Stairway to Forever (21 page)

As they walked on, up and down slopes, across vales and through streams of varying depths, Sir Gautier went on with the sorry tale he had commenced at fireside. Sir Reinald, brother to and surrogate for Sir Gautiers overlord, still safe on his estates in Surrey, had fallen during the course of the day-long engagement at Dorylaeum, and Sir Gautier had found himself and his followers beneath the banner of Sir Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine. It had been that great mans orders, filtered down through a host of subordinates, of course, that had sent Sir Gautier and his following, along with a party of some hundreds of other knights, sergeants, men at arms, servants and straggling camp followers to seek out and explore a possible route of march through a succession of arid hills and wadis.

They had been able to find almost no water, and that little foul and brackish, so before long they all were afoot again, those not quick enough, ruthless enough to commandeer at swords' points the little asses of camp followers, which beasts seemed much hardier than the horses.

With food supplies low, game scarce and chary, no traces of foemen in sight or sound, and such few habitations come across all long abandoned and fallen

into ruin, the party had split into smaller units and fanned out to east and west, though continuing the ordered trek. Then, of a hot, windless morning, all of the men rolling pebbles in their mouths in order to try to coax up the ghosts of drops of saliva with which to wet their bricky-dry throats, the knight and two of the other men spotted a wild, two-humped camel trotting away from them, up a wadi, and within moments the entire little party was in hot foot-pursuit of so much flesh and blood.

When, farther on, the wadi split into two channels, Sir Gautier and his men took one and the other knight, Sir Eugen, took the other with his followers, both knights agreeing to sound a horn blast whenever they cornered the camel.

The dry watercourse twisted and turned like a dying, spasming serpent, but Sir Gautier and his starveling followers stayed hard upon the track of the elusive beast, spread out across the full width of the wadi, close one to the other, lest the beast turn and break through their line and so escape them. They were in just such a tight formation when they rounded yet another turn and the ground abruptly dropped from beneath their feet. Sir Gautier felt himself to be felling; just how far he fell, he never knew, but at impact, all his senses left him.

When his consciousness returned, he thought at first that he had been killed by the fell and was just then in some part of Heaven. At a few yards to his one side, a high waterfall plunged two-score feet into a pool at the base of a vine-grown bluff. He and his men lay all together on a deep bed of dried pine tags between the pool and the tall forest of pine trees that marched down almost to the verge of that pool. A cool breeze soughed through this forest, rustling the branches of the trees.

To the hot, exhausted, footsore and very thirsty men, the setting was indeed paradisical. That the Lusatian knight, Sir Eugen, and his equally worn-down following might join them in this thoroughly unexpected but very welcome place, Sir Gautier sat up and winded his horn, paused, then winded it yet again. But there was no answering horn, none.

There proved to be fish and crayfish in the pool and in the stream that the pool fed, and by the time most of these had been caught and cooked and eaten by the ravenous men, Sir Gautier had, in the forest, cast a spear so shrewdly that he killed a fine big stag, giving them all meat enough for several meals. But all good things must finally come to an end. Sir Gautier recalled his duty, his honor, his sworn word to Duke Godfrey, and so roused his men and left the poolside to find the way back into that world of heat, flies, bad water, sand and dust. The Duke must know of this pleasant place on the long, hard road to the Holy City, Jerusalem.

He and they had been searching for the way back into the Syriac Desert ever since. During the six to eight months he estimated had elapsed since they all had wakened by that waterfall and pool, they had wandered countless miles of hills, vales, plateaus, valleys and even out a little way onto what his mental pictures told Fitz could only be the sandy plain.

"It looked more like that land from which he had come than any other we had seen," thought Sir Gautier. "So we filled our waterskins at a lake, then set off toward high, bare hills we could espy in the distance. But we had been marching on for less than an hour when we were attacked by a horrid monster, surely an imp from the depths of Hell. Giant and bear and ape it was, and ferocious as any desert lion, but we are Normans, all. We fought it and triumphed, killing it, but it slew four men in the fight."

Fitz shuddered. The mental image in the young knight's mind was of a Teeth and Legs. It had been bad enough to have to kill one of the things at long range with a powerful firearm; he doubted that he would have had the sheer guts to face one of them close up with only spears, axes and swords to keep its fearsome dentition out of his flesh.

