At the end of the passage, a ramp led downward again. The bars of light were fewer here; thick patches of shadow lay between each. At first the slope was gradual and then it grew steeper. It would seem that whatever the Before Men wished to hide here they had buried deeply to insure that it would not be disturbed by any upheaval of the earth.
Nor was the air as good. This supply had an acrid smell leading Sander to cough now and then. He remembered Maxim's threat—that what Fanyi had come this way to seek had it own defenses, an idea that made him proceed with added caution. What had Maxim called it—the Great Brain? Could a machine think? Sander wished he had paid stricter attention to the Rememberers. Had any of their tales ever hinted at such?
Just as Sander thought that they would continue to descend forever, deeper and deeper into the heart of the world, the ramp straightened out. Here the glow of the wall lights was dimmed by films of long-deposited dust. Underfoot, he shuffled over a velvety carpet of the same. However, it was disturbed by prints. Even in this subdued light Sander caught sight of the fishers' claw-tipped tracks and boot impressions only Fanyi could have left.
It was colder here. He drew up his hood, tightened its string. He could see his breath in small frosty puffs on that too-still air. Rhin fell back, his muzzle on a line now with Sander's shoulder, no longer ranging ahead. Now and then the koyot uttered faint whines of uneasiness.
There was movement in the shadows ahead. Sander came to a halt, freeing his dart thrower, having thrust the weapon he took from Maxim into his belt. Rhin growled, then gave an excited warning yelp. The answer was a clanging sound that had no kinship to anything Sander had ever heard, unless it was the ring of a light hammer against metal.
The thing that trundled forward, weaving in and out of those patches of wall light, was not a living creature. It could not be. It reminded Sander of a round kettle such as the Mob used for a fall feasting. The thing moved on rollers, set beneath its surface, at a steady, though slow, pace. But what erupted from the kettle made Sander wary. For it sprouted a series of waving, jointed arms, all of seemingly different lengths, and they ended in huge claws with formidable teeth. These arms were in constant motion, sweeping the floor, or scraping along the walls, while the claws clashed open and shut. The thing was an opponent no dart could bring down, no matter how skillful the aim might be.
Rhin uttered a series of heavy growls, pushed past Sander to snap at the trundling metal thing. But the koyot kept well beyond the reach of the arms that now swung toward him. The clatter of the claws grew louder as they opened and shut faster and faster.
The koyot danced just beyond the extreme limit of the arms, snapping in return, but always retreating. Sander reached for the rod he had taken from Maxim. If this weapon had any power, it could be their only chance against a moving machine.
Still holding the more familiar dart thrower in his left hand, the smith sighted along the tube, which he now cradled in his right, then he brought his thumb hard against the side. But not before he whistled Rhin back out of range, for he could not be sure what was going to happen in that attack.
A beam of light shot out past the koyot, to catch the kettle shape dead center. For a moment there seemed to be no effect. Sander began to stumble backwards, Rhin once more beside him, for those flailing arms with their trap claws clattered in a snapping whirlwind toward them.
Then, where the beam was touching that swell of metal, there appeared a spot that grew deeper and deeper red. The ray appeared to be burning into the thing's body. But the moving machine showed no discomfort; if anything, its rush toward them speeded up. One of those clutching set of claws caught on a dusty light pillar, tightened, and crushed it with the ease of a knife slicing through a meal cake.
Sander whistled again to the koyot, signaling retreat. He wanted to turn and run, but if this Before Weapon was to be stopped, he must go slowly and keep the rod steady, eating in upon the same glowing spot.
A darker heart grew in that circle now. The force of the focused light must have eaten through the outer casing of the creature. Sander held the beam steady, backing away, trying to match his retreat to the pace of the thing's forward roll.
Then—there came a flash of light so intense and searing that he was blinded. Crying out, he grasped for Rhin. He could see nothing, but his hold upon the koyot pulled him back until his heels hit the end of the ramp that had brought them here. Only then was he aware that the rumble, the clashing sound, which the thing had made, was stilled. It must at least have been stopped by the ray.
Still Sander retreated farther, partway up the ramp, blinking his eyes, striving to regain his sight. The fear that the explosion of light might have indeed blinded him was a terror that he flinched from facing.
Rhin pulled free from the smith's hold, padded away in spite of Sander's voice commands. He heard a clatter and the growling of the koyot. Then Rhin bounded back, nudged Sander with his shoulder.
Warm metal brushed the smith's hand. He put his weapon away, groped outward until his hands closed upon a jointed rod. He felt it with his fingers and found on the end of it a claw frozen well apart.
