Their progress across the continent was slow, as they had to live off the land, stopping to hunt and set traps for the small animals that lived in the shadow of the vast, dead city, and they had to take wide detours to avoid the regions surrounding Malganian settlements which would be sure to contain large areas of farmland and isolated homesteads.
They would set up camp in one of the old skyscrapers and spend a day or two building up their food supplies, then spend three or four days travelling, keeping close to the buildings so that they could slip into a doorway at the first sign of company. A couple of times they spotted army patrols ahead of them and hid for a day or two until they could be sure they'd moved far away. The result was that they averaged only ten miles a day, slowing even further when they came to areas that had become impenetrable over the years and were forced to backtrack, looking for alternative routes.
Some areas had become so thickly overgrown that they were totally impassable, and one area of several square miles had become so swampy and waterlogged that their legs sank up to the knees in thick, sucking mud. They tried their best to fight their way through it, but taking the necessary care was costing them more time than simply diverting around the area and so with heavy hearts, they decided to cut their losses and turn back. These impassable areas weren't marked on any of their maps, suggesting either that the Malganians hadn't explored the whole area they claimed as their territory or that the land had changed during the years since it had first been charted. It suggested that nasty surprises might be waiting for them up ahead, a possibility that made them all uncomfortable.
Every four days or so, whenever the portal re-opened, they would get Farspoken messages from the crew of the Jules Verne, popping into their universe before heading back into their own universe before they could be attacked. The messages from Lirenna grew increasingly heartrending for Thomas as he sensed his wife growing increasingly deperate. He could hear in her voice that it was taking her more and more effort to cling to hope, and he longed to be able to tell her that he was still alive, still looking for a way home. How long would it be before the Jules Verne stopped coming? he wondered. Lirenna, he knew, would never give up hope, but the Beltharans and the University authorities would want to continue their mission, to explore some of the other worlds of the sheaf. If that happened, and the shipwreck victims failed to find another silver ship to take them home, they might be stranded on Fechlon for the rest of their lives.
One danger that they apparently wouldn't have to worry about, though, was large animals. During all the weeks they spent travelling through the continent sized city they never saw anything larger than a large dog, although these creatures travelled in large packs and howled at them from time to time as the Tharians passed through their territories.
"There must have been large animals once, though," said Thomas thoughtfully. "They must have all died out during the golden age of this civilisation. The cities took up so much space that there wasn't enough room left for the animals."
"What did they eat, then?" wondered Matthew. "If this one city really did cover the whole continent, where did they farm their food?"
"Where did the ring dwellers grow their food?" replied the wizard. "Maybe they didn't need farms. Maybe they had some other way of getting food."
"Magic?" asked Jop Sonno.
Thomas shook his head. "In all the time we've been here, I haven't sensed a single trace of coherent magic. It's been thousands of years, of course, but even so, there ought so be something, some faint residue. All I can sense, though, all I've ever been able to sense since we came here, is the ambient magic in the atmosphere, and even that's faint compared to back home. It's hard soaking up enough of it to power my spells."
"Could that be why we haven't heard from Saturn?" asked Matthew. "He simply hasn't got the power for a Farspeaking spell?"
"It doesn't need that much power," said Thomas, though. "He should be able to cast it, if he's alive." The possibility that he might not be alive sent them into a depressed silence, and they said nothing more until their next rest break.
At their next camp, Drenn spread the maps out on the bare earth floor of a crumbling skyscraper. "According to this, we're approaching the territory of a tribe of feather folk," he said. "Two questions. Do we go through, or around? And if we go through, do we try to make contact with them?"
"We have to go through," said Thomas firmly. "We're moving far too slowly as it is. We may arrive at the spaceport to find Saturn's been and gone, left us stranded here. We have to go as fast as possible, by the most direct route."
"But if we have trouble with them, like we did with the Malganians, we may lose more time than we gain," argued Matthew.
"We've seen feather people before," pointed out Drenn. "They've left us alone so far."
"Probably because they were only small hunting parties," replied the Flight Leader. "But if we stroll right into one of their settlements they might get nasty. They might think we're Malganians, come to attack them."
"We'll probably have difficulty persuading them we're not Malganians," agreed Thomas, "but as far as we've seen, the Malganians leave them alone. I'm sure we wouldn't have seen the feather people we have if they were being actively hunted. They would simply hide at the first sight of us."
The others nodded. "Makes sense," agreed Matthew thoughtfully. "Okay, I'm for taking the direct route."
"Then it's decided," said Drenn with satisfaction.
Nobody bothered asking Jop Sonno or Roj Villa. They were Matthew's subordinates and would do as he told them. As it was, though, they agreed with the decision, as they told each other as they chatted together some distance away from the others. They just wanted to go home, and if the way home led through the spaceport, then they wanted to get there as fast as possible, no matter what the risk. The two juniors had long since become fast friends and they had trouble remembering the divisions that had existed between them aboard the Jules Verne.
