She spat upon the ground. “The innocence of you,” she said, “is terrible to behold. They’d slip a knife between my ribs. They have no love of me. They hate me. When their fears become too great, or their greed too great, or something else too great for them to bear, they come to me, yammering for help. But they come only when there’s nowhere else to go, for they seem to think there’s something dirty about dealing with a witch. They fear me and because of this fear, they hate me. They hate me even when they come to me for help.”
“In that case, you should have been gone long since.”
“There was something told me I should stay,” she said. “Even when I knew that I should go. Even when I knew I was a fool not going, I still stayed on, as if I might be waiting for something. I wondered why and now I know. Perhaps my powers are greater than I dreamed. I waited for a champion and now I have one.”
“The hell you have,” he said.
She thrust out her chin. “I am going with you. I don’t care what you say, I am going with you.”
“I’m going west,” he said, “and you’re not going with me.”
“We’ll first move to the south,” she said. “I know the way to go. I’ll show you the way to go. South to the river and then up the river. There we’ll be safe. The horde will stick to higher ground. The river valley is hard traveling and they’ll not go near it.”
“I’ll be traveling fast,” he said, “moving in the night.”
“Meg has spells,” she said. “She has powers that can be used. She can sense the minds of others.”
He shook his head.
“I have a horse,” she told him. “No great noble steed, but a gentle animal and intelligent that can carry what we need.”
“I carry what I need upon my back.”
“I have against the trip a ham, a slab of bacon, flour, salt, blankets, a spyglass.”
“What do you mean, ‘spyglass’?”
“A double-barreled spyglass.”
“Binoculars, you mean.”
“From long ago,” she said. “Paid as a fee by a man who was very much afraid and came to seek my help.”
“Binoculars would be handy,” Cushing said.
“There, you see. I would not hold you up. I am spry of foot and Andy is a fey horse. He can slip along so softly he is never noticed. And you, noble seeker of a legend, would not leave a helpless woman …”
He snorted. “Helpless,” he said.
“So, laddie, you must see that we could be of aid to one another. You with your prowess and Old Meg with her powers—”
“No,” he said.
“Let us go down to the house,” she said. “There we’ll find a modicum of buckwheat flour to make some cakes, a jug of sorghum, perhaps a slice of ham. While we eat, you can tell me about this thing you seek and we will lay our plans.”
“I’ll eat your cakes,” he said, “but it will gain you nothing. You are not going with me.”
8
They set out with the first light of the rising moon. Cushing took the lead, pondering how it had come about that he had agreed to let Meg come along. He had kept on saying no and she had kept on saying yes and here they were, the two of them together. Could it have been witchery? he asked himself. If that should be the case—it might be, after all—it could be all right to have her with him. If she could perform witchery on others as well as she had on him, perhaps it was all right.
Although, it was cumbersome, he told himself. One man could slip through the woods with no thought for anyone but himself, could keep a low profile, could travel as he willed. This was not possible with two people and a horse. Especially with the horse. He should have said, he knew, “It’s all right for you to come along, but the horse must stay behind.” Face to face with Andy, he’d not been able to say it. He could no more have abandoned Andy than all those years ago he could have abandoned the animals when he left the coulee.
Meg had said that Andy was a fey horse and Cushing did not know about that, but when one laid eyes upon him, it could be seen that he was a loving and a trusting horse. A humble horse, as well, with no illusions about being a noble charger. A patient animal that relied on human kindness and consideration. He was a bag of bones, but despite that, there was about him a certain air of competency.
Cushing headed southwesterly, striking for the Minnesota River valley, as Meg had said they should. The Minnesota was a small, meandering stream that wriggled like a snake between low bluffs to join the Mississippi at a little distance south of where, the night before, he had crossed the larger river. The valley was heavily wooded and would afford good cover, although following its windings would add many miles to the westward journey.
He wondered, thinking of it, where they might be going. Somewhere in the West; that was all he knew. That was all Wilson had known. But how far west and in what part of the West? On the nearby high plains, or in the foothills of the Rockies, or even in the great southwestern deserts? Blind, he told himself, so blind a seeking that when one thought of it, it seemed an errant madness. Meg, when he had told her of the Place, thought that she could recall once hearing such a legend, but she could not remember when she’d heard it or whom she’d heard it from. But she had not scoffed at it; she was too glad of a chance to flee the city to engage in any scoffing. Somewhere along the way, perhaps, they’d be able to pick up further word of it. As they went west there might be someone they’d encounter who had further word of it. That is, if there were any word at all; if, in fact, there were a Place of Going to the Stars.
And if there were such a place, once they got there, what would be the profit or significance? Even if they found the place and found evidence that man at one time had flown to the stars, what would this knowledge change? Would the nomads stop their raiding and their pillaging? Would the city tribes establish the nucleus of a decent government? Would men come trooping into the university to create a renaissance that would lift mankind out of the bestial abyss into which it had been plunged?