Cool Blue had been "eavesdropping"; now he remarked, "You dig me now, man, 'bout these Normans? Like, I mean, they got miles and miles of guts, see, but they run land of short, you know, like in the brains department, see. They'll like fight anybody or anything at the drop of a hat, you know. Crazy, man, crazy."

Fitz did not agree. He, rather, thought the young knight's decision to stand and fight showed not only courage but a rare quality of snap judgment, accurate snap judgment, the so-called command decision. If ponies, ostriches and motorcycles could not outrun a Teeth and Legs, then what faint chance would a group of unmounted men have had to do so? Unsophisticated, perhaps, by the standards of Cool Blue, Sir Gautier was nonetheless a mature warrior and nobody's fool, certainly a good man to have at your side if push came to shove.

But he wondered, too, did Alfred Fitzgilbert, how the Norman could have so misjudged the passage of time as to think that he and his men had sojourned less than a year here, when actually they had been gone from their own world and time for the best part of a millennium. He made a mental note to take this matter up with Puss, whenever she chose to make another visit.

However . . . and this one really bothered him: If the party of Norman Crusaders truly had been tramping about this place for nearly a thousand years, how

had their clothing, weapons and armor held up so well for so long in such constant use? Thinking these thoughts, he felt a pressing desire to see Danna, to go back briefly to the other world, lest when he finally did return, it would be to find that as much time had passed for him as had already passed for the unfortunate Normans.

An automobile drew up before the locked gates of the house that had been home to Fitz, one sunny afternoon. When several insistent toots of the horn accomplished them nothing, one of the two men in the front seat of the vehicle got out, stalked to the side of the gate and rang the bell. Never having actually seen the paunchy, jowly, red-faced man, Fitz would not have recognized him as Henry Fowler Blutegel, I.R.S.

After a moment, the smaller gate set inside one of the larger ones sprung open an inch or so and a voice from a box set on a post just inside said, "You may come in now."

Once inside, the tax collector tried to open the larger gates, but gave over when he realized his attempts were in vain and waved the driver to enter, shouting, "Bring my briefcase. And roll up all the windows and lock all the doors, too. In a rundown, red-neck neighborhood like this, they'll steal you blind."

Followed by his driver-associate—a younger man with black hair and sharp features, who walked with a slight limp and bore purplish burn scars on one side of his face and the backs of both hands—the stout, red-faced Blutegel disdained to follow the walkway, cutting directly across the lawn to the front stoop.

Immediately after he pushed the lighted button

mounted beside the door, a voice spoke conversationally from out another of the speakers. "It's open. Come in."

When the officious official strode in from the foyer, the first thing he saw was Pedro Goldfarb, relaxed in one of the leather armchairs, one leg up on the arm nearest the door and a snifter of pale liquor in his hand. The other chair was occupied by M. Dannon Dardrey, her hands folded in her lap.

"Sit down, won't you, Mister Blutegel," said Pedro, gesturing at the couch with a languid wave of his free hand. "Would you or your associate care for a bit of this excellent cognac? No? Then some whiskey, perhaps?"

"No . . . ahh, no thank you, Mister Goldfarb," Blutegel said, though his bloodshot eyes betrayed his very real craving for the offered spirits. "I'm not here to socialize . . . and you know it! Besides, if that liquor came from here, you may just be drinking what is—or soon will be—rightly the property of the United States of America."

Pedro shrugged, sniffed appreciatively at the rim of the crystal snifter and then held it up to the light, while remarking, "Too bad, Mister Blutegel, too bad. You're missing out on a rare treat in this cognac. As regards the other matter you just mentioned, I'm sure I do not know exacdy to what you're referring. You demanded to meet with me and the new owner of this house and property, today, and I took time out of a very hectic schedule to accommodate you.

"You've met my associate, M. Dannon Dardrey, I believe. Well, she is the new owner-of-record of this property and residence, Mister Blutegel."

Blutegel sat down then, looking a bit stunned. "Well, Mister Goldfarb, where is your client? Where did Fitzgilbert run off to?"

Pedro shrugged again, swishing the cognac in the snifter, taking great pleasure from tantalizing the overbearing man, whom he knew to be an alcoholic. Tm sure I don't know his exact location, Mister Blutegel. He owns interests in the Union of South Africa, you know, as well as in several countries in the Caribbean and Central America, or he might well be in Europe, possibly Switzerland . . .?"

