A horn sounded. The hetman looked about, then turned back to Guyal. “Food is prepared; will you eat?”
Guyal glanced toward the oast-pen. “I am not presently hungry, and I must hasten forward. However, I am grateful for your kindness.”
He departed; as he passed under the arch of the great daobado, he turned a glance back toward the village. There seemed an unwonted activity among the huts. Remembering the hetman’s covetous touch at his saddle, and aware that no longer did he ride the protected trail, Guyal urged his horse forward and pounded fast under the trees.
As he neared the foothills the forest dwindled to a savannah, floored with a dull, jointed grass that creaked under the horse’s hooves. Guyal glanced up and down the plain. The sun, old and red as an autumn pomegranate, wallowed in the south-west; the light across the plain was dim and watery; the mountains presented a curiously artificial aspect, like a tableau planned for the effect of eery desolation.
Guyal glanced once again at the sun. Another hour of light, then the dark night of the latter-day Earth. Guyal twisted in the saddle, looked behind him, feeling lone, solitary, vulnerable. Four oasts, carrying men on their shoulders, came trotting from the forest. Sighting Guyal, they broke into a lumbering run. With a crawling skin Guyal wheeled his horse and eased the reins, and the white horse loped across the plain toward Omona Gap. Behind came the oasts, bestraddled by the fur-cloaked villagers.
As the sun touched the horizon, another forest ahead showed as an indistinct line of murk. Guyal looked back to his pursuers, bounding now a mile behind, turned his gaze back to the forest. An ill place to ride by night …
The darkling foliage loomed above him; he passed under the first gnarled boughs. If the oasts were unable to sniff out a trail, they might now be eluded. He changed directions, turned once, twice, a third time, then stood his horse to listen. Far away a crashing in the brake reached his ears. Guyal dismounted, led the horse into a deep hollow where a bank of foliage made a screen. Presently the four men on their hulking oasts passed in the afterglow above him, black double-shapes in attitudes suggestive of ill-temper and disappointment.
The thud and pad of feet dwindled and died.
The horse moved restlessly; the foliage rustled.
A damp air passed down the hollow and chilled the back of Guyal’s neck. Darkness rose from old Earth like ink in a basin.
Guyal shivered: best to ride away through the forest, away from the dour villagers and their numb mounts. Away …
He turned his horse up to the height where the four had passed and sat listening. Far down the wind he heard a hoarse call. Turning in the opposite direction he let the horse choose its own path.
Branches and boughs knit patterns on the fading purple over him; the air smelt of moss and dank mould. The horse stopped short. Guyal, tensing in every muscle, leaned a little forward, head twisted, listening. There was a feel of danger on his cheek. The air was still, uncanny; his eyes could plumb not ten feet into the black. Somewhere near was death — grinding, roaring death, to come as a sudden shock.
Sweating cold, afraid to stir a muscle, he forced himself to dismount. Stiffly he slid from the saddle, brought forth the Expansible Egg, and flung it around his horse and himself. Ah, now … Guyal released the pressure of his breath. Safety.
Wan red light slanted through the branches from the east. Guyal’s breath steamed in the air when he emerged from the Egg. After a handful of dried fruit for himself and a sack of meal for the horse, he mounted and set out toward the mountains.
The forest passed, and Guyal rode out on an upland. He scanned the line of mountains. Suffused with rose sunlight, the gray, sage green, dark green range rambled far to the west toward the Melantine, far to the east into the Falling Wall country. Where was Omona Gap?
Guyal of Sfere searched in vain for the notch which had been visible from the village of the fur-cloaked murderers.
He frowned and turned his eyes up the height of the mountains. Weathered by the rains of earth’s duration, the slopes were easy and the crags rose like the stumps of rotten teeth. Guyal turned his horse uphill and rode the trackless slope into the mountains of Fer Aquila.
Guyal of Sfere had lost his way in a land of wind and naked crags. As night came he slouched numbly in the saddle while his horse took him where it would. Somewhere the ancient way through Omona Gap led to the northern tundra, but now, under a chilly overcast, north, east, south and west were alike under the lavender-metal sky. Guyal reined his horse and, rising in the saddle, searched the landscape. The crags rose, tall, remote; the ground was barren of all but clumps of dry shrub. He slumped back in the saddle, and his white horse jogged forward.
Head bowed to the wind rode Guyal, and the mountains slanted along the twilight like the skeleton of a fossil god.
The horse halted, and Guyal found himself at the brink of a wide valley. The wind had died; the valley was quiet. Guyal leaned forward staring. Below spread a dark and lifeless city. Mist blew along the streets and the afterglow fell dull on slate roofs.
The horse snorted and scraped the stony ground.
“A strange town,” said Guyal, “with no lights, no sound, no smell of smoke … Doubtless an abandoned ruin from ancient times …”
He debated descending to the streets. At times the old ruins were haunted by peculiar distillations, but such a ruin might be joined to the tundra by a trail. With this thought in mind he started his horse down the slope.
He entered the town and the hooves rang loud and sharp on the cobbles. The buildings were framed of stone and dark mortar and seemed in uncommonly good preservation. A few lintels had cracked and sagged, a few walls gaped open, but for the most part the stone houses had successfully met the gnaw of time … Guyal scented smoke. Did people live here still? He would proceed with caution.
Before a building which seemed to be a hostelry flowers bloomed in an urn. Guyal reined his horse and reflected that flowers were rarely cherished by persons of hostile disposition.
“Hallo!” he called — once, twice.
No heads peered from the doors, no orange flicker brightened the windows. Guyal slowly turned and rode on.
The street widened and twisted toward a large hall, where Guyal saw a light. The building had a high facade, broken by four large windows, each of which had its two blinds of patined bronze filigree, and each overlooked a small balcony. A marble balustrade fronting the terrace shimmered bone-white, and, behind, the hall’s portal of massive wood stood slightly ajar; from here came the beam of light and also a strain of music.
Guyal of Sfere, halting, gazed not at the house nor at the light through the door. He dismounted and bowed to the young woman who sat pensively along the course of the balustrade. Though it was very cold, she wore but a simple gown, yellow-orange, a daffodil’s color. Topaz hair fell loose to her shoulders and gave her face a cast of gravity and thoughtfulness.
As Guyal straightened from his greeting the woman nodded, smiled slightly, and absently fingered the hair by her cheek.
“A bitter night for travelers.”
“A bitter night for musing on the stars,” responded Guyal.
She smiled again. “I am not cold. I sit and dream … I listen to the music.”
“What place is this?” inquired Guyal, looking up the street, down the street, and once more to the girl. “Are there any here but yourself?”
“This is Carchasel,” said the girl, “abandoned by all ten thousand years ago. Only I and my aged uncle live here, finding this place a refuge from the Saponids of the tundra.”
Guyal thought: this woman may or may not be a witch.
“You are cold and weary,” said the girl, “and I keep you standing in the street.” She rose to her feet. “Our hospitality is yours.”
