Daring to provoke some action from Maxim, Sander again fitted the band around his head. Perhaps it would serve his purpose now if this survivor of the Before Men judged him as he had judged Fanyi—childlike and superstitious.
“It is cold iron,” he said solemnly. “And I am one of those who fashion iron, so that it obeys me.” He began the smith’s chant.
A flicker of faint interest answered him. “That—that is a formula,” Maxim observed. “But it is not right, you know. This is the way it should be.” His voice took on something of a Rememberer’s twang as he recited words. “Now that is the right of it. So you hoard scraps of the old learning after all, do you, barbarian? But what is cold iron? That expression has no meaning whatsoever! And—I have wasted enough time. Come, you!”
He pressed one of the spots along the side of his tube. Instantly Sander swung partly forward, pulled by the same compulsion that had brought him here. But his hands tightened on the arms of the chair.
Iron—cold iron. His smith’s belief in the Old Knowledge—belittled as it had been by Maxim—that was the only weapon he had left.
He concentrated on holding to the chair, setting his teeth against the pain of the iron heating about his forehead. No—no—and NO!
Maxim’s face contracted, flushed. His mouth fell open, showing his pale tongue and teeth that were worn and yellow.
“You will come!” he screeched.
Sander clung to the chair arms. The misery of that struggle within him was fast approaching a level where he could no longer bear it, he would have to surrender. And if he did, then he would be lost. He did not know why he was sure of that, only that he was.
The air between him and Maxim was aglow. Sander held on to the chair so fiercely his grip deadened all feeling in his fingers. His head was afire. He must—
A tawny shape arched through the air, paws thudding home on Maxim’s hunched shoulders. The thin man was slammed down and back against the pavement to lie still with Rhin’s forepaws planted on him and the koyot’s muzzle aiming for the old man’s throat.
As the tube spiraled out of Maxim’s grip, the intolerable pressure on Sander winked out. He managed to croak out an order to Rhin not to kill. He could not allow the koyot to savage the other in cold blood. After all the man was mad and he was old. And what was most important now was to find Fanyi and warn her. Into what kind of trap Maxim had sent the girl, Sander could not guess. But he suspected that the end of it was death in one form or other.
He used part of his rope to bind Maxim. Then he raised the skinny body to put it into one of the chairs, again making fast more binding.
Finished, Sander turned to Rhin:
“Find Fanyi!” he ordered.
The koyot still faced the unconscious Maxim, growls rippling from his throat as if he had no other wish than to make an end to him. Sander came over, slapped the animal’s shoulder and reached up to tug at an ear.
“Fanyi!” he repeated.
Even in this place the girl’s scent must lie somewhere, and Rhin was the best tracker he had ever known. With a last threatening growl, the koyot looked from Maxim to Sander. He whined and nudged at the smith’s shoulder. The animal’s puzzlement was clear to read. Rhin saw no reason to leave Maxim alive; his reasoning was sensible. But at the same time Sander could not bring himself to kill the now helpless man or to let Rhin do it for him.
One might kill in defense of his own life or to protect those he had some kinship with. He would confront the amphibians, as he had, or the White Ones and feel no qualms as he watched his darts go home. That abomination they had faced in the forest glade, or the monster on the once-island—those were such horrors as aroused Sander’s deepest fear. But it was not in him to put an end to this flaccid being roped into the chair, held in place only by the bonds Sander himself had set.
Sander stooped and picked up the rod Maxim had dropped. There were five dots along its side. But he had no idea what forces it controlled nor any desire to experiment with it. What was important now was time, to find Fanyi before she blundered into full disaster.
“Fanyi!” For the third time Sander repeated her name, waving Rhin away from their captive.
The koyot barked once and came. He rounded the oval and seats and kept straight ahead, Sander trotting at a brisk pace to match his guide’s. Rhin moved with such purpose Sander believed the koyot knew exactly which way they must go. Perhaps the animal had even witnessed the girl being set on her way by the malicious, ancient guardian of this place.
Sander could not accept that Maxim was the only inhabitant of this hideaway. Though the other had mentioned only two names, both of the men now dead, that did not mean that all the colony meant to outlast the Dark Times had entirely vanished. Nor was the smith sure, after witnessing the confrontation between Rhin and Maxim at their first meeting, that the koyot would give him any alarm. It was only because Maxim had been so intent on taking Sander that Rhin had had a chance to rebel.
They threaded a way through rooms and halls opening one into another. Some were filled with installations, some were plainly meant for living, with divans and various pieces of oddly shaped and massive furniture.
Sander paused once when he came to another chamber where a food machine sat. This was larger than the one that had occupied the room to the forepart of this maze, with more numerous rows of buttons. Sander used his fingertips confidently and produced more rounds, wafers, and cups of water, not only to feed Rhin and himself, but to carry as extra rations in his food bag and water bottle. How a machine could produce food apparently from nothing was a mystery, but the results were tasty, not only for man but for koyot also. And Sander was more satisfied in results and less interested in means at the moment.
Rhin pattered on until they passed from a last grouping of rooms into another long hall, one with the same smooth walling and bars of dim light, though here all those were lit. The air remained fresh, with a faint current now and then. Sander continued to marvel at all the knowledge that must have lain behind the building and equipping of this refuge.
Sometime he would like to return once more to that room with the pool of glass and see the strange outlines that could be summoned to appear there. If Maxim had been right that the second series of pictures showed their world as it now was, then the earlier series must have been the world of the Before Days.
Sander carried with him a memory of the vast changes in those lines. But if the alteration had been so great, then how had this particular series of burrows managed to survive practically intact. He could understand that the inhabitants, once they had survived the worst of the world-wide changes, had their own methods of protecting themselves against the looting of any wandering band that approached their outer gate. But he could not conceive of a protection strong enough to stand against the fury of earthquakes, volcanoes, and disrupted seas.
This hall seemed to continue forever. Now and again Rhin dropped nose to the floor, followed by one of his small yelps. They were on their way, the right way—to where?
15
At the end of the passage, a ramp led downward again. The bars of light were fewer here; thick patches of shadow lay between each. At first the slope was gradual and then it grew steeper. It would seem that whatever the Before Men wished to hide here they had buried deeply to insure that it would not be disturbed by any upheaval of the earth.
Nor was the air as good. This supply had an acrid smell leading Sander to cough now and then. He remembered Maxim’s threat—that what Fanyi had come this way to seek had it own defenses, an idea that made him proceed with added caution. What had Maxim called it—the Great Brain? Could a machine think? Sander wished he had paid stricter attention to the Rememberers. Had any of their tales ever hinted at such?
Just as Sander thought that they would continue to descend forever, deeper and deeper into the heart of the world, the ramp straightened out. Here the glow of the wall lights was dimmed by films of long-deposited dust. Underfoot, he shuffled over a velvety carpet of the same. However, it was disturbed by prints. Even in this subdued light Sander caught sight of the fishers’ claw-tipped tracks and boot impressions only Fanyi could have left.