None of these things, he knew, would happen. There’d be left only the satisfaction of knowing that at one time, more than a thousand years before, men had left the solar system and gone into the cosmos. There might be pride in that, of course, but pride alone was poor coin in the sort of place the world had now become.
And yet, he told himself, there could be no turning back. He’d set out upon a quest, perhaps impulsively, guided by emotion rather than by reason, and profitless as it might be, he must somehow keep the faith. Even if the faith be foolish, it somehow must be kept. He tried to reason why this should be and he found no answer.
By now the moon had risen well into the eastern sky. The city was behind them and they were deep into the suburbs. Off to the right a one-time water tower sagged out of the perpendicular; in a few more years it would come crashing down.
Cushing halted and waited for the others to come up. Andy bumped his muzzle in a gentle greeting against his chest, blowing softly through his nostrils. Cushing rubbed the furred head gently, pulling at the ears.
“He likes you,” said Meg, “and it’s not everyone he likes. He is a discerning horse. But there’s no reason why he shouldn’t like you, for he, as well as I, reads the mark upon you.”
“Let’s forget this business,” Cushing said, “of a mark upon me. For I haven’t any mark. What do you know of this country? Should we keep on as we’re going, or should we move toward the south?”
“To the south,” she said. “The quicker we get into the valley, the safer we will be.”
“This horde you were telling me about—how far off are they?”
“A day or two, mayhaps. City scouts a week ago sighted them a hundred miles to the west, pulling their forces together and about to move. It is most likely they’ll move at an easy pace, for in their minds there can seem no hurry. The city lies there for their easy picking and they would have no way of knowing that they had been spotted.”
“And they’ll be coming straight in from the we
st?”
“Laddie boy, I do not know, but that is what I think.”
“So we do have a little time?”
“The margin is close enough,” she warned him. “There is no sense in the cutting of it finer. We can breathe the easier once we reach the valley.”
Cushing moved off again and the two fell in behind him.
The land was empty. An occasional rabbit popped out of cover and went leaping in the moonlight. At times, a disturbed bird would twitter sleepily. Once, from down in the river valley, they heard the whicker of a coon.
Behind Cushing, Andy snorted suddenly. Cushing came to a stop. The horse had heard or seen something and it would be wise to heed his warning.
Meg came up softly. “What is it, laddie boy?” she asked. “Andy sensed something. Do you see anything?”
“Don’t move,” he said. “Get down, close against the ground. Keep quiet. Don’t move.”
There seemed to be nothing. Mounds that once had been houses. Thickets of shrubs. The long lines of old boulevard trees.
Behind him, Andy made no further sound.
Directly ahead of them, planted in the center of what once had been a street, a boulder squatted. Not too big a boulder, reaching perhaps as high as a man’s waist. Funny that there should be a boulder in the middle of a street.
Meg, crouching close against the ground, reached out to touch his leg. She whispered at him. “There is someone out there. I can sense them. Faint, far off.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know. Far and weak.”
“Where?”
“Straight ahead of us.”
They waited. Andy stamped a foot and then was quiet.
“It’s frightening,” said Meg. “Cold shivers. Not like us.”
“Us?”
“Humans. Not like humans.”
In the river valley the coon whickered once again. Cushing’s eyes ached as he concentrated on seeing the slightest motion, the faintest sign.
Meg whispered, “It’s the boulder.”
“Someone hiding behind it,” Cushing said.
“No one hiding. It’s the boulder. Different.”
They waited.
“Funny place for that rock to be,” said Cushing. “In the middle of the street. Who would have moved it there? Why would they have moved it there?”
“The rock’s alive,” said Meg. “It could have moved itself.”
“Rocks don’t move,” he said. “Someone has to move them.”
She said nothing.
“Stay here,” he said.
He dropped the bow, pulled the hatchet from his belt, then ran swiftly forward. He stopped just short of the boulder. Nothing happened. He ran forward again, swung around the boulder. There was nothing behind it. He put out a hand and touched it. It was warm, warmer than it should have been. The sun had been down for hours and by now the rock should have lost all the solar radiation that it had picked up during the day, but it was still faintly warm. Warm and smooth, slippery to the touch. As if someone had polished it.
Andy shuffled forward, Meg walking with him.
“It’s warm,” said Cushing.
“It’s alive,” said Meg. “Write that one down, my bucko. It’s a living stone. Or it’s not a stone, but something that looks like one.”
“I don’t like it,” said Cushing. “It smells of witchery.”
“No witchery,” said Meg. “Something else entirely. Something very dreadful. Something that should never be. Not like a man, not like anything at all. Frozen memories. That is what I sense. Frozen memories, so old that they are frozen. But there is no telling what they are. An uncaring, maybe. A cold uncaring.”
Cushing looked around. All was peaceful. The trees were etched against the sky in the whiteness of the moonlight. The sky was soft and there were many stars. He tried to fight down the terror that he felt rising in him, like a bitter gall gushing in his throat.
“You ever hear of anything like this before?” he asked.
