Lallia

X

It was a place of mystery and awe-inspiring majesty, the still air hanging like incense, tiny motes of dust glinting in the shadowed sunlight like tiny candles set before incredible altars. Dumarest felt Yalung bump into him, heard Lallia's low voice at his side.

"Earl," she said. "It's beautiful!"

A wide avenue stretched before them, floored with soft, close-cropped grass and flanked by the slender boles of soar shy;ing trees. They reared like columns, a tuft of branches high overhead fanning to meet and form a natural arch through which streamed the ruby light of the sun. Ahead, shadowed in the distance, more columns sprang from the tended soil, circling a clearing about an indistinguishable structure, a boulder, perhaps, an outcrop of natural stone wreathed and hung with living garlands.

Down the avenue, diminished in the distance, the tall figure of the strange Guardian, seemed to flicker and then to abruptly vanish.

Slowly Dumarest walked down the avenue.

It was the pilgrim's way, he guessed, the path which those seeking the miracle of healing followed as they made their way to the holy place. There would be attendants to carry those unable to walk, others to help those who could barely stand, a motley thronging of deformity and pain each united by a common hope. But now there was nothing but the three of them, the quiet susurration of their footsteps on the springy grass, the sound of their breathing.

And it was warm, the temperature that of living blood.

"Earl." Lallia turned to him, her face beaded with per shy;spiration. "I can't stand this heat. I've got to get rid of these clothes."

They stripped at one side of the avenue, shedding the extra, bulky garments they had worn on leaving the ship and then, the woman in her iridescent dress, Yalung in his yellow and black, Dumarest in his neutral gray, continued down the path between the trees.

How many had preceded them, thought Dumarest. How long had these trees grown, shaped by careful tending, planted and culled, bred and trained? How many ships had dropped from the skies with their loads of misery and hope? The place reeked of sanctity, of devotion and sup shy;plication. The trees had absorbed the emotions of the in shy;calculable number of pilgrims who had visited Shrine and followed the guardian into the holy place. Holy because they had made it so? Or holy because here, in this spot, something beyond the physical experience of men had stopped and left its mark?

Faith, he thought. Here, surely, if a man had faith miracles could happen.

"Earl, look!"

Lallia's whisper was loud in the brooding stillness. She had advanced a little and now stood at the edge of the clearing in which stood the mysterious object. It was no clearer than it had been when seen from far down the avenue. The woman stood beside a heap of something beneath a wide awning of natural growth. A chapel made by leafy branches.

It was brimming with articles of price.

Fine fabric, precious metal, cunning fabrications of metal and wood and blazing ceramics. The glint of gems and gold and the crystal perfection of faceted glass. All intermingled with less rare objects, a cloak, a cane, a visored helm, the leather of belts and the scaled skins of serpents, sacks of spices and seed and pleasing aromatics. The roll of charts, maps, paintings of a hundred different schools.

"Votive offerings," said Yalung softly. "Things given in appreciation and gratitude. A fortune beyond the dreams of avarice on any of a million worlds."

And there were more. The chapels surrounded the clear shy;ing and all contained a heap of similar items. Lallia paused, looking at a scatter of ancient books.

She touched one and her face stiffened with psychic shock.

"Earl!" she whispered. "It's so old, old! There is hope and a terrible fear and-and-"

He caught her as she slumped, the book falling from her hand. It fell open and he had a glimpse of strange figures, of lines and tabulated numerations, of diagrams and vague shy;ly familiar symbols.

Yalung picked it up, closed it, returned it to the heap. Quietly he said, "How is the girl?"

"I'm all right." Lallia straightened from Dumarest's arms and shook her head as if to clear it of mist. "It was just that — Earl, the book is so old!"

An ancient book. A stellar almanac, perhaps. A pre-Center-orientated navigational manual. In this place any shy;thing was possible.

He reached for it, arresting his hand as a familiar voice echoed in his mind.

"Come."

Dumarest looked up. The strange guardian stood to one side. Watching? It was hard to tell if the figure had a face or eyes at all but the enigmatic flickering in the shadow of the cowl gave the impression of senses more finely tuned than those owned by ordinary men.

"The Place awaits. Go to it. Place your hands on it. This is the rule."

"The guardian means that object in the middle of the clearing," said Yalung. He sounded dubious. "I am not sure that we should do as he directs."

"Have we any choice?" Lallia smiled. "And I want a bath. Remember what was promised? Ask and you will be given. Anyway, what have we to lose?"

Life, thought Dumarest. Sanity, our health, perhaps. Who can tell?

But he followed her across the clearing.

The mound was high, larger than he had at first sup shy;posed, a vine-draped mass protruding from the neatly kept grass. A special grass, he thought, to withstand the weight of the thousands who must come here. As the mound had to be something special also. A strangely-shaped fragment of stone, perhaps, a meteor even, a thing to which had become attached a tremendous superstition. Or did naked belief make its own holiness? Could faith convert inanimate matter into a healing being?

