Sander groped for words to make clear to himself the nature of what filled the air and weighed so heavily upon him he could hardly move. It throbbed in waves of raging hate as if the very walls were the living tissue of some vast creature. The fisher drew back, his muzzle foully stained. He reared, snarling, hissing, striking out in the air with extended claws, though there was nothing visible to threaten him.
Sander swayed back and forth. Only his grip upon the base of the shattered installation kept him upright, for that mighty rage sent impulses of force through the chamber to beat at him like physical blows. The wire around his head was hot agony, but Sander fought back. His teeth were bared like the animals'. He voiced, hoarsely and defiantly, the smith's chant.
He was not a thing, he was a man! And a man he would remain. Step by wavering step, he clawed his way along the base that was his support. His attention was fixed on the hammer, which lay a little distance from the body he willed himself not to look at. Kai might have brought Maxim down, but his own blow had opened the way for the fisher.
Sander stooped, his hand closed upon the haft of the heavy tool. And once his fingers were around that familiar grip, he felt a small sense of victory.
He was a man!
With care he turned around to see the fishers drawn close to Fanyi and Rhin. Their fangs were visible. The koyot snapped at the air, white bits of froth gathering at the corners of his lips. The fishers were battle-ready, yet saw no foe to attack.
Fanyi sat erect on the riding pad. Her face was drawn, haggard with strain and pain. With head thrown back, she too mouthed words, words he could not understand. As he tottered toward them, seeming to breast some hostile current as he moved, she met his gaze.
"It will not let us go," she said simply.
"I know the doors—"
"There will be no doors now, not unless it wishes."
He did not want to accept her certainty. But before he could speak again, she grasped the pendant.
"It will let me come to it—with this I can reach it—"
It seemed that when she spoke there was a lessening of the pressure about them, that the rage, which was almost a tangible cloud to wall them in, ebbed a fraction.
"No!" Sander raised the hammer.
"If I go, I can perhaps make terms—"
He could read the truth in her eyes. She knew that if she went she would be lost—as lost as that husk of a man Kai had killed to save them all.
"I am half of the blood of those who have always been its servants. It will listen—"
"To no one," Sander returned. "The thing is mad, you have read that for yourself in its thoughts. You will save nothing, you will accomplish nothing."
"To get me it will bargain." She refused to accept his refusal. "I can get it to let you go forth, you and these—" With a gesture she indicated the animals. "If you are free, you can carry a warning. The White Ones must not be allowed to reach here, the Traders must be prepared."
"If this thing is all-seeing, all-knowing," Sander replied stubbornly, "then it will never let anyone free to carry such a warning. Why should it?"
"There is a difference," Fanyi said slowly. "If I go to it willingly and without any barriers raised, it will gain more of what it wishes than if it must wrest my strength from me. It wants me whole, not maimed. To it you are of no value, save that you have disturbed it by violence. It would be willing to let you go—thinking that would be only for a short space of time until it can muster into its forces those others whom it has summoned. Do you not see—I can buy you time!"
Sander shook his head. "There is no way you can trust any bargain. Listen—" His mind was working faster now, like a runner who has gained his second wind. "Can you find where this thing is?"
She must have had an instant flash of his intentions. "You cannot! Its defenses are complete, there is no way to reach it save by its will."
"But you can go—"
"Yes, if I surrender my will. It will have gained a victory—and you can profit by that."
"Yes, in my way." Sander swung the hammer a fraction. "Can it overhear us?" He glanced from one line of the shattered machines to the other.
"I do not think so. Or else it does not care what we say. It can strive to control us through its own will, and it deems itself invulnerable." A little color had returned to her wan cheeks.
Sander once more swung the hammer. With it in hand he felt himself, somehow apart from the fear of things he could not touch. This "thing" thought itself invulnerable, yet it had not been able to defend the outer part of its own domain without Maxim. And Maxim had died as perhaps none of his kind had done for generations, by the fighting fury of an animal.
