Mount Dragon

by Douglas Preston

  There was no sign of the door leading out to the corridor. He had entered a new world entirely.

  Levine’s hand fell from his laptop for a moment, and he closed his eyes against the view. It was not just the strangeness of the scene that had unnerved him: the huge, incredibly lifelike re-creation of a seacoast where an octagonal office should have been. There was something else.

  He recognized the place. This was no imaginary landscape. He had been here before, many years ago, with Scopes. In college, when they had been inseparable friends. This was the island where Scopes’s family had had a summer place.

  Monhegan Island, Maine.

  He was standing on a bluffât the seaward end of the island. If he remembered correctly, it was called Burnt Head.

  Returning his hand to the laptop, he turned in a slow, deliberate circle, watching the landscape change as he did so. Each new feature, each vista, brought a fresh rush of déjà vu. It was an incredible, almost unbelievable achievement. This was Scopes’s personal domain, the heart of his cypherspace program: his secret world, on the island of his boyhood.

  Levine recalled the summer he had spent on the island. For a kid from working-class Boston, the place had been a revelation. They’d spent the long warm days exploring tidal pools and sunlit fields. Brent’s family had a rambling Victorian house, set by itself on a bluff at the edge of the Village, toward the lee side of the island.

  That, Levine suddenly realized, was where he would find Scopes.

  He started down the trail, into the dark spruce forest. Levine noticed that the strange singing of the cyberspace world outside was gone, replaced by the island noises he remembered: the occasional cry of a gull, the distant sound of the ocean. As he moved deeper into the forest, the sound of the ocean disappeared, leaving only the wind sighing and moaning through the craggy branches of the spruce trees. Levine walked on as a light fog rolled in, amazed at how easily he was adjusting to moving around within this virtual world. The huge image before him on the elevator wall; the sounds and sights; the responsiveness of the program to his computer’s commands; all worked together toward a total suspension of disbelief.

  The trail forked. Levine concentrated, trying to remember the way to the Village. In the end, he chose one fork at random.

  The trail dipped down into a hollow and crossed a narrow brook, a blue thread bordered by pitcher plants and skunk cabbage. He crossed the stream, following the trail up a narrow ravine and deeper into the woods. Gradually, the trail petered out into nothingness. Levine turned around and began to retrace his steps, but the fog had grown thick, and all he could see were the black, lichen-covered trunks that surrounded him on all sides, marching into the mist. He was lost.

  Levine thought for a moment. The Village, he knew, lay on the western side of the island. But which way was west?

  He became aware of a shadow moving through the fog to his left; within moments, the shadow resolved itself into the shape of a man, holding a lantern at his side. As the man walked, the lantern made a yellow ring of light that bobbed and winked in the fog. Suddenly, the man stopped. He turned slowly, looking toward Levine through a defile of dark tree trunks. Levine looked back, wondering if he should type a greeting. There was a flash of light and a popping sound.

  Levine realized he was being shot at. The figure in the fog was apparently some kind of security construct inside the cypherspace program. But how much could it see, and why was it firing at him?

  Suddenly, a voice cut in, loud and insistent, over the soft sighing of the wind. Levine turned quickly, staring at the elevator speakers. The voice belonged to Brent Scopes.

  “Attention, all security personnel. An intruder has been discovered in the GeneDyne computer. Under current network conditions, that means the intruder is also in the building. Locate and detain immediately.”

  By entering the island world, he had alerted the GeneDyne supercomputer’s security program. But what would happen if he was hit with gunfire? Perhaps it would terminate the Cypherspace program, leaving him as far from Scopes as when he had first entered the building.

  The dark figure fired again.

  Levine fled backward into the woods. As he navigated through the swirling fingers of fog, he began to see more dark figures moving through the trees, and more flashes of light. The trees began to thin, and he came out at last onto a dirt road.

  He stopped for a moment and looked around. The figures seemed to have vanished. Immediately, he started down the dirt road, moving as fast as his laptop controls would permit, alert for signs of anyone approaching.

