Dinotopia - Dinotopia Lost

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Aye,” Ruskin agreed, feeling a little better. At the thought of gold the canyon walls felt a little less like the halves of a gigantic vise. Unlike many of the others, he would relax only when his beloved ocean was once more in sight. “For gold.”

  It was Watford who, in the course of their trek northward the next morning, first remarked on the distinctive nature of a certain side canyon. They had passed many such offshoots since rising, fanning out like capillaries from a vein. Blackstrap had sent men to explore several, only to have them return within no more than an hour to report that in every instance the offshoots rapidly narrowed to dead ends or impassable fissures. Such reports further convinced Smiggens that they were indeed hiking a major canyon, one likely to cut all the way through the mountains.

  It was the singular color of the canyon floor, a distinctive darkening, that caught Watford’s attention. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to bring it to Blackstrap’s notice.

  “Sir, there’s something about that side crevice over there, the one coming up on our right.”

  “What about it, man?” His eyes focused single-mindedly on the route ahead, Blackstrap didn’t turn to look. Despite the perpetual shade provided by the narrow canyon, it was still hot and humid, what with the Rainy Basin on one side and the Northern Plains on the other. The occasional breeze was a most welcome visitor. At present it was notable for its absence, and Blackstrap was perspiring profusely.

  “Well, look at the sands there, Captain.” Watford was from Cornwall, which at least partly explained his interest in rocks.

  Blackstrap squinted to his right. “A little darker they be, Mr. Watford. What be that to us?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. There’s something about the color that reminds me of that which I’ve seen before. I just can’t quite place it.”

  “Place it quickly, then, Mr. Watford, or hold your tongue. ’Tis too hot for mindless prattle.”

  Undeterred, the sailor broke from the main party and trotted over to the entrance to the tributary gorge. Halting where the sands shone sooty, he dug experimentally at the ground with the heel of his boot. Sand and gravel flew backward. The deeper he dug, the darker the surface became, until it was almost black.

  Thomas waved at him. “Come on, then, man! What are you wasting time there for?”

  “Aye,” yelled another. “We’ll not wait for you, Cornishman!” Only Smiggens showed any interest, wandering back to watch the sailor at his work. He searched the ground carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  “What is it, Watford? What do you think you see?”

  “I ain’t sure, Mr. Smiggens, sir. A suggestion, maybe. A hint, an inkling.”

  “Of what, Mr. Watford?”

  “Tin, mostly, sir. And other things.”

  “Well, we’ve plenty of cups and flagons on the Condor The first mate’s sarcasm was leavened with gentleness. “Perhaps you should conserve your curiosity for another time.”

  “I suppose you’re right, sir.” Raising his right leg, Watford brushed accumulated sand from his boot. “But back home I’d swear this were familiar.”

  It would have ended there, finished and forgotten, had Smiggens not slipped in the process of turning to depart and fallen hard. Laughter rose from those men who’d witnessed his clumsiness.

  “Best watch your step there, Mr. Smiggens!” shouted one. “We’re not back aboard yet.”

  “Yes,” added another from behind his beard, “the ground here doesn’t roll.”

  Smiggens’s backside had taken most of the impact, his legs the rest, and his scabbard just a little. It was the metal scabbard, however, that had kicked up the bright flashes. The glint of cloud-masked sunlight caught his eye as Watford helped him to his feet.

  Most likely mica, in rock like this, he reasoned. Or perhaps quartz. His gaze narrowed as he stared hard at the place where his scabbard had struck. The gleam was different, somehow. Brighter and more intense.

  “Captain,” he called out even as he started to crouch down for a better look, “you’d best come and have a look at this.” “At what?” Blackstrap growled. “More dirty dirt, Mr. Smiggens? You know better than to waste my time with your poking and classifying.”

  The first mate was kneeling now, scratching with his knife at the surface where his scabbard had given birth to buried light. The more blackness he shaved away, the larger became the patch of reflected sunshine. He was sure now it wasn’t mica or quartz. Beneath his knife it was almost soft.

  An alloy of some kind. His pulse quickened.

