The Iron Breed (6 page)

He kept under cover, using each bit of brush, each stand of trees, as he advanced. At the same time he alerted that other sense of his, probing, seeking for some trace of thought—thought which was akin to that of the Big Ones. For only some people with the same powers and needs as his ancient enemies would or could devise what lay ahead. It was not in the nature of the People to work so with stone.

But all his mind-search brought not the least suggestion of such life. He could detect only those faint sources which were always about: the native insects, a flying tiling. Not even the in-and-out wavering pattern of the People, or the cold menace of smaa, could he pick up. No, there was no life in the pile ahead. Jony began to be certain of that. So he moved on more confidently with greater excitement and an awakened curiosity he would have to satisfy.

FOUR

Boldly at last, Jony stepped out on the stone river, to walk confidently toward those piles ahead. They varied in size, some merely his height plus that of his staff, if he held it straight upright. However, there were others so tall he had to tilt back his head to see where their tips touched the sky. Now the stone river led him on between the outermost piles.

Jony hesitated. He wanted so much to explore. Yet he was still cautious. Once more he quested intently for any emanation ahead signaling danger. Did the People know of this place? Trush's odd reaction when they had first come upon the stone river remained vivid in Jony's memory. He had not warned Jony off; he had simply pointedly ignored the strange find. Why?

There were many holes in the stone heaps ahead, some small, some large. Again each was regular, as if it had been formed for a purpose, not just because some stone fell out of place during the course of time. Holding his staff at ready, as if he crept up on a smaa's hunting territory, Jony advanced step by wary step, his glance shooting ever from side to side, his extra sense at full alert.

Those larger holes were on the level where he walked now. They reminded him a little of the entrances to caves, but were still too regular and repeated in pattern to be like those dens where the People sheltered during the time of cold. On impulse Jony entered the nearest, peering at what lay on the inner side of that opening.

A limited amount of light came from the other, smaller holes; enough to see an open space, more door holes. Jony's sense picked up a feeling of emptiness. He grew greatly daring, went farther. Unidentifiable masses lay on the floor. He poked at one gingerly with the sharp end of his staff. The whole mound collapsed in an out-puffing of dust.

Jony sneezed, retreated quickly. He did not care for the faintly sourish odor, unlike any he had sniffed before. But his curiosity still held. Those much larger heaps farther along the stone river, were they all alike?

He sighted some straggles of vine, a few clumps of tough grass which had managed to root in cracks of the stone. There was a cawing. A flight of six foraws took off from an upper ledge, as if propelled by some vast need for instant escape. But that was the way foraws were. Jony, ashamed of his own start at their sudden clamor, pushed on at a bolder pace.

Here were other rivers of stone, smaller ones, which branched away from the one he followed. All of those were also walled with the piles which had openings, but lay silent and deserted. Not all, perhaps; Jony sighted the spoor of several small creatures in the drifted earth. Apparently this was a safe shelter they claimed as their own.

At last the river came into an open space ending at the foot of the largest heap of all. Here the blocks of smoothed stone had been set up like the ledges along the falls, but far more evenly, so that a man might climb them with ease. Jony did that, heading for an opening at the top which was four—five times as wide as any he had seen elsewhere. However, as he neared that, he stopped short. For within the shadowed overhead of that opening someone stood waiting.

Jony crouched, his staff swung up, point ready, as he stared at the other. He was taller than Jony—but—he was not a Big One as Jony's old memories first suggested. No, his face . . .

Her face! Jony made a quick adjustment in terms as he saw the waiting one in greater detail. She was like Rutee, a little, big though she was. But she was—stone!

Jony guessed at the truth. Somehow those who had piled up this place had made one of themselves into stone. Or else had been able to fashion stone as the People working a sapling into a shape they desired. And the marvel of such skill made him gasp.

