by Lin Carter
Now it was he who shivered a little, at the thought. It was as if the impalpable weight of all those ages settled upon him, cold and soft as the very shadows. This stone was already old and worn before Babylon was a village, he thought, before the first pyramid was raised, or the first man learned to write.
Almost as if she heard the echo of his thought, the girl whispered: “They set this stone here before the glaciers came down across Europe. And it was hewn out of the hills before our first ancestor walked upright….”
The mood stretched between them, something deep and uncanny; something which they shared between them. He had almost reached out to touch her—
“Inga?” a high, nervous voice spoke from the gloom of the arcade.
She started, and turned away. The mood broke, jarringly. And the moment was gone before it could be acted upon.
“Here, Karl!”
“What are you thinking of?” her brother demanded querulously, stepping out of the shadows to blink owlishly at them through his glasses. “It is nearly dark, and Cn.
M’Cord should be inside, out of the cold. You know how the cold stiffens his leg.”
She flushed and dropped her eyes, absurdly like a little girl being scolded.
“Yes, Karl… I’m sorry, Karl … we were only …”
“Never mind! Come inside, now. Help Cn. M’Cord— see, his leg has stiffened already. How thoughtless of you, Inga! We will talk later.”
The girl, head bent, shuffled within, and Nordgren helped the lame man to his feet. Something about the touch of his hands—cold and dry and, somehow, reptilian —sent a shudder of revulsion through M’Cord. Just as something in the girl’s frightened, submissive voice knotted his stomach with a qualm of disgust he could not quite explain. He sensed something here, something between these two, something buried and hidden away but hideously close to the surface and hideously alive.
And it was something he did not like.
He went in to dinner.
Every day or two, Chastar rode off down the ravine to hunt for meat. The Earthsiders had canned rations and the Martians had their tough, dried, preserved meats, but these were to be reserved for emergencies. Chastar liked to prove his manhood in the hunt, it seemed. Or perhaps he simply enjoyed killing something. At any rate, he was an efficient hunter and knew how to find the cave reptiles and the rock lizards, which afforded them a plentiful supply of succulent meat, which Inga cooked into a delicious stew, using precious water from the still to moisten the meal.
Chastar would come cantering back into camp with scarlet or golden game slung across the withers of his steed, hallooing and roaring with high zestful good humor. Nursing an ache in his cramped muscles, M’Cord more than once wished the swaggering huntsman would fall off his loper and break his neck. But this never happened, unfortunately.
At night he lay in his thermosac, staring up at the roof, waiting for the pain to subside beneath the smothering numbness of the drugs. Waiting for Thaklar to make his move—or for Zerild to put a knife between Chastar’s ribs —was beginning to get on his nerves.
He wished it were all over.-But he knew it would be a long time before it was.
X. A Time of Waiting
And so he slept and ate and exercised and rested, and took his medicines as Inga Nordgren directed. But he watched and listened all the time. And his mind was ever busy.
There would be a strange group, they who were to search for the Valley.
There was Chastar, for one. He was easy enough to figure out. A criminal, fled from the justice of his kind, an ordinary outlaw. Ever suspicious, ever wary, with murder in his wolfish eyes and a gun never far from his side. He hated all men because he could not trust them, believing that they were as treacherous and unscrupulous as he was.
A man like that, M’Cord knew, lives on his image of himself, a bundle of naked and raw nerve endings—easily angered, easily driven to kill. And his image was that of the rampant male, all swagger and bluster. To fulfill his image of himself, he needed a woman—any woman— every woman. His sense of manhood was not complete without sexual conquest.
He found such a woman in Zerild. She herself was his very counterpart—free as the wind, savage as the desert, deadly as truth. Quick to kill and even quicker to betray. The eternal temptress and betrayer: the taunting witch-woman, all Lilith and Salome and Delilah, with no bit of Eve within her.
Being so very like Chastar, she denied him the gift of herself. Being Chastar, that denial frayed him to the quick and nagged him raw. He would more easily have killed her than ever he could let her go untouched. But Zerild, being Zerild, would have slain any man who took her by force. And in her own way she was every bit as deadly and dangerous as he.