He had put the thing out of action! But his elation at that fact was tempered by his blindness. What if—if he was never to see again!
Sander put the thought firmly out of his mind. The crawling thing had been stopped. And there was no need to retreat again. He had Rhin—the koyot would give him warning if any more such disputed their road. Better go forward than skulk back into the intricate complex where he had left Maxim. Let the madman discover that Sander was in any way helpless and he would have no defenses.
Taking a tight grip on the lashings of Rhin's harness, he moved forward. His confidence was heightened as he began to capture, if dimly, a small suggestion of light to one side. He must be sighting one of the wall lamps.
Rhin paced slowly, then stopped with a whine. Sander, still keeping his grasp on the koyot's lashings, used the detached arm Rhin had brought him to sweep the floor before him. Metal rang against metal with a clatter. They must have reached another destroyed thing.
Sander knelt and felt about with both hands. Broken metal, hot to the touch, lay in a mass. Slowly and carefully he pushed and piled the pieces to one side. His eyes were watering now, moisture trailing down his dust-powdered cheeks. He could see a little, enough to clear their way.
Then, once more with Rhin for his guide, he started on, tapping before him with the iron claw to be sure nothing lay there to stumble over. His eyes smarted, but he was careful not to rub them with his dusty hands. Was the machine just destroyed the only one roaming these ways? At least, unless the weapon had exhausted itself in that attack, he had a counter for such. But he remembered what Fanyi had warned about her light; that these tools and weapons of the Before People had limited lives, and he might have expended the full force of Maxim's tube in that single action.
Sander sneezed and coughed. Fumes, which must have come from the destruction of the clawed sentinel, made his throat hurt, attacked his nose. Rhin wheezed in answer. But at least the smith could pick out of the general fog ahead new gleams of wall lights. And the sight of those heartened him. Maxim had said that whatever Fanyi sought was well protected. Could this machine have been one of those protections?
The smith fingered the arm, touched gingerly the teeth in the claw. It was a vicious thing, like enough to those weapons Maxim had boasted were controlled by those who had built this place—disease and all the rest. What kind of people had they been? The White Ones, the Sea Sharks killed. But not at a distance, and not without risking their own lives in return. There had been that female thing that the forest men had given them to, the monster on the island. Again, those were flesh and blood. And so, in a manner, to be understood. But this metal crawler, those other weapons Maxim had listed with such mad satisfaction—
More than the dust and the fumes struck at Sander. His own revulsion against those who had fashioned this lair made him sick. Had they all been mad from the beginning? Was Maxim merely tainted with a legacy that was his from birth?
The corridor took an abrupt turn. Herein the air was slightly better, though the lights were still befogged when Sander looked at them. He swept the arm back and forth, stirring the dust, his hearing alert to any sound that might come from their own passing. It was thus that he became conscious of a kind of beat or vibration that might have been carried by the stale air itself. Where had he felt this before? The sensation was dimly familiar. In the forest! When they had been snared by the tree men!
But there were no trees here, nothing overhead except the walled roof of the corridor.
"Rhin?" He spoke the koyot's name aloud because that familiar syllable somehow linked him with another living thing.
The koyot was silent, save that his nose touched Sander's cheek for an instant. There was the feeling of awareness, of danger to come, flowing from Rhin to him more strongly than the man had ever felt such a warning before. Still the koyot was quiet. Not even the near soundless growl he sometimes used could be felt through Sander's hold on him. The smith searched within his jacket, brought out the thong with its knot of wire, and put it once again about Rhin's throat.
They moved on, aware of what was akin to the beating of a giant heart not quite in rhythm with the pump of Sander's own blood, but near enough to it. The smith blinked his dust-assaulted eyes. Finally he stopped, freed the water bottle from its lashing, wet part of a spare shirt, and held the damp, cool compress on his closed lids. Three such applications and his sight cleared, showing him details of the dusty hall.
With the disappearance of the haze, he could also see a door ahead. It was shut fast, and there was no sign of a latch or knob or any way of opening it. All that was visible on the smooth surface fronting them was a hollow at about eye level. Reaching the barrier, Sander strove to insert his fingers into that hollow, to so exert pressure that the surface would either slide to one side or lift up. But it remained stubbornly immovable.
Would the cutting power of Maxim's rod clear a path for them here?
Sander fingered the Before Weapon. There was a risk in what it might do. Use of the beam might trigger some retaliation. Yet he could not just give up and walk away.
