“It was something about the disk,” Flojian said. “He got excited about it for some reason and he startled the animals.” But they saw nothing unusual, even when Chaka observed that Silas’s last act had been to call her attention to the structure.
His journal had fallen onto the walkway, and in the end it was all they could find of him. The scope of a determined search for his body would have been so vast, and their resources were so limited, that they saw little chance of success. And so they restricted themselves to a nominal hunt along the northern shoreline.
Avila spoke for everyone when she pointed out that Silas would have wanted them to move on, to establish his memorial at the end of the trek. So they said farewell to his spirit in a late-afternoon ceremony, engraved the Tasselay on his marker, broke out one of the wineskins, and drank to him.
To Silas Glote, last of the Roadmakers.
They climbed a hill to get a better view of the disk to which Silas had drawn their attention. But it was hard to see why he’d got excited. The object seemed quite unremarkable. After a while they gave it up, and turned again to the north, somber, dispirited, and anxious to be away before dark.
“But I don’t think we’re going to get very far,” said Shannon, pointing to a set of cuttings on twin cottonwoods. They designated a left turn along the riverbank. Toward the esplanade. And the disk.
Reluctantly, they moved out across the ridge, through the dwindling green light. Squirrels gamboled through the leafy overhang, and birds sang. Ancient walls rose around them, brick and stone houses lost among the trees, a post light
crowded out by an elm tree and leaning at a forty-five degree angle, a hall-buried hojjy with a gray tassel hanging from a rusted mirror.
The day was unseasonably warm. Some flowering plants had already bloomed. These were unlike anything Chaka had seen before, with big, yellow, bowl-shaped flowers. “They’re fireglobes,” said Avila. “We had some at the sanctuary.”
The disk was mounted on the roof of a three-story brick building overlooking the esplanade. The front door was missing. Interior walls had crumbled. A mummified desk lay on their left, submerged in clay. “Careful,” said Shannon, as Chaka tested the floor.
“Feels okay,” she said.
She crunched through to the back of the building, with Shannon in tow, and found a stairway. Shannon put his weight on it, climbed one floor, and pronounced it safe. Moments later they stepped out onto the roof.
The disk was bowl-shaped, and looked as if it weighed six hundred pounds. It was mounted on a circular platform and held in place by a thick, U-shaped brace. The interior of the bowl was ribbed, and a series of handholds were bolted to the brace. The open portion of the bowl was raised toward the sky, pointing almost directly up.
“Holy One,” breathed Chaka.
Shannon looked at her, startled. “What?”
“I see what Silas meant. It’s moved.”
Shannon rolled his eyes and measured the bowl with a glance. “I don’t think so,” he said. He put his shoulder against the lower rim, and pushed. Nothing happened. “Nobody’s going to move that.”
But the bowl was no longer aimed in the general direction of the bridge.
They continued along the slope on foot and emerged at last into the esplanade, where the inkala had come to rest.
The shelf was flat and grassy. The soil was worn away in spots and they could see concrete. They could look down at the river, blue and cool in the westering sun. Their campsite of the previous night was visible. There was the hilltop on which they’d crouched, watching the inkala come in, and there the trail over to the bridge.
A trench several feet wide and a couple of feet deep ran the length of the esplanade, dividing the concrete.
“What do you think?” asked Chaka.
“It’s a scenic location,” said Flojian. “It would have been a place for people to come in good weather. If you poked around, you’d probably find some tables and chairs.”
Quait looked at the sky. “Not good,” he said. “It’s getting late. I don’t think we want to be here after dark.”
Everyone agreed with the sentiment, and they spread out, looking for Shay’s markers. Avila found something else.
Twenty yards into the forest on the far side, a green strip rose out of the ground to a height of about two feet. It was on a line with the trench, and it quickly acquired an outside rail and curved off north by northwest, following the corridor of the inkala. It looked like the green strip that had run parallel with the walkway across the bridge.
They found a similar construction on the eastern side of the shelf, also aimed directly down the middle of the trench.
“I suspect if we followed it back to the bridge,” said Quait, ‘it’d turn out to be a continuous piece.”
“But what is it?” asked Flojian.
They were still puzzling over it when Shannon showed them a sassafras tree on the edge of the esplanade. A cross was cut into it.