  A sudden noise alerted him, and he ducked back into the woods. Within moments, a group of shadowy ‘figures glided by, moving eastward like ghosts, holding lanterns and carrying guns. He waited until they passed, then returned to the road.

  Soon, the road turned to stone and began to descend toward the sea. In the distance, Levine could now make out the scattered rooftops of the Village, crowded around the white spire of the church. Behind them rose the great mansard roof of the Island Inn.

  Cautiously, he descended the hill and entered the town. The place appeared deserted. The fog was thicker between the weather-beaten houses, and he moved quickly past dark windows of old, rippled glass. Here and there a light in one of the houses cast a glow through the fog. Once he heard voices and managed to maneuver himself into an alley until a group of figures had moved past him in the fog.

  Past the church, the road forked again. Now Levine knew where he was. Choosing the left fork, he followed the road as it climbed the side of a bluff. Then he stopped, maneuvering the trackball for a view up the hill.

  There, at the top of the bluff, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, rose the gloomy outlines of the Scopes mansion.

  The long hours of stooping and searching the lava for sign had taken their toll on Nye’s back. The horses had left barely enough marks to follow, and it was tedious, slow work. In three hours he had managed to track Carson and de Vaca less than two miles.

  He straightened up, massaging his back, and took another small drink from the water bag. He poured a few quarts into his hat and let Muerto slurp it down. He would catch up to them eventually, if only to find their dead bodies being pulled apart by coyotes. He would outlast them.

  He closed his eyes for a moment against the blazing white light of the sun. Then, with a deep sigh, he began again. There, two feet ahead, was a crushed clump of grass. He took one step and looked beyond it. There, maybe four feet ahead, was an overturned stone, showing a little sand on its bottom. He scanned a semicircle with his eyes. And there was the impression of the side of a hoof in a tiny patch of sand.

  It was bloody tedious, to tell the truth. He occupied himself with the thought that, by now, Carson and de Vaca had no doubt drunk all their water. Their horses were probably half-crazed with thirst.

  Here, at last, was a clear stretch of tracks, leading ahead for at least twenty feet. Nye straightened up and walked alongside them, grateful for the temporary respite. Maybe they’d grown tired of making their trail so difficult. He knew he bloody well had.

  There was a sudden movement in the corner of his eye, and simultaneously Muerto reared, jerking Nye backward into the horse’s flailing hooves. There was a stunning blow to his head, followed by a strange noise that quickly died away, and an infinity of time passed. Then he found himself looking up at an endless field of blue. He sat up, feeling a wave of nausea. Muerto was twenty feet away, grazing peacefully. Automatically, his hand reached for his head. Blood. He looked at his watch, realized he’d only been unconscious for a minute or two.

  He turned suddenly. Off to one side, a boy sat on a small rock, grinning, his knees sticking up under his chin. Wearing shorts, knee socks, and a battered blue blazer, the breast-pocket emblem of the St. Pancras’ School for Boys half-obscured by dirt. His longish hair was matted, as if it had been wet for a very long time, and it stuck out from the sides of his head.

  “You,” Nye breathed.

&nb
sp; “Rattler-snake,” the boy replied, nodding toward a clump of yucca.

  That was the voice: supersaturated with the Cockney drawl that, Nye knew firsthand, years of English public school in Surrey or Kent could never fully exorcise. Hearing it from the mouth of this small figure, Nye was instantly transported from the fiery emptiness of the Southwestern desert to the narrow gray-brick streets of Haling, pavements slick with rain and the smell of coal hanging heavy in the air.

  With an effort, he willed himself back to the present. He glanced in the direction the boy had pointed. There was the snake, still coiled in striking position, perhaps ten feet away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Nye said.

  The boy laughed. “Didn’t see it, old man. Didn’t hear it, neither.”

  The snake was silent. Its tail, sticking up at the end of its coil, was blurry with vibration, yet it was making no noise. Sometimes rattlers did break off all their rattles, but it was very rare. Nye could feel a prickle of secondary fear course through him. He had to be more careful.

  Nye stood up, fighting to control the wave of nausea that washed over him as he rose. He went over to his horse and slid the rifle out of its scabbard.