So they lived side by side—unlovers. She flaunted before him the temptation of her body, and he strove ever to win it. The tension between them was savage. Someday, thought M’Cord, it would snap and there would be red murder between them and one or the other or possibly both would never see another dawn. He wryly hoped he would not be around to see the outcome.
The renegade priest was quite another breed. Somewhere, somehow, he had betrayed his vows and had been defrocked—if that was the word. The little old man was as closemouthed as they come, and kept to himself as much as he dared. Toward the girl Zefild he maintained a guarded silence, seldom speaking to her, never responding to her taunts when she lashed out at whoever was nearest, which was very often. Only the dull fire that glittered behind his slitted eyes showed that he heard the words she flung at him. Words like “eunuch” and “worm.”
Toward Chastar he groveled in the most obsequious and servile manner, bearing himself humbly, calling the outlaw “master” and “lord,” and enduring his curses and careless buffets with silence. He endured, did Phuun. It was as if he waited for some high moment to come when he could revenge himself magnificently and finally for all the words of slighting and contempt.
Of the three, M’Cord thought Phuun the most deadly.
He made certain never to turn his back upon the renegade priestling, and never to be alone with him.
So, bit by bit, he began to mend; and when he was feeling fit once more, and could hobble about a little, he sought the sunshine and the open air. Cooped up in the darkness was never M’Cord’s way; and besides, one learns nothing when one is tucked out of sight in a corner.
Sprawled lazily, napping in the sun, he kept his eyes and ears open. Except for the Nordgrens and Thaklar, none of the others had visited him during his recovery. He wanted to see them firsthand, and study them himself.
They were a weirdly mixed trio—the wolf-like outlaw, the witch-girl, and the viper-like little ex-priest. M’Cord could not help wondering what had brought them together in the first place. And there was also another thing to wonder about.
Why did they seek The Holy?
It was not out of piety, that was certain. For one thing, the gods had long ago forbidden the Valley to men; just as, long ago and on another world, a certain Garden had been made forever inaccessible to the descendants of a man called Adam. And for much the same reason. But more to the point, none of the three gave any credence to the ancient faith of their kind. No, there was another motive….
There was mention of treasure. Treasure, to such as Chastar, meant gold or gems. But all of the accounts of the Valley Where Life Was Bom that M’Cord could remember (and he dredged up from the depths of his memory every tiniest scrap of legend and lore concerning the place that he had ever come across in all his years on Mars) described a paradisical garden with a pool. Nary a word of gold or gems. What, then, was the treasure?
Perhaps it was immortality itself. Treasure enough to a sick or dying man—especially a rich one, who could afford to pay splendidly for immortal youth. But M’Cord suspected there was something more to it than that. That was too simple—too obvious.
And it did not explain the cunning in the priest’s eyes when he talked of the days to come, nor the greed that lay naked in
the gloating, hungry eyes of Chastar when he listened.
Well, whatever their scheme, it would come to light in time. As ever, thought M’Cord, time would tell….
Of course, he had no way of guessing how strange and awful the secret would be, when all was finally laid bare in the end.
But that is one of the best things about living—one of the most precious gifts ever given to us by Those who shaped our being: We cannot ever know what is to come.
He slept and rested, took his meals and his medicines, and lazed in the open sun, feeling the strength seep back bit by bit into his battered body.
He watched and waited; listened and observed.
The strains and tensions between this odd, mixed bag of treasure seekers was like a textbook in human relations gone sick and sour. He didn’t completely understand all of the emotions he observed around him, but he caught enough of them.
The key figure, oddly enough, seemed to be Thaklar.
It was Thaklar who held the secret of Ophar the Holy— only he could guide them through the empty place on the old silver chart. M’Cord wondered if he intended to do so. It was impossible to tell. Thaklar was closely watched at all times, and he kept his own counsels. Even when he was with the others, he seemed to be alone with his thoughts, ignoring their spats and quarrels.
