Free Lin Carter - Down to a Sunless Sea by Lin Carter, Ken W. Kelly - Cover Page A

produced the worn and ancient dish.
    "The charactery inscribed around the lip of the dish is too ancient and too illegible for me to figure out, lacking my library and my instruments," Will Harbin admitted. "But this design in the central part, this wandering, curved line, seemed utterly meaningless until it occurred to me to compare it to my maps."
    He paused impressively, but Brant was in no mood for a build-up.
    "Spit it out, Doc," he granted.
    "Very well! This curved line matches quite closely the contours of the edge of the prehistoric continent whose cliffwall, or shoreline, we are now following," he said. Brant looked unimpressed.
    "So what? A map—what of it?"
    Will Harbin pointed to a place on the meandering line graven in the golden dish.
    "This spot lies about two hours' hard ride south from where we are now," he said excitedly. "There is a bit of writing etched at this point—see?"
    Brant nodded briefly. "So what? If you can't read the writing—"
    "These characters are almost legible," breathed Harbin.
    "They translate as something in the nature of 'the refuge,' or 'the way in,' or 'the safe place,'—-I can't be precisely sure—"
    Brant shrugged irritably. "So what does it mean, d'you think? C'mon, Doc, we're wasting time."
    Harbin looked dubious. "I'm not exactly sure ... a cavern, perhaps, a hiding place, some sort of niche in the cliffwall important enough, or secure enough, to be so marked. It is the only place on the ancient map that is marked at all."
    Brant rubbed the line of his jaw with one thumbnail, thinking.
    "A hiding place, then. God, we could use one! But will it still be there, after half a million years, or however old this map may be?"
    "I can't say," Harbin admitted. "But it's better than running. Because they have more men than we, and probably more guns. And sooner or later, our lopers will founder under the double weight. ..."
    "I know, damn the luck," growled Brant. "Okay, since it's in our path, we'll watch for it. Let me know when the map exactly matches the terrain."
    "I will," said the other man.
    They mounted up and rode on into the day.
    Zuarra shared the saddle with Brant on the remainder of that day's riding, and she seemed to be in a surly and sullen mood. Glancing back, Brant guessed the reason. For Agila had the other woman, Suoli, before him in the saddle, and his hands were wandering under her robes and he was whispering something in her ear that caused her to giggle and to blush shyly.
    Hearing the giggling, Zuarra tightened her jaw and pinched her full lips together, staring ahead grimly.
    Brant grinned wolfishly, but said nothing. His arms tightened a little about Zuarra's lissom waist, and she did not seemingly resent the minor intimacy.
    The breach between the two "sisters" had widened since that episode on the ledge where the more feminine of the two had fearfully shrunk from coming to Zuarra's aid. Brant kept his thoughts to himself, but enjoyed the tantalizing nearness of the woman in his arms and savored the dry, musky perfume of her body.
    They rode on into the unknown, for there was nothing else to do, since to stand and fight against Tuan's band, which now numbered at least fourteen warriors, would have been, quite simply, suicidal. But inwardly Brant felt a welling-up of hopelessness: they were following a map millions of years old, perhaps, looking for a refuge which might very well no longer exist.
    But there was nothing else to do. . . .
    During the next rest stop, Brant scanned the ridgeline through his binoculars, and found the tireless riders. He swore under his breath.
    "They keep up with us, the bastards, but nothing more! Why, goddammit, why?"
    It was a rhetorical question, but Will Harbin took it seriously enough to offer an answer.
    "Possibly because Tuan fears that, if pressed, we will destroy the golden dish," he suggested. "We could do it very easily, you know. One bolt from your power guns would fuse the ancient relic to a shapeless puddle of