For two days they plodded among the dunes. Save for the birds, shellfish and crabs they foraged for, this land might have been bare of any life. Far to the west showed the dark line of the forest. Between them and it was a waste in which little grew but tough grass in scattered clumps and some brush twisted by the salt winds into strange shapes.
On the third morning they reached an even stranger desert land. The sea, too, now curled away to the east, so what they faced was a slope leading downward into territory that had once been covered by ocean but was now dry land. Here rocks had necklaces of long-dead shellfish, while brittle carcasses of other sea life lay half-buried around outcrops of wave-worn stone.
Sander wanted to alter their path westward—hoping to skirt this desert. But Fanyi hesitated, her eyes again on her pendant, in which she seemed to trust so deeply.
"What we seek lies there!" She pointed straight ahead, out into the sea-desert.
"How far?" countered Sander. He had little liking for the path she suggested.
"I cannot say."
"We must be more sure. To go out there—" He shook his head. "We have finished the last of the meal. Even crabs and shellfish will not be found there. Though we filled our waterskin at the pool among the dunes this morning, how long think you that supply will last?"
"And if we turn west, how many days may we be adding to our journey?" she countered.
He surveyed what lay to the west. The beach land they had been following narrowed to a cliff barrier, on which he could see trees. To return to any wood after their experience—no, not if there were a way to avoid it. But he had to have some assurance that they were not heading into nowhere without a better guide than Fanyi's vague directions.
True, he could sight some grass and a few bushes that had rooted out on the old sea bottom. It was not quite so desolate as he had first believed. And there were rocks in that uncovered landscape that would provide them with landmarks, so that they need not wander in circles once they were out of sight of this land that had once been the shore.
"A day's journey," he conceded. "Then, if we find nothing—return."
The girl seemed hardly to hear him, though she nodded. Now she allowed the pendant to drop again and surveyed what lay ahead with an eagerness obviously not lessened by any forebodings.
Rhin trotted confidently along. But the fishers prowled back and forth, venting their displeasure by hissing, following the others only when Fanyi coaxed. It was very apparent that they, at least, had no liking for this open country.
For a space, the bottom was sandy and fair walking. Then there began a gravelly stretch studded with many water-worn stones. This footing shifted and turned under any weight. The land they left must have formed, Sander deduced, one arm of a great bay in the Before Days.
Sun shone through a huge upstanding fence of wide-spaced rib bones belonging to some sea creature, or perhaps they were the timbers of a ship so overlaid with the bodies of shelled things that all that remained was as if turned to stone. Sander was not sure which.
The sea-desert was not evenly floored, for there were hillocks and dips. In the hollow of one small valley they came upon a little pool ribbed with white salt, perhaps a last remnant of the lost sea.
On and on; now that Sander glanced back he could hardly see the true land from which they had come. And his doubt concerning the wisdom of traveling in this direction grew in him. There was a kind of rejection here—as if the life he represented was resented, even hated by the ancient desolation.
At length, they reached a deep cut and looked down its rugged sides. Below flowed a river. How to cross? The fishers were clambering down the side, heading for the water below. He and Fanyi might also do that, but Rhin could not. They would have to go off course—west again, even farther out into the desert, hoping to discover a place where there was an easier crossing.
The river solved one of their problems, however, for Sander saw the fishers dipping their muzzles into the stream, obviously drinking sweet water.
They trudged along the edge of that gorge. Sander's hope was proven right, the rock walls began to sink down while the river widened. They detoured around masses of encrusted objects that he thought were ships, to come at last upon something else, the remains of a wall of massive blocks, which were far too regular in pattern to be the work of nature. Beyond that were other stones that might have once marked the beginning of a road, as well as two great fallen columns, all so overlaid with sea growth that it was plain they were very old, perhaps even old when the Before Time had begun. He marveled at the work, and Fanyi traced along the edge of a block with her finger tips.
"Old—old—" She marveled. "Perhaps there was even another Dark Time when the world changed to bring in the same sea that our Dark Time drove out. If we only knew—" There was a wistfulness in her voice that he could well have echoed.
They dared not linger to explore what the ancient sea had concealed, pushing on resolutely to where the river now flowed out to the sea, well away from the Before shore they had followed.