He had to go directly to the figure, venture to touch its cold surface, before he was assured this explanation was the truth. The stone was not rough, but smooth under his fingertips. Somehow he liked the feel of it as he rubbed along, following one curve and then another as high as he could reach. But he could not, even standing on tiptoe, touch more than the chin of the face above him.

Standing so close he could see that once there had been other colors laid on it besides the gray-white stuff of which it was made. In the folds of the clothing the figure wore, were dim traces of blue. And about her neck was a massive carving of many links which was still yellow.

Her hair did not hang loose as Rutee's and Maba's, but was gathered up into a massing which added to her height. One of her hands was held at a stiff odd angle at the wrist, the tips of her fingers pointing skyward, the palm flattened out toward him. On impulse Jony fitted his hand to that one, palm to palm—

No!

He stumbled back, away from the woman of stone. His mind was confused. What had happened? He had expected to meet cold stone as his touch had already found. But when he had laid his hand right there—the result had been a shock of feeling he could neither understand nor explain.

Warily now, Jony surveyed the figure for every small detail. The other hand lay on the breast, palm inward. The calm, still face in his mind confused with Rutee's, was posed that the eyes might look ever down the river of stone which had led him here. As if they sought someone who had not yet come.

There was certainly nothing alive about the thing. Jony went so far now as to gingerly touch the upheld hand with the very tip of his staff. Nothing happened. He must have been dreaming in some manner. But he decided he had no desire to try the experiment again.

Instead he made as wide a detour as the doorway would allow around the woman, heading on into whatever might lie behind her in this largest stone heap of all.

At first he went very slowly, for the dim light inside seemed almost nonexistent to his unadjusted eyes. Then he began to see that he was edging into a very wide space down which ran rows of tall, round stones set up to resemble the trunks of forest trees. The upper parts of these vanished somewhere in the high dusk over his head.

Jony shivered. This place brought back old memories of fear. By its size it seemed to have been fashioned for Big Ones, not for creatures of his own height. Yet the stone woman, tall as she was, had looked like Rutee, and had not had the horrifying alienness of his old enemy. It was that thought, as well as his ever ready curiosity, which encouraged him on.

Just as the river of stone had led directly to this heap, so did the lines of pillars produce a guide. Now he could see, too, that there was more light ahead. Jony quickened pace, his bare feet shuffling through a soft carpet of dust as he went.

Here, far above, there was another kind of hole, much larger, giving onto the sky. Directly under that another series of ledges supported a single wide block of stone which was not gray-white as all the rest. Instead, it was made up of many colors laid upon a dark, almost black, background.

Jony, studying it as he drew closer, could not make out any pattern, any more than one could see a pattern to the fur coloring of the People. Yet, these vivid colors (not in the least faded as those on the woman) must have some meaning. They were small dots of brilliance, some widely scattered, others loosely clustered here and there. Many shone as if the sunlight were truly caught within them, although no beam reached through that hole so far above.

Such were pictured on all four sides of the stone, Jony saw, as he moved around it. Yet never once was the positioning, the number of dots, or their seemingly random settings repeated. He could not see the top of the stone as the ledges raised that well above his eye level. Was it the same on top? And what was its meaning?

Jony was at last emboldened to climb. The last ledge, on which the stone rested, was wide enough that there was good room to circle about the block without touching. Jony was wary of any close contact since his queer experience with the stone woman. But he was well able to see that there were no patterns of brilliant dots here. There was—

He jerked back, astonished, nearly losing his footing and tumbling back down the ledges. Had he seen, very dimly—a face?

If he had, it must be that of another stone person, he reassured himself. And what harm could such do him unless he touched it? Resolutely he thrust aside uneasiness, to again approach the stone.

Dust lay thick upon the surface; a dust which had not obscured the dotted sides. Jony swept it off with his staff as best he could. The wood slid over so smoothly there could not be a figure there.

He neared the block within hand's distance, to look again. There it was! But
inside
the stone, in some queer, unnatural way. As if the whole block were hollow as a dead tree trunk, and with a top as clear as stream water, so that one could look down into what lay within.

