Underfoot was a layer of dust in which Farree's tracks were very plain. The bitter cold here was that of a place which had been deserted. Farree wove the chain end once more about his hand as he fanned the cramps out of his wings and stood looking about. Here the glow of the chain was subdued, but Farree thought it looked like well-burnished silver. Certainly it did not show any rust, as had the anchorage loop and the cage of the skull, both of which had red flakes falling from them. He wound the length more tightly about his arm and started up the second flight of stairs. As had the one in front of the earth ways, there was a second flight beyond a first landing. A corridor ran off to his right but to his left there was a window—narrow enough that he had again to fold down his wings, and high enough that he had to loosen the chain from around his skin to catch the bars with both hands and pull himself up to look out.
He was staring into open air as he had done in that chamber of his first waking. The bars prevented him from leaning far enough forward to see what lay to either side. In the center crossing of those bars there was a plate of metal which was a dull red in color. Rust from the bars sifted off on his hands and his fingers jerked in pattern with twinges of pain until he loosed his hold again. The center plate had a deeply incised pattern, and there was no mistaking the picture it bore. He had seen in it some of Zoror's prized records—the ancient hand weapon known as a sword—longer than a knife and more difficult, he thought, to handle. The point and half the blade of this had been driven, point down, through the representation of a humanoid skull a-grin with teeth as long as fangs. Just as the room below had brought him the ache of pain and ancient fear so did this tug at him—but in a different way—as if there was an important meaning in it which he could almost guess.
Hunger and thirst drove him on, up the next length of the stair, and he came out at the far end of a hall which stretched before him as had the hall of his dream except there was no crystal brightness here. The walls were hung with tatters of woven stuff which were now rags, and most of them had fallen to the floor, lying at the foot of the walls in mouldering lengths. Down the center of this huge chamber was a table. Dust had reduced its vivid colors, but here and there some chance had brushed away the fall of years to show that the board was of a deep red stone veined with black and glittering. There were benches on both sides of the board, their supports carved of shining black, the seat hidden by the dust. At intervals down the table were set large footed goblets and these had a shadow of sheen. Perhaps if they were burnished they would show the glow as that chain which was his weapon.
There was a backed chair at one end of the table, also of the black glittering stuff. The top of the back was a mask of a skull, bone white and thus vivid against its setting despite the dust, pierced by a black sword. Along the left wall as he started down the length of the chamber, rotten rags had fallen from covering large windows, each barred and centered with the sword and skull device. Through these came air which was so fresh and sweet after the burrows beneath that Farree made his way to the nearest.
These were quite large and he found them closer to the floor than any of the others—as if they had been fashioned to accommodate inhabitants of his own size. Also, when he leaned forward he was able for the first time to see something besides sky.
Judging by the sun it must be after middle day, a clear day. The frightening gloom of the building through which he wandered was forgotten when he looked down. Below there were indeed walls. It was what was still lingered within the wall which made him gasp. For this was like a sea of green, although after a first incredulous glimpse it sorted itself out into a tangled mass of shrub and tree, with an inner core of what could only be a pool. A bird of clearest yellow arose from one of the trees with a burst of song.
Farree could see a terrace farther on, a stairway leading down into that miniature wilderness. He stumbled in the general direction now, trying to find the door which would give upon this freedom. He shuffled through a large mound of rags which became dust at his touch, puffing up to set him coughing and blinking his eyes against the flying particles. Then he found his door—closed. He jerked down on a time-fretted latch and came out on the terrace.
He was staggering, and had to make his way down the stairs crab fashion, holding on with both hands to the banister, the chain now looped around his neck. The water drew him—to find that pool locked within the green and drink from it—that was the only thing important now.
Chapter Thirteen
Yellow birds were screeching over his head, expressing their anger at his plundering fruit from a tree they must consider their own. There was no sign here that any but the birds and a small furred creature who had scrambled out of his way, its teeth firmly fixed in one of the same pale green balls as the one on which he feasted now, had been here for a long time. He had dared to drink from the pool and to cram the fruit into his mouth, taking the chance that neither carried any seeds of death for off-worlders.
Only—he was not an off-worlder, Farree thought, as he reached for another of the fruits. There were those like him here. Also there were those odd small flashes which managed to work past the memory block which cursed him, letting him know that his kind were not strangers here, though this castle might be utterly strange to the Farree within its walls now.
His hunger for the moment satisfied, he climbed back to the terrace where there were no trees or bushes to impede the full spread of his wings. From there he launched himself into the air, the better to see the nature of this lodging which chance had brought him to.
The walled garden became a single bright green square as he spiraled upward, while the dark mass of the building looked all the more sinister from this height. It was not the height of the walls and towers alone which rendered it so for him. The fact that it crowned what might be a high-set plateau, with lower heights crowding about it, made it all more impressive. There were three towers, one large one springing from the bulk of the building through which he had come into the garden, two smaller and of less bulk to one side. The building was unique in that the pile of masonry rose sheer from the very lip of the level on which it had been built—as if it had sprung directly from the native rock.
He wheeled down closer to those two towers and the small open stretch before them. It was now plain that they guarded a gateway—one where a massive portal was firmly closed upon the outer world. However, from an open space there led downward a way which had been cut into the rock—steep enough in places to turn into steps of stone.
That was also closed he saw as he swooped downward, for not too far down that stepped path was abruptly cut off. There was only the rock of the mount on which the castle stood, though some distance below there were signs that broken traces of it still lingered.
Below at ground level there was a trace which might once have been a road, and that pushed between ranks of oddly twisted trees bare of any leaf or sign of life. Farree swooped lower again until he was near skimming the top of a dead forest. Limbs of all these trees were twisted as if they had been deliberately wrung and left contorted. There were splotches here and there of a sickly yellow and a disturbing red-brown, masses which clung to the trunks or to the spindly branches. As he had felt in the unpleasant chamber within the castle, so did the same faint fear touch him here. There had been evil here, strong enough to utterly defeat all that was of life and hope.
The dead forest spread out and away from the foot of the plateau on which the castle was rooted. There was no sign of green no matter how high he flew. And at the end of that stretch of tormented woodland there were again mountains such as stood between the ship and that other mountain hold which went veiled in haze.