Eye of the Zodiac

Chapter Nine

Dawn came with a flush of golden light, reds and ambers gliding the mountain peaks. The air was still, the smoke from the cooking fire rising straight as if drawn with a crayon against the sky.

At noon they reached the foothills, gliding over rugged terrain, naked rock showing through patches of scrub. Thickets of bushes, a few thorned trees, their branches twisted, ruby leaves edged with silver gray.

"Watch out for those," warned Chaque. "The spines carry poison."

They ate in mid-air, cold food washed down with water, and two hours later reached the Marasill Gap.

It was vast. The result, Dumarest guessed, of some ancient convulsion which had split the range, parting the hills as if with the blow of a gigantic axe. A narrow stream ran along the bottom, vanishing into an underground cavern, a blur of spray masking the entry. The walls were sheer, matted with vegetation. The air was heavy with a brooding stillness.

"Up," said Dumarest to Jalch at the controls. "Keep us high."

"Too high and we'll see nothing. There should be signs, a scar-"

"Which must have long since been overgrown. Up, man! Up!"

The raft lifted as Moore obeyed. Turbulence caught them as they topped the fissure, the vehicle veering, tilting as currents fought the controls. A moment and the danger had passed.

"Close!" Chaque wiped sweat from his face and neck. "If we had crashed then-" He broke off, shuddering. A long fall and no hope of survival. "I warned him against using the Gap, but he wouldn't listen."

"What lies beyond?"

"The valley of the Candarish. We'll camp there tonight."

It was small, sealed, the crest of the slopes topped by a tangled mass of thorn-bearing trees, the slopes themselves scored by terraced fields. On the level bottom horned cattle cropped at lush grass, the animals attended by boys. The village was a cluster of low houses built of stone and turf, the roofs gabled, the windows open slits which could be closed with curtains of leather.

A cluster of inhabitants came forward as the raft landed; men wearing rough garments of fabric and leather, the arms and shoulders of their jackets ornamented with tufts of colored fur. The women wearing long loose robes which trailed in the dirt, their heads covered, their faces veiled. Children, pot-bellied, dirty, their hair oily and lank, watched with enormous eyes.

"My friends!" Chaque jumped down from the raft and stood with both hands uplifted. "We come in peace, to trade, to bring gifts, to learn of your wisdom. Who is chief among you?"

"He stands before you." A wrinkled oldster, his eyes filmed with cataracts, his mouth wet with spittle, took one step towards the guide. "Are you known to us?"

"My gifts are my welcome. Tools of metal and cloths of bright colors."

"A trader." The old man nodded. "You are welcome. Come into my house and we shall talk."

He turned, walked away, Jalch Moore and the guide following him. From where she stood at Dumarest's side Iduna said, quietly, "The depths to which men can sink. They live in dirt and ignorance. Yet, only a relatively short journey away, lies the door to the stars."

"A door that can't be reached." Dumarest looked at the crest of the valley. The setting sun caught the leaves, turned them into a barrier of flame. "What does your brother hope to learn here?"

"A clue, perhaps a rumor, something to lead him to the Kheld." She jumped down from the raft. "Shall we walk a little? See what is to be seen."

Dumarest hesitated, looking at the men who stood, still watching them. They carried knives, but little else. One had a spear, another a crossbow, two more holding staves with rounded ends. From the feeding cattle came a soft lowing and, without a word, several women turned and headed towards them.

"Earl?"

It seemed to be safe enough, yet he knew that nothing could be taken for granted. A display of weapons might be taken amiss, yet to leave them behind was to beg for trouble.

A raft loaded with goods, four people, one a woman-a temptation the Candarish might not be able to resist.

"Go if you want, Iduna. I'll stay here."

She was back within the hour, her boots soiled, grime on her hands and face. Without a word she washed, using water from a canteen. Then, picking up a rifle, checked the load.

"Trouble?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle. A young buck thought he had the right to touch me."

"And?"

"I taught him differently." She smiled at his expression. "Don't worry about it, Earl. I only hurt his pride."

Perhaps the worst thing she could have done, as she should have known. Dumarest picked up his rifle.

"Stay here," he ordered. "Don't leave the raft until I return."