Greatly daring, Jony reached out his fingers, gave a swift tap to that covering, jerked away. He had had no strange reaction this time, but that touch had assured him that there
was
a solid, if transparent, covering.

His wariness so eased, he pressed close enough to view what did lie within. There was a figure in the interior of the stone right enough. Jony leaned as closely above the lid as he dared to study it. The body was wrapped—except for the hands and face—around and around with strips of material which gave off a very faint luminescence, a little as did the eyes of the People in the dark.

Save this was not one of the People. The hands were much like his own in shape, though larger, as the whole figure was larger. They rested on the body at breast height, the fingers loosely locked over a staff which was not unlike the one in his own hand, except that it did not possess a crook at one end. And it was a dull red in color. Jony could not make out the features of the sleeper (if sleeper this was), for there was a mask of the same red covering the face smoothly, bearing no hint of eyes, nose, or mouth.

Was this a dead man—left so by his people? Jony glanced around him at the great dusty hall. If so, the stranger must have lain here for a long, long time. The People walled their dead in caves, leaving with them food for the Night Journey and a stout staff made new just for their going. Rutee had been left so.

Jony did not know what waited beyond death. Rutee had always said to
die would be like waking in another place, a better place. There one would meet with those one loved. Even as she had died, she called out once:

“Bron!” And her voice had been one of welcome.

He did not know if the People believed the same, but they were careful in their burials. Thus he thought they, too, might judge death a gateway to another place and time. Someone had taken great care to put this stranger in this place. He should not be disturbed.

Jony descended to the floor of the great space. How long had he slept here, that masked man (or perhaps it was even a masked woman, he could not be sure)? Standing there, watching those points of light on the stone, Jony shrank a little. It suddenly seemed to him that many long, long seasons were crowding in upon him all at once, that he could not breathe because they hung about so thick.

He gave a gasp, ran for the door, skimming past the woman of stone without giving her another look. It was better outside. But that feeling of being entrapped in time was still with him. Now he wanted out of this place entirely, back to the open world of the People.

Down the river of stone he pounded as if pursued by one of the Big Ones in person. His side ached as he reached the open, away from all those dead heaps of piled up stone; he skidded off the river, to the familiar, welcoming ground.

He did not halt in his flight until he reached the top of the ridge from which he had first viewed the stone place. Then, gasping, he did turn to look over his shoulder. The time was close to sundown. Shadows had crept out, as if during the light hours they had hiding places within the piles of stone. Jony shivered. He was not sure what had happened to him, only back there a burden had rested and had almost fastened on him. Perhaps Trush had been entirely right: the river, the heaps—they were to be avoided.

Still, as his breathing slowed and he made his way back to the campsite, Jony kept seeing somehow the red-masked sleeper caught in the stone. Curiosity still nagged him. Who
was
that one? Why did he lie there? As if waiting . . .

Waiting for what?

Jony shook his head vigorously, as if he would shake those disturbing thoughts well out of his mind. He saw ahead a vine heavy with pale green fruit, prepared to jerk it down to hand level with the crook of his staff. At least he would not return empty-handed. He decided not to let anyone know his adventure of the afternoon.

Whether he would ever return to the stone place, he did not know. Perhaps it was enough that he had seen it this one time. Better that way—or was it? But at least he had no intention of making this journey again soon.

He was just reaching for the vine when his extra sense broke through his preoccupation with what he had seen that afternoon. Something was the matter—he was needed urgently!

Jony began to run at the best pace the rough ground allowed, all his speculations and discoveries lost in the rising knowledge that trouble lay somewhere ahead, and that it very definitely involved him. An attack by a smaa on the campsite? He thought of the worst danger he knew. But those enemies were seldom found in this part of the country. There was the possibility, in its way even worse, that the Big Ones' space ships had returned!