If this city had once held the storehouse Fanyi sought, then her quest must certainly be doomed to failure. Sander, too, felt a pinch of disappointment, even though, he told himself, he had never truly believed in her rumored treasure house of knowledge.
When he glanced at the girl, he saw no sign of any chagrin in her expression. Rather she eyed the tumble of stone as if she saw in it possibilities for ascent to what lay above. And her manner was brisk as if she were sure she was on the right trail and what she sought was near.
“This is the place?” he asked.
Fanyi had her pendant in her hand again. Slowly she pivoted, until she no longer faced the cliff, but rather once more the western lands.
“Not here,” she said with quiet confidence, “but there.” She waved to the more distant shadow of the land.
Sander believed that the city above had been built on a cape projecting out into the vanished sea, or even an island. To reach the true shore of the Before Days one would have to travel still farther west.
They needed food and water. That either could be found in the tangle of shattered ruins above, the smith doubted. He thought that perhaps their best plan was to keep to the sea bottom, heading directly for the land.
However, he had not foreseen the coming of the storm, which that earlier cold wind had heralded. Clouds arose out of nowhere in only a few breaths of time, while the wind became a lash of freezing cold, under which they cringed.
The animals made their decision for them. Like two streaks of looping fur the fishers were already swarming up the fall that formed a vast and uneven stairway to the ruins above. Rhin was not far behind. There was that in the quick flight of all three that Sander found alarming enough to goad him to follow. Rhin’s senses were far more acute than his own. In the past he had been saved by the koyot’s superior gifts of scent and hearing. If Rhin chose that path, there was an adequate reason.
Both the fishers and the koyot were surefooted on that broken trail. Sander and Fanyi, shivering under each blast of wind, had to go more slowly. Too many of the blocks rocked under their weight, some crashing down under the pull of the wind. They flattened themselves to each stable surface they reached, forcing themselves to grope farther up when they caught their breaths again.
At last they crawled over a dangerous overhang of perilously piled materials to reach a wilderness of mounds from which protruded rusty shells of metal, likely to crumble at a touch.
But there was also a show of vegetation, vines withering now with the touch of frost, saw-edged grass in ragged patches, even a wind-sculpted tree or two.
Sander’s first thought was that they must keep well away from any pile of rubble that seemed likely to crash. He kept glancing overhead as he felt his way along, cautious lest he step on something that would shift disastrously under his weight. Fanyi moved behind him, choosing in turn each step he had pioneered.
At least the force of the wind was blunted here by these mounds. And, although the cold was intense, they were less tormented by freezing blasts.
It began to rain. And the rain was as cold as the wind, the force of it penetrating their garments, plastering their hair to their skulls, seeming to encase their shivering flesh with a coating of glass-thin ice. Sander had known storms on the plains, but nothing such as this.
The wind roared and howled over their heads in a queer wailing, perhaps because it whirled through openings in the mounds. Now and then they could hear crashes as if the gale brought down new rock falls. Then, when there came a lull, Sander heard the bark of Rhin.
“This way—” He turned to the girl. But the words he mouthed were lost in the rise of the wind’s fury. He reached out to catch her hand.
They rounded a mound, to see before them a line of sizeable trees. The storm whipped their branches, ruthlessly tearing off leaves in whirling clouds that were quickly borne to earth by the weight of the rain.
Sander staggered forward, away from the treacherous mounds into the fringe of the trees. The branches absorbed some of the force of the rain but not all of it. Rhin paced impatiently back and forth, his head swinging as he looked from Sander to the way ahead, patiently urging the human to hurry. Of the fishers there was no sign.
They felt underfoot the relative smoothness of one of the paved ways, though the trees and bushes had encroached thickly upon it. Here there were no looming piles of blocks to threaten them as they hurried after the koyot. In a few moments they came out into a clearing where there was a shelter made of wood at one side. Its staked walls met a thatch of thickly interwoven branches. A single door stood open, and there was no sign of any inhabitant, even though this building was plainly of their own time.
Sander plucked thrower and bolt from his belt and waved Fanyi behind him, as he cautiously slipped toward the open door.
When Kai poked a nose from the doorway that he knew his fears were needless. In a last dash, the koyot, Sander, and Fanyi reached the opening and scrambled within, Sander jerking the door to in their wake.
It must have been open for some time because there was a drift of soil he had to loosen before he could close it firmly against the fury of the storm. And since there were only slits, high-set under the roof, to give any light, he found it difficult at first to view their surroundings.
This was not the rude or temporary hut he had guessed it to be at first sight, but a large and sturdy building. The floor had been cleared down to a reasonably smooth surface of stone, which might once have been a part of a road. Against the far wall was a wide fireplace constructed of firm blocks, its gaping maw smoke- and fire-stained but now empty. There was a box to one side in which he could distinguish some lengths of wood standing end up.
Fanyi had pulled out her light and shone its circle of brilliance along the log walls. Shelves hung there. For the most part they were bare, save for a small box or two. Under the shelves were the frames of what could only be sleeping bunks. These were still filled with masses of leaves and bits of brush, all much broken and matted together.
Sander caught the faint scent of old fires and, he thought, even of food. But there was also an emptiness here which, he believed, meant that it had been a long time since the place was inhabited.
“This is a clan house,” Fanyi said. “See—” She held her light beam high on one wall showing a big metal hook set into the log. “There they hung divider curtains. But this was a small clan.”
“Your people?” He had assumed that Padford had been the only settlement of those folk.
Fanyi shook her head. “No. But Traders perhaps. They live in clans also. They do not take their women or children with them on the trail, but sometimes they have talked of their homes. And this city would be a fine place for their metal searches. They may have cleared this portion of it and moved on—or else heard of richer hunting grounds elsewhere. I think this has been empty for more than one season.”
The building was stout enough, Sander conceded. Now that a bar had been dropped into the waiting hooks, sealing the door, he was far less aware of the storm’s force. He headed to the hearth, choosing wood from the box. The lengths were well seasoned, and he had no difficulty in striking a spark from his firekit, so that the warmth of flames soothed them as well as gave light to their new quarters. The fishers lay by the fire, licking moisture from their fur. Even Rhin seemed not too large for the long room.
Shelter, warmth—but they still needed food. Fanyi delved into the few containers on the wall shelves. She returned with two with tight sliding covers. These contained a small measure of what looked like the same kind of meal Sander had found in Padford and some flakes of a dried substance.
“They cannot have gone too long ago after all,” Fanyi observed, “for this meal is not musty or moldy. And the other is dried meat.”
Straightway, she shed her square cloak, leaving it to steam dry before the fire. That done, she mixed cakes of the meal and meat flakes, having passed to the fishers and Rhin the major portion of the latter.