“What’s it mean?” asked Flojian.
“Don’t know,” said Shannon. “But I think it’s one of Shay’s marks.”
“You don’t know?” Flojian looked incredulous. “Isn’t there some sort of code of the woods in effect here? Don’t you people all speak the same language?”
Shannon sighed and turned to Avila. “It’s supposed to tell us something, but I’m not sure what.”
Chaka pointed across the trench. “Another one,” she said. The same mark, cut on a red oak near the too of the ridge.
Shannon took off his hat, looked first one way and then another. There were two more, at the eastern and western ends of the shelf. “I’ll tell you what it suggests to me, but it makes no sense. It’s a box. Under different circumstances, I’d think it’s telling us this is journey’s end.”
They glanced uneasily at one another.
“So what do we do now?” asked Quait.
The question was directed more or less at Avila, as if she had replaced Silas. She looked up and down the platform. The sun was on the horizon, and the sky was turning red. “Jon,” she said, “are you sure those are the same signs we’ve been following?”
He shook his head. “It looks like the same knife. And all the marks we’ve seen have been made by a little guy. I’d guess Shay was about five-five.”
“That’s about right,” said Flojian.
“How did you know?” asked Avila.
“The marks are usually centered at just over five feet. Eye level.”
“Maybe,” Flojian said, “we should debate this later. Right now, I think we ought to get away from here. No matter what our little buddy says. It’s getting dark.”
Shannon and Quait looked at Avila.
“We don’t really have anyplace else to go, so I don’t see much sense in leaving.”
“But the place is haunted,” said Chaka.
Avila had been wearing an old fabric cap over her hair. She removed it, wiped her brow, and looked out over the river. “We don’t know what’s going on here,” she said. “And I guess we have to find out. I’m going to stay and see if anything happens. Anybody who wants to stay with me is welcome. Anybody who doesn’t want to hang around, I don’t blame.” Her voice sounded strained.
Only Flojian had the courage to leave. “You’re going to get yourselves killed,” he said. “I hope you know that.” He took one of the packhorses, added some grain to its supplies, and without another word marched off down the trail toward the bridge.
A hall-hour later, he was hack, explaining that he could not abandon his friends. Maybe. Chaka thought he had found being alone even more frightening than the potential reappearancc of the apparition.
They led the horses onto the far side of the ridge. Then they made dinner, hut they all just picked at their food.
It was dark when they finished. They put out the fire, checked their weapons, returned to the top of the ridge, and took up positions along an area that overlooked the esplanade. Hod they been expecting a human enemy, they would have spread out. But they stayed together, hidden in a cluster of rocks and bushes.
Flojian sat down next to Avila. “I’ve heard,” he said, “that demons won’t accost a priest. Is there a chance that people traveling with a priest are also safe?”
“By all means,” she said quietly. “Have no fear.”
Chaka was not comfortable at the sight of Flojian stumbling around in the dark with a loaded rifle, but there was no help for it. Avila, whom Chaka knew to be a competent marksman, didn’t bother with a weapon. “Whatever it is,” she told Chaka, “I don’t think a rifle will be useful. If we need weapons against it. I doubt that we have the right ones.”
They no longer enjoyed the panoramic view to the northwest that they’d had from the opposite side of the river. Now, iheir view restricted by trees, their warning that an unearthly visitor was approaching would be very short. “This is a scary business,” Chaka admitted to Quait.
“I know.” He stayed close to her. “We’ve got plenty of fire power up here. If we need it.” His own breathing was uneven. “Boo,” he added.
They both tried to laugh, but the sound died on the wind.
“Best keep it down,” warned Shannon.
“You okay?” That was Flojian, on Chaka’s other side. His hands were trembling. Somehow that was more reassuring than Quait’s false bravado.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m line.”
“I’m sorry about Silas.”
As is usually the case with the death of someone close, Chaka had not yet come to terms with the loss. She kept expecting him to appear, to walk out of the woods with his journal in his hand. She was surprised that Flojian had noticed she’d been hit hard. “Thanks,” she said.
“He’d have been proud of us. Staying, I mean. It’s not what I wanted to do, but it’s what he would have done.”
She listened to the forest noises. Quait got up and walked along the top of the ridge, trying to see.
