by P. B. Kerr
“I’ll have to see,” said Angus unhelpfully. “Did you make a booking?”
Angus was well aware that Groanin hadn’t made a booking but he still felt it was necessary to make the customer feel small and stupid and that by asking for a room he was putting the staff to enormous inconvenience.
“Should I have done?” asked Groanin.
“This is the high season,” said Angus. “We’re normally very busy right now.”
Groanin surveyed the many keys hanging on the wall behind the desk. It looked as if the hotel was empty, which he ought to have taken as a bad sign, which it was, but he didn’t.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“You can have twenty-two,” said Angus. “Payment in advance if you don’t mind. And payment in advance even if you do.”
“Very hospitable, I’m sure.”
Groanin opened his money bag, took out his foreign currency wallet, and shoved some money across the desk. Angus hardly looked at the money coming his way; he was much more interested in the large amount of cash Groanin was carrying in his bag. The tens of thousands of pounds that John had put there with djinn power.
“In the morning I shall want a copy of The Daily Telegraph, an English breakfast, and then transport out of here,” he said. “A taxi to the airport, if it’s open. And the railway station if it’s not.”
“There’s a Scottish breakfast, if that’s any good to you,” said Angus. “And we only get the Daily Express.”
“I wouldn’t line a hamster cage with that,” said Groanin, and wearily snatching the room key from the Scotsman’s hand, he went up to his room.
Angus watched him go and then picked up the telephone to report on the interesting Englishman’s bag of money.
CHAPTER 5
THE DESCENT
At first, John’s descent into the huge crater was slow and steady and it was only after a few minutes that, gaining in confidence, he felt equal to the task of actually kicking off and rappelling down the rock face like some black-clad specialforces soldier. Adrenaline pumping now, he whooped loudly as he bounced on and off the rock face like a racquetball.
“This is fun!” he yelled.
“He seems to know what he’s doing,” observed Axel.
“Let’s hope so,” replied Nimrod.
Reaching the bottom of the wall, John secured himself with a piton and then waved at Nimrod and the others. Down here, a strong smell of sulfur filled the combusted air, and from time to time the eerie silence of the volcano was broken by the sound of melted rock hitting the basalt beneath the plume after it cooled in the air and became pieces of hardened lava.
Underneath John’s boots, the slope of red dust that covered the crater floor moved treacherously. And even through the thick rubber soles he could feel the heat of it in his socks. Pieces of rock and shale went tumbling down the length of the slope like tiny skiers caught in an avalanche and, but for the rope securing him to the wall, John might easily have followed. Instead, he started to climb along the base of the wall toward the smoke fissure. Without gravity to help him now, he made slow, laborious progress. From time to time he glanced around and caught a glimpse of a soft reddish glow and sometimes orange sparks in the space behind the smoke, as if a hidden blast furnace was being stoked by the scaly hand of some unseen demon from the infernal regions of the earth. For anyone lying on an area of grass in a quiet park, he thought, it would have seemed incredible that the ground contained such enormous violence.
“Makes you wonder exactly what lies beneath us all,” he told himself.
The air was hard to breathe now. Every so often John had to stop and give way to a fit of coughing. The third time it happened he soaked his handkerchief in water and tied it around his nose and mouth. He might have remained at this position and gathered some lava samples right then and there, except that much better ones were to be had a little nearer the fissure. He started along the traverse again and, moving into the shadow cast by the eastern edge of the crater, he stopped for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the sudden lack of light. Glancing up he saw that his companions were now wholly obscured by smoke from the fissure.
“Man,” he exclaimed. “This is hard work.”
But just a few more feet to go and then he could start gathering samples of lava. And what samples they were. This lava was not like he had imagined it being at all. Was it a trick of the light that the lava looked so shiny and, almost — there was no other word for it — precious? And yet how could it be? He was in shadow now and the strong sunlight on the other side of the crater floor could have had nothing to do with this.
This lava was the color of gold.
Of course he didn’t think it was gold. Probably the professor, being a geologist, would offer some simple explanation for this golden lava. And if he had ever paid attention in a science class, John might have devised a few explanations of his own. But as it was, he hadn’t a clue what might have caused it except perhaps the idea that the golden color was what most rock looked like when it was almost twenty-two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
He hammered another piton into the wall and let himself down until his feet were almost touching the edge of the golden lava flow. He felt like he was standing in front of an open oven door. It was, he thought, just as well the two Icelanders could no longer see him as they would surely have wondered how anyone could have withstood the high temperatures John was now experiencing.
Leaning back in his harness, John poured some water from his bottle onto the advancing toes of the lava flow, and then hammered off some pieces with his ice ax before collecting the hot, golden shards with his scoop and emptying them into the asbestos-lined sample bag. He felt like Neil Armstrong collecting moon rocks except that he could have wished to have been weightless. Of course he didn’t wish any such thing, which would only have given the game away as far as Professor Snorri Sturloson and Axel were concerned.
John smiled to himself as he worked. How did you get a name like Snorri? he wondered.
