Daybreak—2250 A.D.

7. DEATH PLAYS HIDE AND SEEK

For four days Arskane lay in the cool hall of the museum while Fors hunted for the pot or ranged scouting trips through the woodland, never venturing too far from the_ white building. And at night across the fire they grew familiar with each other’s speech and exchanged stories of their past.

“Our Old Ones were flying men,” Arskane’s deep voice rolled across the room. “After the Last Battle they came down from the sky to their homeland and found it blasted into nothing. Then they turned their machines and fled south and when the machines would no longer bear them in the sky they landed in a narrow desert valley. And after a time they took to wife the women of that country. So did my tribe spring forth—

“On the fringes of the desert, life is very hard, but my people learned to use the waste for what it will give man and later they held much good land. Until twice twelve moons ago did they hold it—then the earth trembled and shook so that a man could not stand upright. From the “mountains to our southland came fire and many evil smells. Talu of the Long Beard and Mack the Three Fingered died of coughing in the death fog which came down, upon the village. And in the morning the world shook again just as the dawn light broke and this time the mountains spewed forth burning rock which flowed down to engulf the best of our hard-won fields and pastures. So we gathered what we might and fled before it, all the tribe together, driving our sheep and taking with us only what might be carried in the pony carts and on our backs.

“We struck to the north and discovered that the earth had broken in other places also so that to the east the sea had eaten into the land. Then we must flee from the rising waters as we had fled from the fire. And it seemed that nowhere might we find a place to call our own again. Until at last we came into this territory where so many of the Old Ones once had lived. Then divers of the young warriors, myself among them, were sent on to scout and mark out fields for our sowing and a place to build anew the Village of Birds. This is a fair country—” Arskane’s hand gestured south. “I saw much and should have returned with my news, but, having come so far, my heart would not let me rest until I saw more and more of its wonders. I watched in secret the comings and goings of the Plainspeople, but they are not as my folk. It is in their hearts to live in houses of skin which may be set up in any field they choose and taken down again when they grow weary. Your mountain breed I do not know—we have little liking for high places since our mountains brought destruction upon us.

“These cities of the dead have their uses. One can find treasures here—as you know well. One can also find worse things.” He touched the bandage pad on his shoulder. “I do not think my people will have a liking for the cities. Now, when I can again walk a straight trail, I must go back to report to the tribe. And maybe it shall follow that we will settle along some river valley where the soil is black and rich. And there shall we open up old fields to the seed grain, and turn out our sheep to graze on the hillsides. Then shall the Village of Birds again take root, in a fair and fruitful land.” He sighed.

“You have named yourself a warrior,” Fors said slowly.

“Against whom do you war? Are there Beast Things also in your deserts?”

Arskane smiled grimly. “In the days of the Great Blow-up the Old Ones loosed certain magic they could not control. Our wise ones know not the secret, having only to guide them the tales of our fathers, the flying men. But this magic acted in strange and horrible ways. There were things in the desert which were born enemy to man, scaled creatures most horrible to look upon. The magic made these both cunning and quick so that it was ever war to the death between them and all humankind. But as yet they seem few and perhaps the molten rock from the mountains has eaten them up entirely. For we have seen none of their breed since we left.”

“Radiation.” Fors played with the hilt of his short sword. “Radiation mutations—but sometimes it worked well. Lura’s kind was born of such magic!”

The dark-skinned southerner looked at the cat who sprawled at ease beyond. “That was good—not evil-magic. I wish that my people had friends such as that to protect them in their wanderings. For we have had to fight many times against beasts and men. The Plainspeo-ple have not shown themselves friends to us. There is always danger to watch for. One night when I was in a dead place I was set upon by a pack of nightmare creatures. Had I not been able to climb beyond their reach and use my knife well they would have stripped the flesh from my bones.”

“That I know.” Fors brought out the drum and put it into the other’s hands and Arskane gave a little cry of pure delight.

“Now can I talk with the Master of Scouts!” His fingers started to tap out a complicated beat on the head but Fors’ hand shot out and clamped about his wrist.

“No!” The mountaineer forced the fingers away from the drum. “That might signal others—as well as your people. It was a thing unknown to me which dug that trap—”

The scowl which twisted Arskane’s black brows smoothed away as the mountaineer continued:

“I believe that that is the work of the Beast Things.

And if they still skulk in this city your drum would bring them in—”

“The trap was old—”

“Yes. But never yet have we found Beast Things living together in great numbers. He who set it may now be still dwelling only the length of these ruins from us. This is a large city and all the men of the Eyrie would not be enough to search it well.”

