Quest Beyond Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

have seen where the cities were,’ and he gestured toward where Mike still half-believed that Sydney stood, ‘and they were vast. I have stood on their mounds and middens, and walked three days and have still stood on their mounds and middens.’
    ‘Mounds? Middens? They’re covered up then?’ Mike asked. ‘How do you know there are cities underneath?’
    On his right, Katrin drew breath inwards between her teeth. She looked at Simon, as if expecting some action on his part. Simon smiled, and shook his head. ‘In the time he comes from, Katrin, they did not fight for insult.’
    ‘Insult?’ Mike was puzzled. ‘I wasn’t being rude. Just asking how he knew . . .’
    ‘You questioned a chieftain’s truth,’ Katrin said.
    ‘I know there are cities underneath,’ Simon went on, as Mike opened his mouth to argue, ‘because of what the Little People mine out of them.’ He put out his hand to Katrin, and she laid the shortsword on his palm. Mike looked at the words on the blade, thrown into dark relief by the firelight. ‘All of our weapons, our tools, all our steel, and copper and gold . . .’ He returned Katrin her sword and for a moment held up his hand and let the folds of his cloak drop back from his wrist, displaying a dull red-gold bracelet worked into intricately twined knots. ‘All our metal and metalwork come from them. Dug out of the buried cities of the giants by the Little People, and then forged and wrought by them.’
    ‘Who are they? These Little People?’ Mike could not stop himself from asking, though part of his mind was still unconvinced.
    ‘They call themselves the First Returners. The first to go back to where the cities stood. There is something in the earth there that’s dangerous for most of us to live near for long. It’s the Bad Country. The songs tell us that many of the First Returners died. Some folk think they’re small because of what is in the earth where they live. Who knows?’
    ‘Radioactivity?’
    His words drew a strange response. They closed their eyes, placed the tips of their right index and middle fingers to their left eyes and swiftly drew them across both eyelids. Then they paused, and opened their eyes and looked at him solemnly.
    ‘That is not to be spoken,’ said Katrin.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The word.’
    Silence fell on them like a blanket. Mike stared into the flames, his reason repeating to him that these people were living a grotesque fantasy, while all the evidence of his senses told him that they spoke the truth. Finally he looked at Simon.
    ‘What happened then? After The War?’
    ‘The Great Darkness. Some, a few, lived through it. It was the time of the forming of the Clans. When children were born, some . . . were altered. Those could not be of the Clans. Those became the Wanderers.’
    ‘Mutants,’ Mike said.
    Again, they closed their eyes and made the swift drawing motion across their eyelids.
    ‘Is that another word? Not to be spoken?’
    They nodded.
    Silence fell once again. Mike suddenly realized that, at some point, the piping outside had ceased without his noticing.
    After a time, Simon spoke. ‘We need your help. The Sickness is among us and without help we shall all die.’
    Mike looked swiftly at Katrin, sitting cross-legged, honing her sword with smooth strokes of the stone. Simon took in Mike’s reaction, and answered it.
    ‘Yes. Katrin, too. All will die.’
    ‘I told her. I’m not a doctor.’
    Simon looked at him intently. ‘You do not remember? The gods did not tell you? When they brought you here? They said nothing to you of why you were sent again?’
    ‘Again?’
    Simon did not answer, but looked beyond him, and Mike became aware that someone had entered the hall behind him. Silently, Fergus moved into the half-circle of firelight, and squatted alongside Katrin. She looked at him in question and he shrugged. ‘I saw nothing in the Eye,’ he murmured.
    ‘You can fly,’ said Simon. ‘Off the coast to the south is the