Sander stripped the pad and his own bags from the koyot, and Rhin padded into the night for the food he would hunt on his own. Neither of the fishers had returned, and Sander began to wonder if Fanyi's control over the beasts was as complete as he had believed. But the girl showed no signs of concern as she slipped out of her drab overdress. The first flickers of the fire turned both her girdle and massive necklace into bands of glitter.
Once more she made the cakes of meal and set them to bake on the thin griddle. Sander checked his supply of darts carefully, for he wanted to enter the forest with a weapon ready. Then he gathered a pile of wood, a supply he hoped would last the night.
As she watched her baking, Fanyi began to croon to herself. The words were strange to Sander. Now and again he caught one that had a meaning, but the rest—it was as if she sang in some tongue that was hers alone.
"Have your people always been by the river?" he asked abruptly, breaking the somnolent spell of her crooning.
"Not always—what people has lived always in any land?" she asked in return. "Were we not all shaken, dispersed, sent wandering by the Dark Time? Our story is that we were on a ship upon the sea—driven very far, carried inland by the waters that swept the world. Many of those aboard died or were dragged away by the lick of the waves. But some survived. When the sea withdrew, their ship was left rooted upon land.
That was in the days of Margee, who was mother to Nana, and Nana was mother to Flory, and she bore Sanna." Slowly she recited names, more than he could count as she spoke them, until at last she ended, "and I am true daughter to the fourth Margee. The ship's people met with others who wandered, and so was Padford born in the days of my grandmother's mother. Before that we had lived by the sea to the south. But we came north because of evil in that place, for suddenly there was a new mountain born, even as it was in the Dark Time. It spewed out fire and running rock so that all life must flee or be utterly eaten up. What of your people, Sander-smith?"
"We came from the south and west, as I have said. Our Rememberers know—but they are the only ones with such knowledge. I am a smith." He held his two hands into the firelight flexing their strong fingers. "My mysteries are not theirs."
"To each man his own mystery." She nodded as she swept the cakes deftly from the griddle and held one out to him. "It is said that the first Margee had the power of healing, and thus she taught those of her blood-line. But also we have other powers." She bit into the round of hot bread, her ornaments flashing with every movement.
"Tell me," she said after she had chewed and swallowed. "Why did you take out-rights, cutting yourself away from those of your blood-kin, to hunt what you may never find? Is it because you lost face when your people would not name you smith?"
Somehow she was able to compel the truth from him.
"I was tested and ready—my father would have spoken up if matters were otherwise. But Ibbets was his brother and long had wanted to be smith. He is good enough." Though Sander grudged saying that, he must admit it. "Yet he never seeks beyond what has already been done. I would learn more—why there are some metals that we cannot handle though the Before Men did, what were the secrets that they held that we have lost. My father knew that this lay in my mind, but he always said that a smith has a duty to his Mob. He must not go off a-roving, hunting that which may not even exist."
"When my father died, Ibbets made the council listen—saying that I was one with a head full of dreams, that I was too young and heedless to be a full smith. He"—Sander's lips tightened—"he generously offered to take me as apprentice. Apprentice! I who had been taught by a far greater worker of metal than he dreamed to be! He was jealous of my father, but in me he saw a way to make sure that the smith magic passed to him. Thus I took out-rights. Let me but learn every one of the Before secrets, and I can make Ibbets seem the apprentice!"
"And this is what you wish the most—to humble before your Mob the man who humbled you?" she asked, brushing her fingers together to rid herself of the crumbs of the bread.
"Not wholly that—I want also the smith secrets." The old longing came to life in him. "I want to know how they worked that they could do so much more than we. Were they truly so much greater in mind than we that such learning came easily to them? What we must seek so hard and long, did they know instantly? Some of the ignorant—my father claimed them so—speak now of men who learned so much that the Great Power thought to wipe them from the earth. Because they were evil they had to be melted down as one melts a collection of metal fragments to cast anew. Perhaps this may be so. But I seek to know what I can learn—"
"And your Rememberers were of no aid?"
Sander shook his head. "We were not a people who lived in the great cities. Rather we were scattered in a country that was left much to itself. We have always been herdsmen, traveling with our animals. Our Rememberers recall the churning of the country and that a handful of our people fled and survived with a few of our animals. But beyond that I have only my own clan-line teaching, for we are from a family of smiths and were not one with the Mob from its beginning. My first Man came out of the wilderness to join with those wanderers when they had already been roving for nearly a man's lifetime, fleeing ever from the loss of all they knew. What we have kept is not knowledge of the Before Time, but the skill to use our hands."