A fire had been lit before the houses, a great pile of brushwood which had been set to dry in the sun. It threw a ruddy, dancing glow in which the feeble, oil-burning wicks within the houses were dimmed to pale splotches of luminescence. Dumarest headed away from the fire, moving in a wide circle, eyes narrowed, ears tense for the slightest sound. He caught the pad of naked feet, the inhalation of breath and dropped, the rifle lifting.

The sounds died, but instinct warned him that he was not alone. He moved, carelessly silhouetted against the glow of the fire, dropping as something flashed out of the darkness towards him.

A spear which sliced the air above him, to land with a dull thud in the dirt behind. Another came, held by a pair of hands, the point stabbing where he lay. He rolled over, slammed the barrel of the rifle against naked shins, rose as the man fell, screaming.

"Earl?"

He ignored the woman's call. With his back to the fire, he retained his night-vision. Those who faced him would lose it. Against that he made a clear target, trusting to his speed to defeat any attack.

It came immediately. Two men, young, strong, faces bathed in the firelight, rose from the ground to leap towards him. One held a club, the other a staff. One attacking high, the other low.

Dumarest fired, aiming to kill, dodging as the staff aimed towards his skull. He fired again, running as the man fell.

"Iduna! Lift the raft! Lift it!"

"What's happening?" Chaque appeared at the door of a house, Jalch Moore peering over his shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Get to the raft! Move!"

Dumarest fired again as figures appeared on each side of the men. One fell, blood gushing from his mouth, his lungs ripped by the missile. The other, luckier, spun and fell nursing a broken shoulder.

"An attack?" Chaque was quick to grasp what was happening. "The raft, quickly!"

Dumarest covered them as they ran, men pouring from the houses to go after them, spear-points glinting in the firelight. One hit the guide on the forearm, cutting into flesh before the spear dropped free. Then he reached the hovering raft, had flung himself over the edge, Moore following close behind.

"Earl?"

"Coming!" Dumarest ran forward, emptying the magazine, throwing the rifle into the raft, leaping to grab the edge as it rose. Within seconds, he was aboard.

"What happened?" Moore looked stunned. "We were talking quietly when we heard a scream, then shots. You, Earl?"

"Yes."

"Have you gone mad? Do you realize what you did? I was about to learn something, a fact of great importance, and you ruined everything. Iduna! Return at once. We can smooth things out."

She said nothing, increasing their height, the fire now a distant point below.

Nursing his arm Chaque said, "Be careful, girl. Set us down as soon as you can. It would be stupid to run from spears and smash into a mountain."

* * * * *

They landed in a shallow dell in a place high and far from the valley, Iduna setting down the raft gently, guided by the blazing glow of a flare. By the light of a lantern Dumarest examined the guide's arm, finding only a shallow gash, binding it with materials taken from a medical cabinet. Jalch Moore was harder to please.

"You ruined everything," he accused. "Why did you have to fire at shadows? I trusted Hausi and I trusted my own convictions. In both cases, apparently, I was wrong. Or is there some reason why you don't want me to find the Kheld?"

Paranoia, trembling on the brink of complete insanity. Dumarest said, patiently. "It was a trap. They intended to surprise us. While you two were kept in conversation, we were to have been killed. I anticipated them, that's all."

"I don't believe it! Chaque?"

"It's possible," admitted the guide. "A small party carrying a fortune in goods, yes, it's possible. We wouldn't have been the first expedition to be lost in the mountains."

"But the information he was going to give me-"

"Words." said Dumarest. "Empty talk to keep you occupied. You underestimate the old man. He only told you things you wanted to hear."

"No!"

"You were with him for over an hour. What did you learn? Nothing. An entire hour-that alone made me suspicious. With people like the Candarish you trade first and talk afterwards." A thing Chaque should have known, but Dumarest didn't mention that. There was no room for recrimation in such a small party. "We'll eat," he decided. "Eat and rest. In the morning, we'll figure out what to do."

"There is no question about that," said Moore coldly. "We go on."

"To where?"

"Here!" Moore unfolded a map and tapped it with his finger. "Towards the east and upwards to this plateau. There is mention of it in the Eldrain Saga. There could be signs, symbols, evidence of the Kheld. The Candarish could have helped us-but it's too late for that now."

And perhaps too late for many things. Thwarted, Jalch Moore could turn vicious. Dumarest had noted the bulge under his blouse, the weight of a laser. Defied he would use it, killing without consideration, damaging the raft beyond repair, stranding them all. And Earl still had to find the object of his own search.

