An ancient book. A stellar almanac, perhaps. A pre-Center-orientated navigational manual. In this place any shy;thing was possible.
He reached for it, arresting his hand as a familiar voice echoed in his mind.
"Come."
Dumarest looked up. The strange guardian stood to one side. Watching? It was hard to tell if the figure had a face or eyes at all but the enigmatic flickering in the shadow of the cowl gave the impression of senses more finely tuned than those owned by ordinary men.
"The Place awaits. Go to it. Place your hands on it. This is the rule."
"The guardian means that object in the middle of the clearing," said Yalung. He sounded dubious. "I am not sure that we should do as he directs."
"Have we any choice?" Lallia smiled. "And I want a bath. Remember what was promised? Ask and you will be given. Anyway, what have we to lose?"
Life, thought Dumarest. Sanity, our health, perhaps. Who can tell?
But he followed her across the clearing.
The mound was high, larger than he had at first sup shy;posed, a vine-draped mass protruding from the neatly kept grass. A special grass, he thought, to withstand the weight of the thousands who must come here. As the mound had to be something special also. A strangely-shaped fragment of stone, perhaps, a meteor even, a thing to which had become attached a tremendous superstition. Or did naked belief make its own holiness? Could faith convert inanimate matter into a healing being?
Nimino could have answered, but the navigator was dead. Coughing out his life in order to fulfill a prophecy that he would achieve great knowledge in a cloud of dust. The Web was such a cloud and what greater knowledge could come to a man than that of what happened after death?
Dumarest shook his head, annoyed at his own introspec shy;tion, wondering what had sent his thoughts on such a path. The influence of the place, he thought. The mystery and enchantment of it. The brooding majesty and overwhelming sense of sanctity. There was magic in the air, perhaps the emanations of the trees, the invisible vapors released by the grass, subtle drugs to fog the senses and open wide the vistas of the mind. But that again was sheer speculation.
He concentrated on the mound.
There was an oddity about it as there had been about the birds, as there was about the guardian. A peculiar sense of alienness as if it did not belong to this world and never had. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, tilting his head so as to sharpen his vision, probing beneath the obvious to seek the underlying truth. It probably was simply a mound but there was an oddity here, a peculiar something there, a slight distortion just above the line of sight. And then, suddenly, as if he were looking at an optical illusion in which one image was hidden within another, details grew clear.
The mound was no heap of vine-covered stone.
It was the wreckage of a manufactured artifact.
He blinked but there was no mistake. Warped and crushed as it was, misshapen and unfamiliar, he could still make out the angles and curves of vanes, the ridges of corrugations, plates and sheets of metal all overlaid with grime and a patina of soil from which grew shielding vines.
Or were they, too, disguised? Cables, perhaps, flexible conduits, pipes which had burst like entrails from the body of the artifact?
Dumarest heard the sharp intake of Yalung's breath and wondered if the dealer in precious stones had also penetrated the illusion. And Lallia? He glanced at her, noting the smoothness of her face, the rapt expression in her eyes. She looked like a little girl as she stood before the mound, a child basking in the promise of comfort and warmth and security. She had once prayed, he remembered, and all who pray must have some belief in a higher power. Did she imagine that she stood before the abode of such a being?
"Lallia," he called softly. "Wait."
She halted and turned, smiling, the full richness of her lips red against the whiteness of her skin. "Why, Earl?" "It would be wise to wait," said Yalung. "If the guardian will allow it." He glanced to where the tall figure stood at the edge of the clearing, as immobile as a statue. "The mound is not quite what it seems."
"Does it matter?" She shrugged, suddenly impatient. "What's the matter with you two? It's only a gesture. We aren't sick or ill and if they can come here and touch it without harm what have we to fear? Anyway I'm curious to see whether or not I get my bath."
She held out her hands, again smiling.
"Come on, Earl. Come on the pair of you. Let's touch it together."
For a moment Dumarest hesitated, then reached for her hand. After all, what could there be to fear?
Together the three of them rested their hands on the fabric of the Place.
Nothing, thought Dumarest. He felt the touch of harsh shy;ness beneath his palms, saw the grain of dirt and soil before his eyes. A patina built over how long? Centuries, certainly, thousands of years, perhaps, wind-blown dust, rain, the slow, relentless attrition of the years. But why hadn't the metal beneath the dirt yielded to the impact of time?
And who had originally built it?
And why?
He heard the soft movement of Yalung's body as the man shifted his feet. Lallia was breathing quietly, hands and cheek pressed against the mound, eyes closed as if she were making a secret wish. Entering into the spirit of the thing, perhaps. Acting as if she were a genuine pilgrim seek shy;ing a miracle. And, if one came, just what would the effect be?
Dumarest thought he knew. Faith healing was nothing unusual. Many had the gift and could heal with a touch, it was merely another facet of the paraphysical sciences re shy;vealed in the talents of various sensitives. In effect they were simply catalysts directing the body to repair itself from the blueprint inherent in every molecule of D.N.A. If a machine could be developed to do the same thing then every city would have its Shrine. Its holy spot. Its Place.
He smiled and closed his eyes, willing to play the game to the full, trying to feel as a genuine pilgrim would feel. If he had been sick or crippled he would have concentrated on his infirmity.
Instead he could only think of Earth.
Earth, the planet which had become lost to him, the need to find which had become an aching obsession. Could a man be whole without a home? And could a man who was not whole be considered other than as a cripple? Deformities were not always of the flesh and bone. And what was loss but a deformity of the mind?
A moment of peculiar, subconscious strain and then abrupt shy;ly, Dumarest saw a picture in his mind.
It was shining with bright splendor, a flattened disc with vaguely spiral arms, a pattern composed of a myriad of glow shy;ing points, hazes, somber patches of ebon and traces of luminous cloud. Instinctively he knew what it was. The galactic lens as seen from above and to one side.
In it one tiny fleck shone with blazing ruby fire.
It was well from the Center, lying in a distant arm of the spiral, a lonely place among few and scattered stars but he knew exactly what it was.
Home.
The planet for which he had been searching for too long. The world which had given him birth. Earth.
And he knew now almost exactly where to look for it.
Almost, for the galaxy was vast and the stars innumerable and no one brain can hold the complexity of an island uni shy;verse. But the sector was there, the approximate position, the direction from the Center. It would be enough.
Dumarest jerked as the picture vanished, an eerie tension of his nerves, a something in his brain as if fingers of mist had drawn themselves across the naked cortex and with the touch had taken something of himself. Opening his eyes he stared at the material before him. It looked exactly the same, but as he watched he saw a fragile glow of light, a vague sparkle of quickly vanished luminescence.
To one side Yalung groaned, falling to sit upright blinking and shaking his head.