Andre Norton - Darkness and Dawn

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Darkness and Dawn

Andre Norton

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is

purely coincidental.

Andre Norton

thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Omnibus

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3595-8

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

First printing, March 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norton, Andre.

Darkness and dawn / by Andre Norton.

p. cm.

"Previously published in parts as Star Man's son and No night

without stars"—Jkt.

ISBN 0-7434-3595-8 (pbk.)

1. Regression (Civilization)—Fiction. 2. Nuclear warfare—Fiction.

3. Extinct cities

—Fiction. 4. Science fiction, American. I. Norton, Andre. Star

Man's son, 2250 A.D.

II. Norton, Andre. No night without stars. III. Title: Star Man's son.

IV. Title: No

night without stars. V. Title.

PS3527.O632 D375 2003

813'.52—dc21

2002038393

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

BAEN BOOKS by ANDRE NORTON

Time Traders

Time Traders II

Warlock

Janus

Darkness and Dawn

Daybreak—2250 a.d.

A Thief By Night

A night mist which was almost fog-thick still wrapped most of the Eyrie in a cottony

curtain. Beads of moisture gathered on the watcher's bare arms and hide jerkin. He licked

the wetness from his lips. But he made no move toward shelter, just as he had not during

any of the long black hours behind him.

Hot anger had brought him up on this broken rock point above the village of his tribe.

And something which was very close to real heartbreak kept him there. He propped a

pointed chin—strong, cleft and stubborn—on the palm of a grimy hand and tried to pick

out the buildings which made straight angles in the mist below.

Right before him, of course, was the Star Hall. And as he studied its rough stone

walls, his lips drew tight in what was almost a noiseless snarl. To be one of the Star Men,

honored by all the tribe, consecrated to the gathering and treasuring of knowledge, to the

breaking of new trails and the exploration of lost lands—he, Fors of the Puma Clan, had

never dreamed of any other life. Up until the hour of the Council Fire last night he had

kept on hoping that he would be given the right to enter the Hall. But he had been a child

and a fool to so hope when all the signs had read just the opposite. For five years he had

been passed over at the choosing of youths as if he did not exist. Why then should his

merits suddenly become diamond-bright on the sixth occasion?

Only—his head dropped and his teeth clenched. Only—this was the last year—the

very last year for him. Next year he would be over the age limit allowed a novice. When

he was passed over last night—

Maybe—if his father had come back from that last exploring venture—If he himself

didn't bear the stigma so plainly—His fingers clutched the thick hair on his head, tugging

painfully as if he would have it all out by the roots. His hair was the worst! They might

have forgotten about his night sight and too-keen hearing. He could have concealed those

as soon as he learned how wrong it was to be different. But he could not hide the color of

his close-cropped hair. And that had damned him from the day his father had brought him

here. Other men had brown or black, or, at the worst, sun-bleached yellow, covering their

heads. He had silver white, which showed to all men that he was a mutant, different from

the rest of his clan. Mutant! Mutant!

For more than two hundred years—ever since the black days of chaos following the

Great Blow-up, the nuclear war—that cry had been enough to condemn without trial.

Fear caused it, the strong, instinctive fear of the whole race for anyone cursed with a

different physique or unusual powers.

Ugly tales were told of what had happened to the mutants, those unfortunates born in

the first year after the Blow-up. Some tribes had taken drastic steps in those days to see

that the strain of human—or almost human—lineage be kept pure.

Here in the Eyrie, far apart from the infection of the bombed sectors, mutation had

been almost unknown. But he, Fors, had Plains' blood—tainted, unclean—and, since he

could remember at all, he had never been allowed to put that fact from him.

While his father had lived it had not been so bad. The other children had yelled at him

and there had been fights. But somehow, his father's confidence in him had made even

that seem natural. And in the evenings, when they had shut out the rest of the Eyrie, there

had been long hours of learning to read and write, to map and observe, the lore of the

high trails and the low. Even among the Star Men his father had been a master instructor.

And never had it appeared doubtful to Langdon that his only son Fors would follow him

into the Star Hall.

So even after his father had failed to return from a trip to the lowlands, Fors had been

confident of the future. He had made his weapons, the long bow now lying beside him,

the short stabbing sword, the hunting knife—all with his own hands according to the

Law. He had learned the trails and had found Lura, his great hunting cat—thus fulfilling

all the conditions for the Choosing. For five years he had come to the Fire each season,

with diminishing hope to be sure, and each time to be ignored as if he did not exist. And

now he was too old to try again.

