He did not comment on Caliban’s prodigious climbing. His expression was strange, however.
I saw no reason to tell Noli that Caliban was putting me to the test again.
“Unlock the handcuffs,” I said. “I can’t get away from you as long as I’m within range of your gun.”
He smiled briefly and said, “You know I won’t shoot unless I have to. No. You stay cuffed.”
“At least let my hands be in front of me.”
“No.”
“You can’t run very fast,” I said. “The only way to stop them will be to roll rocks down and hope to start an avalanche. The slope here is a steep and loose talus. You’ll need help. I can’t help with my hands behind me.”
He waved his rifle. “Let’s go. We can still outrun them.”
I saw no reason to go along with Noli an inch more. We had come to the parting of the ways.
I strained against the handcuffs. I thought I would rip out the muscles of my arms and the veins of my temples with my effort. There was a snap, and my hands came free. He backed away, his skin white and his eyes wide. He swore in Albanian.
I turned away from him and looked over the edge of the rock. Caliban was slowed down. The Kenyans had quit firing at him. About fifty were strung out in a rough line about three hundred yards long. The rest were still on the valley floor. They had stopped firing because they realized they could precipitate an avalanche.
I picked up a boulder which must have weighed three hundred pounds and lifted it above my head. I shouted at Caliban. He had stopped now. He was about forty feet below me. His feet were on a ledge so narrow that I could almost not see it, and his hands were gripping some projections invisible to me. His head was thrown back, and he stared straight up at me. He looked like a statue carved out of the mountain itself.
I shouted, “Catch, Caliban!” and heaved the boulder outwards.
I don’t think he expected us to be so close. He must have thought we would be at least a half-mile on and desperately striving to increase the distance.
The boulder fell for twenty feet, hit an out-cropping, bounded out, struck ten feet above Caliban, broke off rock and dust and bumped past him. I could see him dimly through the cloud.
I picked up a smaller boulder and tossed it after the first. It missed all the outcrops the first had struck and, as nearly as I could determine through the dust, should have hit Caliban. Or the place where he had been. Still was, I hoped. Or did I? I felt some sense of disappointment that the relationship was so soon over and that he had been so easily disposed of.
That is, if he had been. I would not have stayed a second in the same spot, and I doubted that he would.
The first boulder had leaped on down like a great legless kangaroo. It had hit something, a loose pile, an unstable boulder or cluster of boulders. The avalanche started. The dust rose so thickly that I could not see what was happening. A noise as of two clashing thunderstorms arose, and soon the flat rock on which I stood began to tremble. We retreated. The edge of the mountain did not, however, fall off. It remained firm, although it, too, became hidden in dust.
When the rumbling had ceased and the cloud had thinned, I crawled out onto the edge and looked down. The face of the mountain was somewhat changed. There were some fresh wounds in it, naked rock exposed by the slipping away of the massive piles. At the foot of the mountain, out across half of the valley, was a mass of rocks. No Kenyans were to be seen. Only their possessions, tents, supplies, and material, had escaped.
Nor was anything to be seen of Caliban.
Noli was still pale, but he managed a smile and said, “We certainly wiped them out, heh, Lord Grandrith?”
He was holding the rifle with both hands, and he was watching my hands. I said, “I know you have another pair of handcuffs in the pocket of your jacket. I will allow you to put them on me only if my hands are in front of me. There will be some very difficult climbing ahead, and it will be impossible for me to climb with my hands behind me. In fact, it may be impossible with handcuffs.”
I held out my arms. He took the key out of his pocket and threw it to me. “Unlock those cuffs.”
While I was doing so, he took out the other pair of cuffs.
“You will put them on yourself,” he said. “You didn’t really think I would get close enough to you for you to grab me, did you?”
“I thought I would try,” I said.
He threw the cuffs at me and I caught them with one hand, spun, and released them as I completed the circle. The cuffs flew at him; he jerked the rifle up to ward them off; I was in at him, throwing myself like an American football blocker. The rifle blast seared my back; I hit him in the hips; he went down and over.
By the time he had gotten to his feet, I had the rifle.
At my order, he presented his back to me. I knocked him out with the rifle butt and chained his hands behind him. I put the key in his jacket pocket and sat down. When he regained consciousness, he groaned and fluttered his eyelids. I slapped his face to bring him to more quickly.
I lifted him up and passed a noose from his rope around his arms and body a few inches below his shoulders. I shoved him ahead. He balked but nevertheless went screaming over the edge. I pulled up on the rope so that it tightened before he had gone more than a body’s length down. He dangled, his back scraping the perpendicular face of the cliff. He tried to look up at me, but the weight of his body and the pressure of the rock behind his head prevented him.
I lowered him slowly and gently. I did not want the rope to loosen and so drop him down the cliff. Then I jerked the rope and managed to turn him so he faced the cliff. He saw the tiny ledge below his feet. After some effort, he got his feet firmly placed on the narrow cropping. The heels of his boots hung over the air.
I let more slack into the rope and succeeded in working it loose from his body and pulling it back up. He must have wanted greatly to look upward, but he did not dare. He could maintain his position on the ledge only by pressing face and body in against the rock.