Shannon moved past her, knelt down beside Avila. “Do you believe demons exist?” he asked.
She made a sound deep in her throat. Then: “I don’t know, Jon. Before yesterday, I’d have said no. Now I just don’t know.”
Quait came back. “Nothing yet,” he said. He looked at the stars. “It was about this time last night.”
They fell silent. Chaka wondered if there wasn’t a charm that might help. If there was, Avila would certainly know about it. Might even have it. Probably she did, but wasn’t saying anything because she didn’t want to encourage people thinking about spooks. It had been, after all, her suggestion that they stay, and she surely would not put them all at risk if she had no defense.
“If we don’t attract its attention,” Flojian was saying to no one in particular, “we might be okay.”
Chaka aimed her weapon at the platform. She had a clear shot, if need be. “What’s the doctrinal position on demons?” she asked Avila.
“According to the Temple,” Avila said, “they do exist. But they act indirectly. They’re responsible for all kinds of evils. Illness. Flood. Sometimes they fire human emotions and drive us to oppose the will of the gods.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I’m not sure what I believe anymore. Ask me in the morning.” She turned and looked west into the trees.
A soft glow was moving out there.
“Here it comes,” said Flojian. His voice was a terrified whisper.
They crouched down in the bushes.
“Same place as last night,” said Quait. He quietly pulled his gloves tight, and wrapped his index finger around the trigger guard.
“Nobody shoot until I give the word,” said Shannon.
“No.” Avila’s voice was low. “I’ll say when.”
Chaka glanced at Shannon, who shrugged. “It comes after me.” he growled, “I’m not waiting for anybody’s okay.”
Flojian’s eyes had widened and his breathing was starting to sound irregular.
The glow opened out into a long string of lights. The lights were curving gradually, approaching along a great arc. It was above the treeline.
“Slowing down,” said Quait.
They watched it descend into the forest.
Shannon moved a few paces to his right and got behind a log. He steadied his rifle on it.
“Keep cool,” said Avila. “We are safest if we do not provoke an attack.”
“What kind of beast is it?” Chaka asked Quait. It looked two hundred feet long.
“Dragon,” said Quait.
A glowing eye appeared in the woods and rushed toward them in eerie silence.
“Shanta,” breathed Avila. “Be with us.”
Then an explosion ripped the still air, and the eye erupted and went dark.
“I got it,” said Flojian. “It’s blind.”
Avila jerked the rifle away from him. “Damn fool,” she snapped.
The thing floated out of the trees, still coming, riding the trench. It was long and serpentine, and light poured out of its flanks. It moved very deliberately now, with sighs and whispers and clicks, behaving as if nothing had happened. Chaka saw to her horror that it did not touch the ground. Her heart pounded, and she waited for the thing to attack.
Instead it continued to glide out across the esplanade. Finally it stopped, and there was a sudden loud sigh of escaping air it settled into the trench. Doors opened.
Chaka held her breath. No one moved. Beside her, Avila and Flqjian were frozen, she holding his rifle away from him, he with his hands over his face.
“Windows,” whispered Quait.
They could see inside the beast. They could see seats.
Doors whispered open.
The thing was a carriage. No, four carriages. Linked together. The interior was bright and clean.
Flojian whimpered and tried again to get his rifle from Avila. Without looking away from the esplanade she unloaded it and laid it on the ground.
“What makes it go?” asked Quait.
“It’s not of this world,” said Shannon.
It gleamed in the moonlight.
“Who’s it waiting for?”
The woods swayed in the breeze off the river.
“What do you think?” Quait asked Avila.
She took a deep breath and stood up. “Wait,” she said. “Don’t do it,” said Shannon.
Avila pushed through the bushes and started downslope. Chaka watched her go, watched the empty carriages, watched Flojian recover his weapon and reload it.
Avila strode out onto the esplanade, pale and spectral. In the distance, an ow! hooted. They heard a splash in the river.
She walked up to the waiting carriage, hesitated, touched it, and put her head through the open door.
Quait strode out onto the shelf. Chaka hadn’t even noticed he was gone. She watched for a moment and then started downslope herself. Shannon fell in behind. And moments later even Flojian.