They were nevertheless prepared for trouble, though, as they continued on their way. They all kept their eyes on the surrounding buildings and the undergrowth through which they pushed their way, alert for the first sign of hidden observers. Thomas kept his defensive spells at the forefront of his mind, ready to be cast at a moment's notice, and the others kept their hands on the hilts of their swords. Drenn's steely grey eyes flicked from right to left, studying every shadow with the intensity that only priesthood training could provide, and he would occasionally inform the others, in a soft voice, of things that they had missed. Subtle signs of recent occupancy and frequent visitation.
The day passed uneventfully, though, with no attempt by the aboriginal nomads to interfere with them, and Drenn thought it likely that they'd let them pass right through their territory without bothering them. That would be more likely if the feather people could see that they weren't acting in a furtive manner, sneaking into their territory unseen, and so he advised the others to stay out in the open as much as possible, to use whatever patches of grassland and low, open shrubbery they came across.
"We keep as much as possible to a straight path," he told the others. "In and out of their territory by the most direct route. Do nothing that might be interpreted as scouting out the land for a larger group behind us."
The others nodded, understanding the advice, and so they proceeded in single file along the centre of the ancient road, brushing through waist high undergrowth and, when they stopped to rest or to eat, doing so out under the sky where they could be watched. They even slept out in the open that night, it being warm and dry, but whenever Thomas stirred awake he saw that the priest of Samnos had one eye open, alert for feather people sneaking up on them.
Halfway through the next morning, though, they were forced to make a difficult decision. They were dismayed to see, about half a mile ahead of them, that a skyscraper had collapsed and blocked the street with an impenetrable wall of overgrown rubble.
"Looks like it happened years ago," said Thomas. "It's not marked on the map, though."
"They've probably never come this way to check," replied Matthew. "The surrounding buildings mean you can't see this unless you come down this street."
"It's no problem, though, is it?" said Roj Villa. "We just go back and take the next street. We lose half an hour backtracking. No more."
"Right," agreed Matthew, and they turned back.
The next street was also blocked, however. Another building had collapsed at the same point, and now that they looked they saw that a whole line of buildings had collapsed. A line of destruction across the city several miles long.
"What in the name of the Gods?" cried Matthew in astonishment.
"What could have caused this?" asked Jop Sonno, glancing around as if looking for a monstrous giant who might be coming back to cause more destruction.
"Maybe we'll see when we're closer," suggested Drenn. He led the way onward and, after glancing doubtfully at each other, the others followed.
They were still a hundred yards away when they learned the answer. The gentle wind brought the sound of running water and they saw a wide fissure in the ground running right up against the feet of the fallen skyscrapers. A fissure that followed the same sinuous curves as a river. When they reached it they stood right on the lip and looked down past vertical sides of rock to where black water rushed past below.
"An underground river," said the priest, nodding as though this merely confirmed his guess. "It eroded away the foundations until there was nothing left to hold the buildings up."
"Why would they build on water?" asked Roj Villa, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Were they mad?"
"The water might not have been there when the city was built," replied Drenn. "Remember how much time has passed. The whole nature of a continent can change over ten thousand years. When we get back, take a look at the first maps of Amafryka made by the first human settlers three thousand years ago. Some rivers have changed their course by hundreds of miles since then, and coastlines have advanced or receded by tens of miles."
"I noticed that," said Thomas, staring at him in surprise. "I thought they simply couldn't draw maps very well."
"They could draw maps as well as we can," replied the priest. "The land changes. In fact, I'm surprised any trace of this city survives at all."
"Their super-hard building stone," said Matthew. Drenn nodded thoughtfully.
"So," said Jop Sonno, still looking down into the rushing water. "How do we get across?"
"The collapsing buildings must have blocked the river in places..." suggested Roj Villa.
"The water will have washed the obstruction away long ago," replied Drenn. "The feather people may have built a bridge across it, though." He glanced at the others to see how they took the suggestion but they merely stared silently back. "Or..." continued the priest, "we can look for the end of the collapse. If the fissure runs for a very long way there's no way it would have been left off the maps. It must come to an end somewhere, where the river goes back underground. We can go looking for it."
"Let's do that," said Matthew. "And if we see a bridge we can decide what to do then."
That seemed a sensible idea, and so they turned back, heading away from the river and back to the connecting road, three hundred yards away, that ran more or less parallel to it.
☆☆☆
They spotted the bridge twenty minutes later, at the end of the very next road they explored. The road had a track running along its centre bearing the unmistakable signs of having been made by people on foot, and at the edge of the fissure they saw the upright supports of a simple rope bridge. They all stood and stared at it for several long minutes, searching for any sign that there were feather people in the vicinity, but they saw nothing.
"They might be on the other side," suggested Matthew. "Waiting for us."
"Or they might wait until we're half way across and then block us at both ends," added Jop Sonno.
"More likely they just want us to cross and carry on going, out of their territory and out of their lives," said Drenn. "Come on."
He led the way fearlessly, his head held high, every inch the priest of Samnos, wanting to present a formidable image for the nomads he knew were watching.
