by Andre Norton
Both zorsals kept to their attack and then the great jawed head flapped in such a loose manner Simsa thought that the neck must be near bitten through. The struggles became only a jerking of the dangling length of the body, while the zorsals settled on the head, tore and feasted.
Thorn turned to Simsa. “What is this?”
She shook her head wordlessly. Though she had never thought to be squeamish (no Burrower could be that), the ferocity of the zorsals and the threat of the huge thing itself had shaken her so that she felt weak enough to put out a hand and steady herself against the carrier. Only that bobbed so under her weight that she was near thrown off balance.
Thorn went as close to the cliff side as he could. He had unfastened in some fashion the light from his belt and now he turned that up, holding its beam directly on the thing and the feeding zorsals. Simsa detached the complaining Zass from her shoulder, put the creature on the sled and, trying to avoid the smears and still falling gouts of blood, worked her way to join him. One of the hunters now dropped, with a beating of wings, a dripping piece of scaled flesh in its forefeet to present this offering to Zass, whose cries had grown louder and louder.
Simsa gasped. The light showed a length of still slightly twisting body which was far larger than her own height even added to Thorn’s. Yet they could not see the end of it for, though the beam cut across the top of that wall, the body must still be longer, it fell over the edge like a rope.
They really did not need the beam to show it now. In the coming dawn, it fell very clear against the stone. A rope Simsa had first compared it to in her mind—only this thing of flesh and bone was as thick as about a handful of ropes twisted all together. Thorn switched off his off-world lamp and moved back again.
“We have found our way—” he said slowly.
The zorsals had near finished their grisly feast. The one who had attacked the monster first dropped to join Zass on the carrier to lick busily at its fur, sucking each claw in turn. While the brother tore loose another mouthful, brought that down to sample in satiated small bits. Only a near-stripped skull swung there now.
“What would you do?” Simsa watched Thorn free a coil of rope from the carrier, busy himself making a noose at one end of it.
“Our ladder aloft,” He waved his hand at the dangling dead thing, “if it is well held above. We shall see.”
He whirled his noose about his head, keeping careful grip on the cord of which it was a part. Three ties he made before it encircled that picked skull and he settled the rope tightly in place with a sharp jerk, as if he had often used this trick.
“Now—” pulling the rope taught, he stepped back—“let us see.”
She watched his shoulders tense, could understand the steady pull he was exerting. The girl reached down and caught at the loose end of the cord, added her strength to his for this test.
The cord slipped a little in the mangled part, then caught, and though Simsa was bending all the force she could and believed that the off-worlder did also, it felt as secure as if the rope was fast tied around some spine of rock.
“I shall go—” he told her. “When I get to the top, lash the end of the cord I shall drop about your waist and follow—but bring this also with you.”
He was busy once again with more rope, adding a long length to that with which he had towed the carrier. Having tested his knots, he stood over that wonder box to make some small adjustment. The carrier suddenly jumped aloft, sending Zass fluttering toward Simsa with a loud scream, the other two zorsals winging into the air. Now their transport floated at shoulder level with Thorn.
“This causes a greater drain,” she did not know whether he was speaking now to her or merely thinking aloud, “but it will help.”
The longer draw rope he now tossed to her while he faced the cliffside, the end of the climbing rope made fast about him, his face a mask of determination. Simsa watched him carefully. Though his hands were on the rope and his shoulders showed the strain he put upon them, he also used any toe hold on the face of the cliff which he could find.
The day was coming fast. Thorn had reached the gory head of the monster, shifted his hold from the rope to the thing’s body. The two zorsals who could fly were following him up, screaming all the way. Simsa turned quickly now to Zass and made the spitting, excited creature let herself be stuffed into the baggy front of the girl’s jacket.
Somehow, she did not want to watch Thorn climb the dangling body. She was fighting nausea, trying to keep out of her mind the knowledge that she must do this in turn.
Only . . . she had to see!
It seemed that in those few moments during which she had turned away, he had won a distance she could not have thought possible. One arm swung out, a hand had cupped over the edge of the cliff. She saw him hang so for a moment which was lifted out of normal time. Then he had pulled himself up—his head and shoulders disappeared, he must be wriggling so on his stomach—he was gone!
Simsa shut her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. She found that she had grasped the belt about her, the rope of the carrier which she had tied there, with such force that her fingers ached. Swallowing hard, she made herself look up.
The off-worlder had returned to the edge of the cliff, but now he was facing outward, looking down to her. Though he must be still lying flat.
“This—about you—” He tossed another length of rope, which confused her, but that she must trust him she understood.
She leaped and caught the dangling end, felt that it gave so she could pull it down, tie it around her beside that attached to the carrier. The rope grew taut and she realized that he must be adding power to raise it.
Using the same actions as she had observed, she set her bundled feet wherever she might discover some hold, drew herself up, knew he was also taking much of the strain from her. The worst of her nightmare did not come, she could hold to the rope he had dropped, did not have to climb over the bloody head of the creature. Though once past that point, she put out a hand now and then against its scaled body and found the rough surface of that, while it abraded her hands, was secure enough to keep away the worst fear of the rope slipping through her clutch.