Nimino could have answered, but the navigator was dead. Coughing out his life in order to fulfill a prophecy that he would achieve great knowledge in a cloud of dust. The Web was such a cloud and what greater knowledge could come to a man than that of what happened after death?

Dumarest shook his head, annoyed at his own introspec shy;tion, wondering what had sent his thoughts on such a path. The influence of the place, he thought. The mystery and enchantment of it. The brooding majesty and overwhelming sense of sanctity. There was magic in the air, perhaps the emanations of the trees, the invisible vapors released by the grass, subtle drugs to fog the senses and open wide the vistas of the mind. But that again was sheer speculation.

He concentrated on the mound.

There was an oddity about it as there had been about the birds, as there was about the guardian. A peculiar sense of alienness as if it did not belong to this world and never had. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, tilting his head so as to sharpen his vision, probing beneath the obvious to seek the underlying truth. It probably was simply a mound but there was an oddity here, a peculiar something there, a slight distortion just above the line of sight. And then, suddenly, as if he were looking at an optical illusion in which one image was hidden within another, details grew clear.

The mound was no heap of vine-covered stone.

It was the wreckage of a manufactured artifact.

He blinked but there was no mistake. Warped and crushed as it was, misshapen and unfamiliar, he could still make out the angles and curves of vanes, the ridges of corrugations, plates and sheets of metal all overlaid with grime and a patina of soil from which grew shielding vines.

Or were they, too, disguised? Cables, perhaps, flexible conduits, pipes which had burst like entrails from the body of the artifact?

Dumarest heard the sharp intake of Yalung's breath and wondered if the dealer in precious stones had also penetrated the illusion. And Lallia? He glanced at her, noting the smoothness of her face, the rapt expression in her eyes. She looked like a little girl as she stood before the mound, a child basking in the promise of comfort and warmth and security. She had once prayed, he remembered, and all who pray must have some belief in a higher power. Did she imagine that she stood before the abode of such a being?

"Lallia," he called softly. "Wait."

She halted and turned, smiling, the full richness of her lips red against the whiteness of her skin. "Why, Earl?" "It would be wise to wait," said Yalung. "If the guardian will allow it." He glanced to where the tall figure stood at the edge of the clearing, as immobile as a statue. "The mound is not quite what it seems."

"Does it matter?" She shrugged, suddenly impatient. "What's the matter with you two? It's only a gesture. We aren't sick or ill and if they can come here and touch it without harm what have we to fear? Anyway I'm curious to see whether or not I get my bath."

She held out her hands, again smiling.

"Come on, Earl. Come on the pair of you. Let's touch it together."

For a moment Dumarest hesitated, then reached for her hand. After all, what could there be to fear?

Together the three of them rested their hands on the fabric of the Place.

Nothing, thought Dumarest. He felt the touch of harsh shy;ness beneath his palms, saw the grain of dirt and soil before his eyes. A patina built over how long? Centuries, certainly, thousands of years, perhaps, wind-blown dust, rain, the slow, relentless attrition of the years. But why hadn't the metal beneath the dirt yielded to the impact of time?

And who had originally built it?

And why?

He heard the soft movement of Yalung's body as the man shifted his feet. Lallia was breathing quietly, hands and cheek pressed against the mound, eyes closed as if she were making a secret wish. Entering into the spirit of the thing, perhaps. Acting as if she were a genuine pilgrim seek shy;ing a miracle. And, if one came, just what would the effect be?

Dumarest thought he knew. Faith healing was nothing unusual. Many had the gift and could heal with a touch, it was merely another facet of the paraphysical sciences re shy;vealed in the talents of various sensitives. In effect they were simply catalysts directing the body to repair itself from the blueprint inherent in every molecule of D.N.A. If a machine could be developed to do the same thing then every city would have its Shrine. Its holy spot. Its Place.

He smiled and closed his eyes, willing to play the game to the full, trying to feel as a genuine pilgrim would feel. If he had been sick or crippled he would have concentrated on his infirmity.

Instead he could only think of Earth.

Earth, the planet which had become lost to him, the need to find which had become an aching obsession. Could a man be whole without a home? And could a man who was not whole be considered other than as a cripple? Deformities were not always of the flesh and bone. And what was loss but a deformity of the mind?

A moment of peculiar, subconscious strain and then abrupt shy;ly, Dumarest saw a picture in his mind.

It was shining with bright splendor, a flattened disc with vaguely spiral arms, a pattern composed of a myriad of glow shy;ing points, hazes, somber patches of ebon and traces of luminous cloud. Instinctively he knew what it was. The galactic lens as seen from above and to one side.

In it one tiny fleck shone with blazing ruby fire.

It was well from the Center, lying in a distant arm of the spiral, a lonely place among few and scattered stars but he knew exactly what it was.

Home.

The planet for which he had been searching for too long. The world which had given him birth. Earth.

And he knew now almost exactly where to look for it.

Almost, for the galaxy was vast and the stars innumerable and no one brain can hold the complexity of an island uni shy;verse. But the sector was there, the approximate position, the direction from the Center. It would be enough.

