Man-built, very old, was the bear’s verdict. They stood listening to the frog and insect chorus on the v/arm night, while clouds of gnats and mosquitoes descended on them. Hiero felt the bite of a leech through a tear on his ankle and, looking down, saw that the morse’s legs were covered with the black, worm shapes, clearly visible in the waning of moonset.
“Day’s coming,” he said. “We’ll have to find cover.” He instructed the bear to look for shelter and began to walk by the morse’s head.
The decision was soon made for them. With no warning, they rounded a clump of the big reeds and found a still expanse of open water before them, broken only by dark hillocks and peculiar, tall, peaked islands, fast taking shape in the dawning light. Looking about, Hiero spied a low mound not far away to one side, which had some vegetation growing on it. He remounted, and Gorm and the morse floundered through muck, for they quickly left the firm surface, until they reached the place.
Klootz heaved himself out of the mud, which would have been up to a human neck, with a sucking noise, and the two humans quickly dismounted. They were on a flat-topped island in the mud, about ten yards square. Thick bushes and even a small palm grew on it, but none of the marsh plants, proving that it was solid ground. While looking at its curiously regular edges, the priest unsaddled the morse and began to pick leeches off his mount’s body.
“This is an ancient building, I feel sure,” he said at length, yanking the last rubbery body off Klootz and hurling it out into the marsh. “We’re standing on a flat roof. God Himself knows how much is sunk below us. This building could have been tall enough to reach, well, the height of a hundred men. The muck might be easily that deep.”
They covered themselves against the insects as well as they could, and then all crouched down under the cover of the palm tree and bushes, to pass the day as best they might. Hiero made sure that they were covered from above by cutting a few branches and laying them over the four bodies. They would be hot, dirty, and uncomfortable, but also hard to see.
As the day flooded the landscape with light, their spirits sank, at least those of the humans did. Klootz ate steadily at every piece of browse within reach, and Gorm managed to sleep, keeping his bearish thoughts to himself.
But the landscape, or rather waterscape, which now lay before them could hardly be considered inspiring, even with a clear sky above and a warm sun.
The Inland Sea had vanished. As far as the eye could reach, there was water, but it was brown and still. From it, stretching equally far out of sight, thrust the ruins of a vast and ancient metropolis, the hecatomb of a vanished race. Some of the buildings were higher than tall trees. Their original height made the imagination boggle, for now they rose from the unplumbed water. Smaller ones, or perhaps those which simply had sunk further into the surrounding mud, were only domed islets, covered with vegetation, like the one on which the travelers now lay concealed. Others were between these two types, and they made up the majority, rising a few storeys from the water, their tops alone heavily laced with plant growth. Even through these clustering plants and the wear of millennia, the destruction by some inconceivable force was still visible. Many of the ruins were shattered and broken, as if by some titanic blow, one which combined both fire and shock. Water plants, huge lily pads and arrowweed, others like great floats of green bladders, covered much of the still water. Here and there, great piles of logs lay tumbled, many overgrown with vines and creepers, the wreckage hurled in by past storms.
The brown and black building’s had dark and gaping windows showing in many places where vegetation had not obscured them. Here and there, amazingly, a fragment of incredibly ancient glass still glinted in the sun and occasionally even a scrap of some rustproof metal. It was a drear and sad prospect to see, a world of death and old ruin, old beyond memory.
The voices of the frogs had died down with the coming of the sun, but the insects still buzzed and stung, although mercifully in far lesser numbers.
Other life there was little, save for a few scattered flocks of some small, dark birds, which flew silently about the roofs of some of the buildings. Large blotches of white stained other buildings, looking to Hiero like the marks of nesting birds of a larger sort, but the birds themselves were absent. Perhaps the season was over and they had gone elsewhere.
The priest probed the area with his mind and found nothing. In the waters and under them, there was much life, but it was not of a kind he could reach or understand, having no intelligence, only appetites and fears.
Yet he did not like the place. Even in the sun, there was a brooding presence to it, a feeling that all was not well.
All day they watched the buildings and the water, but saw nothing beyond the movements of small creatures of mud and pool. The afternoon drew on and the sun sank lower toward the west. The first frog voices began to sound, hesitantly at first, then louder. The insect voices also restarted, and their humming battalions attacked in new numbers.
“Let’s get out of here,” the priest choked, spitting out a cloud of bugs.
They repacked Klootz and mounted. Hiero saw nothing for it but to try and move around the shoreline, muddy though it was, and circle the forgotten city. The water between the buildings, he felt sure, was too deep and also too extensive to try swimming. Who knew what lurked under the surface?
Hardly had they started, indeed Gorm had barely put a front paw off the islet, when they all froze.
The insect and batrachian chorus ceased. Over the still lagoons and through the ruined towers of the ancients, there rang a long, echoing wail. As they listened, it came again. “Aowh, aowh, aaaaouh,” it sobbed, rising and falling on the evening air. Three times the mournful notes hung suspended, their place of origin a mystery. Then there was silence.
As the four listened, a frog spoke hesitantly, then another. Soon the full, croaking orchestra was in full swing again.
“Could you tell where it came from?” Luchare asked.
“No, and neither could Gorm. It seemed to be some distance away, out in the water, but I don’t like it. There is an intelligence here; I feel it in my bones. Something malignant, evil, watching, and waiting. We must stop a while longer while I think. I don’t like this plunging into the night with no protection. The Unclean may be here, hidden perhaps by a mind shield.”
Full night was almost upon them. Only a red line showed the sun’s last light. Hiero dismounted, his brow wrinkled. Ought we to turn back? But where? He felt he was being stupid. There must be some plan, some more sensible method of doing things, that he was missing. Damn! He slapped at the swarming mosquitoes, more in frustration than anything else.
“I wish we had a boat,” the girl said, looking about. “But it would have to be a big one to hold Klootz. Then we could get out of this mud, at least.”
“Up north we build—Holy Mother, forgive my dumbness!” he exploded. “We build rafts, rafts for our animals when there’s no bridge! And I’ve been sitting ail day staring at a thousand log piles, logs all but covered with long vines! The only thing I haven’t been given is someone to step up and kick me awake! Come on down from there and we’ll get to work!”
It was true. The storm-brought drifts of logs lay everywhere. All about their islet were numbers of them, a few with leaves still left on their branches.
Even Gorm was a help now. Klootz was hitched to a vine rope and tugged free the ones they wanted, while the bear helped untangle branches and vines. Hiero hacked off limbs with his sword-knife and generally supervised, while Luchare bound the big logs tightly together with cut lengths of tough vine.