Fanyi must have gone through here—what method had she used? Was it that gift from her father that had perhaps brought her safely past the guardian he had beamed down? He ran his fingers about the depression in the door. Though he was only guessing, Sander believed it was just of a size that Fanyi's pendant might fit into.
Being not so equipped with any answer to the barrier, he held the rod closer to one of the two wall lamps that flanked the door and studied it. This was the spot he had pressed on the rod to bring about the destruction of the sentry. But there were four other such markings on the part of the rod that formed the hand grip.
There was only one way to make sure—that was to try. Waving Rhin back so that the koyot might not be engulfed in any sudden disaster born from the smith's recklessness, Sander set the firing end of the tube directly into the edge of the door's depression.
He pressed the first button.
There was nothing at all! Nothing until Rhin gave a howl and lowered his head to the floor and pawed at his ears. Quickly Sander released that button. Was this what Maxim had used to bring the animal to submission?
Rhin shook his head vigorously; his growls were deep-chested. Now he looked at Sander, baring his teeth.
The smith was almost argued out of trying the next of the marks. He had no wish to unleash upon himself Rhin's full anger. And he did not see how he could make the koyot understand that he had applied such torment, not by wish but through ignorance alone.
To go at once to the full power of the rod—yes. But first make sure he was not temporarily blinded a second time. Sander draped his head in the dampened shirt, tucking its folds into the edge of his hood. He sent Rhin back down the corridor, then set the rod firmly into the depression again. Bearing down hard, he applied the full force of whatever power it held.
Even through the improvised shield across his eyes, he caught a flash of white fire. There was a clank of tortured metal. Then carrying acrid fumes, a blast of damp heated air hit him full in the face.
He also heard something else. There was no mistaking that savage hissing. The fishers! And by the sharpness of the sounds they now faced him.
Sander pawed the shirt away from his face. The door had split into two, providing a space wide enough perhaps for both him and Rhin to squeeze through, but still not clearing the whole of the archway. Light, stronger than that of the corridor, streamed out, showing very clearly both Kai and Kayi, one on either side, humped and ready to spring into battle. Beyond them was a confusion of objects, brilliantly lighted, that he could see clearly.
To harm the fishers was unthinkable. He raised his voice and called, over the dryness of his throat:
"Fanyi!"
The vibration grew stronger, beat with greater power, while the hostile sounds made by the fishers became louder. But the girl did not answer.
Had she been injured—trapped by one of the protective devices Maxim had hinted at—thus arousing her companions to battle anger? Or had she purposefully set them here on guard to ward off any interference with what she would do? Either answer could serve, but it would not remove Kai and Kayi.
They must know his scent and that he had been accepted by Fanyi and had traveled with her. Would that small familiarity aid him now? Behind him he heard the pad of Rhin's feet. There must be no fighting between the animals.
Sander retreated a few steps, eyeing the fishers narrowly. They made no move to advance from the other side of the door he had forced open. He searched in his food bag, brought out some of those small cakes that tasted so much like fresh meat, the ones Rhin had gobbled with a visible relish. To each of the fishers he tossed three of these.
Kayi sniffed first at her offering. She tongued one of the biscuits and then gulped it whole. A second one was crunched between her jaws before her mate consented to try his share. They still watched Sander as they ate, and their hissing continued. But they licked up each crumb avidly as if they had been long hungry.
Sander could not touch them as the girl did, that he was wise enough to know. But he squatted down, bringing out two more cakes, tossing one to each. As they snapped them up, he spoke in a voice he made purposefully level.
"Fanyi?"
Perhaps he was as stupid as Maxim thought him to be, to try to communicate with the fishers by voice. How could his repeating a name mean anything to animals still watching him so intently that their stare was daunting? But patiently he repeated that name the second time.
"Fanyi?"
Kai reared on his haunches, his head now well above that of the squatting smith. From this position the fisher need only make one pounce to carry Sander down under rending jaws and claws. Kayi stared, but she did not assume the same upright position.
"Fanyi—Kai—Kayi—" This time Sander tried the three names in linkage. What might be passing through the fishers' alien thinking processes he could not even guess.
Kayi stopped hissing. She bent her head to lick her right paw. But the bigger male had not changed what seemed to Sander his challenging posture.
"Fanyi—Kai—" Now the smith only used two of the names, aiming his voice at the big male, with a slight turn of his head that cost a special effort of will, because to let Kayi out of his full sight was a risk.