M’Cord noticed that the Hawk warrior kept to himself as much as he possibly could. He maintained a calm mien of self-control whenever Chastar burst into one of his snarling, spitting rages of frustration and fury. He did not grovel, nor did he fight. Generally, he laughed. He knew how to handle men like the wolf, did Thaklar. The world was full of them.
Toward Zerild, Thaklar turned deaf ears and blind eyes. He made utterly no response, either to her flaunting or her contempt. He behaved as though she were not there. It was that, as much as anything, that stung the girl. In order to sustain her belief that men were worthy of nothing but her fierce contempt, they had to behave contemptuously toward her. They had to lust for her tawny loveliness, which she dangled ever just beyond their reach. Or they had to flinch beneath her stinging tongue, and hate her.
Thaklar did neither. He ignored the temptation she offered, as he ignored her mockery. Once burned, twice shy, M’Cord thought with amusement.
He himself did not even pretend to ignore her. When she came swaggering about, mischief glinting in the sidelong glances she flicked in his direction, he responded openly with an admiration undisguised, although colored with amusement. He kept himself out of reach of her claws, and he made himself immune to her taunts by pretending to be amused. He acted like an indulgent uncle who notices, but does not really believe in, the flirting ways of a small niece.
She knew that game as well, of course, and they played it often. But she was not really concerned with M’Cord, so she did not really bother trying to make him love or desire her. It was a reflex, little more. She could no more pass by anything male without flaunting herself before it than she could fly. They played the game, but their hearts were not really in it.
As for the brother and sister, they were mostly ignored. Chastar regarded them as a mere annoyance, something to be brushed aside and swatted bloodily, as you swat a fly when it bothers you. They were alive still because they had been needed to heal M’Cord. And he had not killed them before Thaklar and M’Cord had arrived, largely because it was difficult for Chastar to make up his mind to do anything. He was too tightly strung, too filled with trembling rage and fury, to think or plan coolly. That was Zerild’s job, to think and to plan.
Chastar was all wild, nervous impulse. He knew where he wanted to be but could never plot or scheme in order to get there. So he struck out blindly, hating himself and everything else. He had not slain the Nordgrens before because he had not been able to make up his mind to do so; and afterward, he had not been able to kill them because he needed them.
Now that they were no longer needed, M’Cord was afraid that Chastar would kill them out of hand. He didn’t want that to happen. There was no particular reason for it to which he could put a name. He didn’t much like Nordgren—the nervous, awkward, impractical man was all brain, no blood. All talk and theory, no action. But he didn’t want him killed; after all, he owed him and the girl something for healing his leg. But M’Cord was a hard, practical man, and a realist. He put little value on any life but his own, and not too high a value on that.
He wished he knew what was in Thaklar’s mind. He wished he had some idea of what the Hawk warrior was planning—if, indeed, he was planning anything. Maybe he was just drifting with the tide, was Thaklar. Waiting for an opening to strike, waiting for a rotten spot to turn up so that he could use the soft place to his advantage. But they were seldom allowed to be together, and were never together without being observed. Usually it was the priestling, Phuun, who was sent along to watch and listen when they talked. Sometimes it was the girl. Never once were they by themselves so that M’Cord could ask Thaklar what he planned to do.
He gave up wondering about it, and just lived from day to day, regaining his strength as swiftly as he could.
The leg healed, but it would never be the same again. The muscles were badly torn and, while they had knitted, after a fashion, they would never be strong again. M’Cord would be a cripple for the rest of his life, dragging behind him the dead weight of one half-alive leg, an object of contempt and derision.
It made him bitter and even cynical to think about it— he who had been bitter and cynical enough without this added reason. He felt himself less than a full man, with the leg. What woman would look on him as anything more than a cripple, deserving of pity?
He hated the leg. Which meant he hated himself. Always he had prided himself on his body, on its strength and toughness. Now it betrayed him with its weakness. His life was ended, he thought blackly in the empty hours of the night when he lay awake, waiting for dawn. A man with a dead leg could not fend for himself in the dust-lands, could not prospect for power-metal in the plateaux. How would he end up, as a filthy wino sleeping in the back alleys of Sun Lake City, begging for a coin?