The smith had no plans, only a determination. Fanyi's offer to surrender to the thing—that could even be dictated by a residue of its attack upon her when she was imprisoned in the box. Sander was sure of one thing—no trust could be put in any bargain with this enemy. To even try to bargain was a defeat, for the Presence that ruled this complex would consider that to be an admission of weakness. It could promise anything and break the oath as it pleased.
But he did believe that Fanyi might be the key to reach it. He raised a hand, ran a thumb along the band on his forehead. There was no "reason" in the working of the old superstition, yet work it did. If he could take the force of the pain that had struck at him before, they would have a bare chance—a small one, but still it was there.
"You have a plan." Fanyi did not ask a question, she made a statement. Leaning forward on the riding pad, she gazed at him intently.
"No plan," Sander shook his head. "We do not know enough to plan. We can only go—and hope to find a chance—"
"We? But you cannot! It will not let you!"
Once more Sander touched that band. "We cannot be sure of that until we try. You say it cannot deal with the animals?"
"It could not with the fishers. They tried to keep me from it before. Though what it can send against us when aroused—that I do not know."
He remembered the many-armed metal creature. But he now knew how to handle one of them. And he would have two rods, the one he had taken earlier from Maxim and the new one the man had wielded here. Sander went to the crumpled body to reclaim it.
When he returned, he pushed the first of his trophies into Fanyi's hands. With a few words he made plain how it was used.
"You will do this, you are determined?" the girl asked, when he had done.
"Is there any other way? A man holds to life while he can. I believe that we are dead unless we can best this Power."
"I tell you—I think it would let you go if I went to it willingly."
"You will go to it willing, if you agree," he told her. "But I shall go with you. Perhaps it will know that I am with you—but this we shall do—if you go ahead it may believe that you have eluded me, that I once more am hunting. Not too far apart—we must be close enough so that it cannot take you and perhaps shut me out."
Fanyi sat silent for a moment. Then she slipped from Rhin's back.
"This is an action that will bring you to your death, smith. But be sure of one thing. Though I seem willing, it shall not use me for its purposes. I have this." She weighed the rod in her hand. "It can be turned one way as well as the other. And that cannot use a body blasted beyond repair. What of our companions?"
"They, too, can play a part," Sander said. He pulled the gear from Rhin's back. "This we shall leave." He did not add that they might well never need any of those supplies again. On top of the pile he placed his dart thrower, though he kept his long knife, principally because he had worn it so long he was hardly aware that it still hung at his belt.
The smith's hammer that was his heritage, from which he now drew inner strength, that stood for all that was normal and right in the world he knew and the rod that was a part of this—those were his weapons. No, rather his tools, for he did not altogether look upon what faced them as a battle, but rather a need to deal with something that was badly flawed.
"This is your free will?" Fanyi looked now as might a chief about to bind someone by blood oath.
"My will," Sander agreed.
She turned from him to the animals. The fishers came to her and she rested a hand on each head. They stood so for a moment, then they rose to lick at her cheeks. Rhin had watched them. Now the koyot also moved, but he came to Sander, nudging the smith's shoulder with his nose—their old signal that it was well they move on.
"Their will also," Fanyi said.
As Sander had suggested, she took the lead. He allowed her and the fishers perhaps the length of an aisle, then he and Rhin followed. Fanyi once more clasped her pendant in her hands. She had not retraced her path to the doorway through which they had come. She went to the right, down another short way between the stumps of the installations Sander had smashed.
Within moments she fronted what looked like a blank stone wall. But, reaching up, she held the pendant between her flattened palm and one block of that barrier. A section pivoted to give them a door.
The way was narrow. Rhin could barely scrape through. And there were no lights. The door shut with an intimidating snap when they were all inside. Sander could only trace those ahead by the faint sounds of their passing.
There were curves and corners, some of which he struck with bruising force as he moved blindly. But there was only one passage and no choice of side ways, so he advanced with what confidence he could maintain, sure that Fanyi was ahead.
