The Dome in the Forest

by Paul O. Williams

  The Dome in the Forest

  Paul O. Williams

  UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

  LINCOLN AND LONDON

  © 1981 by Paul O. Williams

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Williams, Paul O., 1935–

  The dome in the forest / Paul O. Williams.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0–8032–9850–1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

  1. Civilization, Subterranean—Fiction. 2. Regression (Civilization)—Fiction. 3. Underground areas—Fiction. 4. Nuclear warfare—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.145532D66 2005

  813'.54—dc22 2004022460

  To David and Mary

  Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  I

  IN the darkness, the sound of rain slowed, and high on Gagen Tower on the river wall of the city of Pelbarigan on the Heart, the first signs of light made the two guardsmen restless. They hunched against the chill in their sweeping raincapes, standing as much as possible under the weather canopy. Fires had been burning near the bank for some time now, and shadowy figures moving among them, as the dim cloud-filtered dawn began slowly to grow.

  The taller guard yawned, ran his hands through his hair, and said sleepily, “The Shumai and Sentani are up early. What goes?”

  “The Shumai are taking some of the starband to the empty place southwest of here.”

  “To the empty place?”

  “Yes. It is almost the spring equinox. For many years now some of the Shumai have gone there every equinox, spring and fall, to see the rising of the great rod from the earth.”

  “What? Where did you hear about this?”

  “Last night. I was down there. Hagen the Shumai was talking about it. Winnt the Sentani is going out of curiosity. The Shumai insist that there is a rod of shining metal that rises out of the ground on a hillside near the edge of the empty place. A hunter first saw it by accident some years ago. Now a group of them always goes back and watches it. Always at the equinox. It never fails.”

  “Huh. Does it ever come between times?”

  “I don’t know. They think not. I’m too sleepy now to think much about it. Besides, I want to get out of this incredible rain. Will it ever stop? I wonder why we have no flood yet.”

  “Not much snow in the north this year, I hear. But look. Even in this dim light you can see the river is bank-full.”

  “I wonder where the next watch is. It is time for bed. Look at the light coming now.”

  The smaller guardsman picked up her short-sword and buckled it on, murmuring, “I hear our replacements coming.”

  The two new guardsmen emerged onto the tower platform and saluted, sleepily but in good form. “Where is Ahroe?” the taller guard asked.

  “She is going with them. Down there. To see the rising of the rod.”

  “Ahroe? Why? Does that mean Stel is going?”

  “Yes. Both. Ahroe is a representative to see this thing. A guardsman. The council thinks we should be aware of it. And Stel—well, with her going, they felt it a courtesy to let him go as well.”

  The tall guard laughed. “She will take good care of him anyhow,” he said as the two night guards slowly descended the winding stairs.

  Below, on the bank, Hagen held the hand of Ahroe’s son, Garet, as the boats were launched. The boy was about eleven, and unhappy to be left behind. Stel laughed as he squatted down and kissed him on the forehead. “Be good,” he said. “Don’t beat Hagen up. Don’t tear down the city. Learn well. We won’t be long. If you were three years older, perhaps you could come.”

  Garet frowned deeply and pushed out his lower lip. “Come, Garet,” said Ahroe. “Give us a guardsman’s face.”

  He tried, but the result was comical. No one laughed at him, though.

  “Garet,” Hagen began gently. “We will take a walk up to the blufftop to see them go downriver. Come, now. Let’s get you a coat.”

  Ahroe quickly pushed off the arrowboat. They paddled out to join the Sentani flotilla, shuddering a little in the chill rain out on the water. The Sentani starband, orderly as usual, had already formed their pattern of boats. The Shumai running hunters knew little of boating and had no formation. But they were eager, since it was nearly time for the rising of the rod, and they leaned into their paddles. Tor, their axeman, stood in the middle of their largest canoe, slim and broad-shouldered. He shifted easily with the rocking of the craft, as his paddlers drove their blades into the river, catching the rhythm of the long strokes they would use all day. The strange fleet moved downstream through the gray spring morning.