They spread out along the flank of the thing and peered through its windows and doors. The interior was bright and clean. But Avila and Quait had seen something inside, and they stood frozen, staring. Chaka’s heart pounded.
Within, illuminated symbols and letters moved mystically above the windows:
And:
As the symbols reached the end of the conveyance (for that was indeed what the object seemed to be) they blinked off.
“Roadmaker technology,” said Quait. “I had no idea—”
“What does it mean?” asked Flojian.
The seats were fixed in pairs at each window, and were equipped with grips. The illumination seemed to be coming from overhead panels and patches on the walls.
“What now?” Chaka asked, barely audibly.
“I think we have the answer to the signs,” said Shannon reluctantly. “They want us to board this thing.”
Avila nodded. “I agree.” She stepped through the doorway, held out her hands, and frowned. “It’s warm,” she said.
The moving symbols were delivering a new message:
Avila walked to the rear of the carriage. There was a connecting door, which she opened. Chaka could see into the next carriage. It looked identical to this.
“What makes it go?” asked Flojian. “Where did it come from?” He was standing near the door, ready to jump off.
The empty seats glittered. They were made of a smooth material, but Chaka had no idea what it was.
“There’s no driver,” said Flojian. He looked close to panic.
“Is it possible,” asked Chaka, “that there are still Roadmakers alive somewhere?”
“Maybe,” said Quait. “Or maybe it’s something left over.”
Chaka recalled the stories of unquiet ruins.
Avila inhaled, and let out her breath slowly. “Well,” she said, “this is where the trail leads. We can get on, and let it take us where it took Karik; or we can go home.”
“Go home,” said Shannon. “For all we know, it may take us straight to the nether world.”
The thing seemed to be waiting.
Avila looked at Quait.
Quait nodded. “We’ve come this far,” he said. “It’s apparently only a transportation device.”
Chaka was less sure. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to back away. “I say go,” she said.
Shannon looked disgusted. “Better get the horses on board. I don’t know how much time we have left.”
Everyone joined the frantic effort that followed. They scrambled out of the carriage, up the ridge, reloaded the pack animals, saddled their own mounts, and led them back down onto the esplanade, all within a matter of minutes. They loaded the horses, performed a quick inspection to assure themselves that they were indeed alone on the vehicle, and settled down to wait.
“For what it’s worth,” said Shannon, “the animals weren’t nervous about getting in. That’s a good sign.” He nodded sagely at Chaka. “Animals can sense demons.”
“There’s no driver,” Flojian reminded them. “That’s not a good sign.”
Chaka was inspecting one of the light-emitting patches. Like Talley’s lamp, there was no open flame. She touched one, yelped, and pulled away. “Hot,” she said.
There was a brief chime, and the doors closed. The floor vibrated.
“I think we’re committed,” said Quait.
Shannon grunted his disapproval. “You shouldn’t hire a guide if you’re not going to listen to anything he says.”
The space became claustrophobic. The lights dimmed, blinked out, came on again. The horses registered a mild protest. Chaka felt upward pressure, as if the floor were rising. The esplanade sank, the vehicle rocked, they got more sounds from the animals, and a couple from the humans, and she was jerked backward as they began to move.
Their carriage, which had been at the front of the vehicle when it entered the esplanade, was now at the rear. And it was hovering in air. They were about two feet feet off the ground, sustained by what invisible hand Chaka hesitated to guess. She murmured a prayer, and felt Quait’s reassuring grip on her shoulder, although he didn’t look so good himself.
“We knew this would happen,” Avila said. “it’s only a mechanism.” She lowered herself into a seat. The others follwed her example.
The grassy shelf moved past and then it was gone and the forest closed around them. Some of the interior lights blinked out.
Their fears were mirrored in one another’s eyes. Crowded together at the rear of the conveyance, they watched the moon dance through a dark network of tree limbs.
It was too dark to see clearly out the windows, but occasional posts and trees rushed past, and within moments they were moving far faster than any had ever traveled before. They sighed and gasped and held on while the train swung into a long curve. Simultaneously, it rose, climbed, soared above the treetops. Flojian invited the Goddess to protect them.
They were in the realm of hawks now. Fields and lakes swept past.
“Karik survived it,” Quait reminded her.
Avila admitted that maybe this had not been a good idea after all. The animals swayed and snorted, but they did not seem as uneasy as their masters.