Finally, there came a burst of light, and he believed she had opened a second door. He hurried forward, lest that close and leave him and Rhin caught in the dark. The room they came into was unlike any he had seen elsewhere.
Fronting him was a wall with a glassy surface, much like that on the oval in the floor, the one Maxim said had shown the outlines of the world—the Before World and theirs. But here was only one chair and that was placed with its back directly to the slick surface. Fanyi sat in that chair, the fishers crouched before her, growling.
Her hands rested on the arms of the chair, but there were no buttons to be touched. As Sander came to face her, she raised one hand and pulled the loop of chain supporting the pendant from about her neck, throwing it from her as if she so removed all that might keep her from the domination of the thing holding rule here.
Sander caught it in the air by the chain. He could not wear the device himself, but there was a hope that it somehow might still provide a weapon. Now the girl drew the rod from her belt and tossed that away as well. In the chair she sat defenseless and alone. And then—it was not Fanyi who sat there.
Her features seemed to writhe, to grimace, twist, to partly assume the countenance of someone else.
"Come to me!"
There was nothing enticing in that command, for it was a command, baldly uttered, with the arrogance of one who expected no refusal. And such was the power of that order that Sander took one stride toward Fanyi-who-was-no-longer-Fanyi.
Rhin was beside him in an instant, the koyot's mouth closed upon the man's shoulder with force enough to awaken pain. That pain in turn broke the spell.
Fanyi smiled, but the smile was none that Sander had ever seen on any human face.
"Barbarian—" Now she laughed. "Your straggle of people—you—" Now her tone changed, became cold and remote. "You pollute the earth. You are nothing, unfit to walk where true men once walked."
Sander heard the words, let the thing that had possessed Fanyi talk without dispute. The clue to its hiding place must be here somewhere—he needed that. But would he be able to gain it in time?
"Give me your weapons, barbarian," Fanyi said with icy contempt. "Do you think any such can be used against me? Fool, I have the means to blast you into nothingness a thousand times over. I let you live only because you can be of some small service to me—for a while. Even as this female serves me—"
Rhin swung a little before Sander, edging him away from Fanyi. But the koyot's head was pointed toward the wall behind the chair. The smith saw that slight prick of ear. Though Rhin appeared to be facing Fanyi, herding Sander away from the girl, the animal's attention was rather on the wall behind the chair.
Sander gripped the haft of the hammer more tightly.
"You are mine, barbarian—"
There was a timbre in that voice which rang in Sander's ears. Was a mist curling up about the chair on which Fanyi was seated, or were his own eyes in some manner failing him? The metal on his forehead was heating, too. He found it hard to breathe.
He was no one's property! He was himself. By cold iron, which only a smith could fashion—he was himself!
"Barbarian, I can suck the life from you by will alone. Thus—"
Sander fought for breath. This was the time he must move—he had no longer any choice.
Cold iron. He fought against the pressure the other had set upon him, seeking to batter him to the ground, to make him crawl as no man should ever humble himself.
"Cold iron," he cried aloud.
There was a slight change in the pressure, as if the thing he confronted was surprised.
Sander moved—not toward Fanyi, where the thing that ruled here had meant him to grovel, but rather to the wall. Exerting all his strength, with an effort even mightier than that which he had used against Maxim, he brought the hammer crashing against the smooth surface.
There was a splintering, a radiation of cracks running out from where the hammer head had met the wall.
In his mind, gathering about him—such a force, a pressure meant to crush him.
No! He denied that will bent now to stop him. His body swayed. Rhin and the fishers, he could feel them close, supporting him. For the second time he struck, and the blow fell true on the same spot.
There was a crackling, a tinkling as of falling glass. A hole slightly smaller than his fist opened. In return Sander was slammed nearly to his knees by a wave of force that he could never afterwards describe.
But he crawled closer, fighting that pressure with all his will, with his belief that if he surrendered, all that made him what he was would be lost, he reached the wall.
He inched his hand up and up, having dropped the hammer. Now he hooked fingers into the hole, though the jagged edges cut into his flesh. When he was sure his hold was complete, he swung the weight of his whole body on that hand.