Tomorrow—no, today—he would have to lay aside his weapons and obey the dictates

of the Council. Their verdict would be that he live on sufferance—which was probably

all a mutant could expect—as a worker in one of the cave-sheltered Hydro farms.

No more schooling, no fifteen or twenty years of roving the lowlands, with further

honored years to look forward to as an instructor and guardian of knowledge—a Star

Man, explorer of the wilderness existing in the land where the Great Blow-up had made a

world hostile to man. He would have no part in tracing the old cities where forgotten

knowledge might be discovered and brought back to the Eyrie, in mapping roads and

trails, helping to bring light out of darkness. He couldn't surrender that dream to the will

of the Council!

A low questioning sound came out of the dark and absently he answered with an

assenting thought. A shadow detached itself from a jumble of rocks and crept on velvet

feet, soft belly fur dragging on the moss, to him. Then a furred shoulder almost as wide as

his own nudged against him and he dropped a hand to scratch behind pricked ears. Lura

was impatient. All the wild scents of the woods were rich in her widened nostrils and she

wanted to be on the trail. His hand on her head was a restraint she half resented.

Lura loved freedom. What service she gave was of her own choosing, after the

manner of her kind. He had been so proud two years ago when the most beautifully

marked kitten of Kanda's last litter had shown such a preference for his company. One

day Jarl himself—the Star Captain—had commented on it. How that had raised Fors'

hopes—but nothing had come of the incident, only Lura herself. He rubbed his hot cheek

against the furry head raised to his. She made again the little questioning sound deep in

her throat. She knew his unhappiness.

There was no sign of sunrise. Instead black clouds were gathering above the bald top

of the Big Knob. It would be a stormy day and those below would keep within shelter.

The moisture of the mist had become a drizzle and Lura was manifestly angry at his

stubbornness in not going indoors. But if he went into any building of the Eyrie now it

would be in surrender—a surrender to the loss of the life he had been born to lead, a

surrender to all the whispers, the badge of shameful failure, to the stigma of being

mutant—not as other men. And he could not do that—he couldn't!

If Langdon had stood before the Council last night—

Langdon! He could remember his father so vividly, the tall strong body, the high-held

head with its bright, restless, seeking eyes above a tight mouth and sharp jaw. Only—

Langdon's hair had been safely dark. It was from his unknown Plainswoman mother that

Fors had that too-fair hair which branded him as one apart.

Langdon's shoulder bag with its star badge hung now in the treasure room of the Star

Hall. It had been found with his battered body on the site of his last battle. A fight with

the Beast Things seldom ended in victory for the mountaineers.

He had been on the track of a lost city when he had been killed. Not a "blue city," still

forbidden to men if they wished to live, but a safe place without radiation which could be

looted for the advantage of the Eyrie. For the hundredth time Fors wondered if his

father's theory concerning the tattered bit of map was true—if a safe city did lie

somewhere to the north on the edge of a great lake, ready and waiting for the man lucky

and reckless enough to search it out.

"Ready and waiting—" Fors repeated the words aloud. Then his hand closed almost

viciously on Lura's fur. She growled warningly at his roughness, but he did not hear her.

Why—the answer had been before him all along! Perhaps five years ago he could not

have tried it—perhaps this eternal waiting and disappointment had been for the best after

all. Because now he was ready—he knew it! His strength and the ability to use it, his

knowledge and his wits were all ready.

No light yet showed below. The clouds were prolonging the night. But his time of

grace was short, he would have to move fast! The bow, the filled quiver, the sword, were

hidden between two rocks. Lura crawled in beside them to wait, his unspoken suggestion

agreeing with her own desires.

Fors crept down the twisted trail to the Eyrie and made for the back of the Star Hall.

The bunks of the Star Men on duty were all in the forepart of the house; the storage room

was almost directly before him. And luck was favoring him as it never had before, for the

heavy shutter was not bolted or even completely closed as his exploring fingers

discovered. After all—no one had ever dreamed of invading the Star Hall unasked.

Moving as noiselessly as Lura he swung over the high sill and stood breathing in a

light flutter. To the ordinary man of the Eyrie the room would have been almost pitch

dark. But, for once, Fors' mutant night sight was an aid. He could see the long table and

the benches without difficulty, make out the line of pouches hanging on the far wall.

