“Kawasi’s folks now, they’re different. Different from us, too. Started as a farming people and kept to it. They spend a lot of time selectin’ seed. More’n we do. They see things in seed I never saw an’ they discard all they don’t want.
“They’ve learned how to use water. We waste most of the water we use on plants in the field, or did in my time. They use more plants than we do. Lots of stuff we pulled up as weeds when I was a youngster, they cultivate. All up an’ down these canyons and on the mesa tops as well—they’ve used every bit of space. Miles of the canyon walls have been terraced for crops, an’ some of them you can’t even see how they got to them to plant.
“Here I am, talkin’ up a storm when you got other things to think about. Trouble is, I’ve had nobody to talk to in a long time. I learned a bit of Kawasi’s lingo but not enough.
“You be careful down there, d’you hear? I’ll be yonder with my Big Fifty and ready to use it if you get out o’ there.”
“I’ll get out.”
Mike Raglan adjusted the turban and, without a glance backward, started down the path behind the brush. Right below was a place where he could walk into one of the narrower streets that would take him toward the Forbidden.
His heart was pounding and a feeling of uneasiness crept over him. He was a damned fool. He should go back up there and find a way out and get out. He was a fool to go into that maze, where every other door might be a trap.
The streets were empty. If anyone observed him, he did not see them. He walked steadily, adopting the gait of Tazzoc as well as he could. At the end of the street the enormous walls of the Forbidden loomed massive and black. Again his hand touched his pistol. If he went out, he would go fighting.
From long practice his was a photographic mind. He had begun when an apprentice magician in his boyhood, memorizing cards and where they fell, and he had used every device for improving his memory. Before him now was that map, and the inner rooms of the Forbidden were a maze through which he must find a way.
Were they watching him? Had he been betrayed? Before him loomed the giant wall, soaring high, then sloping back into a rounded roof. A massive gate to his left, and beside it the smaller door. He walked up to it and put his hand on the latch.
As he touched it he felt a chill. He was still a free man. He need go no farther. He could turn around and walk back and lie to them. He could say the door was locked and that he dare not demand its opening. He could say …
He would not, and he would not lie. He had come this far and he would go on, to whatever lay ahead. After all, he had never expected to live forever.
He glanced to his right. Dimly, he thought he could see the path Johnny would be watching. It led down through some wild brush and then faintly along the mountainside among the rocks. That was the way he would go if he had to escape. Not through the town, which would be a trap, but along that path.
He lifted the latch and stepped in, closing the door behind him. He was in a wide, stone-paved court, empty but for two of the Varanel who stood together some hundred and fifty feet away, near another wall. They were talking together, paying no attention to him.
Ahead of him he could see a dozen doors, and to the extreme left a narrow passage leading along one side of the main building. It was the way Tazzoc had said he should come. Holding himself to a slow, methodical walk, he started for that place, but watched the Varanel from the corners of his eyes. They were still deep in conversation.
He walked on. It was there, not sixty feet away. He counted his steps, mouth dry. He was scared. Apprehensive, at least. Now they had stopped talking and both were looking at him.
Watching him? No, just looking—probably so used to that robe that they scarcely saw it. He was a part of the surroundings, and he must act accordingly. The slightest wrong move and he was finished.
How could he find Erik? Capture somebody and force him to tell him? But who would know? Probably less than a dozen even knew there was a prisoner, and fewer would know where he was held.
One more step and he was past the corner and into the narrow passage. The guards had gone back to talking, and he took that step, then moved from the corner into the deeper shadow of the black wall.
He was in an arcade, a row of slender pillars on his left, a blank black wall on his right. His footsteps made faint sounds as he walked. There were doors on his right, a row of them. He ignored them and walked ahead. There was the door to the Hall of the Archives.
Tazzoc had said nobody came there. Or rarely. In the past they had come, but most had forgotten there even were any archives. And they cared less. After all, they might ask themselves, what was there to learn about such a closed society?
He glanced back. No one. He took the last step and reached the faded green door. His hand went out for the latch.
A sound behind him, a word of objection, or so it sounded. He turned sharply around. It was a small man with thick gray hair and a thin, scrawny neck. The man shook his head, gesturing him away. Then slowly, he spoke, as if feeling for words long unfamiliar. “Do not. They know you come.”
“Thank you, but I must go. A friend is a prisoner.”
The small man furrowed his brow, trying to understand, then shook his head but added, ” ‘Thank you’ is good. Once … long time back, we speak so. No more. Nothing is thank you now.”
Raglan wanted him to understand. He held his wrists together as if bound. “My friend is a prisoner within. He must be freed.”
The man seemed to grasp the idea but shook his head. “No. Tohil will have him. He will be thrown upon the Tongue.”
What he meant Raglan could not imagine, yet the old man sounded friendly and he was in no position to doubt. “You speak my language?” he asked.
“I am Camha. When young I was one who learned. The Varanel had seized a man to question, a man from your side, and he gave answers to our talking. It was decided some should learn your speak to cross over. We wished things you possessed and we did not. Five were trained. Then a decision was made. No go. Stay.”
He paused, blinking his eyes slowly. “Amongst us we speak often to keep alive our learning. We have books. We read, and your land is good. We think maybe better than here. Then our books are seized and we are forbidden to speak of your world.” He looked off down the long arcade. “Once to read of great books is to taste what is never forgotten.”
“And do you not have books?”
“Only the word of The Hand. Only what is told us to read.”
“Do you know what this place is? The Hall of Archives?”
“It is forbidden. We who know of it do not speak of it. We only wish to look, to see.”
“Do you know Tazzoc?”
“I know, but do not speak. We walk afar from each other for fear.”
“The Hand has great power.”
Camha bobbed his head. “It is true.”
“We have a saying that power corrupts.”
“It does. Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.”
“You wish to go in with me? To the Hall of Archives?”
Camha shivered. “I have fear. I am an old man. My bones are weak. I have an old wife whom I love and children whom I love, although they ignore me. They fear I am tainted and I am not seen. Yet I love them still. I understand, and forgive.
“To enter there? Ah, if I could go and come! I cannot. My old woman would be alone then, and it is too late for us to be alone. I must forget the love of learning and remember she who has walked beside me this long time.”
Camha looked into Raglan’s eyes. “They would destroy that, also, but love is with us still, here and there. The Hand wishes no loyalty but to him. Such rulers begin by demanding a little and end by demanding all.