“Your tongue is as straight as your wit.” Arskane set aside the drum. “We shall get free of this dwelling place of shadows before I try to speak with the tribe. Tomorrow I shall be able to take the trail. Let us be off with the dawn light. There is an evil in these old places which seems to clog the nostrils. I like better the cleanness of the open land.”

Fors made up a small bundle of the city loot, caching what remained in an inner room: His leg was fully healed and Arskane could ride the mare for the next day or two. Regretfully the mountaineer looked upon the pile of his gleanings before he covered them up. But at least he had the map he had made and the journal of his explorations both packed away in the Star pouch, along with some of the colored pencils and the small figures from the museum case, Arskane wandered through the building most of the afternoon, trying his legs he said, but also interested in what lay there. Now he turned on one wrist a wide band of wrought gold and carried a massive club with the head of a spike embedded in a ball which he had found in a room devoted to implements of war. His throwing spears and bow had been recovered from the depths of the trap but the shafts of the spears were broken and he could not draw the bow until his shoulder healed.

The sultry heat of the past days had not yet closed in when they ate their last meal in the museum at dawn the next day and stamped out the fire. Arskane protested against riding but Fors argued him up on the mare and they started out along the one trail the mountaineer had mapped, the one which had brought him into the city. They made no stops, traveling at their best pace down the littered street—with before them the cluster of tall buildings which had been Fors’ goal on his first day in the city. If fortune favored them he was sure they could be almost out of the circle of the ruins by nightfall.

Arskane used his hands as sun shields and watched with wonder the towering buildings they moved among.

“Mountains—man made—that is what we see here. But why did the Old Ones love to huddle together in such a fashion? Did they fear their own magic so that they must live cheek to cheek with their kind lest it eat them up when it was loosed—as it did? Well, they died of it in the end, poor Old Ones. And now we have a better life—”

“Do we?” Fors kicked at a loose stone. “They had such knowledge—we are groping in the dark for only crumbs of what they knew—”

“But they did not use all their learning for good!” Arskane indicated the ruins. “This city came out of their brains and then it was also destroyed by them. They built only to tear down again. I think it better to build than to blast.”

As the murmur of his words died away Fors’ head snapped around. He had caught a whisper of sound, a faint pattering. And had he, or had he not, seen the loathsome outline of a bloated rat body slipping into a shat-tered window? There were sounds among the stones— almost as if something—or things—were following them. Lura’s ears were flat to her skull, her eyes only battle slits in her brown mask. She stood with her forepaws planted upon a fallen column staring back along the track they had come, the tip of her tail quivering. Arskane caught their unease.

“What is—”

At first Fors thought that the scream which answered that half question came from the throat of a bird. And I then the mare swung up her head and gave a second second wild cry. Arskane threw himself off just as she reared to crash back on the stones. Then Fors saw the dart rising and falling in the gaping wound which had torn open her throat.

“In—” Arskane’s hand about his wrist jerked him into a cavern opening in the front of the highest tower. As they fled Lura’s blood-chilling war cry ripped the air. But a second later she too was with them pushing back into the dark center of the building.

They paused at the top of a ramp which led down into murky shadows. There were floors below. Fors could see a bit of them. But Arskane pointed to the floor. Beaten in the dust and dried mud was a regular path of footprints-made by feet too narrow—clawed feet!

Lura backed away from that highway spitting and snarling. So—they had not escaped but come straight into the stronghold of the enemy! And it did not need the cry of triumph from without, coming in shrill inhuman exultation, to confirm that.

But the trail led down—they might still go up! Lura and Arskane shared Fors’ thought, for both ran for the left hand corridor which was parallel to the street level. There were heavy doors along the hall, and no matter how hard they pushed none of these gave. Only one at the very end was open and they crowded up to look down a shaft into utter darkness. But Fors had glimpsed something else.

“Hold my belt!” he ordered Arskane. “There is something to the left—”

With the southerner’s fingers hooked in his belt he dared to swing over the edge of the opening. He was right, a ladder of metal strips protruded from the wall. And when he looked up he could see a square of dull light above which must mean another open door maybe a floor or two above. But could Lura and Arskane climb too?

Arskane flexed his arms as Fors explained, testing his shoulder.

“How far above is the opening?” he wanted to know.

“Perhaps two floors—”

While they hesitated Lura edged to the lip of the shaft, measured with her eyes the reach to the ladder, and then was gone before Fors could stop her. They heard the rasp of her claws on the metal—a sound to be drowned out by another—a shuffling noise of many feet. The inhabitants of the lower depths were issuing out to hunt. Arskane tested the lashing which held his war club to his belt. Then he smiled—if a bit crookedly.