She sat with her legs curled under her, her fingers playing with the small bags that hung from her girdle. Now she nodded.
"Knowledge that was needful to keep life within the body, men held to that. But what lay beyond was often forgotten. I wish, however, that I might talk with your Rememberers. Much could be learned, even from unknown words that now lack meaning. Such words are many—we do not know for what they stand—things? actions?" She shook her head slightly. "So much lost. Even more will go with those ravening Sea Sharks." Now her rounded jawline set, and she looked bleakly into the fire.
"Life was good in Padford." She spoke as if assuring herself of the past, as if she were no longer aware he existed. "Our planted land grew wider each year. We did not have to depend alone on the bounty of the sea—which can fail at times—as first we did when we settled here. The Traders came in the mid-summer. Twice my mother bargained for books—real books—those records which the Before Men kept. She read them—a little—and what she knew she taught me. We might have learned so much more, given the time." Her hand cupped the pendant on her breast.
"This was given her by him who fathered me. He came with the Traders, yet was not of their breed. Rather, he was a seeker of lost knowledge, journeying from a far place. He was making a book himself, recording all that he learned, for his clan was a clan of men wiser than any I have heard of. And he left this necklace so that, if my mother bore a child, that child might seek out the greater source of learning. He taught her its secret—" When she fell silent, Sander could not help asking:
"What became of him?"
"He died," she returned flatly. "A sickness and dire pain came upon him. He knew the secret of it—there was a part within his body that was diseased, that should be cut out. But my mother had no skill to cut to save. So he died. Then she swore by the Great Moon that when she bore a child, that child must learn and learn so that the old knowledge would be once more ready to serve her people. But she and I, we were bound to the kin, we could not go a-seeking such learning at our own will. We must be there to talk to the waters at the setting forth of the fishing boats and there to bless the sowing of the fields so that more grain would grow. Our blood line set these duties upon us. Now—I go to seek what this key will open." She still fingered the pendant. "But by the Great Moon, I would that my seeking had not come through such a means!"
The night had gathered in. Only their fire made a barrier against the crowding shadows. Sander stood up and whistled sharply, suddenly conscious that Rhin had not yet returned. When the koyot did not bark in answer, he was once more uneasy. Perhaps Rhin had to range far in the hunt. It was not unknown for him to sometimes spend half the night on his own. But in this unknown land Sander wished him closer.
"He is not near." The girl spoke calmly. "They have their own lives, do the furred ones. We cannot demand more of them than they willingly give."
"I do not like it," muttered Sander, though he must agree with her. His association with the koyot was a voluntary one on both their parts. To compel Rhin was to lose him. But he was unhappy now as he settled himself to a doze beside the fire, nodding awake now and then to feed a handful of wood to the flames.
The girl did not bed down as quickly in her day cloak. Instead, she took from one of those belt bags four small white cubes, each of their sides bearing dots. Smoothing out a hand-sized portion of her cloak, she tossed the cubes with a flick of her wrist, so that they tumbled onto the site she had prepared, and lay with one surface up. She bent over them eagerly, scanning the dots that were uppermost, and then frowned. Sweeping them up she tossed again. The result seemed to satisfy her no better, nor did a third try. Her frown was much deeper as she tumbled them back into her bag. She sat for a time staring into the fire, and Sander caught the faintest of mumbles, as if she now spoke words of her own Power, intended for her ears alone.
At last she gave a sigh and curled up in her cloak as if she had performed some necessary action but was not reassured by that. He thought that she slept. If she was as alarmed about the non-return of the fishers as he was about the missing Rhin, she gave no outward sign.
The koyot was not back when Sander stretched the stiffness from his limbs with the coming of light. He was thirsty, and a heft on the leather water bag told him that it was too near empty. Rhin's instinct was what Sander depended upon to locate some stream or spring, and Rhin was not here. Of course, the koyot could easily follow their trail as they traveled on, but Sander wanted him now. Once more he whistled. His call was answered, not by the short yelp he hoped to hear, but rather with the screech of some bird within the wood.
Fanyi sat up. She pulled from one of her own bags a handful of dried, dark red fruit, which she divided meticulously into two shares.
"Your furred one is not near," she said.
"And yours?" he demanded with unusual harshness.
"No nearer. I think they hunt in there." She pointed with her chin at the wood. "As I said, they have a liking for trees."
"Can they find water?" He shook the bag a little to emphasize their need.
