“Hate you? Why should I hate you?”
“Look what I’m doing to you!” She was close to tears. Varian clearly did not understand her; she was a compelling blend of emotions and rational thoughts which would forever be a mystery to him. He needed that kind of woman.
“But that doesn’t explain why I would suddenly hate you. . . .”
Tessa dropped her hands to her sides in a gesture of exasperation.
“Oh! You men are impossible sometimes! Why can’t you be more like women? Why can’t you ever understand?”
“I do understand. You don’t want to spend all of your time with me and a couple of hard-edged nomads. You want some of the comforts you tasted in Eleusynnia . . . and you want it with me, right? I understand that. And you don’t want it maybe in a few years, or even longer than that, while we look for the Guardian. You want it as soon as possible. Am I right?”
She looked at him, trying to smile, or trying not to smile. He could not tell which “Yes, that’s right.” She looked down for a moment, then back at him. “And you don’t hate me, or resent me, for wanting that?”
Varian laughed. “No, of course not. Perfectly understandable for a woman to feel like that.”
“I resent the distinction.”
Varian shrugged. “Nevertheless, the distinctions are real enough. I’ve never known any man who would feel like you do. . . .”
“All right then . . . Varian?”
“What?”
“Will you just promise me one thing then?”
“Name it.”
“If you understand how I feel, if you really understand, then will you promise me to think about it seriously?”
He looked at her, trying to divine what she actually meant. “Think about what? About quitting the whole thing and bagging off to G’Rdellia?”
Tessa nodded after a brief hesitation.
“Yes, of course. Of course I’ll think about it. . . .”
She smiled and put her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much. You’ve made me very happy.”
“I have?”
“Yes, but . . . you wouldn’t understand.”.
“That’s what you said before,” he said, holding her in his arms. “Sure you don’t want to try me?”
Tessa nodded. “I’m sure. Let’s just leave it at that, all right?”
Varian shrugged. “All right. . . . Are you sure there isn’t anything else you want me to do?”
Tessa grinned. “Yes, there’s one thing. . . .”
And this time, Varian did understand, very well indeed.
Chapter Six
Three and a half weeks passed before they found the Guardian.
Actually, it was the Finder which first located the ancient complex, and then it was only a vaguely defined area of electromagnetic activity. The group could not be certain it was the Citadel of the Guardian until they were finally within its fortifications, which was an accomplishment in itself.
On a map, the location was in the eastern end of the Ironfields, angling northeasterly to the Carrington Range, which formed the southern borders of the Baadghizi Vale.
Stoor was elated, so much so that he could not think of anything other than homing in on the incoming signals and reaching their origin. This meant a respite from the unending parade of tall tales. Varian was now convinced that Stoor would have had to be several hundred years old to have accomplished even half of the exploits he claimed.
The personnel carrier continued to perform flawlessly, running on the methane converter and the human-excrement fuel. The solar panel/batteries provided warmth and power for their equipment. The machine was a testament to the ingenuity and skill of the First Age, but the group knew that the vehicle was like a child’s toy when contrasted with the miracles of the Guardian’s Citadel, of which the robot, Kartaphilos, had been an impressive example.
Varian had been reluctant to question Tessa on her true feelings about the discovery of the Citadel’s location. Whatever she felt, she masked it beneath a placid and determined demeanor, which belied only a desire to help accomplish the task at hand.
And so they mapped out a course through the ruins of the Ironfields, confident that they were closing in on the quarry. Varian had made the observation during the almost full moon cycle spent in the Ironfields that more than one great battle had been fought here. It seemed that there had been some great explosions or other cataclysmic events that had taken place in the ‘fields which uncovered levels beneath the present one. Sometimes they would rumble into an area where the broken pieces of the First Age were less prevalent, where there were slashes ripped into the semidesert, revealing marbled striping of past strata. In some of these places, the bones of men were so thickly impregnated into the rock as to resemble a white thicket of brambles. Had they been mass graves? Execution areas? The remains of a singular kind of battle which could only be imagined in the blackest nightmare? It was a mystery to be forever lost, they feared, one which led only further into the shadows of other mysteries.
As they grew closer and closer to the signal source, they found other odd things. Lying among the rusting hulks of war, amidst the wind-strewn bones of men, were the bones of other creatures. Although there were few skeletons in relatively intact positions, the group was able to estimate the sizes of these creatures, and they were truly immense. Many of them were bipedal, possessing thighbones as thick as a man’s waist and almost three ems in length. One spinal column found snaking across the sand was more than sixteen ems long! Even if this included some kind of long balancing tail, the creature would have been an impossibly huge animal, towering above men by a full ten ems. In many cases, the scorched skeletons of the large creatures were scattered in certain areas, as if burned down by some kind of immense heat. The imagination reeled when trying to conjure with the horrors which had once stalked this battleplain.
As the kays ticked past, and the
