Sparks shot from the band of metal he wore. It was warming up. Still, he would not take it off. Cold iron had saved him twice, and he clung to what he had learned might work for him, the more so when he now was surrounded by what he could not understand, dare not even examine too closely.
The fishers guided him directly to a very small room on the other side of the place. It was hardly larger than a good-sized cabinet. Its walls were clear, so that one could look through them. Seated within, her hands clenched about the pendant still lying on her breast, was Fanyi.
Though her eyes were wide open, seemingly staring straight at him, Sander realized she did not see him. What did she see? He grew chill for a moment in spite of the heat of the outer room. Expressions passed fleetingly one after the other across her face. There was fear, a kind of horror, revulsion—
Her bush of hair stood erect, as if each strand were charged with energy from root to tip. Small beads of sweat gathered on her upper lip and forehead and rolled down her cheeks as if she wept without ending. There was a terrible stiffness about her whole body, which betrayed some tension beyond the ordinary.
Kayi pawed at the front of the cabinet, but there was no shadow of recognition on Fanyi’s distorted face. She was like one sealed into a nightmare with no means of escape.
Now her body began to jerk spasmodically. Sander saw her mouth open as if she were screaming. But he could hear nothing. He ran forward and caught at the bar at waist level on the door, hoping it was the latch. Against it he exerted all his strength. It did not budge.
It was as if she were locked in past any hope of escape. He could see her eyes rolling from side to side, her head moving back and forth. He grabbed one of the darts from his case, inserted it between the bar and the door and tried to pry it up.
Now Fanyi’s whole body was jerking steadily as if she had no control over her own muscles. There was no longer any sign of intelligence in her face, her mouth fell slackly open, while from her lower lip drooled a thread of spittle.
Sander fought the door. The dart snapped in his hands, but not before he had forced a small amount of movement. He snatched a second shaft and this time dug with all his might at the line of cleavage just beyond the bar. The dart point caught and held; he pounded it deeper.
There was a splitting crack as he gave a mighty heave upon the bar, stumbling back nearly off balance as the whole front of the cabinet yielded at last. Fanyi slumped with it. Sander was just in time to catch her totally inert body and lower her gently to the floor.
For one moment of such fear as he had never before known, he thought her dead. Then he felt the pulse in one thin brown wrist, saw the rise and fall of her breasts in fast, shallow breathing. Her eyes were rolled up, so he could see little but white between the half-closed lids.
Not even getting to his feet, he crawled and dragged her with him, away from the prison in which he had found her, seeking temporary shelter in a corner of the room as far from that cabinet and the rest of these devilish installations as he could get her. There he settled her head on his folded coat. Her hands were still so fixed about the pendant that he had to work slowly and with all the gentle force he could exert to loosen them finger by finger. He was sure that the pendant itself was part of the danger that had struck at her.
She still breathed with those quick and shallow breaths, as if she had been running, while her skin felt cold and damp in spite of the heat that filled the room. The fishers came to her, Kayi crowding in on the far side, stretching her length beside that of the girl as if, with the additional warmth of her fur-clad body, she could give some comfort.
Fanyi muttered and began to turn her head back and forth on the pillow Sander had provided. Clearly, unslurred, she began to speak, but he could not understand the words that came out, save that now and again he thought he caught an echo of the voice that had addressed him out of the air.
He drew off his second jerkin and put it over her, then caught her head in a sure grip while he dribbled a little water between her lips. She choked, coughed, and suddenly opened her eyes.
“Dead!” her voice shrilled. “Dead!”
Though she gazed straight at him, Sander realized that Fanyi saw something else—not his face, perhaps not even this room.
“I—will—not!”
Fanyi struggled to sit up until Sander caught her shoulders, pushed her gently down again. He was afraid. The eyes the girl turned upon him held no recognition. Had her experience in that prison box made her as mad as Maxim?
“You do not need to do anything”—he strove to keep his voice under even control—”which you do not want to—”
Her mouth worked as if it were nearly past her power to get out word sounds.
“I—will—not—” and then she added, “Who are you? One of the machines—the machines—?” Again her tension was rising, her body grew rigid under his touch. “I will not! You cannot force me—you cannot!”
“Fanyi—” As he had when greeting the fishers, Sander repeated her name with authority, with the need to win awareness from her. “I am Sander, you are Fanyi—Fanyi!”
“Fanyi?” She made a question of that. And the import of such an inquiry chilled Sander even more. If she could not remember her own name—! What had this devilish place done to her? He was filled with a rage so powerful that he wanted to flail out about him, smash into bits everything in this chamber.
“You are Fanyi.” He spoke as if to a small child, schooling the anger out of his voice. “I am Sander.”
She lay still, looking up at him. Then, to his relief, a measure of focus came back to her eyes. She might have been peering through a curtain to seek him out. Her tongue tip moved across her lips.
“I—am—Fanyi—” She said slowly, and gave a great sigh. He watched her relax, her head turn on the pillow he had improvised, her eyes close. She was asleep.
But they must get out of here! Perhaps if he could lift her up on Rhin—That tingling, skin-crawling sensation he had felt ever since he had entered this place was growing worse. There was something else—a kind of—nibbling was the only word Sander could find to describe the feeling—a nibbling at his mind! He brought both hands up to the wire circlet. It was warm—hot—he should take it off—much better—better.
The smith snatched his fingers away. Take that off! That was what this—this presence here wanted! He looked over his shoulder quickly. So sure was he at that moment that there was another personality here that he expected to see Maxim, or one like him, coming down the aisle between the installations.
Cold iron—
Swiftly Sander beckoned to Rhin, and when the koyot crowded beside him, he lifted Fanyi and fastened her on the animal’s back. Kayi snarled at his first move to disturb the girl, then apparently saw that Sander meant her no harm. The smith made her slumped body fast, so she lay with arms dangling on either side of Rhin’s neck.
When he was sure she was secure, Sander started back through this nightmare chamber that was haunted by the will plucking strongly at him. Could the unknown take over the animals, turn Rhin and the fishers against him?
That a sensation which they disliked and feared had reached the animals he knew by their incessant snarling and the way the fishers swung their heads back and forth as if seeking an enemy they could identify. Rhin growled, but he did not hang back as Sander urged him forward.
They passed the broken-open block in which he had found the girl. With that behind them, Sander drew a breath of relief. He did not know what he had expected might reach out of it—he had begun to believe that he could not really trust his own senses or impulses here.
The outer door was before them, and the fishers flashed through the crack. However, the opening was too narrow for Rhin carrying Fanyi. Sander unstrapped his tool bag and, as he had done in the tunnel out of the city, took up the largest of his hammers.
With all his might he swung it first against one side of that slit and then the other, dividing his energy, until, at last, the leaves of the opening yielded with a harsh grating and Rhin could wedge through successfully. Sander did not return the hammer to his bag, rather carried it in one hand as they went. Like the iron band he wore, the feel of its familiar heft in his hand gave him more confidence than he gained in handling either the dart thrower or the rod weapon from Before. This was part of his own particular calling, and as a smith he was secure. At this moment he needed such assurance.