“Be seated,” Raglan said, and when the man looked puzzled, he repeated, “Sit!” and gestured at a place near the fire but directly in front of Raglan.
The man seated himself, cross-legged, and looked over at him. His costume did not surprise Mike Raglan, who had lived through the hippie period of the sixties and was astonished by nothing.
“Speak, then,” Raglan suggested.
“You look for something?”
“Aren’t we all?”
The man smiled suddenly, revealing white, marvelously even teeth. “I think yes. It is our way, to seek.” His smile vanished. “It is the way for some of us, but a dangerous way.”
He paused a minute and then, speaking slowly as if groping for words, he said, “I think somewhere you live in a nice place. I think it is better you go there.”
Raglan still held the pistol, but it was hidden by the blanket and he did not know whether the man guessed that he held a weapon.
“I have lost a friend. I search for him.”
“He is gone. You will not find him,.and if you try to look you will go where he has gone.” The man paused. “I try be friend to you.”
“If you are a friend, bring Erik Hokart to me and then I shall know you are a friend.” He spoke slowly, seeing that the stranger had difficulty with the words. “If he does not come, I shall continue to search. If I do not find him soon, many will come. They will find him and they will also find whatever else can be found. There will be no secrets then.”
“It must not be.”
“Sorry, friend, it will be. They will come first to the kiva on the mesa. They will go through the window. They will find Erik Hokart.”
“There will be fight then.”
Raglan shrugged. “They will expect it. Many will come. First, there will be policemen, and after that, the army. Many, many men, with weapons and machines. Nothing will stop them.”
The man shook his head and smiled again. This time he smiled less warmly. “Do not say untrue thing. You are few. You are not strong.”
“Who told you that? If that is what you have been told, you cannot trust those who speak. We are many, and we are strong, and where my people come, nothing is ever the same again, which is often a mistake they do not recognize.”
Raglan was puzzled. The man’s speech was slow, somewhat halting, the words carefully enunciated. He looked to be an intelligent man, and he did not appear to be seeking trouble. Yet who else might wait out there in the darkness? Even as they talked, Raglan strained his ears to listen.
There was something interesting here. The man seemed to be warning him, yet trying to avert danger. He offered no threats.
“Long ago,” Raglan said, “when my people first came to this country, only a few came west to trade for fur. The Indians they met despised them for their weakness. They saw only a few men, or often one alone, and they traded for skins. To the Indians they met this was foolish and weak. If they were men, why did they not trap their own fur? The Indian had no idea of the millions of people in the eastern lands. It is the same with you. You have seen a few of us and do not know how many of us there are.
“You do not know our insatiable curiosity, our drive to investigate, to explore, to learn. No barrier will stop my people, even if some should wish it. No doubt your land has minerals we could exploit. It may have timber. It may have much we need or believe we need. There is no barrier to stop the mind of man, nor the feet that follow, nor the hands that will do what is to be done.
“You have but one choice. Return Erik Hokart to us and we will close up the opening in the kiva and bother you no more.”
“It is not possible. It is not I who say he can be free. I am but one man and have no authority. Go,” he added, “and do not come back. If the window in the kiva was a mistake, the mistake was mine. It was I who wished to open the way.”
“You?”
“An ancient tablet told of the kiva and the opening to your world. I am he who is Keeper of the Archives. Into my hands all such things come. In the Halls of Shibalba there are many Tablets, lying long untouched. They are writ in the ancient characters which cannot be spoken. I have writ them in your tongue.”
“In English? Why?”
“It is read by few, but known by several of my kind, and such knowledge as I have discovered is not for the people.” He hesitated. “Nor even for the Masters.”
“I thought The Hand was your ruler?”
He stared at Raglan. “You know of The Hand? How could you know such things?”
Not wishing to betray Kawasi, Mike said, “We, too, have our archives.”
“It cannot be! You know nothing of us! No one from your world has ever entered ours and returned!”
“You are sure? Not even many years ago?”
He hesitated, then said, “It is not in the Archives.”
“You have examined them all?”
“Years would be needed, and I have but begun.”
“Then you do not know. You know only what is commonly said. What is agreed upon. A scholar does not accept. He questions, examines, then suggests a possibility.”
The man was silent, and Raglan added fuel to his small fire. Then the man spoke.
“What I say is true. You must go. The man you seek has been taken before The Hand. The Hand will dispose of him as he sees fit. No one opposes The Hand.”
“No? What of the followers of He Who Had Magic?”
The man stared at Raglan, then shook his head. “That is a legend. There was no such person. There are no such people.”
The flames flickered under a touch of wind. The two men sat silent, staring into the fire. “It would have been well to have left the kiva closed,” Raglan said mildly. “You have begun something that cannot be stopped.” He paused. “Our legend is that your world is evil. How is it evil?”
The man’s eyes avoided Raglan’s. He gestured about him. “What is this place?”
“It is a place in the desert. The river out there is the San Juan. It is Spanish name, as the Spanish once came to this country and left their names upon the land.”
“You have cities?”
“Very large ones, far from here. The nearest is over one hundred miles away, but there are towns, and people. There are roads that lead to the cities. Most of them are far away.”
Chief had been lying quietly. Now he stirred, and the man started to rise, obviously frightened.
“It is all right,” Raglan said. “It is my dog.”
Uneasily, the man looked at Chief, whom he could scarcely make out, lying deep in the shadow of the cedar.
“We can talk of our cultures later,” Raglan said. “Now we must speak of Erik Hokart. You say he is a prisoner of The Hand, so we must speak with The Hand.”
“You do not know what you say. It cannot be done.”
“You can take me to him.”
“It is impossible. You do not comprehend. Nobody can go to The Hand. My hair is touched with gray, yet I have never been in his presence.
“My life is spent among the Tablets. I am their protector, and of our people few even know of their existence. Long ago our rulers came there to study, but it has been many generations since one of them has come. Once we who were Keepers of the Word were called in council, but it is so no longer. The Hand may not even remember that we exist.”
As they talked, Raglan began to understand a little. The Archives had been accumulated in ancient times, beginning long before the Escape, when some of the people fled the growing evil and took shelter beyond the veil. For over one thousand years they had lived in the new world they found, until drought and invading savages drove them to return. In the intervening time they had forgotten the horrors from which they had fled. Some did remember and refused to return. They had merged with other tribes. When originally they fled they had been workers in the fields and only a few of the wise men had gone with them, so they had known little of their own world.
Raglan asked about The Hand. Was it one man or several? Where did he live? Where would Erik be held prisoner? The man shook his head. “I do not know. There is a part of our city where none may go. He will have been taken there, I presume. Only by command of The Hand may anyone enter, and those who go do not often return.” He looked into Raglan’s eyes. “So you see? Not many wish to go.”