Warlock. Part 4

Near noon, they came to a canyon that broke downward in a ragged jumble of broken boulders and shale slides Its bottom was a sharp vee, with hardly any floor at all. Seven hundred feet down and seven hundred feet up the other side-the descent would be easy, but the ascent difficult. The opposite wall of the chasm bowed outward toward the top until it formed an overhang which climbers would have to broach by climbing upside down for the distance of fifty feet, then swing over the edge onto the solid ground beyond.

Commander Richter called a lunch break, which was accepted with enthusiasm. The Banibaleer mess officer, a man named Daborot, broke out the food cases and used them as a table onto which the cured slabs of beef, the rounds of cheese, and stale rolls of bread were placed. Coffee was brewed in eight separate pots, and soon a line had formed to devour the simple but nouris.h.i.+ng meal.

Richter brought his mess tin to the place where the Shaker and his step-sons sat and ate with them. 'We'll not all be going down and then up,' the officer said. 'That overhang is a tough one even for mountaineers, and you three would never make it.'

'My prayers have been answered then,' Mace said. It was not said with any particular humorous note to it 'What magic do you intend to use to get us from here to there, then?' Gregor asked, his mouth full of bread and cheese so that his words were somewhat garbled.

'There you have the educated Shaker-to-be,' Mace said with scorn. 'Note his fine diction and his superb manners. But yes, Commander, just how will we get from here to there?'

'Ill lead a party down, up the other side. I've clambered round greater overhangs than that. We will leave a length of rope here to be tied down, and carry an unreeling coil with us as we cross. Once on the other side, we can attach it. It is but three hundred feet across by hand, which-'

'You can't expect the Shaker, a man his age, to crawl three hundred feet on the slender strand of that rope, supported by just his hands!' Gregor had sprayed some amount of crumbs over his lap in his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

'I hardly said that,' Commander Richter said. 'I doubt even I would wish to try it. It is not nearly the same as mountaineering, but engages an entire other set of muscles.'

'What then?' Mace asked, interested.

The first man to come across will be the one named Zito Tanisha. He is from the Coedone Gypsy tribes and is inclined to acrobatics of various lands. Indeed, the entire trick we will use was devised by Zito. He will cross hand over hand, for he is used to that. He will tie a second length of rope to the cut end of the first before he leaves, paying that one out as he crosses. When he reaches us, the second rope will be made fast to our end of the first. The ropes are thin, but strong, and the knots will be tight but small. On both sides of the gorge, after the knots have been tied, wax will be melted over them to seal them tighter and to guard against slippage. At that point, we will have a great loop of rope stretched across the canyon. Sergeant Crowler will break loose the anchor piton on this side and slip this end of the loop into a pulley system which men are now putting together. The pulley is built on a small platform, upon which four men will stand as anchor. On the other side of the gorge, we will then do the same with a second, matching pulley that we will take across with us. After that, a man need only grasp the lowest rope with both hands and be whisked across by our team of drawers and the team of pullers over here who will work on the upper rope while we pull on the lower. Perhaps three minutes per man to cross. A great time saver and far less chance of disaster.'

'Quite ingenius!' Mace said in obvious admiration.

'This Zito,' the Shaker said. 'He can be trusted?'

'We've used the same device three times before,' Commander Richter said.

That is not what I asked.'

If I can't trust Zito,' Richter said, shrugging wearily, 'I can trust no one. He has given me his bloodied kerchief once, and you know what that means among the Coedones.'

'Eternal fidelity,' the Shaker said. 'And they have never been known to break such a vow. Well, it is nice to know there is one of your men who is not suspect.'

Richter finished eating and went off to take care of the last of the arrangements. Ten minutes later, he and a party of seven enlisted men had started down this side of the canyon.

'One of us simply must remain with our baggage,' Gregor said firmly. 'And they say the luggage must go last, after the men. So I'll just stand here until it's across. They can send me over after it. Then the four men weighting down the pulley platform, and the two on the drawing team can pack up and make the climb down and up like Richter did.'

'Why don't I stay?' Mace asked.

The Shaker will be over there, and that is where the muscle must be, you lummox. I am small game compared to the Shaker. Now, no more arguments.'

'I guess you're right,' Mace said.

'You know I am.'

He gripped the smaller boy's shoulder, looked at Gregor with what pa.s.sed for love between them. 'Be cautious. It is a long way down to the bottom of the canyon and no cus.h.i.+ons when you get there.'

