I vetoed the idea immediately, but he insisted. "We don't even know that there isn't anybody living there. Maybe we could drop Harros off and get on with why we're really out here."
I was loathe to let on how much that idea appealed to me. I did not dislike Harros—in truth I had not formed a definite opinion of him, save that he was less onerous a traveling companion than I had feared—but he was an impediment to my quest to find Hana Wen. Moreover, as long as he was with us, I hesitated to remove the Librarian from my pocket, and the old man's counsel I missed much.
As I thought of him I reached down to retrieve the small sphere, but an abrupt, ugly sound from across the water stopped me.
"What was that?" Timash had heard it, too. He would have to have been deaf not to. "It sounded like somebody dragging a big sack of rocks on the ground."
"A very big sack," I agreed uneasily. "Let's get back to Harros."
Our intentions were sound, but the best intentions do not guarantee the best results. Before we could move, something moved within the city opposite us, something large enough that we could see it over the wall. All at once the Thing lifted its slate-colored head and screamed at the sky with a hundred teeth half the height of a man. Its shoulders topped the wall. I needed no explanation from Timash to identify it.
"A thunder lizard," he breathed.
Had he been there, the Librarian could have told us that thunder lizards have extremely poor eyesight, but good hearing and a bloodhound's sense of smell. Its head swiveled in our direction, and before our horrified eyes it jumped over the city wall, raised its fearsome head to the skies and roared its triumph to its prey: us.
25. We Are Pursued
A hot, wet blast of wind from the creature's mouth, redolent of mud, dead fish, and even more foul odors to which I still dare not attribute a name all but choked us, but the thunder lizard's own cries were so loud as to cover our frenzied coughing, else it would have been upon us in another instant and this memoir would not be in your hands.
In plain view at last, it stood upright on two massively-muscled legs ending in yard-long claws tearing ferociously at the mud. Its upper arms, puny in comparison, appeared nonetheless strong enough to rend a bear—and its teeth would make a Burmese tiger run and hide. Twice the size of an elephant on its hind legs, its scales rippling rainbows in the sun, it was a nightmare come to roaring life.
Recovering his voice, Timash leaned close to me.
"Uncle Balu says they have very good ears and noses but very bad eyesight. I don't think it can see us in these bushes. Thank God we’re downwind from it."
Indeed, although it had leaped over the wall giving every intention that it was about to swoop down on us, it now simply stood swiveling its head back and forth, its chest rising and falling like a giant bellows.
"You're right," I whispered back carefully, watching the monster to see if it reacted to my voice. "I don't think it knows we're here. It must use that roar to panic its prey into making a run for it." And judging from what we had seen of its celerity on foot, that would doubtless be the last move any prey would ever make.
"Uncle Balu also says they are very stupid."
I had an absurd notion of three or four thunder lizards under a circus tent while a man with a whip tried to teach them to jump through hoops.
"I have an idea," my friend continued. I gestured for him to tell me his idea quickly, because I honestly had none. He outlined it in a few sentences: It was foolhardy, extremely dangerous, and all in all better than remaining where we were until the giant lizard decided to cross the river.
We parted, moving carefully in opposite directions under cover of the trees—this was the "safe" part of the plan. So intent was I upon not making a sudden noise that I was forced to devote my entire attention to the ground before me; I had none to spend on the lizard. If it made a move, I would only have my ears to warn me. Two creatures out of their times playing cat and mouse by hearing alone. While I suppose it leveled the playing field, I doubt seriously that the lizard was any more interested in the philosophical ramifications of our respective situations than was I.
A sudden shriek brought me out of my self-absorption. The plan was for Timash and me to separate by about two hundred yards, start screaming simultaneously, then run like the devil back toward Harros and the groundcar. Whichever one the lizard pursued, the other would shout louder to draw its attention. If it was as stupid as Balu had claimed, we might confuse it enough to allow both of us to escape—if Harros had the groundcar ready.
But Timash had screamed before we agreed—and the creature was moving in his direction—fast. I choked back a curse against romantic bandy-legged youth and churned my legs as fast as they would go.
I broke through the bushes and ran into the water, splashing and shouting and waving my arms. For a moment I feared the thing would not turn—then it did turn and I knew fear of an entirely different kind. It leaped into the river and charged me like an ocean liner overtaking a sailboat.
I clambered back onto the bank, panting hard, feeling its hot breath already at my back. As I broke through the brush, I heard another scream and a mighty splash: In trying to change its direction, the lizard had lost its footing on the slippery riverbed and fallen in. Its head went down and came up again, spewing water and mud. A stunned fish landed at my feet. I didn't wait to see how the monster fared; I put my head down and ran.
Timash not being built for sprinting, he was still in sight when I emerged on the other side of the trees. I could hear the beast behind me thrashing about in anger, and those sounds lent my feet all the swiftness I could use, heedless of the sudden ache in my side.
I ran for the car, but was still many yards short of my goal when it rose from the ground with a gurgling growl and proceeded upriver away from me! Stopping involuntarily, I watched aghast as my only hope of escape, escaped—but then there was the thunder lizard again, shedding water from its bath and loping after the car!
