"You just did." Where had that gallant phrase come from? "But it wasn't me alone who fought for you, lass. These kind gentlemen did more than L"
"Not this time, we didn't." Dirk was grinning. "You scored just as high as we did, Miles."
"Are you Miles, then?" the woman asked, looking up wideeyed. "I'm Ciletha."
"I'm charmed to meet you-and by you." The words seemed to roll off Miles's tongue with an ease he'd never known. "Now I'm glad I had to flee from the bailiff."
"Flee?" Ciletha drew back a little. "What for?"
"For refusing to marry the woman his master had chosen for me, and she hated the notion more than I did," Miles told her, "though I have to admit I didn't come right out and say no to the magistrate-I just left. But what sent you to the wildwood, poor thing?"
Ciletha lowered her gaze. "I came with a friend, who was looking for the Lost City. He found it, and chose to stay there."
"Lost City?" Gar edged his horse closer, suddenly very intent. "That sounds like a good place to hide from the hounds and the foresters. Can you take us back there?"
"Why ... I don't know, sir." Ciletha looked about her, confused. "I've been turned so much about and about while I ran from those fiends . . ." Privately she shuddered at the idea of going back to those strange, ugly, garishly dressed people-but the forest had proved more dangerous than the ruins, and with friends to protect her ...
Somehow, she knew that Miles would protect her with every ounce of his strength. The knowledge spread through her with a warm reassurance. Why he would, she refused to think-but she knew she was safe with him. Perhaps his friends were to be trusted just as much-but had they fought to save her, or to win her? Surely they wouldn't betray Miles, though.
"Think," Gar urged. "Was the sun behind the city, or behind your shoulder?"
"Behind the city," Ciletha said without hesitation, "but it was the moon, sir-I've been wandering for days now, I think only four of them. Who can find the moon under all these leaves, though?"
"He has an unusually good sense of direction," Dirk informed her.
"Ciletha, these are my masters, Dirk and Gar," Miles said. "Friends," Dirk said quickly. "Just friends, Miss. We don't own him. Pleased to meet you."
"And L" Gar inclined his head in greeting.
"They aren't really guards," Miles explained, "just wearing the livery as disguise. They're from very far away, and don't know a lot of our customs."
"Are other counties so different?" Ciletha asked, looking at the horsemen with wide eyes.
"We're from farther away than another county, I'm afraid," Dirk said.
"Let's ride while we talk," Gar suggested. "If the moon was behind the city, it should be this way."
"Yeah, well, that takes care of east versus west," Dirk said as he pulled his horse around to fall in beside Gar's, "but what do we do about north versus south?"
"Oh, I'm sure we'll find some sort of landmark," Gar said easily.
Dirk shot him a calculating glare. "Yeah, I'll just bet you will." He turned back to Miles and Ciletha. "Coming, folks? Miles could ride with Gar, and you could ride with me, Ciletha."
"I'd just as soon walk," she said quickly, so of course Miles said, too, "I'll walk."
"Suit yourself," Dirk said. "Horses can't go much faster than people in a nighttime wood, anyway." He turned to face forward again, leaving the two locals to follow.
"What of this lad who brought you into the wood?" Miles asked. "What was he like?"
"Oh, no taller than you," Ciletha said, "and pudgy, most would call him. But he had large eyes, of the most beautiful brown you could think, and a cute little nose between high cheeks, with generous lips. He's generous within, too, is Orgoru, though most folk won't let him show it."
Her tone was so warm that Miles knew she must be in love with the lout, and felt a stab of jealousy that surprised himbut he realized that, though Ciletha wasn't beautiful, there was something of elfin charm to her face, to the shape of her nose and the tilt of her eyes, and beauty in those large orbs and their long lashes. He felt his own heart move strangely, and wondered if he were himself falling in love.
A stick cracked, and Ciletha froze. The horsemen halted, too. After a moment, Gar said, "Only a badger." He clucked to his horse and moved on.
The others followed, but Ciletha's eyes were wide, apprehensive. "Please, lad, let's not talk. Those bandits might hear us and come back-and bring a bigger band."
