Stairway to Forever

by Robert Adams

  Just beyond the summit of the hill, the slope went gently down into a narrow valley, vale, really. A tiny rill threaded its way between grass and wild grain that stood a foot to a foot a half high and it, like the higher grasses below, was aswarm with quail and small rabbits.

  Thinking of a belly that soon would be in need of filling, Fitz stopped the bike just beyond the stream, unlimbered the drilling and dismounted. After picking up a pocketful of smooth pebbles from the rill banks, he strolled out into the grasses, holding the gun at the ready in his right hand while he tossed pebbles at likely looking spots, trying to rustle up some quail for his supper.

  With a startling burst of noise and a brilliant flash of color, a pheasant-sized bird rose up fast, very fast. But Fitz was a wing-gun of vast experience and, fast as was the big bird, his reactions were just as fast. The drilling boomed once and the barely risen bird dropped in a flutter of gaudy plumage.

  "Pheasant-sized, hell," thought Fitz, as he held his kill up by its legs for closer examination, "this is a pheasant, I've seen pictures of them. But how in the devil did a Chinese golden pheasant get here . . . wherever here is?

  "Some of the animals I've seen have been ordinary North American varieties. Of course, quite a number haven't, too; those deer, for one instance, not to mention that godawful thing I barely killed in time to keep it from killing me back on the plain. I've never ever seen, read or even heard of such a nightmare beast, anywhere in the world. Then, there're the flying lizards, the gliding jack rabbits, those ostrichlike things with scaly tails and feathery fur and, just now, that critter like a long-legged bear that's been dieting.

  "Wherever here is, it's got the damnedest collection of odd fauna of anyplace I've ever heard or read or been."

  Some yards up the slope of the next hill, while hacking at vines and undergrowth to make a path up which he could push, pull or tug the bike and sidecar, Fitz uncovered the mouth of a cave. With all the vegetation cleared away, the opening proved to be some two yards in width at its widest and almost that in height. A thin, crumbling, shaly ledge projected out about two feet beyond the opening, which he could immediately see would give added protection from rain to any inhabitant.

  Examination of its interior did not show recent signs of any large dwellers, only droppings of beasts no larger than a good-sized rat and even these were dried out and crumbly. A dark smudge, ever so faint, on the top of the opening and the bottom of the ledge, above, might have been soot from a campfire, but if so it was so old as to not really matter. Nonetheless, he took the elementary precaution of scouring the hillside about for good-sized chunks of stone to partially barricade the opening when he was ready to sleep.

  While still some davlighl

  necessary chores—cleaning and plucking the pheasant, cleaning and lubing his bike and then filling the fuel tank, cleaning and oiling his weapons. The machete, he could hone by firelight. When his initial fire had died to coals, he spitted the bird carcass over it on a green stick supported by a pair of forked sticks, then filled a cup with water from one of his canteens and nestled it into a bed in the coals.

  With starlight filtering down through the trees and the fire banked for the night, Fitz blocked the cave entrance with his boulders and the bike, then inflated his air mattress and pulled off his boots and outer clothing. The carbine, the drilling and the machete he laid within easy reach, but the pistol and both knives he took into the sleeping bag with him. Exhausted from the long, hard trip, full of spit-broiled pheasant, bouillion and sweet tea, he was soon asleep.

  Sometime in the night, half-asleep, half waking, Fitz knew that there was someone or something in that cave with him. Slowly, he opened the side zip-

  Gjr of the sleeping bag; ever so slowly, he put out s hand toward the two shoulder guns, the machete and the flashlight. But instead of cold metal, the searching hand encountered warm, dense, plushy fur and elicited a basso purr.

  "Damn it, Tom," he gasped, "you scared the shit out of me! Can't you at least snow the elemental courtesy of letting me know you're coming? Or do you really want to get shot again?"

  "Of course not, would you?" replied the cat. "But you see I cannot communicate with you so long as you are sleeping, and I cannot—or would not, rather— awaken you as I did there, in that other world and back in the place on the beach, for I now weigh as much or even more than do you, and you would surely have shot me with your revolver had a heavy bulk suddenly landed upon you."

