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changing itself, of course, but the changes had always been scattered and
gradual. As one expression of life was dying here, another grew there, but
always with an overall continuity that the robeing sense of time, progressing
naturally from bright to bright, could assimilate.
But what was happening now was different. In one place they'd come to, the
trail ended at a wall of uprooted pylons, crushed girders, piled-up casings,
and debris of every kind, where a whole swath had been leveled and everything
in it just torn up and pushed aside. In another, death had descended
everywhere. Everything, even the river, stood silent and idle, with only screw
extractors and rivet shavers buzzing in the undergrowth to break the
stillness. Mordran had never before seen whole areas affected in that way.
They came to an assembly and testing plant, modest in scale, where Mordran
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said smaller-size animals of various kinds had been coming to life for as long
as he could remember. But now all that had ceased, leaving partly completed
animals lying discarded in heaps all over the place. Around the plant, squads
of retoolers and refitters scurried and chattered, modifying the assembly
machines to new configurations. At the same time, ferocious-looking lunge
drills and laser spitters patrolled the boundary to keep inquisitive forest
dwellers at bay. They were intimidating enough to keep Rex and Duke
stalwart companions by this time well back.
"Never in all my twelve-brights of studying the world of nature have I seen
machines of the likes that are starting to take shape there, Thirg," Brongyd
said as they stood watching from a safe distance.
"The strangeness is not simply that they are new machines. But their whole
layouts and growth sequences are of a kind unknown to me. It is as if they are
of another world conceived by the mind of a different Lifemaker."
"A right caper this is turnin' out t' be," Mordran declared. "Now I'm
beginnin' ter wonder if I'll be able ter find me own way back."
Eventually the trail they had been following came out of a spray-painting
ravine to join the road into
Pergassos. But instead of the deserted track Mordran had promised, they found
the way filled with a slow procession of frightened-looking Kroaxians heading
toward the city. They had as much of their possessions as they could bring
with them, some riding in loaded wagons, others pushing carts or leading pack
animals, many just carrying bundles.
Thirg stopped a worob in a wheelskin bonnet and wire shawl, one of a group
following a heavily laden wagon. "Where are you from?" he asked her.
"Kirtenzhal. The village back fifteen leagues yon."
"Why is everybody leaving?"
She looked at him with the hostility that fear, fatigue, and resentfulness
that another's security instilled. "Leaving? Leaving where? The village isn't
there anymore."
"Why? What happened?"
"Torn down, it was. Dozers and icemovers came out of the hills and swept it
aside all the houses, everything. Now it's being replanted as a forest."
"But not any kind of forest that you've ever seen," a rob who had stopped with
her to rest put in.
"The machines are all being laid even-spaced in straight rows. The pipes are
in trenches all paralleled and right-angled, regular and neat. It ain't
natural, what's going on."
"It's the Lifemaker's wrath come down on us all!" another worob wailed,
joining them. "The priests were right. We let our minds be poisoned by
heretics. First Kleippur in Carthogia. Then we let
Nogarech take over this country. We were warned. The vengeance is upon us!
We'll all melt and burn!"
Others took up the lament.
"Praise be to the Lifemaker. We were led astray."
"May He preserve the king! Bring back the king."
"Preserve Eskenderom and Frennelech!"
Thirg stepped back and turned to Brongyd. "What do you make of it all?" he
asked.
"I can make nothing of any of it," the naturalist replied. "Entire areas of
the forest seem to be reorganizing themselves according to a common plan. It
is as if some strange, unworldly influence were asserting itself, taking over
the whole scheme of things and redirecting it to some sinister end of its
own."
"Well, the only unworldly influence we've 'ad around 'ere lately is them
bloody Lumians," Mordran
declared. "Weren't there talk goin' round about that bein' why they were
chasin' about like fools after
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Eskenderom instead o' chuckin' 'im in t' methlake along wi' Frennelech an' t'
rest of 'em because they wanted 'im to 'elp 'em tame t' forests? Well, it
looks ter me like maybe they've gone an' done it. Don't yer reckon?"
Thirg hoped not. If the designs of the merchant Lumians who wanted the forests
tamed had advanced this much while Thirg and Brongyd were in hiding, it could
only mean that the wrong faction on
Lumia had prevailed, and the inquirer Lumians and other friends of the Wearer
who defended Kleippur had been vanquished. Yet the great dragon that was
bringing warriors, which had been the Wearer's main cause for worry, could
never have reached Robia so soon. So how could the situation have altered this
drastically in so short a time?
The three hastened on their way, past the column of plodding figures and
creaking wagons, in the direction of Pergassos.
* * *
Meanwhile, near a bridge on the outskirts of Pergassos, a vaguely
bathtub-shaped section of metal casing bumped its way ashore just above where
an assortment of chutes and conduits deposited garbage from the city onto an
outflowing conveyor. The robot inside, clutching a length of scratched and
dented tubing, sat looking around disbelievingly, astounded to have completed
the journey in one piece.
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