Miles smiled. "They'll hear the horses in any case, lass, but I'll admit that hooves might belong to deer. Nay, as you'll have it."
They went on in silence, following the horses.
Miles couldn't help sneaking covert glances at Ciletha whenever they passed through a patch of moonlight. Dirty and ragged though she was, there was some elusive quality about her that held him fascinated. His attention seemed to make Ciletha uneasy, so he whispered, " 'Ware, now-there's a root ahead."
She recovered her composure and smiled. "I see it, lad. Don't worry yourself about me-I've been a poacher seven years and more."
"You?" Miles stared, for women were rarely poachers. "Aye, me. My father was ailing all that time, and I knew he needed meat." Her tone hardened. "No, I didn't leave him-he left me, through the gate of death."
Miles was startled, even shocked. "Don't blame him for it, lass. It's not as though he chose it."
"Oh, I know, I know," Ciletha said, "but his going left me without protection against the magistrates, or the town boys who wanted my father's house."
"Ah. Well, I can see you'd be angry, then," Miles said, "and I've no doubt your father is, too-angry at the death that sundered him from you."
"What are you saying?" Ciletha stared. "You talk as though he were still alive in his grave!"
"No, but I've heard some folk say that the spirit lives on after the body dies," Miles said slowly, "and it tries to move about in the world, if its business isn't done."
"Ghosts?" Ciletha breathed.
"Aye, the ghosts of our nursery tales. No one ever asks what happens to the spirits of those whose life's business is done, though," Miles said, musing. "Wouldn't there have to be someplace for them to go and rest, some Spirits' Home?"
"I suppose there would," Ciletha said slowly. "It would have to be a happy place, wouldn't it? For everyone there could have that pleasant feeling that comes from a task wellfinished."
Gar rode on, listening to the two young folk behind him reinventing religion, and smiled. Dirk caught his eye and winked.
Then, distant and so faint it might have been imagination, they heard the first elusive baying of the hounds. Miles stopped, galvanized even though the sound faded away again. Gar grinned. "They've followed the false trail we laid."
"That'll delay them a few hours," Dirk said, "but they'll still catch us by morning. Can't you find this city a little faster?"
"We're moving directly toward it," Gar told him, "and it's not very far away. Ciletha must have been going in circles when she left it, and certainly when the bandits chased her." Ciletha looked up, startled, and Miles touched her hand, giving her a reassuring smile. "It's the natural thing, lass, in a strange wood." He turned back to the path-and saw a skeleton moving toward them in the scraps of moonlight that filtered through the trees.
CHAPTER 10
Miles would have run, but Ciletha cried out in fear, and he leaped to place himself between her and the skeleton. Gar and Dirk only stared, though, and Dirk said softly, "Well, would you look at that!"
"At a guess," Gar said, "I'd say this Lost City was left over from the original colonists."
"Left over for five hundred years! Amazing that it's still working!"
Miles stared, and Ciletha cried, "What nonsense are they talking?"
Gar turned back and gave them a reassuring smile. "Nothing to worry about, folks. It's just a machine."
"Machine! Machines are huge ungainly things, like mills! This is a walking skeleton, a spirit of the dead!"
"Not at all," Gar
told them. "It's a robot, a moving statue."
"But where did they get a power source that would keep this thing going so long?" Dirk asked. "And how do they keep it working?"
"We are recharged every day, sir," the skeleton replied, "and automated machines manufacture spare parts according to the templates on file."
Ciletha gave a little shriek, and Miles nearly shouted in fear. "How can you say it's not a spirit," Ciletha cried, "when it talks?"
The featureless skull swiveled toward her, and the skeleton said, "This unit is equipped with a vocoder and a computer, sir, and is programmed to respond to human questions."
"Nonsense," she whispered. "It's a ghost that talks nonsense!"
"There must be some reason to it somewhere," Miles said, trying to sound reassuring. "If Gar and Dirk say it makes sense, it must-somehow."
"What do you do if those humans attack you instead of asking questions?" Dirk asked.
"We immobilize them, sir."