  "Well," muttered Fitz, "you could at least say something, clear your throat, anything, rather than scare me half to death by just slinking in and lying down and waiting for me to wake up on my own, like you did."

  "You still don't understand," said the cat. "You think that I'm saying words to you with lips and tongue the way you and your kind do, but I'm not. I am meshing my mind with yours, just as I would do with another cat or most other creatures. You do not truly hear me with your ears, but within your mind.

  "You, of course, do say noises that convey thoughts, but I know your meanings from your mind even before I hear those noises with my own ears. Really, you need not make the noises at all, just form the things you wish to impart to me and I will immediately know them, old friend. You will know all this and so much more soon, as you begin to regain and know your inherent powers."

  Ever willing to try new things, Fitz slightly thought his words, "I would like to know just what these powers you keep carrying on about are, Tom? Or Tomasina, or whatever. Why don't I just call you Puss? That's a generic, nonsexist term."

  "Puss will be all right. It is derived of a Nile Valley name for one of their gods, and Egyptian of that period was almost an old language. But you may still call me Tom, too, if you will be more comfortable in so doing; I don't mind.

  "As for your powers, you will know them when your mind and body are ready to make use of them. Simply living here in these hills and valleys, partaking of the waters, breathing the air, eating of the foods, would eventually fully awaken your sleeping powers. But there may not be time, enough time, to take the slower route, and this is why you must find

  the Dagda, for he can accelerate the process, can quickly make of you what you truly are and have always been."

  "Well, if it's so damned important that I find this Dagda, lead me to him. We can leave here as soon as it's light enough to travel, the two of us, together," thought Fitz.

  "No," answered the cat, "I am forbidden to do such a thing, it has always been so. You must find the Dagda, you and you alone, unaided by me or the Keeper. The search and the dangers and trials you will undergo in that search will prove you worthy of what awaits you at its end, will prove that you are truly what you are.

  "I may shadow you and your progress, I may visit with you and even give you counsel and encouragement now and then, but I may not guide you directly to the Dagda at his court. You must find him and it at your own risk and peril, being cleansed of impurities and molded into what you must be by your dangers faced and overcome, even as the fire melts and cleanses the copper and tin to make fine, unsullied bronze."

  "But Puss," protested Fitz, "I don't even know which direction to travel to find this Dagda, and if these hills go on as far as they seem to, it—that search—could be a lifetime project for me. I'm already well over fifty years old."

  There was a hint of a patronizing smile in the cat's thoughts, then, "You do not know just how old you really are, old friend of mine. In a way, you are incredibly ancient, yet in another you are but a little boy-child. I am forbidden to tell you all that I might tell you here and now, but I can say this: do not believe all that you learned as unshakeable, indisputable fact in that other world, for many things—both

  there and here—are not always what they seem to those without any powers . . or with few and ill-developed powers.

  "As for finding the Dagda, any direction that you travel from here—save back, the way you came—will lead you to him. Dangers and trials will lie in your path, but each will be for you ano
ther step closer to your goal. The survival of each of them will help you in the development of your powers. While you may suffer in many strange and terrible ways in undergoing these trials and dangers, you will not die, unless ..."

  "Unless?" prompted Fitz. "Unless what?" "I have said . . . almost said too much, my friend," answered the cat, "so I can say no more, at this meeting, save this: Although I am not to guide you, I am allowed to extend to you a certain amount of protection and good advice in what is yet to you an alien land filled with perils you as yet do not, cannot fully imagine or comprehend. Knowing me as they well do, it was wise of them to forbid me, personally, to give you other than counsel, so they have chosen one who will travel with you as long as you are without effective powers and so need him. He will join you at some time within the next couple of days. You will easily recognize him; he is big and blue. "Now, I must depart and you must sleep." When he had awakened in the chilly dawn, raked off the covering earth from the coals and heaped dry squawwood atop them, Fitz began to sort those things he could take and those things he could not or would not need to pack upon his back. Strangely, despite a very hard, very strenuous day yesterday, he felt fitter than within recent memory, but even so, he knew that there was a definite limit to what even men in their prime, in the peak of condition, could

  be expected to carry on a hike over rough, roadless terrain. He estimated his own maximum at about sixty pounds and chose accordingly.

