“Or so we have always thought,” she returned. “But perhaps there is a small seed of truth at the center core of such.”
Sander would have laughed, but then he reconsidered. It was true that he had been shaken out of his complacency about the superiority of his own species by their two brushes with forest and river dwellers. Though the Mob had never met any except herdsmen like themselves or the far-ranging Traders, could they say that those were the only people left in the world? The fishermen of Padford differed in coloring and life ways from his own kin. And he had heard of the Sea Sharks who made up the slaving bands from the south, though no man had ever understood why they collected the helpless to take into captivity. Those, too, were men—of a kind.
Now he began to recall some of the Trader stories. Suppose she was right? Suppose there were armored beasts of giant size roving elsewhere, slaying any man they met; flying things that were neither man nor bird but mingled something of each in an uncanny and horrifying way, their talons raised against normal men? It was easier to believe that the earth still bubbled and boiled in places, that if any ventured too far into such tormented country they died from the poisons filling the air or sank by inches into a steaming mud from which they could not fight free.
“You see”—she smiled now—”I have led you to rethink what you have heard. Therefore, perhaps it is also reasonable to believe that elsewhere there are Shamans to whom I am as but a small child, still unlearned in even the simplest of the healing ways. What”—she flung her hands wide as if to garner in against her breast some thing that seemed precious to her—”what marvels may exist in this world, open to our finding if we only have the courage to seek for them! If someone has learned to mind-seek—then I shall also do this! Am I not of the kin-blood to whom such knowledge is as meat and drink? Young and untried I may seem to such ones, yet I can say in truth—we share some gifts of mind, therefore let me learn of you.”
Sander watched her excitement, troubled. Yes, he could understand her thirst for learning, was it not also his? But what he wanted was a learning that brought concrete results, that did not deal with such unreasonable matters as thoughts that were loosed, as it were, to roam. Rather he wanted to know more about what he could make with his two hands when their skill was well harnessed by his mind. It gave him an uneasy feeling to think of using thought in some other way, not to accompany physical action, but in place of that—if he had guessed aright what she hoped to gain.
“I believed”—he strove now to return her to the obvious—”that what you sought was a weapon of vengeance for your people.”
“And do you not know,” Fanyi flashed, “that thought itself can be as able a weapon, if it is skillfully used, as those forged darts of yours? Yes, I have a debt to the dead; do not believe that I have ever forgotten that.” There was a flush rising beneath her dark brown skin. “Now—” She rose to her feet. “I say we should sleep. My fur people, your Rhin, they shall serve as our watch.”
“The fire—”
Away from the hearth it was cold.
Fanyi laughed. “Do not worry. Kai knows much.” She laid her hand on the head of the larger fisher. “He shall watch the fire, and well. This he has done for me before.”
She chose a bunk along the nearer wall, taking her now dried and warmed under-robe to wrap around her. Sander watched her settle in before he followed her example. The last thing he remembered seeing was the larger fisher lifting a piece of kindling from the box, catching the length between his powerful jaws and pushing it into the fire with the dexterity of one who indeed had performed that same act many times in the past.
So Sander settled himself to sleep. And he was deep in a dream wherein he trudged through a long dark tunnel, drawn ever by the sharp tap-tap of a hammer on metal, seeking a smith who had all secrets and from whom he must learn.
A cold touch on his cheek brought him out of that corridor before he ever caught sight of the industrious smith. Rhin loomed over him, and it was the koyot’s nose that had touched his face. The animal lowered his muzzle for a second such prod as Sander came fully awake and sat up.
The sound of the wind, the heavy pelt of the rain, was gone. It was so still that he could hear the sound of his own breath, a faint crackling of the fire. But the fishers no longer lay by it. They were ranged on either side of the barred door, facing it. And when Rhin saw that Sander was fully awake, he looked in the same direction.
Sander sat up and reached for his boots. They had dried after a fashion, but he found it hard to force his feet into them. While he struggled to do that, he listened.
He could pick up nothing, but he relied fully on the warning of the animals and he did not doubt that there was someone or something near enough to arouse their instincts of alarm. The Traders returning to their house?
That need not be a real matter for fear. The laws of hospitality, which were scrupulously kept save among the Sea Sharks, would excuse their intrusion here in such a storm, jealous though the Traders were. Sander hoped furiously that this was the case.
Still, he caught up his dart thrower and loosened his long knife in its sheath, as he padded, as softly as he could, across the room to lay his ear tight to the barred door.
7
That Sander heard nothing did not mean that the alarm was false. Now he reslung his weapons in his belt and turned to the wall on which hung the shelves. They might be used as a ladder, allowing him to peer out one of the high windows.
Sander swiftly cleared the remaining containers from the shelves he selected and tested the anchorage of the boards by swinging his full weight upon them. Though the wood creaked protestingly, they held firm. He scrambled up, to crouch perilously on the narrow top plank. Struggling to retain his balance, he reached farther overhead and caught at either side of the narrow window opening.
These had been covered, sealed against the air, by pieces of glass, a refinement that surprised him. Had glass, the most fragile of inheritances from the Before Time, actually existed in this rubble in pieces large enough to be salvaged?
Sander brought his face as close as he could to that surface. As he tried to peer outside he discovered that the glass was not perfectly clear, for it carried bubbles and distortions within it. Yet those imperfections did not prevent a good sight of the clearing immediately before the house.
The darkness of the storm was past. By the angle of the pale sunlight that struck full against the door, he judged it was late afternoon. But it was not time that interested him—rather what might be prowling out there.
A wide expanse lay clear immediately before the door. The brush, which formed the first rank of the wood’s growth, stood some distance away. On the ground was a light scuff of snow and that was not unmarked!
The snow must have fallen near the end of the storm. Already it began to melt under the direct rays of the sun, especially around the edges of numerous tracks. Through the bubbled glass Sander could not make out any clearly defined print, but they were larger than those made by any animal he knew.
Shapeless as they seemed, there was something about their general proportions—Sander would not allow himself to speculate. Nor could he even be certain that more than one creature had left its signature there. A single unknown thing might have scented them, plodded back and forth for a space.
Sander shifted on his narrow perch. He could see where those tracks had emerged from the wood, but no sign they had returned thither. Was the creature prowling around the back of the house now?
At that moment the silence inside and out was broken by a high, wailing cry, startling Sander so he almost tumbled from his spy post. He heard from below the answering growl of Rhin, the hissing of both fishers, then a soft call from Fanyi:
“What was that?”
“I do not know.” Sander twisted his body around, striving to see further both right and left. “There is something prowling outside. But I have not yet sighted it.”