They stripped at one side of the avenue, shedding the extra, bulky garments they had worn on leaving the ship and then, the woman in her iridescent dress, Yalung in his yellow and black, Dumarest in his neutral gray, continued down the path between the trees.

How many had preceded them, thought Dumarest. How long had these trees grown, shaped by careful tending, planted and culled, bred and trained? How many ships had dropped from the skies with their loads of misery and hope? The place reeked of sanctity, of devotion and sup shy;plication. The trees had absorbed the emotions of the in shy;calculable number of pilgrims who had visited Shrine and followed the guardian into the holy place. Holy because they had made it so? Or holy because here, in this spot, something beyond the physical experience of men had stopped and left its mark?

Faith, he thought. Here, surely, if a man had faith miracles could happen.

"Earl, look!"

Lallia's whisper was loud in the brooding stillness. She had advanced a little and now stood at the edge of the clearing in which stood the mysterious object. It was no clearer than it had been when seen from far down the avenue. The woman stood beside a heap of something beneath a wide awning of natural growth. A chapel made by leafy branches.

It was brimming with articles of price.

Fine fabric, precious metal, cunning fabrications of metal and wood and blazing ceramics. The glint of gems and gold and the crystal perfection of faceted glass. All intermingled with less rare objects, a cloak, a cane, a visored helm, the leather of belts and the scaled skins of serpents, sacks of spices and seed and pleasing aromatics. The roll of charts, maps, paintings of a hundred different schools.

"Votive offerings," said Yalung softly. "Things given in appreciation and gratitude. A fortune beyond the dreams of avarice on any of a million worlds."

And there were more. The chapels surrounded the clear shy;ing and all contained a heap of similar items. Lallia paused, looking at a scatter of ancient books.

She touched one and her face stiffened with psychic shock.

"Earl!" she whispered. "It's so old, old! There is hope and a terrible fear and-and-"

He caught her as she slumped, the book falling from her hand. It fell open and he had a glimpse of strange figures, of lines and tabulated numerations, of diagrams and vague shy;ly familiar symbols.

Yalung picked it up, closed it, returned it to the heap. Quietly he said, "How is the girl?"

"I'm all right." Lallia straightened from Dumarest's arms and shook her head as if to clear it of mist. "It was just that -Earl, the book is so old!"

An ancient book. A stellar almanac, perhaps. A pre-Center-orientated navigational manual. In this place any shy;thing was possible.

He reached for it, arresting his hand as a familiar voice echoed in his mind.

"Come."

Dumarest looked up. The strange guardian stood to one side. Watching? It was hard to tell if the figure had a face or eyes at all but the enigmatic flickering in the shadow of the cowl gave the impression of senses more finely tuned than those owned by ordinary men.

"The Place awaits. Go to it. Place your hands on it. This is the rule."

"The guardian means that object in the middle of the clearing," said Yalung. He sounded dubious. "I am not sure that we should do as he directs."

"Have we any choice?" Lallia smiled. "And I want a bath. Remember what was promised? Ask and you will be given. Anyway, what have we to lose?"

Life, thought Dumarest. Sanity, our health, perhaps. Who can tell?

But he followed her across the clearing.

The mound was high, larger than he had at first sup shy;posed, a vine-draped mass protruding from the neatly kept grass. A special grass, he thought, to withstand the weight of the thousands who must come here. As the mound had to be something special also. A strangely-shaped fragment of stone, perhaps, a meteor even, a thing to which had become attached a tremendous superstition. Or did naked belief make its own holiness? Could faith convert inanimate matter into a healing being?

Nimino could have answered, but the navigator was dead. Coughing out his life in order to fulfill a prophecy that he would achieve great knowledge in a cloud of dust. The Web was such a cloud and what greater knowledge could come to a man than that of what happened after death?

Dumarest shook his head, annoyed at his own introspec shy;tion, wondering what had sent his thoughts on such a path. The influence of the place, he thought. The mystery and enchantment of it. The brooding majesty and overwhelming sense of sanctity. There was magic in the air, perhaps the emanations of the trees, the invisible vapors released by the grass, subtle drugs to fog the senses and open wide the vistas of the mind. But that again was sheer speculation.

He concentrated on the mound.

There was an oddity about it as there had been about the birds, as there was about the guardian. A peculiar sense of alienness as if it did not belong to this world and never had. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, tilting his head so as to sharpen his vision, probing beneath the obvious to seek the underlying truth. It probably was simply a mound but there was an oddity here, a peculiar something there, a slight distortion just above the line of sight. And then, suddenly, as if he were looking at an optical illusion in which one image was hidden within another, details grew clear.

The mound was no heap of vine-covered stone.

It was the wreckage of a manufactured artifact.

He blinked but there was no mistake. Warped and crushed as it was, misshapen and unfamiliar, he could still make out the angles and curves of vanes, the ridges of corrugations, plates and sheets of metal all overlaid with grime and a patina of soil from which grew shielding vines.

Or were they, too, disguised? Cables, perhaps, flexible conduits, pipes which had burst like entrails from the body of the artifact?

Dumarest heard the sharp intake of Yalung's breath and wondered if the dealer in precious stones had also penetrated the illusion. And Lallia? He glanced at her, noting the smoothness of her face, the rapt expression in her eyes. She looked like a little girl as she stood before the mound, a child basking in the promise of comfort and warmth and security. She had once prayed, he remembered, and all who pray must have some belief in a higher power. Did she imagine that she stood before the abode of such a being?

"Lallia," he called softly. "Wait."

She halted and turned, smiling, the full richness of her lips red against the whiteness of her skin. "Why, Earl?" "It would be wise to wait," said Yalung. "If the guardian will allow it." He glanced to where the tall figure stood at the edge of the clearing, as immobile as a statue. "The mound is not quite what it seems."

"Does it matter?" She shrugged, suddenly impatient. "What's the matter with you two? It's only a gesture. We aren't sick or ill and if they can come here and touch it without harm what have we to fear? Anyway I'm curious to see whether or not I get my bath."

She held out her hands, again smiling.

"Come on, Earl. Come on the pair of you. Let's touch it together."

For a moment Dumarest hesitated, then reached for her hand. After all, what could there be to fear?

Together the three of them rested their hands on the fabric of the Place.

Nothing, thought Dumarest. He felt the touch of harsh shy;ness beneath his palms, saw the grain of dirt and soil before his eyes. A patina built over how long? Centuries, certainly, thousands of years, perhaps, wind-blown dust, rain, the slow, relentless attrition of the years. But why hadn't the metal beneath the dirt yielded to the impact of time?