The Cave in the Mountains

Chapter Six

Three days and nights later-three days of finger-skinning, back-breaking, nerve-wrenching climbing and clawing up precipitous walls of crumbling rock; three nights of camping-down on narrow, bitter, blustily-exposed ledges overhanging thousands of feet of empty air-then ...

. .. Wearily hauling himself up onto what seemed like the thousandth crest of the thousandth ridge a few paces in front of Eldin, Hero gave a low, breathless whistle and paused to stand and stare, mouth agape and sucking hungrily at air, in awe of the titanic monolith which now reared its monstrous, featureless cube before him. One of the Keeps of the First Ones: its foot dimly shadowed and wreathed in late morning mist, its towering summit stained, mottled and weathered by the passage of nameless centuries.

The vast stone block was set back from the sheer, freshly-conquered face, looming in the final fold of mountain that went up, white-crested, to the ultimate ridge of snow. Neither door nor window showed, nor indeed any evidence at all to show that the structure had ever known or been capable of knowing habitation of any sort, and yet patently it was not a natural feature; it had been fashioned by intelligent beings.

Hero stared a moment longer; then his eyes went to the distance that separated him from the base of the massive keep. His jaw dropped farther yet when he saw that the foot of the keep, far from being close at hand, was at least a quarter-mile away from him across this rocky and snow-patched penultimate plateau. Suddenly the keep seemed to loom even larger in the eye of his imagination, and he wondered at the nature of its builders, starting violently when Eldin's heavy hand fell upon his shoulder.

"Nervous, my friend?" inquired the latecomer in his deep bass rumble.

"Aye," Hero answered; then, catching sight of a white, moving blur in the corner of his eye: "And rightly so! Guard yourself, brother!"

Out of a large patch of snow that dazzled with its myriad reflections of sun-sparkle, the white blur-springing apart and forming two blurs, two pure white, snarling, furious snow leopards-shot straight at them. The creatures, each as heavy as a small man, covered the distance between in the merest twinkling of an eye, but that was as much time as the wandering dreamers needed.

As the first beast sprang at Hero he fell to his knees, his curved blade leaving its scabbard with a steely whisper, slicing upward to slit open the great cat's belly in one clean, deep, killing cut. Behind Hero, the snow leopard hit the ground, scrabbling yowlingly for a split second in its own steaming entrails, then skidded in a white and scarlet blob over the lip and into space.

Springing to his feet the lithe dreamer whirled-in time to see Eldin behead the second cat with a single swing of his long, straight blade. This was an act of mercy, for with a blow unseen by his companion, the gruff Wanderer had already almost sliced the beast in two parts Now, the short hairs of his neck a-bristle, Eldin poked at the cat's carcass with the tip of his sword.

"Did that one of yours wear a collar?" he asked of the younger man.

"I can't honestly say that I looked," Hero replied.

"Well, this one wears a collar."

"So I see. A welcoming committee, d'you think?"

Eldin shook his head negatively. "No. See over there?" He pointed to where the snow showed pink, where a broken shape lay huddled in death. "They'd caught a goat when we disturbed them. They'd been let out to find food for themselves, that's all."

"Huh!" grunted Hero. "Well, they'll not be going home again, that's for sure ..."

"Home?" repeated the other, making it a question, his voice a low rumble as he shielded his eyes against snow-glare and scanned the false summit with its looming, featureless keep. "Home, aye-and where might home be, I wonder?-and who the master there, that runs hounds such as these?"

"What did the Ossaran tell us?" Hero inquired, and immediately answered himself, intoning: " 'Behind the keep, where the mountain overhangs, there in a deep cave-' "

" 'That's where you'll find Yibb-TstH's temple, and the idol of stone fashioned in his image-and Thmistor Udd and his magic wand,' " Eldin finished it. "Well then, do we approach head on, all caution to the wind? Or should we sidle around the great keep and follow the foot of this last rise to the cave's entrance? Or perhaps-"

"We should wait for evening," added Hero, equally adept at interrupting. "That small and extremely comfortable-looking cave we passed a minute ago on the way up will suit us ideally. Snow leopard steaks, hot tea, an afternoon's sleep all snug in our blankets-and after that we'll feel more like facing whatever's ahead. Come evening we'll get into the shadow of the keep and from then on trust to luck and a pair of bright blades!"

Eldin approvingly patted his companion on the shoulder. "You're a clever lad," he growled, "for all that you still use your waking world-name. Right, you go on back down and I'll lower this poor dead pussycat down to you." He rubbed his great hands briskly together and smacked his lips. "By Koth's awful sign, I can taste those steaks already!"

Eldin's painfully wracking cough woke Hero up. The older dreamer sat in his blanket, holding his chest, rocking to and fro and coughing fit to die.

"Which," (thought Hero), "sooner or later, is exactly what he'll do!" But to his sick colleague, out loud, he said: "There can't be a deal wrong with lungs as noisy as those of yours, old friend."

"Huh!" The other's spasms finally subsided. "And who was it said that the mountain air was sure to do me good? Well, you're not often right, David, but you're wrong again!"

Laughing, Hero stretched, shrugged out of his blanket and came to his feet, careful to avoid cracking his head against the low ceiling. The fire-built of large sticks from the violated nest of a spotted eagle and fortified with dried goat dung-had long since burned itself out and shadows were sharply etched in the cave. Outside, evening had crept over dreamland and soon the first stars would begin to show themselves in the darkening sky.

