Some time later he squatted on his heels at the mouth of the road to study the scene before him, thoroughly baffled. He had fought through tough brush and around trees, making an outer circuit of the place, only to discover that it was surrounded by an invisible barrier that could react to his “cold iron” viciously and instantly, dared he attempt to approach past a certain point.
No legend from the Rememberer’s vast store, no tale of any Trader, mentioned such an experience as this. There was, as far as he could see, no movement, within that protected area. Yet Fanyi, the fishers, and Rhin had certainly come this way.
After intent study he had noted several tracks across the disputed space where he dared not venture without being literally swept from his feet by a force generating sheer agony in his head. So he had proof that they were here. But why he could not follow—?
Sander believed he need only remove his self-wrought protection and step out. But an inner core of caution argued against any such act. To surrender to the unknown so completely was not in his nature.
Though he had tried the same trick he had used on the trail, striving to make his mind dismiss the onslaught of the pain attack, that did not work here. This force was infinitely greater, and perhaps his own power to withstand it had been sapped somewhat during the first bout.
Go—he had to go on, that he knew. But he could not, wearing the band. His choice was as simple as that. Nevertheless, his dogged desire to find out what lay behind all this would not let him retreat. Slowly, with a feeling that he was surrendering to an enemy, Sander worked the wire circlet loose, stowing it in the front of his outer fur jacket beside the knot he had made for Rhin.
Rising to his feet, he approached the open, moving with the caution of a scout in unknown territory, his weapon ready to hand. Still, he was convinced that what he might find here could not be brought down by any dart, no matter how well aimed.
Out he went, stopping where he had been struck down before. For a moment there was nothing—nothing at all. And then—
Sander stiffened, set his teeth. That thought—the thought that was not his! Now he had no escape, for it held him enmeshed as securely as had the web of the forest men. Against his will, his most fervent desire, he marched forward, straight toward the middle of the three buildings.
Was this the answer to Rhin’s desertion, to the open trail he had followed? Had Fanyi and all three of the animals been so compulsively drawn in the same fashion?
Sander wavered as he went, his will battling against his body in a way he would never have believed possible. Was this a taste of the “power” Fanyi had so often spoken of? But he could not believe that the girl he knew generated this.
He was not being compelled toward the tottering walls of the building after all. Rather, he was being pointed directly at an opening in the pavement on one side. He could see that this was not part of the original building, for the edging of the cut, though fashioned from blocks of stone, was very rough and crudely made in comparison to the rest of the structures.
The thought of going underground gave him an additional spurt of strength to battle the will controlling him, but not enough to break its hold. Nor could he raise his hand to the iron circlet he had so recklessly put aside.
Sander reached the crude-faced opening. He could see the end of a ladder, and his body, enslaved by that other’s will, swung over and began to descend. This must have been a tight fit for Rhin. But undoubtedly the koyot had come this way, for Sander caught the acrid scent of the animal’s body in the enclosed space.
This burrow was not dark, so there was no need for torches, as Sander saw when he reached the bottom of the ladder and looked down a corridor. There were cracks across the plain white walls, but none had split open. Set at intervals along those walls were rods giving forth a glow of light. Not all of them were burning; several were twisted and befogged. But enough were in action to give full sight.
Save for those bars of light, there was nothing else along the hall, not the break of a single door, while the way appeared to stretch on and on. Only, part way down its length, that same haze that had half veiled and distorted his view of the city hung again, so he could not be sure what lay behind it.
He was given no time to pause, for again his feet moved him forward, passing between the first two bars of light, heading forward. When he screwed his head around as far as he could to look back some moments later, Sander discovered that the distorting haze had closed in behind him even more thickly, so he could no longer see the ladder at all.
The corridor was wide enough for half a dozen men at least to march abreast and high enough so that Rhin would not have had to crawl on his belly to traverse it. The walls had a slick coating that looked shiny in the subdued light. But the floor, made of small, closely fitted red blocks, was not slippery.
Sander breathed in air that was fresh, carrying no such taint as had that of the tunnel under the city. Now and then he was sure he could detect a faint current against his cheek.
Then the way ended in a cross hall, wide and well lighted in the same fashion. This ran both right and left, its sources hidden by the haze in either direction.
No decision was allowed to Sander here either. His path was already decided for him. Mechanically, he swung left and walked steadily ahead.
13
Though side openings showed here both right and left, Sander was held to the main passageway. Eventually he reached the head of a stairway, one again leading down. There was evidence that some of the ceiling had fallen. Props of metal had been rammed in place against the walls; beams of the same crossed overhead, supporting cracked masonry.
Once more Sander descended. Had some of the Before People waited out the Dark Time in underground burrows? The stories he had heard of the rending of the earth itself by quakes could not have made any such plan a safe one. Here in this broken portion most of the wall lights were dark, leaving only an eerie glow at intervals. There was no change, except for the cracking in the walls themselves.
He counted the steps as he went down—twenty of them. And he could only guess at how deep this way now lay below the surface of the outer world. The props, rough as they looked against the remnants of the smooth wall, had been well set and braced. There had been a great deal of work down here to insure that these passages would continue to be usable.
By whom? Traders? All the metal-hunting Sander had seen evidence of had been carried on aboveground. The fact that so many of these reinforcing beams and braces were made of solid metal—strong, unblemished metal—made him wonder. To waste such a highly marketable product was not the way of the Traders.
The mist that had floated the upper ways was missing here. Instead, where the lights still existed, the monotony of the corridor showed clearly. The will that was not his continued to force the smith ahead.
He passed a small wagon—if wagon it was without a means of harnessing any sort of draft beast. The object against the wall did have two seats in the front with a smaller fifth wheel mounted on a post before one of those seats. The thing was completely wrought of metal.
In his excitement at the profuse use of a material rarely found in an unbattered, much less uneroded condition, Sander could almost forget for an instant that he was as much a prisoner as if his arms had been lashed to his sides and he was being jerked along by a rope.
The first horror of his predicament had dulled a little. He no longer struggled uselessly against the compulsion, rather yielded, conserving his strength, his mind busy with questions that perhaps never could be answered, but among which might just lie some suggestion that would serve him later.
No Rememberer’s tale had ever hinted at an unbelievable situation where the will of another could take over the rule of a man’s body, compel him to action. But the knowledge that a Rememberer carried from the Before Days was admittedly only fragmentary.