Then, at the next swing inward, he released the grip of his left hand and fell outward. His right hand missed the first three rungs but closed on the next to last. And his left hand snapped around and seized the bottom rung, and his toes banged into the side of the shaft.
The ladder held firm.
He gasped with relief. Until then he could not be sure that the windlass around which the ladder was wrapped had been locked. If it had not been, the drum would have spun out, and he would have fallen clinging to the ladder, which would have smashed on the ground below.
He pulled himself up with arms and shoulders until he was up enough to get a foothold. Then he climbed quickly up the ladder and was over the edge.
Sloosh’s leaf-covered head was turned towards him. Deyv signalled that he must return down the cable to the ground. There was no way to get the plant-man onto the tharakorm except up the rope-ladder.
While Sloosh was letting himself down, much more quickly than he had ascended, Deyv studied the windlass at close range. Though he had never seen such a machine before he worked out within a minute how to unlock it. Having done this, he began to unwind it slowly. The weight of the rope-ladder, over six hundred feet long, was immense. The windlass had a brake, however, which was operated by foot. And it must have been oiled recently, since it did not squeak.
Looking down through the hole, he could not see the group or the people on it. The Archkerri had disappeared into the darkness. Deyv would not be able to see the ladder reach the earth, but when it could no longer be let down, he assumed it would be there. If there was a surplus, it would not matter.
When the drum was almost bare, Deyv relocked the windlass. It would take some time before the first person came up, so he might as well look round. He would not go out of sight of the windlass, however. He did not want any of Feersh’s crew to find the ladder had been lowered and to raise an alarm.
Having taken his blowgun out of its case and fitted a dart into it, he went to the centre entrance of the ship-creature. A wooden cabin had been built over it. Its door was closed. He circled the cabin, noting that it had two windows on each side, both too small for him to wriggle through. At least one person was inside, snoring.
For a moment, he considered entering through the door and killing the sleeper. There might be others, however, and so more than he could handle. It was best to wait until all his party had boarded and rested after the arduous climb. He prowled the deck, looking through the windows of the other two wooden cabins. One seemed to be unoccupied, but that could be because it lacked snorers.
The tharakorm on each side of that on which he stood also had cabins. According to Yawtl, the centre creature was the residence of Feersh the Blind and her brood. The one on his left, looking towards the bow, held the khratikl; the one on his right, the human slaves. The witch and her family numbered six.
The Yawtl had said that one of the major dangers was Feersh’s Emerald of Anticipation. This was a large green translucent stone she always wore suspended from a leather cord around her neck. Its name came from its ability to predict events anything from a few minutes to a few hours before they happened.
‘She told me that it was a stone of some sort which grows in the land of The Shemibob,’ Hoozisst had said. ‘There are uncountable numbers of these stones, but very few dare enter the glittering ever-growing land which is known to some as The Shining House of Countless Chambers. Others call it The Jewelled Wasteland or The Bright Abomination.
‘Feersh, however, must have had the courage to trespass on its very edge. She would’ve chipped off a jewel and fled with it. It is said that she was stricken blind shortly thereafter. I don’t know if there is any truth in that story. I doubt it. Not the story about The Shemibob. There is no doubt that the monster-witch exists. I mean Feersh’s claim that she stole the Emerald herself. It is well known that witches seldom leave their homes, be they Houses of the ancients, castles, caves or tharakorm.’
Sloosh interrupted then. ‘That is because they have become too dependent on their ancient artifacts, and they feel uneasy unless they are surrounded by them. They have no tribes, and they can’t trust anyone except their families, and sometimes not even them. In fact, most witches suffer from a sickness of the mind that makes them unable to venture from their homes without great fear. They are prisoners of their own powers.’
‘Anyway,’ Hoozisst had continued, ‘the witch told me that she can “speak” to the Emerald and give it information about situations that might occur. The precious stone then replies, telling her what is most likely to occur. I don’t mean that the Emerald actually has a voice. It responds by showing within its interior certain designs. Only the witch can interpret these. Or so she said.’
