Quest Beyond Time by Tony Morphett Page B

that one room of the former office block was now a bedroom, dominated by a giant four-poster bed. A doorway had been cut through the skyscraper’s wall to provide access to this room, and a well-finished wooden door stood slightly ajar. The other three walls of the room, including the one which held the circular doorway they had just come through, were of white-washed plaster.
    They were standing in a homely kitchen. There was an iron fuel stove in one comer and by this a woman smaller than the armoured man was cooking something in a pot. The smell it gave off made Mike’s mouth water. The smell of the stew mingled with the smell of fresh bread and lavender.
    ‘They’re Murrays,’ the little man Woodcat was saying.
    ‘One day you’ll do that and they’ll be Yobbies,’ said the woman, and turned to face them. She was smiling. She was a pretty little person with a face the shape and sweetness of an apple. ‘Come in! Come in! Murrays are always welcome. Restless breed you are to be sure, what are you here for and not seeing to your farming and fishing like honest people?’
    ‘I need food,’ said Katrin, ‘but I won’t stay. I have the Sickness.’
    ‘The Murrays fought to give us the Covenant,’ the little woman answered. ‘You will stay. Kinship and Covenant both demand it.’
    ‘I . . .’ Katrin began, and then she was falling. Mike moved fast, caught her, and lifted her. He found himself amazed that so brave and strong a person should weigh so little.
    ‘Bring her here, man! In here!’ Woodcat had the door to the bedroom open and was beckoning. Mike carried her through and put her down on the bed. ‘Isolde!’ yelled Woodcat.
    ‘I know better what to do than you can tell me!’ replied his wife. ‘You leave the lass to me!’
    Woodcat grinned at Mike and pushed him out the door again and into the kitchen.
    ‘You two sit down by the fire,’ Isolde said, ‘and I’ll feed you. But I don’t want advice.’
    Woodcat winked at Mike and led him to a chair. Mike sat, and the tiredness filled him again. He looked through the ancient window of the skyscraper to where Isolde was now fussing over the unconscious Katrin.
    ‘Will she be all right?’ Mike asked.
    ‘First time she fainted?’
    Mike nodded.
    ‘She’ll be right in the morning again. For a day or two.’ Woodcat paused. ‘Where are you heading?’
    ‘The Island. For medicine.’
    ‘And how do you hope to get there?’
    ‘I have a hang-glider. A kite. It’ll bear me. And her.’
    ‘Never heard of such a thing in my life! How would you get steel slim enough?’
    ‘We use aluminium. It’s lighter.’
    The little man shot a look at him. ‘You don’t sound like a Murray. And no Murray ever made a tool, let alone a flying machine.’ He paused. ‘You come from Other Parts, I reckon.’He started to take off his armour, piece by piece. He grinned at Mike who was sitting, devising his answer. ‘Just trying my armour on when you knocked.’
    ‘What would you say if I told you I came from Before?’
    Woodcat paused, and then quickly drew the tips of his right index and middle fingers across his closed eyes from left to right. Then he looked at Mike severely. ‘I’d say you was drunk, or you’d been meddling with things a decent soul don’t meddle with. Let’s just say you come from Other Parts.’
    He finished taking his armour off, as Isolde came from the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
    ‘She’ll sleep now till morning, and then we’ll feed her.’
    ‘They’re off to the Island,’ her husband told her.
    ‘Well, that’s one chance better than none,’ his wife replied and started ladling stew out of the pot into earthenware bowls. She served them and then went to have her own while sitting by Katrin.
    When she was gone, Woodcat turned to Mike again. ‘When you came in first . . . you knew what that wall was, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yes. Skyscraper.’ Mike was hoeing into his stew. He had never tasted anything so delicious