“I hope there are no sudden stops,” said Shannon. He pushed his battered hat down tight on his head and managed a grin. “This’ll be one for the grandkiddies, right?”
The landscape rose and fell, but the train stayed steady. It seemed to be moving at a constant rate now, a terrifying velocity. Trees and rocks blurred.
Avila sat staring out the rear window. The green strip and its guardrail were still with them. “It must mark the trail in some way,” she said.
“Maybe we’re attached to it,” Flojian suggested.
“I don’t think so. It’s too low. There’s no way we could be traveling along its surface.” Her eyes slid shut. “On the bridge, the green strip was broken. I wonder whether ihere was a lime that this thing used to cross the river.”
Occasionally, when the vehicle rounded a curve, they could look ahead and see a cone of light stabbing through the dark. “That’s what we shot out,” Chaka said. “There must be a light at both ends.” They leaped a creek and sailed effortlessly through a cut between ridges. The ridges melted away; ruins appeared below them, around them, and then they were slowing down, settling back into the trees. They glided into another esplanade, stopped, and with much gurgling and hissing, settled to the ground. Extra lights came on inside the carriage and outside.
“Vincennes,” said a female voice. “Watch your step, please.”
Chaka jerked around to see who had spoken. There was nobody. Her hair rose.
The doors opened.
“Who’s there?” demanded Quait, on his feet with his gun out.
“It came from in here,” said Avila.
Outside, a steady wind blew. Chaka could see a stairway, leading down. And benches. And a small wooden building, quite dark. Beyond that there were only woods.
“This is our chance to get out of here,” said Flojian.
They exchanged glances. It wasn’t a bad idea. While they thought about it, the chime sounded again and the doors closed.
“That was quick,” said Chaka.
Quait and Shannon moved into the next carriage, guns drawn, looking for the source of the voice.
The train lifted and they were under way again.
“They won’t find anything,” said Flojian. “That was a spirit.”
“I think he’s right,” said Avila. “At least about not finding anyone. We’ve been through this whole vehicle. There’s no one else on board.”
The open space slipped by and they were in the woods again, racing past clumps of trees and springs and rills. The land fell away and they sailed over a gorge. Chaka’s heart stopped. Water appeared beneath them. Then more solid ground, and the lights picked out a sign: SOUTHWEST AGRICULTURAL CENTER. It was gone almost before they could read it.
Quait and Shannon returned to report they could find no one.
The moon had moved over to the west. They sat close together, talking in hushed voices. Occasionally someone got up and announced he, or she, was going to check the horses. Someone else always volunteered to go along. Nobody traveled alone.
They stopped again, after a time, and the disembodied voice startled them once more: “Terre Haute,” it said. The doors opened and the wind blew and the doors closed.
“Nobody is ever going to believe this,” said Avila.
They cruised through the night, gliding over broad forest and ruins growing more and more extensive until finally the forest was gone altogether and they were moving above a wasteland of brick and rubble.
The vehicle slowed and began a long westward curve. Water appeared to the north. It looked like a sea.
They accelerated again. When the moon came back, Chaka saw beaches, surf, and ancient highways. The conveyance rocked gently, gliding across sand, water, and patches of grass. The coastline gradually turned north. They stayed with it.
The land broke up into islands and channels, littered with wreckage, piles of stone, rows of crumbling brick houses.
“Look,” said Flojian, his face flattened against the window.
A cluster of towers of incredible dimensions rose out of the dark. They literally challenged the sky, soaring beyond any man-made structure Chaka would have thought possible. They were softened by fading moonlight, and seemed to be anchored in water.
“The City,” breathed Chaka. The city in the fourth sketch.
The train was slowing down.
Walls rose around them. They passed what appeared to he other trains, lying dark and still. They drifted over a channel, crossed a small island, coasted past long, low buildings with enormous stacks, and then glided out over open water again.
The water gave way to a stone wall. The stone was polished and glittered in the lights of the train.
Then they were inside a tunnel. The wall (which had become gray and rough) moved past slowly and finally stopped.
The conveyance settled to the ground.
The lights came up and the doors opened. “Welcome to Union Station.” said a voice. “Everybody must exit here. Please watch your step.”