Dy-lee's torch was burning low. When we had dropped into the inclosure, he chose two more from a pile of them stacked neatly in a corner, and lit one from the first. It flared up redly, and again we raised a ringed slab and descended into another warm dry place of peeshas. By then, I may say, I had identified this with our own word "picture," which we use to describe several things, such as the images our minds form occasionally which seem to us very real, and also a distant view of a beautiful countryside, as perhaps from a hill; I felt certain that peesha was picture, and dimly I was wondering if our own race had once known this strange art of arranging dyes on walls. Certainly the similarity of the two words would indicate something of the sort.
He led me to one of the pictures—I will use this other word from now on—and held up the torch so that I could see it well. There was none of the frozen water at all in this place. The things were done in large squares on the rock wall, just as in the first underground grotto, but there was no glaa, nor was any of the slippery curious stone set around them. These walls were rougher and less shining.
The first one was very old, faded, flaked here and there so that the barren rock showed through. It portrayed a scene in just such a place as the plain above had once been, and as I had seen in a number of the other pictures. Tall inclosures rose into the air, with more lines of openings across them than I could count. Strange birds flew above them, looking stiff and featherless and glittery. If there were people on the ground, they were too small to be seen.
Gently he urged me to the next. Here was a scene among the walls, with people moving about. They looked very like my glen-folk, excepting always for the odd garments they wore, which covered all of their persons but the faces and hands. Even upon their feet they seemed to have garments.
The third picture was terrible. In its ancient much-faded colors it showed many men fighting. Not fighting bears, or cave cats, but other men. Yes, here were dead men, with blood upon their breasts, and others were locked in fierce combat. I turned from this view with a sickness pulling at my belly, and Dy-lee felt much the same, for he threw a hairy arm over my shoulders and bent his head sorrowfully even as I.
The next few pictures were all the same, men slaying one another, often with strange stick-like things, the nature of which I could not imagine. From the attitudes it was plain that when one was pointed at a man, the man died. It was some form of magic, such as an ogre might dream of.
Then we came to a picture which defied my comprehension for many minutes. It was a place of high walls and inclosures, over which flocks of the curious stiff-winged birds flew; and many of the tallest inclosures were toppling, while fire raged in among them (I knew it was fire by the marvelous crimson and scarlet of the colors, dimmed though they were), and great clouds of smoke rolled out.
There were others. I disliked them, I loathed them, but I could not keep myself from looking intently at each one. It was impressed on me that this was no legend, but a true thing that had happened in the far olden times. These were my people dying, at the hands of others of my people. I could not understand, but I could feel the truth of this thing.
Men slaying men! The legend of Sunset Fields had not lied!