Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (10 page)

 
          
 
Lys was full of such surprises, as Alvin was
continually learning.

 
          
 
Its inconspicuous but efficient transport
system had been equally unexpected. The ground-car apparently worked on the
same principle as the machine that had brought him from Diaspar, for it floated
in the air a few inches above the turf. Although there was no sign of any
guide-rail, Theon told him that the cars could only run on predetermined
tracks. All the centers of population were thus linked together, but the
remoter parts of the country could only be reached on foot. This state of
affairs seemed altogether extraordinary to Alvin, but Theon appeared to think
it was an excellent idea.

 
          
 
Apparently Theon had been planning this
expedition for a considerable time. Natural history was his chief passion—Krif
was only the most spectacular of his many pets—and he hoped to find new types
of insect life in the uninhabited southern parts of Lys.

 
          
 
The project had filled Alvin with enthusiasm
when he heard of it. He looked forward to seeing more of this wonderful
country, and although Theon's interests lay in a different field of knowledge
from his own, he felt a kinship for his new companion which not even Rorden had
ever awakened.

 
          
 
Theon intended to travel south as far as the
machine could go— little more than an hour's journey from Airlee—and the rest
of the way they would have to go on foot. Not realizing the full implications
of this, Alvin had no objections.

 
          
 
To Alvin, the journey across Lys had a
dreamlike unreality. Silent as a ghost, the machine slid across rolling plains
and wound its way through forests, never deviating from its invisible track. It
traveled perhaps a dozen times as fast as a man could comfortably walk. No one
in Lys was ever in a greater hurry than that.

 
          
 
Many times they passed through villages, some
larger than Airlee but most built along very similar lines.
Alvin
was interested to notice subtle but
significant differences in clothing and even physical appearance as they moved
from one community to the next. The civilization of Lys was composed of
hundreds of distinct cultures, each contributing some special talent toward the
whole.

 
          
 
Once or twice Theon stopped to speak to
friends, but the pauses were brief and it was still morning when the little
machine came to rest among the foothills of a heavily wooded mountain. It was
not a very large mountain, but
Alvin
thought it the most tremendous thing he had
ever seen.

 
          
 
"This is where we start to walk,"
said Theon cheerfully, throwing equipment out of the car. "We can't ride
any farther."

 
          
 
As he fumbled with the straps that were to
convert him into a beast of burden, Alvin looked doubtfully at the great mass
of rock before them.

 
          
 
"It's a long way around, isn't it?"
he queried.

 
          
 
"We aren't going around," replied
Theon. "I want to get to the top before nightfall."

 
          
 
Alvin said nothing. He had been rather afraid
of this.

 
          
 
"From here," said Theon, raising his
voice to make it heard above the thunder of the waterfall, "you can see
the whole of Lys."

 
          
 
Alvin could well believe him. To the north lay
mile upon mile of forest, broken here and there by clearings and fields and the
wandering threads of a hundred rivers. Hidden somewhere in that vast panorama
was the village of Airlee. Alvin fancied that he could catch a glimpse of the
great lake, but decided that his eyes had tricked him. Still farther north,
trees and clearings alike were lost in a mottled carpet of green, rucked here
and there by lines of hills. And beyond that, at the very edge of vision, the mountains
that hemmed Lys from the desert lay like a bank of distant clouds.

 
          
 
East and west the view was little different,
but to the south the mountains seemed only a few miles away. Alvin could see
them very clearly, and he realized that they were far higher than the little
peak on which he was standing.

 
          
 
But more wonderful even than these was the
waterfall. From the sheer face of the mountain a mighty ribbon of water leaped
far out over the valley, curving down through space toward the rocks a thousand
feet below. There it was lost in a shimmering mist of spray, while up from the
depths rose a ceaseless, drumming thunder that reverberated in hollow echoes
from the mountain walls. And quivering in the air above the base of the fall
was the last rainbow left on Earth.

 
          
 
For long minutes the two boys lay on the edge
of the cliff, gazing at this last Niagara and the unknown land beyond. It was
very different from the country they had left, for in some indefinable way it
seemed deserted and empty. Man had not lived here for many, many years.

 
          
 
Theon answered his friend's unspoken question.

 
          
 
"Once the whole of Lys was
inhabited," he said, "but that was a very long time ago. Only the
animals live here now."

 
          
 
Indeed, there was nowhere any sign of human
life—none of the clearings or well-disciplined rivers that spoke of Man's
presence. Only in one spot was there any indication that he had ever lived
here, for many miles away a solitary white ruin jutted above the forest roof
like a broken fang. Elsewhere, the jungle had returned to its own.

