Stairway to Forever (17 page)

"Fitz ..." said Danna, in a hushed voice that was filled with uncertainty and doubt. "Fitz, I don't understand it, not any of it, it goes against all measure of reason and . . . and logic. How can you, I, anyone, just walk through stone walls or ... or spaces in the empty air? It . . . it's pure lunacy to even imagine doing things like that . . . and yet, and yet you've done it how many times? And I ... I did it, too, twice, yesterday. It's completely impossible by every law of physics of which I ever heard. But you and I, we did it, so what does that mean we are? What land of humans are we, you and I? Are we even human? If not, what are we? Fitz, it . . . it's scary, damned scary. I'm frankly terrified, oh, please hold me, hold me tightly."

He did. "Danna, I'm no mental giant, never was, and I know only as much of the sciences as any business administration major was ever taught and absorbed . . . and that was almost thirty years ago, too. I've been over the possibilities and all the impossibilities of this thing of the sand world in my mind times without number. Finally, unable to come up with any kind of logical explanation for most of it, I've just started accepting it. It exists for me . . . and now, for you, too, and therefore, it is —be it logical, rational, possible or not. It was the only way to live with it all and stay sane, I guess. You're going to

have to work out something along those same lines with yourself, too, but you and you alone can do that, I can't help you. Do you understand, Danna?"

She sighed. "I guess, Fitz, as much as I understand anything of all this, these utterly impossible facts, these things that could not ever be, yet unmistakably are.

"Fitz . . .? Fitz," she pushed against his body until she was far enough out to see his moonlit face. "Fitz, I think Pedro should be made aware of all of . . . of everything, the crypt and the doorway and the sand world, all of it.

"No, don't argue with me, not yet." She placed her hand over his lips, and went on, earnestly, "Fitz, Pedro is really no older than we—you and I—are, yet . . . yet, sometimes, the way he does things, says things, the way he thinks, make him seem infinitely older, wiser than me or anyone else. I know, I don't explain it very well, even I can sense that much, but . . . but Fitz, I really believe that he would be . . . he would completely understand, maybe, understand things that you and I do not, cannot. So, I think he should know, Fitz. You've trusted him with so much else, why not with this, too?"

He shook his head slowly. "Look, let me think on it, Danna. Hold off a while yet. Maybe he should know, I don't know one way or the other, though, right now. For the next few months, though, let him and everybody else think I'm just out of the country, in Africa or in the Caribbean or somewhere. Get the Very pistol from Gus. He won't ask a lot of questions, he'll just get it and the flares for you. Also, get him to take you to the range and teach you how to handle pistols, rifles and shotguns. The sand world just may not be as safe as you feel it to be now. I often feel as if I'm being watched there, by some-

thing that doesn't, itself, want to be seen by me. There're plenty of guns and ammo in the cabin, more here in the house. Gus spent thirty years of his life using firearms and teaching others to use them properly, he'll make you a good instructor.

"But as concerns Pedro Goldfarb . . . Look, when I get back from my trip into those hills, f 11 give you a definite answer, a yes or a no. Let's let it go at that, for now."

When he had carried up and stowed the last of the supplies, Fitz ran the bike up the planks onto the main deck of the sand yacht, disattached the sidecar, then stowed both before going back to the stern cabin and preparing to pack and set aside gear and supplies for the trip. Thanks to his discoveries of ample, potable water sources on the other side of the sandy plain, at least he was not going to have to take up a lot of the limited space by packing along gallons of drinking water; a quart canteen or two should be more than ample to his needs and there were certain to be more springs and streams in those hills, else they would not be so heavily forested.