It was an ugly thing to think about. Maybe it would have been better if he had died there in the dustlands of the Regio, under the claws of the sandcat.. ..
But there was a core of toughness left even in his fever-worn and crippled body. M’Cord was still alive and was regaining his strength day by day. He would live as long as he could, he thought; and he would come out of this as best he might.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but sweat it out and hope that Chastar didn’t kill them all in a sudden spasm of wild, maniacal fury.
Somewhere along the way to Ophar it would happen— whatever was going to happen.
Or in Ophar itself.
That thought made him smile grimly to himself, there in the dark as he lay sleeplessly staring into blackness and waiting for the drugs to take hold.
Who could say what would happen?
And—who knew?—maybe there really was treasure to be found in the Valley Beyond Time.
XI. They Leave Ygnarh
M’Cord healed. He could walk about the plaza well enough, dragging the half-dead leg behind him. He could even climb fairly well. And—with Chastar watching him with a rifle ready in his hands in case the F’yagh should try to make a break for freedom—he found he could sit a saddle again without any particular discomfort.
“Then why do we linger here in the city-of-ghosts, master?” that little priestling hissed in that snakish way he had which made M’Cord’s hackles rise. “The treasure of all the world waits out there at the end of the Road. If the accursed ones are to go with us to The Holy, well then, let us be gone.”
Chastar growled and spat. “We go when I say so, snake —not one moment before!” Then, turning his hot eyes on Inga, the outlaw demanded, “Is he truly well enough to ride then, yellow-hair?” Inga said, in her calm way, that M’Cord was. His eyes ran over her, slowly, his glance lingering on her full, ripe breasts. She endured the touch of
his eyes in silence, although M’Cord, watching from the comer, knotted his fists and held his breath. The outlaw had never touched Inga, as far as he knew, being preoccupied with the witch-girl, Zerild. But there was a first time for everything.
But then Zerild said something caustic and humorous: the mood broke abruptly, and Chastar laughed in his spitting, snarling way. And M’Cord slowly uncurled his fists and let the moment pass without comment.
The girl, Inga, seemed unconcerned, as if she had noticed nothing. And perhaps, after all, she had not felt the pressure of those hungry eyes feeling and tasting her body. She was still something of an enigma to M’Cord. She could have been beautiful, he thought; her body was ripe and desirable under the loose folds of the baggy thermal-suit. But she did nothing with herself to catch the eyes of men.
It was not a question of cosmetics or hairdos, of course, for these were not to be had in the dustlands beyond the handful of Earthsider colonies. Zerild herself did not bother to paint her lips or eyes, and tied her hair carelessly back out of the way with a twist of scarlet cloth. What it was, then, was that the young woman maintained a placidity that was unappetizing. She hardly ever met his eye—any eye—squarely and frankly; her head seemed ever bent, as if she went always bowed down by some invisible weight of guilt or sin or worry.
She never laughed, or sang, or seemed happy. Always she seemed to be working. When she was not cleaning or cooking or tending M’Cord, she was busy copying her brother’s notes or filing his depth photos and tomb-rubbings; she always busied herself with something.
He decided it was not so much her cow-like calm, her yielding before any demand or pressure without complaint, that bugged him. It was the strain and tiredness he sensed within her that irritated him and made her seem less than a young woman and more like some listless squaw, broken in spirit, robbed of the freshness and luster of her youthfulness, made old and tired before her time. There was a slack fatigue visible in her face that kept it from seeming vivid and sparkling—a dull heaviness to her eyes. Perhaps she would never be truly beautiful, even under the best of conditions—the angel-vision he had seemed to see bending over him that first time he had awakened from his pain-shot stupor, he had long ago dismissed as an illusion of vivid youth and beauty—but if she had laughed a little, and let the light come into her eyes, she would have seemed attractive.