Stairway to Forever (18 page)

Tossing the severed head away to go rolling and bouncing down the rocky slope of the mountainside, the murderer bent to tear the last shreds of tattered clothing from the headless body and used it to wipe clean his precious steel sword-blade. Then he snapped to one of the other men, "Go down there and mount and ride, take my horse, too, but find that priest and bring him back as fast as horseflesh will travel. Go!"

The men stamped and paced back and forth and

blew upon their cold hands for a while. Finally, two of them gathered such wood as they could find on the mountainsides below, then brought it up to where the second man in a byrnie had kindled a tiny blaze with tinder and stray, windblown twigs and dry leaves. After it had begun to blaze, the first two squatted beside it and the others gathered as close around the two leaders as they dared.

Fitz felt neither the cold winds that rufiled and jerked at the ragged clothing of the men, the slow, misty rain that continued to drizzle slowly down out of the leaden skies, or the fitful warmth of the small fire. He knew, without really knowing, that he was not on that mountaintop, not really; only his mind and his senses were there.

The fire still was sputtering its way through additional, damper wood, when there came a staccato clatter of hooves from below, down the mountain trail. In a few minutes, the man who had been sent out came panting up the steep slope, followed at a few yards' distance by a big, burly man clad in a long, black, woolen robe, the hood of it thrown back to reveal a plain steel cap and a red, sweaty face. The chain about his neck was heavier and the amulet on his breast was much larger than those of the others, but he wore at his side a cross-hilted sword of steel and helped his progress up the trail with a shepherd's crook of some very dark wood, shod with a wide band of steel near its butt. The shaft of the crook showed nicks and splintery dents all along its length, as if it might have recently been used as a weapon.

To Fitz, the man looked cleaner and more civilized than those he was climbing up to join, but as he neared, the watcher could see in his eyes a blazing fire of fanaticism that was awful to observe. This man

might not be a brutal, savage barbarian by nature, but he could be every bit as cruel as the worst of them; this Fitz knew without really knowing.

Not so much as glancing at the pitiful, naked, headless body or at the humbler men, he strode to stand before the two byrnie-clad men, who had arisen from their squats at sight of him.

"Why have you sent for me in such haste, my son?" he asked of the first man, in a tone of equal speaking to equal, but with a bare tinge of condescension, too.

The first man waved an arm at the boulder. "Yon-der's a gate, Father. The tracks of the he-witch we were chasing went right up to it and stopped. Her," he pointed his bearded chin at the white, drained body lying grotesquely sprawled, "we brought up here and she affirmed it to be a true gate, but said she couldn't open it, so I slew her, the damned witch.

"But it must be gaped, Father, are we to catch that he-witch and wipe out the breed of the witches for good and all and make the world safe for the worship of Our Gentle Lord, Jesus Christ, Savior of all mankind."

A grim, purposeful look on his hard face, the man in black nodded. "You did well to send for me, my son. Yonder portal of evil will be opened, never you fear. The power of Our Lord will gape it even in the very face of the damnable evil that assuredly lieth within."

The black-robed man strode over to stand before the boulder's face. Standing with his bare, round-muscled legs spread wide apart, he took the shepherd's crook in both his big, hairy hands and held his arms high, then began to chant some words in a language that Fitz could not understand, though he

nonetheless thought it not to be the Old Language, such as the old bearded man had used with his willow-wood wand to open the stone.

The stone did finally open, suddenly, but not gendy, invitingly, as it had earlier. With a thunderlike clap of noise, the face of the boulder split down its entire face and chunks of it burst away to roll, crashingly, down the mountainside to either side of it.

Armed with bared weapons and grasping blazing brands from the fire, the men filed into the narrow, jagged-walled cleft in the rock to find only a cave chamber, but slightly wider and higher than the passage through which they just had entered. The cold, musty place in no way resembled the warm, well-lit chamber that had been there so short a time before. There were no lamps, no carpets, no other comforts of any nature, only a tick of straw in a corner, a circle of sooty stones surrounding a pile of long-cold ashes, and some bundles of dry, crackly herbs hung from twigs driven into small cracks in the walls. No living thing, other than the intruders, was within that cave, and the only thing at all familiar that Fitz could see was the very faint glow of a single section of one wall of the place.