"If they wish." Fanyi's reply was calm enough to be irritating. "But there are other ways. I know some of them. It would seem we must now carry our gear ourselves." She regarded the bags Rhin had borne. "Well, that I have also done before." She spread out her cloak and began wrapping in it the bags she had brought, lashing them into a neat bundle.
Sander finished the dried fruit in two swift gulps. The taste was tart, and the small portion came nowhere near satisfying his hunger. He hoped that somewhere in the forest facing them he could get a shot at meat on the hoof. He needed the strength of such a meal.
Now he made a back pack, using Rhin's pad for its outer casing. The smith tools were the heaviest items, and silently he fretted over the non-appearance of the koyot. Rhin was a formidable fighter, he was also fleet of foot. Foreboding pricked at Sander. They had no knowledge of what might exist in this new country. He had no idea either of how he could trail the koyot and find him, if the animal had fallen into some peril.
The pack weighed heavily on his shoulders. However, he was determined to make no complaint, for the way Fanyi marched confidently ahead into the shadow of the trees was, in a measure, a challenge. Sander went forward with his bolt thrower ready in his hands.
The trees were enormous, with a huge spread of limb. Some leaves were already turning yellow or scarlet, a few wafted down now and then to join the centuries'-thick deposit of their kind under foot, a soft carpet that deadened the sound of their own passing.
For the first time Sander was conscious of something he had not foreseen. On the open plains one could fix upon some point ahead and have it as a guide. Here, with one tree much like another, how could one be sure one was heading in a straight path, not wandering in circles?
Sander stopped. Perhaps it would have been better to have stayed on the seashore, using that body of water for a guide. Fanyi paused and glanced over her shoulder.
"What is it?"
He was ashamed of his own stupidity, yet there was nothing he could do but admit it now.
"We have nothing to follow—this is all alike."
"But there is something. I have been a way in before, and there is a road—a north road—"
A road? Her confidence was such that he could not help but believe that she knew what she was doing. But a road—!
Fanyi beckoned, and, hesitantly, he followed. Already he could look back and see nothing but trees. Nor could he be sure where they had entered this maze of trunks and low-hanging branches. But she showed no bafflement.
And it was only a short time later that they came out onto a more open space. Here the drift of leaves and earth did not quite cover a surface badly holed, fast being destroyed by creeping roots that attacked it from both sides, yet unmistakably still an artificial surface.
It ran straight, and the trees that framed or attacked it were yet young, so there was enough light and freedom to see quite a space ahead. Fanyi waved him on.
"See? It is as I said. This was once a Before Road. Much has been destroyed over the years, but still there is enough to see. Here it bends"—she gestured left to the west—"that way it comes, but from here it goes north—at least what I know of it does."
Sander could trace the old curve; the road must never have been in the open. He wondered why. It seemed to him much easier to build such a highway across the plains than within the grip of the woods. And it was narrower than the two great roads the Mob knew in their ranging. They had been so wide that even the Rememberers were not able to tell how great the armies of people must have been when they used such ways.
The surface here was so rough they had to go slowly and warily that they not be tripped up or catch an ankle disastrously in some hidden hole. But the road did lead them to water.
Sander had caught the sound of a stream before they reached the jagged edge of the span that had once bridged it. Small flies danced over the sun dappled surface, those in turn hunted by much larger insects. There was a swift current, but the stream was so clear that he could see the fuzzy brown stones forming its bed. Taking the water bottle and leaving his back pack with Fanyi, he scrambled down to rinse out the container, then fill it brimming.
Since the bridge was gone, they made use of some of its blocks, now green-slimed and water-washed, as stepping stones to reach the far side. Heartened by the discovery of water, their most pressing need, Sander began now to look around seriously for a method of relieving their other want, food.
There were birds enough, but they were small and flitted about, hidden, except for sudden flashes of wings, by the trees. He had seen no animals since they had entered this place. And though he watched the stream very carefully now, its glassy surface revealed no movement below. There appeared to be no fish sizeable enough to show.
Fanyi caught at his arm, nearly knocking him forward into the water. He turned his head to speak impatiently when the sight of her face startled him. She was so plainly listening!
Rhin! A burden heavier than he had been aware he had carried lifted from him. Sander pursed his lips to give the summoning whistle. But Fanyi's hand shot out, pressed fiercely across his mouth to silence him.
Now he strained his ears to catch what she must have heard, something, he guessed from her actions, that was a dire warning.
It was not quite sound, rather a pulsation of the air—as if sound had given it birth very far away. He pushed her fingers aside and asked in a voice hardly above a whisper:
"What is it?"