These were his goal. His hand closed unerringly on one he had helped to pack many

times. But when he lifted it from its hook he detached the gleaming bit of metal pinned to

its strap.

To his father's papers and belongings he might prove some shadowy claim. But to

that Star he had no right. His lips twisted in a bitter grimace as he laid the badge down on

the edge of the long table before clambering back into the grayness of the outer world.

Now that the pouch swung from his shoulder he went openly to the storage house and

selected a light blanket, a hunter's canteen and a bag of traveler's corn kept in readiness

there. Then, reclaiming his weapons and the impatient Lura, he started off—not toward

the narrow mountain valleys where all of his hunting had been done, but down toward the

forbidden plains. A chill born of excitement rather than the bite of the rising wind

roughened his skin, but his step was sure and confident as he hunted out the path blazed

by Langdon more than ten years before, a path which was not watched by any station of

the outpost guards.

Many times around the evening fires had the men of the Eyrie discussed the plains

below and the strange world which had felt the force of the Great Blow-up and been

turned into an alien, poisonous trap for any human not knowing its ways. Why, in the

past twenty years even the Star Men had mapped only four cities, and one of them was

"blue" and so forbidden.

They knew the traditions of the old times. But, Langdon had always insisted even

while he was repeating the stories to Fors, they could not judge how much of this

information had been warped and distorted by time. How could they be sure that they

were of the same race as those who had lived before the Blow-up? The radiation sickness,

which had cut the number of survivors in the Eyrie to less than half two years after the

war, might well have altered the future generations. Surely the misshapen Beast Things

must once have had a human origin—or had they? Men were playing with the very stuff

of life before the Blow-up. And the Beast Things clung to the old cities where the worst

mutations had occurred.

The men of the Eyrie had records to prove that their forefathers had been a small band

of technicians and scientists engaged in some secret research, cut off from a world which

disappeared so quickly. But there were the Plainsmen of the wide grasslands, also free

from the taint of the beast, who had survived and now roamed with their herds.

And there might be others.

Who had started the nuclear war was unknown. Fors had once seen an old book

containing jotted fragments of messages which had come out of the air through machines

during a single horrible day. And these broken messages only babbled of the death of a

world.

But that was all the men of the mountains knew of the last war. And while they

fought ceaselessly to keep alive the old skills and learning there was so much, so very

much, they no longer understood. They had old maps with pink and green, blue and

yellow patches all carefully marked. But the pink and green, blue and yellow areas had

had no defense against fire and death from the air and so had ceased to be. Only now

could men, venturing out from their pockets of safety into the unknown, bring back bits

of knowledge which they might piece together into history.

Somewhere, within a mile or so of the trail he had chosen, Fors knew that there was a

section of pre-Blow-up road. And that might be followed by the cautious for about a

day's journey north. He had seen and handled the various trophies brought back by his

father and his father's comrades, but he had never actually traveled the old roads or

sniffed the air of the lowlands for himself. His pace quickened to a lope and he did not

even feel the steady pour of the rain which streamed across his body plastering even his

blanket to him. Lura protested with every leap she made to keep pace with him, but she

did not go back. The excitement which drew him on at such an unwary speed had spread

to the always sensitive mind of the great cat who made her way through the underbrush

with sinuous ease.

The old road was almost a disappointment when he stumbled out upon it. Once it

must have had a smooth surface, but time, disuse, and the spreading greedy force of wild

vegetation had seamed and broken it. Nevertheless it was a marvel to be examined

closely by one who had never seen such footing before. Men had ridden on it once

encased in machines. Fors knew that, he had seen pictures of such machines, but their

fashioning was now a mystery. The men of the Eyrie knew facts about them, painfully

dug out of the old books brought back from city lootings, but the materials and fuels for

their production were now beyond hope of obtaining.

Lura did not like the roadway. She tried it with a cautious paw, sniffed at the upturned

edge of a block, and went back to firm ground. But Fors stepped out on it boldly, walking

the path of the Old Ones even when it would have been easier to take to the bush. It gave

him an odd feeling of power to tread so. This stuff beneath his hide boots had been

fashioned by those of his race who had been wiser and stronger and more learned. It was

up to those of his breed to regain that lost wisdom.

