The Gate of Time

by Philip José Farmer

  Hawks felt sure of that. It seemed as if lightning would leap out from the very rubbing of the air against it, or a curse instead of a prayer would crackle down the mountain.

  They struggled on up, their path lit only by the stars. Two hours went by, and the moon came out. Three-quarters full, she bounced a bright mercury over the mountain. Thereafter they climbed more surely and more rapidly. The illumination, although advantageous now, would be a danger when they reached the sentinel wall. Two Hawks hoped that the vegetation had not been cleared off between the wall and the oaks and bushes. To venture across a clearing in this brightness was to be revealed at once to any watcher.

  Twenty minutes later, they came to the edge of the woods. As he had feared, there was a bare space of forty yards. At its other end, above them at a 50-degree angle, embrasured walls loomed. These were about 20 feet high, composed of huge stone blocks, gray and veined in black, and fitted together without mortar. Every thirty yards along the top of the wall was a slender twenty-foot tower, round and capped with a cone of small mortared rocks.

  “Where are the guards?” Gilbert whispered.

  The moonlight coated the wall with soft metal; the shiny grey looked as if it would ring at the blow of a hammer. But there was no sound except for the shush-shush of wind through the leaves.

  Two Hawks, looking at the dark, narrow, arched entrances on the sides of the towers, said, “If the guards are in there, they’re hiding. Well, here goes. Don’t anybody follow me until the coast is clear.”

  With the coil of the rope in his left hand and the three-pronged catching hooks in his right, he ran out from under an oak’s shadow. He expected to hear a shout from the black interior of a tower, followed by a tongue of flame and explosion. However, the walls remained as still and shiny grey as before. Reaching the bottom of the ramparts, he paused, gauged the distance to the top, and cast the hooks, the rope uncoiling after them. The hooks sailed through an embrasure just above him and struck with a clank. The noise shocked him. Until that moment he had not realized how unconsciously strong the impression of the sacredness of the place had been.

  He pulled on the rope, and it became taut as the prongs dug in. Hand over hand, his feet against the wall, almost parallel to the ground, he climbed up. He gripped the lip of the stone and pulled himself up and over and then crouched in the shelf of the embrasure. He waited for an outcry from a guard. When a minute had gone by, he eased himself down into the passageway that ran the length of the wall. It was six feet across and high enough to reach to the top of his head.

  He drew his revolver and ran to the stone steps which led up the wall and to the nearest watch tower. Up the steep flight he went and hurled himself through the narrow pointed arch into the tower. Moonlight beamed through a small narrow hole in the roof and thinned the darkness enough so that he could see that no one was within. A wooden ladder against the wall of the tower led to a wooden platform. From this, a guard could observe—and shoot—through any of six ports and cover 360 degrees.

  He went out of the tower into the moonlight and signalled. The entire party was soon up on the wall, aided by the ladder which Two Hawks removed from the tower. Gilbert spread his men out so they covered a hundred yards of wall. If the Ikhwani marines tried to scale the walls at this point, the Blodlandish could concentrate a strong fire. Should the Ikhwani try elsewhere along the wall, a sailor in the tower would spot them, provided the Ikhwani were not too far away.

  Gilbert, Kwasind, Ilmika, and Two Hawks walked along the passageway until they came to a point beneath which was a gate. Inside the walls was a path that led from the gate on up the mountain. They decided to follow the path. The chances of being ambushed seemed few. It was evident that the Hivika guards had abandoned their posts, the reason for which would have to be determined later.

  The path made for easier going even if the slope was as steep as before. By dawn, they were only several hundred yards from the top of the mountain. And here they came across a Hivikan. Sprawled face down by the side of the path, he was dressed in a cloak of brilliant many-colored feathers, a feathered headdress, and a wooden mask set with garnets, turquoise, emeralds. Two Hawks turned the body over and removed the mask. The face of the priest was dark grey. Two Hawks took off his cloak and breastplate of bones and feathers and the cotton skirt. There were no wounds.