‘If she’s blind,’ Vana had asked, ‘how can she see the designs?’
‘She is dependent upon her eldest daughter, Jowanarr, who describes the designs to her. Jowanarr will become the head of the family when Feersh dies. If she isn’t too old to bear children then, she will have them by a slave picked for his intelligence, good looks, excellent physique and virility. If she’s barren, then her sister Seelgee will bear the children, but Jowanarr will still head the family.
‘But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Feersh promised that after I’d stolen thirty eggs, I’d get the Emerald. She would then teach me how to give the information to the stone and how to read the designs. I should have known that she was lying, the bitch!’
‘You were very lucky you weren’t killed when she seized the eggs and threw you out,’ Deyv had said. ‘You should have been, even though a tree broke the fall.’
‘We Yawtl are tough,’ Hoozisst had said. ‘Besides, I’d grabbed a blanket from the shoulders of her son Jeydee and, by holding onto its four corners, I slowed my fall somewhat. Still, it was luck more than anything else that kept me alive. The tree-gods saved me so that I could get my revenge.’
Whatever the abilities of the Emerald, it wasn’t warning Feersh now. But then she did not know about his party, Deyv thought. Or, if she did, she was not worried about them. After all, the stone was dependent upon the data she gave it, and if that was insufficient, the stone did not have what it needed to make the right prediction.
On the other hand, for all he knew, Feersh was well aware of what was going on. She had set up a trap; she was watching them from the dark cabin. Those within were awake and pretending to snore.
He looked down through the shaft. Here came the first climber, Sloosh. He bore on his back the collapsed vessel and Aejip, tied to him. The cat was scared, but she would not make any noise.
At that moment, he heard a cough. Down on his hands and knees, he turned around. He could see no one. That meant that either someone had coughed in the central cabin or that he or she had come out of its door. This faced the bow, and he was behind the cabin.
He rose with the blowgun in his hand. Softly, he walked to the cabin and along its side. The cough was not repeated. There was no one in front of the cabin, but its door was open. Someone was out on the deck. But where?
He quietly shut the door and went to the other side of the cabin. The cougher was walking towards the bow, which was pointed downwind. Deyv looked back towards the windlasses. He could see them from the cabin plainly enough. The man had not noticed that the rope-ladder windlass drum was almost bare. He could not escape noticing it on the way back, not if he was more fully awake.
There was only one thing to do. Deyv walked towards the man, who by now was standing near the bow, preparing to relieve himself. He was very intent on his business when Deyv’s tomahawk struck him in the back of the head. He went over the low railing of wood glued to the deck and disappeared without a cry.
19
Deyv whirled, tense, hoping nobody had heard the crack of weapon against bone. Sometime later the faint splop of a body smashing into earth reached him.
Deyv went back to the hole quietly, pausing to listen at a cabin window. There was not a sound. Sloosh came u
p shortly after, breathing heavily through his chest-mouth. Deyv helped him up, unloaded the cube and untied Aejip. The cat bounded onto the deck, grimacing soundlessly. Deyv patted and stroked her to soothe her and whispered that she should stay there until Vana came. It had been agreed beforehand that the woman would be Aejip’s partner during the attack.
The Yawtl came next, toiling upward with Jum bound to his back. Deyv also petted and quieted him. Vana boarded close behind Hoozisst. Deyv told them what he had observed and that he had killed a man.
‘I thought I saw something falling through the dark,’ the Yawtl said. ‘I was afraid it was you. But when I heard no alarm, I knew that it must have been one of them. If he came from that cabin, he was one of Feersh’s sons. I hope it wasn’t Skibroziy. I want him to suffer much before he dies.’
Hoozisst had described in detail the layout of the rooms and corridors of the ship-creatures. Feersh slept in a chamber on the lower deck. Sometimes, she was alone; sometimes with a male slave. Jowanarr spent her sleep-time in the aft cabin with two or three slaves, male and female. Seelgee was in the cabin nearest the bow. Kiyt was in a cabin near his mother’s. Jeydee and Skibroziy were usually in the middle cabin, either by themselves or with a couple of male or female slaves. Hoozisst had also described the sons and daughters so that they would not be confused with the slaves.