'That I see,' Gregor said. 'I will be quite careful indeed.'

Gripping the lower rope with both big, thick-fingered hands, Mace looked down at the shattered floor of the canyon seven hundred feet below. He had been told not to look down, but the temptation was too great. He was glad, now, that he had ignored that order, for the whirling, slowly turning spires of rock below were truly lovely from such an improbable viewpoint. His blood, too, sang with a rare excitement.

Excitement.

Not fear.

For Mace, there truly was no such thing as terror. He had never experienced anything which had brought him to the frazzled ends of his nerves. And that, despite the fact that being the a.s.sistant of a Shaker provided a goodly number of hair-raising experiences. And as he was never never terrified, he was terrified, he was seldom seldom even given to fear. It was as if he had been born without that portion of his soul, as if all the fear he had never felt was transformed into extra inches of height, extra pounds of muscle. even given to fear. It was as if he had been born without that portion of his soul, as if all the fear he had never felt was transformed into extra inches of height, extra pounds of muscle.

Once, Shaker Sandow had explained to Mace just why he was so fearless. 'Mace,' the Shaker bad said, 'you are a very small magician. You have within you just the barest stirrings of a Shaker's power. That glimmer of power makes you faster on your feet than other men, quicker to react, more clever to understand, more cunning to perceive that which others wish not perceived. But there the power ends. It will never be great, nor even moderate within you. You will never do readings, never tell the future, never read minds. Such is your lot, and there is a danger in it. The minor magician, such as yourself, feels superior to other men and knows he can best them no matter what the odds-and he is only honest. But the minor magician never learns to fear, and that may one day trip him up. The major magician, in his wisdom, understands the value of fear. The major magician sees more deeply into life and realizes that fear is a most expedient emotion at the proper times. So you must always make an effort to know terror, to be afraid when the time requires fear. It is something you must culture, since it does not come naturally to you.'

But Mace never had learned it. And culturing it was far too much bother.

Watching the scenery, he made his way happily across the gorge as men toiled on either side to draw him to safety.

Well, Shaker Sandow thought, it has been a good life. I have led sixty years of it, sixty years of sunrises and sunsets, of which I have watched perhaps more than two thirds. Sixty years of thunder and lightning and storms, sixty years without ever knowing want and without ever suffering bodily injury. If I am to die now, so be it. But please, please, make my heart stop before I reach the stones below.

The good Shaker was not making the journey across the canyon with the same stoic good humor that young Mace had possessed. He had often advised Mace to learn how to fear, and he never gave advice that he did not follow himself: he was afraid.

Not terrified, though. A good magician learned that there was a limit to the usefulness of fear. Terror soon turned to panic, and that to foolishness. And so he hung on the ropes, the wind buffeting him in a slow arc, antic.i.p.ating death in a rather scholarly manner, so that if it should come upon him suddenly, he would not be ill-prepared for it.

A lone, white bird flew by him quite close, screeching at him, its clear blue eyes curious.

Perhaps forty more years of life ahead of me, Sandow thought. 'We Shakers live to ripe old ages by routine. And here I am, out on a rope above a deadly canyon- and what for? Why am I risking all those decades of life here on this cold, barren mountain?

But that was easy enough to understand. He was risking those decades of life for knowledge, the one thing which the Shaker had never been able to resist in his long life. There had been many women, yes, in many beds. But there had never been one who could dictate the course of his life, not one whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s and loins could hold him to her vision of the future. Money? Ah, but he always had a great deal of that. No, only knowledge could lead him to extremes, to risk all.

His great curiosity about the Blank and about the nature of the Shakers-and-Movers (who had come, through the centuries, merely to be called Shakers, the import of the ancient saying lost to time) had begun when he learned, as a child, that he had killed his mother. Not with an axe or a garrot, surely. But he found that all Shakers' mothers perished during childbirth, screaming under a tremendous burden of pain that was far worse than normal childbirth. Now, so long a time later, he thought he understood why those deaths happened. Even as a newborn child, he had had the power. And perhaps upon birth, his mind had transmitted the shock and pain of birth to the mind of his mother while they were still linked by the umbilical. Perhaps clear, vicious images of birth shock had struck deep into his own mother's mind, amplified her own pain, and brought her brain to hemorrhaging. It seemed the only answer.