He drew himself back up to the piton on the wall and unclipped his rope in order to traverse back. It wasn’t a particularly difficult maneuver or one that required any great physical exertion, and it struck John as odd that his pulse should start to race as if he had been sprinting. The next second, his legs weakened noticeably and he started to see stars. Suddenly, it was really hard to breathe.
Instinct told him he was suffering from carbon dioxide poisoning and that his only chance was to get away from the fissure and find some fresh air as quickly as possible. He might have uttered his focus word and wished for a fireman’s breathing apparatus if his mind had been less confused by lack of oxygen, but it was all he could do to stretch one leg to his left and then bring the other alongside, and then to do this again, and again, and again.
Finally, he escaped the invisible pocket of deadly gas and was in fresh air, where he quickly managed to heave some oxygen into his lungs and started to revive. Looking up the edge of the crater, he waved at the four figures standing there and then continued back to the position where he would make his ascent.
He locked in a right- and left-hand ascender on the rope with two carabiners and attached his harness. Next, he thumbed the release button on the right-hand ascender and stretched it up above his head so that when he let the release button go, the teeth on the ascender could bite into the rope. Then he started his ascent.
All went well for about forty feet when a small explosion from the fissure behind him blew out a fragment of molten rock about the size of a cell phone. Most of it hit the crater wall but a smaller piece hit the rope above John’s head.
“Holy mackerel.”
John lifted the ascender to a place on the rope a few inches below the spot hit by the lava and lifted himself up to take a closer look. To his alarm he saw that the nylon rope had already started to melt under the lava’s nearly twenty-two-degree Fahrenheit temperature. He poured some water onto the lava spot in the hope that this might prev
ent the rope from melting any further; and it did, only this hardly seemed to improve his precarious situation. The blackened rope seemed to harden and narrow as the water cooled the lava so that John was left with little choice but to quickly slide the right-hand ascender over the length of damaged rope and risk it snagging the climbing aid’s mechanics. It didn’t and he breathed half a sigh of relief; but before he could take his weight off the left-hand ascender and move that up the rope, it broke, which left him hanging by his right hand.
Dangling like a gibbon, John let out a gibbonlike yelp and wondered what to do. The temptation to use djinn power immediately and wish for a new rope was, of course, almost overwhelming; but he checked himself for a moment in the hope that Nimrod might see his dilemma and offer some help from the crater rim above. John then confined his focus word to making a wish that his right hand might have a stronger grip.
Seeing his nephew’s vertiginous dilemma, Nimrod glanced around the crater path.
“Rope,” he yelled. “We need another length of rope.”
“There isn’t one,” admitted Axel.
“There must be,” said Nimrod.
“There isn’t,” insisted the professor.
Philippa was beside herself with anxiety. “Do something,” she yelled.
Nimrod pointed at the little concrete building farther along the crater path. “Perhaps there’s one in there,” he said.
“It’s a gift shop,” said Axel. “They sell stupid souvenir necklaces made of lava, and bottles of water, not climber’s rope.”
Nimrod wasn’t listening. The souvenir shop was closed, of course. But he was hardly deterred by that. Nimrod kicked open the door, muttered his focus word, and collected a large coil of climber’s rope that suddenly appeared against the wall of the shop.
“Found some,” he said, running back to the others. He tossed it down and immediately started to tie one end around the Matterhorn-shaped rock crest.
“Well, I’m surprised,” said the professor. “I was in the shop this morning and didn’t see any rope.”
“Me neither,” admitted Axel.
“That’s quite all right, my dear chap,” said Nimrod, and chucked the rest of the rope down to John. “Easy to overlook a bit of old rope, eh?”
Sixty feet below, John took hold of the new rope in his left hand and breathed a sigh of relief. Now the only problem was how he was going to get up the rope to the crater rim. Even with a newly improved strong grip in his right hand, it was going to take an awfully long time. Wrapping the new rope around his leg to secure himself, he wondered if he could attach his ascenders to the new rope and quickly realized that the only way that was ever going to happen was by using djinn power. Which — following an interval of several minutes when he made a show of fumbling around with his harness for the benefit of the two Icelanders who were watching him up on the crater rim, always supposing their eyesight was as keen as that of an eagle — is exactly what he did.
“ABECEDARIAN!”
And with the two ascenders properly attached to the new rope, John continued with his ascent.
At last he reached the crater rim where Axel, who was as strong as he was handsome, grabbed hold of his harness and hauled him over the side.
“Ótrúlegt,” he said. “Amazing. I didn’t think it was possible to attach a rappel harness to a rope when you were already on it.”
“It was nothing,” said John.
“Frábœr.” Axel shook his head. “And I thought I knew a lot about rock climbing.” He clapped John on the shoulder. “Hey, promise you’ll show me how to do that.”
“Sure,” said John. “Why not?” He smiled sheepishly. “It’d be my pleasure.”
“I’d like to see that myself, John,” observed Philippa. “It should be fascinating.”
“I still don’t understand how you managed to get that close to the fissure, John,” said the professor. “The heat must have been ákafur. Intense. If you had stayed any longer, you’d have ended up looking like me, boy. And believe me, this is not a pretty sight.”
“It was kind of hot,” admitted John.