For a moment of agony and fear, he was afraid his effort was not enough. Then the glass, or what was like glass, broke, to shower his head and shoulders with splinters. A gust of air blew over him that had the same taint as had been in the lower reaches when he had shattered the cabinet holding Fanyi.
Sander groped for the hammer. His right hand was slippery with his own blood. He was afraid that he could not keep his grip upon the tool. But with his left hand—yes!
He brought up his hand, holding the hammer awkwardly and ill-balanced. Even so a blow fell again, to break the edge farther. This was the door to the thing, even though he could pass through it only on his hands and knees, near crushed with the pressure.
Sander pulled himself over the high threshold formed by the frame. He fell forward into another chamber. There was no one here. He blinked in dull surprise. Though Fanyi had referred to the ruler of these ways as "it" or "the thing" or "that," he had somehow pictured it with at least some kind of a body—maybe like the metal traveler with the claws. But what he saw were only tall cases, rows of them. On the faces of some, lights flashed or rippled.
There was one relief. As he had fallen through the aperture beyond the feeling of pressure had vanished. If this was the lair of Fanyi's enemy, then here its defenses were singularly lacking—maybe it never expected to be found.
"Unregistered and unlawful entrance—"
That was not the voice that had issued from Fanyi's lips. It sounded more like the one that had gabbled at him earlier during his journey through these burrows. Where was what he sought? Hidden in one of these cases—?
"Mark one protection—"
He did not know the meaning of all those words. It was enough that they must be a threat. Not attempting to get to his feet, Sander took from the front of his belt the rod that had armed Maxim. He thumbed the highest button on its length and aimed it at the tall box that showed the most lights. The beam struck full, ate into the metal. At the same time Sander was aware of a trundling noise. Coming toward him out of the shadow was a mobile metal thing.
"Seize for interrogation—" yammered the voice, as the metal creature scuttled toward Sander.
He was backed tight to the broken wall. Dare he turn the rod on that thing moving toward him? If it were controlled elsewhere, what—
There was a flare of light. The box he had attacked spurted small tongues of flame. He did not wait, but swung the beam to the next one that showed activity. Something closed about his ankle. A line had snaked forth from the running machine, had locked about his flesh. Another was whipping toward his body. Then a furred form flashed between. There was a growl as the line wrapped around Kai, imprisoning the fisher.
Sander continued to play the beam on target. The second panel blew. Kayi had joined her mate, only to be caught, yet keeping the lines spun by the sentry away from Sander.
Pulling away as far as his trapped ankle allowed, the smith sprayed the beam down the line. Four, five, six—suddenly the line that held him uncurled, fell limp to the floor. Sander scrambled up, moved to destroy more of the panels. When he reached them, the beam no longer responded. But then neither did any more lights show. The burnt odor was stifling. He attempted to close his cut hand. If that would serve him, he would try to finish off the rest by hammer. Was this the lair of the Presence? If it was not—
Sander choked and coughed, his eyes smarted, his throat was painfully dry. The air here hurt deep into his nose and throat as he breathed. He must get back—out, even if he had not completed the job—
Through a haze, Sander pulled his way back, holding onto one half-melted panel and then the next, seeking the entrance hole. When he pulled through, he saw Fanyi—not sitting now, but lying in a small heap on the floor, as if she had slid helplessly from the chair. He lurched to her, but the fishers were ahead of him, Kayi licking the girl's face, pawing at her body, uttering small whimpers.
Sander went cold. Had—had he killed Fanyi? Was she— He stumbled to her. Kayi growled warningly, but let him lay hands on the girl, his cut one leaving bloody prints on her shoulders and her arms.
Her eyes were closed, her face empty of expression—but she was alive!
He rested there, her head resting in his lap, his wounded hand stretched along the seat of the chair. Then he remembered the pendant he had tucked into his belt. One-handedly he drew it forth and laid it on her breast where she had always worn it.