  At the third promontory on the bluffs, the prescribed place, the guardsmen on the tower sent along the long, haunting notes of departure and farewell from their great trumpets, and the paddles of the whole group were held up momentarily in reply. The rain continued, and the rhythmic paddling became almost a hypnotic relief from it, something to keep one occupied and warm.

  They paddled with only one break, at noon, until after dark, then drew the boats well up onto the west bank, away from the river. Here there were no bluffs, and the water stood back into the trees on the shore.

  Two Shumai hunters had gone ahead, running, three days earlier. They had a giant fire going, with large pieces of wild cow sputtering on it. There was not much singing, though, or celebrating. After they all ate, they crawled under the boat shelters, bone weary with paddling, and settled for sleep.

  “Will there be a flood?” Ahroe whispered.

  “Perhaps a small one,” said Stel. “But the starband said there was not a great depth of snow up north near the Bitter Sea. I think we will not have a big one.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever say it nine years ago, but it is good to be traveling again.”

  “With you. Come closer. Are you fully out of the rain?”

  “Come on, Stel. Kiss me once, and let us get to sleep. Do you think there is anything to it? This rod?”

  “Of course. I wonder what.”

  “We will see. There will be a long run. Good night.” Ahroe settled herself, her graceful wrist thrown across Stel’s shoulder. He didn’t move until she slept deeply, then he gently put her arm into her sleepsack and drew it around her.

  Morning came gray and dripping. The band lifted the boats even farther, just to be safe, and set out in the dawn, chewing more wild beef and trotting slowly, gradually picking up a good morning pace through the bottomland, then up onto the higher land, prairie and grove, away from the river. The whole landscape was sodden, but the high goose flocks going northward in their great, sinuous Vs, sounded wildly cheerful, calling their thrilling sounds down through the spring mists.

  The noon pause was a long one, not because the mixed band of Heart River peoples were exhausted, but because they knew they had a long run that afternoon. The wet ground had made some feet sore, though, and many tried to dry their soft running boots a bit by the three fires, kneading them to keep them supple. In all, twenty-one Sentani had joined the twelve Shumai. Stel and Ahroe were the only Pelbar. They had another twenty-two ayas to run that afternoon and evening. The great rod was due to rise the following morning.

  Afternoon grew very long for the two Pelbar, who had lost their running hardness, and they lagged back, overtaken near sunset by two small bands of young Shumai coming from elsewhere to see the rod. Ahroe was especially chagrined to see the young men move by so effortlessly and on down the trail ahead. Stel cared
little for such things. Running was not a matter of pride for him, but of getting somewhere. His curiosity alone urged him on, and the pleasure of renewed freedom in the open country.

  Well after dusk the two saw the circle of fires ahead. It was a large one. Nearly two hundred Shumai had gathered to see the rod. The Pelbar soon discerned that it had become for the Shumai a sort of spring rendezvous before the summer dispersal to follow the herds of wild cattle westward.

  A holiday atmosphere prevailed, with music and some group dancing. A large wild bull had been roasted whole over a great pit, and all were invited to carve off meat as they wanted it. The appearance of the Sentani and finally the Pelbar couple gave the gathering the sort of family feeling that the Heart River peoples increasingly enjoyed since the great fight at Northwall over a decade earlier had ended the hostilities among the three cultures.

  Stel, who was musical, could already hear that Sentani improvisations, which were done in a regular progression, with variations, were influencing the wilder Shumai music. He even heard some Pelbar melodic patterns, and soon had joined a group of instrumentalists, contributing flute music to the ensemble of strings.