Although he could see it, obviously the black-robed man and the barbaric warriors could not. After searching every nook and cranny, jerking down and scattering the dried herbs, tearing apart the tick of moldy straw and kicking the fire stones out of their places, they all departed, cursing.

Just before he—whatever there was of him—was no longer there, Fitz thought he saw the green-eyed face of the old woman protruding from the stone wall of the then-empty cave room, the face appearing near the center of the glowing rectangle.

Fitz could hear Tom purring loudly before he opened his eyes. But when open them he did, the cat was not lying upon him, although he still could hear the purring. He thought he sat up then, swung his legs over the side of the cot and looked around the cabin. Then he sat frozen for a moment.

Lying in typical feline posture on a stretch of floor only bare feet from him was a something that, save for its solid-grey color, he would have taken for a leopard, a very large leopard. Just as he sat up and looked at the creature, it yawned, showing a fearsome number of big, sharp-pointed cuspids and a full complement of carnassials and molars, all white and gleaming against the background of red-pink gums and tongue.

Since first he had had that eerie feeling of being watched, here in the sand world, Fitz had slept with one of his three big magnum revolvers hung from a corner of the cot. Now, moving very slowly, he recovered from his momentary shock at sight of this obviously dangerous visitor and began to ease his hand toward the holstered gun.

He had just gripped the butt and was unsnapping the strap with his thumb, when this cat, too, spoke, in Toms voice.

"Don't do that, old friend. I've been shot once, that was enough and more than enough for me, thank you; you wouldn't believe how much the metal pellets from those noise-fire things hurt before finally you die and stop hurting. Being crushed to death by one of the huge four-wheeled things is much easier to bear, believe me, I know."

"Tom ...r gasped Fitz. "What. . . ? How?"

The huge feline used the inches-wide tongue to lick a massive paw and begin to wash its face, remarking the while, "Rather an inept name to keep

using, since it denotes a male cat and I now am a female cat, but we'll let that pass, for the nonce. If you will recall, I told you when I visited you last that you saw me in that other world, then, as I always had looked to you when I was alive there. I thought that, as you will be coming to the hills, it was better that you see me once as I now look, lest you not know me and thus fear me.

"Yes, it is me, the one you call Tom. Still the same cat, only bigger and better. Now that youve seen me, I'm going to leave and get across the Pony Plain while still it's dark. You go back to sleep, old friend."

inner and the outer shutters over the stern-ports, locked all save one of the outer doors and secured in place sheets of plastic film that would, hopefully, prevent sand sifting into his home during his absence.

With everything locked or bolted or secured, he shoved the heavy planks over the gunwales into the waist of the ship, mounted the now-warmed bike and put it into gear, then began to negotiate the miles of dunes that lay between the ship and the plain that separated dunes and the forested hills and valleys of the interior, these latter, his destination.

As he drove up and down the dunes under a rising, warming sun, Fitz tried in vain to sort out the—events? dreams?—of the preceding night. It would have immeasurably comforted him to have been able to confidently assure himself that everything concerning the repeated nocturnal visits of his long-dead cat had been nothing save dreams, but he could no longer so assure himself with anything approaching confidence, for so very many completely impossible things had recently taken place in his life that he now lacked the confident assurance to name anything, any circumstances as impossible, ever again.

"All right, then," he thought to himself, while the vibration of the bikes sizable engine permeated his body, "let's say that Tom—or what used to be Tom, in that other world—was really there, in a locked and barred chamber that not even a house cat-sized beast could have really entered, much less a two-hundred-odd-pound feline. No, forget for the moment the imposs ... no, improbabilities of it all and concentrate on the premise that it really happened. Right? Right!

"Okay, Tom was there, not only last night but all those other nights, too. He says he lives in the hills and he wants me to come there, also. That much is

understandable, at least, he was always a sociable cat and I don't doubt that he longs for the companionship of a proven friendly human being. It's this other business of which he spoke, though, that really throws me; this business of some powers I'm supposed to regain or develop in those hills, this personage or thing called 'Dagda' I'm supposed to meet.