 
          
 
It was night when Alvin awoke, the utter night
of mountain country, terrifying in its intensity. Something had disturbed him,
some whisper of sound that had crept into his mind above the dull thunder of
the falls. He sat up in the darkness, straining his eyes across the hidden
land, while with indrawn breath he listened to the drumming roar of the falls
and the faint but unending rustle of life in the trees around him.

 
          
 
Nothing was visible. The starlight was too dim
to reveal the miles of country that lay hundreds of feet below: only a jagged
line of darker night eclipsing the stars told of the mountains on the southern
horizon. In the darkness beside him Alvin heard his friend roll over and sit
up.

 
          
 
"What is it?"
came
a whispered voice.

 
          
 
"I thought I heard a noise."

 
          
 
"What sort of noise?"

 
          
 
"I don't know. Perhaps I was only
dreaming."

 
          
 
There was silence while two pairs of eyes
peered out into the mystery of night. Then, suddenly, Theon caught his friend's
arm.

 
          
 
"Look!" he whispered.

 
          
 
Far to the south glowed a solitary point of
light, too low in the heavens to be a
star.
It was a
brilliant white, tinged with violet, and as the boys watched it began to climb
the spectrum of intensity, until the eye could no longer
bear
to look upon it. Then it exploded—and it seemed as if lightning had struck
below the rim of the world. For an instant the mountains, and the great land
they guarded, were etched with fire against the darkness of the night. Ages
later came the echo of a mighty explosion, and in the forest below a sudden
wind stirred among the trees. It died away swiftly, and one by one the routed
stars crept back into the sky.

 
          
 
For the first time in his life, Alvin knew
that fear of the unknown that had been the curse of ancient Man. It was a
feeling so strange that for a while he could not even give it a name. In the
moment of recognition it vanished and he became himself again.

 
          
 
"What is it?" he whispered.

 
          
 
There was a pause so long that he repeated the
question.

 
          
 
"I'm trying to remember," said
Theon, and was silent for a while. A little later he spoke again.

 
          
 
"That must be Shalmirane," he said
simply.

 
          
 
"Shalmirane!
Does it still exist?"

 
          
 
"I'd almost forgotten," replied
Theon, "but it's coming back now. Mother once told me that the fortress
lies in those mountains. Of course, it's been in ruins for ages, but someone is
still supposed to live there."

 
          
 
Shalmirane! To these children of two races, so
widely differing in culture and history, this was indeed a name of magic. In
all the long story of Earth there had been no greater epic than the defense of
Shalmirane against an invader who had conquered
all the
Universe.

 
          
 
Presently Theon's voice came again out of the
darkness.

 
          
 
"The people of the south could tell us
more. We will ask them on our way back."

 
          
 
Alvin
scarcely heard him: he was deep in his own
thoughts, remembering stories that Rorden had told him long ago. The Battle of
Shalmirane lay at the dawn of recorded history: it marked the end of the
legendary ages of Man's conquests, and the beginning of his long decline. In
Shalmirane, if anywhere on Earth, lay the answers to the problems that had
tormented him for so many years. But the southern mountains were very far away.

 
          
 
Theon must have shared something of his
mother's powers, for he said quietly:

 
          
 
"If we started at dawn, we could reach
the fortress by nightfall. I've never been there, but I think I could find the
way."

 
          
 
Alvin
thought it over. He was tired, his feet
were sore, and the muscles of his thighs were aching with the unaccustomed
effort. It was very tempting to leave it until another time. Yet there might be
no other time, and there was even the possibility that the actinic explosion
had been a signal for help.

 
          
 
Beneath the dim light of the failing stars,
Alvin
wrestled with his thoughts and presently
made his decision. Nothing had changed: the mountains resumed their watch over
the sleeping land. But a turning-point in history had come and gone, and the
human race was moving toward a strange new future.

 
          
 
The sun had just lifted above the eastern wall
of
Lys
when they reached the outskirts of the
forest. Here, Nature had returned
to her own
. Even
Theon seemed lost among the gigantic trees that blocked the sunlight and cast
pools of shadow on the jungle floor. Fortunately the river from the fall flowed
south in a line too straight to be altogether natural, and by keeping to its
edge they could avoid the denser undergrowth. A good deal of Theon's time was
spent in controlling Krif, who disappeared occasionally into the jungle or went
skimming wildly across the water. Even Alvin, to whom everything was still so
new, could feel that the forest had a fascination not possessed by the smaller,
more cultivated woods of northern
Lys
. Few
trees were alike: most of them were in various stages of devolution and some
had reverted through the ages almost to their original, natural forms. Many
were obviously not of Earth at all—perhaps not even of the Solar System.
Watching like sentinels over the lesser trees were giant sequoias, three and
four hundred feet high. They had once been called the oldest things on Earth:
they were still a little older than
Man.