  Behind him, Winnt, the Sentani from Koorb, sat with Ahroe. His son, Igna, lay by them, under his furroll, done in with the long run. Winnt was plainly lonely for Ursa, his Pelbar wife, whom he had married at the end of the time of hostilities, just before the great battle at Northwall. Ahroe’s Pelbar manner comforted him. Besides, she was the only Pelbar woman other than Ursa who had traveled far from the three stone Pelbar cities spaced out along the Heart River: Northwall, Pelbarigan, and Threerivers. Ahroe and Stel had been through the western mountains several years earlier, and they carried themselves with the same detached nonchalance that most of the outdoor people did, watchful and quiet, sturdy and able to face crises squarely, peaceful as they were.

  “What do you think it is, this rod?” Winnt asked.

  Ahroe shook her head. “Who knows? It clearly has something to do with the time of fire, since it is in the middle of an empty place. Perhaps it is some mechanism left by the ancients, working without direction, in response to some sort of inner controls. They were very accomplished before the time of fire.”

  “But to leave something to keep working for eleven hundred years?”

  “Yes. That is hard to imagine.”

  Tor, the axeman, walked by with a slab of meat on his small knife. Seeing them, he paused and squatted down. “They say that all this rain has exposed the structure under the rod. It is only last year that we saw there was one. Now the land is sliding away and a great part of the ancient building sticks out from the hillside below the rim of the empty place.”

  “Stel said there must be some structure,” Ahroe commented.

  “This is a great one, and not a ruin. Surely it comes from ancient times. It seems of artificial stone, very sturdy, but it will not last long now.”

  “Why?”

  “The end already protrudes. It has long pilings of artificial stone and square stone boxes on the ends. If the erosion continues, it will wash out and tumble down.”

  “The rod comes from this building?”

  “From the top. They say you can see now where it is fastened on. A box protrudes from the far side, too, but we can’t see it because it lies out over the empty place.”

  “With all this rain and erosion,” said Winnt, “perhaps it will wash out all the poison, down to a level where one can safely walk on the empty place.”

  “Perhaps. But not yet. Already, though, the grass and weeds of last year have moved down the slope. The empty land is shrinking. But the edge growth is wild and twisted, as I have seen before, for many arms.” Tor stood and stretched. Starting to go, he turned back to them, his axe on his hip swinging and slapping him. “One other thing. They say you can see now that the end of this structure is higher and rounded, like the ruin near the river at the great bend.”

  “A dome,” Stel mused. “A great dome, then.”

  “A dome. There is one at Koorb, tumbled and burnt, but not in an empty place, so it can be viewed. It is almost gone now, but it is what the Sentani call a dome—like the one at the great bend.”

  “It is like a man’s skull, a great piece of head bone, so Konta says.”

  “We will see in the morning.”

  “It is going to rain again, I think.”

  “I fear so. I hope we moved the boats high enough. I want to be off to Koorb, eh, Igna?”

  The boy said nothing, though he was awake and listening.

  “If it does rain, there is an outcrop with an overhang a short way south,” said Tor. “Some of the people are already moving their furrolls there.”

  “Thank you, Tor,” said Ahroe. “I am limp as a rabbitskin, as they say in the west. We appreciate your friendship.”

  The axeman paused, embarrassed. “Ahroe, I am not friendly for this reason, but I am wondering if I can ask something of you and Stel. It is a big thing. I had not wanted to. It is about Tristal, my nephew. I must wait here for him. He was to arrive with the Zar Reef Band, but they aren’t here. I fear it is because of his running, which is not much. He is my brother’s son, but my brother and his wife died in the wild fire that burnt so wide a stretch of the tall grass prairie south near the Oh, and Tristal was left alone.

  “He is fourteen. I am sure that he will not be able to make the run westward—he should be here by now. Since he isn’t, that simply means he isn’t able. The wild ones have passed early this year, and we have to move. It is hard on Tris, too. He is thin—well, scrawny. But he is a good boy. I have often thought he needs more of a settled life until he matures and his chest deepens—if it ever will.