  “Hang on a minute,” the boy said, still grinning. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Nye slid the rifle back. It was true. Carson might hear the shot. That would give him information he didn’t need to know.

  On a hunch, Nye scanned the ground in a wide arc around the snake. There it was: a green mesquite stick, recently whittled, forked at one end. And, lying beside it, a similar stick.

  The boy stood up and stretched, smoothing down his unruly hair. “Looks like you were set up, bang to rights. Nasty bit of work. Almost did you, that one.”

  Nye swore under his breath. He’d underestimated Carson at every turn. The snake had been agitated, and had struck too early. If it hadn’t... He felt a momentary dizziness.

  He looked again at the boy. The last time he had seen him, Nye had been younger, not older, than the grubby little fellow that now stood before him. “What really happened, that day down in Littlehampton?” he asked. “Mum wouldn’t tell me.”

  The boy’s lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout. “That dirty great wave got me, didn’t it? Pulled me right under.”

  “So how did you swim back out?”

  The pout deepened. “I didn’t.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Nye asked.

  The boy picked up a pebble and threw it. “The same might be asked of yourself.”

  Nye nodded. True enough. He supposed all this should seem strange to him. Yet each time he thought about it, it seemed more normal. Soon, he knew, he would stop thinking about it at all.

  He collected the reins of the horse and gave the snake a wide berth, searching again for sign about thirty yards to the north.

  “Hotter than a bleedin’ pan of bubble and squeak out here,” the boy said.

  Nye ignored him. He had found a scrape on a stone. Carson must have made a sharp turn just beyond the snake. God, his head was throbbing.

  “Here, I’ve got an idea,” the boy said. “Let’s head him off at the pass.”

  Through a fog of pain, Nye remembered his maps. He wasn’t as familiar with the northern end of the Jornada desert as he was with the southern. It seemed unlikely, but he supposed it was possible there might be a way to head Carson off somewhere.

  Certainly he still had the advantage. Eight gallons of water left, and his horse was going strong. It was time he stopped merely reacting to Carson’s stratagems, and began calling the shots himself.

  Locating a flat area in the lava, Nye unrolled his maps, weighing down the corners with stones. Perhaps Carson had headed north for reasons other than simply throwing everyone off the scent. The personnel file stated that Carson had worked ranches in New Mexico. Maybe he was heading toward country he knew.

  The maps showed large, complicated lava flows in the northern section of the Jornada. Since the topographical engineers hadn’t bothered to actually survey the flows, large sections of the maps were stippled indiscriminately with dots indicating lava. There was no section or range data. The maps were no doubt highly inaccurate, the data having been gathered from aerial photographs with no field checking.

  At the northern end of the Jornada, Nye noticed a series of cinder cones marked “Chain of Craters” that ran in an irregular line across the desert. A lava mesa, the Mesa del Contadero, backed up against one side of the flow, and the tail end of the Fra Cristóbals blocked the flows at the other. It wasn’t a pass, exactly, but there was definitely a narrow gap in the Malpaís near the northern end of the Fra Cristóbals. From the map, it looked as if this gap was the only way to get out of the Jornada without crossing endless stretches of Malpaís.

  The boy was leaning over Nye’s shoulder. “Cor! What’d I tell you, then, guv? Head him off at the pass.”

  Twenty miles beyond the gap was the symbol for a windmill—a triangle topped with an X—and a black dot indicating a cattle tank. Next to them was a tiny black square, with the words “Lava Camp.” Nye could tell this was a line camp for a ranch headquartered another twenty miles north, marked “Diamond Bar” on the map.

  That’s where Carson was going. The son of a bitch had probably worked on the ranch as a kid. Still, it was over a hundred miles from Mount Dragon to Lava Camp, and eighty miles to the narrow gap alone. That meant Carson still had almost sixty miles to go before hitting the windmill and water. No horse could go that distance without watering at least once. They were still doomed.

