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"Hardly likely," The Shemibob said. "But then this is not a likely phenomenon."
"If they can get in, we can," the plant-man said.
"When did we start to grow wings?" the Yawtl growled.
His comment was not far off the mark The walls went straight up for two hundred feet and then curved out to make a wide overhang. The roof was a squat pyramid, an estimated one hundred feet high. From its tip the column rose for perhaps four hundred feet. It seemed to be about fifty feet in diameter.
"There wouldn't be an opening in it, anyway," Sloosh said. "The rain and dust would get in."
They talked for a long time but could think of no way to enter. Nevertheless, the Archkerri and The
Shemibob did not want to give up. Not yet. After checking the supplies, they estimated that there was enough for the return journey plus seven more sleep-times.
The others didn't like the idea of staying in the dismal and frightening place a second longer than necessary. Phemropit's opinion wasn't asked for. It would go along with the majority; one place was as good as another. But then it hadn't heard the mighty clanging.
Thunder growled from the direction in which The Dark Beast came. After a while a strong wind arose, and lightning flashed. The wind became a hurricane. Rain, half-frozen, struck them. They went around
The House to the side where the wind would be weaker. They huddled inside the vessel and waited for the storm to pass. Finally, they went to sleep, and when they awoke and opened the door, they found that the elements were still raging.
Moreover, the small valley in which The House stood was in three feet of water. Heavy cataracts were pouring over the edge of the large valley.
The Shemibob got out and struggled against the wind to the front of Phemropit. There she signaled that it should take them out of the small valley. If the water there was getting deeper, Phemropit should go up onto the mountain slope. She came back dripping wet, her porcupinelike hair bending like riverbank reeds after a flood had subsided. She stationed herself by the door, opening it now and then to check on
Phemropit's progress. It took a long time to get out of the small valley; the water rose almost as fast as
Phemropit did up the slope.
The floor of the big valley was by then three feet under the surface of the boiling flood. Before
Phemropit reached the foot of the nearest mountain, it and the vessel it bore were underwater. It slogged on ahead, and presently the tilt of the floor showed that it was on a steep incline. After waiting to make sure they were high enough, The Shemibob opened the door. Phemropit's fan-light revealed a broad and wide ledge of rock a few feet ahead. She got out and directed the creature to go under the ledge. Here they were safe from the direct blast of the howling wind, but the rain pouring down the mountainside curtained the ledge. They were under a waterfall which made invisible anything beyond it.
Another sleep-time came. They ate sparingly, since they couldn't know how long they'd be stuck there.
Suddenly, the wind began to die, and the rain stopped. When the cataract had finally thi
Beast had passed for them to see the situation.
Far off, the upper part of the roof of The House reared out of the water.
"There's no place for the water to drain out," Sloosh said. "It'll have to evaporate. Meanwhile—"
"We can go in the vessel to The House and get on the roof," The Shemibob said. "Maybe there are windows on it."
The Yawtl and the humans sighed, but they made no useless protests. The Shemibob unglued the vessel from Phemropit's back after it had gone down to the waterline. She took out ten more coils of the very thin and light but very strong rope and glued their ends together. After co
Now and then the door was opened so they could be sure they were going in the right direction. It was also necessary to make sure that there was enough rope to keep them on the surface. When Phemropit got to the floor of the small valley, there was only about a foot extra. But that was enough.
The creature, following its instructions correctly, stopped when it was alongside The House. Leaving
Feersh with the baby and the animals, they climbed up the steeply sloping roof. Halfway between the edge of the roof and the column were windows as large as those at ground level.
They braced themselves around one and looked within it Below, illuminated dimly by The Shemibob's device, was a gigantic room. The walls were bare. The floor was covered with dust, and here and there, on pedestals, were what they at first thought were rough columns of rock.
The Shemibob said, "No. They were once statues of granite."
Nobody said anything.
She said, "Don't you realize what that means? Look at them. You can still make out the general shapes.
Some were statues of human beings. Others were of bipeds of some kind, and some were of quadrupeds.
That one there"—she fixed her light on it—"was a bird. You can see that those projections were once wings."
Sloosh started to buzz but changed his mind.
The Shemibob spoke with a note of exasperation. "Those were statues carved from granite. But they are eroded. Yet there have been no winds in there. The air, I'm sure, doesn't even move. Or, if it does, very slowly. And I'll wager that there has been no change of temperature or humidity in there since The
House was built.
"But the hard granite has decayed and has eroded as if it had been subject to eons of exposure to sun, wind, sand, and extremes of heat and cold.
"Now can you see how old this House is?"
They were awe-struck.
The Shemibob had brought along another device from her bag. She unfolded it into a thing which looked like an egg that had been cut in half and the cut part sealed over with a silvery screen. A tripod folded from the artifact. She put the three legs down against the window with the round end of the egg pointing downward. The discs on the ends of the legs stuck to the transparent material.
She turned a little dial on the side. On the flat end of the device a picture appeared. She adjusted the dial, and the objects in the center of the room became large and bright.
There was a huge block of dark material, the same unchanging stuff of which The House was made.
Twelve steps up it led to a large chair, also of the same material. It had a high back and arms covered with designs. Deyv could not see them clearly because of the angle and also because the arms of the being in the chair partly covered them.
The man sat stiffly, upright, unmoving, staring straight ahead.
Deyv had a creepy feeling that the man was looking into eternity. Perhaps into infinity.
He wore a cap of scarlet edged with white fur. Its long tasseled top lay behind his head against the back of the chair. Under it was a broad round face, red-nosed, red-cheeked, red-lipped. .The thick eyebrows were white, as was the long hair flowing from under the cap.
A long and thick white beard fell over a large round paunch to the belt-line. His jacket was scarlet, edged with white fur. His belt was wide and black. His pants were scarlet. His calf-length boots were scarlet with, white fur around the tops. On the third finger of his left hand was a simple gold ring.
"It certainly looks lifelike," Sloosh said. "It must be made of the same material as The House, though."