Leaving all of their necessaries in the cave, the adventurers climbed up again to the vast and now shadowy shelf in silence. Something of a wind blew in their faces as they emerged onto the plateau-like surface, a strangely warm wind that sprang from its unknown source beyond the mountains. The dreamers had already formed the opinion that the old legends and rumors were false and that these mountains were not Kadath's foothills, and now this wind in their faces seemed fully to confirm their .belief. For Kadath lay in the Cold Waste, and this wind from the north was a warm one.

But the wind soon died away and despite the fact that they were well wrapped, soon the bitter cold of the evening mountains began to gnaw into them, particularly when they passed into the shade of the towering Keep of the First Ones. Both of them shuddered a little then, and drew their clothing more tightly about themselves.

Moving faster now they passed round the foot of the keep, skirting jagged stones and boulders which had worn free and fallen from its looming surface during the passage of countless centuries. And sure enough the face of the mountain that went up beyond the keep did overhang in one place, and where the shadows should have been blackest below this overhang, instead there shone the faintest gleam of yellow light.

Flitting now from shadowed area to shadowed area like a pair of ghouls, the dreamers were brought up short by a sudden call. It was high-pitched, ululant-plainly the cry of a master to his minions, his hounds ... or his snow leopards.

"Hritta!" the warbling cry repeated. "Nythlar!" And its echoes rebounded mockingly from distant peaks. Then, plainly audible (for their distance from the cave in the towering wall of rock was no more than a hundred yards), there came to the ears of the adventurers an angry grumbling and cursing; and finally the light retreated, leaving the entrance in darkness.

Still as statues Hero and Eldin stood, until the latter gave a quiet burp. "I wonder," he whispered, "which one that was: Hritta or Nythlar? Something else: that didn't sound like the voice of any doddery old priest to me."

"Shh!" Hero admonished, and they moved forward again.

Warily they entered the cave's mouth below the overhanging mountain peak and gradually their eyes adapted to the darkness. The cave wound away into the mountain, seemingly a natural tunnel whose ceiling was three times the height of a man and whose width was that of five men laid head to heel. Around the first bend a glimmering light showed, and soon the pair crept into a large chamber lighted by dimly flickering and smoky flambeaux. The place was bare, but iron staples supporting light chains were fixed in the walls. The chains were of ample length to meet across the width of the cave.

"That's where the snow leopards spend their nights," murmured Hero. "Or rather, where they used to. Watchdogs, no less!"

"Umm!" answered Eldin. "Strikes me we've already gone a long way toward disarming the old lad. What say your*

"I say my hair is prickling," the first answered. "It's prickling all the way down my neck ..."

For all Hero's premonition they went swiftly on, emerging in a few moments more into a second chamber. Here the rocky walls were hung with skins and the floor was covered in furs. A rough wooden table bore a flat platter of meat and a stone bottle. A second plate, with an empty goblet standing close at hand, bore the remains of a meal. Eldin cautiously approached the table, lifted the bottle and sniffed at its unstoppered neck. He smiled then, a thirsty smile, and licked his lips.

"Nectar!" he declared in a low rumble like a cat's purr, tilting the bottle and drinking deeply. Then his eyes went wide and he sighed his appreciation. "By all that's beautiful, David, taste this!"

Curved blade at the ready, still staring warily all about at the shadows cast by sputtering flambeaux, the younger man crossed to the table and took the proffered bottle, automatically swigging at the sweet, strong liquid before whispering: "Well, obviously he's had his supper, and doubtless he's now preparing for bed-or already tucked up. Strikes me he's not as wise as he might be by any means. Either that or we're not as clever as we think we are! Now then-where's mat damned temple, eh?"

"Right!" Eldin agreed, taking back the bottle. "We really can't afford to dally like this ..."

When the bottle was empty to a drop and only the heady scent of the wine remained, then, spirits greatly bolstered, they left the second chamber behind them and continued deeper into the bowels of the mountain.

Occasionally as they went small tunnels would branch off to right and left, all terminating after only a few paces, so that following brief explorations they were obliged to continue down the main shaft. Several of these secondary tunnels were in use, being storage rooms for furs and skins, casks of oil, barrels of fruit and vegetables and other household items. The priest of the as yet unsighted "temple," whoever he was, seemed to live very well indeed according to the usual standards of the wandering dreamers.

Along the way, at intervals, the tunnel was illuminated by sputtering torches; but after a while these were more widely spaced out, so that there were periods of near-darkness. As they crept through one of these dark sections Eldin whispered: "At this rate we'll soon come out through the other side of the mountain!" to which Hero replied:

"It only seems a long way. But hi any case, I don't think we have much farther to go."

Now they moved a little slower, each touching a wall with outstretched hand while inner arm was linked with that of his companion. The tunnel here had narrowed down somewhat, but shortly they had to extend their inside arms as the cave widened out again. At the last only their fingertips touched; their swords were now sheathed and they carried their knives between clenched teeth; before each step the floor in front was explored by timidly probing, booted feet.

Then, suddenly, the walls widened farther yet and they paused amidst an almost unendurable darkness, conscious now of an inner tingling, of an all-enveloping sensation of extreme danger, and of-a presence!

A presence, aye; and even at the realization-as at a signal-the cave was at once dazzlingly illuminated! Brilliant, blinding bars of brightness criss-crossed the near-solid gloom about them in a coruscating blaze, and this in turn was replaced in the next instant by the steady yellow burning of a dozen wall-bracketed torches that burst almost simultaneously into flame.

Shielding their eyes against the sudden glare (and wondering at the same time how those twelve torches had been struck, since they stood in the presence of only one, small, wrinkled old man), the dreamers drew swords and held them threateningly out in front. Then, back to back, they turned in a slow circle, taking in every detail of the cave in which they now stood, alert for any strange, sudden or menacing movement in the hanging tapestries of the place.