The only way to get below decks was to go through the cabins – unless you were a khratikl. The plan was to seize Feersh as a hostage. Hoozisst had said that he believed they would be safe as long as they had her in their power. The others would do what she said – he hoped. Of course, there was the possibility that Jowanarr, who no doubt was impatient to be the chief, might let her mother be killed.
The raiders went behind the central cabin, where Vana passed around torches she had brought up on her back. Using the cabin and a fibre sheet found on the deck as protection from the wind, they lit the torches. First, they poured out from a gourd some fish-oil they had prepared. Then the Yawtl used his iron and flint to rain sparks on the oil. After a few failures, it finally lit. He poured more oil on the blaze, and they took turns dipping the ends of their fish-oil-soaked torches in the fire.
Just as the third torch was set to burning, they heard a scream to their right. They spun towards the sound but could see nothing. A moment later, a furious shrieking khratikl swept at them from the darkness. Its leathery wings beat at Deyv, and its claws ripped into his face. Shouting with pain, he dropped his torch and grabbed the stinking loathsome thing and threw it on the deck. Before it could rise, it was tomahawked by the Yawtl.
It was too late to carry out their original plan. They had intended to split up the party so all three cabins could be invaded at once. Now they had to get inside the central cabin at once. Somewhere something metallic was being struck, its deep bongs vibrating through the air. And from the tharakorm housing the khratikl came many screams of rage.
Hoozisst, holding his torch in one hand, opened the door to the central cabin with the other. He snatched his tomahawk from his belt and, yelling, charged inside. Vana followed, the now roaring cat close behind her. Deyv picked up his torch, felt the blood streaming down his face, grimaced at the pain, and, sword in hand, bounded after the others. The dog, growling, leaped after him. The plant-man, the slowest, had been chosen to form the rearguard.
The cabin was made of a heavy wood stained a brown-reddish colour and painted with horizontal bands of yellow and green. Spears, blowguns, tomahawks, war clubs and one of the ancient metal swords hung on the walls. Two corners held beds, wide, mattressed and covered with some beautiful cloth Deyv had never seen before. There were a chest of drawers and two stands with washbowls and soap, towels and bottles of some dark-green substance.
In the middle of the room was a table of glossy hardwood which held a base on which was a large ball of quartz. It pulsed with a fierce orange glow that made the torches unnecessary. It struck Deyv with astonishment, since it had not been on fire until a moment before. Jowanarr must have summoned the light through witchery.
A man, a well-built slave with dark-brown skin and wavy hair dyed green and yellow, lay face down on the floor. Blood spread out from under him. On the bed by him sat a naked woman, Jowanarr. Her hands were clutching her chest and under her dark skin was a paleness. She was long-legged and slim but had huge breasts and a long narrow face, a long hooked nose and dark eyes great with terror.
On the other bed sprawled another male slave, Vana’s short spear sticking out of his throat.
Jowanarr, seeing Deyv’s bloody face, started to stand up. Aejip and Jum snarled at her, and she sat down.
Deyv went past the table with the glowing quartz sphere and removed a square trap door by its metal ring. The opening revealed a dark well from which descended a flight of wooden steps that had been placed over the steep ramp grown by the tharakorm.
He looked up. Vana was pulling on the spear caught in the slave’s windpipe.
‘Forget that!’ he said. Take that sword off the wall!’
The Yawtl beat her to it. Swinging the blade around over his head, he whooped.
Deyv had no time to be disgusted with Hoozisst’s greediness. He could handle the sword better than Vana anyway, being the stronger. She shot out her tongue at him, an expression of contempt in her tribe, and turned around to withdraw the spear.
Sloosh had closed the door behind him. A good thing, too, for immediately thereafter paws pounded on it, claws scratched and screeching filled the cabin. Rat-like faces looked through the windows, followed shortly by bodies. Aejip flew along the walls, raking the faces with her claws. Jum leaped up and bit down on others. Vana thrust her spear into a dripping mouth.