Dusk found them on the new seashore, so once more they camped by the sound of beating waves. Here, too, was driftwood enough for a fire. And the fishers, who had followed the river, came into camp each dragging a large fish. Fanyi hailed their catch, a delicacy her people knew but were seldom able to eat.
As the fish broiled on sticks before the fire, Sander leaned his back against a water-worn stone and stared out over the river. There was a current to be sure. But with the bed so much wider and shallower here, he thought they could gain the other side in the daylight without too much exertion. Then following it westward once more they could also depend upon water as long as they paralleled its flow. Though the river had taken them far off the course Fanyi had set, perhaps it was not to be counted a major difficulty after all.
Fanyi laid out a pattern of small shells. "It is a wonder of the sea, Sander-smith, that no two of these is ever quite the same. The shape may be alike, yet the markings—there is always some slight differing. There are some the Traders prize, and those will buy a length of copper wire, even a lump of rusted iron, which still has a good core. I—"
But what she would have said Sander never knew. He had been watching Rhin. Now he made a swift gesture with one hand and reached for his dart thrower. The koyot bristled, his lips drawn back to show his teeth, his eyes near-slits.
Sander listened intently. Fanyi crouched by the fire her hands resting on the backs of Kai and Kayi, who were also hissing softly.
Now came a splashing—from the sea or the river? Sander could not be sure just which direction. Rhin growled again.
"A fire torch!" Sander half-whispered to Fanyi.
Instantly she caught up a thick branch of the driftwood, thrust one end into the flame. When that branch caught, she whirled it around, to make the flame-blaze glow. With that in hand, before Sander could stop her, she clawed her way to the top of one of the large stones, swinging her improvised torch outward.
He scrambled up to join her, a dart laid ready to shoot. A croaking sound came from out of the dusk. Then the light of the torch caught a dark figure standing on the edge of the river, its body glistening as if it had just crawled out of the flood.
The thing stood like a man, erect upon its hind limbs. But for the rest—this was not even as human as the forest men had seemed. Pallid skin hung in folds about its torso, while its upper and lower limbs looked flat. It had a great gaping mouth from which issued the croaking, and above the mouth were bulbous eyes. But—
Around its middle was a strip of something that appeared to be scaled hide. Into that were thrust two long, curved, deadly-pointed lengths that might have been fashioned, Sander thought, of bone, not metal.
"Do not shoot!" Fanyi cried out. "It is afraid. I think it will go—"
Even as she spoke, the thing took a great leap backward, sinking into the river. The flame of the torch did not reach very far, so it was almost instantly out of sight as it swam.
"Fire—it does not like the fire." The girl spoke with conviction, as if she had, in those few seconds of confrontation, been able to read the water thing's mind.
Rhin passed below them, racing to the edge of the river, howling madly at the swift-flowing surface. It was plain the koyot had made up his mind that the river dweller was dangerous.
If they were to cross the river to continue their journey, Sander thought, they must plunge into the water in which the thing was clearly at home. He did not like the prospect that faced them with the coming of daylight.
"What was it?" Since this land was more Fanyi's than his, he turned to her for enlightenment. She shook her head.
"Again—such a creature I have not seen before. But there are tales that once something from the sea came and broke the nets at Padford, taking also fishermen who were unwary. It was after a great storm and the water turned red. It stank and so many fish died men had to burn them in great heaps upon the shore. Later there was no more trouble. But that was in my mother's mother's time, and none saw clearly the sea things. It was thought that they had some intelligence—for the nets were slashed where the cutting would do the most harm."
"It"—Sander slid down to sit on her perch—"the thing did not look much like a man."
"The creature is a water thing," she agreed. "Listen!"
Above the wash of the sea waves, the gurgle of the river, they caught a sound, though distant—a croaking. Was the visitor they had sighted only the scout of a larger party? Perhaps for them to remain near the river was folly. Still Sander hesitated to move out into the dark.
In the end they decided that, with the fire and the sentry service of Rhin and the fishers, they might stay where they were. As Sander improvised a second torch to aid in hunting more wood, Fanyi brought from one of the belt pouches a thick rod about the length of her own palm. She turned the bottom of it firmly to the right and then touched a place on its side. Straightway there flashed the light that had transfixed him on their first meeting.
"This is a Before thing," she told him with pride of ownership. "It was also my father's. But he said that it has limited life and after a while it will die. However, now we can use it to advantage."
