The Gate of Time

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 fa

“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 the 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.