Fanyi's eyelids moved. She gazed up at him in an unfocused way that again awoke his fears. Then her gaze cleared. It was plain she knew him.
"It is—crippled!" she said.
He gave a sigh. So he had not won completely after all.
"How badly?" he asked.
There was a long moment before she replied. "It—it is part gone—those who know how might still use some of it."
"No!" He remembered what had brought him here. The thing he had destroyed might make any man master of this riven world. But there was no man strong enough, wise enough, no man left to use such knowledge.
"No," she echoed him.
"Your weapons to save your people—" he said.
"Your smith's knowledge—" She matched him.
"It is of another world," she said slowly. "Even though that which made it our enemy has gone out of it, let it be. It is not ours."
He thought of the Traders, of the White Ones whom this thing had summoned.
"It must be no one's."
She nodded, pulling herself up. Then with a cry of concern she caught his hand.
Later they sat on the floor by their worn trail gear. He had dragged Maxim's body out of sight. Fanyi treated his hand with her salves, but it would be days before he could use his hammer again.
There was a coldness in this place, a sense of life gone, that was akin to the terror they had felt earlier on those storm-battered heights. The girl fingered Maxim's first rod, which she had thrown away in the chamber of the Presence.
"It cannot repair itself. And I do not think it has anyone to serve it here now. Maxim must have been the last, but there might be those who would try."
"There is still some power in that," Sander nodded at the rod. "Perhaps enough to seal the outer entrance."
Fanyi touched the pendant that still hung around her neck. "I do not think there is another one of these. If we can do that—seal the entrance—no one will find it. The White Ones, they do not know exactly what they seek. Their Shamans are dreamers—of dreams sent by that thing."
"Machine—or man?" Sander wondered.
Fanyi shivered. "Both. But how the Before Men could do that—! It may still live, though you have destroyed that which gave it power. If so—what a horror faces it—life locked into a prison without end."
"What of your people?" he asked.
"What of yours?" she countered.
Sander answered first. "Mine do well enough. They have a smith, not as good as my father, but one they trust. I—they are kin. Still I find it hard now to remember any face among them that I long greatly to see again."
"I am yet bound." Fanyi held the pendant. "We may be able to seal one danger in the earth. There are others without. What I can do to aid my clan, that I shall, though I bring no greater strength with me. I failed Padford, therefore the debt is mine."
"And how will you repay?"
"There are ways to travel south. If any of my people live captive there, then they still have claim on me."
Sander stirred, his hand hurt when he moved it, in spite of the dressing she had put on the cuts. Traveling one-handed for a while would be awkward.
"South it is then. Once we have made secure what lies here."
She frowned. "This is no duty of yours, smith!"
He smiled. "Perhaps so. But I have chosen the out trail. Does it matter where one wanders when one is kinless by will? There is this thought in mind, Shaman. We came here seeking knowledge. We have found it, though not as we expected."
"What's your meaning, smith?"
"Just this: we have tried long to live upon the remnants of the Before Time, ever looking backward. But why should we? There is no night without stars, and the blackness of our night can be lighted by our own efforts. We are ourselves, not the Before Ones. Therefore, we must learn for ourselves, not try to revive what was known by those we might not even want to call kin were we to meet them. I am no kin of Maxim!"
"No kin—" she repeated. "Yes, that rings true, smith! Neither am I kin to those who stored such knowledge as that thing strove to make me use. We begin again, light our night stars, and hope to do better."
"We begin again," Sander agreed and then added, "to the south, Fanyi, since you are duty-bound. Let us see if the Sea Sharks can be defied by our own means. After all, have we not bested here something far worse than any peril we knew?"
"Smith, you are a man who believes in his own worth."
Sander, nursing his torn hand, rose to his feet. He put out his sound one to rest on Rhin's shoulder.
"It never harms a man to value himself," he returned mildly. "And if he has good companions and a trade, what more does he want?"
Fanyi laughed now. "Well, perhaps one or two things more, Sander. But those shall doubtless also come in their own season. No night lasts forever."