'Yes,' Shannow agreed.
'I hope the little fracas didn't trouble you in the night?'
'No, it did not. Excuse me,' replied Shannow, moving away.
Steiner's voice floated after him. 'You bother me, friend. I hope we will not fall out.'
Shannow ignored him. He returned to his room and checked his remaining Barta coin, finding he had seven full silvers, three halves and five quarters. He searched his pockets and came up with the gold coin he had found in Shir-ran's food store. It was just over an inch in diameter and upon the surface was stamped the image of a sword surrounded by stars; the reverse of the coin was blank. Shannow took it to the window to examine it more closely. The sword was of an unusual design, long and tapering, and the stars were more like crosses in the sky.
The thunder of hooves sounded from the street and a large group of riders came hurtling into sight. Shannow opened the window to see the body of a beast being dragged in the dust behind two of the riders, and a large crowd gathering. The horsemen pulled up their mounts and Shannow was amazed to see the bloodied beast rise up on all fours, and then lurch to its hind legs.
It ran — but a rope pulled it up. Two shots exploded and gaping wounds appeared on the creature's back. Several more of the onlookers produced guns and the beast was smashed from its feet.
Shannow left his room and moved swiftly down the stairs. On the street beside the Traveller's Rest was a store, outside which stood several barrels and a stack of long wooden axe- or pick-handles. Lifting one of them, Shannow walked down into the milling group of riders and stopped before a bearded man on a black horse.
The pick-handle slashed through the air to hammer into the man's face; his body flew back over the saddle and hit the ground, raising a cloud of dust. Shannow dropped the club on the rider's body and, taking hold of the pommel of the saddle, vaulted to the stallion's back.
There was silence now as Shannow eased the horse past the stunned riders. He tugged on the reins, turning the stallion to face the group.
'When he awakes, point out to him the perils of stealing a man's horse,' Shannow told them.
'Make it clear to him. I will leave his saddle with the hostler.'
'He'll kill you for this, friend,' said a young man close to him.
'I am no friend of yours, child. Nor ever will be.'
Shannow rode on, pausing only to glance down at the dead beast. It looked almost exactly as Shir-ran had in those last days — the spreading lion's mane, the hideously muscled shoulders.
Shannow touched his heels to the stallion's flanks and cantered down to the stables, where the hostler came out to meet him.
'I'm sorry, Meneer, but I couldn't stop them. There were eight… ten of them. They took three other horses that weren't theirs.'
'Who were they? The thieves?'
'They ride for Scayse,' replied the man, as if that answered everything.
Shannow dismounted and led the stallion into the stable. He stripped the saddle from him and flung it in a corner; then he groomed the horse, rubbing the lather from him and brushing the gleaming back.
'It's a fine horse,' said the hostler, limping forward. 'Must be seventeen hands. I'll bet he runs like the wind.'
'He does. What happened to your leg?'
'Timber cracked in the mine, years ago. Busted my knee. Still, it's a damn sight better living above ground than below. Not so much coin, but I breathe a lot easier. What was all the shooting?'
'They killed the lion they captured,' Shannow told him.
'Hell, I'd like to have seen that. Was it one of them Man-demons?'
'I do not know. It ran on its hind legs.'
'Lord, what a thing to miss! There ain't so many as there was, you know. Not since the gates vanished on the Wall. We used to see them often in the Spring. They killed a family near Silver Stream. Ate them all, would you believe it? Was it male or female?'
'Male,' said Shannow.
'Yep. Never seen no females. Must be Beyond the Wall, I reckon.'
'Does anyone ever go there?'
'Beyond the Wall?' queried the hostler. 'No way. Not ever. Believe me, there's beings there to frizzle a man's soul.'
'If no one goes there — how can you know?'
The hostler grinned. 'No one goes there now. But five years ago there was an expedition. Only one man — of forty-two who started out — got back alive. It was him that told about the sword in the sky. And he only lived a month, what with the wounds and the gashes in his body. Then, two years ago, the gateways vanished. There were three of them, twenty feet high and as broad. Then one morning they were gone.'
'Filled in, you mean?'
'I mean gonel Not a trace of them. And no mark of any breaks in the Wall. Lichens and plants growing over old stones, like there never was no gates at all.'
She knew the problem and could see the results. Yet she was powerless to change the process…
just as she had been powerless to save her son. The woman known as Chreena prowled the medi-chamber, her dark eyes angry, her fists clenched.
One small Sipstrassi Stone could change everything; one fragment with its gold veins intact could save Oshere and others like him. Little Luke would have been alive, and Shir-ran would still have been standing beside her, tall and proud.
She had searched the mountains and the valleys, had questioned the Dianae. But no one had ever seen such a Stone, black as coal and yet streaked with gold, warm to the touch and soothing to the soul.
She blamed herself, for she had carried her own Stone to this distant land and had used it to seal the Wall — one great surge of Sipstrassi power to wipe out the gates which would have allowed Man to corrupt the lands of the Dianae. And then she had made the great discovery — Man had already corrupted them… back before the Second Fall.
The People of the Dianae. The People of the DNA. The Cat-people. There had been mutants and freaks in the world for hundreds of years. Chreena had been educated to believe they were the result of the poisons and toxic wastes which littered the land, but now she was beginning to see the true wickedness that was the legacy of Between. Genetic engineering gone rogue in a hostile environment. New races birthed; others, like the Dianae, slowly dying.
The priests here believed that the Changes were gifts from Heaven. But they were happening more frequently, whole families showing signs of reversion.
Chreena's anger rose. She had seen the books and the records back at Home Base. Many diseases of the Between Times had been treated by producing bacterial DNA and using it in commercial production. Insulin for diabetics was one such. Food production had been boosted by inserting genes for growth into pigs and cattle — promoter genes, these had been called. But the Betweeners had gone much further.
May you rot in Hell! she thought. Suddenly she smiled. Because, of course they were rotting in Hell. Their disgusting world had been swept away by the power of nature, like blood washing the pus from a boil.
And yet it had not affected the core of the infection — Man himself: the ultimate carnivore, the complete killer.
Even now they warred amongst themselves, butchering and plundering.
The Spell of the Land was at work. Colossal radiation levels, toxic wastes in the air they breathed
— all coming together to create abnormally high levels of aggression and violence.
The circle of history spun on. Already Man had rediscovered guns and had risen to the level the world had known in the middle 1800s. It would not be long before they took to the skies, before nations were formed and wars spread.
Slowly she climbed the stairs to the observatory platform. From here she could see the streets of the city and watch the people moving about their business. Further out she could see the farmlands, and the herds of cattle. And away into the distance, like a shimmering thread, the Wall between Worlds. She could almost hear Man beating upon it, venting his rage upon the ancient stones.