I felt a rush of shame for my less-than-charitable feelings for our comrade Harros: His sacrifice was saving our lives. The car was not only noisy, but slow, and the hell-spawned lizard was gaining literally in leaps and bounds. No doubt existed in my mind but that this prehistoric behemoth would tear the metal car apart like an origami sculpture, leaving its occupant only a red smear to be licked up at leisure. Yet through it all, chest heaving and ribs aching, I could do nothing. The two ends of history would soon meet before my helpless eyes.
The lizard pounced as the car sputtered and whined, Harros desperately jerking the controls about in an effort to veer away—an effort only half-successful, yet fully enough. The car spun on its axis and the lizard missed, half-burying itself once more, but this time not in the river, but in an ocean of soft mud. As in the tar pits of my own home time and place, the more it struggled the more it became ensnared. Its cloud-searing roars masked the sounds of Timash's approach.
"There's not enough mud there to drown it," he said hopelessly.
"No, but it might be enough to allow Harros to get the car away."
Our hope was quickly dashed: The car had run its last race. With a loud bang that startled even the thunder lizard, it settled into the mud. Harros leaped out the opposite side before it hit the ground, running, managing somehow to stay afoot until he could get a safe distance away. He needn't have bothered; the dimwitted dinosaur was so busy tearing the earth to bits in its frenzy to reach the car it hadn't even noticed him.
Abruptly it found its footing, reared over our transport—and fell on it. Inside something sparked—and the ensuing explosion scattered thunder lizard steaks for a hundred yards. When the smoke cleared, the decapitated monster lay across the shattered remnants of its final prey.
Harros was stunned but unhurt, as the force had hurled him head over heels onto the marshy turf. His front was covered with black mud, his back with grass and water-stains. We reached him at a run as he rose up on his elbows and looked back the way he had come.
"Go
od god," he muttered, staring at the carnage. "Good god."
The only survivor of the explosion was my staff—the damned thing was apparently indestructible. It did, however, require a long rinse in the river before I felt comfortable touching it again (and Harros made sure he bathed upriver of my cleaning).
After our respective ablutions were accomplished, we three stood across the river from the walled city, watching its silent ramparts as the sun marched inexorably toward the point where our decision must be made.
When no other thunder lizards had broken the day's peace for perhaps five minutes, I spoke up.
"If we're going to be spending the next few nights there, I'd rather get started now, while there's still light."
Timash stared at me. "Who says we're spending the night in there?"
"It's going to take time to build a raft, and there may be tools we can use."
"What raft?" Harros demanded.
"What's a raft?" Timash asked.
I started down the bank, scanning the water for any sign of a ford; they followed me perforce.
"A raft is a wooden platform that you can sail on a river. We've got more than enough wood to build one, if we can fell the trees. Somewhere downriver there must be another town, one with people in it."
"Beats walking," Harros said, but Timash was unconvinced.
"On water?"
I ignored him and concentrated on using my staff to sound the stream bottom. Finding a shallow spot that seemed to extend further than others, I stripped off my jumpsuit and boots, held them above my head, and waded in, motioning the others to follow and keeping the staff outstretched. In this way we found a path across whereon even Timash, the shortest of us, could keep his chin above water. We tried not to think of what might be swimming about our legs, but nothing bit us.
The city-side of the river proved much drier, and we set a good pace around the walls, looking for a gate, for the method of egress used by the thunder lizard was unattainable by us. Up close the metal walls were far less impressive even than I had imagined: Flakes of rust the size of my head spotted the surface like a loathsome disease. How many years had these walls stood unattended?
My companions' thoughts traveled along the same paths—but they reached the end before mine did.
"Keryl?" Timash asked with unaccustomed shyness. "What did that thunder lizard eat before we came along?"
Suddenly the idea of carving and building a raft with our bare hands took on a new appeal—but one that lasted only a moment.
Somewhere on the other side of the wall, a woman screamed.
26. The Dead City
As deeply ingrained as is the instinct for one’s own survival in the mind of Man, how much more deeply ingrained might it become after the passage of nearly another million years of evolution? And yet, as was now proven to my grateful eyes, the instinct of Man (or ape) to protect the weaker sex had kept pace with that most primal urge to live, so that even uncounted millennia in the future, the first thought of my companions was even as my own: to succor the helpless originator of that cry, regardless of the unknown dangers that might lie in wait for ourselves.
In short, almost at once I was sprinting along our projected path, frantically searching for a way past the wall, for it is in my nature, and my nurture, not to stand by while a woman wants for aid. And my friends, for whom I could not speak on such a matter, were right on my heels; although Harros and I quickly outdistanced Timash, it was only through lack of leg, and not of heart, that he was left behind.
The ground under my feet abruptly changed from hard mud to smooth stone, albeit so covered with dust that only the altered sounds of my boots on the ground alerted me. I stopped so suddenly that Harros almost knocked me down. Had not the wall curved so gradually that we were still in Timash's line of sight, he doubtless would have collided with the pair of us moments later, to the detriment of all concerned.
