Master Of The Hashomi

Chapter 3

The mountain lifted higher and higher with each hour of Blade's steady march toward them. He could look deeper and deeper into the range, to see the patches of gray-green mountain pasture, thin silver lacings of streams flowing down over bare rock, the mist that rose where waterfalls plunged a thousand feet. He could now be certain that all the water a man might need was waiting for him there in the mountains. What else might be waiting for him he would find out when he got there.

With his early start, Blade covered two-thirds of the distance to the mountains by noon. Five miles from the foot of the nearest peak, he stopped to rest. The bushes seemed to grow thicker and greener here, and he no longer felt quite so nakedly visible to anyone who might be watching. He tested the edge of the knife on several branches, and found it cut easily and cleanly. He chewed some of the leaves to fight his thirst.

Barely a mile farther on he came to water. A shallow stream flowed over a gravel bed and plunged down a steep ravine to end in a broad muddy pool. The pool had no outlet that Blade could see-either the water evaporated or seeped away underground. The banks were thickly overgrown with bushes, coarse grass, and even a few pale red flowers. Small mouse-like things darted for cover as Blade approached, and somewhere in the bushes a bird squawked in surprise.

Two rocks stood out on either side of the stream where it flowed out of the ravine into the pool. Each showed the same sign that was on Blade's knife-the poppy-like flower. Each carved image was nearly four feet high, and they were identical except for one point. The carving on the rock to the right of the stream was worn and beginning to lose detail. Many years of wind had scoured it, many years of hot days and chilly nights had flaked away the rock around it.

The other carving was as clean and fresh as if the carver had set down his hammer and chisel only a few hours ago.

The impression of something brand-new was so overpowering that Blade found himself examining the ground around the rock for footprints. The people whose sign was the poppy flower were not dead and gone. Some of them had passed this way, probably within months, certainly within years, leaving their sign for all to see. Was it a warning to their enemies, a welcome to their friends, a prayer to whatever gods they worshipped, or something else entirely different and quite incomprehensible?

Blade wasted no time guessing. Nor did he change his plans. If the poppy people still existed, the mountains were as good a place as any to start looking for them. He had reason to assume they were formidable warriors, but no reason to assume he was in any danger from them-yet. He knelt by the stream, drank as much as he could, then rose and moved on.

Now his eye searched the landscape a little more carefully, and his right hand was never far from the hilt of his knife. Otherwise, no one watching Blade could have told that he was now fully alert, ready to turn from explorer into deadly fighting machine between one breath and the next.

The breeze blowing from the mountains began to carry a damp coolness. Blade turned south, to skirt the flank of the nearest peak in search of an easier path into the mountains. He was an expert climber, who'd made most of the important climbs in the Alps and Rockies. Dressed and equipped as he was, though, it made more sense to go around rather than over the looming peaks.

Another hour, and a narrow, rugged pass opened before him, snaking off into the shadows among the peaks. It finally seemed to vanish close to the foot of the twenty-thousand-foot giant with its trailing plume of snow. Blade doubted he could find a better route into the mountains, and climbed straight toward the mouth of the pass.

The shadows and the chill mountain air seemed to swallow Blade the moment he stepped into the pass. Before he'd gone a mile it was as if the barren, sun-baked slopes and the desert to the east had been a dream. Vast, rocky monoliths that seemed to brood were all around him. Blade had a sense of entering a world not made to human proportions, where he was an unwanted intruder.

Still, he would push on as long as he could. If the mountain men were the people of the poppy flower, they might have a short way with strangers, but that was a risk he'd have to face. Meanwhile, he would take special care to memorize his route and mark his trail. He might want to get out of the mountains much faster than he came in.

Blade strode on briskly, arms swinging to pump more air into his massive chest. The air around him was getting noticeably thinner. It would be cold tonight, but not dangerously so long as there was no wind.

The air was still all that afternoon as Blade plunged deeper and deeper into the mountains. Where the sun lit up the slopes and blazed from the snowcaps of the peaks, the scenery had a magnificent Alpine beauty. Blade found himself almost regretting that he wasn't going to be able to spend some time climbing a few of the mountains around him. For a while he amused himself with the fantasy of retiring here, when large-scale travel into Dimension X was perfected, and opening a resort. He was quite sure he could make this Dimension a popular tourist destination.

