From the Ocean from teh Stars (80 page)

at the sparkling jewelry which weighed down each blade and leaf. The
"swish" of the wet grass fascinated him as he plowed through it, and
looking back up the hill he could see his path stretching behind him like
a dark band across the shining ground.

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 Hilvar seemed somewhat lost among the gigantic trees that blocked the sunlight and cast pools of shadow on the jungle floor. For
tunately 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 Hilvar'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—probably not even of the Solar System. Watching like
sentinels over the lesser trees were giant sequoias, three or four hundred
feet high. Once they had been called the oldest things on Earth; they were still a little older than Man.

The river was widening now; ever and again it opened into small
lakes, upon which tiny islands lay at anchor. There were insects here,
brilliantly colored creatures swinging to and fro over the surface of the
water. Once, despite Hilvar's commands, Krif darted away to join his
distant cousins. He disappeared instantly in a cloud of glittering wings,
and the sound of angry buzzing floated toward them. A moment later the cloud erupted and Krif came back across the water, almost too
quickly for the eye to follow. Thereafter he kept very close to Hilvar and
did not stray again.

Toward evening they caught occasional glimpses of the mountains
ahead. The river that had been so faithful a guide was flowing sluggishly
now, as if it too were nearing the end of its journey. But it was clear that
they could not reach the mountains by nightfall; well before sunset the
forest had become so dark that further progress was impossible. The
great trees lay in pools of shadow, and a cold wind was sweeping through
the leaves. Alvin and Hilvar settled down for the night beside a giant
redwood whose topmost branches were still ablaze with sunlight.

When at last the hidden sun went down, the light still lingered on the
dancing waters. The two explorers—for such they now considered themselves, and such indeed they were—lay in the gathering gloom, watching

the river and thinking of all that they had seen. Presently Alvin felt once
again steal over him that sense of delicious drowsiness he had known for the first time on the previous night, and he gladly resigned himself
to sleep. It might not be needed in the effortless life of Diaspar, but he
welcomed it here. In the final moment before unconsciousness overcame
him, he found himself wondering who last had come this way, and how
long since.

The sun was high when they left the forest and stood at last before
the mountain walls of Lys. Ahead of them the ground rose steeply to the sky in waves of barren rock. Here the river came to an end as spectacular
as its beginning, for the ground opened in its path and it sank roaring
from sight. Alvin wondered what happened to it, and through what
subterranean caves it traveled before it emerged again into the light of
day. Perhaps the lost oceans of Earth still existed, far down in the eternal
darkness, and his ancient river still felt the call that drew it to the sea.

For a moment Hilvar stood looking at the whirlpool and the broken
land beyond. Then he pointed to a gap in the hills.

"Shalmirane lies in that direction," he said confidentiy. Alvin did
not ask how he knew; he assumed that Hilvar's mind had made brief
contact with that of a friend many miles away, and the information he
needed had been silently passed to him.

It did not take long to reach the gap, and when they had passed
through it they found themselves facing a curious plateau with gently sloping sides. Alvin felt no tiredness now, and no fear—only a taut ex
pectancy and a sense of approaching adventure. What he would dis
cover, he had no conception. That he would discover something he did
not doubt at all.

As they approached the summit, the nature of the ground altered
abruptly. The lower slopes had consisted of porous, volcanic stone, piled
here and there in great mounds of slag. Now the surface turned suddenly
to hard, glassy sheets, smooth and treacherous, as if the rock had once
run in molten rivers down the mountain.

The rim of the plateau was almost at their feet. Hilvar reached it
first, and a few seconds later Alvin overtook him and stood speechless at his side. For they stood on the edge, not of the plateau they had expected,
but of a giant bowl half a mile deep and three miles in diameter. Ahead
of them the ground plunged steeply downward, slowly leveling out at
the bottom of the valley and rising again, more and more steeply, to the
opposite rim. The lowest part of the bowl was occupied by a circular
lake, the surface of which trembled continually, as if agitated by inces
sant waves.

Although it lay in the full glare of the sun, the whole of that great depression was ebon black. What material formed the crater, Alvin and Hilvar could not even guess, but it was black as the rock of a world that had never known a sun. Nor was that all, for lying beneath their feet and ringing the entire crater was a seamless band of metal, some hundred feet wide, tarnished by immeasurable age but still showing no slightest sign of corrosion.

As their eyes grew accustomed to the unearthly scene, Alvin and Hilvar realized that the blackness of the bowl was not as absolute as they had thought. Here and there, so fugitive that they could only see them indirectly, tiny explosions of light were flickering in the ebon walls. They came at random, vanishing as soon as they were born, like the reflections of stars on a broken sea.

"It's wonderful!" gasped Alvin. "But what
is
it?"

"It looks like a reflector of some kind."

"But it's so black!"

"Only to our eyes, remember. We do not know what radiations they used."

"But surely there must be more than this! Where
is
the fortress?"

Hilvar pointed to the lake.

"Look carefully," he said.

Alvin stared through the quivering roof of the lake, trying to plumb the secrets it concealed within its depths. At first he could see nothing; then, in the shallows near its edge, he made out a faint reticulation of light and shade. He was able to trace the pattern out toward the center of the lake until the deepening water hid all further details.

