They moved on, aware of what was akin to the beating of a giant heart not quite in rhythm with the pump of Sander’s own blood, but near enough to it. The smith blinked his dust-assaulted eyes. Finally he stopped, freed the water bottle from its lashing, wet part of a spare shirt, and held the damp, cool compress on his closed lids. Three such applications and his sight cleared, showing him details of the dusty hall.
With the disappearance of the haze, he could also see a door ahead. It was shut fast, and there was no sign of a latch or knob or any way of opening it. All that was visible on the smooth surface fronting them was a hollow at about eye level. Reaching the barrier, Sander strove to insert his fingers into that hollow, to so exert pressure that the surface would either slide to one side or lift up. But it remained stubbornly immovable.
Would the cutting power of Maxim’s rod clear a path for them here?
Sander fingered the Before Weapon. There was a risk in what it might do. Use of the beam might trigger some retaliation. Yet he could not just give up and walk away.
Fanyi must have gone through here—what method had she used? Was it that gift from her father that had perhaps brought her safely past the guardian he had beamed down? He ran his fingers about the depression in the door. Though he was only guessing, Sander believed it was just of a size that Fanyi’s pendant might fit into.
Being not so equipped with any answer to the barrier, he held the rod closer to one of the two wall lamps that flanked the door and studied it. This was the spot he had pressed on the rod to bring about the destruction of the sentry. But there were four other such markings on the part of the rod that formed the hand grip.
There was only one way to make sure—that was to try. Waving Rhin back so that the koyot might not be engulfed in any sudden disaster born from the smith’s recklessness, Sander set the firing end of the tube directly into the edge of the door’s depression.
He pressed the first button.
There was nothing at all! Nothing until Rhin gave a howl and lowered his head to the floor and pawed at his ears. Quickly Sander released that button. Was this what Maxim had used to bring the animal to submission?
Rhin shook his head vigorously; his growls were deep-chested. Now he looked at Sander, baring his teeth.
The smith was almost argued out of trying the next of the marks. He had no wish to unleash upon himself Rhin’s full anger. And he did not see how he could make the koyot understand that he had applied such torment, not by wish but through ignorance alone.
To go at once to the full power of the rod—yes. But first make sure he was not temporarily blinded a second time. Sander draped his head in the dampened shirt, tucking its folds into the edge of his hood. He sent Rhin back down the corridor, then set the rod firmly into the depression again. Bearing down hard, he applied the full force of whatever power it held.
Even through the improvised shield across his eyes, he caught a flash of white fire. There was a clank of tortured metal. Then carrying acrid fumes, a blast of damp heated air hit him full in the face.
He also heard something else. There was no mistaking that savage hissing. The fishers! And by the sharpness of the sounds they now faced him.
Sander pawed the shirt away from his face. The door had split into two, providing a space wide enough perhaps for both him and Rhin to squeeze through, but still not clearing the whole of the archway. Light, stronger than that of the corridor, streamed out, showing very clearly both Kai and Kayi, one on either side, humped and ready to spring into battle. Beyond them was a confusion of objects, brilliantly lighted, that he could see clearly.
To harm the fishers was unthinkable. He raised his voice and called, over the dryness of his throat:
“Fanyi!”
The vibration grew stronger, beat with greater power, while the hostile sounds made by the fishers became louder. But the girl did not answer.
Had she been injured—trapped by one of the protective devices Maxim had hinted at—thus arousing her companions to battle anger? Or had she purposefully set them here on guard to ward off any interference with what she would do? Either answer could serve, but it would not remove Kai and Kayi.
They must know his scent and that he had been accepted by Fanyi and had traveled with her. Would that small familiarity aid him now? Behind him he heard the pad of Rhin’s feet. There must be no fighting between the animals.
Sander retreated a few steps, eyeing the fishers narrowly. They made no move to advance from the other side of the door he had forced open. He searched in his food bag, brought out some of those small cakes that tasted so much like fresh meat, the ones Rhin had gobbled with a visible relish. To each of the fishers he tossed three of these.
Kayi sniffed first at her offering. She tongued one of the biscuits and then gulped it whole. A second one was crunched between her jaws before her mate consented to try his share. They still watched Sander as they ate, and their hissing continued. But they licked up each crumb avidly as if they had been long hungry.
Sander could not touch them as the girl did, that he was wise enough to know. But he squatted down, bringing out two more cakes, tossing one to each. As they snapped them up, he spoke in a voice he made purposefully level.
“Fanyi?”
Perhaps he was as stupid as Maxim thought him to be, to try to communicate with the fishers by voice. How could his repeating a name mean anything to animals still watching him so intently that their stare was daunting? But patiently he repeated that name the second time.
“Fanyi?”
Kai reared on his haunches, his head now well above that of the squatting smith. From this position the fisher need only make one pounce to carry Sander down under rending jaws and claws. Kayi stared, but she did not assume the same upright position.
“Fanyi—Kai—Kayi—” This time Sander tried the three names in linkage. What might be passing through the fishers’ alien thinking processes he could not even guess.
Kayi stopped hissing. She bent her head to lick her right paw. But the bigger male had not changed what seemed to Sander his challenging posture.
“Fanyi—Kai—” Now the smith only used two of the names, aiming his voice at the big male, with a slight turn of his head that cost a special effort of will, because to let Kayi out of his full sight was a risk.
Kai dropped to four feet. Though Sander could not read any expression on the fisher’s face, somehow he sensed that the beast was puzzled. And beneath that puzzlement was something else. Fear? The man could not be sure.
Taking a last risk, Sander got slowly to his feet and made a movement forward. “Fanyi!” he repeated for the fourth time with a firmness he was not sure he could continue.
Kayi backed away. Her eyes swung to the looming back of her mate and returned to the man. She uttered a sound that was not a warning. Kai hissed, showed his fangs. But Sander, taking heart from the attitude of the female, moved a step closer.
The male fisher subsided to four feet, backing away, still hissing, but yet retreating. Kayi had turned around and was padding off. Finally the big male surrendered, though he still eyed Sander suspiciously.
Rhin followed at the smith’s shoulder, crouching a little and making a struggle to win through that door slit. But the fishers did not threaten now. Together they had turned their backs on Sander, seemingly satisfied, and were on their way, threading among incomprehensible masses of glass and metal that seemed to fill this chamber.
Here the lighting was brilliant, a glare enough to cause Sander trouble with his impaired sight. And the room was alive. Not alive as he knew life, but with a different form of energy, one that caused colors, some strident, some richly vivid, to flow along through tubes and otherwise bathe some of the installations. The warm and humid heat of the place made him unlace his hood, unfasten his jacket.
He had no desire to pause to look about him. The play of the colors, the wholly alien atmosphere of this place, repelled him. Once he found Fanyi they must get out of here! His flesh tingled and crawled as if some invisible power streamed over him.