Forty years ago, he had mentioned the theory to other Shakers. He would never do that again. They had scorned him, had accused him of stupidity and near-heresy. A Shaker's mother died, they said, because she was being rewarded with an immediate place in heaven for the production of such a gifted child. Some few said it was evil spirits that claimed these women, punis.h.i.+ng them for delivering a saint into the world. In any case, all their explanations relied on the supernatural, on spirits and demons and angels and ghosts. Not on hard facts, not on science. When he spoke of a more logical reason, he was ridiculed into flight.

Perhaps, in the east, beyond these mountains, there was evidence of those things he had believed for so long. For this possibility he was risking his life.

''Well shall you hang there all day or are you coming aground?' Mace asked, leaning out to snare him.

Shaker Sandow looked about him, surprised. 'Daydreaming, I guess,' he said. 'Yes, pull my tired old carca.s.s in by all means.' He reached out for the huge hand that had been offered him.

Mace kept careful watch on each man who came across the canyon on the pulley ropes. It was not that he was so concerned about the lives of strangers and casual acquaintances-but just that each man across meant one less before the cargo and, at last, Gregor. Though the giant could not feel fear for his own well-being, he readily evidenced it for the lives and health of the Shaker and of his step-brother Gregor.

In time, all but two enlisted men had been brought across-and the cargo and Gregor, of course. The next to last private, according to the commander, was a fellow by the name of Hastings. He was slight, but apparently rugged, in his early thirties. He grasped the lower rope firmly and kicked off from the ledge, swung over the chasm and began his journey. He was but half a minute from his side of the gorge when he evidenced weakness. His head drooped between his shoulders, like a man embarra.s.sed, his chin upon his chest. He shook himself, aware of the danger all about, and he seemed to recover for a short moment- -before he lost his grip with his left hand and maintained life only by the tenacity of the right.

'Faster!' Richter ordered the men drawing the rope. They began to pull more quickly, more dedicatedly, reeling the exhausted man in. They were as aware as anyone that the fewer of them left alive, the worse each man's chances became.

Hastings was a third of the way across now, batting at the rope with his free hand, trying to obtain a solid grasp of it. But it seemed as if he were seeing double or triple, for he could never quite do more than brush it with his fingertips.

'Hold on!' Commander Richter shouted, cupping his hands about his mouth. 'You're almost home, boy! Almost home, you hear?' His words echoed in the still, clean air.

Then Hastings let go with his right hand as well.

He fell down, down, down into the bottom of the gorge.

He did not even flail, as if he saw that screaming and arm-waving was of no avail to him at this point. He had a curious, slack resignation that made the fall all the more horrible.

He struck the rocks, and he bounced.

When he came down the second time, bloodied and quite dead already, he was speared through on a needle-sharp projection of granite and did not bounce again!

9.

The last enlisted man, Commander Richter said, was a twenty-year-old lad named Immanuli, very dark of skin -so dark that from this distance they could see nothing but his white teeth and the white of his eyeb.a.l.l.s. He followed Hastings with little more than a moment's hesitation, grabbing the rope and swinging out over nothingness, his hand clenched fiercely around the thin lifeline.

He had been on the pulley a minute when Mace said, 'It's happening to him as well. Look there!'

Immanuli was swaying erratically, shaking his head as if fighting off hands that gripped his skull and attempted to drag him into the rocky ravine below.

He was halfway now.

'He's a strong lad,' Richter said. 'Whatever it is, perhaps he can manage it.'

At that moment, the dark Immanuli let go with both hands and fell like a stone into the depths of the gorge, slammed head-first into a thrust of granite and burst like an over-ripe fruit before tumbling along to a final resting spot.

'It's a Shaker doing this!' Richter said. 'One of your brothers, Shaker Sandow.'

'I have thought of the same possibility, and I have been ranging lightly with a minimal power output. There is no other Shaker. The accidents were not caused by evil magic.'

'Well, let us see how the cargo bears. It does not have fingers to become weak or will power to give out under some strange curse.' The commander looked gloomily across the divide as the men on the other side attached the first parcels to the pulley lines.

But pessimism turned to optimism again as the bundles began to arrive without disaster. One after another, a steady stream of them crossed the scar in the land, until everything was at last on the eastern edge of the canyon.

'Now that apprentice of yours,' Richter said. 'And let us all say prayers for his crossing.'

