Norman Spinrad

"These are strange woods," Bogel agreed. "Strange people live in them today—bands of nomadic huntsmen, gatherers of wild mushrooms and forest herbs, occasional brigands. If one believes the tall stories, even practicers of black pre-Pire arts."

Feric smiled. "Do you fear the sorcerers and trolls of the Wood, then, Bogel?" he jibed.

"I have no truck with such superstitious rubbish," Bogel replied. "However, it is historical fact that a few of the ancients survived in these woods at least long enough to craft the Great Truncheon of Held for Stal Held, who lived many generations after the Fire. I must admit that the thought that somewhere in these groves their descendants might be plotting to return the Fire gives me a chill, even though I know full well no such warlocks exist."

At this, Feric fell silent. No man cared to contemplate even in fancy the return of the Fire. Out of those few brief days of holocaust centuries past stemmed the major ills still plaguing the world: genetic contamination of the

•human race, the vast radioactive wastelands that covered 51

so much of the globe, the existence of the fetid Doms.

The old world had died in the Time of Fire; the new world which had been born was a stunted and pallid imitation of the glory of the ancients. True men would curse the Time of Fire as long as the race survived.

But someday, and within his own lifetime, true men would be set irrevocably on the clear path to a new Golden Age; this Feric vowed to himself as a solemn oath as the roadsteamer carried him north through the stately groves of the Emerald Wood.

As the sun began to wane, a pattern of heavy red twilight and long black shadows fell over the forest, making the thick groves of gnarled trees appear somehow ominous and sinister; long before sunset the Emerald Wood took on many of the aspects of a forest of the night. The mind peopled the woods with its night shapes and fears.

This was not to say that twilight robbed the Wood of its beauty; far from it, it enhanced the grandeur of the forest, though now its spell was of a wilder and darker sort.

The roadsteamer moved through the forest like something isolated in space and time; nothing seemed real but the sylvan vastness through which it seemed to slink like a creature far out of its natural element.

But as the steamer slowly rounded a particularly sharp bend in the road, this mood of mystical detachment was suddenly and rudely shattered. There on the shoulder of the road was the red gas car that had roared past the steamer so gloriously hours ago, turned over on its back like the carapace of some huge dead beetle, its tires hacked to ribbons, its metal body twisted and ripped and marked with bullet holes. No bodies, living or dead, were ia evidence.

A babble of voices filled the cabin of the roadsteamer as the driver brought it to a halt beside the wreck with a great hissing of the brakes. This was rapidly replaced by an uneasy silence as it became clear that nothing lived in the wreckage.

"Obviously the work of brigands," Bogel said. "Not so uncommon an occurrence in these parts."

"Do you think we're in any serious danger of attack?"

Peric inquired. He felt no fear whatever, only a certain strange excitement he^was hard put to understand.

"It's hard to say," Bogel replied. "It's one thing to 52

ambush a small gas car, and quite another to halt a full-sized roadsteamer. Only the Black Avengers with their motorcycles are really capable of that, and from what I understand, their major goal is petrol. Therefore, they would probably be unlikely to attack a steamer."

The roadsteamer driver did not feel constrained to open the cabin door or climb down from his own cab; whoever did this deed might very well be lurking in the immediate vicinity. After inspecting the wreckage from the safety of the steamer for a few minutes and satisfying himself that there were no survivors about, he released the brakes, let steam into the engine, and the vehicle continued on its way, with the atmosphere in the cabin one of apprehen-sion mingled with determinded steadfastness, as befitted sturdy Helder.

The roadsteamer continued peacefully on its way for the better part of the next half hour, and the mood in the cabin relaxed somewhat as the minutes passed with no untoward happening. Up ahead, the road ran past a gully between two hills which had once been a streambedand now formed a natural roadbed of sorts leading off into the depths of the forest.

As the steamer rolled past this miniature canyon, an incredible din suddenly wiped out the throb of its steam engine: a series of sharp, staccato little explosions that coughed in the night like a pack of giant metal catamounts catching wind of their prey. These merged into a deafening solid roar that seemed to vibrate every molecule of matter in the vicinity.