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Feersh explained that The Shemibob had established a number of the oases throughout the area.
Sometimes she liked to leave her castle and vacation here. The oases had enabled the witch to survive when she'd run away.
After resting here and adding to their provisions, the party went on. The Beast passed over ten more times. Once, Vana, whose turn it was to scout, was caught in a flash flood in a ravine and narrowly escaped drowning. Sloosh, warned by the rumbling, told Phemropit to get up onto a ledge before'the full force of the water struck. Even so, the stones broke loose beneath the creature, and it rolled helplessly down the slope. Its passengers leaped to safety, but Phemropit disappeared into the stream.
When the flood had subsided, it was sitting at the bottom of the ravine, unharmed. Fortunately, it had landed upright. If it had been on its back, it would have had to be abandoned. It was too heavy to be uprighted without the necessary equipment.
They went on. An earthquake shook some stones down on them, and a monolith of green, red, and yellow stones toppled near them. Phemropit had to force his way through a barrier of fallen stones at the end of a canyon, but he burst through after several tries.
The heat during the end of the bright-sky periods became almost unendurable. The party expanded the cube, tied it to the stone-metal creature's back, and got inside. Though they had to go out now and then to check the route, they were quite comfortable most of the time.
And then they came up over the ridge of a slope. There below them was a great oasis. In its center was the glittering castle of The Shemibob.
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A river flowed out of an opening in the surrounding cliffs of jewels. It wandered through forests and meadows and plunged into another opening at the opposite end. By the stream and through the grassy open places grazed small herds of animals. Some of these, Sloosh said, had long been extinct outside
The Shemibob's domain. Feersh assured them that they were not dangerous.
"But something has happened here," she said. "You tell me the forests look as if they have been growing wild for some time. When I was here, they were well-tended parks. And you see no human beings, Tsimmanbul, or Yawtl? Where are the slaves?"
They had found a path down the cliffs that was just wide enough for Phemropit. They crossed the river by swimming, except for Phemropit, who traveled on its bottom. And now they were standing at the edge of a large meadow. A mile away was The Shemibob's stronghold. It was a huge structure made of scarlet and violet blocks, emitting a slightly pulsing light and held together by a bright yellow cement, which would last for many, many generations yet. Its towers and turrets rose high, though none went above the top of the encircling cliffs of jewels. A canal led water from the river to the moat around the castle.
Feersh had told them that they had little, or perhaps no, chance of getting far before being detected. The
Shemibob, however, might allow them to come up to her door before she acted. Or she might even let them get into the castle. It depended upon her mood.
"But it seems as if things have changed since I was here," Feersh said. "Maybe she's gotten rid of her slaves. Or ... she may not be here. Could she have died?"
After some discussion, they decided to walk on in as if they owned the place. When The Shemibob attacked, she would find that she didn't have just simple thieves to combat. Phemropit would show her that.
The creature didn't understand exactly what was going on. Even after all the time it'd had to get acclimated to its new environment, it was often puzzled. But it did have a sense of gratitude. Or perhaps it was a feeling of loneliness that made it so amenable to its rescuers' requests. In any event, it was prepared to fight for them.
"But we mustn't act hostile," Sloosh said. "Not until she definitely shows she's not friendly. That she has kept thieves as slaves doesn't mean that she will make us slaves. We're here for a number of reasons, of which theft concerns only one of us. The most important is the desire to get into another universe, if that's possible.
She should understand that and perhaps welcome our help."
Deyv didn't say anything, but he couldn't see how any of them, even the knowledgeable Archkerri, could help such an ancient and powerful being as The Shemibob.
They went across the meadow and through a grove of trees. From the grove a broad winding walk of some bouncy yellow material led to the moat. This was at least three hundred feet wide. Its clear waters revealed fish of many sizes, shapes, and colors. The drawbridge was down. After some hesitation, they crossed it. The doorway was high and wide, pointed at the top. There was no evidence of a door. Over the open entrance shimmered a curtain of some very thin transparent stuff.
Deyv put out his hand to push it aside. The fingers encountered only air, cooler than that outside.
He turned. "I can't feel the curtain."
"That's because there is none," the witch said.
Deyv shrugged and stepped inside. The others followed him, Phemropit rumbling in last. They were in an immense anteroom on whose walls hung many paintings. The floor was covered by a carpet so thick that Deyv sank up to his ankles. Beyond was a room that made the anteroom look small. He went into it and stopped, astonished and awed.
The walls went up and up and up, the ceiling in a dark which made it invisible. Below it, though, the light was bright. It came out of the walls themselves as the light did in the ancients' vessel. Row upon row of murals, rising into the darkness, were on the walls. If he wasn't so concerned about The
Shemibob's whereabouts, he would have been fascinated by the. paintings. They seemed to be scenes from Earth's history, from its prehistory, even. A whispered question to Feersh confirmed his idea.
"But they are the least of the wonders here," she said.
They passed across a floor of smooth green stone into which brightly colored mosaic patterns were set.
Phemropit was behind them, its treads making a loud grinding noise. The owner certainly wouldn't like her floor scratched, but leaving the creature behind was unthinkable.
The next room was even larger. Its walls were set with round glowing knobs spaced among the heads of animals, fish, birds, great insects, and sentients. These were not, as he'd first thought, carved representations. They were stuffed, and each was also covered with a thin transparent film. Feersh whispered that the film kept them from disintegrating. Some were as old as The Shemibob.
Vana commented, in a low voice, that there was no dust anywhere.
The witch said, "She has devices which draw out the dust and burn it."
At the far end of the mighty room and of the narrow green carpet leading to it was a platform. This was made of a solid block of gold. There were seven steps to its top, on which was a high-backed sofa of some soft green material. It was about fifty feet long, and the seat was five feet above the platform.
"What giant sits here?" Deyv asked.
"There is only one allowed there," Feersh said. "But she doesn't so much sit as lie."
They went from the room into a great corridor. This was lined with pedestals and chests of many kinds of hard polished wood. On these were statuettes and busts and other objects, many of gold or silver.
Some pedestals lacked the ornaments, and when this was reported to the witch she looked puzzled.
"As we go through the castle," she said, "describe what you see."
They did that, though there were so many things to tell about that they grew weary of it. At last she said,
"It is much as I remember it being. But things are missing here and there. And it's evident that the slaves are gone. I think they've fled, and they've taken some of the treasures with them."