve u
s. Jarl of the Star Men once piloted a sealed motor car a full quarter of a mile before it died again. If this would only bring us to the top of the slope it would be enough. At least we can try. It would be a safe and easy way to gain the valley—”
“As you say—we can try!” Arskane bounded down the steps and headed for the truck.
The door to the driver’s seat hung open as if to welcome them. Fors slid across the disintegrating pad to sit behind the controls—just as if he were one of the Old Ones who had used this marvel as a matter of course.
Arskane crowded in beside him and was leaning forward to examine the rows of dials and buttons confronting them. He touched one.
“This locks the wheels—”
“How do you know?”
“We have a man of learning in the tribe. He has taken apart many of the old machines to learn the secret of their fashioning. Only we have no longer the fuel to run them and so they are of no use to us. But from Unger I have learned something concerning their powers.”
Fors yielded his place, not without some reluctance, and watched Arskane delicately test the controls. At last the southerner stamped with his foot upon a floor-set button and what they had believed in their hearts would never happen, did. The ancient engine came to Me. The sealed engine was not dead!
“The door!” Askane’s face was white beneath its brown stain, he clung to the wheel with real fear of the terrifying power that was throbbing under him.
Fors leaped out of the cab and dashed for the big door. He pulled down on the counter bar and it gave so that he could push back the ponderous barrier. He looked out upon a street clear of wrecks. A glance up slope told him why. At the head—only a few feet back from the door-one of the great trucks had slewed sidewise, its nose smashed into the wall of a building on the opposite side— an effective barricade. He did not linger after that fleeting examination. Behind, the sound of the dying engine was horrible—grating and grinding out its last few seconds of life.
Fors gained the cabin, bringing Lura in with him. They crouched together with pounding hearts as Arskane fumbled with the wheel. But the last spurt of power set the big truck moving, rubber shredding away from the remains of the tires as they turned. The engine faltered and died as they rolled out of the garage and reached the rise, but the momentum carried on and they sped faster and faster down the steep hill to the valley below.
Only pure luck had given them that clear street ahead. Had it not been for the smashed truck corking the street at its head they might have crashed into wreckage which would have killed them all. Arskane fought the wheel, steering only by instinct, and brought them along the pavement at a pace which grew ever wilder as the truck gained speed.
Twice Fors closed his eyes, only to force them open again. His hands were buried deep in the fur of the squalling Lura who wanted none of this form of travel. But the truck went on and on and they were at last on level land, bumping over the rusted tracks of the railroad. The truck slowed, and at last it stopped as it buried its front bumper in a heap of coal.
For a moment the three simply remained where they were, shaken and weak. Then they roused enough to tumble out. Arskane laughed, but his voice was going up scale as he said.
“If anyone followed us they must be well behind now. And we must labor so that such a distance grows even wider.”
They took advantage of any cover afforded by the wreckage in the train yards, and struck south at a trotting pace until, at last, the valley of the river looped away again from the southern path they had set themselves. Then they climbed the slope and went on across the tree-grown ruins of the city outskirts.
The sun was overhead, hot on head and shoulders. There was a fishy scent in the breeze which blew inland from the lake. Arskane sniffed it loudly.
“Rain,” was his verdict, “and we could not hope for better fortune. It will cover our trail—”
But the Beast Things would not follow any prey out of a city—or would they? They must be ranging farther afield now—there was that track left by the deer hunter. And Fors’ father had been brought down by a pack, not within a city but in the fringes of the true forest land. It was not well to count themselves safe merely because they were drawing out of the ruined area.
“At least we travel without the weight of baggage,” Arskane observed some time later as they paused to rest and drink the thick juice with which Fors had filled the canteen that morning.
Fors thought regretfully of the mare and the plunder which she had carried only yesterday. Not much remained now to prove his story—just the two rings on his fingers, and the few small things in the Star pouch. But he had the map and his travel journal to turn out before the Council when he had that accounting with the Eyrie which he thirsted for.
Arskane had even less than the mountaineer. The museum club in his hand was the only weapon he still had left except his belt knife. In his pouch he carried flint and steel, two fishhooks and a line wound about them.
“If we but had the drum,” he regretted. “Were that in my hand we should even now be talking with my people. Without signals it will be chancy matter to find them— unless we cross the trail of another scout.”