“Two floors should not be beyond my strength. And we can only try, my friend.”

He judged his distance as the cat had done and then swung away. With a pounding heart Fors waited where he was, not daring to watch that ascent. But the sound he dreaded most to hear—that of a falling body—did not follow. He fitted an arrow to his bow cord and waited.

And that wait was not long. A grayish shadow at the far corner of the corridor was target enough. He shot, pinning the gray patch to the wall with the steel-headed war arrow. Something screeched and tried to jerk free. But before it did Fors had shouldered his bow and had pushed off for the ladder. The strips remained firm under his weight—his minor nightmare had been their breaking loose after taking the strain of the cat and the big southerner—and he scrambled up at a furious pace, his breathing sounding a hurricane in his own ears. He pulled himself through that other gray space to find Lura and Arskane both anxiously waiting for him.

They were in a second corridor fronted by rows of doors, but some of these were already open. Arskane disappeared through the nearest while Fors lay belly down on the floor, his head at the opening of the shaft, listening to the sounds from below. The wailing of the thing he had wounded faded away but the shuffling noise was louder and there were growls which might or might not have been speech. So far the creatures below had not discovered how the quarry had fled.

Fors scrambled to his feet and caught at the door which had once closed the shaft—now it stood a few inches out from where it slid into the wall. Under his tugging it gave a little with a faint grating sound. The mountaineer exerted his full strength and gained a foot more.

But the grating must have betrayed them. There was a shout below and a dart sped up the shaft, to spin harmlessly back again. Arskane came up pushing before him a collection of moldering furniture.

Odd noises arose from the shaft but Fors was not tricked into looking over the edge. He continued his silent struggle with the door. Arskane stood to help him. Together they fought the stubborn metal, salt sweat stung in their eyes and dripped from their chins.

In the shaft the sounds grew louder. Several more darts skimmed into the light and fell. One, aimed with more skill or luck, skidded out across the floor between Fors’ feet. Arskane turned to his erection of furniture and gave it one mighty push, toppling the whole pile over. There was a terrified yell in answer and a distant crash. Arskane rubbed a dusty hand across his wet jaw.

“One of them, by the Horned Lizard, climbs no more!”

They had the door halfway across the shaft opening now. And all at once its resistance ended with a snap which almost sent them both flying. Fors cried out triumphantly—but too soon. A foot was all they had gained. There still remained open space enough for a body to squeeze through.

Arskane drew off and considered the door for a long moment. Then he slapped it with the flat of his hand, putting behind that blow all the force he could muster. Again it gave and came forward a few inches. But the sounds in the shaft had begun again. The hunters had not been deterred by the fate of their companion.

Something flipped out of the dark, landing close to Fors’ foot. It was a hand, but skeleton thin and covered with wrinkled grayish skin. As it scrabbled with twisted claws for a hold it seemed more a rat’s paw than a hand. Fors raised his foot and stamped, grinding the boot, nailed to cross mountain trails, into the very center of the monstrosity. The scream which answered that came from the mouth of the shaft. They threw themselves in a last furious attack upon the door, their nails breaking and tearing on the metal—and it gave—snapping into the groove awaiting it in the opposite wall.

For a long moment they leaned panting against the wall of the corridor, holding their bruised and bleeding hands out before them. Fists were beating against that door but it did not move.

“That will stay closed,” Arskane gasped at last. “They cannot hang upon the wall ladder and force it. If there is no other way up we are safe—for a time—”

Lura came down the hallway, threading her way in and out of the rooms along it. And there was no menace there. They would have a breathing spell. Or were they now caught in a trap as cruel as the one which had engulfed Arskane in the museum wood?

The southerner turned to the front of the building and Fors followed him to one of the tall windows, long bare of glass, which gave them sight of the street below. They could see the body of the mare but the pack she had carried had been stripped off and there was something queer about the way she lay—

“So—they are meat eaters—”

Fors gagged at Arskane’s words. The mare was meat— maybe they, too, were—meat! He raised sick eyes and saw that the same thought lay in the big man’s mind. But Arskane’s hand was also on the club he had taken from the museum.

“Before this meat goes into any pot, it will have to be taken. And the hunting of it is going to cost them sore. These are truly the Beast Things of which you have spoken, comrade?”

“I believe so. And they are reputed to be crafty—”

“Then must we, too, be sly. Now, since we cannot go down—let us see what may lie above us.”