  Food and condiments, weapons. Although he loved and respected the power of the carbine, he knew that he needed a game-getter more than it, for in a real life-or-death emergency, he would still have the revover which fired the same cartridge and, with its six-inch barrel, could maintain accurate fire to substantial ranges. So he zipped the carbine in its case and stowed it in the cargo sidecar, along with the fuel and tools for the bike, eliminating something more than six pounds from his eventual load.

  Ammunition. Shotshells and .22 caliber magnum rimfires for the drilling, a box of the frightfully heavy cartridges for the revolver. He felt a little like a posturing fool to pack in fifty-five rounds of .44 magnums . . . until he recalled that thing he had had to kill yesterday.

  A complete change of outer clothing, two sets of underwear, three spare pairs of boot socks, toiletries, first-aid items, a small sewing kit and a scissors, an eight-foot by four-foot tarp of a light canvas with metal grommets at corners and along edges, fifty feet of three hundred pound test rope, insect repellent, a roll of toilet paper, a folding spade, a belt axe, a compact set of pot, pan, plates, cup and utensils, a packet of fishing gear, an Arkansas stone for the axe and machete blades, a folding lantern and candles for it, a butane pocket lighter and four aluminum replacement tanks for it, a box of lifeboat matches. The flare projector, of course, along with two each green and red star flares for it. Flashlight and spare batteries, salt tablets.

  He considered the air mattress, then decided against it. The weight and bulk of the thing simply did not

  justify it. Besides, while he would be able to patch holes or smaller rips, a really large one would make the thing so much useless garbage to be left behind on the trail. And there were other ways to soften the ground under him, using natural, on-the-spot materials.

  On his belt, in addition to the revolver and two cased speed-loaders for it, he carried his Ka-bar belt knife, a lensatic compass, two cased one-quart canteens, one of them with a cup, the machete and the smaller, more rugged pair of binoculars.

  When he hefted pack, bedroll and belt together, however, they seemed lighter than any sixty or even fifty pounds, total, so he added a few "luxuries"—a small spool of wire for making snares, a pair of sharp-nosed pliers, a swiss army knife, a camouflaged poncho, another pair of boot socks, a spare set of rawhide boot laces and, on momentary impulse, a steel slingshot and its bag of ball-bearing projectiles. He had always been good with a slingshot and, should he lose or damage the drilling, the slingshot might well provide him with small game to fill his belly.

  When he had used the compass to ascertain the exact position of the storage cave, he scratched the coordinates onto the back of the compass case with the point of a knife, then blocked the entrance as well as he could with the available boulders, before piling brush and branches over all. Then he urinated over as much of the brush as he could, hoping that the strong odor of humanity would keep animals away for at least a little while; it was all he could do.

  He settled the straps of the pack-frame comfortably on his shoulders, slung his drilling, knotted a bandanna around his head to catch sweat before it reached his eyes, took up his hiking stick and set out due north, up the slope. It seemed as good a direction to travel as any.

  That night, in another, higher vale, he dined on rabbit, a small tin of beans and tea, then banked the fire and sacked in, his bag atop a rectangle of tight-packed conifer tips, his pack out of the reach of prowling scavengers by way of suspension from a high tree branch on the end of his rope. Sleeping, unprotected and companionless in the open, as he was, he took all the weapons into the bag with him.

  The grey cat did not visit him that night. What finally awakened him was the sunlight . . . and pain. He opened his eyes with a squall to see some very odd visitors about his camp. There seemed to be twelve or fourteen of them, none of them taller than he, but invariably sturdy, hale and strong-looking.

  Some were blond men, some darker haired; all had fair skin, though much-weathered and mostly very dirty. All but one wore hide brogans, tight trousers and shirts that hung to mid-thigh, the cloth of both looking to be the color of unbleached wool and coarse of texture. Over the shirts, most of them wore sleeveless leather jackets, a couple of these jackets being faced with overlapping scales of what looked like horn or bone. All wore identical headgear, however—a conical steel helmet with a metal piece projecting down between the eyes to protect the nose. For weapons, they all wore a long-bladed dirk at the rear of their belts with the hilt canted to the right or the left, two or three held odd-shaped axes and the rest had spears five or six feet long. It had been the butt of one of these latter that Fitz had been most urgently prodded.