"'We.' " Gar frowned. "How many of you are there?"
"Three hundred, sir. Half recharge by day, half by night."
"Sentry duty?" Dirk tensed. "What are you guarding against?"
"Large animals, sir, and bandits-and others who might wish to enter the city to prey upon its people, or to find a living without working. That is our original programming."
Gar frowned. "You obviously don't take us for bandits."
"No, sir. You have made no threatening movements, and though you carry weapons, you are clearly not coming in attack mode, nor with enough companions to constitute a threat."
"It isn't really a skeleton," Miles whispered to Ciletha. "Its head doesn't have eye or nose sockets."
"No," she said, eyes wide in wonder, "and it doesn't have ribs, just a sort of flattened egg. But Miles, it gleams like polished steel!"
"Yes, it does," he answered, "and I think it must be. I thought the old tales were just children's stories!"
"You've guessed rightly," Gar told the robot, "we're not bandits. In fact, we're fugitives looking for shelter. Can you take us into the city for the night?"
"I'm sure hospitality can be arranged, sir. Please follow me."
The robot turned and walked away. Gar and Dirk clucked to their horses and followed, beckoning Miles and Ciletha along. They stared, then ran to catch up. As they slowed again, Ciletha asked, "What kind of men are they, these friends of yours, not to be frightened by that . . . thing?"
"Very strange men," Miles replied, "though they've saved me from the bailiff's men twice, and seem to be thoroughly good in every way. But I have to help them, too, because they don't know very much about everyday life."
"They seem to know enough about magic," Ciletha said, with a wary glance at the skeleton.
"They'd be the first to tell me that it's not."
"Would you believe them?" she asked, with a skeptical glance.
"No," Miles confessed. "Not really."
They followed the robot for hours, or so it seemed, until the canopy of leaves suddenly fell away, leaving only isolated trees, and letting the moonlight bathe the stone towers that loomed high in the night.
The companions stopped involuntarily, catching their breath. The stone glimmered in the moonlight, giving the im-pression of a fairy city, a magical realm. Even though the towers were festooned with flowering vines, and every flat surface held its crop of brush and at least one small tree, the illusion of enchantment held.
The robot paused, turning its "head."
"Why do you stop?"
"To appreciate beauty," Dirk told it.
The silvery skull nodded. "Yes, a human concept. I confess that the word is meaningless noise to me, but the referent seems to take hold of your species at the oddest times."
"And this is a very odd time," Gar agreed. "We would like to see this treasure from a closer vantage point, sentry."
"Of course, sir. This way."
The robot found a trail where they could have sworn there was none. They followed slowly, scarcely able to take their eyes from the soaring towers.
"You've seen this before," Miles said.
"Yes, but its spell still catches me." Ciletha smiled up at the glowing spires. Light glittered in her eyes-or were those tears? "Maybe I won't be afraid to go in, with friends about me."
"Oh, we're certainly your friends." Miles stopped himself from saying that he wanted to be much more, then was amazed to realize how he felt about a woman he had only just met. "What was there to fear, though?"
Ciletha shuddered and would have answered, but the underbrush about them suddenly ceased, showing them a very wide gap in a high and gleaming wall.
"This is the gate," the robot said. "Welcome to the city of Voyagend."
"Voyage's End-for a ship full of colonists." Gar traced the line of the hill within the walls. "See how the buildings rise tier upon tier to the highest towers?"
Dirk nodded. "The ship's still there, just buried. Think they planned it that way?"
"Almost certainly," Gar replied. "After all, they didn't have enough fuel to lift off again. Why not make their years-long home part of the landscape? That way, they'd always have it with them."
Miles and Ciletha listened with wide, wondering eyes. "That right, sentry?" Dirk asked.
"You have guessed correctly, sir," the robot said. "Will it please you to enter?"
"Hard to say," Dirk said slowly.
Faint on the night breeze came the belting of hounds.
"On second thought, it would please me very much. Take us in, sentry."
The robot led the way through the gate.
"Sentry," Gar said, "there may be some men following us with dogs. Discourage them, will you?"