Kai dropped to four feet. Though Sander could not read any expression on the fisher's face, somehow he sensed that the beast was puzzled. And beneath that puzzlement was something else. Fear? The man could not be sure.
Taking a last risk, Sander got slowly to his feet and made a movement forward. "Fanyi!" he repeated for the fourth time with a firmness he was not sure he could continue.
Kayi backed away. Her eyes swung to the looming back of her mate and returned to the man. She uttered a sound that was not a warning. Kai hissed, showed his fangs. But Sander, taking heart from the attitude of the female, moved a step closer.
The male fisher subsided to four feet, backing away, still hissing, but yet retreating. Kayi had turned around and was padding off. Finally the big male surrendered, though he still eyed Sander suspiciously.
Rhin followed at the smith's shoulder, crouching a little and making a struggle to win through that door slit. But the fishers did not threaten now. Together they had turned their backs on Sander, seemingly satisfied, and were on their way, threading among incomprehensible masses of glass and metal that seemed to fill this chamber.
Here the lighting was brilliant, a glare enough to cause Sander trouble with his impaired sight. And the room was alive. Not alive as he knew life, but with a different form of energy, one that caused colors, some strident, some richly vivid, to flow along through tubes and otherwise bathe some of the installations. The warm and humid heat of the place made him unlace his hood, unfasten his jacket.
He had no desire to pause to look about him. The play of the colors, the wholly alien atmosphere of this place, repelled him. Once he found Fanyi they must get out of here! His flesh tingled and crawled as if some invisible power streamed over him.
Sparks shot from the band of metal he wore. It was warming up. Still, he would not take it off. Cold iron had saved him twice, and he clung to what he had learned might work for him, the more so when he now was surrounded by what he could not understand, dare not even examine too closely.
The fishers guided him directly to a very small room on the other side of the place. It was hardly larger than a good-sized cabinet. Its walls were clear, so that one could look through them. Seated within, her hands clenched about the pendant still lying on her breast, was Fanyi.
Though her eyes were wide open, seemingly staring straight at him, Sander realized she did not see him. What did she see? He grew chill for a moment in spite of the heat of the outer room. Expressions passed fleetingly one after the other across her face. There was fear, a kind of horror, revulsion—
Her bush of hair stood erect, as if each strand were charged with energy from root to tip. Small beads of sweat gathered on her upper lip and forehead and rolled down her cheeks as if she wept without ending. There was a terrible stiffness about her whole body, which betrayed some tension beyond the ordinary.
Kayi pawed at the front of the cabinet, but there was no shadow of recognition on Fanyi's distorted face. She was like one sealed into a nightmare with no means of escape.
Now her body began to jerk spasmodically. Sander saw her mouth open as if she were screaming. But he could hear nothing. He ran forward and caught at the bar at waist level on the door, hoping it was the latch. Against it he exerted all his strength. It did not budge.
It was as if she were locked in past any hope of escape. He could see her eyes rolling from side to side, her head moving back and forth. He grabbed one of the darts from his case, inserted it between the bar and the door and tried to pry it up.
Now Fanyi's whole body was jerking steadily as if she had no control over her own muscles. There was no longer any sign of intelligence in her face, her mouth fell slackly open, while from her lower lip drooled a thread of spittle.
Sander fought the door. The dart snapped in his hands, but not before he had forced a small amount of movement. He snatched a second shaft and this time dug with all his might at the line of cleavage just beyond the bar. The dart point caught and held; he pounded it deeper.
There was a splitting crack as he gave a mighty heave upon the bar, stumbling back nearly off balance as the whole front of the cabinet yielded at last. Fanyi slumped with it. Sander was just in time to catch her totally inert body and lower her gently to the floor.
For one moment of such fear as he had never before known, he thought her dead. Then he felt the pulse in one thin brown wrist, saw the rise and fall of her breasts in fast, shallow breathing. Her eyes were rolled up, so he could see little but white between the half-closed lids.
Not even getting to his feet, he crawled and dragged her with him, away from the prison in which he had found her, seeking temporary shelter in a corner of the room as far from that cabinet and the rest of these devilish installations as he could get her. There he settled her head on his folded coat. Her hands were still so fixed about the pendant that he had to work slowly and with all the gentle force he could exert to loosen them finger by finger. He was sure that the pendant itself was part of the danger that had struck at her.
She still breathed with those quick and shallow breaths, as if she had been running, while her skin felt cold and damp in spite of the heat that filled the room. The fishers came to her, Kayi crowding in on the far side, stretching her length beside that of the girl as if, with the additional warmth of her fur-clad body, she could give some comfort.