Sander shook his head. "If it will die, then it should be saved for a time of greater need. Since you say these water things fear fire, fire we shall use."
With Fanyi holding a torch he made a harvest of driftwood from some distance on either side of their camping place, piling pieces high, hoping this would last the night. The fire itself—unless there was warning of the water dweller's return—they would keep low.
Once more they divided the watch. This time neither the fishers nor Rhin relaxed into deep slumber. Rather they dozed, rising at intervals to pad out into the darkness where Sander believed they were making rounds of the camp.
He himself listened for croaking. However, it had died away. Even when it was his time to rest, he kept nodding awake to listen and watch the fire.
With the morning he went down to the river, carefully judging the chance of crossing at this point. Fanyi insisted that what she sought lay beyond, north and now a little west. If they returned to land, retracing all the way they had covered yesterday, they would still have the river to cross in order to reach their goal, and it could well be patrolled, even back to the edge of the inner country, by the water creatures.
Therefore, dare they attempt to cross here and now?
The river current cut sharply into the new sea. Sander did not like the way pieces of wood he threw to test the strength of that current were whirled so swiftly past.
Secondly, he gauged the river depth with a long piece of wood. Close to the shore he thought it about thigh-high. Beyond that, he believed they might have to swim. And they would have to fight the current also in order not to be swept out to sea.
This meant going back upstream for a distance to allow some leeway. He knew the rivers of the plains. But, except in the spring when they were in spate, none of them had ever presented such a problem as this.
"Can you swim?" he asked Fanyi, when she joined him. His own prowess, he knew, was nothing to boast of. But at least, he thought, he could keep himself afloat by his efforts long enough to reach the other bank. Always providing their visitor of the night before, or his fellows, did not arrive to make things difficult.
"Yes, and you?"
"Well enough to cross this."
"It will be better"—the girl echoed his own thought—"to cross here, I think. If we return we shall lose much time, and it may be more difficult farther back than easier."
They prepared for the attempt as well as they knew how. Their bags were lashed high and tight on Rhin's back; they stripped off their clothing to add to the burdens on the koyot. Staff in hand, Sander gingerly stepped into the water. The flood was chill and his flesh shrank from it. The tug on his body grew stronger as it crept upward from his thighs to his middle. Cautiously he probed the bottom ahead for a possible quick drop in footing that might be disastrous. Rhin plunged in beside him, a little downstream, and Sander could hear a loud splashing behind that told him Fanyi and her companions were following.
He had taken the precaution of bringing a hide rope from his stores. This was anchored to Rhin's back pack, then looped around Sander's waist, the other end in turn knotted to Fanyi's belt.
Now the water was shoulder high, and he had to fight to keep upright in it. A sudden slip of his pole left him threshing without footing. Choking and sputtering, he began to swim clumsily. Within moments his body brought up against Rhin's. The koyot fought to keep his own way, as both of them were borne downstream.
Fear grew in Sander. What if they could not break the hold of the current? Before starting, he had given Fanyi strict orders that, if he and Rhin were overborne, she was to slash the rope that looped them together so she would have a better chance for herself. However, the pull was still taut because she had not done so.
Rhin swam lustily, and Sander made some way beside the koyot, not daring to try to see how much closer to the sea the current had already dragged them. He floundered on, feeling as if he were as much entrapped now by the water as he had been by the forest net.
Finally the koyot found footing and plunged up and on. Sander swiftly linked a hand in the rope making fast the load the animal carried. A moment later one of his feet grazed an underwater rock painfully, and he scrambled on until he could rise once more.
Keeping that hold on Rhin, he splashed and fought his way up the opposite bank. The rope about his middle was so taut as to nearly jerk him backward. He slewed around and caught at it with both hands, fighting to pull it in.
Down in the river, Fanyi's arms flashed into the air and disappeared again. Already she had been carried a little past the point where Sander and Rhin had found footing. Sander nudged the koyot with his shoulder, so that the animal added his strength to the pull.
By their combined efforts, Fanyi's body curved around in the stream. She was at last being drawn up current toward them. Before Sander had time to think what might have happened if they had failed, she waded ashore, her mass of hair water-slicked against her head.
Down the bank toward them flashed the fishers. Of the whole party, they had made the smoothest crossing. Now they paused to shake their bodies furiously, sending drops flying in all directions. But Rhin had swung around to face the river, and he snarled.
