The Iron Breed by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page B

the stone river, were they all alike?
    He sighted some straggles of vine, a few clumps of tough grass which had managed to root in cracks of the stone. There was a cawing. A flight of six foraws took off from an upper ledge, as if propelled by some vast need for instant escape. But that was the way foraws were. Jony, ashamed of his own start at their sudden clamor, pushed on at a bolder pace.
    Here were other rivers of stone, smaller ones, which branched away from the one he followed. All of those were also walled with the piles which had openings, but lay silent and deserted. Not all, perhaps; Jony sighted the spoor of several small creatures in the drifted earth. Apparently this was a safe shelter they claimed as their own.
    At last the river came into an open space ending at the foot of the largest heap of all. Here the blocks of smoothed stone had been set up like the ledges along the falls, but far more evenly, so that a man might climb them with ease. Jony did that, heading for an opening at the top which was four—five times as wide as any he had seen elsewhere. However, as he neared that, he stopped short. For within the shadowed overhead of that opening someone stood waiting.
    Jony crouched, his staff swung up, point ready, as he stared at the other. He was taller than Jony—but—he was not a Big One as Jony's old memories first suggested. No, his face . . .
    Her face! Jony made a quick adjustment in terms as he saw the waiting one in greater detail. She was like Rutee, a little, big though she was. But she was—stone!
    Jony guessed at the truth. Somehow those who had piled up this place had made one of themselves into stone. Or else had been able to fashion stone as the People working a sapling into a shape they desired. And the marvel of such skill made him gasp.
    He had to go directly to the figure, venture to touch its cold surface, before he was assured this explanation was the truth. The stone was not rough, but smooth under his fingertips. Somehow he liked the feel of it as he rubbed along, following one curve and then another as high as he could reach. But he could not, even standing on tiptoe, touch more than the chin of the face above him.
    Standing so close he could see that once there had been other colors laid on it besides the gray-white stuff of which it was made. In the folds of the clothing the figure wore, were dim traces of blue. And about her neck was a massive carving of many links which was still yellow.
    Her hair did not hang loose as Rutee's and Maba's, but was gathered up into a massing which added to her height. One of her hands was held at a stiff odd angle at the wrist, the tips of her fingers pointing skyward, the palm flattened out toward him. On impulse Jony fitted his hand to that one, palm to palm—
    No!
    He stumbled back, away from the woman of stone. His mind was confused. What had happened? He had expected to meet cold stone as his touch had already found. But when he had laid his hand right there—the result had been a shock of feeling he could neither understand nor explain.
    Warily now, Jony surveyed the figure for every small detail. The other hand lay on the breast, palm inward. The calm, still face in his mind confused with Rutee's, was posed that the eyes might look ever down the river of stone which had led him here. As if they sought someone who had not yet come.
    There was certainly nothing alive about the thing. Jony went so far now as to gingerly touch the upheld hand with the very tip of his staff. Nothing happened. He must have been dreaming in some manner. But he decided he had no desire to try the experiment again.
    Instead he made as wide a detour as the doorway would allow around the woman, heading on into whatever might lie behind her in this largest stone heap of all.
    At first he went very slowly, for the dim light inside seemed almost nonexistent to his unadjusted eyes. Then he began to see that he was edging into a very wide space down which ran rows of