It seemed that she was trying to reach the top of a mountain and her struggle had no end. Already, the heat of the day struck against her back. Twice she had to fend herself away from the wall lest Zass be crushed. Then she heard a voice call:
“Your hand—reach to me with your hand!”
She groped upward blindly, felt his fingers close about hers. In a moment she cried out:
“Wait—there is Zass—”
However, the zorsal was already on the move on her own behalf. She pulled out of the pocket front, flapped, and now spun out to catch the rope for herself, crawling up and over Simsa’s hands. Then the girl herself was brought up, scraping over stone, to roll out on a surface where the sand rose in puffs to make her cough. Before she could straighten up she felt hands about her middle tugging at the rope.
“Up with it—”
Hardly aware of what she did, only that she must do it, Simsa did not try to get up any further than her knees. She caught at the carrier rope which had swung back and forth across her and began to pull. The off-worlder was standing now, only more rigid with the strain of bringing that heavy burden.
The girl had no time to look around until that drew level with them, the starman’s box keeping it under control. Together they worked to swing it in, scrambling back to give it room well beyond the cliff edge. Thorn went at once to the box, but Simsa sat back now to survey where all this effort had brought them.
Immediately before her and reaching well back into a tangle of rocks and thorn studded, dried vegetation, bleached to the color of bones—was the rest of the body of the monster. Here it was rounded to at least ten times its circumference at the point of the long neck. However, it displayed no sign of feet—tapering again so that the portion hidden by the covering from which it must have earlier crawled, was sli
mmed down like the tail of one of those small things the zorsals had fed upon during their night forage. She could not understand what had kept it so adherent to the rock that they had been able to use as a ladder without bringing the whole weight of it down upon them.
Apparently, this puzzle interested Thorn also for, once he was sure that their carrier was intact, its cargo undisturbed, he went to the side of the thing and strove to roll it over. However, it remained as tight to the rock as if it were indeed a part of the ground. Finally, he used a piece of stone to pry up a portion of the body so Simsa caught sight of a pallid half ring of flesh, before he was forced to let the weight fall again.
“Suckers, I think,” he commented. “What is it called?”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “I do not know, nor have I ever heard of such before.”
“Well,” he half turned to face east, his hands on his hips, his head up, “there are the Hard Hills! Let us hope that such as this are not plentiful here.” He prodded the carcass with the toe of his boot.
Simsa looked ahead. She had thought that the cliff up which they had just fought their way was a barrier. Only, from what she could see now, it was just the beginning. Hills? No—these were sky scraping monsters of earth and stone. Still, they held one promise for any who had fought across the desert land—they gave foothold here and there to growth of some sort—sere and sun-browned now perhaps—but it had lived. Where that lived there must be water, perhaps game.
Heartened by that thought, Simsa got to her feet. They were still in the sun’s full heat. Yet, surely in the broken country ahead, they could find shelter for the day—and perhaps even more. She said as much and the off-worlder nodded.
“We have to do some more climbing,” he pointed out, “but you are right—where there is growth there must be water. And, in spite of the evil name of this place, I think we may find it more welcoming than the desert. But first we shall camp—and soon.”
They were still in a depression between crumbling banks of sun-baked earth and long-dead brush. Thorn speculated as to whether they were not still following the path of a long-dry water course and that the cliff up which they had come had constituted a falls. There was a lot of sand through which they slipped and slid, sometimes ankle deep, hurrying now, while surveying the way ahead in hope of a place to shelter before the punishing heat of the day struck them down with exhaustion.
The dried up water course took a slow curve to the left and there was a rise of stone on one bank, half undermined, so that some had fallen over in a rough tumble which nearly barricaded the way. Thorn swung toward those and Simsa, at her old place of keeping the carrier steady, padded behind. Now, as they drew closer, she could see that those were no stones heaped by some whim of nature. These had been trimmed, set, and used, even though years, wind, and sand had eroded them into their present anonymous heaping.
Among those fallen blocks they found their shelter, a darkish hole which was still sheltered by half an archway. Inside it were steps leading down. Thorn switched on his light once again. Here was welcoming cool shadow. The zorsals honked and spiraled ahead eagerly. Simsa caught at the off-worlder’s sleeve.
“Wait—let them search. If there is life denned below—” She could not help but think of the dead monster and that just such a hole as this could offer such a creature a home.
He halted, his head up, and she knew that, just as she did, he was listening. The zorsal calls sounded from below, oddly hollow, stronger as if some chance made those sounds monsters of their kind. Zass, from her seat on the carrier, thrust forward her head, her antennae advanced, her thin lips almost invisible, as she showed all her pointed teeth.