After carefully cleaning and lubricating the carbine, he filled the under-barrel tube with ten big rounds of .44 magnum, then he inserted the weapon in the custom-made, padded-leather scabbard. He might never need it or the revolver; probably, he would not, but still he felt it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. That could be fatal. He uncased, lubricated and assembled the lightweight drilling gun, then shoved a shell of number four shot into the left barrel, a shell of number six shot into the right, completing the loading with a .22 magnum cartridge in the third barrel. This would be his pot-hunting

gun, carried in the sidecar along with its pouch of shells and cartridges, fit for the taking of birds or small game of any kind. Living off the country, or mostly off the country, would mean that he could travel lighter, supplies-wise, and thus pack along more fuel to extend his range on each trip, for the hilly country looked extensive and there was no way he could cover it all at once, not unless he could tow along a tanker of gasoline—that, or somehow alter the engine so that it would run on pure water or air. Or maybe—he grinned at the thought as he carefully tucked the air mattress in its place, then tightly rolled the trail sleeping bag—in this land of impossibilities, I could turn this bag into a flying carpet substitute and fly wherever I want to go. He chuckled at his own silliness, then grimaced as he drew the straps as tightly as he could and added the rolled bag, mattress and weatherproof cover to the growing pile of gear.

When he had done all he could, all but the last-minute things, he mixed an iceless highball, drank it in four gulps, then turned out all the lanterns save one, turning it very low, that he might not trip over scattered bits of gear in the dim light of dawn. Then he extended himself on the cot and drifted off to sleep.

And, all at once, Tom was there on his chest and belly, his eyes reflecting the dim glow of the gas lantern. Tiredly, exhausted and needing sleep, Fitz said a little brusquely, "All right, I'm headed for the hills tomorrow. What do you want me to do, roll out of this cot and saddle up tonight? If so, forget it, I'm tired and sleepy."

"And very irritable," added the cat, or so Fitz thought... or dreamed he thought. "While it might be better if you crossed the Pony Plain at night, since

the Teeth and Legs lack the proper vision to hunt on all save the brightest of moonlit nights, it might be more dangerous for you to try a crossing tonight, tired as you are, your reflexes slowed. No, cross tomorrow, but cross fast and be your most wary, for I have found fresh spoor of a big Teeth and Legs in the very area you must go across in the shortest line from here. Don't be so foolish as to try to outrun it, though. If it finds you, not even your three-wheeled thing is so fast; no, use your noise-fire-pain thing to kill it—kill it, or it will assuredly kill and eat you.

"Once you have knowledge of your full powers, of course, even the Teeth and Legs will pose no danger to you. Then, you will have no need of your noise-fire-pain things, ever again, or of your three-wheeled thing, either. You will be free, master of all, in this world and in the other, as well. But ere that happen, you must go deeply into the hills and meet the Dagda. He will set all aright with you, with her who is yours and with the other, the keeper, as well."

"What the hell are you babbling about now?" muttered Fitz. "What's a Dagda? A keeper, keeper of what?"

But all that the cat replied was, "Sleep, my good old friend."

Fitz did. Immediately.

And suddenly, once more, he was atop that rocky crag that the tall old man with the long, grey beard had climbed, bearing Fitz and another child in his arms; tight-pressed, he had held them under his cloak, against his fine bronze armor. All hacked and scarred had that armor been, though, Fitz remembered, its enamel decorations chipped away in places and the glittering stones gone, many of them, from the places wherein they had been set.

Then Fitz was within the warm, brightly lit chamber that lay within the huge boulder that the old

man had caused to open with a peeled wand of willow wood and a formula couched in the Old Language. The old man now stood naked in that room, stripped of cloak, armor, sword, clothing, everything. Despite the age that showed upon his face, his body was still that of a warrior, a vital man. The naked old man was talking to an old woman, the same old woman who had welcomed them into the chamber from the cold mountainside beyond the boulder.

"But if you render me, too, a babe, and exchange me on that future world as you and I did the young prince and princess, that will leave you alone here to face the Strangers when the Dark Ones finally have penetrated this fastness. You are one of the wisest of us all; I cannot see you sacrificed for me/'

She shook her almost-white-haired head. "Never you fear, Keeper, you have done your duty well, so far. Are you to continue so, you must live and be near to your assigned charges. This way, my way, you will live and will be near to them . . . well, at least in the same world and time. As for me, I have ways to protect myself that not even the power of the Dark Ones can penetrate."

"But if I am to be rendered a helpless babe again, even as were my charges, how can I protect them ... or even find them in that weird world so filled with Strangers and oddities that we just visited?" the naked old man protested. "And who will there be to tell their father, if still he lives, where they and I, too, have gone?"