We stood on the flagstones of a partly-closed gateway, away from which at right angles to us ran an ancient road down to the river, a road now visible only in isolated chunks of masonry. The gate itself was a marvel of engineering, for while the city wall was fully three times our own height, the gate was equally that wide at its lowest point. And as it rose, the gate became wider; what mechanism could raise it we could not see, nor would we ever know, but that it was meant to be raised and lowered was obvious by the fact that it had stopped four feet off the ground. Deep grooves in the walls where the gate had once fit showed evidence of centuries of habitation by dust and wild creatures. It was not a place I was tempted to stick my fingers.
All this we assimilated in seconds, for this was the entrance we had sought, and pausing only long enough to catch our breath (and not nearly long enough to consider the probable consequences of our actions), we ducked through the gap and emerged on the other side, inside the city.
Instantly all sound ceased.
Rarely do we stop in our daily activities to take account of the myriad subtle noises of our lives; we have no time, and were we even to try, cataloging every day's surroundings would consume us. So we let most of the background slip by, concentrating on that which most concerns us, and the susurrations of life assume a position not unlike a sailor's unconscious appreciation of the rhythms of the sea. That is, until they disappear.
Ahead of us lay a continuation of the gateway plaza, opening onto a wide boulevard that disappeared in the hazy distance. Grass grew in clumps through the cracked stones of the pale red pavement. On either side of the avenue deserted buildings cast long, cool shadows; we stood in one such shadow, cocking our heads, but there was no sound, nothing; like the African veldt when the king of beasts prowls his kingdom and the other animals huddle, quaking, until he passes by. At that time the silence becomes a tangible thing, stretching out long past the point of breaking. This was the silence of the prey of the thunder lizard. Whatever lived here had fled the roar of the king of beasts—but what, then, had we heard?
I motioned ahead with my staff. I had no more idea than the others where the cry had originated, save that it was on this side of the wall, back in the direction whence we had come. It seemed now a ghostly illusion; there loomed the distinct possibility we were being lured to our deaths by a cunning predator. Still the urge that had stirred my breast would not leave me, nor could I depart this necropolis until I had tried, at least, to learn the truth.
We proceeded cautiously down a narrow street that paralleled the wall, curving inward as we entered the city proper. On either side of us balconies and catwalks crowded the upper stories; as in the olden Chester of my adopted England, the populace had once upon a time conducted their business on several levels, walking from building to building above the street along the connected second-story storefronts. I shuddered irrationally; their ghosts still strolled the elevated thoroughfares, but now their evil agenda involved stalking the living—in a word, us.
Strangely enough, I could not throw the odd feeling aside. I could almost hear their voices, sibilantly whispering in the shadows and the abandoned man-made caverns about us.
I stopped, secreting myself in a doorway and motioning my companions to follow suit. I could not shake that feeling! And soon I learned why.
Out of a doorway opposite us and a little further down the street trotted a squad of ragged men, variously equipped with blunt clubs and small bundles of rope that appeared to be netting. Without speaking and in almost perfect unison they crossed the road and filed into a doorway on our side of the street, without seeing us or even looking about. Their appearance caused me to stare: Pale-skinned and hairless, their limbs exhibited a leanness bordering on the emaciated. None seemed to lack for energy—yet withal there was a quality of lifelessness about them, as if the task before them absorbed their entire focus and no other consideration was worthy of notice. More than soldierly discipline, it was utterly sinister.
None of us questioned their connection to our goal; we were not such fools as to ascribe this apparition to coinc
idence. Allowing a few moments' time that we might not blunder into the patrol, I slipped out of my meager hideaway and down the road.
The trail was easy to follow; the dust inside this particular doorway was little disturbed but for the tracks of our quarry, and the shuffling of their many footsteps echoed in the high halls. I found to my surprise that light immigrated through many holes and windows, so that the pursuit was simple. Occasionally a gap would open in the flooring before us, but never without more than sufficient warning.
Then for the first time we heard voices ahead, their meaning twisted beyond recognition by the intervening corridors, but their tenor clear. A sudden slapping of feet on the floor, then a sharper noise followed by a short scream, cut off quickly—and an abrupt cry of defiance and victory: a woman's voice!
A wiser man would have reconnoitered, surveyed the numbers and arms of the enemy before engagement, planned and plotted and mapped his strategy instead of barging into an unknown battle in which he had no stake nor even knew whose side was right—but that wiser man would never have been me, and in this instance he might have delayed until his objective was lost. With Timash and Harros at my heels I burst through a set of broken double doors into the first room I had seen with working artificial light, and that was fortunate because otherwise I might have doubted my own eyes—and almost certainly I would have lost my life.
At a raised dais to our left stood a lone woman—a Nuum, by her stained orange jumpsuit—armed with a thin sword. Before her and spread about were the men we had seen above—and their friends. Fully two dozen of the pale warriors filled the room, clubs and nets at the ready as if they were bearers on a safari of which the woman was the prey. Four or five bodies prone before the steps of the dais testified to her skill with the sword and explained her opponents' hesitation in charging her. I believe they were about to do so anyway, but our arrival changed all that.
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