The Magic Labyrinth (35 page)

“Nobody stopped you,” Frigate said. “Although, to tell the truth, I was disappointed, too. The only thing that kept me back was that, if I did miss, the group would be just that much weaker. Maybe I’ll try it anyway just to show I can do it.”

He looked at Tai-Peng, and they both burst out laughing.

“You ain’t fooling me none,” Croomes said in English. “You two men was skeered to do what a woman wasn’t afraid to do.”

“That’s the difference between you and us,” Frigate said. “We’re not crazy.”

When they all were restored, they tied the ends of the long heavy rope around the boulders and chocked them with smaller stones. Joe let himself down over the edge backwards, grabbed the sagging rope, and hand-over-handed across it. His friends seized the rope to insure that the boulder wasn’t moved by his enormous weight, though it wasn’t necessary. When he got quickly to the edge, some left the rope and helped him get up over the edge.

“Boy, I hope I never have to do that again!” he gasped. “I never told you guyth thith before, but vhen I get on a real high plathe, I alvayth have an urge to jump off.”

Getting to the ledge that led along the mountainside to the sea took them ten hours.

“Thith ith narrow enough now, but vhen ve get to the plathe vhere thothe two Egyptianth fell, man, that’th thomething!”

Several thousand feet below was a mass of clouds. They spent eight hours sleeping and continued after they’d had their monotonous breakfast. Though the Egyptians had crawled along this trail, the group faced the rock and edged along, their fingers gripping the holes and small outthrusts of the rock.

The air became somewhat warmer. Here the water still had heat to give up after its long wandering through the arctic regions and its passage through the polar sea.

The ledge was safely traversed. They went on another plateau and came to where, as Joe had said, they would be near the sea. He walked painfully to the edge of the mountain and pointed his lantern beam down on still another ledge.

It began about six feet below the edge of the cliff, was about two feet wide, and continued downwards with the same breadth until it was lost in the thin clouds. It sloped at a 45-degree angle to the horizon or would have if there had been one.

“We’ll have to abandon some stuff and make our packs smaller,”

Burton said. “There isn’t enough room for them otherwise.”

“Yeah, I know. Vhat vorrieth me ith that the Ethicalth might’ve cut the ledge in half, Jethuth, Dick! Vhat if they found the cave down there?”

“Then we’ll have to trust to the inflatable kayak you’re carrying to get two of us to the tower. I’ve mentioned that before.”

“Yeah, I knov. But that ain’t going to keep me from talking about it. It helpth relieve my tenthyon.”

The sun never came above the top of the circling mountains. Despite this, there was a twilight illumination.

“I fell off the ledge before I got too far,” Joe said. “Tho I don’t know how far the path—thome path!—goeth. It may take a whole day, maybe more, to get to the bottom.”

“Tom Mix said that Paheri, the Egyptian, told him that they had to stop once and eat before they got to the bottom,” Burton said. “That doesn’t mean much, though. The journey was fatiguing, and so they’d get hungry sooner than they usually would.”

They found a shallow cave. Joe, with the help of the others, rolled a big boulder to partially block the entrance and keep the wind out. They retreated to it to eat their meal. Two lamps kept the hollow bright, but they weren’t enough to cheer them. What they needed was a fire, the ancient shifting brightness and crackling warmth which had cheered their Old Stone Age ancestors and every generation since.

Tai-Peng was the only one in high spirits. He told them stories of his antics and those of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cups, the companions of his old age, and cracked many a Chinese joke. Though the latter couldn’t adequately be translated through Esperanto, they were good enough to cause some, and especially Joe Miller, to shout with laughter and pound their thighs. Then Tai-Peng composed some on-the-spot poems and concluded by brandishing his sword at the tower somewhere ahead of them.

“Soon we will be in the fortress of the Big Grail! Let those who’ve meddled with our lives beware! We will conquer them though they be demons! Old Kung Fu Tze warned us that humans must not concern themselves with spirits, but I was never one to pay attention to that old man! I listen to no man! I follow my own spirit! I am Tai-Peng, and I know no superior!”

He howled, “Watch out, you things that hide and skulk and refuse to face us! Watch out! Tai-Peng comes! Burton comes! Joe Miller comes!”

