The more prosaic Monont eyed the speck of light. “Truly is there something, but I think it is no spirit. Who ever heard of a spirit with only one eye? They have at least four each.”
“Shssh! Do not insult it!”
“That is no spirit, idiot-friend.” Monont mounted the railing, swung a clawed foot over the side. Sinahnvor watched him worriedly.
“Where are you going?”
“To that hillside.”
“You are mad! Don’t do it, Monont. The spirits will draw you into the mountain and drown you in dirt.”
“I thought the spirits of Hell would take us when we went under the ice and down to the inside of the world. The humans and Sir Hunnar Redbeard said such tales were mere superstition. Then they killed the devil that came up from the waters of the night. It stunk like a slaughtered hessavar. I find it hard now to believe as I once did in spirits and daemons.”
He slipped over the side, used a boarding rope to drop quickly to the ice.
“Monont—Monont!” Sinahnvor raised his lamp higher. In its shallow glow he saw the dim outline of his friend reach the hillside and begin an awkward ascent. The outline faded to shadow, then a memory of a shadow. Moments passed, silent moments broken only by the moan of the tired wind. But while he heard no cries of triumph, neither did any screams drift back to him.
It was with considerable relief that he picked out the returning figure of the other sentry, apparently unharmed.
“What was it, then?” He extended an arm and helped Monont back on deck.
“Here is your spirit eye. I had to dig it out.” Sinahnvor, much to his surprise, recognized the object immediately. “Why, ’tis only a purras, a common mixing bowl much as my own mate uses. Odd how it shines. The wood must take a very high polish.”
“Take it,” urged Monont. “’Tis not wood.”
Sinahnvor accepted the object… and nearly dropped it. It was made of thick, dense metal, badly tarnished in places, still flashy in others. He did not recognize the metal.
Both sentries exchanged glances. What people lived here in this iceless desert who could afford to make common, everyday kitchen utensils out of solid metal? Metal was hoarded for use in weapons and nails and tools, not mixing bowls.
Sinahnvor did not understand. Not understanding, he said, “I think we had best wake the night-mate early.”
The officer was no less startled by the bowl than the two lookouts had been. He chose to wake the second mate, who in turn roused Ta-hoding, who alerted the three humans and Sir Hunnar and the others of the icerigger’s informal decision-making body.
Before long most of the crew was awake and hacking at the nearby hillside, their lamps looking to those remaining on the Slanderscree like a convocation of stultified fireflies.
None of the humans took part in the digging. Their survival suits could barely cope with the nighttime temperature of seventy below, with a wind-chill factor nearing instant death. A crude digging tool could make a substantial gash in a survival suit. Insinuating itself into the cut, the outside air could freeze human skin solid almost as efficiently as a spray of liquid helium.
With such a large party working, it wasn’t long before several bags of trophies were being examined on deck. Peering through his mask (no need of the secondary goggles during the night), Ethan saw spread out among wood and soil a treasure trove of metal objects. On most worlds these would have been dismissed as nothing remarkable, but on metal-poor Tran-ky-ky they hinted at a vanished civilization of immense wealth. There were knives, utensils of all kinds, buckles and braces, engraved and broken drinking vessels, even metal buttons and pins. Hunnar fingered several of the last. Until now he’d never seen a pin made of anything but bone.
“Enormously rich or enormously wasteful,” he murmured, letting oil lamp light create argent patterns on the ornamental steel. “We will dig with more discipline in the morning.”
“Who could have lived here?” Ethan wondered aloud.
“Not Tran nor Saia.” The knight turned his attention to a delightfully intricate metal bottle wrapped in fine wire scrollwork. “’Tis too desolate and iceless for us and too cold for the Saia. But this is not spirit work.” Cat-eyes strove to penetrate windswept darkness. “Someone lived here…”
The next day different sections of the hillside were marked off according to how promising they’d proven the night before. The excavation parties turned up a steady stream of new artifacts. Some were made of familiar materials, wood and bone, but most were various alloys, including several neither September or Williams could identify.
Unexpectedly, the wooden artifacts were what the teacher found most intriguing. When Ethan asked him why, he replied, “Because they mean this region cannot have been deserted very long, in geologic time. While it’s true the cold air would preserve cellulose materials for a while, it is not desert-dry. Nor is the soil devoid of minute organisms and bacterial agents, which would also act to break down the wood—though they are scattered through the soil and nowhere very populous.
“This wood is in far too good condition to have lain buried for any great length of time.”
They decided to remain several days and unearth all they could. But a new discovery soon altered their plans.
The two scout parties sent out to search for a passage through the hills returned. Their crews babbled out an impossible tale, so laden with gestures, expressions and adjectival phrases that Ethan and his friends were hard pressed to make sense of any of it.
While they debated uncertain terms among themselves, Ta-hoding and his crew launched feverish preparations to get underway. At that point, Ethan cornered Hunnar and refused to let him pass until he explained what was happening.
“Suaxus, my squire, was in the first boat,” the knight said, trying to control his obvious excitement. “They found a pass through the mountains. Only, they aren’t mountains.”
“You’re not making sense, friend Hunnar,” September prompted.
“They traversed this pass and emerged on the other side of this range. It seems the wind blows harder, or steadier, or both, on the other side. What is buried here lies revealed there.” He turned, indicated the partly excavated hillside.
“These are not mountains, they are buildings.” And he broke away to perform some important task before Ethan could think to ask anything more.
Only Williams accepted this news calmly. “It makes sense, not to mention explaining the preponderance of artifacts we’ve found.” The icerigger was already racing for the recently discovered pass. “There are similar buried cities on many Commonwealth worlds, Ethan. The same winds which would cover an ancient metropolis could later uncover it.”
“Assuming that’s what we’ve found—who built it?”
The teacher eyed Ethan, pursed his lips. “Who knows? The Tran obviously don’t, nor do the Saia, who are supposed to know so much about this land. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll find out. Perhaps they are people who no longer survive on Tran-ky-ky but who gave the Saia their legends of other worlds.”
The pass turned out to be much wider and smoother than anyone had a right to expect. So straight was the gap between hills that unnatural forces were suspected. Ethan wondered if they excavated straight down, would they eventually strike pavement?
Once through the slopes they turned east, inland and away from the cliffs. They did not have to travel far. Dirt and rock were piled here also, but much stonework could be seen rearing planes and angles toward the sky, reminding Ethan of a partially eroded graveyard. Here it was the bones of dead buildings which stood revealed to the air.