"Certainly, sir. I will cover your trail with a mild solution of petroleum derivatives-but I don't think you need fear. These people may have discarded religion, but they are still superstitious."
"Needs will out," Dirk muttered.
"Certain primal drives always find expression," Gar muttered back.
"What on earth are they talking about?" Ciletha wanted to know.
Miles shook his head, bewildered. "I don't have the faintest idea."
Gar suddenly reined in his horse. A pace behind him, Dirk asked, "Ghosts?"
"Not many, at least," Gar answered, "and not malevolent." If he had been alone, Miles would have run right then. With Ciletha beside him, though, he didn't dare.
She looked about her, wide-eyed. "What's he talking about? I don't see anything, not even those odd dumpy people!" Miles looked down the long, broad, silent boulevard, glancing at each of the buildings. "If there were ghosts, I could believe they'd flock here," he said slowly, "but I don't see anything."
"Would it matter if we did?" Ciletha's voice trembled. "Where else could we hide that the hounds wouldn't follow?" Her grip tightened on his arm, and truth to tell, it gave Miles as much reassurance as it seemed to give her.
Dirk pointed to the ruins of what looked like an ancient Greek temple, high above them on the hilltop. "That's high ground,, and it should have back exits."
"A good choice," Gar agreed. "Sentry, can you lead us there?"
"Of course, sir," the robot said, and struck off along the boulevard. Gar and Dirk followed, so Miles and Ciletha had no choice but to go along, though Miles's stomach hollowed farther with every step.
The boulevard led straight to a wide circular plaza that radiated a dozen streets. Without the slightest hesitation the robot went to the one that sloped up toward the "temple."
"Odd to rise so," Dirk commented.
"Yes, sir, but that straight climb was useful. Children used to delight in it when snow fell."
Ciletha laughed, almost breathless. "How can I fear a place where children used to go sledding?"
"I can't, either." Miles grinned. "Especially if their ghosts are happy."
"They are," Gar called out ahead.
Miles frowned, and Ciletha asked, "How can he know if a ghost is happy?"
"He's teasing us," Miles told her. "There aren't any ghosts." He hoped he was right.
The street ran straight up the hill. "They banked this into a long, gentle slope when they buried the ship," Dirk offered. Gar nodded. "They were building a toboggan run, not a roller coaster."
"Their secret language again," Ciletha sighed.
Miles looked at her and grinned. She was amazingly resilient-or very brave. Or both.
Up they climbed, up and up between buildings tinted rose and blue and gray in the moonlight. Empty windows stared down at them, but the buildings seemed to smile. More happy people than miserable ones had lived here. Behind them, the belling of the hounds became louder and louder. Miles couldn't help but feel safe here, though.
Finally the ground leveled off, and they stood in a great circular plaza with the great templelike structure towering before them. A long, long stairway led up to a doorway decorated with bas-relief carvings, but its grade was so shallow that Miles didn't think it would be terribly tiring to climb.
"You must leave your horses here," the robot told them. "Makes sense." Dirk dismounted and tied his horse's reins to a nearby marble post. "Let's go."
Gar dismounted too, and the companions climbed up toward the temple. The going was easy, but it was a long, long way at a constant climb, and Miles's legs began to ache. He kept glancing at Ciletha with concern, but she seemed to have less trouble than he, only breathing heavily as she went, and he could appreciate that.
Finally the stairs ended, and the pillars of the temple loomed above them, far higher than they had seemed from the ground below. Miles stared up at them, awed.
Then the voices of the hounds broke into a frenzy.
"The animals have come out of the forest and struck your trail," the robot informed them.
Miles turned, his stomach sinking-and saw bolts of lightning strike down from the towers, sheeting between the city and the hunters. He cried out in dismay, "I didn't mean that people should die so I could escape!"
"None have died," the robot informed him, with such total assurance that it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. "The energy struck far before them, but it has been enough to give them pause. You may hear what they say." It made no move, but voices suddenly spoke, floating above the steps before them. The hounds barked and whined in fear, and a man's voice called, "The hounds won't go ahead now, bailiff."
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