  Two Hawk’s skin prickled, and his head and neck chilled as if a helmet of ice had been placed over them. The others looked as apprehensive as he—all except Kwasind, stolid as ever. Yet he must have been quivering inside, since he was so sensitive to the terrors of the unknown.

  Two Hawks started on up but stopped again. The grey light of dawn seemed to be rushing towards certain spots and solidifying. The concentrations, as the party neared them, turned out to be huge statues of grey granite or black basalt or grey porous tufa. They were squat, toadish, and scowling. Most had faces, distorted or misshapen, of men or of gods. Some were of beasts: big- eared, long-snouted, wide-fanged. By the hundreds, they crowded the mountain slope, most of them glaring down the mountain but a few looking upwards.

  Kwasind followed Two Hawks so closely he stepped on his heels several times. Two Hawks had to order him back a few paces. “They’re only stone,” he said. “Dead rocks.”

  “The rocks are dead,” Kwasind muttered. “But what lives within them?”

  Two Hawks shrugged and kept on trudging up the steep path at the head of the file. As he ascended, he felt more strongly the broodingness, the almost tangible resentment from the idols. He told himself that it was his own fears working on him; he expected trouble, perhaps death, and the squat grey figures symbolized them. Nevertheless, he was being squeezed around the chest; his breath was coming with more difficulty and his heart was beating harder than the exertions of the climb warranted. He could appreciate and sympathize with the others. Superstitious as they were, they were showing great courage by refusing to bolt.

  The rattle of rifle fire broke out far below. It was as if they had been released from a rope that was pulling them the wrong way. All jumped into the air, but their faces showed relief instead of the anxiety that might have been expected. The crack of the battle was such a human, and, to them, mundane phenomenon that it dissipated the strangling psychic air.

  Two Hawks looked up and said, “Another hundred yards and we’ll be at the cave.”

  Abruptly, the brown-black, hard-packed dirt of the path ceased. Ahead of him was a dull grey substance that spread out over the mountain from that point up. It felt warm through the sole of his shoes. He told the others to halt.

  “Lava,” he said. “Still warm.”

  The stone had flowed down from the mouth of the cave and fanned out to form a triangular apron. The huge entrance to the cave was half-choked with the grey stuff.

  “Now we know what scared everybody away.” he said. “The Hivika must have thought the mountain was going to blow its top. Or that the gods were angry. Or both. That priest may have died of a heart attack. There’s no evidence of poisonous gas.”

  As they neared the cave, slipping somewhat on the lava, the heat became more intense. Their clothes were soon soaked with sweat, and the bottoms of their feet began to get uncomfortably warm. By the time they reached the entrance of the cave, they knew they could not stay long.

  They did not have to linger. The beam of Two Hawks’ flashlight into the interior showed the lava sloping sharply upward from the mouth of the cave. Only twenty feet from them, the cave was entirely filled. The eruption—if it was an eruption of Terrestrial origin, had filled the inside. Two Hawks knew from Gilbert’s description that the cave extended at least a hundred yards into the stone of the mountain. At the end was—had been—the “gate”. That is, if it had ever existed.

  There was nothing to do now but to forget about the gate and to get away from the Ikhwani. They went back down the path towards the wall. Before they had gotten halfway, they heard the firing cease. Two Hawks stopped them.

  “If t
he Ikhwani have gotten through, they’ll be coming up after us. If they’re still being held outside the wall, we can afford to wait a while until we know for sure.”

  They hid behind a huge stone idol, fifty yards from the path. They leaned against its broad base, ate some dried beef and hard bread, and talked softly. The sun warmed away the chill of night. From time to time, Two Hawks looked around the idol and down the path. He saw nothing for half an hour. Then, he stiffened. Many small figures, shining white and black and scarlet, were toiling up the path. And the sun also twinkled off the barrels of guns or from drawn scimitars.

  “Your men have been killed or captured,” he said to Gilbert.

  Gilbert looked through his binoculars. He swore and then said, “There’s a man down there in Ikhwan uniform but wearing Perkunishan medals! His head is bare; he’s a blond! From your description, I’d say... no, you better look for yourself!”

