Now he made a back pack, using Rhin’s pad for its outer casing. The smith tools were the heaviest items, and silently he fretted over the non-appearance of the koyot. Rhin was a formidable fighter, he was also fleet of foot. Foreboding pricked at Sander. They had no knowledge of what might exist in this new country. He had no idea either of how he could trail the koyot and find him, if the animal had fallen into some peril.
The pack weighed heavily on his shoulders. However, he was determined to make no complaint, for the way Fanyi marched confidently ahead into the shadow of the trees was, in a measure, a challenge. Sander went forward with his bolt thrower ready in his hands.
The trees were enormous, with a huge spread of limb. Some leaves were already turning yellow or scarlet, a few wafted down now and then to join the centuries’-thick deposit of their kind under foot, a soft carpet that deadened the sound of their own passing.
For the first time Sander was conscious of something he had not foreseen. On the open plains one could fix upon some point ahead and have it as a guide. Here, with one tree much like another, how could one be sure one was heading in a straight path, not wandering in circles?
Sander stopped. Perhaps it would have been better to have stayed on the seashore, using that body of water for a guide. Fanyi paused and glanced over her shoulder.
“What is it?”
He was ashamed of his own stupidity, yet there was nothing he could do but admit it now.
“We have nothing to follow—this is all alike.”
“But there is something. I have been a way in before, and there is a road—a north road—”
A road? Her confidence was such that he could not help but believe that she knew what she was doing. But a road—!
Fanyi beckoned, and, hesitantly, he followed. Already he could look back and see nothing but trees. Nor could he be sure where they had entered this maze of trunks and low-hanging branches. But she showed no bafflement.
And it was only a short time later that they came out onto a more open space. Here the drift of leaves and earth did not quite cover a surface badly holed, fast being destroyed by creeping roots that attacked it from both sides, yet unmistakably still an artificial surface.
It ran straight, and the trees that framed or attacked it were yet young, so there was enough light and freedom to see quite a space ahead. Fanyi waved him on.
“See? It is as I said. This was once a Before Road. Much has been destroyed over the years, but still there is enough to see. Here it bends”—she gestured left to the west—”that way it comes, but from here it goes north—at least what I know of it does.”
Sander could trace the old curve; the road must never have been in the open. He wondered why. It seemed to him much easier to build such a highway across the plains than within the grip of the woods. And it was narrower than the two great roads the Mob knew in their ranging. They had been so wide that even the Rememberers were not able to tell how great the armies of people must have been when they used such ways.
The surface here was so rough they had to go slowly and warily that they not be tripped up or catch an ankle disastrously in some hidden hole. But the road did lead them to water.
Sander had caught the sound of a stream before they reached the jagged edge of the span that had once bridged it. Small flies danced over the sun dappled surface, those in turn hunted by much larger insects. There was a swift current, but the stream was so clear that he could see the fuzzy brown stones forming its bed. Taking the water bottle and leaving his back pack with Fanyi, he scrambled down to rinse out the container, then fill it brimming.
Since the bridge was gone, they made use of some of its blocks, now green-slimed and water-washed, as stepping stones to reach the far side. Heartened by the discovery of water, their most pressing need, Sander began now to look around seriously for a method of relieving their other want, food.
There were birds enough, but they were small and flitted about, hidden, except for sudden flashes of wings, by the trees. He had seen no animals since they had entered this place. And though he watched the stream very carefully now, its glassy surface revealed no movement below. There appeared to be no fish sizeable enough to show.
Fanyi caught at his arm, nearly knocking him forward into the water. He turned his head to speak impatiently when the sight of her face startled him. She was so plainly listening!
Rhin! A burden heavier than he had been aware he had carried lifted from him. Sander pursed his lips to give the summoning whistle. But Fanyi’s hand shot out, pressed fiercely across his mouth to silence him.
Now he strained his ears to catch what she must have heard, something, he guessed from her actions, that was a dire warning.
It was not quite sound, rather a pulsation of the air—as if sound had given it birth very far away. He pushed her fingers aside and asked in a voice hardly above a whisper:
“What is it?”
She was frowning, much as she had the night before when she threw her cubes to read some message from them.
“I do not know,” she answered, in a voice even lower than his. “But it is of some Power. I cannot mistake that.”
Of her vaunted Powers he knew practically nothing. Among his people they had a healer. But that one claimed nothing beyond a knowledge of how to set bones, treat wounds, and use some herbs to ease disease. They had also a vague idea that an Influence greater than themselves existed. But that It concerned itself with man was hardly probable. If so, why then had the Dark Time been sent to nearly kill off their species, unless Before Man had in some manner provoked a blood-feud with that Influence. If that was so, the Mob had reasoned during the few times they applied themselves to such speculation, it was now better for man not to appeal to or worship such an Influence.
Sander thought that it might be different with Fanyi. Some of her claims—such as farseeing—were matters strange to him. Also there could be other peoples on earth now, not so wary of the Influence, who might have made some pact with It. From such might come these Powers of which she so confidently spoke. Since this land was known to her, he was willing to be guided by her—up to a point.
“What kind of power?” he whispered once more.
She had gathered up her pendant, held it now cupped in her hand, and was staring into it as if she could read an answer from the points of light glittering on its surface.
As he waited for her to reply, Sander began to wonder if they were even closer to her legendary cache of knowledge, and if this emanation, whatever it might be, was the signal of its being. But whatever Fanyi thought, she was not pleased with what she learned by looking at the pendant. She shook her head slowly.
“It is not what we seek.” Her words were decisive. “There is some darkness ahead of us. Yet this is the way—”
“We can go back,” Sander pointed out. “It would be easier to go along the seashore. We should have tried that in the first place.”
The wood, which earlier had been a promise of cover, now began to take on the semblance of a trap. He wanted none of it—rather to be out in the open where one could see an enemy approaching, even if one was equally naked to that other’s sight. “Come on!” As she had earlier grasped his shoulder to rivet his attention, so now his hand closed about her arm.
She gave one more long look at the pendant and then let it fall back against her breast.
“All right,” she agreed.
He had half expected an argument and was relieved that she surrendered to his will so easily. Perhaps Rhin’s higher sensitivity had already warned the koyot against this place of trees, and that was why the animal had not joined them.
They recrossed the stepping stones and made the best time they dared, scrambling back the way they had come. Always now, Sander was aware of that distant beating. It seemed to him that his own heart thudded heavily in time to it, that he could feel its vibration throughout his body. Nor did it lessen as they fled. Rather it remained the same, as if whatever caused it kept always at the same distance behind them, slipping steadily along their trail.