Piers Anthony: Var the Stick

The boy had obviously haunted this area for some time. If there were lethal radiation he should have died already. In any event, the Master could probably withstand any dosage the boy could. So if the lad hoped to escape by hiding in the hot region, he would be disappointed.

Still, the Master could not entirely repress his apprehension as the trail led into a landscape of stunted and deformed trees. Surely these had been touched. And game was scarce, tokening the irregular ravages of the fringe shrews. If radiation were not present now, it had not departed long since. -

He caught up to the boy again. The hunched conditlon of the youngster's body was more evident by full daylight and his piebald skin more striking. And the way he ran-heels high, knees bent, so that the whole foot never touched the ground-forelimbs dropping down periodically for support-this was uncanny. Had this boy ever shared a human home?

"Come!" the Weaponless called. "Yield to me and I will spare your life and give you food."

But as he had expected, the fugitive paid no attention. Probably this wilderness denizen had never learned to speak.

The trees became mere shrubs, scabbed with discolored woodrinds and sap-bleeding abrasions, and their leaves were limp, sticky, asymmetric efforts. Then only shriveled sticks protruded from the burned soil, twisted grotesquely. Finally all life was gone, leaving caked ashes and greenish glass. The hound whined, afraid of the dead bare terrain, and the Master felt rather like whining himself, for this was grim.

But still the boy ran ahead, bounding circuitously around invisible obstacles. At first the Nameless One thought it was strategy, to confuse the pursuit. Then, as he perceived the maneuvering to take forms that were by no means evasive or concealing, he pondered dementia. Radiation might indeed make mad before it destroyed. Finally he realized that the boy was actually skirting pockets of radiation. He could tell where the roentgen remained!

Dangerous terrain indeed! The Nameless One followed the trail exactly, and kept the hound to it, knowing that shortcuts would expose him to invisible misery. He was risking his health and his life, but he would not relent.

"Are you ashamed because you are ugly?" he called. He took off his great cloak and showed his own massive, scarred torso, and his neck so laced with gristle that it resembled the trunk of an aged yellow birch. "You are not more ugly than I!" But the boy ran on.

Then the Master paused, for ahead he saw a building.

Buildings were scarce in the nomad culture. There were hostels that the crazies maintained, where wandering warriors and their families might stay for a night or a fortnight without obligation except to take due care with the premises. There were the houses of the crazies themselves, and the school buildings and offices they maintained. And of course there were the subterranean fortifications of the underworld, wherein were manufactured the weapons and clothing the nomads used-though only the crazies and the Master himself knew this. But the great expanse of land was field and fern and forest, cleared by the Blast that had destroyed the marvelous, warlike culture of the Ancients. The wilderness had returned in the wake of the radiation, open and clean.

This building was tremendous and misshapen. He counted seven distinct levels within it, one layered atop another, and above the last fiber-clothed story metal rods projected like the ribs of a dead cow. Behind it was another structure, of similar configuration, and beyond that a third.

He contemplated these, amazed. He had read about such a thing in the old books, but he had half believed it was a myth. This was a "city."

Before the Blast, the texts had claimed, mankind had grown phenomenally numerous and strong, and had resided in cities where every conceivable (and inconceivable) comfort of life was available. Thea these fabulously prosperous peoples had destroyed it all in a rain of fire, a smash of intolerable radiation, leaving only the scattered nomads and crazies and underworlders, and the extensive badlands.

He could poke a thousand logical holes in that fable. For one thing, it was obvious that no culture approaching the technological level described would be at the same time so primitive as to throw it away so pointlessly. And such a radically different culture as that of the nomads could not- have sprung full-blown from ashes. But he was sure the ultimate truth did lie hidden somewhere within the badlands, for their very presence seemed to vindicate the reality of the Blast, whatever its true cause.

Now, astonishingly, these badlands were ready to yield some of their secrets. For the century since the cataclysm no man had penetrated far into the posted regions and lived-but always the proscribed area declined. He knew the time would come, though not in his lifetime, when the entire territory would be open once more to man. Meanwhile the fever of discovery was on him; he was so eager to learn the truth that he gladly risked the roentgen.

The boy's tracks were clear in the dirt, that had been freshened by recent rainfall. The glass had broken up and disappeared, here; sprouts of pale grass rimmed the path. Nothing, not even the radiation, was consistent about the badlands.

The boy had gone into the building. Most nomads were in awe of solid structures of any size, and avoided even the comparatively-modest buildings of the crazies. But the Master had traveled widely and experienced as much as any man of his time, and he knew that there was nothing supernatural about a giant edifice. There could be danger, yes-but the natural hazards of falling timbers and deep pits and radiation and crazed animals, nothing more sinister.

Still, he hesitated before entering that ancient temple.

It would be easy to become trapped inside, and perhaps the wily boy had something of the sort in mind. He had been known to place dead falls for unwary trackers, laboriously scraped out of the Earth by hand and nail and artfully covered. That was one of the things he had evidently learned from the measures applied against him. Too smart for an animal-adding to the terror surrounding him-and not bad for a human.

The Master looked about. Within the shelter of the window-arches there were fragments of dry wood. Most had rotted, but not all. There was bound to be more wood inside. He could fire it and drive the boy out. This seemed to be the safest course.

Yet there could be invaluable artifacts within-machines, books, supplies. Was he to destroy it all so wantonly? Better to preserve the building intact, and assemble a task force to explore it thoroughly at a later date.

So deciding, the Master entered at the widest portal and began his final search for the boy. The hound whined' and stayed so close that it was tricky to avoid tripping over it, but the animal did sniff out the trail.

There were stone steps leading down, an avenue of splendid and wasteful breadth, and this was where the boy had gone. And, so easily that it was suspicious, they had tracked the marauder to his lair. There did not seem to be another exit apart from the stair. The boy had to be waiting below.

Would it be wise to check the upper floors first? The boy might actually be leading him into the final trap, while his real residence was above. No-best to follow closely, for otherwise he ran too strong a risk of encountering radiation. Had he realized that the chase would end so deep in the badlands, he would have arranged to obtain a crazy geiger. As it was, he had tO proceed with exceeding caution. That meant, in this case, to dispense with much of his caution in the pursuit. Physical' attack by the boy was much less to be feared than the radiation that might be lurking on either side of the boy's trail.

As the Nameless One approached the final chamber an object flew out. The boy, unable to flee again, was pelting his tormentor with any objects available.