  Then Watford was on the ground next to him, digging furiously at the surface with his own blade. His face was alight. “Not tin, sir. No, by God, not tin.”

  Smiggens held a pinch of the black stuff up to the light.

  “Tarnish, Mr. Watford. Incredibly thick and old it is, but no more than that.”

  Holding the tether that was secured to the neck of the largest Struthiomimus, Mkuse paused curiously to hail his suddenly frenetic shipmates. “Hoy, you two! Have you found something, then?”

  “Worms,” ventured Samuel. “They going fishing.”

  “That we are, Mr. Samuel, that we are,” Watford called back. “And you’d best be nice to me or I’m liable to not share my catch with you!”

  One at a time, and then in small groups, the men turned from the path and wandered toward the furiously digging first mate and his companion. Blackstrap built himself into a fine fury over the delay until he, too, saw what the labors of the two men had revealed.

  “By the sea-god’s beard, that be silver or the Chief Justice on his high perch doesn’t piss into a long john!” His anger was quickly put aside as he fell to digging and scratching fren-ziedly alongside his equally ecstatic men. Whoops of astonishment and delight soon rang from the canyon walls.

  As for the captive struthies and the young tyrannosaur, they watched the frantic activity and found themselves wondering in equal measure what all the fuss was about. The gleaming metal bricks the men were slowly uncovering certainly constituted an unusual choice for road paving material, but hardly one capable of driving otherwise sane humans into a maddened frenzy. It only reinforced Hisaulk’s feeling that their captors were mentally unbalanced.

  “Look at them,” Tryll exclaimed. “Have they all gone mad, Mother?”

  “It may be that this lot of humans was mad from the beginning, daughter.” Shremaza wished she could cuddle her offspring close, but she was prevented by the tightness of her bindings. Nearby, restrained only by her hobbles and the wavering attention of several guards, Prettykill ignored the childish goings-on.

  Swords and knives joined bare hands as the men scraped excitedly at the accumulated tarnish. Shirts flew off backs and were pressed into service as polishing rags. Before long they had a substantial area cleared. The sunlight gleamed so brightly on the result of their efforts that several of those with light-colored eyes were forced to look away while tears ran down their unshaven cheeks.

  “See.” Smiggens traced the lines in the pavement with the tip of his sword. “Here’s where the bricks were poured. Not mortared into place, mind, but poured.”

  “How thick do you reckon it be, Mr. Smiggens?” Blackstrap’s eyes glittered greedily.

  “No way to tell without digging some of it up, captain.” Rather than concentrate on their impressive if shallow excavation, the first mate had turned his attention up the side canyon. “At the moment, I find myself more interested in how far it runs rather than how deep it goes.”

  With swords and axes they sliced away at the thin blanket of sand and the tarnish beneath, following the silver road up the tributary cleft, their baffled captives in tow. The little canyon wound its way steadily eastward, the silver pavement beneath their feet showing no sign of giving out.

  After a respectable distance the sheer-sided cleft, instead of narrowing further as had been their experience with similar crevices, began to broaden out. The silver paving widened to reach from side to side.
They proceeded now with caution, as the chasm was more than wide enough to accommodate those species of large meat-eaters whose unwelcome attentions they had so recently escaped. Their concerns were muted by the ever-present shimmer of silver underfoot. Livis-tona palms thrust their trunks skyward, but there was no suggestion of intruding rain forest or woods.

  “Nickel, I should think,” Smiggens was muttering.

  “What’s that, Mr. Smiggens?” Blackstrap spoke with unusual calm, their discovery sufficient to awe even him.

  “In the alloy. Pure silver would be too soft for a road, even one that carried only light traffic. Nickel would, I think, make it sturdy enough to serve its intended function.” As they advanced, the narrow canyon became a trail, then a thoroughfare, and lastly a boulevard broad enough to make each man rich beyond his maddest dreams.

  “This much silver ...” Blackstrap was murmuring, “why, even the conquistadors never took so much out of the New World.”

  A shout made them both look up. As the discoverer of the astonishing avenue, Watford had earned the right to walk point. In the rain forest such a position would have been considered suicidal, but here it was a mark of honor.