  “Is there a chance that there might be something for him to do at Pelbarigan? I know some Shumai have worked for the Pelbar, and there is quite a colony now near Northwall, farming—may they be forgiven for that—and cutting wood.”

  “I am sure he can do something,” Ahroe returned. “He can live with us, too. We are outside the wall now, and Hagen is with us.”

  “Hagen?”

  “He is a Shumai, an old man I traveled west with. He is like my father.”

  “Like a father? He lives with you now always?”

  “Yes. Right now he is looking after Garet, our son. He seems to have no needs himself, but he needs people to take care of. After all, it is not work that your nephew needs. He needs somebody to love him.”

  Tor snorted. “A Shumai man may like that, but he never needs it.”

  Ahroe unexpectedly reached out and patted his leg as he stood there, then smiled and laughed outright. “All right, Tor. But I have seen Shumai who like it so much it is hard to tell that they don’t need it. Now I think I will go get Stel, if I can tear him away from his music. It is time to sleep. Right? Where is your outcrop? Are you coming, Winnt? Is Igna asleep?” But she didn’t pause for an answer, and the two watched her walk away, stiff-legged from the run.

  The two men looked at each other. “She is some woman,” Winnt said.

  “For a Pelbar.”

  “For anybody. She will be good for Tristal, I am sure. And Stel will be better.”

  Tor reached down, and they touched right palms. Then the axeman picked up his furroll and walked lightly toward the outcrop.

  II

  AFTER some rain in the night, the early dawn brought gray sky, sodden ground, and a wet breeze, but no more rainfall. The whole gathering of people stirred and arose early, without fires or food, walking out and up to the rim of the westward hill that marked the edge of the burn, the empty place from the time of fire.

  As the light grew, Stel and Ahroe saw a desolate wasteland, much more gullied than the empty places of the west, with the typical glassy surfaces where the land had been melted into a solid surface, but here cut, carved, rain-tumbled. Not very far down the slope ahead of them, the dim outlines of a building from ancient times, of artificial stone, called concrete by the Commuters, protruded from the hill. It had i
ts back to them. The dome at the end already hung outward over empty space, its pillars reaching only air.

  As morning slowly increased, about the time of sunrise, if there was one, a square slid open in the dome, small and far, and a long rod slowly rose, higher and higher, into the air. The top was crooked and looked somehow disrupted, as if some odd piece of metal were fused to it. At last it stopped rising. Then, when it revolved slowly, an awed murmur went through the crowd. It stopped again. Then it revolved in the opposite direction and slowly sunk back down into the dome. The small square shut again, sealing so that its location could not be easily seen from the hilltop.

  No one moved or spoke for a long time. The whole appearance of the rod could not have lasted more than four sunwidths on the Pelbar clock. Ahroe looked at Stel. “Someone is in there,” he said.

  “Or a mechanism.”

  “Perhaps. But what if someone is in there? We ought to know.”

  “How? Look. It is an empty space.”

  Stel’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. “Stel,” said Ahroe. “Stel. You mustn’t think of going there. Look at what is happening to Stantu, the Shumai at Northwall. Look at the Ozar. It makes a slow death.”

  Stel put his arm around her. “I wonder,” he said. “There may be a way. But not today. We will discuss it at home.”

  “Yes, Stel, I know that rimes well with dome.”

  He laughed. “I think I ought to sketch it out, providing what dimensions I can sight from here. Look. Some of the people are going already.”

  Tor strolled over to them. “What do you think?” he said.

  “We aren’t sure,” said Ahroe. “Stel’s first reaction was that there were people in there. But they would have had to be in there from the time of fire, and that is some eleven hundred years. We know that would be impossible.”

  “Do we?” Stel asked. Then he looked at the expressions on the others’ faces. “Yes, we do,” he added.

  “There’s one more thing about Tristal,” said Tor.

  “Yes?”

  “He has a dog. He is inseparable from her.”