"He's got the right idea," agreed Matthew. "We act like kings, as if we own the place."
The others nodded, and they followed the priest as confidently and fearlessly as they could.
"Look," said Jop Sonno, pointing at the ground when they were less than a hundred yards from the bridge. "Holes in the ground. Look like they were made by tent poles."
"They had an encampment here," agreed Matthew, "and they packed up and moved out in a hurry when they saw us coming. They're probably hiding in the skyscrapers. As soon as we're gone they'll have their tents back up within half an hour."
"Wonder what they make them out of with no large animals around?" mused Roj Villa. "They can't be leather, like the tents of the Herren folk back home."
"Woven grass and plant fibre," said Matthew, spotting a few stray strands hanging from the branches of a nearby bush, caught on its sharp spines as the feather folk had hurriedly carried it away. "They're not proper tents, as we understand the word. More like flexible huts, I would imagine. Sheets of matting tied in place across a skeleton of support poles. Hey, look." He indicated a spot where the ashy residue of a camp fire had been hurriedly covered with leaves and dust, too hurriedly, with the result that one corner had been left partially exposed. He pretended not to see it as they passed, not wanting to alert the feather people that they were aware of their presence.
"I saw a movement in a window!" cried Jop Sonno. "Looked like a child..."
"Don't look!" warned Matthew. "Keep your eyes straight ahead."
His subordinates gulped nervously as they obeyed, suddenly imagining arrows and blow darts, perhaps tipped with poison, being aimed at them from behind clumps of vegetation. In this dense greenery, there could be feather people within just a few yards of them.
Then they were at the bridge, where Drenn was waiting for them. "It doesn't look too strong," said the priest, studying the flimsy structure critically. "No more than one or two of us on it at a time. I'll go first, to secure the far side. Thomas, you're the rearguard. You cross last."
The wizard nodded and Drenn began his way across, one hand on the guard rope beside him.
The bridge consisted of three ropes, two above and one below on which they walked, the ropes connected by vees of thinner rope. It swayed alarmingly as the priest made his cautious way across, and the water roared past below him, whipped up to a white froth by the rubble and boulders it pounded across. Jop Sonno stepped onto the bridge when Drenn was halfway across, and he was just about at the half way point when the priest reached the end and Roj Villa started behind him.
The chasm was about twenty yards wide at this point and twice as deep, and as Thomas waited patiently for the others to go ahead of him he allowed his eyes to roam across the almost vertical sides where he saw dark openings. Some small, a few inches across, others wide enough for a man to crawl inside. They all had clumps of greenery growing in their entrances, and some had streaks of white beneath them, left by the birds that made their nests in them. Drainage and sewage tunnels, thought the wizard. This whole river probably started as a drainage tunnel that eroded wider as the centuries passed until the roof fell in. This city must have a whole network of tunnels beneath it!
He found himself wondering what strange creatures lived down there, wandering forever in the darkness, and then realised that it was time for him to cross. Matthew was halfway across, and everyone else was waiting on the far side. He stepped warily onto the swaying bridge, and his breathing came rapid and shallow as he made himself put one foot in front of the other. He made the mistake of looking down into the water below, and a cold shiver ran through his body as he contemplated how precarious his position was. If the bridge somehow collapsed, he would be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. His Autumnleaf ring wouldn't help him. He would only drift slowly down to his death instead of plummeting like a brick.
I could teleport, perhaps, he thought. He would have plenty of time to speak the magic words as he drifted slowly down, but the last place they'd stopped at long enough for him to use as a teleport destination was nearly a full day's walk behind them. If he was forced to teleport out he would be separated from all his friends, all alone on this world, unless he managed to make his own way to the spaceport and found the others there waiting for him. He couldn't bear the idea of being all alone, with no-one to talk to, no-one to tell him what to do. The bridge will hold, he told himself. Of course it will.
It was with great relief that he stepped back onto solid ground on the other side. "Well, here we are," he said, grinning foolishly. "Made it."
"Look," said Matthew, nodding back the way they'd come.
Thomas looked, and stared in surprise to see a tall man standing a few yards away from the chasm's edge, looking at them. He was very old, with wrinkled, leathery skin the colour of weathered cherrywood, and was dressed entirely in feathers, forming a gown that covered him from neck to knees, leaving his arms bare. He wore a headdress of long tail feathers, shaped in a fan that stood up behind his domed, bald head. Around his neck he wore a necklace of bird skulls. He had a strikingly unusual face; long and narrow, with a long hooked nose above thick, pouting lips. A face not quite like any human face any of them had ever seen before.
He raised a spear which also bore clusters of feathers along its length, and held it out as if in some kind of symbolic gesture. Then he turned and strode away, back to his people, without looking back.
"He's telling us that they let us use their bridge and now they want us to go away," said Drenn, watching him carefully.
"I think you're right," agreed Matthew. "Shall we do what he wants?"
The priest nodded, and the five of them turned as one and continued on their way.