  “Har, what has our sharp-eyed Cornishman found this time?” The captain’s gold tooth glistened as he smiled. “Rouse yourselves, boys! Mr. Watford is hailing us, and when Mr. Watford hails now, why, ’tis the wise man who snaps to his call!”

  Increasing their pace to a jog, which their captives had no difficulty matching despite their hobbles, they turned a sharp corner in the enlarged canyon and found themselves confronting a wall. Simple of design and solid of construction, it ran from one side of the chasm to the other. Perhaps two feet deep and twenty high, it was fashioned entirely of bricks a foot long and several inches thick. A large opening was visible in the exact center of the barrier, with loose brass hinges showing where an ancient wooden gate had long since rotted away.

  Dusty and dirty, every brick in the wall had been coated with brass to protect it from decay at the hands of the elements.

  “Why brass, I wonder?” murmured Blackstrap as they advanced on this relic of an unknown civilization. “Mayhap they had access to a lot of it.”

  “Brass.” Smiggens wore a strange expression, peculiar even for him. “If it’s brass, then it should be as tarnished as the silver. Unless someone hereabouts has dedicated a lifetime to polishing.”

  The reality was so overwhelming that for several moments more it continued to evade those hardened and experienced buccaneers. It struck them as forcefully as a hammer blow to the back of the head only when Blackstrap tried to pry a loose brick from its setting on the edge of the ancient gateway.

  For a long moment the captain was actually speechless, the first time in their long acquaintance that Smiggens had ever seen him so. Cradling the brick in both hands, the big man sat down on the hard ground. He tilted his head back and stared silently up at the wall. Two feet thick, twenty high, how far from canyonside to canyonside they had yet to measure or estimate. Except for the long-vanished gate, a solid barrier across the chasm.

  “What is it, Captain?” asked Thomas.

  “Aye, Captain, what’s the matter?” Samuel pressed close, curiosity if not actual concern written in his expression.

  “The matter? Why, nothing be the matter, Mr. Samuel.” Blackstrap let his eyes rove the faces of his men. “Nothing be the matter at all. Be so good as to take this for me, Mr. Samuel.”

  So saying, he tossed the brick to the seaman, who caught it easily ... and then yelped as it slipped through his fingers to land heavily on his right foot. Despite the protection of his boot he collapsed to the ground, howling in pain that passed almost immediately.

  The brick was solid gold.

  The wall was composed entirely of identical bricks.

  Therefore, the wall...

  Untrained as they were in Aristotelian logic, the men were soon digging and hammering at the barrier with anything and everything that would do duty as a tool. Knives, swords, axes, gun butts, even whalebone combs were pressed into hysterical service. A second brick was extracted and proved to be as heavy as the first. Digging patiently into the surface of the captain’s block, Smiggens ascertained that the brick was indeed gold all the way through and not, for example, lead coated with poured gold.

  “I’m no goldsmith, but I would guess it at eighteen karat,” he finally announced. “Of course, one would expect the purity to vary from brick to brick.”

  “Oh, to be sure, Mr. Smiggens, to be sure,” replied Blackstrap through pursed lips. “That be no problem, that.” He gazed anew at his crew. “Anything under fourteen karat, why, we’ll simply use for ballast! ” The men roared.

  “Ha-weh.” Chumash was looking past his fellow plutocrats. “Has anyone see Cornishman?”

  “Yes”—with a grunt, Smiggens set the small fortune aside—“where has Watford got to, anyway? One would think he’d be here celebrating alongside us. After all, he is the legitimate discoverer of our fortune.” At a thought he returned his attention to the wall. “What is this place, anyway? Who built this wall here, and why?”

  Blackstrap was not entirely without learning. “Atlantis, perhaps. Lemuria. Ancient Mu. Cimmeria. All the halfforgotten, half-remembered civilizations of the world. The Cathay that Columbus looked for but never found. This be them, all rolled into one grand golden artifact.” He rested one palm possessively on the impossible fortification. “Now ’tis ours. Where are you going to live with your share, Mr. Smiggens? Meself, I thinks I may buy Warwick Palace. Or half of Devonshire.”