She was frowning, much as she had the night before when she threw her cubes to read some message from them.
"I do not know," she answered, in a voice even lower than his. "But it is of some Power. I cannot mistake that."
Of her vaunted Powers he knew practically nothing. Among his people they had a healer. But that one claimed nothing beyond a knowledge of how to set bones, treat wounds, and use some herbs to ease disease. They had also a vague idea that an Influence greater than themselves existed. But that It concerned itself with man was hardly probable. If so, why then had the Dark Time been sent to nearly kill off their species, unless Before Man had in some manner provoked a blood-feud with that Influence. If that was so, the Mob had reasoned during the few times they applied themselves to such speculation, it was now better for man not to appeal to or worship such an Influence.
Sander thought that it might be different with Fanyi. Some of her claims—such as farseeing—were matters strange to him. Also there could be other peoples on earth now, not so wary of the Influence, who might have made some pact with It. From such might come these Powers of which she so confidently spoke. Since this land was known to her, he was willing to be guided by her—up to a point.
"What kind of power?" he whispered once more.
She had gathered up her pendant, held it now cupped in her hand, and was staring into it as if she could read an answer from the points of light glittering on its surface.
As he waited for her to reply, Sander began to wonder if they were even closer to her legendary cache of knowledge, and if this emanation, whatever it might be, was the signal of its being. But whatever Fanyi thought, she was not pleased with what she learned by looking at the pendant. She shook her head slowly.
"It is not what we seek." Her words were decisive. "There is some darkness ahead of us. Yet this is the way—"
"We can go back," Sander pointed out. "It would be easier to go along the seashore. We should have tried that in the first place."
The wood, which earlier had been a promise of cover, now began to take on the semblance of a trap. He wanted none of it—rather to be out in the open where one could see an enemy approaching, even if one was equally naked to that other's sight. "Come on!" As she had earlier grasped his shoulder to rivet his attention, so now his hand closed about her arm.
She gave one more long look at the pendant and then let it fall back against her breast.
"All right," she agreed.
He had half expected an argument and was relieved that she surrendered to his will so easily. Perhaps Rhin's higher sensitivity had already warned the koyot against this place of trees, and that was why the animal had not joined them.
They recrossed the stepping stones and made the best time they dared, scrambling back the way they had come. Always now, Sander was aware of that distant beating. It seemed to him that his own heart thudded heavily in time to it, that he could feel its vibration throughout his body. Nor did it lessen as they fled. Rather it remained the same, as if whatever caused it kept always at the same distance behind them, slipping steadily along their trail.
It was when they reached the curve in the ancient road that the trap was at last sprung and from a direction Sander had not expected. As they passed beneath the wide-spreading branches of one of the giant trees, there fell over them the tangles of a net. Before Sander could struggle, it was jerked tight, entrapping him past any hope of freedom. The strings of the net were not the braided hide ropes he had always known. Rather they were coated with some sticky substance, which, once touched, clung tightly to what it covered. Movement on the part of the captives only wound them more completely in its fold.
He could not reach his knife, he could not even drop the useless dart thrower, which was glued now to his hands. A second sharp and vigorous jerk took him from his feet, landing him face down on the carpet of decayed leaves. He fought to turn his head enough so that his nose and mouth were not closed by that stifling muck and so caught a distorted side view of those who had so easily taken them captive.
The small creatures dropped from the tree branches, chattering, to aid those already on the ground. They were furred in patches and all they wore in the way of clothing were short aprons of woven vines. Fur grew along the outer parts of their arms and legs, in mats across their chest and shoulders, thicker yet on those bellies that bulged a little above the vine cords supporting their aprons. In contrast, their faces were smooth, but unlike the olive-toned skin showing on their hairy bodies, their faces were red and wrinkled.
Sander could understand nothing of their clicking speech, could detect no weapons save wooden clubs. He saw one of those just as it descended toward him. Pain exploded in his head felt as if the blow struck, but he did not altogether lose consciousness.
Still bundled in the net, he was being lifted. The sour body odor of the forest dwellers was sickening. They were grunting, perhaps in protest to his weight, as they carried him along. One must have noticed that his eyes were open and that he had some awareness of what was happening, for a forest man—if men they truly were—thrust his crimson face closer to Sander's and snarled. The stranger shook his club ominously directly above the captive. Sander needed no further hint. It would serve no purpose to allow himself to be beaten to a pulp here and now. Obediently, he lay quiet.