"Their father will be informed, soon or late," she replied. "As regards the finding them and the care of them that you owe, think you: you are a man-grown, full of your great powers, so although made a babe once more, through my different powers, you will come to the full memory and use of your powers

very soon after your new body is become that of a full man.

"The little prince and princess, on the other hand, were not that much more than mere babes when once more they so became. They will require long years to remember, if ever they do, indeed, without help. You will need to seek them out, find them by their auras, and then guide them as well as you can, prompting them until they start to remember how to realize their full powers and make use of them. I was a Keeper, too, once, long ago, you may recall; so I, too, will go into that other world if I can and I'll be of as much help as I can to both you and them.

"Now the Strangers are at my gate, they are bringing up a poor, sad prisoner, one of our kind, to try to make her open the stone, so let me render you, quickly, and take you into that other world."

The warm, comfortable chamber faded away and Fitz found himself outside, on the mountaintop, before the huge boulder all carven with symbols so old and weathered as to be barely perceptible as other than mere natural disfigurements of its grey surface.

A knot of men stood before him, obviously unable to see him as he could see and hear . . . and smell them. They were a scruffy lot, Fitz thought, but still possessed of a look of dangerous, violent, brutal men. A couple wore byrnies of mail that reached from shoulder to knee, but most had as body armor only rough jerkins of hide, strips of horn and bone sewn onto them here and there for added protection. A few showed the blood and tattered, filthy bandages of relatively fresh wounds. They were armed with steel swords, mostly, axes, spears and long knives, though one had as weapon nothing save a wooden club, the bark still on part of it.

The clothing beneath the protective items was

Robert Adams

mostly of poor quality and as long unwashed as their stinking bodies, ragged, hopping and acrawl with vermin. But each and every one of the mangy pack wore a silvery amulet hung on his chest from a chain. In addition, they sported such outre* items as golden torques clasped about dirty necks, arm rings and finger rings of gold, electrum, copper, bronze and gems, brooches of brightly enameled bronze and copper, strings of pearls, pins and ear-bobs set with brilliant stones. A single look at the contrasts spelled but one word to the observing Fitz—loot.

One of the men in a byrnie, his head and neck covered by a bronze helmet of splendid construction and decoration, banged a few times on the face of the boulder with the pommel of his sword. Then he showed rotting, yellow-brown teeth in a grimace.

"This is where the he-witch went, sure enough. See, the tracks lead right up to it. But mere steel doesn't work on it. Where's a priest?"

The other man in a byrnie answered, "Not caught up to us yet, Id imagine. He and the others have only cold-bred mounts, rounseys and worse, most of them."

"Then bring the blonde witch-woman up here," snarled the first. "She'll either open it or I'll have her evil head off, on this spot."

Presently, the man with the club half-dragged a near-naked blonde woman of, Fitz estimated, about twenty years, up the trail onto the top of the mountain, to shove her before the rock and the two men in byrnies. Her hands, feet and parts of her face were blue with cold, her fair-skinned body showed the clear evidences of cruel use and abuse—whip-weals on her shoulders, back, buttocks and legs still fitfully oozing blood and serum, both her breasts showing savage tooth marks and one nipple torn

raggedly off, dangling by only a thread of flesh. She stood before the two mail-shirted men with her head of dull, matted hair hung low, the look in her eyes dull and apathetic.

"Here, witch-woman," rasped the first man, "open this rock and let us all into the under the hill and you'll be given your freedom."

Raising her battered head, one eye swollen almost shut, she gazed upon the face of the rock for a moment, then said, "This is a gate, but not a gate to the under the hill, Master. There is most likely only a cave behind it, the home of one of the Old Ones. I might have been able to open it . . . once, but after all that you and the other Strangers have done to me, after the burning water that the Dark Ones poured upon me, I no longer have the power to do such."

With a roar of pure rage, the first man grabbed a handful of the dirty, matted blonde hair, whirled his sharp steel sword on high, then swung it hard, driving it completely through the slender neck of the woman, so that he still held the head with its staring blue eyes and its open mouth, while her body— spouting high-soaring jets of ropy-red blood from the neck, legs and arms jerking—was beginning to collapse at his feet.