The others came out of their stupor as he pointed, warning them to
silence. The broad track curved ahead and vanished out of sight beyond
a great reef of white coral. The wind had not had time to do more than
blur the edges of the individual prints.
Mounting and whipping their beasts unmercifully, Carey and the others
fled the track. The reef stood high above them like a wall. Along its
base were cavernous holes, and they found one big enough to hold them
all. Carey went on alone and on foot to the shoulder of the reef, where
the riders had turned it, and the wind went with him, piping and crying
in the vast honeycomb of the coral.
He crept around the shoulder and then he saw where he was.
On the other side of the reef was a dry lagoon, stretching perhaps
half a mile to a coral island that stood up tall in the hard clear
sunlight, its naked cliffs beautifully striated with deep rose and
white and delicate pink. A noble stairway went up from the desert to
a city of walls and towers so perfectly built from many-shaded marble
and so softly sculptured by time that it was difficult to tell where
the work of men began and ended. Carey saw it through a shimmering haze
of exhaustion and wonder, and knew that he looked at Sinharat, the
Ever-Living.
The trampled track of the Shunni warriors went out across the lagoon.
It swept furiously around what had been a parked flier, and then passed
on, leaving behind it battered wreckage and two dark sprawled shapes.
It ended at the foot of the cliffs, where Carey could see a sort of
orderly turmoil of men and animals. There were between twenty-five and
thirty warriors, as nearly as he could guess. They were making camp.
Carey knew what that meant. There was someone in the city.
Carey did not move for some time. He stared at the beautiful marble
city shimmering on its lovely pedestal of coral. He wanted to weep,
but there was not enough moisture left in him to make tears, and his
despair was gradually replaced by a feeble anger. All right, you
bastards, he thought. All right!
He went back to Derech and Arrin and told them what he had seen.
"Wales just came ahead of us and waited. Why bother to search a whole
desert when he knew where we were going? This time he'd have us for
sure. Water. We couldn't run away." Carey grinned horribly with his
cracked lips and swollen tongue. "Only the Shunni found him first.
War party. They must have seen the flier go over--came to check if it
landed here. Caught two men in it. But the rest are in Sinharat."
"How do you know?" asked Derech.
"The Shunni won't go into the city except as a last resort. If they
catch a trespasser there they just hold the well and wait. Sooner or
later he comes down."