Twilight overtook him on the edge of a mountain meadow of coarse grass dotted with tiny yellow flowers. A stream leaped from the top of a black cliff to his left, to make a waterfall as it plunged and a clear cold pool where it landed. Blade drank, stretched out on the ground, and fell asleep with the splashing of the waterfall in his ears.

For three days Blade moved steadily deeper into the mountains. He would have turned back at the end of the second day if he hadn't found food. His body might seem to have the strength and endurance of a machine, but it was flesh and blood. It would have been foolish to push on until he was too weak to retreat.

But on the afternoon of the second day he found himself looking down on a flock of animals like large one-horned goats. A well-thrown stone stunned one and sent the rest of the flock dashing off in panic. Blade plunged down the slope, drew the knife, and slit the fallen animal's throat. Then he butchered it and stuffed himself with the raw flesh. The meat was bloody, gamey, and still warm, but it was food-enough to keep him going for several more days. If he found more flocks of goats, he could keep going for weeks, even though raw goat meat wasn't exactly a gourmet meal.

After eating, Blade cut patches from the goat's skin, scraped them clean, and tied them around his feet. When the condition of his feet might be a matter of life or death, any extra protection he could give them helped.

Blade was still heading deeper into the mountains on the afternoon of the third day. His goal now was the twenty-thousand-foot peak. On one side the peak shot up in an almost vertical face nearly ten thousand feet high, flanked by two sharp spurs. On the other side a gentle slope ran almost up to the summit. Today the winds aloft must be light, for the snow plume was barely visible.

Blade decided that he'd go as far as the mountain, then explore in a complete circle around its base. After that he'd climb as far up the easy slope as he could and from that high perch look for traces of human life. If he couldn't find any, it would be time to turn back, to take his chances with the desert or at least look elsewhere for the human inhabitants of this Dimension.

The hours passed; evening settled on the mountains, and darkness and the end of Blade's daily march were not far off. Blade was making his way along a narrow ledge above a fast-flowing stream when he caught sight of a dim orange glow far ahead. It flickered and wavered, and he couldn't tell what or how far away it might be-but it was there. He kept moving, but now he held the knife in his right hand and was thankful that the goatskin bindings made his footsteps almost noiseless.

The darkness grew thicker, and in contrast the orange glow ahead grew slowly larger and brighter. Blade felt a moment's relief as he stepped off the narrow ledge onto a broader shelf of rock. There he would have room to fight and no chance of a fifty-foot plunge into the boiling stream if he put a foot wrong.

The rock shelf broadened and sprouted boulders, then grass, bushes, and even small trees stunted and twisted by altitude and years of wind. Blade used every bit of cover as he crept forward, his eyes never leaving the steadily growing spot of orange.

A few more steps, and Blade was on the edge of a wide belt of cleared land, sloping down to the stream. On the far side of the stream another slope rose to the foot of a cliff. Halfway between the stream and the cliff a fire blazed inside a circle of large stones. Its flames shot up ten feet into the air, and sparks rose higher still. Around the stones about twenty men lay or sat on furs or skins, oiling or sharpening weapons, drinking from skin bags, or sound asleep. Blade's eyes were drawn to the spectacle of what lay beyond them.

The stream ran through a cutting at the bottom of the cleared slopes, between vertical walls of dressed stone twenty feet high. A wooden footbridge crossed it directly below the fire and the men. The stream ran on for another fifty yards, then suddenly it was no longer there. On either side of it the ground also ended, as if it had been cut off by a knife or dissolved into the night air.

Daylight now lingered only on the summit of the great peak. Everything else lay in shadow, sinking deeper by the minute. At first Blade could make out only a vast emptiness where the stream and the ground ended. Then his eyes adjusted to the darkness and told him of an immense valley, stretching away mile after mile; of mountain walls rising solid and nearly vertical on either side of the valley; of wooded hills and small lakes on its floor. It even told him of a dimly visible patch of light far off on the crest of one of the hills.

That was all Blade learned of the valley before he learned something else. The men around the fire might seem to be off their guard; but they were not. Two of them jumped up with wild inhuman screeches, and the fire glowed on the curved swords they drew and pointed at Blade. Then their comrades were also jumping up, and their raw-throated cries tore at Blade's ears and sent echoes leaping from the cliffs.

Then all of them were rushing down the slope toward the bridge. Some ran so fast that they seemed to skim the ground, and none waited any longer than they needed to snatch up their weapons.

None of them had time to cover more than a few steps before Blade leaped out of cover. None of the could drown out his yell, and none of them could match his speed as he also plunged down toward the bridge.