Fanyi muttered and began to turn her head back and forth on the pillow Sander had provided. Clearly, unslurred, she began to speak, but he could not understand the words that came out, save that now and again he thought he caught an echo of the voice that had addressed him out of the air.
He drew off his second jerkin and put it over her, then caught her head in a sure grip while he dribbled a little water between her lips. She choked, coughed, and suddenly opened her eyes.
"Dead!" her voice shrilled. "Dead!"
Though she gazed straight at him, Sander realized that Fanyi saw something else—not his face, perhaps not even this room.
"I—will—not!"
Fanyi struggled to sit up until Sander caught her shoulders, pushed her gently down again. He was afraid. The eyes the girl turned upon him held no recognition. Had her experience in that prison box made her as mad as Maxim?
"You do not need to do anything"—he strove to keep his voice under even control—"which you do not want to—"
Her mouth worked as if it were nearly past her power to get out word sounds.
"I—will—not—" and then she added, "Who are you? One of the machines—the machines—?" Again her tension was rising, her body grew rigid under his touch. "I will not! You cannot force me—you cannot!"
"Fanyi—" As he had when greeting the fishers, Sander repeated her name with authority, with the need to win awareness from her. "I am Sander, you are Fanyi—Fanyi!"
"Fanyi?" She made a question of that. And the import of such an inquiry chilled Sander even more. If she could not remember her own name—! What had this devilish place done to her? He was filled with a rage so powerful that he wanted to flail out about him, smash into bits everything in this chamber.
"You are Fanyi." He spoke as if to a small child, schooling the anger out of his voice. "I am Sander."
She lay still, looking up at him. Then, to his relief, a measure of focus came back to her eyes. She might have been peering through a curtain to seek him out. Her tongue tip moved across her lips.
"I—am—Fanyi—" She said slowly, and gave a great sigh. He watched her relax, her head turn on the pillow he had improvised, her eyes close. She was asleep.
But they must get out of here! Perhaps if he could lift her up on Rhin—That tingling, skin-crawling sensation he had felt ever since he had entered this place was growing worse. There was something else—a kind of—nibbling was the only word Sander could find to describe the feeling—a nibbling at his mind! He brought both hands up to the wire circlet. It was warm—hot—he should take it off—much better—better.
The smith snatched his fingers away. Take that off! That was what this—this presence here wanted! He looked over his shoulder quickly. So sure was he at that moment that there was another personality here that he expected to see Maxim, or one like him, coming down the aisle between the installations.
Cold iron—
Swiftly Sander beckoned to Rhin, and when the koyot crowded beside him, he lifted Fanyi and fastened her on the animal's back. Kayi snarled at his first move to disturb the girl, then apparently saw that Sander meant her no harm. The smith made her slumped body fast, so she lay with arms dangling on either side of Rhin's neck.
When he was sure she was secure, Sander started back through this nightmare chamber that was haunted by the will plucking strongly at him. Could the unknown take over the animals, turn Rhin and the fishers against him?
That a sensation which they disliked and feared had reached the animals he knew by their incessant snarling and the way the fishers swung their heads back and forth as if seeking an enemy they could identify. Rhin growled, but he did not hang back as Sander urged him forward.
They passed the broken-open block in which he had found the girl. With that behind them, Sander drew a breath of relief. He did not know what he had expected might reach out of it—he had begun to believe that he could not really trust his own senses or impulses here.
The outer door was before them, and the fishers flashed through the crack. However, the opening was too narrow for Rhin carrying Fanyi. Sander unstrapped his tool bag and, as he had done in the tunnel out of the city, took up the largest of his hammers.
With all his might he swung it first against one side of that slit and then the other, dividing his energy, until, at last, the leaves of the opening yielded with a harsh grating and Rhin could wedge through successfully. Sander did not return the hammer to his bag, rather carried it in one hand as they went. Like the iron band he wore, the feel of its familiar heft in his hand gave him more confidence than he gained in handling either the dart thrower or the rod weapon from Before. This was part of his own particular calling, and as a smith he was secure. At this moment he needed such assurance.
The fishers did not range well ahead as they were wont to do outside. Rather they paced along, one on either side of Sander and Rhin. Now and again they uttered soft hisses, not of anger and warning, but simply communicating with each other.
There had been no sign of consciousness from Fanyi since she had said her name, claiming her own identity. That she now lay in an unnatural sleep Sander was certain. He wanted to get her as far away from the place he had found her as he could.
