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Carl saw wonderingly, and some of the old dishes and glasses and metal ornaments stood on the crude wooden tables of this age. Had the world really sunk so far from greatness?
    Ronwy lit candles, chasing the gloom back into the corners, and motioned them to chairs. “Be seated,” he said. “My servants will take care of your horses and bring food shortly. I’m glad of your company. My wife is long dead and my sons are grown men and it’s lonesome here. You must tell me what is going on in the Dales.”
    Tom shivered in the evening chill and Ronwy began to stoke the fireplace. It had been built in later days, with the chimney going upthrough a hole in the cracked ceiling. “In the ancient time,” said the Chief, “there was always warmth in here, without fire; and if you wanted light, it came from little glass balls which only had to be touched.”
    Carl looked at the table beside his chair. A book lay on it, and he picked it up and leafed through the yellowed pages with awe in him.
    “Do you know what that is?” asked Ronwy.
    “It’s called a book,” said Carl. “The High Doctor in Dalestown has a few.”
    “Can you read?”
    “Yes, sir, and write too. I’m the Chief’s son, so I had to learn. We sometimes send letters—” Carl puzzled over the words before him. “But this doesn’t make sense!”
    “It’s a physics text,” answered Ronwy. “It explains—well—how the ancients did some of their magic.” He smiled sadly. “I’m afraid it doesn’t mean much to me either.”
    A serving-woman brought dishes of food and the boys attacked it hungrily. Afterward they sat and talked of many things until Ronwy showed them to bed.
    He liked the City, Carl decided as he lay waiting for sleep to come. It was hard to believe in this quiet place that war and death waited outside. But he remembered grimly that the Lann had hunted him to the very edge of the tabooed zone. The witch-folk wouldn’t let him stay long here, in spite of Ronwy—and the Lann swords would be waiting, sharp and hungry, for him to come out again.

CHAPTER 3
Wisdom of the Ancients
    I N THE morning, at breakfast, Ronwy told the boys: “I will gather the men of the City in council today and try to get them to vote for making the things you need. These northern invaders are a savage people, and the Dalesmen have always been our friends,” His smile was a little bitter. “Or as nearly our friends as we outcasts have.”
    “Where is the meeting held?” asked Tom.
    “In the great hall down the street,” said Ronwy. “But by our law, no outsiders may attend such councils, so you might as well explore the City today. If you aren’t afraid of ghosts and devils—and I, in all my life here, have never met any—you should be interested.”
    “The City!” Carl’s heart thudded with sudden excitement. The City, the City, the wonderful magic City—
he
would be roaming through it!
    “Be careful, though,” said Ronwy. “There are many old pits and other dangerous places hidden by brush and rubble. Snakes are not unknown either. I will see you here again in the evening.”
    Taking some bread and meat along for lunch, Carl and his friends wandered outside and down the streets. Whatever fear they had was soon lost in the marvel of it all; but a great awe, tinged with the sorrow of a world’s loss, took its place.
    The witch-folk were about their daily business, sullenly ignoringthe strangers. Women cooked and spun and tended babies. Children scrambled through empty houses and over great heaps of rubble, or sat listening to the words of an old teacher sitting under a tree. Men were doing their various tasks. Some worked in the little gardens planted in open spaces, some were in smithies and carpenter shops, some drove wagonloads of goods down wide avenues which must have carried more traffic in the old days than Carl could imagine. The boy was struck afresh by the pitiful smallness of this life, huddled in the vast wreck of its godlike