“No, never, laddie. Never in my life.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
9
A great wind sweeping across the valley at some time earlier in the year had cut a narrow swath through the trees that grew between the river’s bank and the blufftop. Great monarchs of the forest lay in a giant hedge, twisted and uprooted. Shriveled, drying leaves still clung to many of the branches.
“We’ll be safe here,” said Cushing. “Anyone coming from the west, even if they wanted to come down to the river, would have to swing around these trees.”
By holding branches to one side so he could get through, they cleared the way for Andy to work his way through the tangle into a small clear area where there would be room for him to lie down and enough grass for him to make a meal.
Cushing pointed to a den formed by the uprooting of a huge black oak, the rooted stump canted at an angle, overhanging the cavity gouged out of the earth by its uprooting.
“In there,” he said, “we won’t be seen if anyone comes nosing around.”
Meg said, “I’ll cook breakfast for you, laddie. What do you want? Hot bread and bacon, maybe?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Not now. We have to be careful with a fire. Nothing but the driest wood, so there’ll be no smoke, and not too big a fire. I’ll take care of it after I get back. Don’t try it yourself. I want to be sure about the fire. Someone gets a whiff of smoke and they’ll start looking.”
“After you get back. Where you be going, sonny?”
“Up on the bluff,” he said. “I want to have a look. See if there’s anyone about.”
“Take the spyglass with you, then.”
Atop the bluff, he looked across a stretch of rolling prairie, with only occasional clumps of trees. Far to the north was what once had been a group of farm buildings, standing in a small grove. Of the buildings there was little left. Through the glasses he could make out what once had been a barn, apparently a sturdily built structure. Part of the roof had collapsed, but otherwise it still stood. Beyond it was a slight mound that probably marked the site of another, less substantial building. Part of a pole fence still existed, raggedly running nowhere.
Squatting in a clump of brush that would serve to break up his outline if anyone should be watching, he patiently and methodically glassed the prairie, taking his time, working from the west to the east.
A small herd of deer were feeding on the eastern side of a small knoll. He caught a badger sitting at its burrow’s mouth. A red fox sat on a stone that jutted from a low hillside, watching the countryside for any game that might be picked up easily.
Cushing kept on watching. There must be no sloppiness, he told himself; he needed to be sure there was nothing but the animals. He started in the west again and moved slowly eastward. The deer were still there, but the badger had disappeared. More than likely it had popped into its den. The fox was gone, as well.
To one side he caught a sense of motion. Swiveling the glasses smoothly, he caught the motion in the field. It was far off, but seemed to be moving fast. As it came nearer, he saw what it was: a body of horsemen. He tried to count them, but they were still too far away. They were not, he saw, coming directly toward him, but angling to the southeast. He watched in fascination. Finally he could count them. Either nineteen or twenty; he could not be absolutely sure. They were dressed in furs and leathers, and carried shields and spears. Their little, short-coupled horses moved at a steady lope.
So Meg had been right. The horde was on the move. The band out of the prairie were perhaps no more than outflankers for the main force, which probably was to the north.
He watched until they had moved out of sight, then searched the prairie again for other possible bands. None showed up, and satisfied, finally, he replaced the glasses in the case and moved off the hill and down the bluff. There might be other small bands, he knew, but there was no point in waiting for them. Meg was probably right: they’d stay out on the prairie, headed for
the city and away from the river valley.
Halfway down the bluffside a voice spoke to him from the tangle of fallen trees.
“Friend,” it said. Not a loud voice, but clearly spoken, pitched to reach his ear.
At the sound, he froze his stride, glanced swiftly about.
“Friend,” the voice spoke again, “could you find it in your heart to succor a most unfortunate?”
A trick? Cushing wondered. He reached swiftly over his shoulder for an arrow from the quiver.
“There is no need to fear,” the voice spoke again. “Even had I the wish, I am in no position to bring you any harm. I am hard pinned beneath a tree and I would be grateful for any help that you could render me.”
Cushing hesitated. “Where are you?” he asked.
“To your right,” the voice said. “At the edge of the fallen trees. I can see you from where I lie. Should you hunker down, you undoubtedly could glimpse me.”
Cushing put the arrow aside and hunkered down, squinting into the maze of fallen branches. A face stared out at him and at the sight of it he sucked in his breath in astonishment. Such a face he had never seen before. A skull-like face, fashioned of hard planes that shone in the sunlight that filtered through the branches.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Rollo, the robot.”
“Rollo? A robot? You can’t be a robot. There are no longer any robots.”
“There is I,” said Rollo. “I would not be surprised if I were the last of them.”
“But if you’re a robot, what are you doing here?”
“I told you, remember? I am pinned beneath a tree. A small tree, luckily, but still impossible to escape from it. My leg is caught, and free I’ve tried to pull it, but that’s impossible. I have tried to dig the soil to release my leg by which I’m trapped, but that is impossible as well. Beneath the leg lies a ledge or rock; upon it lies the tree. I cannot squirm around to lift the tree. I’ve tried everything and there is nothing I can do.”
Cushing bent over and ducked beneath the overhanging branches. Squirming forward, he reached the fallen robot and squatted on his heels to look at the situation.