Aufors leaned forward and took the key from the guard’s pocket. The guard’s eyes followed him, though slowly. Aufors unlocked and removed the shackles and replaced the key. He took the guard’s weapon, then took both cup and bottle back to the guard post where he rinsed the cup, then emptied Obrang’s water into his own water bottle before replacing the guard’s cup and locking one end of the shackle to the hut.
Darkness was falling as he walked away from the city, feeling, so he told himself, perfectly all right, though he staggered as he walked. The night winds wiped out his wavering footprints as he went, a single intention in his addled mind: somehow to get back to his boat, and then . . . then . . . find Genevieve.
* * *
Deep in the caverns beneath Havenor, beings had awakened. Some were small and some large. All were what the malghaste might once have defined as harbingers of their respective worlds, all were from worlds no longer living. It was not chance that had brought them to Haven, any more than it had been chance that brought them to these protecting caverns. Vast and wondrous spirits had chosen that the harbingers come here, to await their future in a place better suited to their needs. They had come to a refuge in chrysalises of fiber and metal made by men, the chrysalises had been broken, and now was time to leave this dark place and move on.
The beings left their cartons and moved into the dusty aisles, noses smelling, eyes seeing, tongues tasting the air. Their senses led them to the food nearby, purchased long ago and stored for their eventual benefit. Latigern and betivor, chamaris and thalliar, bruk and bralt, they among a hundred others wakened and fed and turned unfalteringly toward a desired exit, one southward under the mountains, one that led far from this place but much nearer the place they would go.
Swift as the sailing moon they went, hoofed and taloned, many-legged and legless, winged and finned, armored or furred or feathered, the larger carrying the smaller, away down dusty aisles, past towers of treasured artifacts and precipices of coveted devices, all, all fallen into ruin.
In a far nook, curled like a worm in a nut, lay the Lord Paramount. He had sucked up all but a tiny bit of the P’naki he had brought with him from the elevator, more than he had ever had all at once before, and he had been thinking about finding his way back to his elevator to fetch some more. As the creatures went by, their wild flight made him lose track of these thoughts, and he sat up to watch. There were his pets, his lovely zoo, his curiosities, his specimens, his amusements, his possessions. There they were, moving, running, going past. He lifted one little hand to wave. Byedy-bye to all that marvel, byedy-bye to all that wonder, byedy-bye, see them go, all gone. He began to hum to himself, a buzzing little hum, like a sleepy bee, musing over all those lovely creatures. Though he could not remember ordering some of them, surely he had. And quite right. They belonged here. He was quite certain they belonged here.
The creatures saw him as they passed, though they disregarded him as a function now obsolete, an actor whose sole act was done. They went from his view into tunnels no man had ever traveled, where they fled past underground rivers, slaking their thirst on dark waters that had never seen the sun. In time, sooner than anyone on the planet would have considered possible, they emerged from the seacliffs south of Bliggen, west of Frangia, near the Stone Trail. The separating seas meant nothing to them. Those who could not swim would be carried by those who could, and creatures of this world were already coming from the sea to offer assistance.
However they chose to go, they would end on Mahahm, Mahahm, which had been meant for them, from the time the first one of them was stricken down by the weapons of mankind.
The seven supply sleds were driven by Joncaster, Enid, and Melanie, plus three men from the marae: Jorub, Etain and Gilber, and one woman, Ithil. Genevieve was the only passenger as they worked their way slowly southwest, stopping each night at one of the refuges and moving on each morning. When the refuges had been resupplied, the sleds would go on to Galul for safekeeping. They were too hard come by to leave behind.