Sander caught sight of V-shaped ripples cutting the surface of the water. He jerked the rope that still linked him with Fanyi.
"Come on!"
He began to run, pulling the girl along with him, very conscious of his present defenseless state. Rhin trotted abreast of them, but the fishers played rearguard, snarling at what traveled in the depths of the flood.
Sander did not pause until they rounded some blocks of stone that gave him a momentary sense of safety. Then he wriggled free the dart thrower from the burden Rhin bore, loosening the ropes in the process to leave the koyot also stripped for action.
Scrambling on Rhin's back, he climbed from it to the top of the tallest rock. There he lay flat, to survey the back trail. By the morning light he had a clear view. Out of the water trooped a number of the same creatures as the one they had sighted before. There were perhaps a dozen of them, though they presented a slightly different appearance from the first one, as each wore over his body—or its body—a rounded carapace that might have been fashioned from some outsize shell. Their round heads were covered in the same fashion, and there were even plates strapped about the arms and legs. They had certainly come armored and ready to do battle.
Their weapons were long spears bearing wicked-looking barbed heads, designed, according to Sander's craft-wise eyes, so that the barbs would break off in a wound. Their croaking sound was more hollow, perhaps because of their helmets, but they kept up a continual chorus as they hopped forward.
Although if they were river dwellers, they were able to handle themselves on the sea-desert, for they did not hesitate to advance. The fishers did not close on them instantly as they had with the forest people. Instead, Fanyi's beasts wove back and forth, just out of spear range, threatening and hissing, yet retreating warily.
Sander took careful aim and fired. His dart struck home, but was partly deflected by a sudden shift of his target, so that it lodged in the shell near the "shoulder" of the creature, but missed the vulnerable patch between chest shield and helmet.
Still his attack appeared to shake the enemy strangely. They ceased advancing and bunched. The one who had been his target worried at the dart shaft until he worked it out of his shell covering. Then he held the weapon up as if considering it unique. Their hollow croaking grew stronger, sounding agitated. Or was that only wishful thinking on his part, Sander wondered?
He had already set another dart in the groove. But the river creatures offered such small unprotected areas that he dared not fire again until he was sure of better success. Fanyi, once more clothed, stretched out now beside him. Her hand covered his on the stock of the thrower.
"Let me hold them while you dress," she urged. "Under this sun your skin will burn badly if you do not."
Sander could already feel the heat of the sun. But to leave his post to her—
"Go!" She nudged him hard with her shoulder. "I have used such weapons as this before." There was an angry note in her voice, as if she resented his hesitation.
The competent way she handled the weapon was evidence that she spoke the truth. He laid three more darts on the stone, then half tumbled down to dress.
Back again on the rock's crest, he discovered that the fishers had withdrawn to the edge of the "wall" on which he and the girl lay, while the river creatures had apparently recovered from their surprise over the dart and were determinedly crossing the sand and gravel toward them. The creatures hopped rather than walked in men's fashion, yet they were not slow.
Just as Sander joined her, Fanyi fired. The leader of the water pack dropped his spear. With a loud croak of dismay, he dangled his "hand," a webbed member with four equal-length digits. The dart had pierced that to form another finger set at an angle.
Once more the enemy bunched to examine their fellow's hurt. Sander wondered at tactics that seemed stupid to him. These amphibians were well within range of the weapon, yet they gathered around their wounded fellow, interested only in what had happened to him rather than the party on the rocks. The creatures' seeming disregard of any counterattack by the besieged was puzzling. Perhaps, having spears for weapons, they could not understand a dart that came out of the air. They might even be so stupid or of such an alien way of thought that they did not connect those darts with the party they attacked.
As Fanyi surrendered the thrower to him, she also offered some advice.
"Do not kill unless you are forced to. Death might excite them to vengeance."
"How do you know that?" Sander demanded.
"I do not know—no, rather, it is that I cannot find words to explain." She seemed as puzzled now as the river creatures were over the dart. "It is just as I know what my furred ones think and feel. They are disturbed—they fear. But I believe that they can be roused by hate so that their fear will be smothered. Then they will not care how many of them die if only they can reach us. Now—they are of two minds, they half-believe we are such as they cannot profitably hunt."
Sander could not quite accept that the girl knew this for certain. She must be just guessing. Yet he did not loose any darts even at targets that were tempting. He would wait out this present round of the enemy's croaking to see what they would try next.