  Two Hawks took the binoculars. When he put them down, he said, “It’s Raske.”

  Ilmika gasped and said, “How could he be here?”

  “Obviously, he got in touch with the Ikhwani embassy in Ireland. He knew where we were going, and he got the Ikhwani to come after me. They want me for the same reason Perkunisha and Blodland did. And if the Ikhwani can’t have me alive, they’ll have me dead!”

  He used the binoculars again and counted thirty-two enemy. There were six men far behind the main body, slow by reason of the two mortars they were carrying. Out on the lagoon, the Hwaelgold still rested at anchor and beyond the reef the cruiser prowled back and forth like a restless wolf.

  He swept the horizon of the sea. Far out were two plumes of smoke. If only, he prayed, the smoke could be pouring from the stacks of two Hivika warships, hastening to challenge the unauthorized vessels... if only...

  He quit looking. Now was the time to seize all the time they could. He led them back up the mountain until they came to the lava, then turned northward, skirting just below the lava. When they had gotten past it, they began climbing up again, diagonally across the slope.

  On rounding the peak, they stopped. The mountain was sheared off here. It fell straight for three thousand feet into the waters of a deep fjord. They would have to climb directly over the top of the peak at the first scalable point—if any.

  The Ikhwani had seen them by now and were climbing towards them. They were pushing themselves to the limit and were only three hundred yards below them.

  Two Hawks said, “I don’t suppose it’d be any worse living in South Africa than elsewhere. But I sure hate to think about learning Arabic; I haven’t even mastered Hotinohsonih, Perkunishan, or Blodlandish.”

  He said to Gilbert, “I’m sure the rest of you will be let go if I surrender to them.”

  Ilmika said, “What about me, Roger? Would you leave me?”

  “Would you come to Ikhwan with me?”

  She went into his arms and whispered, “I’ll go anywhere you go. Gladly.”

  “It’d be a miserable lonely life,” he said. “The Ikhwan practise a strict purdah, you know.”

  He released her and swept the sea again with the binoculars. The Hwaelgold was aflame; boats were being lowered from it. Water spouts were rising near the merchantman, and smoke puffs from the cruiser. A white sliver with a white wake were departing from the cruiser and headed towards the break in the reef. More Ikhwani marines were on their way. But they’d have to fight through the Blodlandish sailors, who would have established positions by the beach.

  The twin smoke feathers on the horizon did not seem to be getting any closer. At this distance and in such a short time, he could not determine how fast or in what direction the unknowns were traveling.

  He put down the binoculars and swore. He said, “To hell with the Ikhwani! I’m tired of being passed around like a piece of merchandise! I’m for trying to escape, or, if we’re cornered, making a fight of it! The Hivika are bound to come nosing around sooner or later. We can throw ourselves on their mercy!”

  Gilbert said, “We’ll make them know they’re dealing with Blodlandish.”

  Two Hawks laughed, since there were only two Blodlandish in the group, and one of them was a woman. However, Ilmika was not to be lightly considered. She could outshoot any of the men.

  They went back to the point where the mountain became a monolithic verticality. There was a small plateau here about forty yards long and twenty deep. Behind it, was a cliff 300 feet high. Below it, the slope was at a 50-degree angle. There were only a few large boulders for cover for the Ikhwani and none whatsoever for a hundred yards just below the plateau. If the marines tried for an approach on the right flank of the defenders, they could get no closer than fifty yards without exposing themselves. And they could get above the defenders only by climbing around the peak. If this were possible, it would still take them many hours.

  18

  At about 1 p.m. the Ikhwani, crawling on their bellies, ventured towards the four large boulders which gave the only protection anywhere near the plateau. By then, the three men had rolled all the boulders on the plateau to its lip. There were ten in all. The defenders placed themselves between some of these and waited. Two Hawks had counted their ammunition and found that there were thirty rounds apiece. He cautioned them against wasting them.

  The marines opened the fight with a fusillade that lasted about three minutes. Their bullets keened over the defenders’ heads, ricocheted off the boulders, or struck on the rock below the lip of the plateau. The defenders did not fire back once.