Blutegel shook his head and said, sourly, "No, not Switzerland, I don't think. The Swiss are damned cooperative with us anymore, and I know for sure that Fitzgilbert and his wheeler-dealer buddy, Tolliver, didn't send any money to Switzerland. Those damned South Africans, now, they won't tell us one damned thing. The banana republics aren't too cooperative, either, but were still investigating down there. I don't think it'll be too long before we know exactly how much money Tolliver and Fitzgilbert have illegally exported and cheated the United States of America out of.

"Was I you, Mister Goldfarb, I'd tell Fitzgilbert to hightail it back here and fully cooperate with me . . . it might go easier with him if he does."

Pedro set his snifter on the table, steepled his fingers and shook his head. "Mister Blutegel, the more I have to deal with you, the more you amaze me. You know and I know and you must know that I know that, lacking clear evidence of misdeeds on the parts of my clients, Gustaf Tolliver and Alfred Fitzgilbert, your paranoid suspicions and those of your superiors are not worth a cupful of cold spit in the tax court or in any other court of law."

Blutegel leaned forward, his face darkening, his voice becoming raspy, threatening, "Don't you go getting snotty with me, Mister Goldfarb! You don't know as much as you think you know, and we know

more about you and your firm and these two clients of yours than you think we know, too. If we get a little bit more information and can provide evidence of collusion to defraud the United States of America between your clients and you . . .? Well, the next time we meet, you just might be singing a real different tune, mister big-time lawyer."

"You're insane, Mister Blutegel," snapped Danna. "Because Mister Goldfarb and I have refused to release privileged information to you, you ..."

"You just mind your mouth, Mizzz Dardrey, until I tell you to open it up again. Hear me?" Blutegel coldly interrupted her, adding, "Unless you want Goldfarb here, and a whole lot of other people to know you're not as goody-good as you want everybody to think you are."

Danna inwardly cringed from his evil smirk as much as from the way that his eyes were undressing her, probing at the most private portions of her body, shamelessly.

"I can handle this blowhard, Danna," Pedro smiled. "He seems to be of the opinion that he's up to his usual work—terrorizing and trying to intimidate poor men and women who goofed in trying to do their tax-forms themselves, the kind of work that a professional bully like him does best.

"Mister Blutegel, you're a disgrace to civil service. How you've gotten away with the quasi-legal things you have done and still are doing or trying to do for as long as you have is a complete mystery to me . . . as to many another of my professional colleagues, I might add. Someday soon, some of us are going to make it our business to find out just what you have on whom that keeps you in this position of power that you so flagrantly abuse. I really do think that you will be much happier and more fulfilled out of

government service, Mister Blutegel; for one thing, there will be less interference with your alcoholic avocation and you are certain to find employment to your complete taste, perhaps with one of the lead-pipe collection agencies."

"Who the hell you think you are, you sheenie bastard, you?" snarled Blutegel, springing to his feet, livid, both his meaty fists clenched. "I'm bigger and heavier and a whole lot meaner than you are, you skinny Christ-killer, and if you think I won't beat your Jew ass . . ."

Pedro had not moved a muscle, just watching and listening to the outburst of the raging fat man. Now he gave another of his languid shrugs and smiled condescendingly, "Oh, yes, Mister Blutegel, you're mean—and in more than only a single meaning of that word—and you're big and rather heavy, too. You are also a bit younger than I am. Even so, Mister Blutegel, it would be a cardinal error for you to physically attack me. Do you understand, Mister Blutegel?"

Blutegel gulped, hard. "You . . . you got a gun, huh?"

Another condescending smile. "No, Mister Blutegel, I don't need a gun, not for scum like you. Your weight is all big bones and adipose tissue, you see, with what little muscle you have left smothered under the fat. My adoptive father, Izaak Goldfarb, taught me savate when still I was a boy, Mister Blutegel. Later, I was a Golden Gloves boxer and, in the Marine Corps, I excelled in jiujitsu; moreover, I have remained in shape, in trim, as you so clearly have not. Are you beginning to get the picture, Mister Blutegel? Take a poke at me and I'll mop up the floor with your flabby carcass!"