Now that Sander had time to examine more closely their own temporary refuge, he noticed for the first time of the continuity of the blocks of stone on which they rested. This, too, must be some very ancient work of intelligent beings. The sun beat down so fiercely that he squirmed back and forth across the surface on which he lay. To linger here was to invite another kind of disaster.
The party of water creatures moved at last. Two hunched down, holding their spears straight up in the air. The others, including the one with the dart-transfixed "hand," hopped toward the river.
Sander slipped down. The time to move was now. He guessed that the enemy had gone for reinforcements. And he was sure they themselves could handle the two remaining, if they were trailed on into the desert.
Fanyi agreed to his suggestion. She had been standing, her pendant once more in hand, turned northwest, gazing back along the course of the river down which they had traveled the day before.
"We shall have to stay away from the river," Sander cautioned. "Water is their element, and they will make the most of it." Luckily he had filled his bottle this morning before they had crossed the stream. Only, as he surveyed the shimmering heat of the sea-desert, he regretted that there was not a second or third vessel to sling with their gear.
On the other hand, the bare expanse of sand and stone, open to the full rays of the sun, ought to daunt the water people. If they were indeed the amphibian race he judged them to be, they would not choose willingly a long excursion over this scorched land.
In fact, Sander decided, as he examined the territory ahead with narrowed eyes, it might be well if they themselves chose to travel more cautiously. He was well trained in his people's way of herding under the night stars, using those distant points of light for a guide. At night also they would have fire for a weapon so could travel nearly as well as by day. However, first they must find a place in which to shelter until sundown.
Once more he stated aloud his estimate of their situation. That preoccupied expression smoothed from Fanyi's face and she dropped the pendant.
"Our seamen also steer by the stars," she replied slowly. "And I think that the heat of the day here is such as would make any journey an ordeal. Yes, you have judged rightly."
Again Sander felt a prick of irritation. Of course, he had judged the situation correctly! He did not relish that tone from her, hinting that she must weigh what he said and then agree or disagree. Her statements that her will and power alone had kept her people safe and that it was only because she was elsewhere they had been raided had sounded, and still did, preposterous to him. Shaman she might claim to be, with her tricks of foreseeing and the like, but his people held no faith in anything save their own decisions and actions, and neither did he.
They started off at a jog trot, the fishers bringing up the rear, Rhin once more carrying all their gear except for the bolt thrower Sander held at the ready. The smith had also thrust a half-dozen more bolts into his belt, close to hand. But he wished that he had more. The loss of the two bolts he had already shot was grievous when his armament was so limited.
Rhin, in spite of his pack, forged ahead, ranging back and forth as he was wont to do on the plains when hunting. Sander paused frequently at the beginning of their trek to look back.
If two armored amphibians were indeed pursuing, they managed to make such excellent use of the unevenness of the ancient sea floor as to remain invisible. The farther the fugitives ventured into what was increasingly a salt-encrusted and sere desert, the surer Sander became that beings used to living in water could not trail them hither.
That did not make him relax his vigilance as they headed northwest by his reckoning. Fanyi now and then gazed at her pendant as if it were a sure guide. He himself chose the old method of fixing upon a permanent point, a feature that could not be lost to sight, and aiming at that. Then, having reached that goal, he selected another.
Thirst followed as their boots stirred up a fine dust impregnated with salt. To know that the river with its endless bounty was closed to them, unless sheer desperation forced them to its dangerous flow, irked Sander.
He had experienced heat on the plains, and had ridden far during seasons when water was scarce. But then he had also known the country well enough to assess the chances of finding a spring or one of those seasonally dried streambeds into which Rhin dug with the instinct of his kind to uncover seeping moisture. Where in this forsaken land could they find such?
Every time they paused to rest, the smith climbed the nearest elevation to look, not only back but ahead. If they could just hole up, out of this punishing sun and wait until nightfall.
During the fifth such survey, he caught sight of a thing that lay a little to the east of their present course. They were used by now to the relics of ancient ships, their encrusted shapes even furnishing several of the landmarks by which Sander traveled. But this was something out of the ordinary.
In the first place, Sander was sure that he had caught a glint of metal. Secondly, the shape he now studied was totally unlike anything they had sighted before. It was long and narrow, in comparison with the other skeletons of lost vessels, and it lay a little canted to one side, its broken superstructure pointed toward the rock on which Sander balanced.