"If the Kheld exist we'll find them," he promised. "Now, Iduna, how about that food? Chaque, you'd better check the raft while I look around."

The dell was set on the summit of a pinnacle of stone, a dead vent which had become blocked and filled with wind-blown soil. The vegetation was springy, tough fibers matted into a compact whole. A place safe from any but airborne attack-one during which they would starve if anything happened to the raft.

Later, as he sat watching the wheel of the stars, Iduna came to sit beside him.

"Earl, it was my fault, wasn't it."

"The attack? No."

"I've been thinking. If I hadn't rejected that young buck-but I couldn't bear that he touch me."

"He was anticipating," said Dumarest. "If you hadn't fought he would have taken you, hidden you safely away somewhere."

"For later use," she said bitterly. "For him and his friends, and any other man who chose to use me. Animals!"

"You were strange. A female who dressed like a man. He'd probably never seen a woman's naked face before."

"Savages! Beasts!"

"Primitives," he corrected. "With a rigid culture and elaborate customs. You were outside the framework of his experience. Dress like a man-be treated like a man. Had we been killed and you kept alive, the women would have stoned you to death. To them you would have been unnatural. Dangerous. A thing to be destroyed."

She said, oddly, "Do you think I'm unnatural, Earl?"

"No."

"Some men do. They wonder what I look like when naked and hint that my interest lies only with other women. They don't understand."

A lonely child, perhaps. A father who had wanted only sons, an elder brother to emulate. And, if she had worked in the field as she had claimed, then the clothes would have been an elementary precaution to have diminished her attraction.

"It's late," he said. "You should get some rest."

"Sleep while you stand guard?"

"It's what I'm paid to do." He wished that she would leave him, sensing her feminine curiosity, the desire to probe. From behind the raft Chaque coughed, a harsh rasping sound in the stillness. Within the vehicle itself Jalch Moore turned, restless in his sleep.

"Earl!"

He turned as she came towards him, her arms lifted, embracing his neck, her hands pulling him close to press her lips against his own. For a moment he felt the demanding heat of her body. Then, as Jalch turned again, muttering, she drew slowly away.

"My brother-he needs me."

"Yes."

"Goodnight, Earl."

"Goodnight."

The night grew old. Dumarest woke Chaque to stand his turn at watch, then settled down to sleep. He woke with the sudden alertness of an animal, one hand reaching up to the shadow looming above, the other lifting the knife.

"Earl!" Chaque clawed at the hand which gripped his throat, recoiling from the knife which pricked his skin. "Don't! It's me!"

"What's wrong?"

"Something. I don't know what. Listen."

It came from above. A thin, eerie chittering, a peculiar stridation, like the rasp of chitinous wings. Dumarest rose, the rifle in his hands, eyes narrowed as he searched the sky. He could see nothing but the glitter of distant stars, the band of the galactic lens a pale swath low on the horizon. There was no wind, the air like glass.

"I was sitting, dozing I guess, then I heard it," whispered Chaque. "It swept over me and seemed to rise. But I could see nothing. Nothing!"

It came again, apparently nearer. A thin, nerve-scratching sound which filled the night with a peculiar menace. And then, as Jalch screamed in his nightmare, it was gone.

"Earl?" Chaque was shaken, his face ghastly in the starlight. "Was that one of the things we're looking for? One of the Kheld?"

"I don't know."

"If so, I hope we never find them." The guide glanced to where Iduna was soothing her brother. "We remain silent, right? We tell him nothing."

A sound in the darkness, an impression-what was there to report? Yet, to Jalch Moore it would be proof of the existence of what he sought. He would insist on remaining in the dell, setting up his traps, waiting, risking all their lives. And Dumarest had no interest in finding the Kheld.

* * * * *

The days became routine. Waking to eat, to drift deeper into the mountains, to camp at night, to eat again. Twice more they found isolated communities, trading, listening to vague rumors. A mass of conflicting and contradictory stories which sent them on a random pattern of search. And daily, Jalch became more deranged.

"Well find them," he muttered, crouching over his maps. "Here, perhaps? Or here? We must head for the higher peaks." He snarled like an animal as Chaque protested. "You claim to be a guide-why are you so irresolute?"