'Wait,' Mace said. 'I require more than prayers.'

'What?'

'Certainly,' the giant said, 'the cargo crossed without incident. But it is not our supplies the a.s.sa.s.sins want. They too must eat. They are after flesh, after human lives. I do not trust to Gregor's pa.s.sage.'

'He can't very well climb,' the commander said. 'If he tries to come back with the last foot team-with those men manning the pulley over there-he'll die and take them with him. There is no hope of an amateur climbing under that overhang, even with the help of a professional team. It's the rope or nothing.'

'Then I'll test the rope,' Mace said. 'I'll go over there and back.'

'Risk a man already safe?' Richter asked incredulously. 'Out of the question!'

'Either that or all of us return,' Mace snarled. He towered over the old officer, and his physique and expression did not permit much argument.

'Master Sandow, argue sense to him!' Richter said turning to the Shaker.

Sandow smiled. 'Mace here is a minor magician. With quick reactions, quicker than any normal man could hope for-quicker even than Gregor's, for the boy is undeveloped as yet. He will have a greater chance than anyone of seeing what it was that caused those two fall -and he will have a greater chance of returning here alive. Besides, when Mace makes up his mind-well, it remains where he puts it.'

'Well!'

'There is no time to waste,' Mace said. 'Signal the far side as to our intentions.'

The flagman was brought forth, did his colorful ch.o.r.e In another minute, Mace was riding toward the far ledge from which he had departed not so terribly long ago. He arrived without incident, checked the pulley system over there and had a short conversation with Gregor to ascertain whether the youth felt fit. Inside of five minutes, he was on his way back, and he made that trip in good health as well.

'Apparently accidents,' he told the Shaker. 'I see no treachery. I felt nothing unusual coming either way. Gregor says he feels fine, though he was about to take a swig of brandy to settle his nerves for the crossing.'

'Here he comes,' Richter said. 'He's just lifted off the other side there.'

Everyone turned to stare openly at the apprentice who then seemed like a hapless insect out of its season, soon to perish from the cold. He swung gently back and forth on the pulley rope, drawing toward safety at too slow a pace to please anyone on the east of the chasm.

'It's happening!' Belmondo gasped, his voice thin and worried, not at all the competent, cool manner of a trained mountaineer.

And certainly enough, Gregor was losing his grip but a third of the distance along the two hundred-foot ride. He fought desperately to regain that handhold, finally latching fingers around the thin line. But it was evident by the sluggishness of his movements, by the angle of his weary head, that he could not maintain his position for very long.

'Put another man or two on your drawing team,' Mace told Richter. 'They're going to be needing extra strength to drag in two of us.'

'You can't go out there!' Belmondo gasped. 'The line won't hold that weight. It'll snap against the pulley wheels!'

Mace smiled, but not in a friendly or even tolerant fas.h.i.+on, patted the young officer on the head. 'You let me fret about that,' he said. He turned to Richter. 'Now!' he shouted.

Without waiting to see if the old man did as he had suggested, Mace stepped from the eastern edge of the canyon, grasped the topmost rope of the double line. Whereas the lower rope was coming toward the east, the upper rope was returning to the west, and it drew Mace inexorably onward toward the apprentice Gregor.

'He won't make it,' Richter told the Shaker. 'I'm not one for glorying in bad news, but neither am I one for coloring the truth to make it prettier.'

'Perhaps he won't,' the Shaker said. 'Then again, perhaps he will. You do not know Mace as well as I, and if you did you might have more hope than you do.'

Unsatisfied with the rate of progression of the line, Mace added to his speed by going hand-over-hand along the upper-most rope even as it drew him toward Gregor. Before leaving the cliffside, he had shed his gloves, and now his hands took the brutal burning of that moving, jerking rope as he slid along it. The lower rope, taut and speeding the opposite direction, whistled against his leather coat, snapped sharply against him now and then though he seemed hardly to notice it.

Gregor lost his grip with his left hand and hung seven hundred feet above disaster by the power of his right hand alone.

Mace was now little more than fifty feet away from the apprentice, coming fast toward him, trying not to jar the lower rope and thereby add woe to the young man' already perilous situation.

Gregor floundered about ungracefully, swinging more wildly back and forth now as he attempted to reach up and clutch the lost rope with his left hand. He made a valiant effort of it, but his movements seemed improperly coordinated, and he could not find the line.