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"Does your dragon-sense," he asked then, "tell you how deeply it is buried?"
It lies somewhere between two and three times your height in depth.
The crater returned ringing echoes as Mouseglove threw down the pickax.
"Why didn't you tell me that sooner?"
I did not realize it was important. A pause. Then, Is it?
"Yes! There is no way I can dig down that far in any reasonable period of time."
He seated himself on a mass of rubble and wiped his brow with the heel of his hand. His mouth tasted of ashes. Everything smelled of ashes. Moonbird moved nearer and stared into the shallow pit.
Might there not still be strong tools about? Or weapons? From the time when Red Mark ruled here?
Mouseglove raised his eyes slowly until he was staring directly overhead.
"I suppose I could climb out and go looking," he said. "But supposing I found some explosives--or one of those throwers of light beams which cut through things? It might destroy what I am seeking."
Moonbird snorted and his spittle flew about. Wherever it struck it began to boil and smoulder. After several seconds, each moist spot burst into flame.
The thing was once hidden because no one knew how to destroy it.
"That is true... And I'm certainly not making much progress this way."
He picked up his cloak and began wiping the dust from himself on its i
"All right. I think I remember where some of the things were stored. If they are still there. If I can still find my way--in all this mess."
He moved to what appeared to be the most negotiable face of the crater wall. Moonbird followed him, with rough sliding sounds.
I had better begin climbing out myself.
"It looks pretty steep, for one of your bulk."
You go now. I will come up in my time. I wish to be away from the disturbance.
"Good idea. I'm on my way."
Mouseglove found a handhold, a foothold, commenced his climb. Later, when he paused to rest upon the rim and looked back down, he saw that Moonbird had made scant progress in his attempt to scale the wall. He groped slowly and carefully for the perfect hold, then dug in with his powerful talons, improving each niche or shelf with deep gouges before trusting his weight to it.
Mouseglove turned away, surveying the area once again. Yes, he decided. Over there to the southeast... One of the places where I hid was beneath that leaning monolith. And ...
He glanced at the sinking sun to take the measure of remaining daylight. Then he moved with speed and grace, descending, circling, every step of his route already in mind.
He moved among twisted girders and blocks of stone, craters and smashed war machines, heaps of rubble, shards of glass, the skeletons of dragons and men. The ruined city was very dry. Nothing grew. Nothing moved but shadows. He remembered his days as a fugitive in this place, still reflexively casting an eye skyward for signs of the birdlike mechanical flyers, still sliding about corners and automatically checking for spy devices. For him, the giant figure of Mark Marakson still stalked the broken landscape, his one eye clicking and flashing through all the colors of the rainbow as he moved from darkness to light to shadow and back again into darkness.
Crossing the fire-scored pavement beside one of the fallen bridges, he ducked through a twisted door frame into a roofless building. Within, he passed the shriveled bodies of half-a-dozen of Mark's diminutive subjects. (He resented the term "dwarf" by which the others referred to them, since he was approximately the same height himself.) He wondered as he went by what it might be like for any survivors of that engagement--to be raised from barbarism to a highly organized level of existence and then to be cast back down again to subsisting as in days gone by, all the machines stopped. Perhaps it had been too brief an interlude, he told himself. They would not yet have lost their primitive skills. This entire experience might merely turn to the stuff of legend among them one day.
But from somewhere--he was never to be certain where--he seemed to hear the sound of hammering; and twice, he heard the chuffing noises which made him think of attempts to start one of the great machines.
He located the stairwell he had been seeking and spent ten minutes clearing it for his descent. Below, he followed a series of twisting tu
The door to the arsenal was locked, but he was able to pick it in the dark, his sensitive fingers faultlessly manipulating the small pieces of metal he had always with him. They had a memory of their own, his fingers, and he had opened this lock before.
Inside, then. And he crossed the room and sought the racks. He filled a grenade belt and slung it, pausing only to acquire an extra supply of cartridges for his pistol after this was done.
Departing the place, he halted, and for reasons not completely clear to himself, locked the door. Then he hurried back along the tu
As he mounted the stair, a touch of panic--immediately suppressed--followed by a full measure of heightened alertness, came to him. What subliminal cues might have triggered this response, he did not know, but he trusted it fully because it had served him well in the past. He halted, pressed against the wall, then commenced moving slowly up the stairway, his footsteps grown soundless through deliberate placement.
When his head cleared floor level, he halted again and studied the interior of the wrecked room. Nothing stirred. The place seemed unchanged since his earlier passage.
He drew a deep breath, mounted the remaining steps quickly and headed toward the doorway.
There was a rapid movement to his right.
He halted when he saw that it was one of the short, heavily muscled aboriginals who had ma
Mouseglove raised the pistol and hesitated.
The dwarf was armed with a long, curved blade. But it was not the inequality of arms which stayed Mouseglove's trigger finger. The man appeared to be unaccompanied, but if there were others about the sounds of gunfire might summon them.
"No problem," Mouseglove ventured, lowering his weapon and thrusting it away. "I'm just leaving."
Even before the other's wide mouth shaped a grin, he'd a feeling that he would not be able to talk his way out of this one.
"You were one of them," the man said, moving toward him, blade twitching. "Friend of the sorcerer . . ,"
Mouseglove dropped into a crouch, his right hand falling upon the hilt of the dagger which protruded from his boot-sheath, his thumb unfastening the small strap which held it in place.
Still bent far forward, he took the weapon into his hand and began a sidewise, shuffling movement toward his right. The other advanced and slashed at his head with the curving blade. Mouseglove avoided it and raised his own weapon quickly, to nick the man's forearm. He sidled faster and feinted twice toward the man's chest, dodged a thrust he knew he would be unable to parry and produced a small laceration in the other's brow above the right eye with the crosspiece of his own blade. It should have been a neat slash, but he had underestimated the man's speed. The sudden contact with the horny brow-ridge threw him slightly off-balance and he retreated, stumbling.