"Ho, Lura!"

The cat paused at his exultant call and swung the dark brown mask of her face toward

him. Then she meowed plaintively, conveying the thought that she was being greatly

misused by this excursion into the dampness of an exceedingly unpleasant day.

She was beautiful indeed. Fors' feeling of good will and happiness grew within him as

he watched her. Since he had left the last step of the mountain trail he had felt a curious

sense of freedom and for the first time in his life he did not care about the color of his

hair or feel that he must be inferior to the others of his clan. He had all his father had

taught him well in mind, and in the pouch swinging at his side, his father's greatest secret.

He had a long bow no other youth of his age could string, a bow of his own making. His

sword was sharp and balanced to suit his hand alone. There was all the lower world

before him and the best of companions to match his steps.

Lura licked at her wet fur and Fors caught a flash of—was it her thoughts or just

emotion? None of the Eyrie dwellers had ever been able to decide how the great cats

were able to communicate with the men they chose to honor with their company. Once

there had been dogs to run with man—Fors had read of them. But the strange radiation

sickness had been fatal to the dogs of the Eyrie and their breed had died out forever.

Because of that same plague the cats had changed. Small domestic animals of

untamable independence had produced larger offspring with even quicker minds and

greater strength. Mating with wild felines from the tainted plains had established the new

mutation. The creature which now rubbed against Fors was the size of a mountain lion of

pre-Blow-up days, but her thick fur was of a deep shade of cream, darkening on head,

legs, and tail to a chocolate brown—after the coloring set by a Siamese ancestor first

brought into the mountains by the wife of a research engineer. Her eyes were the deep

sapphire blue of a true gem, but her claws were cruelly sharp and she was a master

hunter.

That taste possessed her now as she drew Fors' attention to a patch of moist ground

where the slot of a deer was deep marked. The trail was fresh—even as he studied it a bit

of sand tumbled from the top into the hollow of the mark. Deer meat was good and he

had few supplies. It might be worth turning aside. He need not speak to Lura—she knew

his decision and was off on the trail at once. He padded after her with the noiseless woods

walk he had learned so long before that he could not remember the lessons.

The trail led off at a right angle from the remains of the old road, across the tumbled

line of a wall where old bricks protruded at crazy points from heaped earth and brush.

Water from leaves and branches doused both hunters, gluing Fors' homespun leggings to

his legs and squeezing into his boots.

He was puzzled. By the signs, the deer had been fleeing for its life and yet whatever

menaced it had left no trace. But Fors was not afraid. He had never met any living thing,

man or animal, which could stand against the force of his steel-tipped arrows or which he

would have hesitated to face, short sword in hand.

Between the men of the mountains and the roving Plainsmen there was a truce. The

Star Men often lived for periods of time in the skin-walled tents of the herders,

exchanging knowledge of far places with those eternal wanderers. And his father had

taken a wife among the outlanders. Of course, there was war to the death between the

human kind and the Beast Things which skulked in the city ruins. But the latter had never

been known to venture far from their dank, evil-smelling burrows in the shattered

buildings, and certainly one need not fear meeting with them in this sort of open country!

So he followed the trail with a certain reckless disregard.

The trail ended suddenly on the lip of a small gully. Some ten feet or so below, a

stream—swollen by the rain—frothed around green-grown rocks. Lura was on her belly,

pulling her body forward along the rim of the ravine. Fors dropped down and inched

behind a bush. He knew better than to interfere with her skillful approach.

When the tip of her brown tail quivered he watched for a trembling of Lura's flat

flanks which would signalize her spring. But instead the tail suddenly bristled and the

shoulders hunched as if to put a brake upon muscles already tensed. He caught her

message of bewilderment, of disgust and, yes, of fear.

He knew that he had better eyesight than almost all of the Eyrie men, that had been

proved many times. But what had stopped Lura in her tracks was gone. True, upstream a

bush still swayed as if something had just pushed past it. But the sound of the water

covered any noise and although he strained—there was nothing to see.

Lura's ears lay flat against her skull and her eyes were slits of blazing rage. But

beneath the rage Fors grasped another emotion—almost fear. The big cat had come

across something strange and therefore suspect. Aroused by her message Fors lowered

himself over the edge of the gully. Lura made no attempt to stop him. Whatever had

troubled her was gone, but he was determined to see what traces it might have left in its

passing.