They passed the scrap heap of the machine sentry. At another time Sander would have liked to study the remains of the thing, perhaps appropriate other bits of its arms. Now he had a feeling that the less he allied himself with anything belonging to this maze, the more sensible he would be.
Rhin climbed the ramp, Sander steadying Fanyi with one hand and carrying the hammer in the other. That climb seemed twice as long as the descent had been. But it was good to emerge into fresher air, fill his lungs again with that which was not tainted with the acrid odors so strong below.
In the upper hall Sander decided to head back to the room where he had found the larger food machine. Though the fishers had wolfed down all the biscuits he had fed them, he guessed that they were not yet satisfied. Also perhaps he could coax from that strange supplier of nourishment something to revive Fanyi.
Rhin went forward confidently and Sander did not doubt that the koyot was retracing their journey. The feeling of pressure, of nibbling, was growing less, the further he withdrew from the chamber below. If the seat of that disturbance lay there, perhaps there was a limit to its influence, though it had reached out before to draw him here. He had no intention of taking off his iron protection to test its strength.
They reached the room he sought. There he loosed Fanyi and lowered her from the riding pad, once more stretching her on the floor with his coat under her head, and though she did not open her eyes or seem conscious, she shivered.
Recklessly, he thumbed the buttons on the machine, tossing to the three animals the meat-tasting biscuits that they snapped up eagerly. But at length, one lucky choice provided him with a capped container that was nearly filled with a hot liquid having the smell and consistency of a thick soup.
Cradling Fanyi's head against his shoulder, Sander called her name, roused her so she murmured fretfully and feebly tried to escape his hold. But he got the container to her lips, and finally she sipped.
As she drank at his soft-voiced urging, she appeared to welcome the liquid and finally opened her eyes as if to look for more. He speedily got a second helping from the machine and supported her until she finished that also to the last drop.
"Good—" she whispered. "So good. I—am—cold."
Fanyi still shook, visible shudders running through her whole body. Sander managed to get his coat on her, rather than merely laid over her. Then he turned to Rhin, stripping the koyot of all their gear and pulling over the girl the thick riding pad, strong-smelling though it was.
Having covered her as best he could, he called the fishers and they obediently settled down on either side of her, lending their body heat. Only then did he go to the machine and feed himself.
He was tired; he could hardly remember now when he had slept last. And that ordeal in the lower ways had sapped his strength. Dared they remain here for a space? If Rhin and Fanyi's fishers would play guard—
In all his journeying through the rooms of the complex, Sander had come across signs of no other inhabitants. The rooms that he guessed had been intended for living quarters seemed empty of any presence save their own as they passed through. Still Sander could hardly believe that Maxim was the sole remaining inhabitant of the place. And any such would have weapons and resources past his own knowledge. The sooner they themselves were out of this underworld, the better. But even as Sander thought that, his head slumped forward on his chest and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. There were too many chances of facing disaster still to come, and he could not meet them worn as he was now. Rest was essential.
He made a further effort and gave hand signals to Rhin. The koyot trotted to the far door and lay down across the entrance, head on paws. He would doze, Sander knew, but he would also rouse at the first stir beyond.
Sander stretched out, the haft of his hammer lying under his hand, on the other side of Kayi. The strong smell of the fishers was somehow comforting and normal, part of the world he knew and trusted, not of these burrows.
"Sander—"
He turned his head. There was an urgency in the call that woke him out of a dream he could not remember even as he opened his eyes. Fanyi was sitting up, his coat slipping from her shoulders, her face drawn and worn as if she had not yet thrown off the effects of some daunting and debilitating illness.
"Sander!" Now she stretched forth a hand to shake his shoulder, for Kayi no longer lay between them.
He sat up groggily and shook his head.
"What—" he began.
"We must get out!" There was a wild look in her eyes. "We must warn them—"
"Them?" Sander repeated. But her excitement reached him, and he got to his feet.
"The Traders—the rest—all the rest, Sander. Your people—everyone!" Her words came with such a rush that he had trouble understanding them. Now it was his turn to lay hands upon her, steady her so he could look straight into her wide eyes.
"Fanyi—warn them against what?"