Simsa sniffed, trying to draw into her lungs enough of any odor which might lie below to judge what they could have to face. There was none of the smell of the Burrows, the mustiness of close and none too clean living. When the zorsals did not return to raise any alarm, she nodded to her companion.
“I think that nothing waits here—nothing living.”
Though falls of dressed, if much wind-worn stone, half blocked that entrance so that scaling the carrier across it took patience and skill on both their parts, the stairs beyond that were reasonably clear. These were broad and the rises were shorter, so that to descend was easy enough. Save that they went on and on as if there were no end and that this long forsaken building had been raised on a foundation of long forgotten predecessors, as Kuxortal had been.
There was the relief that, the farther they descended, the cooler it became. Zass still hunched forward listening. From what seemed very far away Simsa could still hear the cries of the other zorsals. In the dark, they always hooted and cried continually since, she had discovered, something in their own screeching made it easier for them to elude any obstruction which even their dark-piercing eyes might not be able to see.
Thorn had once more switched on his belt light. When she turned her head a little and looked back over her own shoulder, the girl could see that the opening above had shrunken greatly. Yet the steps continued.
They stopped once, drank sparingly and ate, seated on one step shoulder to shoulder. Simsa inspected the supplies left. They could keep on going as long as they had water, but there would come an end if they could not add to their food and where, in this parched land, might they find any such? The scaled things the zorsals relished? She gagged at the sudden memory of the huge monster, now dangling dead across the cliff edge, which came far too clearly into mind. She had eaten much in the past which any dweller of the upper city would have disdained, but not that!
“Where do we go?” she asked, though she knew that he could have no better answer for her than some guess which she might make for herself.
“This might well be the remains of some outpost. That being so, there could also be a linkage by passageway to another and larger fortification beyond. In times of war, such would provide a secret way of supply.”
“Why so deep?” Again she squeezed around on the wide step. That opening so far behind them now was made so small by distance that she could raise her hand and cover it with her thumb. Still the stairway went on down and down, for Thorn had gone to his knees and, having deliberately taken the light from his belt, swept the ray back and forth over what was only an endless stair without a break.
Her legs ached. They had traveled all through the night and she could not tell how far they were into the next day now. Surely they must have a time to rest, and soon.
The off-worlder might have picked up that thought from out of her head for now he said: “Let us go five tens farther. Then if there is no end as yet, we shall rest.”
With a sigh, Simsa pulled herself up. The wrappings about her feet had worn very thin. Sooner or later, she would have to use her belt knife to cut strips from her coat to replace those. The only good thing was that they were no longer blasted by that heavy punishment from the sun. In fact . . .
Simsa’s head came up. Once more she drew into her lungs as deep a breath as she could.
“Damp!” She had cried that so loud that, as had the early calls of the zorsals, the word was echoed hollowly back to her from down in the darkness, as if a line of Simsas stationed along the steps passed such a discovery from one to the next.
Thorn, his face only a blur in the reflection of the lamp, looked toward her.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Water?” Her fatigue pushed aside now, she got to her feet eagerly. Zass’s antennae had curled slightly, while they rested and she had crunched with grunts of protest part of Simsa’s food. Now she sidled towards the front of the carrier, both her sense organs extended to their farthest limit. From deep in her furred throat came chirps of impatience.
Still they descended. When they came to the fifty-step level Thorn had set for them, he flashed the beam along the walls. There were patches of damp, giving nourishment to queer growths of pallid white which formed as not quite regular balls, extending thread-like filaments outward to attach to each of the
slimy looking sections of damp.
Simsa disliked the look of these and made certain that if she put out a hand to steady herself she would not touch one.
“Let us go on!” Though her whole body was one ache, she could not stay surrounded by this place which worked upon her inborne sense of danger to such an extent.
Thorn needed no urging. They had gone down perhaps five more of the wide and shallow steps when he uttered an exclamation.
The light hit upon, lanced along a level way. They had reached the end of the stairway at long last! Here the damp was heavy but the air itself was not noisome nor dead. Simsa whistled, and from not too far away came an answer. Then one of the zorsals winged into the path of the light, circled about her head.
“Look!” There was no mistaking the water sleeked fur on his forelimbs. The creature had very lately found a source of that great enough to soak as the zorsals were apt to do during the heat of the dry season—spending hours supine in the bowls of water that those who valued them always provided.
Tired as they were the sight of the zorsal, who uttered small cries of what Simsa well recognized as contentment, urged them on, and at this level they fell into a stumbling trot. Zass’s demands set up an echoing of squawking which near covered the thud of their own footfalls.
Though moisture and the unpleasant growths still studded the walls, there was no wet underfoot. The girl noted that at the base of each wall was a shallow trench which perhaps was meant to carry off any runnels the plants had not sucked away.
Their beam of light suddenly was snapped off. Simsa let out a small cry of which she was ashamed a moment later. To allow the off-worlder to know that she feared the dark in any way was a humiliation. Then she could see his reason. Not far ahead, there was a haze of light, not as strong as that of his lamp, but sufficient to provide a guide.