第71节

Nebraska.

Sitting down thanlffully under the wide branches of a tree, he sent

Cadillac to search for a seeing stone. Motor-Head, who was charged

with organising their escort, ordered them to disperse in pairs to

patrol the area around them. When Cadillac's search of the north bank

proved fruitless, they crossed over onto the narrow strip of land where

the two rivers ran side by side before becoming one.

Then, when Cadillac again drew a blank, they tried on the far side of

the southern river.

It was here that they found traces of one of the ancient hardways along

which giant beetles had once carried the men of the Old Time. The

beetles, Mr Snow explained, left a trail of sticky black slime - like

snails, and black horned worms - so they could find their way back

again. This black trail gradually hardened, becoming thicker and

thicker with each passing beetle as they followed each other in long

lines, jammed nose to tail. Once laid down, the hardway was used over

and over again because the beetles knew where they were going and could

move faster.

Men of the Old Time, said Mr Snow, were obsessed with speed. They had

built a huge crossbow that had shot a bolt with men inside it all the

way to the moon. They had other bolts with wings like huge arrowheads

that could cross the sky faster than the sun. They were masters of the

world but they never learned to love each other. And they had

forgotten The Way of the Warrior. And so, through their ignorance and

hatred, the world had died in the War of the Thousand Suns. Clans

numbering more than the raindrops in the sky fell like shrivelled

leaves at the Yellowing. Killed not by their equals in single combat

but by strange secret words spoken by machines made with the High

Craft, hidden deep within the earth - like this Columbus, the

cloud-warrior had talked of. Sharp iron of unimaginable power wielded

by men who had not chewed bone.

Cadillac pondered these deep and tragic mysteries of the Old Time as he

searched for a seeing stone. Eventually, as the sun sank towards the

western door, he found one. Mr Snow squatted cross-legged and watched

intently as his pupil knelt, closed his eyes, raised the stone to his

forehead and began the process which caused the pictures from its

memory to flow into his mind.

'Find me the iron snake,' said Mr Snow. 'Go forward a little way

through the time-clouds and fred me a great battle."

Since his first attempts to make practical use of his gift at the

urging of his teacher, Cadillac had gradually improved to the point

where he now remembered much of what he had seen and spoken of while in

contact with the stone. He had discovered that far and near memory

could be distinguished by the intensity of the aura which surrounded

them, and his inner eye had begun to recognise the difference between

visions from the past and those from the future.

Still grasping the stone firmly, Cadillac lowered it to his knees. His

face muscles tightened, dragging the ends of his closed lips back and

down as he shied away from some fearful internal landscape of horror.

'My mind flies forward, but I cannot yet tell how far I journey,' he

gasped, the words hissing out between his clenched teeth.

'Look for Clearwater,' suggested Mr Snow. 'Look for yourself and the

cloud-warrior. Summon them with all the power of your mind. Perhaps,

in this way, their images will come to the fore and the others will

remain sealed within the stone." The old wordsmith sat back

patiently.

Behind him, the wide waters of the two great rivers moved slowly

eastwards. Several minutes passed. Cadillac's head rolled from side

to side and his body began to twitch and then was racked by more

violent muscular spasms. Mr Snow made no attempt to prompt him

further.

Suddenly Cadillac's spine became rigid. He turned his sightless face

to the sky, his features contorted with anguish.

'The iron snake stands over me!" he cried. 'Oh, Mo-Town!

Great Mother! It runs with the blood of our people!" Cadillac began

to moan, a keening sou