"The—thinker!" she burst out. "I was wrong—oh, how wrong!" Her hands clutched his wrists with a grip tight enough to be painful. "The Thinker—he—it—will take over the world—make it what it wants. We shall all be things, just things to do its bidding. It has summoned the White Ones—is pulling them here to learn—learn monstrous things. How to kill, destroy—"
Once more she was shaking. "It was made by the Before Men, set to store up all their learning because they foresaw the end of their world. And it did—by the Power, it did! Then, when it was ready, something twisted it—maybe the Dark Times altered what the Before Men set it to do. They—they could not have all been so evil! They could not! If I thought so—" she shook her head. "Sander, if I thought that in my mind lay such inheritance from them, then I would put a knife to my own throat and willingly. That—that thing, it remembers the worst. It wanted me to serve it. And it was taking me—making me into something like it when you came. We must get out of here! I know that it controls this place and—"
She paused, looked to Sander. "But it did not hold you. Was that because you did not have one like this?" She pointed to the pendant Sander had not taken from her, not knowing whether if he did he would remove some protection she needed, as Maxim had suggested.
"It can take over one's mind, one's will. It—it promised me"—her lips quivered—"all I wanted, all I sought. I was only to go into its direct communication chamber, open my mind. But what it poured into me—hate—Sander, I thought that I hated the Sea Sharks, but I did not know the depths, the black foulness of true hate, until that taught me. And it wants everything, all of us, to serve it. Some people it can rule quickly. The Shamans of the White Ones, it has already made its own servants. Do you understand, it summons them now—to learn.
"There are things stored here, other things that can be made, easily made with that to teach. And it shall then loose death. Because in the end it wants no life left—none at all!"
"You say 'it' and 'that,'" Sander said. "What is 'it' in truth?"
"I think"—she answered slowly, again shivering, her hands loosing their hold on him to half cover her mouth as if she hardly dared speak her belief aloud—"that part of it was once a man—or men. It has a kind of half-life. And through the years it has grown more and more alien to man, more and more monstrous. Those who stayed here—while they tended it, it kept to a little of the purpose for which it was made. But as those grew fewer, feebler, it grew stronger and finally cut all ties with those who were left. Some—like my father—went out to see what had happened to the world because they were not influenced by that so much.
"But the ones who stayed—Have you seen the one who calls himself Maxim?"
Sander nodded.
"He is a thing, though he knows it not. For a while yet he will serve as eyes and ears for that. It still needs humans if it would contact the uncorrupted outside, bring in fresh minds—Sander, it feeds upon men's minds! It strips from them all their knowledge, all their spirit; then it fills them with what it wants—hate and the need for dealing death!"
"As it tried to do to you. And how were you saved?" Sander demanded.
"I am Shaman born, Shaman trained. Not as the Shamans of the White Ones, who use men's blood and terror to summon up their power, but working with life and not against it. It could not reach that part of me it wanted most, the source of my Power. Though it might have blasted through, had you not come. And you, Sander, why did it not seek you?"
"Cold iron—it is smith's power." He was not sure that the band about his forehead had saved him, but he thought that it had.
"Cold iron?" she repeated wonderingly. "I do not understand—" Then once more her fear flared. "Out—Sander—we must get out! It will not let us go willingly, and I do not know what Power it can command."
He had summoned Rhin with a snap of his fingers and was repacking the burdens. Then he lifted Fanyi once more to the riding pad.
"Can this thing of yours control the animals?" He wondered if their companions might now prove to be the weak lines in their small company.
"No." She shook her head. "Their minds are too alien, lie beneath the range of it. Kai, Kayi tried to stop me from going. I—I used my power to hold them off." Her face was stricken as she glanced at the fishers.
"Maxim used this on Rhin." Sander held out the rod. "Press this and Rhin is in agony." He indicated the stud on the side.
"How did you get it?"
"From Maxim," Sander said with satisfaction. "I left him tied up. He gave me all his attention, so Rhin brought him down." The smith paid credit where it was due. "And it was Rhin who traced you."
"Let us get out—quickly!"
Sander agreed with her urging. He did not know how much to accept of the crazy story she had gabbled. This business of draining a man's mind and refilling it— But the suspicion, which had long been his, that the Before Men had far more than the Rememberers knew, was enough to make him agree they would be much better out of this place. He had no longer any desire to learn anything connected with this complex. Fanyi's descent into hysteria, her fear, brought grim warning that there might be far too high a price to pay for learning what lay on the other side of the Dark Time. He was willing enough to head out and away with all the speed they could muster.
The smith was not sure of the way they had come, but he depended on the koyot to nose out the back trail for them. As they went, Fanyi appeared to regain her control somewhat. Sander caught glimpses of things in the rooms through which they passed that intrigued him a little, that under other circumstances he would have paused to examine more closely.