Fors watched the pigeons wheeling about the ruins. The floor under their feet was white with bird droppings.

“We have no wings—”

“No—but I am bred of a race which once flew,” Arskane answered with a sort of quiet humor coloring his tone. “We shall find a way out of here that offal below cannot follow. Let us now seek it.”

They passed out of one hall into another, looking into the rooms along the way. Here were only decaying sticks of furniture and bones. In the third hall were more of the shaft doors—all closed. Then, in the far end of one back hall, Arskane pushed open a last door and they came upon stairs which led both up and down.

Lura brushed past them and went down, fading away with her customary skill and noiselessness. They squatted down in the shadows to wait for her report.

Arskane’s face showed a grayish tinge which was not born of the lack of light. The struggle up that ladder and with the door had left its marks on him. He grunted and settled his bad shoulder gingerly against the wall. Fors edged forward. Now that they were quiet his ears could work for him. He heard the pattering which was Lura on her way, the trickle of powdered rubble which her paws had disturbed somewhere.

There was no sign hereabout that the Beast Things had used this stair. But—Lura had stopped! Fors closed his eyes, blanking out his own thoughts, trying as he never had before to catch the emanations of the big cat’s mind. She was not in any danger but she was baffled. The path before her was closed in such a manner that she could not win through. And when her brown head appeared again above the top step Fors knew that they could not escape by that route. He said as much to Arskane.

The tall man pulled himself to his feet with a weary sigh.

“So. Then let us climb—but gently, comrade. These stairs of the Old Ones beat a man’s breath out of his body!”

Fors pulled Arskane’s arm over his shoulder, taking some of the weight of the larger man.

“Slow shall it be—we have the full day before us—”

“And perhaps the night, too, and some other days. Well, climb—comrade.”

Five floors higher Arskane sank down, pulling Fors with him. And the mountaineer was glad of the rest. They had gone slowly, to be sure, but now his leg ached and his breath sobbed in a band of pain beneath his small ribs.

For a space they simply sat there, taking deep breaths and resting. Then Fors noticed with dismay that the sunlight was fading in the patches on the floor. He crawled to a window and looked out. Through the jagged teeth of broken buildings he could see the waters of the lake and the sun was far into the west. It must be late afternoon.

Arskane shook himself awake at that information.

“Now we come,” he observed, “to the matter of food. And perhaps we have too often refreshed ourselves from your canteen—”

Water! Fors had forgotten that. And where inside this maze would they find either food or drink? But Arskane was on his feet now and going through the door which must lead to the rest of that floor. Birds—Fors remembered the evidences of their nesting here—that would be the answer—birds!

But they carne into a long room where some soft fabric lay under their feet. There were many tables set in rows down its length, each encircled by chairs. Fors caught the glint of metal laid out in patterns on the nearest. He picked up an unmistakable fork! This then had been an eating place of the Old Ones. But the food—any food would be long since gone.

He said that aloud only to have Arskane shake his head.

“Not so, comrade. Rather do I say that we are favored with such luck as few men have. In my journey north I chanced upon just such a place as this and in the smaller rooms behind I found many jars of food left by the Old Ones, but still good. That night did I feast as might a chieftain when the Autumn Dances begin—”

“To eat food found in the old places is to choose death. That is the law!” repeated Fors stubbornly. But he did trail along behind as Arskane moved purposely toward the door at the other end of the room.

“There are foods of many kinds. This I can reason—the container which holds it must be perfect—without blemish. Even I, who have not the lore of these dead places, can guess that. But I live, do I not, and I have eaten of the bounty left by the Old Ones. We can do no less than seek for it here.”

Arskane, wise from his earlier experience, brought them into a room where shelves stood around the walls. Jars of glass and metal containers were arranged in rows along the shelves and Fors marveled at the abundance. But the southerner walked slowly around, peering intently at the glass jars, paying no attention to the metal red with rust. He came back at last with a half dozen bottles in his arms and put them down on the table in the center of the room.

“Look well at the topping, comrade. If you see no signs of decay there, then strike it off and eat!”

Ten minutes later they were sucking sticky fingers, gorged on fruit which had been there for generations before their birth. The juice appeased their thirst and Fors listened to sounds from the rooms ahead. Lura feasted too—so birds did nest here.

Arskane used his belt knife to snap the top from another jar.

“We need not worry for our food. And tomorrow we shall discover a way out of here. For once the Beast things of the dead places have found their match!”

And Fors, gorged and content, met that confidence with his own.