Also it did not seem so aged. One end was crumpled up against a rise of reef, but otherwise, Sander believed, it appeared nearly intact. He thought that it might have been left thus by the falling of the sea that had uncovered this new land. It offered the best shelter he had seen so far.
If they could find a way inside that hulk, it would be what he had sought for them. And Fanyi eagerly agreed.
As they approached the strange ship, Sander saw that his first valuation of it had been deceptive. It was larger than he had thought. The outline seemed to puzzle Fanyi, for she commented wonderingly that it was not like any ship she knew.
Once at its side they were dwarfed by it. Though the plates that formed it bore streaks of rust, yet the metal beneath had withstood the passage of time surprisingly well. Sander thumped the surface, judging that under a thin crusting of rust it was firmly intact.
Any entrance must be made through the deck that slanted well above them. He unwound the hide rope that had lashed the pack to Rhin and hunted out one of his largest hammers. This he tied with well-tested knots. Then he bade Fanyi stay where she was, while he rounded the narrow end of the ancient ship to the other side.
There he whirled the end of rope weighted with the hammer about his head and threw. Twice it clattered back, bringing flakes of rust with it. But the third time it caught so securely on some portion of the superstructure that his most energetic jerks could not dislodge it. He began to climb and moments later balanced on the slope of the deck. Facing him was a stump of a tower broken off as if some giant hand had twisted a portion free. There was no other opening he could see.
He crossed the slanting deck to look down at Fanyi. Rhin, released from his back pack, was trotting away. And, though Sander straightway whistled, the koyot did not even look back.
Frustrated, Sander knew this was one of the times Rhin was minded to go his own way. He guessed that might be in search of water. Yet the koyot was heading west on into the desert, rather than east as Sander would expect him to go. The fishers, however, continued to prowl nearby among the rocks, plainly uneasy. Or perhaps they were unhappy at being so far from the green-grown country that was their own.
Sander dropped the rope end, having made very sure the hammer was well wedged into the broken spear of the tower, and Fanyi climbed to join him. She stood there, her legs braced against the tilt of the deck, her hands on her hips, her head turning slowly from side to side.
"What manner of ship was this?" she asked musingly, more as if she meant that question for herself and not for him. "It is surely very strange looking."
Sander edged along to the broken superstructure. Rust streaked its sides, but there was a space to enter within, though dark. Here they needed Fanyi's Before Light, and he asked her to use it. She probed with its beam through the break. He glimpsed the remains of a ladder against one wall leading downward through an opening in the floor. With Fanyi on the deck at the top, shining her light past him, Sander descended, testing each ladder rung as well as he could before he trusted his full weight to it.
He found himself in a confined area, crowded with smashed objects, all sea-stained, that he could not identify. However, the ladder continued. So he went on, reaching a larger room where there were banks of strange-looking cases along the walls. All had been water-washed and were broken. He called and Fanyi lowered the light, then clambered down herself as he held the gleam upward to illuminate those steps. When she stood beside him, she gazed in wonder at the enigmatic fittings along the walls.
"What did they use, these Before Men, to power their ship?" she asked of the stagnant, sea-scented air about them. "There was no sign of a proper mast aloft—nor oars."
Sander was intent on the wealth of metal about him. It was plain that this ship had been the helpless plaything of the great flood in the Dark Time, and waters washing through the hole above had damaged much. Yet most of the metal was still stout. He could scrape away the coating of sea deposits and rust to see it bright and strong underneath.
To his right, behind the jumble of battered wall fittings that made no sense, there was an oval of a door, tight shut. He moved cautiously through the debris that covered the floor to feel about for some latch. There was a wheel there—perhaps one must turn that.
But, though he exerted his full strength of arm, the fitting remained immovable. He drew his hammer from his belt and began a rhythmic attack on the wheel, though the quarters were so cramped that he could not get a proper swing.
At first he merely chipped free an age-long deposit of rust and sea life from its surface. Then the stubborn latch yielded a fraction, feeding his excitement. His blows grew stronger, until, with a sudden give, the wheel moved gratingly. Now Sander delivered a fast tattoo, striking with a smith's eye at the most vulnerable angle.
He had, he believed, brought the wheel to face the notch that would release the door catch. Around the edge of the door were encrustations that sealed it. He turned his attention to chipping them away.
