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Sally's bike jolted over the uneven surface of the road - the mild Willamette winters were kinder on roads here than the hard frosts east of the mountains, but eight years of neglect still took a toll. She spared a moment to regret her pre-Change mountain bike, which had taken her from the suburbs of Portland to the foothills of the Cascades, and served her bravely all the years since, finally succumbing the year before to a mishap with a clumsy pedal-cart and a lack of spare parts. The new bike was a simple pre-Change frame fitted with rubber-rimmed wooden wheels - serviceable, and more importantly repairable by Dun Juniper's wheelwrights, as long as the supply of salvaged car tires held out, but leaving something to be desired in terms of comfort, as her abused sit bones were forcibly reminding her.
Why didn't I ride, again? Oh, that's right, because it hurts just as much if you're not used to it. Eilir on Celebroch and the small band of Rangers on their own mounts brought up the rear behind the covered wagon; they looked almost indecently comfortable, but then Eilir was nineteen and had spent a large portion of the past five years in the saddle. Sally had never ridden before the Change, and there wasn't much call for the principal of the Dun Juniper high school to learn; she preferred to make her visits to other duns' schoolhouses by her own muscle-power. Not to mention, bikes don't eat. Or get ill. They'd travelled at a gingerly pace since reaching the outskirts of Eugene, babying the horses' hooves on the hard surface, and they had to carry fodder for the horses as well as their own hardtack and dried sausage. Much less portable than a tank of gasoline, but at least the empty bags would come in handy.
By now the commercial buildings were rearing around them in earnest, snaggletoothed here and there with old fires. Outside the dead city, the scene could have been that of a hundred weekend rides in her old life - except that Terry was at home, neck deep in Yule preparations, and Peter was... Well, she tried not to think of Peter. None of their contacts in Portland had heard of him, which just left nightmarish imaginings of what had happened to stop him walking home to them. She wasn't the same, either, any more than the world was; it was something Terry couldn't understand, with his child's jumbled memories of that first year. Even the other adult Mackenzies - none of them had come from Portland, though from what Chuck's party had said, Salem had had its own horrors. How did you come back from knowing, really knowing that you and all your world were a few square meals from red howling chaos?
The convoy dismounted for a break, and Eilir tapped her shoulder. Are you all right? Cities creep me out, too, she signed, and gave an expressive shiver. They just feel wrong, kind of.
Sally nodded, turning to face the girl. 'I'll be OK. It's not the first time I've been here.' It wasn't; they'd visited shortly after their first harvest, to scout the bridges and try to secure important buildings from bandits and weather - had met a group of Corvallans on the same errand, in fact. But that trip was all of a piece with the headlong grim rush of the first year, and besides, she'd been too tired to think much. Not this time, though - this time they had a plan. Not to mention a shopping list.
***
The Knight Library, fortunately, was a sturdy brick edifice, the university not having succumbed to the mania for rebuilding in glass and steel - she wouldn't have wanted to try to secure a building that was essentially one giant breakable window, like the Portland Coliseum. The chain and lock they'd used to secure the door was hopelessly rusted; fortunately, she'd thought ahead.
'Alex!' Sally waved; Alex Barstow loped over, carrying a hammer and chisel. The chain wouldn't have stood up to a determined attempt at entry, but it was proof against animals, and they'd hoped - with some justification, as it turned out - that casual visitors of the unaffiliated kind would choose one of the multitude of more convenient potential lodgings rather than go to the trouble of breaking the lock. Corvallis and the Bearkillers, for their part, had agreed to let the Mackenzies have first crack at Eugene's bounty of books; Corvallis had its own university library, which Sally coveted desperately. And Eugene's sort of out of the way if you're coming from Larsdalen, these days.
Inside it was musty - Sally took an ill-advised deep breath, and coughed - but the floor wasn't damp, and the air no damper than might be expected in winter. Thank the Goddess. It still wasn't good for the books, but far, far better than it might have been. She turned to her group - craftspeople, teachers, and some strong young backs to carry it all. 'OK, people! You've got your lists - history of science, economics, social history, anything like that. Try and make sure it's relevant, but don't take too long over it. And stay in twos, just in case someone came in the back door.' The Rangers had checked before Alex had opened the front door, but there was no point inviting ill luck.
Eilir grinned, urchin-like. What about fiction?
'If you must,' Sally replied, though truthfully she was looking forward to something new to read herself. When she got the chance, which wasn't often. 'But remember the horses aren't trucks.'
Eilir arced her index finger towards Sally - Sure - and gave a little skip, looking for a moment closer to fourteen than to nineteen. Not that I expect them to have any Mercedes Lackey or anything. Mom'll be relieved! Maybe some Agatha Christie...
***
'Sally? There's something I think you should see.' The speaker was Alex, in the stairwell door. There was a barely suppressed note of excitement in his voice, and Sally was glad of an interruption to her note-taking. They needed an inventory for themselves, and she couldn't quite face plundering a library without leaving a note of what they'd 'borrowed', but that didn't make list-writing any more fun.
'Hmm?'
'Down here. It's dark, but...' Alex hefted one of their small store of enclosed lanterns, and they picked their way down the basement stairs together.
'Oh. Oh, my.' It lurked in the shadows, squat and heavy and the most beautiful object she'd ever seen: a hand-cranked printing press.
Alex beamed, absurdly like a proud father. 'I can't be sure, but I think it's in working order. Should be fixable, anyway. Can we take it?'
Calculations unspooled through Sally's mind. That much metal must weigh over a ton, but they'd only packed books into one wagon, and they could dismantle it, spread the weight... They'd be able to make books. Books of their own, instead of scavenging and paying through the nose for the small output of Corvallis' presses. That alone was worth any amount of trouble. 'Yes.'
The dead city laid its weight of years and death over her; the library took her breath away as she thought of the sheer magnificent surplus that went into creating and distributing so much knowledge. The old world was lost, and so much that was good with it; but for the first time since she'd realised that Peter wasn't coming home, that nothing was going back to normal, the future was something to look forward to.