  “I don’t know.” The first mate could manage no more than a dazed mumble. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

  “You know what this means, Captain.”

  Blackstrap turned to face the sailor. “What say you, Mr. Guimaraes?”

  The other sidled close and nodded in the direction of their stolid, indifferent captives. “It means we do not need those animals anymore. Why should we trouble ourselves to trade living creatures for gold when we already have more gold and silver than the ship can carry?”

  “The Portuguese speaks smartly,” agreed Samuel.

  Smiggens woke from his daze. “We have to bring them back with us, Captain. They’re worth more than just gold. Their value to science is incalculable.”

  “Science!” Contempt dripped from Guimaraes’s lips. He ran one hand along the golden wall. “Will your ‘science’ make us richer than this?”

  No, the first mate thought anxiously, but if you’d give it half a chance it would make you smarter, you sneering baboon. Aloud he said, “We haven’t anything to carry the gold back with. The animals carry themselves. Why not take them back to the ship with us? Then we can return with sacks and sledges.”

  “Nothin’ to carry it with?” Ruskin’s graying whiskers quivered. “Why, I’ll carry it in me teeth!” Several of the men guffawed.

  “Also,” Smiggens added desperately, “I’ll pay for them out of my share.”

  This time approving murmurs instead of laughter greeted the first mate’s words. The splitting of shares was a profound matter to any crew engaged in piracy, and the men took the offer seriously.

  “That be fair enough.” Blackstrap bestowed his blessing on the proposal. “Though I think you’ve spent too much time in this heat, Mr. Smiggens. Be that as it is, you may have your animals. May they bring you as much satisfaction as your gold will bring us.” Fresh laughter arose from the men.

  Curious and hopeful as ever, Hisaulk studied the antics of the crew. They seemed overjoyed by the discovery of the wall, though for the life of him he could not understand why. Surely this was the most peculiar clutch of humans ever to set foot on Dinotopia. When their guards glanced away, he worked at his bindings, with the usual lack of success. A human thumb would have been a great help.

  “At least my cargo will weigh less,” Smiggens pointed out. Guimaraes didn’t give up easily. “The first mate makes a generous offer, but is
there enough gold even in his share to compensate us for the pain and trouble we’ll have to put up with if we are to carry these noisome beasts clear across the Southern Ocean?” A malign gleam came into his eyes. “And besides, is there a man among you not hungry for the taste of fresh meat? I myself have eaten tortoise, iguana, and snake, and if these here possess flavor similar in any wise to those, they will make a fine repast indeed.”

  Mkuse eyed the struthies appraisingly. “More like ostrich, I would think, but that is good eating as well.”

  “We have our gold,” remarked another man. “A feast would seem to be in order.”

  Before the cry could be taken up by the rest of the crew, before a worried Smiggens could protest further, a shout came from beyond. The absent Watford had announced himself.

  “Har, now what else has that wandering Cornishman found?” Blackstrap rose from where he’d been sitting to peer through the gap formerly occupied by the long-vanished gate. “Another wall, perhaps?”

  “Sure, and ’tis not possible, Cap’n,” declared O’Connor. “There could be no more gold than this in any one place.” “We’ll go and have a look anyways. I find Fve grown rather fond of Mr. Watford’s discoveries.”

  “Your pardon, Captain,” interjected Guimaraes, “but what about our feast?”

  Blackstrap looked from Smiggens to the Portuguese. Fhs thoughts and heart, however, were presently with the insistent, unseen Watford. “There’ll be no killing of anything for now. Time enough later to settle this.”

  “But, Captain—”

  “That’s me word on the matter, Mr. Guimaraes.” Blackstrap’s tone darkened ominously. “Have you any difficulty with that?”

  Muttering under his breath, a disappointed Guimaraes turned away. “No, Captain. No difficulty at all.”

  Bunching close and keeping their captives in the middle, they strode through the opening, marveling as they did so at the straight lines of the primeval wall and the precision of its construction. Following Watford’s echoing calls they advanced up the canyon, which had now expanded to the point where it ought more properly to have been called a hidden valley.