But Fanyi looked neither right nor left. She stared straight ahead as if the very fervor of her desire to be free was forceful enough to speed their retreat.
"How many people still live here?" Sander asked, after they had gone some way in silence, during which he had found himself listening for some hint that they were not going to escape so easily, that there would be someone or something in ambush.
"I do not know. Certainly very few. It needs more to serve it. I think there is some service it cannot itself perform that keeps it alive. Therefore, it wants more empty minds to control. For the rest—it will kill. It hates—" Tears spilled from her eyes and she did not try to wipe them away. "It is sick with hate, swelled with it as a corrupted wound swells with evil matter. It is foul beyond belief!"
Sander had kept a careful lookout as they traversed the rooms. Again he was sure he saw nothing to suggest that any had been recently occupied. Was Maxim perhaps the last remaining servant the thing had? But Maxim had not considered himself so—he had spoken of a "Great Brain" that had withdrawn from communication with man.
Now the smith had a new cause for worry—this departure was far too easy. He had expected to meet some opposition before now. Fanyi claimed vast power for the thing she had met; surely if it controlled the installations here, it must be working to capture them again.
When nothing moved, illogically his wariness increased. Fanyi still rode, looking only ahead. Sander stole glances at the koyot, the fishers. They padded along at what had increased to a trot, though Sander had not urged that. The animals were alert; he saw as well as sensed that they were using their own methods of testing what lay about them. But they gave no warning of any ambush or attack.
Their party came at last to the chamber where the chairs were lined around the oval, which was not a pool. Sander pushed ahead here, ready to handle Maxim. But the chair in which he had tied the madman was now empty; not even cut or broken bonds remained. Sander swung his hammer, weighing its strength in his hand.
"He's gone. I left him here."
For the first time since they had started, Fanyi turned her head a little, her gaze shifting to Sander.
"We must find the way out," she told him, and there was a new note in her voice, as if some of the hysteria was again rising in her. "The way—it can be hidden."
Her hand moved toward the pendant and then away. "This thing—I can use it perhaps. But also—it is of this place. Through it one can be controlled."
"Then do not try it!" he answered her. "Leave our passage to Rhin, to Kai and Kayi. I will depend upon their senses before I will on mine."
The animals pattered on out of the room of the chairs into that which held the webs. Those that were intact blazed high with light. Rhin threw up his head to howl with a note Sander had heard out of him only once before—that time he had touched the wrong button on the shaft of the rod. To his outburst were added cries from the fishers. The animals pawed at their ears, slobbered, and foamed. Sander felt a strange pain in his own head. Fanyi held both ears, her face twisted in agony.
To this, Sander could see only one answer. Though his body was suddenly awkward and his coordination faulty, he tottered to the nearest of those flaming filaments. Raising the hammer despite an involuntary twitching of muscles he had to fight to control, he brought it down to smash the webbing.
Sparks burst; there was a throat- and nose-rasping odor in the air, but Sander staggered on to the next web and demolished it with a blow, then the next and the next.
He moved through a world that had narrowed to hold just those alien creations, his only thought that they must be destroyed. Sometimes his aim was faulty, and he did not bring the object he fronted into fragments with one blow or two, but had to stand wavering and pounding for three or four misdirected and weakened swings until he had shattered it. He had cleared one row; he was aiming now for the first installation of the second. Around his head the band was a searing brand of fire that dimmed his thoughts. Only instinct kept him going. Three—another—
Then, as it had come, so was the outside pressure gone. Sander sank to his knees, panting heavily. His head felt light; he was dazed. But the light that had hurt his eyes had ebbed.
"Sander!"
That shriek aroused his half-conscious mind, jerked him around.
Maxim was there, raising a rod. His face was contracted; there was nothing human remaining in his bulging eyes. He was going to—
Sander made the greatest effort of his life, lifting the hammer—Maxim was too far away to pound. There was no time to try for a dart or even the rod tucked in the smith's belt. He whirled the hammer once around his head and threw it, despairingly, sure that he was already Maxim's victim.
A furred fury burst past Sander, Kai's shoulder striking his as the animal leaped. That touch, light as it was, knocked the smith off balance. He fell against the base of one of the machines, but not before he saw the hammer strike, not with the head but with the edge of the shaft against Maxim's chest.
The man staggered. Sander felt a searing heat lick his own upper arm. Then Kai made a final leap, carrying Maxim down, the rod whirling out of his grasp. Maxim screamed, a sound that was cut off with shocking suddenness as Sander clawed his way once more erect, drawing himself up by pulling on the base of a shattered installation.