The dark lake had engulfed the fortress. Down there lay the ruins of once mighty buildings, overthrown by time. Yet not all of them had been submerged, for on the far side of the crater Alvin now noticed piles of jumbled stones, and great blocks that must once have formed part of massive walls. The waters lapped around them, but had not yet risen far enough to complete their victory.

"We'll go around the lake," said Hilvar, speaking softly as if the majestic desolation had struck awe into his soul. "Perhaps we may find something in those ruins over there."

For the first few hundred yards the crater walls were so steep and smooth that it was difficult to stand upright, but after a while they reached the gentler slopes and could walk without difficulty. Near the border of the lake the smooth ebony of the surface was concealed by a thin layer of soil, which the winds of Lys must have brought here through the ages.

A quarter of a mile away, titanic blocks of stone were piled one upon
the other, like the discarded toys of an infant giant. Here, a section of a massive wall was still recognizable; there, two carven obelisks marked
what had once been a mighty entrance. Everywhere grew mosses and
creeping plants, and tiny stunted trees. Even the wind was hushed.

So Alvin and Hilvar came to the ruins of Shalmirane. Against those
walls, and against the energies they had housed, forces that could shatter
a world to dust had flamed and thundered and been utterly defeated.
Once these peaceful skies had blazed with fires torn from the hearts of
suns, and the mountains of Lys must have quailed like living things be
neath the fury of their masters.

No one had ever captured Shalmirane. But now the fortress, the impregnable fortress, had fallen at last—captured and destroyed by the patient tendrils of the ivy, the generations of blindly burrowing worms,
and the slowly rising waters of the lake.

Overawed by its majesty, Alvin and Hilvar walked in silence toward
the colossal wreck. They passed into the shadow of a broken wall, and
entered a canyon where the mountains of stone had split asunder. Be
fore them lay the lake, and presently they stood with the dark water
lapping at their feet. Tiny waves, no more than a few inches high, broke
endlessly upon the narrow shore.

Hilvar was the first to speak, and his voice held a hint of uncertainty
which made Alvin glance at him in sudden surprise.

"There's something here I don't understand," he said slowly.
"There's no wind, so what causes these ripples? The water should be
perfectly still."

Before Alvin could think of any reply, Hilvar dropped to the ground,
turned his head on one side, and immersed his right ear in the water.
Alvin wondered what he hoped to discover in such a ludicrous position;
then he realized that he was listening. With some repugnance—for the
rayless waters looked singularly uninviting—he followed Hilvar's exam
ple.

The first shock of coldness lasted only for a second; when it passed
he could hear, faint but distinct, a steady, rhythmic throbbing. It was as
if he could hear, from far down in the depths of the lake, the beating of a
giant heart.

They shook the water from their hair and stared at each other with
silent surmise. Neither liked to say what he thought—that the lake was
alive.

"It would be best," said Hilvar presently, "if we searched among these ruins and kept away from the lake."

"Do you think there's something down there?" asked Alvin, pointing to the enigmatic ripples that were still breaking against his feet. "Could it be dangerous?"

"Nothing that possesses a mind is dangerous," Hilvar replied. (Is that true? thought Alvin. What of the Invaders?) "I can detect no thoughts of any kind here, but I do not believe we are alone. It is very strange."

They walked slowly back toward the ruins of the fortress, each carrying in his mind the sound of that steady, muffled pulsing. It seemed to Alvin that mystery was piling upon mystery, and that for all his efforts he was getting further and further from any understanding of the truths he sought.

It did not seem that the ruins could teach them anything, but they searched carefully among the piles of rubble and the great mounds of stone. Here, perhaps, lay the graves of buried machines—the machines that had done their work so long ago. They would be useless now, thought Alvin, if the Invaders returned. Why had they never come back? But that was yet another mystery: he had enough enigmas to deal with —there was no need to seek for any more.

A few yards from the lake they found a small clearing among the rubble. It had been covered with weeds, but they were now blackened and charred by tremendous heat, so that they crumbled to ashes as Alvin and Hilvar approached, smearing their legs with streaks of charcoal. At the center of the clearing stood a metal tripod, firmly anchored to the ground, and supporting a circular ring which was tilted on its axis so that it pointed to a spot halfway up the sky. At first sight it seemed that the ring enclosed nothing; then, as Alvin looked more carefully, he saw that it was filled with a faint haze that tormented the eye by lurking at the edge of the visible spectrum. It was the glow of power, and from this mechanism, he did not doubt, had come the explosion of light that had lured them to Shalmirane.

They did not venture any closer, but stood looking at the machine from a safe distance. They were on the right track, thought Alvin; now it only remained to discover who, or what, had set this apparatus here, and what their purpose might be. That tilted ring—it was clearly aimed out into space. Had the flash they had observed been some kind of signal? That was a thought which had breath-taking implications.

"Alvin," said Hilvar suddenly, his voice quiet but urgent, "we have visitors."

Alvin spun on his heels and found himself staring at a triangle of lidless eyes. That, at least, was his first impression; then behind the star-