And so on.

“Ve thyould fathe him our vay,” Joe whispered to Burton. “Ve thyure could uthe all that hot air.”

Burton was watching Gilgamesh and Ah Qaaq. They reacted just like the others, laughing and clapping Tai-Peng on. But that could be just good acting by one or both. He was worried. When they got to the cave—if they did—he would have to do something about them. Even if they were innocent, he would have to try to determine if one of them, or both, was X. Either of them could be Loga. Either of them could be Thanabur.

How could he do it?

And what—if anything—was one, or both, plotting?

He ran a scenario through his mind. When they started down the trail, he’d arrange it so that Joe Miller would be in the lead. He’d be second. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh would be in the rear. He didn’t want them to be the first to get to the cave—if it was still there and not plugged up.

The Mayan and the Sumerian—if they were such—would come in last, and they’d be disarmed as they entered the cave. They carried long knives and .69-caliber plastic-bullet revolvers. Joe and de Marbot would see that they were relieved of them. He would warn Nur and Frigate about the deed, but he wouldn’t have them in on it. He still wasn’t sure about the American or the Moor. His experience with the agent, the pseudo–Peter Jairus Frigate, had made him very wary of the real Frigate, if he was indeed the original. Nur seemed to be what he claimed he was, but Burton trusted no one. Even the titanthrop might be an agent. Why not? He was intelligent and capable despite his grotesque size and facial features.

Burton had to trust someone, though. There were two, himself, and, after so many years of intimacy, Alice. The others—ah, the others! He’d have to watch them closely but his instincts, whatever that much-abused term meant, and it probably didn’t mean much, told him that all but two were what they said they were.

With their much-reduced packs, Joe still carrying the largest, they let themselves down on the last ledge. Moving sideways on the toes and front of their feet, their arms extended parallel to their shoulders most of the time, they held on to whatever grip they could find. It wasn’t long before they came around the curve of the mountain, perhaps two hours, though it seemed like a very long time. Then Joe stopped, and he turned his head.

“Quiet, everyone. You might be able to hear the thound of the thea beating againtht the bathe of the mountainth.”

They listened intently, but only Burton, Nur, and Tai-Peng heard the waves against the rock and that might have been their imagination.

When they came around the shoulder, however, they could see the relatively bright heavens and, looming faintly in the upper regions, the hulk of the mountains that ringed the sea on the far side.

Of the tower, there was no indication, not even a dim bulk. Yet it was in the center of the sea according to Joe’s own story and the reports from the airship
Parseval.

Joe called, “Here’th vhere I came acrothth a grail thomebody left. Here’th vhere I thaw a thudden blathe of light vhen the Ethical’th aircraft came down to the top of the tover. And here’th vhere I thtumbled over the grail and fell to my death.”

He paused.

“It ain’t here now.”

“What?”

“The grail.”

“The Ethicals must’ve removed it.”

“I hope not,” Joe said. “If they did, then they knew that people could get here, and they vould’ve trathed the ledge down to the bottom and found the cave. Let’th hope that thomebody elthe came along and removed it. Maybe the Egyptianth did after I fell.”

They moved on the seemingly thread-thin wet-slippery footing. The mists became thicker then, and Burton couldn’t see more than twenty feet ahead with the aid of his lantern, which he had to lift from his belt hook when he wanted more visibility.

Presently, Joe stopped.

“What’s the matter?” Burton said.

“Thyit! The ledge runth out. Vait a minute. Lookth—and feelth—like it’th been melted down here. Yeah! It hath! The Ethicalth’ve cut the ledge out right here! Now vhat do ve do?”

“Can you see how far the melt goes?”

“Yeth. It lookth like it thtopth about forty feet from here. Might ath vell be a mile, though.”

“How far up or down does the melt go?”

A minute passed.

“For ath far ath I can reach. Vait a minute. I’ll thyine my light.”

A few seconds passed.

“There’th thome fiththyureth about four feet above my fingertipth.”

Burton removed his pack and got down on his hands and knees. Nur, who’d been just behind, crawled slowly over him. Joe and the Moor did a circus-acrobat balancing act while Nur climbed to the titanthrop’s shoulders. Presently, Nur said, “It looks as if there are some fissures on a straight line. Enough for our pitons.”

