The wharf was Ancient work, a sudden dazzling contrast to the drabness and poverty of the human town. Its table thrust iridescent, hard and cool beneath the feet, out of the mountainside. Millions of years had broken a corner off it but not eroded the substance. What they had done was steal the waves which once lapped its lower edge; now brush-grown slopes fell steeply to the water a kilometer beneath.
The town covered the mountain for a similar distance upward, its featureless adobe blocks finally huddling against the very flanks of the Arena which crowned the peak. That was also built by the Ancients, and even ruined stood in glory. It was of the same shining, enduring material as the wharf, elliptical in plan, the major axis almost a kilometer and the walls rearing more than 30 meters before their final upthrust La what had been seven towers and remained three. Those walls were not sheer; they fountained, in pillars, terraces, arches, galleries, setbacks, slim bridges, winglike balconies, so that light and shadow played endlessly and the building was like one eternal cool fire.
Banners rose, gold and scarlet, to the tops of flagstaffs on the parapets. The Companions were changing their guard.
Jaan’s gaze turned away, to the northerly horizon where the continent reared above the Sea of Orcus. With Virgil barely over them, the heights appeared black, save for the Linn. Its dim thunder reverberated through air and earth.
—I do not see them flying, he said.
—No, they are not, replied Caruith. For fear of pursuit, they landed near Alsa and induced a villager to convey them in his truck. Look, there it comes.
Jaan was unsure whether his own mind or the Ancient’s told his head to swing about, his eyes to focus on the dirt road snaking uphill from the shoreline. Were the two beginning to become one already? It had been promised. To be a part, no, a characteristic, a memory, of Caruith … oh, wonder above wonders….
He saw the battered vehicle more by the dust it raised than anything else, for it was afar, would not reach the town for a while yet. It was not the only traffic at this early hour. Several groundcars moved along the highway that girdled the sea; a couple of tractors were at work in the hills behind, black dots upon brown and wan green, to coax a crop out of niggard soil; a boat slid across the thick waters, trawling for creatures which men could not eat but whose tissues concentrated minerals that men could use. And above the Arena there poised on its negafield an aircraft the Companions owned. Though unarmed by Imperial decree, it was on guard. These were uneasy times.
“Master.”
Jaan turned at the voice and saw Robhar, youngest of his disciples. The boy, a fisherman’s son, was nearly lost in his ragged robe. His breath steamed around shoulder-length black elflocks. He made his bow doubly deep. “Master,” he asked, “can I serve you in aught?”
—He kept watch for hours till we emerged, and then did not venture to address us before we paused here, Caruith said. His devotion is superb.
—I do not believe the rest care less, Jaan replied out of his knowledge of humankind: which the mightiest nonhuman intellect could never totally sound. They are older, lack endurance to wait sleepless and freezing on the chance that we may want them; they have, moreover, their daily work, and most of them their wives and children.
—The time draws nigh when they must forsake those, and all others, to follow us.
—They know that. I am sure they accept it altogether. But then should they not savor the small joys of being human as much as they may, while still they may?
—You remain too human yourself, Jaan. You must become a lightning bolt.
Meanwhile the prophet said, “Yes, Robhar. This is a day of destiny.” As the eyes before him flared: “Nonetheless we have practical measures to take, no time for rejoicing. We remain only men, chained to the world. Two are bound hither, a human and an Ythrian. They could be vital to the liberation. The Terrans are after them, and will surely soon arrive in force to seek them out. Before then, they must be well hidden; and as few townsfolk as may be must know about them, lest the tale be spilled.