Tell the witch’s daughter to order them to stay out!’ Deyv whistled at the Yawtl in Archkerri.
The Yawtl spat words at Jowanarr. She hesitated, but when Hoozisst, his sword raised, stepped towards her, she screamed out at the beasts. They ceased trying to get through the windows, though their din filled the cabin.
Deyv grabbed the woman’s hand and yanked her off the bed. He pulled her to the opening in the floor and thrust her down ahead of him. She fell down the wooden stairs but would have been up on her feet and down a corridor if he had not leaped down on top of her. Her head hit the floor, and she passed out. He hoped he had not killed her, since he might need her later.
Vana came down swiftly, followed by the two animals. Hoozisst took the steps two at a time, surrounded by light. He had abandoned his torch for the glowing quartz sphere.
‘It makes a much better light,’ he said, grinning. ‘Besides, I want to make sure nobody else grabs it.’
Deyv did not wait for the Archkerri to make his ponderous way down the steps. He raced ahead towards where the Yawtl had said the witch slept. Open entrances, dark, silent, flashed past. The doorway to Feersh’s room was about ten feet away when he slammed headlong into a wall that shot out of a recess. He fell back onto the floor, the sword and the torch fallen from his suddenly limp hands. For a moment he did not know what had happened. Added to the flow of blood from the claw wounds was blood from his nose.
He rose shakily and picked up the torch. The wall had slid out or dropped down from hollows within the corridor walls. It had come out so swiftly he had not even been aware of it. Nor had he heard it thud into the floor.
He turned, automatically picking up the sword. Ten feet behind him another wall barred his passage. He was trapped.
Someone was hammering on that wall. He strode to it and shouted. Silence rolled through the chamber. He put his mouth as close as he could to the very tough but very thin material and yelled, ‘It’s I, Deyv! Who’s there?’
Putting his ear ear against the wall, he heard, ‘Quiet, Jum, Aejip!’
Now he could distinguish the low growlings of the animals.
‘Vana! I’m caught between two walls. Where are the others?’
‘Hoozisst has gone down another corridor. He’ll then go down the one which runs a
longside the hull and see if he can get to the witch’s room from its other end.’
‘She wouldn’t leave that side open – I think,’ Deyv yelled back. ‘Where’s Sloosh?’
‘He’s holding off the khratikl in the room below the entrance.’
Deyv managed to shove down the panic that was growing like yeast in a pot, pushing up the lid of his self-control. The air in this chamber would last only so long, and any energetic action would burn it up that much faster. He knew that Feersh would not want to trap herself, so she must have an escape route. It would not be through the bottom of the hull because she would have to have a huge windlass to let herself down on a rope-ladder to the ground. Besides, she would not abandon the tharakorm and so be at the mercy of enemies who might be below.
This was the lower deck. At this point the hull curved inward, like the hull of a canoe. This level had no direct contact with the hull of the neighbouring tharakorm. But there probably was a window through which Feersh could put a plank so that she could then cross over to the adjacent ship-creature. Or she might already be in it. Or she might be waiting to see what happened.
Deyv told Vana his speculations. Then he said, ‘I’m going to cut through the hull – if I can – and find out if she’s gone across. That’ll give me air, too. I only hope that the hull isn’t as tough as the walls guarding the gas cells.’
‘But even if you find that out,’ Vana called, ‘what good will it do? You won’t be able to follow her.’
‘I told you I must have air. And, for all I know, there is more than one wall between her door and this wall.’
Vana shouted, ‘Sloosh is having trouble. I must go. I’ll be back soon, if I’m able.’
He listened but could hear nothing. He called to her and got no reply. Shrugging, he turned and began punching at the hull with the point of his sword. It was hard work, the stuff resisting over fifty punches before the tip of the blade went through. He would have liked to quench his torch because it was burning up the oxygen so swiftly. But he had to see so he could hit the same spot each time. Besides, there was nothing with which he could put the flame out. When it did go out, it would have used up all the air, and he would be dead.