At last he rebelted his hammer and set both hands to the wheel, urging the door open. A puff of odd-smelling air blew out from the dark cave of the interior. Air—under the sea?
Sander snatched the light from Fanyi without any by-your-leave, sending its beam into the room beyond. There was a table there that must have been securely fastened to the floor since all the battering this strange ship had taken in its death days had not loosened it. And it was still flanked by benches. Under them, rolled near to the lower side—
He heard Fanyi catch her breath. They had both looked on death, for that was common enough in their world. But this was no death they had seen before. Those shrunken withered things did not now bear any likeness to man.
"They sealed themselves in," Fanyi said softly, "and then the sea took their ship and there was no escape. Before Men—we look now upon Before Men!"
But these things, still clad in rags of clothing—Sander could not believe that such as these had once been men who walked proudly, masters of their world. The Rememberers had chanted of the Before Men, that they were greater, stronger, far more in every way than those who now lived in distorted lands left after the Dark Time. These—these were not the heroes of those chants! He shook his head slowly at his own thoughts.
"They are—were—only men," he said, never aware until this moment that he had, indeed, always held a secret belief that those ancestors must have been far different from his own kind.
"But," Fanyi added softly, "what men they must have been! For this ship sprang from their dreams! I believe that this is one of those meant to sail under water, not on its surface, such as the legends say men possessed in the Before Time."
Sander had a sudden dislike for this place. What manner of men had these poor remnants been who had sealed themselves in a metal shell to travel under water? He felt choked, confined, even as he had in the net of the forest people. Yes, perhaps after all, the Before Men were of a different breed, possessing a brand of courage that he frankly admitted he did not have.
He stepped backward, having no wish to explore this ship farther. They could clear some of the litter out of that upper chamber and shelter there until night. But these remains should be left undisturbed in their chosen tomb.
"It is theirs, this place." He spoke softly, as he might if he wished not to disturb some sleeper. "Let us leave it wholly theirs."
"Yes," Fanyi assented.
Together they pushed shut that door upon the past and climbed the ladder to the upper level. As they brushed all they could of the debris in the small compartment down the ladder hole to free floor space, Sander came across lengths of wire, pieces of metal that were hardly corroded at all. He recognized them as something the Traders named "stainless steel," another secret from Before, for such did not corrode easily—neither could it be copied. From these pieces, knowing to his disappointment that he could not hope to carry much, he made a judicious selection. Some of the bits could be worked into dart heads, always supposing they could find a place where he might be able once more to labor at his trade.
Fanyi, for her part, combed through the litter for scraps of material on which appeared lines and patterns that she declared were part of the old art of writing. The most portable of these she tucked into a small sack.
In the end they cleared a goodly space in which, cramped though it might be, they could shelter. The fishers refused to come on deck, though Fanyi coaxed them. The pair settled down instead under the shade of the tilted ship. Of Rhin there was no sign. Nor was there any hint that Sander could see, after a searching survey of that part of the surrounding desert he could examine, of any pursuit by the amphibians.
They shared out a handful each of Fanyi's dried fruit, allowing themselves and the fishers each a limited drink. Then they curled up to await the coming of dark.
The day was hot, but lacked the baking, drying heat of the outer world, so they managed to doze. Sander awoke at last in answer to a sharp familiar yelp. There was no mistaking the cry of a koyot. He crawled over Fanyi, who murmured in her sleep, ascending the ladder to the deck.
Rhin reared on his hind feet, his front paws planted against the curve of the ship's side. He yelped again, sharply, with a note that demanded attention. Yet it was not a cry of warning.
Sander swung down by the rope. Rhin nosed at him eagerly. The koyot's muzzle and the hair on his front legs were wet—or at least damp, with an overcoating of the sea-bottom sand plastered there by moisture. Rhin had found water!
"What is it?" Fanyi appeared above.
"Rhin has found water!"
"Another river?"
Sander wondered about that with foreboding. Since their experience with the amphibians, from now on he would look upon all streams warily. But water they must have, or else back trail west completely.
Now for the first time he wished there was some more direct method of communication between man and koyot, that he could ask Rhin a question and learn what lay out toward the east where the other had disappeared earlier. But he was assured in this much: Rhin already knew the menace of the amphibians; therefore the koyot would not lead them into any ambush. He said as much, and Fanyi agreed.