The greenish stones of the river bank were sleek and slippery with spray, and twice he

had to catch hurriedly at bushes to keep from falling into the stream. He got to his hands

and knees to move across one rock and then he was at the edge of the bush which had

fluttered.

A red pool, sticky but already being diluted by the rain and the spray, filled a clay

hollow. He tasted it with the aid of a finger. Blood. Probably that of the deer they had

been following.

Then, just beyond, he saw the spoor of the hunter that had brought it down. It was

stamped boldly into the clay, deeply as if the creature that made it had balanced for a

moment under a weight, perhaps the body of the deer. And it was too clear to mistake the

outline—the print of a naked foot.

No man of the Eyrie, no Plainsman had left that track! It was narrow and the same

width from heel to toe—as if the thing which had left it was completely flat-footed. The

toes were much too long and skeleton-thin. Beyond their tips were indentations of—not

nails—but what must be real claws!

Fors' skin crawled. It was unhealthy—that was the word which came into his mind as

he stared at the track. He was glad—and then ashamed of that same gladness—that he

had not seen the hunter in person.

Lura pushed past him. She tasted the blood with a dainty tongue and then lapped it

once or twice before she came on to inspect his find. Again flattened ears and wrinkled,

snarling lips gave voice to her opinion of the vanished hunter. Fors strung his bow for

action. For the first time the chill of the day struck him. He shivered as a flood of water

spouted at him over the rocks.

With more caution they went back up the slope. Lura showed no inclination to follow

any trail the unknown hunter might have left and Fors did not suggest it to her. This wild

world was Lura's real home and more than once the life of a Star Man had depended upon

the instincts of his hunting cat. If Lura saw no reason to risk her skin downriver, he

would abide by her choice.

They came back to the road. But now Fors used hunting craft and the trail-covering

tricks which normally one kept only for the environs of a ruined city—those haunted

places where death still lay in wait to strike down the unwary. It had stopped raining but

the clouds did not lift.

Toward noon he brought down a fat bird Lura flushed out of a tangle of brush and

they shared the raw flesh of the fowl equally.

It was close to dusk, shadows falling early because of the storm, when they came out

upon a hill above the dead village the old road served.

Into the Midst of Yesterday

Even in the pre-Blow-up days when it had been lived in, the town must have been

neither large nor impressive. But to Fors, who had never before seen any buildings but

those of the Eyrie, it was utterly strange and even a bit frightening. The wild vegetation

had made its claim and moldering houses were now only lumps under the greenery. One

water-worn pier at the edge of the river which divided the town marked a bridge long

since fallen away.

Fors hesitated on the heights above for several long minutes. There was a forbidding

quality in that tangled wilderness below, a sort of moldy rankness rising on the evening

wind from the hollow which cupped the ruins. Wind, storm and wild animals had had

their way there too long.

On the road to one side was a heap of rusted metal which he thought must be the

remains of a car such as the men of the old days had used for transportation. Even then it

must have been an old one. Because just before the Blow-up they had perfected another

type, with an entirely different propulsion system and non-metallic bodies. Sometimes

Star Men had found those almost intact. He skirted the wreckage and, keeping to the

thread of battered road, went down into the town.

Lura trotted beside him, her head high as she tested each passing breeze for scent.

Quail took flight into the tall grass and somewhere a cock pheasant called. Twice the scut

of a rabbit showed white and clear against the green.

There were flowers in that tangle, defending themselves with hooked thorns, the

twining stems which bore them looped and relooped into barriers he could not crash

through. And all at once the setting sun broke between cloud lines to bring their scarlet

petals into angry life. Insects chirped in the grass. The storm was over.

The travelers pushed through into an open space bordered on all sides by crumbling

mounds of buildings. From somewhere came the sound of water and Fors beat a path

through the rank shrubbery to where a trickle of stream fed a man-made basin.

In the lowlands water must always be suspect—he knew that. But the clear stream

before him was much more appetizing than the musty stuff which had sloshed all day in

the canteen at his belt. Lura lapped it unafraid, shaking her head to free her whiskers from

stray drops. So he dared to cup up a palmful and sip it gingerly.

