Aldo looked thoughtful. “We should, by all that’s holy, be almost on the very site you’re looking for, Hiero. In fact, we may be right on top of it. I can’t see anything to indicate this wasn’t always a plain, but that’s true of many buried cities.” He patted the priest’s shoulder. “I hope you’ve also thought that it may be hopelessly buried, son. We’ll do our best, but who knows when those symbols were copied onto the maps, and maybe recopied a hundred times over?”
Luchare refused to be discouraged. A curious ally, as unexpected as he often was, was the bear.
“We can’t have come this far, under such leadership, to find nothing!” the girl cried. Her faith rebuked Hiero’s own, and he said so out loud.
“Well need a careful search, but let’s look in an expanding arc. Gimp, you and Blutho tell the men we’re hunting a city under the ground. Any scrap of human occupation, any sign, anything at all, should be marked down at once.”
Gorm’s slow thought was as stubborn and cool as ever. There have been many humans here once. I feel it in my hones. Somewhere, not far away, the human city is hidden.
Hiero had been afraid the men might panic over the thought of a pre-Death city being uncovered due to the possibility of disease or radiation, but Gimp reassured him.
“They’ve seen you and Brother Aldo do such wonders, Master, I don’t doubt they’d jump into a fire if so be it was you said to.” Hiero had been touched, more than he believed possible, by this affirmation of the seamen’s trust and liking.
Everybody spread out now, except in the direction of the blight. No one was anxious to get too close to that barrier of evil-looking growth, and the seamen gave it a wide berth.
After some hours, the group had become so widely scattered that Hiero grew nervous about them. Some of the men were little more than dots on the southern horizon. There were few animals in apparent evidence out in this dry scrub area, but who knew what lurked beyond the next bush? He had Gimp sound the ship’s bugle in the recall, and felt better when the men straggled back again with no losses in about a half hour. He ordered a rest and meal while he took counsel again with the Elevener, his girl, Gorm, and Captain Gimp. The sky was clear, but new thunder-heads piling up in the south gave warning of more rain to come.
“There’s only one conclusion that I can draw,” Hiero said reluctantly. “If the maps are correct and the city is not a mile beneath us and is even remotely accessible—well, we’re too far to the west.”
“I fear you’re right. I am reaching the same unwelcome conclusion out of necessity.” Brother Aldo stared at the wall of repulsive fungi rearing itself over the low shrubs and bushes to the east. “We shall have to search more closely that way. And we shall have to be very careful, eh?”
“You’re not going without me!” Luchare seized Hiero’s arm. “Once was enough.”
“You’ll do what you’re told or be spanked.” Hiero’s tone was absent, his gaze bent on the distant but menacing barrier. “We will do exactly what we did before, Aldo. You and Luchare will serve as anchors, so to speak, again. Gorm ought to be better at reaching you this time, having had more practice. He and I will penetrate in that direction. Keep the men ready with the fire arrows.” He had been keeping the bear in touch by mind as he spoke.
This is the best way, Gorm said. We have no choice, he added.
Hiero kissed Luchare gently, repeated a brief orison for both of them, and started walking toward the masses of ugly color which walled off the east. Gorm walked about twenty feet to his right, seemingly unconcerned and sniffing busily. Behind them, the girl held tight on one side to the old man’s arm and on the other to Klootz’s bridle, and in back of the two, the sailors gathered under their leaders in a dense knot. Smoke curled from firepots they had kept kindled, and bowmen were ready in front.
As always when going into danger, Hiero felt the old thrill and the interest of what he was doing rise and suppress any natural fear. Carefully, ignoring the blight as if it did not exist, he searched the ground for any trace of humanity’s ancient presence. As he did, he maintained a constant mental link with his four-footed partner. Half an hour passed, and always they drew steadily nearer the mold lands of the House.
Wait/The command thrilled Hiero. He saw that Gorm had gone tense and now stood, weak little eyes peering about, emitting great “snoofs” and “woofs” through his twitching nose, as he sought for some elusive scent. There is metal somewhere, came his thought again. It is very faint, though; don’t move, and I will try to locate it.
Slowly the bear ambled forward. This part of the scrub and sand area had a few low mounds thrusting up through the flattish surface, and eventually Gorm halted before one of these, a rounded tumulus which rose some five feet above the surrounding plain. Thorn bushes grew from its summit, and tussocks of brown grass sprouted here and there. Gorm sniffed the base of the mound carefully and then began to walk around it. Hiero followed at a little distance, keeping the bear in sight, but not interfering with him in any way.
The eastern side of the mound, that which faced the fungus realm, was steeper and less rounded than that on the west. The blight growth itself was now only a few hundred yards away, and Hiero tried to repress a shudder as he thought of it. With an effort, he wrenched his mind back to the task at hand.
The bear rooted at a small pile of rock lying at the base of the mound. Still saying nothing, he moved a little farther on and loped down into a place where a long, low depression, still moist from the previous rains of two days back, lay before the now abrupt face of the hillock. Gorm rose on his hind legs and began to paw at the upright slope before him, using his long claws with a curious delicacy. A cascade of sand and small pebbles rattled down into the depression, and darker earth was revealed where it had been. Nothing daunted, the bear continued to pick away, as carefully as a woman doing fine embroidery.
Here, came his thought, as calm and unexcited as ever, here is metal, very, very old human work. I can do no more, and you will have to see what it tells you. He stopped his clawing and dropped down to all fours. Over his head, the priest now saw that a patch the size of a human face had been cleared of all earth. The smooth, blackened surface of some ancient, metal thing showed through, perhaps a wall, perhaps—even though he hardly dared to think this—a door!
The man looked thoughtfully at what Gorm had revealed. The bear sat watching, his task over, waiting for the next step. Hiero marveled at the fantastic power of scent his ally had displayed. Detecting the ancient, almost odorless metal under a good foot of earth, and at such a distance, was well-nigh incredible.
Humans simply have no noses, was the bear’s answer when he was thanked. I need your eyes often enough. We make a good team. But Hiero knew he was pleased all the same.
Next he summoned the others with his mind. Now that he was actually at the site of a vanished civilization, he felt awed and in need of some help. If he and the bear should manage to find a way down into the buried world beneath, they might be utterly cut off. It was time to take a few more risks, despite the House and the nearness of its creatures and creations.
While he waited for the others to arrive, he picked at the earth with the long dagger, his excitement rising. Slowly, a long, upright surface of dark, corroded metal, white underneath when scratched, began to appear, patinated by millennia of time and by secretions in the covering earth. Even as Brother Aldo and Lu-chare cantered Klootz around the corner of the tumulus, he finished his work. A door stood revealed, unmarked in any way, but with the smooth stump of what must once have been a handle on the right side.