The City of Gold and Lead (The Tripods) Page 15

  “But how did you get here?”

  • • •

  The explanation was simple. When Fritz and I had gone, taken by the Tripods, he had intended to go back to the White Mountains and tell Julius what had happened. But he had not been eager for it, and had stayed in the town a few days, listening for anything that was said that might be useful. One thing he learned was the approximate site of the City, and he thought he might as well go and take a look at it. It lay, he was told, across a tributary of the great river down which we had come together. He took the hermit’s boat, and paddled south and east.

  Having found it, he decided to survey it. He dared not risk approaching the Wall by day, but on nights when there was moonlight—some, but not too much—he made his investigations. The result was not encouraging. There was no break in the Wall, and no hope of scaling it. One night he dug down several feet, but the Wall continued still farther, and he had to fill in the hole and leave as dawn broke. None of the Capped approached the City, so he was safe from their attentions. There were farms within reach, and he lived on what food he could pick up or steal.

  Once he had been right around the City, there seemed little point in staying on. But it was then that the thought occurred to him, too, that if anyone were going to escape, the river provided what was probably the only route. Its waters, plainly, were waste from the City—nothing grew on the banks for a mile downstream, there were no fish, though plenty in the stretch of river above the City, and he found strange items of debris from time to time. He showed me some—various empty containers, including a couple of empty gas bubbles, which ought to have gone into one of the waste-disposal cupboards but had found their way into the river instead. One afternoon, he saw something quite large floating in midstream. It was too far for him to see clearly, particularly since his eyes, without his lenses, were weak, but he took the boat out and salvaged it. It was of metal, hollow so that it floated, measuring some six feet by two, and a foot thick. If that could come out of the City, he argued, a man could. Because of that, he resolved to take up a position where he could watch the outflow—watch, and wait.

  And so he had stayed there, while the days and the weeks went by. As time passed, his hopes that one of us might get away dwindled. He had no notion of what things were like inside the City: we might have been discovered to be falsely Capped on the first day, and killed. He stayed on, more, he said, because leaving would mean abandoning the last shred of hope than because hope had anything to feed on. Now, with the autumn, he realized that he could not delay much longer if he were to get back to the White Mountains before the heavy snows. He had decided to give it another week, and on the morning of the fifth day had seen something else floating down river. He had taken the boat out again, found me, and with a knife ripped open the soft part of the mask to let me breathe.

  He said, “And Fritz?”

  I told him, briefly. He was silent, and then said, “What do you think the chances are?”

  I said, “Not good, I’m afraid. Even if he finds his way back to the river, he’s much weaker than I am.”

  “He said he would try in three days?”

  “Yes, three days.”

  “We’ll keep a close watch. And your eyes are better than mine.”

  We gave him three days, and three times three days, and three days beyond that, each time finding a less convincing argument for our vigil. Nothing came out of the City, that we could see, except ordinary debris. On the twelfth day, there was a snowstorm, and we huddled, shivering, cold and hungry, under the upturned boat. The next morning, without discussion, we set out under a watery sun peering through gray clouds, toward the great river and the south.

  Once I looked back. Alongside the river the snow was melting, but the land still stretched bare and white on either side. The river was a gray arrow in an alabaster desert, pointing to the circle of gold and the dome of green crystal. I lifted my arm; it was still a positive joy to be free of the leaden weight which had crushed me for so long. Then I thought of Fritz, and the joy was turned to sadness, and a deep and bitter hatred against the Masters.

  We were going home, but only to arm ourselves and others. We would come back.

  Also by John Christopher

  The White Mountains

  The Pool of Fire

  When the Tripods Came

  A Dusk of Demons

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1967 by John Christopher

  Copyright renewed © 1995 by John Christopher

  Preface copyright © 2003 by John Christopher

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design by Ann Sullivan

  The text for this book is set in New Caledonia.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Christopher, John.

  City of gold and lead / John Christopher.

  p. cm.

  Sequel to: The white mountains.

  Sequel: The pool of fire.

  Summary: Three boys set out on a secret mission to penetrate the City of the Tripods and learn more about these strange beings that rule the earth.

  ISBN 0-689-85505-2

  ISBN 978-1-4814-0912-4 (eBook)

  [1. Science fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C457 Ci 2003

  [Fic]–dc21

  2002026670