The pool lay directly before a freak formation of rocks which might have once been

heaped up to form a cave. And the mat of leaves which had collected inside there was

dry. He crept in. Surely there would be no danger in camping here. One never slept in any

of the old houses, of course. There was no way of telling whether the ghosts of ancient

disease still lingered in their rottenness. Men had died from that carelessness. But here—

in among the leaves he saw white bones. Some other hunter—a four-footed one—had

already dined.

Fors kicked out the refuse and went prospecting for wood not too sodden to burn.

There were places in and among the clustered rocks where winds had piled branches and

he returned to the cave with one, then two, and finally three armloads, which he piled

within reaching distance.

Out in the plains fire could be an enemy as well as a friend. A carelessly tended blaze

in the wide grasslands might start one of the oceans of flame which would run for miles

driving all living things before it. And in an enemy's country it was instant betrayal. So

even when he had his small circle of sticks in place Fors hesitated, flint and steel in hand.

There was the mysterious hunter—what if he were lurking now in the maze of the ruined

town?

Yet both he and Lura were chilled and soaked by the rain. To sleep cold might mean

illness to come. And, while he could stomach raw meat when he had to, he relished it

broiled much more. In the end it was the thought of the meat which won over his caution,

but even when a tread of flame arose from the center of his wheel of sticks, his hand still

hovered ready to put it out. Then Lura came up to watch the flames and he knew that she

would not be so at her ease if any danger threatened. Lura's eyes and nose were both

infinitely better than his own.

Later, simply by freezing into a hunter's immobility by the pool, he was able to knock

over three rabbits. Giving Lura two, he skinned and broiled the third. The setting sun was

red and by the old signs he could hope for a clear day tomorrow. He licked his fingers,

dabbled them in the water, and wiped them on a tuft of grass. Then for the first time that

day he opened the pouch he had stolen before the dawn.

He knew what was inside, but this was the first time in years that he held in his hand

again the sheaf of brittle old papers and read the words which had been carefully traced

across them in his father's small, even script. Yes—he was humming a broken little

tune—it was here, the scrap of map his father had treasured so—the one which showed

the city to the north, a city which his father had hoped was safe and yet large enough to

yield rich loot for the Eyrie.

But it was not easy to read his father's cryptic notes. Langdon had made them for his

own use and Fors could only guess at the meaning of such directions as "snake river to

the west of barrens," "Northeast of the wide forest" and all the rest. Landmarks on the old

maps were now gone, or else so altered by time that a man might pass a turning point and

never know it. As Fors frowned over the scrap which had led his father to his death he

began to realize a little of the enormity of the task before him. Why, he didn't even know

all the safe trails which had been blazed by the Star Men through the years, except by

hearsay. And if he became lost—

His fingers tightened around the roll of precious papers. Lost in the lowlands! To

wander off the trails—!

Silky fur pressed against him and a round head butted his ribs. Lura had caught that

sudden nip of fear and was answering it in her own way. Fors' lungs filled slowly. The

humid air of the lowlands lacked the keen bite of the mountain winds. But he was free

and he was a man. To return to the Eyrie was to acknowledge defeat. What if he did lose

himself down here? There was a whole wide land to make his own! Why, he could go on

and on across it until he reached the salt sea which tradition said lay at the rim of the

world. This whole land was his for the exploring!

He delved deeper into the bag on his knee. Besides the notes and the torn map he

found the compass he had hoped would be there, a small wooden case containing pencils,

a package of bandages and wound salve, two small surgical knives, and a roughly

fashioned notebook—the daily record of a Star Man. But to his vast disappointment the

entries there were merely a record of distances. On impulse he set down on one of the

blank pages an account of his own day's travel, trying to make a drawing of the strange

footprint. Then he repacked the pouch.

Lura stretched out on the leaf bed and he flopped down beside her, pulling the blanket

over them both. It was twilight now. He pushed the sticks in toward the center of the fire

so that the unburnt ends would be consumed. The soft rumble of the cat's purr as she

washed her paws, biting at the spaces between her claws, made his eyes heavy. He flung

an arm over her back and she favored him with a lick of her tongue. The rasp of it across

his skin was the last thing he clearly remembered.

There were birds in the morning, a whole flock of them, and they did not approve of

Lura. Their scolding cries brought Fors awake. He rubbed his eyes and looked out

groggily at a gray world. Lura sat in the mouth of the cave, paying no attention to the

chorus over her head. She yawned and looked back at Fors with some impatience.

