A man called Deevers, who was known as a scavenger, wandered among the huts. From behind one he called: “Captain!” and Greene and I went to see what he had found. He pointed to something which at first sight looked like a part of the back of the hut. Then I thought it was the crude construction of a child. All sorts of things had been used in the building: twigs and small branches fallen from trees but also pieces of wood and metal culled from the ruins of the village. The structure they formed was weird and seemingly without plan, though I noticed at the front a ramp leading up from the ground to a hole that gave access to the interior: a narrow ramp and a hole only a few inches across.
Deevers said: “Rats ran out, Captain.” His voice held loathing. “Big ones. More than a dozen.” He pointed again. “They ran into the grass there.”
“The building rats,” Greene said. “I have heard of them. So this is what they build.”
He wasted little time in looking. His boot crashed in savagely, shattering it and scattering the bits of which it had been made. I spoke involuntarily:
“Why do that?”
“Polybeasts,” Greene said. “And rats, which is worse. Even your Wilsh friends would kill them, I think.”
I did not know what to say, or what I truly felt. My own horror of rats was deep, from a time when I was a child of three and a cat brought a dead rat to me as a gift and left it on my pillow while I slept. But along with this detestation was something else: a hatred of seeing any built thing, even one built by rats so wantonly destroyed.
In the end I said nothing. Not all the rats had fled at Deevers’ approach. There was one that emerged now from the rubble of its home and launched itself at this enemy giant, trying to claw and scrabble its way up Greene’s boot. He knocked it aside easily and broke its back; and then ground under his heel the helpless hairless young which their mother had stayed to defend.
• • •
That night we camped near another village, this time inhabited. It clustered round a knoll that overlooked a few patchily cultivated fields and the river whose valley we were following, and we stayed on a similar small hill half a mile to the south. It had a thatch of trees on top, like our own St. Catherine’s, which afforded some shelter.
I was restless and could not sleep. Maybe the incident with the building rats had disturbed me more than I had thought. Perhaps it brought to the surface of my mind the confusions which had grown during my stay in the land of the Wilsh, and the deeper confusion between my life as it was and as the Seers planned it. Things which had looked simple in the clear context of our life in the south now showed themselves to be difficult and complex. The Seers had taught me that there was more to the world than the clash of warriors and cities. But I had not realized how much more it could be.
The restlessness increased and I got up. The others around me were sleeping. A three-quarter moon sailed clear in a space between clouds. One of the two guards saw me; I spoke quietly to him and walked on. My horse whinnied, and I patted her neck.
The mounts had been tethered to outlying trees under the guard’s surveillance. In the moonlight I felt his eyes on my back also and, wanting to be alone, went down the hill and out of his range of vision. Elsewhere it was a sleeping world. From the village on the other hill came neither light nor sound, not even a dog’s barking.
I came to the track along which we had traveled. To the north lay Klan Gothlen; to the south, beyond the Burning Lands, my native city. Both seemed very far away, and not in distance only. In this thin, silent realm of black and silver it was hard to think of them as real.
Trees overhung the track. I heard a sound above me, very small, perhaps no more than a bird shifting on its perch. All the same I looked up. But the dark shape was already dropping onto my shoulders, and before I could cry out strong fingers clutched my throat. They pressed a point in my neck; and thought and memory ended.
NINE
THE EYRIE OF THE SKY PEOPLE
I RECOVERED MY SENSES TO a rhythmic pounding sound that I thought at first was the beat of blood in my temples. My next realization was that I could not move—and yet was moving. It took me several moments to grasp that my limbs were bound and I was being carried along at a rapid pace. The pounding was the thud of the feet of those who carried me.
My face was toward the ground and not far above it. Occasionally a tall weed whipped against me, sometimes painfully. In the moonlight I could see the dizzying rush of the earth under me and the steadily jogging feet: four pairs, naked but not flinching from the roughness of the ground. So four men had my roped figure slung between them. But there were more in the band; other feet thudded alongside these. I tried to estimate how many, but it was hopeless.
They ran in silence apart from an occasional sharp word of command; and effortlessly and with apparent tirelessness. I had no idea how far we were from the place where I had been captured, but knew I was being carried farther at a pace not much less than that of a trotting horse. I debated calling out and decided it would do no good. A nettle slashed my cheek, and I bit my lip in silence.
They ran for what seemed like hours before they rested. I was dropped to the ground, bruising my shoulder against a stone. At last I could see something other than the sickening sweep of the earth. There were perhaps twenty of them. They lay motionless, as though they too were bound, and still without talking. I heard the murmur of their breathing; that was all.
Eventually there was another barked command and the trek began again. My four carriers, or perhaps another four, picked me up as casually as I had been dumped. The ropes which bound me had four loose ends, a few feet long, and they twisted them round their shoulders with the skill of long practice. My face was upward now; either by accident or because by this time we were far enough away from the camp for it to be unimportant what landmarks I might see.
Not that I saw much more—only four straining backs and the sky above. But I was glad of the change when they forded a river. I was held scarcely above water level with the back of my head dipping in and out. As it was, I thought I would choke from the waves that splashed over me and filled my nostrils.
There was a second rest break that followed the same routine as the first. When they started off again the paleness of dawn was challenging the moonlight in the east. I thought our progress was more upward but could not be sure. My limbs were stiff and sore from the ropes, my skin smarting from a hundred small abrasions. All I could think of was an end to this monstrous journey.
It came in a way I could not have foreseen. We were in a forest, with huge trees blotting out the growing light of day. The runners pounded along a narrow track that wound between them. From the front came the cry which had previously signaled a break. I expected to be tossed to the ground and braced myself against the shock of landing. To my astonishment I found myself being pulled upward instead. The two men holding the ropes attached to my shoulders were shinning up the opposite sides of a broad-trunked tree. They traveled with a dexterity that reminded me of squirrels. Once or twice I bumped, but fortunately the tree’s surface was smooth, with no projecting branches. Above was complete blackness—I wondered how branches could be so dense or leaves so thick—with a few oddly regular holes. One grew in size and I saw we must pass through it. This happened, and there was light again. With a quick jerk my captors tossed me clear. I thought of falling the height of the tree—thirty feet at least—but I fell no more than a foot and landed softly.
They left me there. I was on a level surface through which the trunks of trees projected, giving the impression of a bizarrely dwarfed forest. This surface seemed to join them together. Huts had been built on it to form a tree-village. The softness under me came from a sort of moss, deep and springy in texture.