Ludowik played death.
Guyal of Sfere turned and ran wide-eyed from the hall. Ludowik, never noticing, continued his terrible piping, played as if every note were a skewer through the twitching girl’s shoulder-blades.
Guyal ran through the night, and cold air bit at him like sleet. He burst into the shed, and the white horse softly nickered at him. On with the saddle, on with the bridle, away down the streets of old Carchasel, past the gaping black windows, ringing down the starlit cobbles, away from the music of death!
Guyal of Sfere galloped up the mountain with the stars in his face, and not until he came to the shoulder did he turn in the saddle to look back.
The verging of dawn trembled into the stony valley. Where was Carchasel? There was no city — only a crumble of ruins …
Hark! A far sound? …
No. All was silence.
And yet …
No. Only crumbled stones in the floor of the valley.
Guyal, fixed of eye, turned and went his way, along the trail which stretched north before him.
The walls of the defile which led the trail were steep gray granite, stained scarlet and black by lichen, mildewed blue. The horse’s hooves made a hollow clop-clop-clop on the stone, loud to Guyal’s ears, hypnotic to his brain, and after the sleepless night he found his frame sagging. His eyes grew dim and warm with drowsiness, but the trail ahead led to unseen vistas, and the void in Guyal’s brain drove him without surcease.
The lassitude became such that Guyal slipped halfway from his saddle. Rousing himself, he resolved to round one more bend in the trail and then take rest.
The rock beetled above and hid the sky where the sun had passed the zenith. The trail twisted around a shoulder of rock; ahead shone a patch of indigo heaven. One more turning, Guyal told himself. The defile fell open, the mountains were at his back and he looked out across a hundred miles of steppe. It was a land shaded with subtle colors, washed with delicate shadows, fading and melting into the lurid haze at the horizon. He saw a lone eminence cloaked by a dark company of trees, the glisten of a lake at its foot. To the other side a ranked mass of gray-white ruins was barely discernible. The Museum of Man? … After a moment of vacillation, Guyal dismounted and sought sleep within the Expansible Egg.
The sun rolled in sad sumptuous majesty behind the mountains; murk fell across the tundra. Guyal awoke and refreshed himself in a rill nearby. Giving meal to his horse, he ate dry fruit and bread; then he mounted and rode down the trail. The plain spread vastly north before him, into desolation; the mountains lowered black above and behind; a slow cold breeze blew in his face. Gloom deepened; the plain sank from sight like a drowned land. Hesitant before the murk, Guyal reined his horse. Better, he thought, to ride in the morning. If he lost the trail in the dark, who could tell what he might encounter?
A mournful sound. Guyal stiffened and turned his face to the sky. A sigh? A moan? A sob? … Another sound, closer, the rustle of cloth, a loose garment. Guyal cringed into his saddle. Floating slowly down through the darkness came a shape robed in white. Under the cowl and glowing with eer-light looked a drawn face with eyes like the holes in a skull.
It breathed its sad sound and drifted away on high … There was only the blow of the wind past Guyal’s ears.
He drew a shuddering breath and slumped against the pommel. His shoulders felt exposed, naked. He slipped to the ground and established the shelter of the Egg about himself and his horse. Preparing his pallet, he lay himself down; presently, as he lay staring into the dark, sleep came on him and so the night passed.
He awoke before dawn and once more set forth. The trail was a ribbon of white sand between banks of gray furze and the miles passed swiftly.
The trail led toward the tree-clothed eminence Guyal had noted from above; now he thought to see roofs through the heavy foliage and smoke on the sharp air. And presently to right and left spread cultivated fields of spikenard, callow and mead-apple. Guyal continued with eyes watchful for men.
To one side appeared a fence of stone and black timber: the stone chiseled and hewn to the semblance of four globes beaded on a central pillar, the black timbers which served as rails fitted in sockets and carved in precise spirals. Behind this fence a region of bare earth lay churned, pitted, cratered, burnt and wrenched, as if visited at once by fire and the blow of a tremendous hammer. In wondering speculation Guyal gazed and so did not notice the three men who came quietly upon him.
The horse started nervously; Guyal, turning, saw the three. They barred his road and one held the bridle of his horse.
They were tall, well-formed men, wearing tight suits of somber leather bordered with black. Their headgear was heavy maroon cloth crumpled in precise creases, and leather flaps extended horizontally over each ear. Their faces were long and solemn, with clear golden-ivory skin, golden eyes and jet-black hair. Clearly they were not savages: they moved with a silky control, they eyed Guyal with critical appraisal, their garb implied the discipline of an ancient convention.
The leader stepped forward. His expression was neither threat nor welcome. “Greetings, stranger; whither bound?”
“Greetings,” replied Guyal cautiously. “I go as my star directs … You are the Saponids?”
“That is our race, and before you is our town Saponce.” He inspected Guyal with frank curiosity. “By the color of your custom I suspect your home to be in the south.”
“I am Guyal of Sfere, by the River Scaum in Ascolais.”
“The way is long,” observed the Saponid. “Terrors beset the traveler. Your impulse must be most intense, and your star must draw with fervent allure.”
“I come,” said Guyal, “on a pilgrimage for the ease of my spirit; the road seems short when it attains its end.”
The Saponid offered polite acquiescence. “Then you have crossed the Fer Aquilas?”
“Indeed; through cold wind and desolate stone.” Guyal glanced back at the looming mass. “Only yesterday at night-fall did I leave the gap. And then a ghost hovered above till I thought the grave was marking me for its own.”
He paused in surprise; his words seemed to have released a powerful emotion in the Saponids. Their features lengthened, their mouths grew white and clenched. The leader, his polite detachment a trifle diminished, searched the sky with ill-concealed apprehension. “A ghost … In a white garment, thus and so, floating on high?”
“Yes; is it a known familiar of the region?”
There was a pause.
“In a certain sense,” said the Saponid. “It is a signal of woe … But I interrupt your tale.”
“There is little to tell. I took shelter for the night, and this morning I fared down to the plain.”
“Were you not molested further? By Koolbaw the Walking Serpent, who ranges the slopes like fate?”
“I saw neither walking serpent nor crawling lizard; further, a blessing protects my trail and I come to no harm so long as I keep my course.”
“Interesting, interesting.”
“Now,” said Guyal, “permit me to inquire of you, since there is much I would learn; what is this ghost and what evil does he commemorate?”
“You ask beyond my certain knowledge,” replied the Saponid cautiously. “Of this ghost it is well not to speak lest our attention reinforce his malignity.”
