From the slight rise of ground, Thunder Butte could be plainly seen, a dominant feature that rose above all the terrible flatness. Around its base ran a darker ring that must be the trees that Rollo had said formed a protective circle about it—and more than likely Ezra's trees as well, although perhaps not exactly the kind of trees that Ezra claimed the sunflowers and the other plants had told him.
"This morning," Cushing said to the squatting wardens, "through the glasses, I caught a glimpse of whiteness at the very top of Thunder Butte. They had the look of buildings, but I could not be certain. Do you know if there are buildings up there?"
"There are magic habitations," said the spokesman of the group. There sleep the creatures that will follow men.
"How do you mean, ‘will follow men'?"
"When men are gone, they will come forth and take the place of men. Or, if they wake first, even before the last of men are gone, they will come forth and displace men. They will sweep men off the earth and take their place."
"You say that you are wardens," Meg said to them. "Do you mean you guard these creatures, that you keep them free of interference?"
"Should anyone approach too closely," said the warden, "they might awake. And we do not want them to awake. We want them to sleep on. For, once they wake and emerge, men s days on Earth are numbered."
"And you are on patrol to warn anyone who comes too close?"
"For centuries on centuries," said the warden, "we have kept patrol. This is but one patrol; there are many others. It takes a great many of us to warn wanderers away. That is why we stopped you. You had the appearance of heading for the butte."
"That is right," said Cushing. "We are heading for the butte."
"There is no use of going there," the warden said. "You can never reach the butte. The Trees won't let you through. And even if the Trees don't stop you, there are other things that will. There are rocks to break your bones
"Rocks!" cried Meg.
"Yes, rocks. Living rocks that keep watch with the Trees."
"There, you see!" Meg said to Cushing. "Now we know where that boulder came from.
"But that was five hundred miles away, said Cushing. "What would a rock be doing there?"
"Five hundred miles is a long way," said the warden, "but the rocks do travel. You say you found a living rock? How could you know it was a living rock? They aren't any different; they look like any other rock."
"I could tell," said Meg.
"The Trees shall let us through," said Ezra. "I shall talk with them."
"Hush, Grandfather," said Elayne. "These gentlemen have a reason for not wanting us to go there. We should give them hearing."
"I have already told you," said the warden, "we fear the Sleepers will awake. For centuries we have watched—we and those other generations that have gone before us. The trust is handed on, from a father to his son. There are old stories, told centuries ago, about the Sleepers and what will happen when they finish out their sleep. We keep the ancient faith
The words rolled on—the solemn, dedicated words of a man sunk deep in faith. The words, thought Cushing, paying slight attention to them, of a sect that had twisted an ancient fable into a body of belief and a dedication that made them owe their lives to the keeping of that mistaken
The sun was sinking in the west and its slanting light threw the landscape into a place of tangled shadows. Beyond the rise on which they squatted, a deep gully slashed across the land, and along the edges of it grew thick tangles of plum trees. In the far distance a small grove of trees clustered, perhaps around a prairie pond. But except for the gully and its bushes and the stand of distant trees, the land was a gentle ocean of dried and withered grass that ran in undulating waves toward the steep immensity of Thunder Butte.
Cushing rose from where he had been squatting and moved over to one side of the two small groups facing one another. Rollo, who had not squatted with the others but had remained standing a few paces to the rear, moved over to join him.
"Now what?" the robot asked.
"I'm not sure," said Cushing. "I don't want to fight them. From the way they act, they don't want any fighting, either. We could just settle down, I suppose, and try to wear them out with waiting, but I don't think that would work. And there's no arguing with them. They are calm and conceited fanatics who believe in what they're doing."
"They aren't all that tough," said Rollo. "With a show of force.
Cushing shook his head. "Someone would get hurt."
Elayne rose to her feet. Her voice came to them, calm, unhurried, so precise it hurt. "You are wrong," she said to the wardens. "The things you have been telling us have no truth in them. There are no Sleepers and no danger. We are going on."
With that, she walked toward them, slowly, deliberately, as if there were no one there to stop her. Meg rose swiftly, clutching at her arm, but Elayne shook off the hand. Ezra came quickly to his feet and hurried to catch up with Elayne. Andy flicked his tail and followed close behind.
The wardens sprang up quickly and began to back away, their eyes fastened on the terrible gentleness of Elayne's face.
From off to one side came a coughing roar and Cushing spun around to face in its direction. A huge animal, gray and brown, humped of shoulder, great mouth open in its roar, had burst from a clump of plum bushes that grew beside the gully and was charging the wardens' huddled horses. The horses, for an instant, stood frozen in their fear, then suddenly reacted, plunging in great arcing leaps to escape the charging bear.
Rollo catapulted into action, at full speed with his second stride; his spear, held two-handed, extended straight before him.
"A grizzly!" he shouted. "After all this time, a grizzly!"
"Come back, you fool," yelled Cushing, reaching for an arrow and nocking it to the bowstring.
The horses were running wildly. Straight behind them came the bear, screaming in his rage, rapidly closing on the frightened animals. Running directly at the bear was Rollo, with leveled spear thrusting out toward it.
Cushing raised the bow and drew back the arrow, almost to his cheek. He let it go and the arrow was a whicker in the golden sunshine of late afternoon. It struck the bear in the neck and the bear whirled, roaring horribly. Cushing reached for another arrow. As he raised the bow again, he saw the bear, rearing on its hind legs, its face a foaming frenzy, its forelegs lifted to strike down, with Rollo almost underneath them, the spear thrusting up to strike. Out of the tail of his eye, Cushing saw Andy, head stretched forward, ears laid back, tail streaming out behind him, charging down at full gallop upon the embattled bear.
Cushing let the arrow go and heard the thud, saw its feathered end protruding from the bear's chest, just below the neck. Then the bear was coming down, its forearms reaching out to grasp Rollo in their clutches, but with Rollo's spear now buried deeply in its chest. Andy spun on his front legs, his hind legs lashing out. They caught the bear's belly with a sickening, squashy sound.
The bear was down and Rollo was scrambling out from underneath it, the bright metal of his body smeared with blood. Andy kicked the bear again, then trotted off, prancing, his neck bowed in pride. Rollo danced a wild war jig around the fallen bear, whooping as he danced.
"Grease!" he was yelling. "Grease, grease, grease!"
The bear kicked and thrashed in reflex action. The wardens' horses were rapidly diminishing dots on the prairie to the south. The wardens, running desperately behind them, were slightly larger dots.