  The squat, red-haired ruffian standing beside the sleeping bag had grinned at Fitz's squall of pain. He did it again, but this time, now awake, his victim only grunted, so he reversed the weapon, clearly making ready for a downstab into chest or belly.

  The tallest man, wearing a mail hauberk with sleeves and chausses and standing observant, one grubby hand on the pommel of a sheathed sword, seemed not about to do or say aught to stop his subordinate from coldly murdering Fitz, just for fun, so Fitz felt constrained to stop the proceedings himself.

  Fingering up the quick-release of the bag's zipper, he threw it from off him, drew his revolver and fired a single round into the chest of the spearman. The force of the big round threw the body, flopping, a good five yards backward, to at last land well dead, though still bleeding copiously, a wide portion of the leather jerkin scorched black and smoking from the gunpowder.

  For a moment, every one of the smelly strangers stood stock-still. The only sound was the thud made by the pack falling to the ground under the tree, as the man who had untied the rope suddenly let it go as if it had been a live viper. Then, with some cry of incomprehensible words, the man in the hauberk drew his sword, whirled it up and ran in Fitz's direction, shouting what sounded like the same words once again.

  "Aw, God damn it, anyway," yelled Fitz in reply, then shot down the charging man, too.

  At this, the strangers made a somewhat expedited withdrawal, running, scrambling through the woods in every direction, shouting in a foreign tongue, some of them, others seemingly just screaming mindlessly in sheer terror.

  "Way to go, Daddyo!" came a voice . . . no, he realized, a thought transfer, "That's two of them Norman assholes down."

  Following this statement, a full-grown lion strolled slowly into the clearing, a big, full-maned, baby-blue lion.

  "You dig what they saying, man?" inquired
the blue lion. "They all thinks they run up against one of old Saint Germain's black magicians. And that's cool, too, man, it means that bunch at least'll let us be from now on . . . maybe."

  "Who the hell are you ?" thought Fitz, bewil-deredly. "And who were those poor, savage bastards I had to shoot? I don't understand any of all this."

  "I'm a cool cat, man," replied the lion, matter of factly. "I'm the coolest cattest character you or anybody elst has ever seen. I'm Cool Blue, the meanest, lightest horn that ever blew a riff. I did my thing from coast to coast with all the top ensembs. And I'll be doing it again real soon now, soon's I can find out how to get out of this lion rig and get back to where I come from, man."

  All at once, the baby-blue lion whuffed aloud and thought out, "Hey, man, I think that one in the rusty sweatshirt moved. You sure you cooled him right?"

  "How should I know?" thought Fitz in answer. "That wasn't an aimed shot, it was just reflexive. I hope I didn't kill him. I don't take any pleasure in killing, you know."

  "Oh, me too, man," the lion assured him. "Like, I only kill to eat, you know."

  Upon examination, the man in the hauberk was not dead—although, to Fitz's nose, he smelled as if he should have been decently buried at least a week earlier. The .44 slug had almost missed him; in fact, it had glanced off the left side of the conical helmet, leaving a deep dent in the metal and rendering its wearer unconscious for a short span of time.

  Upon fully awakening he groaned, then slowly sat up to sway on his rump. Picking up his helmet and observing the place whereon a hefty blow had obviously been dealt it, he whistled softly between his

  teeth, shook his head, then groaned feelingly once more.

  He regarded Fitz with brown eyes that were full of pain, yet he somehow got his lips into a smile, slowly nodded his coiffed head and spoke words that could have been Greek for all that Fitz comprehended of them.

  The blue lion's thoughts entered Fitz's mind. "Man, look, I won't be around all the time to help you out, so do this. See? See how easy it is? Now, like you can understand anybody, even if they like talk weird languages like this Norman dude, you know.