Paul tried to laugh and ease the tension. ‘You are not alone, Nemo. We were all very much afraid.’
‘We shall go back to Baya Nor, then?’ The child’s voice was pleading.
Paul considered for a moment, wondering if he had any right to ask his companions to go farther. But how tantalizing, how heart-breaking to be so near and to have to turn back.
At length he spoke in Bayani. ‘Already, I have asked too much of my friends and brothers,’ he said. ‘We have faced danger, one of us has died and there is, doubtless, much danger still to be faced. I cannot ask more of those who have already shown great courage … Any who wish now to return, having heard what they have heard, will go with my thoughts and prayers. As for me, Shon Hu has fulfilled that which I asked. He has shown me the way. Doubdess, I shall reach the Temple of the White Darkness, if Oruri so desires. I have spoken.’
‘Lord,’ said Shon Hu, ‘truly greatness sits upon you. A man cannot die in better company. This, perhaps, Oruri will consider when the time comes. I will go with you.’
There was a short silence, then one of the two remaining hunters spoke: ‘We are ashamed in the presence of Poul Mer Lo and Shon Hu. Formerly, we were brave men. Forgive us, lord … For some, it seems, there is no end to courage. For others, the end comes quickly.’
‘My brothers,’ said Paul, ‘courage has many faces. I count myself fortunate that I have travelled this far with you … Go when the first light comes, and a man may see the way ahead. Also, take with you Zu Shan and Nemo; for I rejoice in the knowledge that you will bring them safely to Baya Nor.’
‘Lord,’ said Zu Shan in Bayani, ‘the gift of Enka Ne remains with him to whom the gift was made … I think, also, the little one may desire to stay.’
Nemo seemed to have recovered himself. ‘The litde one desires much,’ he said, also in Bayani, ‘but he will stay in the shadow of Poul Mer Lo.’
Shon Hu laughed grimly. ‘Thus are we a formidable company.’
‘It is in such company,’ retorted Paul enigmatically, ‘that men may move mountains … Now listen to my thoughts. The voice, it seems, spoke to each of us in a different manner. To me it spoke in my tongue, calling itself Aru Re. To you, Shon Hu, it spoke in your tongue. And to Zu Shan in a mixture of my tongue and his. But the message was the same for all of us, I think … Zu Shan, what did you understand by the message?’
‘That we should not go forward, otherwise we should die.’ ‘Ah,’ said Paul triumphandy, ‘but that was not what the voice said. It advised us, if we desired certain things, to go back. It advised, Zu Shan. It did not command. It advised us—if we desired security, long life, contentment, peace of mind—to return the way we came. But the voice did not advise us what to do if we desired knowledge, did it?’
There was a silence. Eventually, Shon Hu said: ‘Lord, there is much mystery in your words. I do not understand where your thoughts lead, but I have made my decision and I will follow.’
‘What I am trying to say,’ explained Paul patiently, ‘is that I think the voice meant to turn us back only if we did not have the resolution and the curiosity to go forward.’
‘When Oruri speaks,’ said Shon Hu with resignation, ‘who dare question the meaning?’
‘But when Aru Re speaks in English,’ said Paul, emphasizing the separate words, ‘the meaning must be sought more carefully.’
‘Lord,’ said one of the hunters who were returning to Baya Nor, ‘we shall not take the barge. We shall leave it in the hope that PouLMer Lo—who has wrought many wonders—will require it yet again.’
THIRTY-TWO
There were no more voices in the dark. Nor did Oruri—or Aru Re—utter his soundless words in the daytime. After less than a day’s travel, Paul noticed that the long savannah grass was getting shorter. Presently it was only as high as his, knee. Presently, no higher than his ankle. The air grew colder as they came to the uplands.
And there before them, less than half a day’s march away, was the mountain range whose central peak was called the Temple of the White Darkness. All that lay between was a stretch of scrubland, rising into moorland and small patches of coniferous forest.
Suddenly, Paul became depressed. Through the high, clear air, he could see the detail of the jagged rock-face of the mountain—capped and scarred by everlasting snow. And sweeping round the base of the mountain was a great glacier— a broad river of ice whose movement could probably be reckoned in metres per year.
As they made their last camp before they came to the mountain, there were distant muted rumbles, as if the mountain were aware of their presence and resented their approach. The three Bayani—the man, the youth and the child—had never heard the sound of avalanches before.
Paul had much difficulty explaining the phenomenon to them. Eventually, he gave it up, seeing that they could not clearly understand. To them, the noise was only one more manifestation of the displeasure of Oruri.
He gazed despairingly at the Temple of the White Darkness, wondering how he could possibly begin his search. He was no mountaineer. Nor was he equipped for mountaineering. And it would be sheer cruelty to drag his companions— children of the forest—across the dangerous slopes of ice and snow. How terrible it was to be so near and yet so helpless. For the first time he was ready to acknowledge to himself the probability of defeat.
Then the sunset came—and with it a sign. Paul Marlowe was not easily moved to prayer. But, on this occasion, prayer was not just the only thing he was able to offer. It seemed strangely appropriate and even inevitable.
There, far above the moorland and the ring of coniferous forest, as the sun sank low, he saw briefly a great curving stem of fire.
He had seen something similar many, many years ago in a world on the other side of the sky. As he watched, and as the sun sank and the stem of the fire dissolved, he remembered how it had been when he first saw sunlight reflected from the polished hull of the Gloria Mundi.
THIRTY-THREE
Paul Marlowe was alone. He had left his companions on the far side of the glacier. Shon Hu was partly snow blind, Zu Shan’s nose had started to bleed because of the altitude, and little Nemo, wrapped in skins so that he looked like a furry ball, had an almost perpetual aching in his bones.
So Paul had left the three of them on the far side of the glacier and had set off alone shortly after dawn. He had told them that, if he had not returned by noon, they must go without waiting for him. He did not think that they could stand another night on the bare, lower slopes of the mountain.
The glacier had looked much more formidable than it really was. His feet and ankles ached a great deal with the effort of maintaining footholds on the great, tilting ice sheets; and from the way his toes felt it seemed as if sharp slivers of ice might have cut through the tough skins that were his only protection. But on the whole, apart from being bruised by innumerable minor falls, he felt he was in reasonable shape.
And now, here he was, standing near the base of one of the mighty metal shoes that supported the three impossibly slender legs of the great star ship. The shoes rested firmly on a broad flat table of rock in the lee of the mountain, and they were covered to a depth of perhaps three metres by eternal ice. The legs themselves were easily twenty metres tall; and the massive hull of the star ship rose all of two hundred metres above them—like a spire. Like the spire of a vast, buried cathedral.