  Nevertheless, the longer he looked at the map, the more certain Nye felt that Carson would be heading for that gap. He would stay on the lava only long enough to shake Nye, and then make a beeline for the gap, and for Lava Camp that lay beyond—where there would be water, food, and probably people, if not a cellular phone.

  Nye returned the maps to their canisters and looked around. The lava seemed to stretch endlessly from horizon to horizon, but he knew now the western edge of the lava was only three-quarters of a mile away.

  The plan that took shape in his mind was very simple. He would get off the lava immediately and ride ahead to that gap in the Malpaís. Once there, he’d wait. Carson couldn’t know that he had these maps. Sneak that he was, he probably knew Nye was unfamiliar with the northern Jornada. He would not expect to be cut off. And, in any case, he’d be too damn thirsty to worry about anything but finding water. Nye would have to ride in a long arc to ensure that Carson wouldn’t pick up his track, but with plenty of water and a strong horse he knew he could reach the gap long before Carson.

  And that gap was where Carson and the bitch would meet their end in the crosshairs of his Holland &. Holland Express.

  The vultures were perhaps a mile away now, still spiraling slowly in the rising thermal. Carson and de Vaca walked in silence, leading their horses across the lava. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The lava seemed to glitter with endless lakes of blue water, covered with whitecaps. It was impossible for Carson to keep his eyes open and not see water.

  Carson examined his thirst. It was excruciating. He had never imagined, much less felt, such a desperate sensation. His tongue was a thick lump of chalk in his mouth, without feeling. His lips had cracked and were starting to ooze fluid. The thirst was also gnawing away at his mind: As he walked, it seemed the desert had become one vast fire, lifting him like flyaway ash into the dazzling, implacable sky.

  The horses were becoming severely dehydrated. The alteration that a few hours in the noonday sun had worked on them was almost incredible. He had wanted to wait until sunset to give them water, but it was now clear that sunset would be too late.

  He stopped abruptly. Susana shuffled on a few steps, then halted wordlessly.

  “Let’s water the horses,” he said. The sudden speech in his dry throat was exquisitely painful.

  She said nothing.

  “Susana? You okay?”

  De Vaca
didn’t answer. She sat down in the shade of her horse and bowed her head.

  Carson dismounted and moved toward de Vaca’s horse. He unstrapped Nye’s saddlebag and pushed the horseshoes aside. Removing a canteen, he took off his hat and filled it up to the brim. The sight of the water flowing from the mouth of the canteen sent his throat into spasm. Roscoe, who had been standing beside him half-dead, suddenly jerked his head up and crowded forward. He sucked down the water in a moment, then grabbed the hat with his teeth. Carson rapped him irritably on the muzzle, yanking the hat away. The horse pranced and blew.

  Carson filled his hat a second time, carrying it to de Vaca’s horse. The horse drank it down greedily.

  Replacing the now-empty canteen with the full one, he gave each horse half a second hatful, then returned the canteen to the saddle. The horses had suddenly become agitated, as he knew they would, and were blowing and turning, eyes wide.

  As he returned the second, half-full canteen to the saddlebag, he heard a rustling sound. Reaching in, he found a loose seam along the lining of the outer flap. A piece of aged yellow paper was peeping out: the paper that Nye had been examining in the barn, the evening after the dust storm. Carson pulled it out and looked at it curiously. It was tattered and not paper at all, but something that looked like a soiled piece of ancient leather. On it were crudely detailed sketches of a mountain range, a strangely shaped black mass, numerous markings, and Spanish script. And across the top, the perplexing words in a large, old-fashioned hand: Al despertar la hora el áquila del sol se levanta en una aguja del fuego, “At dawn the eagle of the sun stands on a needle of fire.” And at the bottom, amid other Spanish script, a name: Diego de Mondragón.

  It all became suddenly clear. Were it not for his painfully cracked lips, Carson would have laughed aloud.

  “Susana!” he exclaimed. “Nye has been searching for the Mount Dragon treasure. The gold of Mondragón! I found a map” hidden here m his saddlebags. The crazy bastard knew paper was illegal at Mount Dragon, so he kept it where nobody would find it!”