It was their turn for laughter, but this time it was uneasy. This one, they sensed, was different.
Conditions inside the fort were primitive. Simply constructed huts, made, like the palisade, of a ragtag of materials, were scattered about the edge of the central clearing. Small, ill-tended plots lay between the huts.
Thorn looked about him, wondering how old the settlement was. No more than twenty years, that was for certain. It hadn't shown up on the last coastal survey.
As he was led through they came out to stare at him. A ragged, ill-clothed people, the women distinguishable from the men only by their beardlessness, the children often on all fours. Clay, all of them. Deformed by the darkness. Devolved.
The chiefs house lay in a depression at the top of the fortress. It was built lavishly compared to all that lay below it, even so it was a hovel, its cracks filled with lumps of moss.
One mystery was solved, however. From the roof of the chiefs house poked an aerial. Crude, pitted with rust, its anachronistic appearance brought a smile to Thorn's face. A radio. So that was how.
Even so, it asked more questions than it answered. However crude, this was beyond the Clay's capabilities. Such knowledge had been lost to them. This had to be Above work.
He was glad he'd let them take him. Who knew what else he'd find?
The chief stood in his doorway, an ugly smile on his face. About his shoulders was an old and tousled sheepskin, sign of his status. About his neck was a string of small skulls—old, yellowed animal skulls— linked by a leather band. His hair was combed straight back from a high forehead. Dark, thick, greasy hair. He was tall, much taller than any of them gathered there, Thorn included. Too tall to have been bred here, his skin too healthy despite its pallor.
A cast-out. He had found his level here. Become a king of sorts. Lording it over the Clay.
The pack leader took Thorn's sack to the chief and dropped it at his feet, then backed away, his eyes craving the tall man's approval.
"Da," the chief grunted. Good. But he was already crouched over the sack, fumbling inside it, greed and excitement naked in his face. He took things from the pack as if they'd melt, anxious to parade them before his eyes. Thorn watched him, imagining him as he'd been. A petty criminal. A faceless member of the lower levels. A nothing in the great Above. And here a chief.
"Why . . ." The chief pointed at Thorn. You, he was saying. He closed the pack and set it down, then came closer, walking around his naked captive looking him up and down. "Gwycor?" he asked. Then, when he received no answer, he turned to his lieutenant and touched his tongue. "Omlavar?" Is he dumb?
There was an awkwardness in the way he pronounced the old tongue. It was still a second language to him. He turned to face Thorn again, the ugly smile—a sneer of amusement—returning to his lips. "An estren tawesek. . . ."
Stranger than you think, Thorn thought. And for now, quite silent.
The chief studied him a moment longer, a slight indecision in his eyes, then strode past him and stood on the lip of the depression, looking down over the rest of the settlement. He raised his arms high and seemed to punch at the air with his fists. "Prysner dhyn-ny! Gorthewer un golya!"
The prisoner is ours! Tonight a feast!
There was a ragged cheer from the people below, a half-human sound.
Thorn watched them a moment longer, then turned back to look at the rust-pitted aerial. He would destroy that before he went.
THEY PUT him IN A RUDE, low-ceilinged hut at the back of the chiefs house and bound his hands and feet. Lying there, he could hear the chief operating the radio set, sending a message out, then awaiting a reply. It was a long time coming.
He tried to figure out where this crude chain of communications might be based. He could identify two points, but where else? Brittany, perhaps. Somewhere on that coast. Or the Channel Isles. Yes, that was more likely. On Sark or Aldemey. But why? What was going on here?
It was why he had been sent. To find out and report back.
Night came, star studded and clear. From where he lay, Thorn could see the soft, pearled glow of the City beyond the settlement, a band of cold, milky light. It looked cold and alien. How did it make them feel, seeing that each night? Did it make them sense how small they were?— or did they turn their backs on it to face the darkness of the ocean?
The feast began an hour into the darkness. He could hear the babble of their excitement, smell their fires. And something else. Roasting flesh. So there had been other captives here.
The fires crackled, threw up bright sparks into the darkness. Down below, the sea crashed against the rocks. Seabirds called in the dark, troubled by the activity on the great saddle of rock. Thorn lay still, biding his time. There was more to be learned here. Much more. And there was time. Plenty of time for him to find out why he'd been taken.
It was late when they came for him. They were naked, their skins and faces painted, sweat-beaded from the dance. Their eyes seemed wild, unfocused, their breath smelled of crude alcohol mixed with drugs. Above drugs.
They unbound him, then gave him a rough sacking coverall to wear. He tied it at the waist and then stepped outside. Turning, he looked up and saw the brilliant circle of the full moon above the dark ocean. From the base of the cliff far below came the soft rush and break of the waves. Thorn turned his head, looking at one of the men who'd come for him. In the silver light his skin seemed like polished metal, his bare, thin arms like the jointed extensions of a machine. Only the man's eyes seemed alive and vital, the rest was dead. Thorn studied him a moment, then turned away. He had seen how the man's eyes had been drawn by the moon, in awe and fear, as if linking the stranger with its mysterious potency.
They went down into the central clearing. Three fires had been built and the tribe was gathered in a great circle about them. The stacks had been large but now they had burned down and the darkness overhead seemed more immense than ever.
The chief sat on high ground on a crudely built throne. His face and neck were painted black. Only the eyes were contrasted, hexagons of white exposed about the liquid, flame-filled circles of his pupils. His sheepskin was pulled close about him against the night's sudden cold. Even the fires could not dispel that now.
On his head was a crown of twisted metal, and in his hand, grotesque, almost surreal, a blackened arm, the fingers shriveled as if grasping at the air.
So easy to fall. So hard to rise.
He greeted Thorn with a flourish of the blackened arm. "Wolcum, arluth travyth."
Welcome, lord of nothing.
He put the arm to his mouth and bit deep. Then, as he chewed the tough and stringy meat, he spoke again. "Eery wew, goeff!" Worse luck for that! It brought drunken laughter from the darkness about the dying fires.
The chief leaned forward, beckoning Thorn closer. He advanced and, at the chiefs gesture, sat.
"You talk?"
The words were heavily accented. They came like pebbles from his mouth, hard but rounded. It was clear he hadn't spoken English for some time.
"I talk."
The circle grew quiet, listening without understanding. This was mystery to them. Above talk. He sensed the awe in their sudden silence. The moon sat high above the chiefs right shoulder, throwing a fierce silvered light across his black-painted neck. The chief looked out around the circle, then back at Thorn. "Another"—his hand gestured, circling, searching for the right word, then alighted on the charred limb—"Another has need of you."