I called, “Noli! You can’t go more than a few inches to the right or left! Yet, if you can get your hands in front of you, and somehow get the key out of your front pocket, and then unlock the cuffs, you can climb back up here!”
I paused. He said nothing. I said, “I’m giving you a chance to live, to get free! I’m leaving your rifle and bandolier and knife here, so that you might be able to get back to civilization, if you get out of your first predicament!
“Perhaps I’m being stupid! Maybe I should have tossed you over the edge, instead of giving you a chance to live! A very small chance, true, but still a chance!”
He did not say anything or move. He was probably afraid that the slightest motion would lose him his footing. Later, he would have to make the effort, no matter what the consequences. If he just remained there in paralysis, he would weaken, his legs would bend, and out and down he would go.
I relished that thought. It was so delightful, it gave me a semi-erection. For a moment, I was tempted to go back and drop stones on him until he did fall, just to find out if the fall itself would give me an orgasm.
I left the rifle as I had promised. First, I plugged the muzzle with dirt. If he should have the great nerve and limberness and strength and very good luck to get out of this situation, he would count himself very fortunate. He would inspect the rifle, of course, unless he was so upset or elated that he forgot his usual suspicions. If he did, and he fired it, he would lose his face.
I always check out any firearms that have been out of my sight for even a short time. Once, an enemy did the very thing to me that I was now doing to Noli.
19
Before leaving, I surveyed the valley again. The dust had almost entirely settled. On the slope of the mountain on the other side, several figures appeared. I looked through the binoculars. I could not be sure at this distance, but it seemed that the party was the two old men and the blacks.
I wondered how far Caliban intended to let them
come. He knew the consequences if he deliberately brought outsiders anywhere near the next mountain.
That was his concern. I hurried on across the top of the mountain and halfway down found a sort of cave beneath three huge boulders. I slept uneasily on the cold hard stone. More than once I awoke, thinking I heard the rattle of a displaced rock or the scrape of a knife against stone. Twice, I dreamed that a huge shadowy figure was sneaking through the darkness towards me. Once, the eyes glowed with a strange swirling golden-flecked bronze light.
I dream, of course, as every human dreams. A psychologist once checked me out on that because I was convinced that I had had only one dream in my entire life. He awoke me when the proper eye movements told him I was dreaming, and I remembered my dreams.
That I now was aware of this dream indicated how deeply Doctor Caliban had affected me.
In the morning, I continued down the mountain. I was hungry and thirsty, and I wished I had cut Noli’s liver and heart out instead of wasting him for the sake of revenge. I knocked over a rock hyrax with a stone and ate that. Later, I found some grubs under a pile of dirt and I scooped up several handfuls of ants. In the afternoon, I caught a gray lizard which looked much like an American horned toad.
I also came across some fresh goat droppings. I passed these up. I was not hungry enough for them yet. I have survived at various times by eating the spoor of animals. Antelope and elephant turds are not too distasteful. Zebra excrement is almost relishable. Lion shit and that of other meat eaters is very unpalatable and only as a last resort would I eat them. But I have. If I had not done so, I would not now be alive.
At the bottom of the next-to-last ascent was a number of scattered bones of men and women. Some were very old and might have been lying out under the African sun for fifty years or more. A few seemed to be recent. The vultures, jackals, and ants had quickly stripped the flesh after their owners died falling off the face of the mountain, and the animals and the winds had scattered their bones.
The mountain which had killed them was very steep and smooth. It required professional mountain-climbers equipment, if you did not know where to look. The Nine forbade any artificial aids whatsoever. There were places where a climber unafraid of heights, or with great courage, and equipped with strong fingers and toes, could clamber up the face of the four thousand foot cliff. I do not know how old these digit-holds are, but I would not be surprised to find out that humans—and subhumans—have been using them for at least 30,000 years. The Nine could tell but have not, and no one dares ask.
Dusk fell when I was only 500 feet up. I crawled onto a ledge with a partial overhang and tried to sleep. The cold of the night did not bother me too much. I seem to be able to endure extremes of temperature that would dehydrate or give pneumonia to other men. What made my sleep fitful was the bronze giant with the glowing golden-bronze eyes and the big knife. He seemed to be prowling all night through the jungle of my dreams.
At dawn, I resumed climbing. The really difficult part of the ascent was behind me, and I went up like a monkey on a stick. Just as the sun began its slide down from the zenith, I reached the top of this cliff. There was a level stretch of rock about thirty yards square here, and another thousand feet of climbing. First, I had to get rid of all weapons and clothing. No one approached the Nine unless he or she was naked and empty-handed.
A shoulder-high granite boulder at one corner of the plateau looked as if it had fallen from above. A stranger would have passed it by without a second glance. I placed my hand three times in rapid succession on an egg-shaped projection on the boulder, waited nine seconds, and pressed six times. A section of the boulder slid up. A shelf inside contained a depression from which water bubbled. I drank deeply of this and then I put my belt, sheath, and knife and rope on the shelf beside a number of other articles. These had been left by predecessors. Among them was a bronze-colored belt with pockets which contained a number of interesting and puzzling devices. It had been worn, of course, by Doc Caliban. I thought he had been naked when last I saw him, but he was so far off I had not detected the belt. Now this was discarded.
