slab that he and Mary had uncovered, the slab that was located at the edge of the circle of white sand surrounding the cube. They sat there, cross-legged, and played their unending game of cards.
They did not notice him when he walked up to them, and he stood for a while to watch them at their play.
Then he said, “I think I should thank you gentlemen for throwing me the rope.”
At his words, they looked up and stared at him out of their white-china faces with the round, browless eyeholes and the black agates suspended in the eyeholes, the twin slashes for nostrils and the one slash for the mouth.
They said nothing, only stared at him, expressionless, although he thought that he saw some annoyance and rebuke in those smooth white faces, like white, round doorknobs with faces painted on them.
Then one of them said, “Please move on. You are standing in our light.”
Lansing backed up a step or two, then after a pause backed away until he was standing on the road. The four card players already had gone back to their play.
Mary had not been in the city, he thought; had she been she would have seen his fire and come to it. And she was not here. There was one more place to look.
Doggedly he went on down the road, with no hope left, but still driven by the necessity to continue his search until there was no place else to go.
Night had fallen when he reached the inn. No light showed in the windows, no smoke issued from the chimney. Somewhere in the woods a lonely owl was hooting.
Walking up to the door, he seized the latch. It did not respond to the pressure of his thumb; apparently it was locked. He knocked on the door and there was no answer. He ceased his knocking and listened for the scuff of feet across the floor within. Hearing nothing, he knotted his fists and hammered at the door. Suddenly the door came open and, leaning as he had been in his vigorous pounding, he stumbled across the threshold.
Mine Host stood just inside, one hand on the open door and the other holding a stubby candle in his massive fist. He lifted the candle so that its light fell full on Lansing’s face.
“So it’s you,” said Mine Host, in a terrible voice. “What is it that you want?”
“I am looking for a woman. Mary. You remember her?”
“She is not here.”
“Has she been here? Did she come and leave?”
“I have not seen her since you left.”
Lansing swung about and walked to the table by the dark fireplace, sat down in a chair. The wind was out of him. Quite suddenly he felt weak and worthless. This was the end of it. There was no place else to go.
Mine Host closed the door and followed him to the table. He set the candle on it.
“You cannot stay,” he said. “I’m leaving. I’m closing for the winter.”
“Mine Host,” said Lansing, “you forget your manners and neglect your hospitality. I am staying here for the night and you’ll find me food.”
“There is no bed for you,” said Mine Host. “The beds are all made up and I’ll not make one up again. If you wish, you may sleep upon the floor.”
“Most willingly,” said Lansing, “and how about some food?”
“I have a pot of soup. You can have a bowl of that. There is a mutton roast, or what is left of a mutton roast. I think I can find a heel of bread.”
“That will do quite well,” said Lansing.
“You know, of course, you cannot stay. In the morning you must leave.”
“Yes, of course,” said Lansing, too weary to argue.
He sat in the chair and watched Mine Host lumber toward the kitchen, where a dim light shone. Supper, he thought, and a floor to sleep upon and in the morning he would leave. Once he left, where would he go? Back up the road again, most likely, past the cube and then on to the city, still searching for Mary, but with slight hope of finding her. More than likely in the end he would wind up in the camp beside the river, with the other lost ones who were scratching out a life of sorts. It was a dismal prospect and one that he did not care to face, yet it probably was the only option that was left to him. If he should find Mary, what then? Would the two of them in the end be forced to seek refuge in the camp? He shivered, thinking of it.
Mine Host brought in the food and thumped it on the table in front of Lansing, then turned to leave.
“Just a moment,” Lansing said. “I’ll need to buy supplies before I leave.”
“I can let you have all the food you wish,” said the innkeeper, “but the rest of the merchandise is packed away.”
“That’s all right,” said Lansing. “It’s mainly food I need.”
The soup was tasty; the bread was days old and hard, but he dipped it in the soup and ate it. He had never cared for mutton, let alone cold mutton, but he ate several thick slices of it and he was glad to have it.
The next morning, after a bad night’s sleep and a breakfast of oatmeal, grudgingly provided by Mine Host, Lansing, after some haggling over payment, bought a supply of food and started up the road.
The weather, which had been fine and sunny during all the time since Lansing had first come into the world, turned cloudy and blustery. A sharp, cruel wind blew out of the northwest and at times there were short sleet squalls, the pellets of ice stinging his face.
As he came down the steep plunge into the bowl where the cube sat, a dull gray under the clouded sky, he saw that the card players were no longer there.
He reached the bottom of the hill and started across the level ground, aiming for the cube, head bent against the wind.
At the sound of a shout, he jerked his head up and there she was, running down the road toward him.
“Mary!” he shouted, breaking into a run.
Then she was in his arms, clinging to him. Tears ran down her cheeks as she lifted her head to take his kiss.
“I found your note,” she said. “I hurried. I was trying to catch up with you.”
“Thank God you’re here,” he said. “Thank God I found you.”
“Did the landlady at the inn give you my note?”
“She said you’d left one, but she lost it. Both of us looked for it. We tore the inn apart; we couldn’t find it.”
“I wrote you I was going to the city and would meet you there. Then I got lost in the badlands. I got off the trail and couldn’t find it again. I wandered for days, not knowing where I was, then all at once I climbed a hill and the city lay below me.”
“I’ve been hunting you ever since I got back to the singing tower. I found Sandra dead and—”
“She was dead before I left. I would have stayed, but the Wailer showed up. He kept edging in on me, closer all the time. I was afraid — Lord, how frightened I was. I headed for the inn. He trailed me all the way. I knew you would come to the inn to find me, but the landlady ordered me out. I had no money and she wouldn’t let me stay, so I wrote the note to you and left. The Wailer didn’t show up and it was all right, then I got lost.”
He kissed her. “It’s all right now,” he said. “We found one another. We are together.”
“Where is Jurgens? Is he with you?”
“He’s lost. He fell into Chaos.”
“Chaos? Edward, what is Chaos?”
“I’ll tell you later. There’ll be lots of time. Jorgenson and Melissa came back from the west, but they didn’t come with me.”
She stepped away from him.
“Edward,” she said.
“Yes, what is it, Mary?”
“I think I know our answer. It’s the cube. It was the cube all the time.”
“The cube?”
“I just thought of it, just awhile ago, walking down the road. Something that we overlooked. Something that we never thought of. It just came to me. I wasn’t even thinking of it, then suddenly I knew it.”
“Knew it? For God’s sake, Mary…”
“Well, I can’t be sure. But I think I’m right. You remember the flat stones that we found, the slabs of stone,