Nur continued standing on the titanthrop’s shoulders. Burton handed the steel wedges and a hammer to Joe, who passed them on to the Moor. While Joe held Nur’s legs firmly, Nur’s hammer drove in two wedges. Burton sent up the end of a rope, thin but heavy enough, to Nur. He passed this through the eyes of the wedges and secured the end at the most remote piton.

The Moor got down onto the ledge by Joe’s side where Burton held him from falling off while he put on a harness much like that which parachutists wear. These were made of fish leather and metal and had been part of the launch’s stores. On the webbing on the chest were buckles to each of which strong plastic ribbons were attached. At the end of each was secured a small metal device containing a wheel.

Nur climbed back up on Joe. When he stood up on the titanthrop’s broad shoulders, he passed one jaw of the wheeled device around the horizontal rope held through the eyes of the pitons. He snapped the device together and locked the jaws with a lever. Now he could slide along the rope attached to the cliff face. When he got to the first piton, he locked the left-hand wheeled block to the part of the rope beyond the first piton. Then he unhinged the first block and slid along to the second piton.

Bracing his feet against the cliff wall, he leaned outwards, supported by the ribbons, and began hammering the third piton into a fissure. This was hard labor and required many rests. The others needed food, but they were too concerned about Nur to have any appetite.

It took five hours for Nur, working patiently, hammering at the pitons, to reach the area above the ledge where it resumed. By then he was too exhausted to drive in another piton. He dropped down along the face of the cliff to the projection.

Burton went next, climbing up on the giant’s back to his shoulders, no undangerous feat. Without Joe’s height and strength, the entire party would have been stopped at this point with no alternative except to go back. They would have starved then, since they did not have enough rations for the return trip.

Burton moved along the cliff face as Nur had and presently was at the other ledge. Nur caught and steadied Burton as he released the block and slid down with his hands extended to slow down his descent by their friction. Fortunately, the ledge here was broader than on the other side of the melt.

Those on that side had another problem. That was getting the heavy packs across. There seemed nothing else to do but to get rid of all except the most essential items. Unpacking was difficult, though, because of the very small space for footing. They helped each other, one clinging with a hand to a roughness in the wall while he or she reached over and opened the pack on the back of his neighbor. The items had to come out one by one and be dropped into the sea or placed on the ledge for repacking.

Everything went except the knives, firearms, the ammunition, some long heavy cloths, some rations, and the canteens. Part of those were placed in their grails. Alice and Aphra, the lightest, were to bring over what was left in Burton’s and Nur’s packs in their own.

Joe called across the abyss and asked if he should leave the inflatable kayak behind. Burton said that it shouldn’t be discarded. But since Joe weighed so much, it’d be best to have de Marbot carry it in his pack. The contents of the Frenchman’s pack should be parceled out between Croomes’ and Tai-Peng’s.

Burton didn’t want the titanthrop to bring across anything but himself. So far, the pitons had given no indication of coming loose. But he didn’t know what eight hundred pounds would do to them.

One by one, the others came until only Ah Qaaq and Joe Miller were left. When the Mayan made the passage, he used his hammer to drive each wedge in more securely.

Joe reached down gingerly and picked up his huge canteen. He emptied it and placed it back on the ledge. He shouted, “I vant to get acrothth fatht! Tho I ain’t going to bother vith my harnethth! I’ll thving over, hand over hand.”

He leaped up and grabbed the rope by the first piton.

He moved swiftly, his long arms reaching out, grabbing the rope ahead of him and then sliding the other along. He used his knees to brace himself so he could lean outwards.

Halfway across, a piton skreeked as it pulled out from its hole.

Joe was motionless for a moment. Then he extended a long arm to the rope on the side nearest him from the next piton.

The loosened piton came free with another screech. Joe dropped down, clinging to the rope, and swung like an almost-stopped pendulum.

“Hang on, Joe!” Burton said.

Then he screamed with the rest of the party as the second wedge tore loose and the others followed.

Bellowing, shrouded in white cloths, Joe Miller dropped for the second time into the dark sea.