  Encouraged by the lack of response, ten marines climbed to the boulders while the rest continued their covering fire. Two Hawks stuck his head out over the lip long enough to see them crawling up. He also observed that the men carrying the mortars had a long way to go. These were very heavy pieces evidently, not like the easily portable field-mortars of his own world.

  Two Hawks waited for a few minutes. The firing stopped, but he did not look out. When it resumed even more furiously, he counted until he thought that the forward line should be at least fifty yards below them. He looked quickly; it was as he had expected. Ten Ikhwani, each separated from the other by ten feet, were advancing. They were on their feet now, crouching, holding their rifles with one hand and getting a grip on rock projections with the other.

  He gave a signal. Kwasind and Gilbert got on their knees behind a boulder and shoved it over the lip. It bounded down the mountain like a fox after a hare but struck no one. It did make the marines scatter away from it, however. Two lost their footing and rolled down the slope. By the time they had managed to stop themselves, they were out of the action.

  The second boulder knocked an Ikhwan into the air, flipping him over twice before he hit the ground. He did not move thereafter. The marines who had been providing a covering fire were too busy trying to guess which way the boulders would travel. They stopped shooting, and in the interval Two Hawks and Ilmika carefully squeezed off three shots apiece. Four marines were hit. The three survivors started back down the slope. One of them slipped and slid on his face for thirty yards before ramming his head into a small boulder.

  “Now they know,” Two Hawks said. “If they’re smart, they’ll wait until the mortars arrive. Then it’s good night for us.”

  Ilmika said, “They don’t want you alive, Roger.”

  “Yes, I know. Raske must have it in for me.”

  The Ikhwani contented themselves with firing an occasional shot. The mortarmen continued to make progress slowly, even if a number had been sent down to relieve them. Two Hawks estimated that the mortars would not be delivered until close to dusk. Not that night would make much difference in the accuracy of the mortar fire.

  He could not see the men from the Hwaelgold. The launch from the cruiser had landed long ago and the marines had disappeared into the oak woods. The merchantman had rolled over on its side but was still afloat. And the two pillars of smoke were definitely nearer.

  Gilbert told him that the mortars probably had a range of
about 200 yards. Two Hawks grinned at this news. To bring the weapons within effective range, the mortarmen would have to leave the protection of the far boulders to station the mortars behind the nearest boulders. He doubted that they would try to do so except under cover of night. They would have too much respect for the stone missiles the defenders could roll down on them.

  The sun dropped behind the peak. The blue sky darkened. Two Hawks said, “The moment it gets dark enough, we leave here. The Ikhwani will take some time getting the mortars to those boulders. The others may or may not set up a firing cover for the mortarmen. In either case, we have to take a chance. We’ll cut to the right across the slope and hope we can get around the line while they’re shooting us up—they’ll think.”

  Clouds from the west came over the mountain, gladdening the defenders. The sun’s influence disappeared entirely, and a darkness thick as charred jelly covered the mountain. The four let themselves gingerly over the edge of the plateau and began crawling down the slope. Approximately a minute later, the night became noisy and flame-shot. The marines were trying to keep the defenders busy while the mortars were carried to the new positions.

  Two Hawks, observing that they were below the line of fire, changed his mind. He told the others what he wanted to do but said that they would keep to the original plan if they preferred. They said they would do what he ordered.

  The four began to crawl northeastward, toward the nearest line of boulders. They arrived there a few minutes before the mortar crews. On the opposite side of the two boulders, they listened to the rasp of Arabic while the mortars were being set up. It was impossible to determine whether only the mortar crews were there or if others had come with them. Deciding that the longer he put off action, the less their chance of surprise, Two Hawks crawled around the huge rock. He and Ilmika were behind the one; Gilbert and Kwasind behind the other, ten yards away.

  Everything went even better than Two Hawks had hoped. He shot from one side of the boulder while Ilmika fired from the other. Kwasind and Gilbert went into action as soon as they heard the first shot. Although it was dark, the white trousers and turbans of the marines made for easy shooting. The four aimed at the dark areas between the white.