He dragged himself out to join her and pulled off his roughly dried clothes before

bathing in the pool. It was cold enough to set him sputtering and Lura withdrew to a safe

distance. The birds flew away in a black flock. Fors dressed, lacing up his sleeveless

jerkin and fastening his boots and belt with extra care.

A more experienced explorer would not have wasted time on the forgotten town.

Long ago any useful loot it might have once contained had either been taken away or had

moldered into rubbish. But it was the first dead place Fors had seen and he could not

leave it without some examination. He followed the road around the square. Only one

building still stood unharmed enough to allow entrance. Its stone walls were rank with

ivy and moss, its empty windows blind. He shuffled through the dried leaves and grass

which masked the broad flight of steps leading to its wide door.

There was the whir of disturbed grasshoppers in the leaves, as a wasp sang past. Lura

pawed at something which lay just within the doorway. It rolled away into the dusk of the

interior and they followed. Fors stopped to trace with an inquiring finger the letters on a

bronze plate.

"First National Bank of Glentown."

He read the words aloud and they echoed hollowly down the long room, through the

empty cage-like booths along the wall.

"First National Bank," he repeated. What was a bank? He had only a vague idea—

some sort of a storage place. And this dead town must be Glentown—or once it had been

Glentown.

Lura had found again her round toy and was batting it along the cracked flooring. It

skidded to strike the base of one of the cages just in front of Fors. Round eyeholes stared

up at him accusingly from a half-crushed skull. He stooped and picked it up to set it on

the stone shelf. Dust arose in a thick puff. A pile of coins spun and jingled in all

directions, their metallic tinkle clear.

There were lots of the coins here, all along the shelves behind the cage fronts. He

scooped up handfuls and sent them rolling to amuse Lura. But they had no value. A piece

of good, rust-proof steel would be worth the taking—not these. The darkness of the place

began to oppress him and no matter which way he turned he thought he could feel the

gaze of that empty skull. He left, calling Lura to follow.

There was a dankness in the heart of this town, the air here had the faint corruption of

ancient decay, mixed with the fresher scent of rotting wood and moldering vegetation. He

wrinkled his nose against it and pushed on down a choked street, climbing over piles of

rubble, heading toward the river. That stream had to be crossed some way if he were to

travel straight to the goal his father had mapped. It would be easy for him to swim the

thick brownish water, although it was still roily from the storm, but he knew that Lura

would not willingly venture in. He was certainly not going to leave her behind.

Fors struck out east along the bank above the flood. A raft of some sort would be the

answer, but he would have to get away from the ruins before he could find trees. And he

chafed at the loss of time.

There was a sun today, climbing up, striking specks of light from the water. By

turning his head he could still see the foothills and, behind them, the bluish heights down

which he had come twenty-four hours before. But he glanced back only once, his

attention was all for the river now.

Half an hour later he came across a find which saved him hours of back-breaking

labor. A sharp break in the bank outlined a narrow cove where the river rose during the

spring freshets. Now it was half choked with drift, from big logs to delicate, sunbleached

twigs he could snap between his fingers. He had only to pick and choose.

By the end of the morning he had a raft, crude and certainly not intended for a long

voyage, but it should serve to float them across. Lura had her objections to the

foolishness of trusting to such a crazy woven platform. But, when Fors refused to stay

safely ashore, she pulled herself aboard it, one cautious paw testing each step before she

put her full weight upon it. And in the exact middle she squatted down with a sigh as Fors

leaned hard on his pole and pushed off.

The weird craft showed a tendency to spin around which he had to work against. And

once his pole caught in a mud bank below and he was almost jerked off into the flood.

But as the salty sweat stung across his lips and burned in his blistered palms he could see

that the current, though taking them downstream, was slowly nudging them toward the

opposite bank.

Sun rays reflected by the water made them both warm and thirsty, and Lura gave

small whines of self-pity all the rest of the hour. Still, she grew accustomed enough to the

new mode of travel to sit up and watch keen-eyed when a fish rose to snap at a fly. Once

they slipped past a mass of decayed wreckage which must have been the remains of a

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摘要：

DarknessandDawnAndreNortonThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©2003byAndreNortonDaybreak—2250a.d.(alsopublishedasStarMan'sSon)copyright©1952byHarcourt,Brace&Co.NoNightWithoutStarscopyright...

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Andre Norton - Darkness and Dawn

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