“That’s quite a nephew you have there, Nimrod,” said Axel.
Still shaking his head, Axel went to the Matterhorn-shaped rock crest to untie the rope while Professor Sturloson emptied John’s asbestos bag and examined his lava samples.
“My God, it’s true,” he said. “It really is gold. I couldn’t believe my own eyes when I saw the lava flow down there. I thought the heat or the CO2 was getting to me.”
“The CO2 did get to me,” said John. “I almost passed out down there.”
“I can’t believe this knot you tied, Nimrod,” confessed Axel.
“Hmm. What’s that, dear boy?” Nimrod was preoccupied with his own examination of the golden lava samples.
“I never before saw a knot like this one you tied, Nimrod. And I wouldn’t begin to know how to untie it.”
Nimrod did not look up from the two golden lava samples that lay in the palms of his hands like two very special eggs.
“That?” he said absently. “That’s a Dionysus knot. I’m afraid you’re not supposed to know how to untie it. You see, as well as being the most secure knot it’s humanly possible to tie, it’s also a cipher. A sort of code. You had better cut it. Like your near namesake, Alexander the Great. Otherwise we’ll be here all day.”
Axel unfolded his lock knife and began to saw at the rope.
“Professor?” said Nimrod. “Do you have access to the research institute? Here on Vesuvius.”
“I prefer to have a lab in the old observatory,” said Professor Sturloson. “Not in the new research institute. I don’t like the people working in the new institute to see me.”
“It’s quite understandable that you should feel a bit self-conscious about your mask,” said Nimrod.
“No, that’s not the reason,” said the professor. “My mask scares the Italians. Oh, I don’t mean they’re afraid of me. No, it’s that I don’t want them to be scared of the possible consequences of the work they’re doing. I don’t want what happened to me to put anyone off from this important work. They’re all handsome fellows. Apart from the two women who work there. And they’re beauties. I just don’t think any of them wants to end up with his face burnt off by a pyroclastic flow.”
Nimrod nodded. “That’s most admirable, Snorri,” he said. “Most admirable. Well, look, we need to examine a section of this lava sample under a light-polarizing microscope. Urgently.”
“You’re worried about the golden color, aren’t you?” said the professor. “And that ancient Mongolian legend.”
“Yes. I am.”
“You really don’t believe that such a thing could ever happen, do you?” The professor shook his head. “Not a man of science like you, Nimrod.”
“What legend is that?” asked Philippa.
Nimrod didn’t answer. He was still frowning at the gold lava samples.
The professor continued to shake his head. “Surely such a thing couldn’t ever be possible. Could it?”
“What legend?” repeated John.
“I don’t know about any Mongolian legend,” said Axel. “But I can tell you what really isn’t possible. It isn’t possible to cut through this rope.”
“What are you talking about, Axel?” said the professor.
“This rope,” said Axel. “It appears to be indestructible.”
Nimrod winced as if he had been stung by a bee. In his haste to “find” a length of climbing rope to throw to John and mindful of the fate that had befallen the other rope, Nimrod had managed to create a rope that was impervious to molten rock, not to mention the sharp edge of Axel’s lock knife.
“I’ve tried cutting it,” said Axel. “And I’ve tried picking the fibers to pieces with the point of my knife. I’ve even tried burning it with my cigarette lighter.” He handed the lighter to the professor. “Here, you try.”
“Oh, we’ve no time for that now, surely,” said Nimro
d.
But the professor was not to be denied his opportunity to try to burn the rope himself.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“We really ought to get down to the observatory,” insisted Nimrod. “To test the samples.”
“I wonder what else this rope might withstand,” mused the professor. “It really is remarkable. And you found this in the souvenir shop, Nimrod?”
“Er, that’s right,” said Nimrod.
John thought to help his uncle by offering an explanation that managed to sound even more improbable than a rope that could not be cut or burnt.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll bet it’s that amazing new, indestructible, high-tech, top secret rope I’ve been reading about in some of the American climbing magazines. A top scientist invented it for the U.S. special forces after his son was killed climbing on the island of Antigua. It’s called Nine Lines, I think, on account of the fact that it’s made of nine separate cords and because it seems to have nine lives. Like a cat.”
Philippa closed her eyes and wondered if she should use djinn power to make her brother shut up. Sometimes it was a little hard to believe he was her twin.
“Antigua?” said the professor.
“Yeah, it’s an island in the Caribbean, near Montserrat.”
“I have good reason to remember exactly where it is,” said the professor. “That’s where I lost my face.”
“Oh, right,” said John. “Sorry.”
“It’s just that there aren’t any mountains to speak of in Antigua,” said the professor. “In fact it’s one of the least mountainous countries in the world.”
“Well, it might not have been there exactly,” said John, backtracking a little. “It could have been on another island. Like the Bahamas. Or the Maldives. I dunno. Anyway, it wasn’t a mountain he was climbing. It was a palm tree, I think. A very tall palm tree.”
“Well, that explains it,” said the professor. “A bit. All the same it’s amazing that we should have found some top secret rope just lying around here, in a souvenir shop. Don’t you think? And quite fortunate. For you.”