Beside the belt was a bronze-colored square of paper. I picked it up. The handwriting was bold but beautiful:
I rescued your Albanian friend and sent him on an errand for me. I also detected the dirt in his rifle. He seemed shaken and grateful. I expect him to get over both states quickly. But I told him I would track him down and torture him as only a medical doctor with vast scientific resources could do if he failed me. He seemed to believe me. Also, my errand will enable him to revenge himself more than satisfactorily on you and will profit him monetarily. He will contact my agents, who will expedite his entry into England and thence to Castle Grandrith, where your wife now is. He will hold her until I get there. Of course, he may betray me and take matters into his own hands.
There was no signature, or need for one.
I bellowed with frustration and rage. Since I could not get my hands on Caliban, I attacked his possessions. I threw the belt, sheath, and knife over the ledge. I ripped the note to pieces and scattered them out over the face of the cliff. After that, I climbed swiftly, too swiftly, up the last cliff. Three times I almost fell off because of my lack of caution. With an effort, I cooled myself down, though it was some time before my shaking ceased.
The man’s speed was very impressive. He had come along behind me and taken Noli from the ledge and then he had passed me. Of course I was not racing him; I had taken it relatively easy.
I told myself that I should turn back and get to England as swiftly as possible. However, Caliban might be lying to me so that I would do just that. If I failed to appear before the Nine at the appointed time, I would get no second chance for immortality. And the time I would have to stay in the caverns was very short compared to the time it would take Noli to get back to civilization. Unless Noli had been instructed to report to Simmons and Rivers, who would radio for a plane.
I knew that my wife would have insisted that I go on and let her take care of herself. She was extremely capable. If she had not been, she would long ago have been killed. She would not want me to lose the elixir for any reason and especially because of this situation.
There was also another reason, the strongest, for not turning back at once. Caliban would be waiting for me somewhere between here and the entrance to the caverns.
I had to make a decision which would take many civilized men days to agonize over. This decision took me two minutes, and that was the longest, slowest time I have ever taken.
Late that afternoon, I reached the top of the second cliff and drank from a small spring. The exit from the plateau led through a series of canyons several hundred feet deep and so narrow that both sides brushed my shoulders quite frequently. An hour’s journey brought me out of them, but not before I caught a small snake that was in the act of swallowing a rodent. I ate both of them and, feeling much stronger, pushed on.
The canyon abruptly widened onto an apron of rock about thirty feet wide and sixty long. At its end was a crevasse which fell for three thousand feet to a river. The river was always in shadow at this point. It was between sister peaks, not over eighty feet apart at this height.
A natural bridge of granite spanned the abyss. It was twenty feet wide along the bottom and sixty feet deep. The Nine had had its upper portion carved away for a depth of twenty feet, so that, like the razor’s edge bridge between the Heaven and Earth of the Muslims, a blade of rock was the only passage across. The only way across had to be on a surface three inches wide and eighty feet long.
At the other end of the arch was a broad ledge and an overhang and a blank wall of rock at the end of the ledge.
There was a seemingly natural fissure in the back of the recess. Behind this window stood a sentinel, one of whose duties was to make sure that every traveler walked across. Those who lost their nerves and sat down to scoot across were killed and tossed down into the river.
I have never seen anybody fall off the n
arrow arch or been thrown off, but then I have never seen anyone try to walk over it. I have always been unaccompanied when I made my required visits. I think that the Nine arrange matters so that the pilgrims of eternity do not see each other while on the way.
However, when I got into the caverns, I usually saw the same people. My wife always went at a different time, and I had never seen Caliban there. I suspected that the Nine, for reasons of their own, which I might or might not learn, had arranged our visits to coincide.
It did not matter. What did matter was that Caliban was waiting for me, as I had expected.
Naked, his arms extended for balance, he stood in the center of the bridge with one foot behind the other. He grinned when he saw me; the teeth were peculiarly white in the metallic reddish-brown face.
20
That penis was like a dark-bronze python sliding out of a nest of brown-red leaves. It gave me a slight shock to see it, it was so enormous. It was soft, yet it must have been at least three inches wide and eight inches long. The testicles were correspondingly huge.
The genitals were the one disproportion of the magnificent body. Revealed, they made him a freak.
21
I stopped at the edge of the abyss and set one foot on the bridge. The rock was black granite, smooth and cold when felt by the hand. My soles did not feel the stone, since the calluses on them were as thick and as tough as rhinoceros hide.
He seemed to expect me to say something, perhaps to ask him why he was after me. I saw no reason to talk. It was too late for words. The sooner I got him out of the way, the sooner I would get my business over with and the sooner I could get to England.
I stepped out on the bridge and slowly approached him, one foot behind the other, my hands held out. The wind blowing up from the river was cold. I was sweating despite the height and the lack of sun and the wind.