The sinking of the sun removed the desert's direct heat. But they still suffered from the rise of salt dust about their feet. Rhin, once more bearing his pack, trotted confidently forward in a direction that, to Sander, only took them farther from the land. However, his confidence in the koyot was such he was sure the animal knew where he was bound.
Before the moon rose, the fishers suddenly pushed to the fore of the small party, loping forward with their usual sinuous gait until they disappeared into a section of towering rocks that must have once been reefs showing above water. They formed knife-edged, sharp ridges, rather than hillocks that could be climbed.
On the other side of one of these, they came to a second deep drop in the sea-desert floor. But edging this was another tumble of those ancient worked blocks. Among them Fanyi's light (which she had been forced to put to use in this uneven footing) picked out a curving curb. Lying within it was the sheen of water, like a dull mirror that had nothing to reflect.
The pool (Fanyi's light moved in a circular pattern to pick out its circumference) was an oval, far too symmetrically formed to be of nature's fashioning. At one side, some of the curbing had given way, allowing the water to lap over and run away in a small riverlet to the edge of the drop, spinning over it in a miniature falls. The drop there was beyond the power of the light to plumb.
Sander tasted the water. Sweet and fresh. He drank from his cupped hands, dashed it over his dusty face. Small rivulets dribbled down his neck and chest, carrying away the grime of the desert. The fishers plunged their muzzles in deep, sucking with audible gulps. Fanyi followed Sander's example, drank and then washed, uttering at last a small sigh of contentment.
"I wonder who built this," she said, as she sat back on her heels.
Sander brought out their water bottle, dumped its contents into the sterile sand before he rinsed it, preparatory to refilling. A sweet water spring in the midst of the ocean—or what had been the ocean! But long before that, it had been on land. The sense of eons of vanished ages hung heavy about this curbed pool. Men reckoned seasons now from the Dark Time. And the Rememberers had counted some three hundred years from the end of one world and the beginning of this one.
But how long before that had this sea land been uncovered for the first time so that men—or at least intelligent beings—raised these stone piles that even long ages had not completely worn away, titanic building that raging seas had not entirely erased? He felt dazed when he tried to think of years that must certainly be counted, not by generations of men, but rather by the slow passage of thousands and thousands of seasons.
There was nothing here of that aura of despair and loss that he had felt in the undersea ship. Not even a tenuous kinship linked him with these ancient-upon-ancient builders. Perhaps they had not even been human as he and his kind now reckoned humanity. He wished that Kabor, the senior Rememberer of the Mob, could witness this, though there would be no hint of memory that the sight could awaken within his well-trained mind.
They drank deeply again, leaving the forgotten pool. Twice they had had the good fortune to find water in the desert. Sander could not be sure such luck would hold for a third time. It seemed to him that they had best now angle back west. There was no game to be hunted here. Hunger could strike them as swiftly and in as deadly a fashion as lack of water. The sooner they reached true land, the better, whether they were able to locate Fanyi's goal or not.
The smith half expected her to protest when he suggested an abrupt swing west. But she did not, though she held her pendant for a long moment or two, focusing the light on its surface, as if by that she could check the path they must go.
Here they could not make good time. The ground was very rough, for the ridges left by old reefs sent them on long or short detours. Their clothing and their bodies, their faces, even their hair, were thick with sandy dust, and the coats of the three animals seemed matted with it. As the night wore on, Sander kept looking ahead for some shelter in which to wait out the day.
After the moon rose, they gained a measure of light. Fanyi snapped off her Before Torch. It was perhaps an hour or so before dawn when Sander felt a sudden drop in temperature. He had been sweating so that the chill of this new breeze made him shiver. They halted for Fanyi to rearrange her belongings and put on her overcloak. Now they could see their breath issuing forth in white puffs.
The change had come so quickly Sander wondered if some kind of a storm was on its way. Although no clouds yet masked the stars above, nevertheless he was anxious for them to find some secure shelter.
Ahead a dark mass projected well above the surface they toiled across. He strained to see that rise better, wondering if they were approaching a one-time island that now stood like a mountain above the denuded plain.
Fanyi flashed her light, holding her pendant directly in its beam.
"That way!" Her voice rang out as she shifted the light to point ahead, toward the dark plateau. She seemed so sure that Sander, for the moment, was willing to follow her lead without question.