Fanyi had the pendant ever in her hand. Now and then she pointed out a direction with such certainty that Sander accepted her guidance. He wished that he could examine for himself that oval with its winks of what he took to be shining stones. That the Before Men could have fashioned a true direction finder he did not doubt, but neither did he believe he could fathom its secret now.
At last, however, at last he asked: “How does that thing speak to you, saying we must go right or left?”
“That I do not know; I know only a little of how to read what it has to say. See?” she beckoned him closer, “look, but do not touch. I do not know how another’s spirit might influence this.”
The pendant was oval, but not flat, having a thickness of about the length from the tip of his little finger to the first knuckle, while the metal from which it had been fashioned was bright and untarnished, probably one of those mysterious alloys whose secrets baffled all those of his calling. Set in a circle stood the stones, round and faceted. These were of different colors and there were twelve of them. But, bright as they were, Sander’s full attention was caught by something else. In the metal moved a visible line of light, which was not steady.
“Watch,” Fanyi bade him. She swung her body abruptly to the left. On the pendant the line moved also, so it still pointed in the same direction that it had previously, save that now it touched a different one of the stones.
“My father,” she said softly, turning again so that the short bar of light touched the same stone it had formerly, “knew many things. Some he was able to teach my mother and later she taught me. But he died before I entered this world. This was his great treasure. He swore by some magic of the Before Men it could guide the one who wore it to the place from which it came. The closer one approaches that place, the brighter will grow this pointing line. And that is the truth, for I have seen it do so each day we have traveled. I know that which we seek is a place of great knowledge. Perhaps the Before Men had some warning of the destruction of their world and were able to prepare a storehouse that even the great upheaval of the Dark Time could not destroy.”
Sander was impressed by that band of light. It was true that it did swing when Fanyi moved. And he could believe it was meant for a guide. What manner of man had her father been? A Trader who had hunted through the ruins and chanced upon such a cache as he had not believed existed? Or some other, whose tribe perhaps possessed a Rememberer with a greater store of Before Learning than any the Mob knew?
“Your father—was he a Trader?”
“Not so. Though he traveled with the Traders to Padford. He was a searcher, not for metals, but for other men. Not to enslave them as do the Sea Sharks, rather to learn what they had kept from the Before Time. He had recorded much, but”—she looked unhappy—”when they made his grave barrow, my mother placed within his hands that book he had used to set down what he had learned. A book is of writing—much writing marked on pieces of smoothed bark or cured skin. My mother knew that was his greatest treasure; therefore it was meet that it be laid in the earth with him so in the Afterward he would have it as another would have his tools and weapons. For my father said that words so marked down were the greatest tools of all—”
Sander shook his head at that. The saying was foolish. How could marks such as she had made in the dust with a bit of twig be more to a man than the tools with which he wrought something or the arms with which he could defend his very life?
“So my father believed!” Fanyi raised her head proudly, as if she might have caught Sander’s thought. “But if his records lie with him, I have this.” Her fingers closed tightly about the pendant. “And I think it is only a small part of other wonders.”
During their journey that day Sander took a chance now and then to glance over Fanyi’s shoulder at the pendant. They had to detour, sometimes even to backtrack, around piles of ruins. Each time the line of light changed course, so that it ever pointed in the same general direction, no matter which way they went.
It seemed to Sander that there was no end to this city. Whence had come so many people; how long and hard had they worked to bring hither this stone to raise buildings? His wonder intensified.
During the ranging of the Mob, they had at times found remains of old cities. Mostly they have avoided the piles of debris, for there was a taboo because such were sometimes the source of a sickness-to-death. The younger men had once or twice prospected a little for metal. However, what they found was so rust-eaten as to be of little account. It was better to depend upon the Traders, who apparently were ever ready to risk any danger to secure the lumps they brought to the mobs.
No city Sander had seen went on forever! Or near to that. But if there had been any metal worth the plundering here it had been taken long ago. Birds nested among the bushes that cloaked the sides of the more stable piles of rubble, left white smears of droppings down weather-worn blocks. At this season the nests were deserted, but they could be seen because the leaves were stripped from the branches by the wind.
Twice Sander used his small sling. And once was lucky, bringing down another of the giant hares. This they roasted at nooning, saving their dried meat for later. They had seen nothing of the fishers. Rhin sniffed at some of the stones and now and then growled low in his throat, as if he caught some faint scent there he did not like. Each time Sander tensed, searched the ground nearby for any track. He feared most a monster like that on the one-time island.
Still, whatever traces the koyot picked up must have been old, or perhaps not of the lumbering creature. And there were no trees about to attract the forest people.
In his searching for wood at their night’s camp Sander stumbled on a discovery that shook him. A huddle of bones lay in a small hollow, and not the bones of man. The leering skull, its jaw supported by a rock, was twice the size of his own. And he saw, driven into one of the eye holes, a dart.
Cautiously, he freed the missile. In pattern it was not too different from his own. The metal had been well worked, the handicraft of a trained smith. But it carried no marking Sander recognized. He squatted down to examine the skeleton more closely.
This must certainly be the remains of a monster. However, he believed the kill more than one season old. He wondered why the slayer had not retrieved his dart. Such were not to be wasted and each hunter thought first, after bringing down his prey, of reclaiming his weapon. Perhaps the monster had been shot at a distance, then still living, but wounded to the death, had reached here before it collapsed.
Sander made a careful circuit of the surrounding territory, to come upon a second find, a gaping hole in the side of one of the mounds. A later landslip had nearly refilled it, but the original opening was not so obscured that it could not be distinguished. Perhaps Traders, intent upon uncovering some treasure here, had been attacked by one of the half-beasts. He could almost reconstruct what had happened.
Perhaps the men had suffered so grievously from the monster’s onslaught that they had fled, taking their dead and wounded with them. This evidence of a battle, old though it might be, was alarming.
He pried loose the dart. The point showed a small film of rust, but that he could scour away with sand. And any addition to his own supply was useful.
Sander was not yet satisfied. With a whistle he summoned Rhin. The koyot, once he sniffed the skeleton, growled fiercely, showing his fangs. But when Sander urged him past the collection of bones to the hole, he showed no great interest. Whatever scent had hung there must have long since disappeared. Now Sander sighted something new, beyond a ragged pile of rubble—deep lines rutted in the earth.
There was only one interpretation for those. A cart had been brought here, a slightly smaller one, Sander estimated, than those the Mob used for their plains travel. And it had been loaded heavily, enough to impress this signature of the wheels deeply into the soil. So the diggers had not been entirely routed, they had taken away whatever they had found.