He eased his spirit by plunging deep into the exploration of the ruins of Vengiboneeza. The pattern created in his mind by the machine and the Barak Dayir was his guide. When he wielded the Wonderstone, the points of red light that glowed on the interlocking circles that he saw gave him the clues he needed; and he began now systematically to uncover the city’s ancient caches of undamaged mechanisms, which he now knew lay all about at close hand, some in deeply hidden galleries, some virtually out in the open.
It amazed him that so many treasures of the Great World had survived the Long Winter. Even metal, he thought, should crumble to dust in so great a span of time. Yet wherever he looked — now that he knew the right places — he came up with wonders great and small. Most of the devices were far too big to remove; but many could be carried away and brought back to the settlement, where a special storeroom in the temple was set aside for them. Rapidly it filled with strange, glittering devices of mysterious function. Hresh examined them cautiously. Discovering these objects was one thing, determining how to make use of them was another. It was slow, difficult, frustrating work.
A group who became known among the People as the Seekers collected about Hresh to aid him in the task of exploration and discovery.
At first the Seekers were simply the handful of bodyguards — Konya, Haniman, Orbin — who usually went out to protect him as he roamed the city. Hresh had regarded them in the beginning as necessary nuisances and nothing more, mere spear-wielders. But before long they knew the city almost as well as he did. Though he tried to keep his map to himself, it was impossible to prevent others from learning their way around. Sometimes now they would go on expeditions of their own. It became a kind of competition for celebrity, now that they saw the fame that accrued to Hresh for having been out so often into the city. And occasionally they would actually return with some glittering little marvel out of antiquity, which they had pried out from under a fallen column, or excavated in some debris-choked undercellar.
Hresh protested to Koshmar about that. “They are ignorant,” he said. “They might damage the things they find, if I’m not there to oversee the work.”
“They’ll cease being ignorant,” Koshmar replied, “if they get into the habit of using their minds. And they can learn to be careful with what they find. This city is so big that we need all the searchers we can muster.” And after a moment she added, “They need to feel that they are doing important things, Hresh. Otherwise they’ll grow bored and restless, and that will endanger us all. I say let them wander where they want to.”
Hresh had to obey. He knew when to be wary of disputing the chieftain’s decisions.
The number of Seekers grew as time went along. There were many who were curious about the wonders of the city.
One day when he was searching with Orbin in the rich troves of the Yissou Tramassilu district, Hresh found a puzzling little container bound in intricately woven chains. He tried to open it, but the chains were too complex and delicate for his thick male fingers, or Orbin’s, to unravel. A woman’s hands, smaller and more adept at such work, were needed.
He brought the container back and let Taniane deal with it. Her fingers flew like whirling blades and within minutes she managed to get the container out of its wrappings. There was nothing inside but the dry bones of some small animal, hard as stone, and a bit of grayish powder, perhaps ash.
Taniane went to Koshmar and asked to be allowed to accompany the Seekers. “Probably they find many things like that little box,” she said. “And they break them, or they toss them aside. My eyes are sharper than theirs, my fingers are cleverer. They are only men, after all.”
“There is sense to what you say,” Koshmar replied.
She told Hresh to include Taniane in the search party the next time he went forth. He had mixed feelings about that. Taniane, who had grown tall and silken and keen-witted, had begun to fascinate him in a strange, disturbing way that he scarcely understood. It gave him a mysterious feeling of warmth and excitement when she was close to him, but at the same time she stirred powerful discomfort in him, and sometimes he felt so ill at ease that he would go out of his way to avoid her. He accepted her into the Seekers, for Koshmar had ordered him to, but he took care always to have Orbin or Haniman with him also whenever Taniane was part of the exploration group. They distracted her and kept her from asking him uncomfortable questions.
After Taniane, it was Bonlai who wanted to be a Seeker: if Taniane could go, other girls could, she insisted. And it would give her a chance to be with Orbin. Hresh saw no merit in that, and this time he prevailed with Koshmar. Bonlai, Koshmar agreed, was too young to go exploring. But Hresh could raise no such objection in the case of Sinistine, Jalmud’s mate, and she became the second woman of the tribe to join the group.
A little while later the shy and stolid young warrior Praheurt asked to be one of them, and then Shatalgit, a woman just entering childbearing age, who all too obviously was hoping to mate herself with Praheurt. So there were seven Seekers all told, almost a tenth of the entire tribe.
“Seven is certainly enough,” Hresh said to Koshmar. “Pretty soon there’ll be nobody left working in the vegetable fields or tending the meat-animals, and we’ll all be out prowling in the ruins.”
Koshmar frowned. “Are we here to raise crops or to find the secrets of the Great World that will show us how to conquer the world?”
“We’ve found any number of Great World secrets already.”
“And they remain secret,” said Koshmar sharply. “You don’t know how to use a single one of those machines.”
Hresh replied, trying to choke back his annoyance, “I’m working on that. But the secrets of the Great World will be of no value to us if we starve to death while trying to learn how to make use of them. I think seven Seekers is enough.”
“Very well,” said Koshmar.
Nothing more was heard from the Helmet People in all this time.
Harruel made it his special responsibility to keep watch for them. He was sure that more of the strangers were lurking in the mountainous country above the city’s northeastern flank, and sure also that they were planning an eventual murderous descent on the tribe. That there would be a war he had no doubt. In truth the People should be turning themselves into an army right now: drilling and marching, preparing themselves for the conflict to come. But nobody, not even Koshmar, was interested in that. At the moment Harruel was an army of one. By default he held all the ranks from private officer up to general. And as general he sent himself out each day on reconnaissance missions along the highland side of Vengiboneeza.
At first he went alone, telling no one where he was going. All day long he would sweep through the ruined zones of the upper city and into the wilderness beyond, looking for the glint of helmets in the distance. It was lonely work, but it provided him with a sense of purpose. He had felt a grievous lack of that since the People had settled in Vengiboneeza.
After a time Harruel realized that it was foolish to go on these missions alone. If the Helmet People did come back, they would probably come in force. Strong as he was, he could hardly hold off more than two or three at a time. He needed a companion on his marches, so that if he was attacked the other might still be able to slip away and sound an alarm.
The first he tried to recruit was Konya. Konya had been with him, after all, when he had caught the first Helmet Man. He understood the nature of the enemy they were up against.