"And what am I to think of this bugaboo, this thing Tom calls Teeth and Legs. He says that it, they, are shaped like a man, but with the jaws and teeth of a true predator, can run as fast as my bike can travel at top speed—which sounds a bit imposs . . . unlikely— and that not even the biggest pony-stallion can stand against one of the creatures. And there's supposed to be one or more right now, on the very section of plain that I have to cross to get to the hills from here, the shortest route.

"Am I to believe that Tom was really there last night, then I guess I have to believe in this Teeth and Legs, too, so I'd better keep my eyes peeled and my weapons ready; if I can't outrun it, then I'll just have to be prepared to kill it, like it or not."

From the crest of the last high dune, Fitz could see no animals on the plain, unless a cloud of dusty sand far and far to the westward represented a herd of ponies. It was unusual to sit his bike in this spot and not to see at least some rat-tailed ostriches, a small herd of grazing ponies or a few of the flying rabbits, but the only living creatures he finally sighted—and even these so far away to east or west that he needed to make use of his big binoculars—were a couple of scurrying, tailless rats and a high-wheeling raptor or buzzard, lonely in the clear sky and so far up and away that he could not clearly identify it.

He began to really worry, then, while he negotiated the inland slope of the dune, knowing from his

hunting experiences in the other world that when animals failed to follow usual patterns of behavior, there was always an excellent reason for such deviance. Rather than just speeding up and over and down the succession of low dunes that lay between him and the seaward margin of the plain, he now stopped upon each low crest to examine the country ahead for possible danger. And, on the crest of the last one, he drew his carbine from its scabbard and chambered a round, replacing it in the tube with one from his supply.

He rode slowly and most warily across the seemingly deserted plain, assiduously avoiding the higher, thicker stands of plumed grasses and bushy shrubs, trying to keep at least fifty yards distance of unobstructed terrain between him and anyplace that might give concealment to any large predator. Tom had said that the Teeth and Legs were shaped like him but taller, larger and heavier than him, so that gave him at least a little idea as to just how much in the way of concealment might be required to hide one of the things.

At midday, he halted in a carefully selected spot that gave him a view of seventy-five to over a hundred yards on all sides. There, while keeping close watch on the horizons and peering with binoculars at any closer declivities or stands of plants that might mask the presence of a large beast, he ate hurriedly out of his supplies, topped off the fuel tank of the bike and painstakingly rechecked his weapons—carbine, drilling, revolver, the Ka-bar knife at his belt and the Gerber Frisco shiv in his boot, even the flare projector, for in a real pinch it too could serve as a close-range weapon.

But he thought that he was to make it completely across the plain without so much as sight of one of

the monsters, for the sheen of sun upon the spring-fed pond at the inland margin of the plain was in easy sight and he was headed toward it, angling a bit to the east in order to avoid a declivity some five or six feet deep and some twenty feet long by ten wide, when suddenly, it was there. Up, out, over the lip of the hole it came with a bound, covered the intervening yards with but one or two racing, leaping strides, a black-skinned, five-fingered hand tipped with black, flat, blood-dripping nails reaching for Fitz at the end of of a long, hairy arm.

Warned by his peripheral vision, the man swayed to his right and gunned the bike, which leapt forward, momentarily leaving the ambusher in a cloud of dust and fine particles of sand. But it was only a thing of the moment; a swift glance over a shoulder told Fitz that much. Impossible as it seemed, the incredibly long legs of the dark, hairy predator were covering ground at at prodigious rate. Tom had been right, then, Fitz no longer doubted it; that thing would not take long to overhaul the bike even at top speed, which speed he dare not maintain for long over the rough, uneven landscape, in any case.

Making a quick decision to take advantage of the small lead he still owned, Fitz braked hard and spun the bike about at the top of a low rise in the terrain, drawing the carbine from out its scabbard while still the dust and sand thrown up by his wheels was in the air all around him. The hirsute pursuer stopped in mid-stride, paused, then came on a bit more slowly, clearly wary of such unusual prey conduct.