"You have come to the Place. You are welcome"
"Thank you," said Dumarest quickly before the others could answer. "We had misfortune. Our vessel crashed on some hills far from here. It was kind of you to send your servants to give us aid."
The birds could be nothing else. They shared the alien shy;ness of the tall figure but they could not be the masters. Nothing could be the master of the enigmatic being which stood before them. It was wrapped in an aura of power al shy;most as tangible as the metallic robe covering its body.
Yalung stirred and said, "We require little. Some food and water while we wait for the arrival of a ship to carry us from this world."
Lallia added, "And somewhere to bathe. Is that possible?"
Colored sparkles flashed and died in the shadow of the cowl.
"In the Place all things are possible. Ask and you shall be given."
The figure turned and glided towards the open gate, the mystery of the area beyond. Dumarest followed, the others just behind.
He stepped into a cathedral.
X
it was a place of mystery and awe-inspiring majesty, the still air hanging like incense, tiny motes of dust glinting in the shadowed sunlight like tiny candles set before incredible altars. Dumarest felt Yalung bump into him, heard Lallia's low voice at his side.
"Earl," she said. "It's beautiful!"
A wide avenue stretched before them, floored with soft, close-cropped grass and flanked by the slender boles of soar shy;ing trees. They reared like columns, a tuft of branches high overhead fanning to meet and form a natural arch through which streamed the ruby light of the sun. Ahead, shadowed in the distance, more columns sprang from the tended soil, circling a clearing about an indistinguishable structure, a boulder, perhaps, an outcrop of natural stone wreathed and hung with living garlands.
Down the avenue, diminished in the distance, the tall figure of the strange Guardian, seemed to flicker and then to abruptly vanish.
Slowly Dumarest walked down the avenue.
It was the pilgrim's way, he guessed, the path which those seeking the miracle of healing followed as they made their way to the holy place. There would be attendants to carry those unable to walk, others to help those who could barely stand, a motley thronging of deformity and pain each united by a common hope. But now there was nothing but the three of them, the quiet susurration of their footsteps on the springy grass, the sound of their breathing.
And it was warm, the temperature that of living blood.
"Earl." Lallia turned to him, her face beaded with per shy;spiration. "I can't stand this heat. I've got to get rid of these clothes."
They stripped at one side of the avenue, shedding the extra, bulky garments they had worn on leaving the ship and then, the woman in her iridescent dress, Yalung in his yellow and black, Dumarest in his neutral gray, continued down the path between the trees.
How many had preceded them, thought Dumarest. How long had these trees grown, shaped by careful tending, planted and culled, bred and trained? How many ships had dropped from the skies with their loads of misery and hope? The place reeked of sanctity, of devotion and sup shy;plication. The trees had absorbed the emotions of the in shy;calculable number of pilgrims who had visited Shrine and followed the guardian into the holy place. Holy because they had made it so? Or holy because here, in this spot, something beyond the physical experience of men had stopped and left its mark?
Faith, he thought. Here, surely, if a man had faith miracles could happen.
"Earl, look!"
Lallia's whisper was loud in the brooding stillness. She had advanced a little and now stood at the edge of the clearing in which stood the mysterious object. It was no clearer than it had been when seen from far down the avenue. The woman stood beside a heap of something beneath a wide awning of natural growth. A chapel made by leafy branches.
It was brimming with articles of price.
Fine fabric, precious metal, cunning fabrications of metal and wood and blazing ceramics. The glint of gems and gold and the crystal perfection of faceted glass. All intermingled with less rare objects, a cloak, a cane, a visored helm, the leather of belts and the scaled skins of serpents, sacks of spices and seed and pleasing aromatics. The roll of charts, maps, paintings of a hundred different schools.
"Votive offerings," said Yalung softly. "Things given in appreciation and gratitude. A fortune beyond the dreams of avarice on any of a million worlds."
And there were more. The chapels surrounded the clear shy;ing and all contained a heap of similar items. Lallia paused, looking at a scatter of ancient books.
She touched one and her face stiffened with psychic shock.
"Earl!" she whispered. "It's so old, old! There is hope and a terrible fear and-and-"
He caught her as she slumped, the book falling from her hand. It fell open and he had a glimpse of strange figures, of lines and tabulated numerations, of diagrams and vague shy;ly familiar symbols.
Yalung picked it up, closed it, returned it to the heap. Quietly he said, "How is the girl?"
"I'm all right." Lallia straightened from Dumarest's arms and shook her head as if to clear it of mist. "It was just that -Earl, the book is so old!"
An ancient book. A stellar almanac, perhaps. A pre-Center-orientated navigational manual. In this place any shy;thing was possible.
He reached for it, arresting his hand as a familiar voice echoed in his mind.
"Come."
Dumarest looked up. The strange guardian stood to one side. Watching? It was hard to tell if the figure had a face or eyes at all but the enigmatic flickering in the shadow of the cowl gave the impression of senses more finely tuned than those owned by ordinary men.
"The Place awaits. Go to it. Place your hands on it. This is the rule."
"The guardian means that object in the middle of the clearing," said Yalung. He sounded dubious. "I am not sure that we should do as he directs."
"Have we any choice?" Lallia smiled. "And I want a bath. Remember what was promised? Ask and you will be given. Anyway, what have we to lose?"
Life, thought Dumarest. Sanity, our health, perhaps. Who can tell?
But he followed her across the clearing.
The mound was high, larger than he had at first sup shy;posed, a vine-draped mass protruding from the neatly kept grass. A special grass, he thought, to withstand the weight of the thousands who must come here. As the mound had to be something special also. A strangely-shaped fragment of stone, perhaps, a meteor even, a thing to which had become attached a tremendous superstition. Or did naked belief make its own holiness? Could faith convert inanimate matter into a healing being?
Nimino could have answered, but the navigator was dead. Coughing out his life in order to fulfill a prophecy that he would achieve great knowledge in a cloud of dust. The Web was such a cloud and what greater knowledge could come to a man than that of what happened after death?
Dumarest shook his head, annoyed at his own introspec shy;tion, wondering what had sent his thoughts on such a path. The influence of the place, he thought. The mystery and enchantment of it. The brooding majesty and overwhelming sense of sanctity. There was magic in the air, perhaps the emanations of the trees, the invisible vapors released by the grass, subtle drugs to fog the senses and open wide the vistas of the mind. But that again was sheer speculation.
He concentrated on the mound.
There was an oddity about it as there had been about the birds, as there was about the guardian. A peculiar sense of alienness as if it did not belong to this world and never had. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, tilting his head so as to sharpen his vision, probing beneath the obvious to seek the underlying truth. It probably was simply a mound but there was an oddity here, a peculiar something there, a slight distortion just above the line of sight. And then, suddenly, as if he were looking at an optical illusion in which one image was hidden within another, details grew clear.
The mound was no heap of vine-covered stone.
It was the wreckage of a manufactured artifact.
He blinked but there was no mistake. Warped and crushed as it was, misshapen and unfamiliar, he could still make out the angles and curves of vanes, the ridges of corrugations, plates and sheets of metal all overlaid with grime and a patina of soil from which grew shielding vines.