“Come with me—to the Eyrie!” Fors said impulsively.
“When you told me your story, comrade, did you not say that you fled your tribe? Will they be quicker to welcome you back with a stranger at your heels? This is a world in which hate lives yet. Let me tell you of my own people—this is a story of the old, old days. The flying men who founded my tribe were born with dark skins— and so they had in their day endured much from those born of fairer races. We are a people of peace but there is an ancient hurt behind us and sometimes it stirs in our memories to poison with bitterness.
“As we moved north we strove to make friends with the Plainpeople—three times that I have knowledge of did we send heralds unto them. And each time were we greeted by a flight of war arrows. So now we have hardened our hearts and we stand for ourselves if the need be. Can you promise that those of the mountains will hold out friendly hands if we seek them out?”
Hot blood stung Fors’ cheeks. He was afraid that he knew the answer to that question. Strangers were enemies—that was the old, old ruling. Yet why should it be so? This land was wide and rich and men were few. Surely there was enough of it for all—and it went on and on to the sea. And in the old days men had fashioned ships and sailed across seas to other wide lands.
He said as much aloud and Arskane gave hearty and swift agreement.
“You reason with straight thoughts, comrade. Why should there be distrust between the twain of us because our skin differs in color and our tongues sound different to the ear? My people live by tilling the land, they plant seed and food grows from it, they herd sheep from which comes the wool to weave our wind cloaks and night coverings. We make jars and pots from clay and fire them into stone hardness, working with our hands and delighting in it. The Plainspeople are hunters, they have tamed horses and run the herds of cattle—they love to keep ever moving—to know far trails. And your people—?”
Fors screwed his eyes against the sun. “My people? We are but a small tribe of few clans and often in the winter we needs must go lean and hungry for the mountains are a hard country. But above all do we love knowledge, we live to loot the ruins, to try to understand and relearn the things which made the Old Ones great in their time. Our medicine men fight against the ills of the bodies, our teachers and Star Men against the ignorance of the mind—”
“And yet these same people who fight ignorance have made of you a wandering one because you differ from them—”
For the second time Fors’ skin burned red. “I am mutant. And mutant stock is not to be trusted. The—the Beast Things are also mutant—” He could not choke out more than that.
“Lura is mutant also—”
Fors blinked. The four quiet words of that answer meant more than just a statement of fact. The tenseness went out of him. He was warm, and not with shame
, nor with the sun which was beating down on him. It was a good warmness he had not remembered feeling before— ever.
Arskane propped his chin on his and stared out over the tangle of bush and vine. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that we are like the parts of one body. My people are the busy hands, fashioning things by which life may be made easier and more beautiful. The Plainspeople are the restless, hurrying feet, ever itching for new trails and the strange things which might lie beyond the sunrise and the sunset. And your clan is the head, thinking, remembering, planning for feet and hands. Together—”
“Together,” Fors breathed, “we would make such a nation as this land has not seen since the days of the Old Ones!”
“No, not a nation such as the Old Ones knew!” Arskane’s answer was sharp. “They were not one body—for they knew war. And out of that warfare came what is today. If the body grows together again it-must be because each part, knowing its own worth and taking pride in it, recognizes also the worth of the other two. And color of skin, or eyes, or the customs of a man’s tribe must mean no more to strangers when meeting than the dust they wash from their hands before they take meat. We must come to one another free of such dust—or it will rise to blind our eyes and what the Old Ones started will con- • tinue to live for ever and ever to poison the earth.”
“If that could only be—”
“Brother,” for the first time Arskane used the more intimate word to Fors, “my people believe that all the actions in this life have behind them some guiding power. And it seems to me that we two were brought to this place so that we might meet thus. And from our meeting perhaps there will be born something stronger and mightier than what we have known before. But now we linger here too long, death may still sniff at our heels. And it is not to my mind that we shall be turned from the path marked out for us.”
Something in the solemn tones of the big man’s voice reached into Fors. He had never had a real friend, his alien blood had set him too far apart from the other boys of the Eyrie. And his relationship with his father had been that of pupil with teacher. But he knew now that he would never willingly let this dark-skinned warrior go out of his life again, and that where Arskane chose to go, there he would follow.
