The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [55]
Nothing was visible. The starlight was too dim to reveal the miles of country that lay hundreds of feet below; only a jagged line of darker night eclipsing the stars told of the mountains on the southern horizon. In the darkness beside him Alvin heard his companion roll over and sit up.
‘What is it?’ came a whispered voice.
‘I thought I heard a noise.’
‘What sort of noise?’
‘I don’t know: perhaps it was just imagination.’
There was a silence while two pairs of eyes peered out into the mystery of the night. Then, suddenly, Hilvar caught Alvin’s arm.
‘Look!’ he whispered.
Far to the south glowed a solitary point of light, too low in the heavens to be a star. It was a brilliant white, tinged with violet, and even as they watched it began to climb the spectrum of intensity, until the eye could no longer bear to look upon it. Then it exploded—and it seemed as if lightning had struck below the rim of the world. For a brief instant the mountains, and the land they encircled, were etched with fire against the darkness of the night. Ages later came the ghost of a far-off explosion, and in the woods below a sudden wind stirred among the trees. It died away swiftly, and one by one the routed stars crept back into the sky.
For the second time in his life, Alvin knew fear. It was not as personal and imminent as it had been in the chamber of the Moving Ways, when he had made the decision that took him to to Lys. Perhaps it was awe rather than fear; he was looking into the face of the unknown, and it was as if he had already sensed that out there beyond the mountains was something he must go to meet.
‘What was that?’ he whispered at length.
‘I am trying to find out,’ said Hilvar, and was silent again. Alvin guessed what he was doing, and did not interrupt his friend’s silent quest.
Presently Hilvar gave a little sigh of disappointment. ‘Everyone is asleep,’ he said. ‘There was no one who could tell me. We must wait until morning, unless I wake one of my friends. And I would not like to do that unless it is really important.’
Alvin wondered what Hilvar would consider a matter of real importance. He was just going to suggest, a little sarcastically, that this might well merit interrupting someone’s sleep. Before he could make the proposal Hilvar spoke again.
‘I’ve just remembered,’ he said, rather apologetically. ‘It’s a long time since I came here, and I’m not quite certain about my bearings. But that must be Shalmirane.’
‘Shalmirane! Does it still exist?’
‘Yes; I’d almost forgotten. Seranis once told me that the fortress lies in those mountains. Of course, it’s been in ruins for ages, but perhaps someone still lives there.’
Shalmirane! To these children of two races, so widely differing in culture and history, this was indeed a name of magic. In all the long story of Earth, there had been no greater epic than the defence of Shalmirane against an invader who had conquered all the Universe. Though the true facts were utterly lost in the mists which had gathered so thickly round the Dawn Ages, the legends had never been forgotten and would last as long as Man endured.
Presently Hilvar’s voice came again out of the darkness.
‘The people of the south could tell us more. I have some friends there; I will call them in the morning.’
Alvin scarcely heard him; he was deep in his own thoughts, trying to remember all that he had ever heard of Shalmirane. It was little enough; after this immense lapse of time, no one could tell the truth from the legend. All that was certain was that the Battle of Shalmirane marked the end of Man’s conquests, and the beginning of his long decline.
Among those mountains, thought Alvin, might lie the answers to all the problems that had