"Because I have a regard for my skin. The higher we go, the greater the danger. The winds-"

"Do you suggest we return?"

"No." Dumarest leaned over the map. It was rough, inaccurate, the product of speculation and surmise, but some things he recognized. "Here." He rested his ringer on a valley, one to the east. "We could try there."

"A valley, we need the heights!" Jalch Moore was impatient. "The fools know nothing. We must climb high and search the peaks."

They lifted too soon in the day, thermals catching the raft, sending it spinning dangerously close to an overhang.

"He'll kill us," said Chaque as he clutched at the raft's edge. "Earl, can't you take over? Stop him?"

"He's a good pilot." That, at least, was true. Jalch could handle a raft, and to argue now was to invite disaster. Dumarest leaned over the edge, looking below, seeing a snarled jumble of crevasses, ridges, naked stone wreathed with massed thorn. He felt the presence of the woman at his side, the warmly soft impact of her arm against his own.

"What are you looking for, Earl? What do you hope to find?"

"Here?"

"Anywhere. You're a traveler, always moving, always looking. Why?"

"Why do you hunt specimens in the field?"

"A job."

"Which could be done as well by others." He turned to face her, catching the speculation in her eyes. "To each their own, Iduna. You have your ways, I have mine."

"You're hard," she said. "Hard and cold. While I wish I didn't, I do admire you. Envy you a little, perhaps. Has any woman ever owned your heart?"

She frowned as he made no answer, recognizing his silence for the barrier it was. Since the night on the dell, she had made no further advances and he had invited none. A thing which perturbed her, offended her femininity.

"You have loved," she decided. "And you have been loved in turn. What happened, Earl? Did she die? Did you leave her? Does some lonely woman sit on some world, waiting for you to return?"

"Does some man wait for you?"

"No, or if they do they are fools. But no man has ever been really close to me. Always there is something, a barrier, between those who want me and those whom I want." She leaned a little further over the edge of the raft. "What was that? An animal?"

There was nothing, or if there had been it had vanished. A diversion, Dumarest guessed. Something to break the trend of the conversation, to shift it from what she could have considered dangerous ground. He felt the raft shift a little as Chaque came towards them.

"Iduna, you've got to stop him." His head jerked to where Jalch sat at the controls. "He wants to climb to the summit of the range, then quest along the entire area. He's mad."

"He is in charge of this expedition," she said coldly.

"Even so, he is mad. The winds-it has never been done before. He doesn't understand and won't listen. Please, you must make him be more cautious. I-" Chaque broke off, cursing as the raft veered. "The fool! Why won't he listen?"

Dumarest moved back from the edge.

"You're the fool," he said sharply. "You're unbalancing us. Get up to the front, quickly!"

It was too late. As the guide moved an updraft, combined with eddys thrown from the flank of the mountain, cojoined to create a turbulence which spun the raft and sent it crashing against a ridge. A near miss, only the bottom was affected, but it was enough.

"Quickly!" Dumarest gripped a bale, threw it over the edge, snatched at another. "Lighten the raft before we drop too low."

Drop into a natural chimney, the mouth of a natural funnel, the vortexes it would contain. The crash had ripped some of the anti-gravity conductors from their housings. Overloaded, most of its lift gone, the raft tilted as it dropped, spinning hopelessly out of control.

"Move!" Dumarest flung another bale over the side, followed it with some of the large metal boxes, a crate of instruments.

"No!" Jalch abandoned the controls, lunging from his seat into the body of the raft, hands clawing at the cargo. "You can't! I need these things! I need them!"

Dumarest struck him once, a hard blow to the jaw which sent the man sprawling and stunned. As Jalch fell Dumarest lunged for the controls, gripped them, fought to steady the raft which was now pitching and tilting. He heard Chaque cry out, saw the side of the chimney coming close. Then, they had hit with a grinding impact.

"The load-dump it!"

Chaque obeyed as the raft veered from the rock, lifting a little, dropping as it hit a mass of cold air, again hitting the slope of the mountain. It turned almost on edge, skidded down a mass of rock, hurtled into space to slam against a boulder lower down. Metal ripped with a thin squeal, and a gush of acrid smoke rose from the controls. Bared wires touching, energy short-circuited, the engine itself falling silent as they fell.

Fell to land in a shallow ravine, the impact cushioned by matted vegetation, which lay in and around the wreckage of the raft.