Dumarest jerked as the picture vanished, an eerie tension of his nerves, a something in his brain as if fingers of mist had drawn themselves across the naked cortex and with the touch had taken something of himself. Opening his eyes he stared at the material before him. It looked exactly the same, but as he watched he saw a fragile glow of light, a vague sparkle of quickly vanished luminescence.

To one side Yalung groaned, falling to sit upright blinking and shaking his head.

"Strange," he said thickly. "So strange. And I feel now now discomfort. My thirst has gone, my hunger. But how?"

Dumarest frowned, flexing his back and shoulders. The nagging discomfort of his barely healed wounds had total shy;ly vanished and he too felt neither hunger or thirst. Lallia?

She lay sprawled on the grass, hands touching the mound, her face a strained mask of torment. As Dumarest watched, it contorted and writhed, adopting a snarling mask of hide shy;ous aspect. Then it relaxed to reveal the familiar planes and contours.

"Lallia!" He knelt at her side, touching her skin, the pulse in her throat. Her muscles were like iron.

"No!" she screamed as he tried to pull her hands from the mound. "No!" and then, quieter, "Dear God, how long, how old!"

Yalung rose, a yellow shadow to kneel at her far side. "She is ill," he said. "A fit perhaps?"

It was no fit, not unless psychic shock could be called that. Too late Dumarest remembered her wild talent, the ability to remember the past of any object she touched. The ancient book should have warned him but he had been engrossed in the possibility that it could help in his search. He had not thought of the possibility that the mound could hold a similar danger. Not even when he had recognized it as an artifact.

And now it was too late for regret.

"Earl!" She writhed again, sensing an agonizing past, the dusty span of painful years. "Three suns," she whispered. "A fault in the engines. Suspended animation and millennia of travel. Such darkness and chill and then the dust and the wakening. Too late. The crash and the waiting, the endless waiting." She twisted and moaned, midnight hair wreathed on the grass. "It's alive, Earl. Still alive. Waiting and hoping. Such forlorn longing, Earl!"

She stiffened, and from the very pores of her skin seeped a lambent effulgence, a mist of luminescence which flowed down her arms to the material of the ancient wreck and, as it finally separated from her body, she sighed and totally relaxed.

"Is she dead?" Yalung's face was a yellow mask in the shadows.

Dumarest examined her body, heart pounding with the fear of what he might find. Relieved he sat back and looked at the other man.

"Not dead," he said. "Exhausted by tremendous psychic shock. You understand?"

"Yes," said Yalung. "I understand."

"All of it?" Dumarest glanced at the mound. "It is a wrecked spaceship. It came from God alone knows where, but I will guess that it was never made in our galaxy. And, somehow, something within it is still alive."

Crippled, perhaps, hurt, but still aware. For unguessed millennia it had lain within the vessel tended only by the repair mechanisms the ship had contained-and by the enigmatic guardians if there were more than one? It was possible, they could have bred the birds and the protoplas shy;mic machines which tended the field and the Place itself. Or perhaps they were extensions of the entity within the ship, prosthetic devices governed by its intelligence. Who could begin to guess at the mental structure of an alien race?

And, by means of her talent, Lallia had contacted it. She had sent a part of her mentality back down through the ages, barely understanding, capable only of feeling the terrible shock and despair, the age-long time it had traversed the endless dark, the indescribable alienness of its emotions as it waited and waited for years without end.

For rescue, perhaps? For death? For someone to come who would know and understand?

Dumarest looked at the mound and then back at the girl. She was not dead and that was the important thing. She would lie in a coma for a while and then wake as she had back on the Moray, alive and sane and well. They would still have a future.

Stooping he lifted her in his arms.

"Where are you taking her?" Yalung glanced around the clearing then down the length of the avenue to the gate and high fence at the end. "Perhaps close to the landing field would be best. Anywhere away from this mound which seems to have distressed her."

Away from the ancient vessel, the enigmatic guardian who stood, still immobile, dancing flickers gleaming from the shadow of its cowl. Away from the brooding stillness of the Place, the psychic influences which seemed to pervade the very grass and trees.

Dumarest began to walk down the wide avenue.

He staggered and frowned. The girl was not that heavy and he felt strong enough. Strong but suddenly weary as if he had suffered some tremendous strain and fatigue was the natural aftermath. Yalung tripped and almost fell, shaking his head as he recovered his balance.

"I am fatigued," he said. "Filled with the desire to sleep. At the end of the avenue, perhaps? There is open space between the trees."

He led the way, falling to sprawl on the grass as Dumarest gently set down the body of the girl. For a long moment he stared at her, drinking in the smooth beauty of her face, the lustrous waterfall of her hair. She stirred a little sighing like a child in a pleasant dream, full lips parted to breathe his name.

"Earl, my darling. I love you so very much."

He moved a coil of hair from her cheek and arranged her limbs so as to avoid later cramps then, barely able to keep open his eyes, lay down beside her on the soft and yielding turf.

He fell asleep immediately, falling into a dreamless, time shy;less oblivion.

When he woke Lallia was dead.