Free Swords: 08 - The Fifth Book Of Lost Swords - Coinspinner’s Story by Fred Saberhagen Page A

descriptions given them by Trimbak Rao continued to prove accurate. Their dog-leg road had turned into a broad paved street, not quite straight, wide in some places and narrow in others, crossed at short intervals by other thoroughfares, most of which were more distorted than itself.
           Presently the explorers reached a distinctive intersection, marked by a triple fountain in the center. To reach their goal from here, if what their Teacher had told them was correct, it would be necessary to walk about a kilometer on a circuitous route. They could expect serious difficulties in ever reaching the park they were attempting to enter, Trimbak Rao had warned them, unless they approached it from the proper direction.
           So far they had seen no living presence, human or otherwise, in the City besides themselves. The buildings around them appeared to be completely uninhabited, by humanity at least, and yet they certainly were not silent. At intervals there was music—of a kind. It was so unlike anything that Adrian had ever heard before, that he was unable to find words to describe it. He could tell from Trilby’s expression that she was puzzled by it too. These sounds issued from unseen sources among certain of the buildings as the visitors passed. At other moments strange voices could be heard, some crying out as if in pain, some laughing, others singing or reciting gibberish. Trimbak Rao had not warned his students about these voices, and the explorers exchanged glances. But then, they had known that the City was in some sense inhabited, and there had been no reason for the Teacher to warn them of every harmless oddity they might encounter. Small waves of magical disturbance came washing across the cityscape with the voices, but still Adrian thought that most of them at least sounded human.
           When he and Trilby had gone on a hundred meters from the square of the triple fountains, their pace slowed again, as by some unspoken agreement. Now something, some instinct, seemed to be telling Adrian not to hurry. Caution was essential here. Again and again he could hear the Teacher’s voice, in memory, warning against undue haste.
           The steps of his booted feet dragged on the cracked pavement.
           Trilby appeared to be having somewhat similar thoughts, for her steps were slowing too; her eyes looked troubled when he glanced at her.
           Moving at an ever more slothful pace, the explorers presently came in sight of a small, briskly flowing stream that appeared to have cut its course haphazardly between buildings. Most streets stopped abruptly at its banks, but a few had somehow acquired bridges.
           Following the stream’s bank, Adrian and Trilby soon entered the park-like plot of land that was their goal. At his first sight of the patch of thriving greenery, Adrian experienced a sense of anticlimax, though he was not sure how it was different from what he had been expecting.
           The park was basically an expanse of grass that appeared to still be well maintained. Here and there a bank of hardy-looking flowers had been placed, as it seemed, by some gardener much given to random choices. Trees and bushes appeared in pleasingly unplanned positions, and narrow walks of fine gravel curved among them. The whole occupied not much more than an irregular hectare of land, and just beyond its hedged borders the structures of the City stood as before.
           There on the park’s left side stood what must be the Red Temple the Teacher had warned them about, looking very much as Trimbak Rao had described it, yet somehow not exactly as Adrian had expected. The customary Red Temple colors of red and black dominated what he could see of the structure’s outer walls, which were also decorated with many statues depicting the joys of the senses.
           “We’d better take a look around the perimeter of the park,” said Trilby. “Before we start digging