I remembered how I had promised to take the name of Hamun ham Farthytu in Hamal. Names are precious. I had brought some honor to that name, in the end, after all the playacting, and a marble monument existed in the Palace of Names in Ruathytu to the greater glory of Havil the Green and ham Farthytu. I think you will understand that the Havil part was anathema to me; the ham Farthytu I had come to regard with a strange affection, considering it was the name of a family of a country that was an enemy to my own country of Vallia.
So, with a blistering Makki-Grodno oath to clear the vocal chords, a dolloping spit on the hands, the longsword thrust away on my back, I started the climb again.
I climbed down.
I deliberately chose to leave that battle against the Wild Men from over the mountains. I deliberately chose to continue my quest for the secrets of the vollers and for the good of Vallia. Now that another chance had been given me I moved with exquisite caution. I tried not to tear my hands on the rock and I tried not to rip out my fingernails. My boots were inevitably ripped and, very shortly, now that haste had gone, I took off the boots and pitched them overside. They took a mortal long time to fall away to nothing.
I saw one of the mysterious winged flyers pounce on a boot and miss, then go planing on past, its little wings stiffly outstretched, deeply curved, supported on thick wingroots that sprouted like columns from its shoulder blades.
If they were the exorcs the soldiers had mentioned, with dislike, they appeared singularly clumsy. . I climbed down three hundred feet. Toward the end the way became extraordinarily difficult as the overhang of the island increased and the bottom rounded into a dish shape. Over the years any sharp edges had been worn away here at the bottom, and I had to grip, cling, and worm my way along fissures with my body braced, hands and elbows, knees and feet. Occasionally I had to pause and dig away to form a handhold with that sailor’s knife from the scabbard over my right hip. I persevered, there under that floating mass of earth and rock, and at last was rewarded. Sweat clung thickly to my forehead. I felt my arms had long since been wrenched from their sockets and were held only by the shirt. That shirt, the green dolman, the dark cloak, all were ripped and covered with rock dust and the mildewed droppings of the woflovols which inhabited every crevice.
But at last I saw what I searched for.
That spreading mass of vines and creepers which grew under the volgendrins and, in the case of the Volgendrin of the Bridge, joined two together, grew thin and brittle here at the edge. Most of the vines were dead. As I handed myself along I had to be most careful not to trust to a grip on a tendril that was brittle. The ground beneath would be damned hard. Soon the mat of vines increased in thickness and fresh plants showed green, some with orange and dirty-white flowers, here in the shadows, growing strongly with roots penetrating many feet into the rocky crevices, seeking the dirt and moisture there. Now the way was much easier.
Animal life inhabited the vines. I had a short, sharp fight with a spiny creature with six suckered feet; I dispatched it with the main-gauche. The place deepened with plant growth and became infested with insect life. This was about as far as I wished to go. Much later on in my story you will hear of what lay further into the viney jungle beneath the volgendrins, but at this time I was not interested in exploring. I found a good solid trunk of vine, as thick as a roston’s trunk, and swiped away until I had made a comfortable nest. Sitting there and looking down I could see the ground flowing past beneath my feet, that steady five knots taking us over river, lake, and forest, trending southward and eastward in the long Keplerian orbits of the volgendrins.
The first few hundred feet of vine was easy to find, merely by hauling it in and testing each length carefully. Some of it came away from its roots without trouble. To get some of it I had to crawl through the twisted jungly mass, most of the time upside down, and hack away with the dagger or the knife to free it. The rope lengthened. I took off all my gear, leaving myself clad only in a blue breechclout, a once-clean one I had taken from my rooms in the Kyr Nath and the Fifi. The longsword, the shirt, the dolman, the rapier and the cloak were all bundled up and securely lashed to the end of the vine. Then I lowered it down until it hung and dangled in the breeze. Then it was back to more vine cutting, hauling, and tying. A sailor uses a sailor’s knots; I had no fear the knots would slip, only that the vine might part. I had to judge the length carefully. If the bundle of my possessions caught on a tree, not only would I lose the lot, but the line might part anywhere up its length.
Finally, shoving the dagger and knife away — neither had broken, for which I gave thanks to Zair — I coiled about five fathoms of vine up around my shoulders.
The breath I took was a deep one.
A thousand feet, hand under hand, feet clamping as I went down! A long way. A damned long way. But down there the bundle swayed and gyrated at the end of the line, seemingly flying unattached through the air, as the line was barely visible at that distance.
Down I went.
My breath came raggedly and the sweat slicked thick and greasy. I took deep draughts of air, pausing more and more frequently. The wind swung me around and I revolved dizzyingly, praying the lashings above would not part. A roston’s trunk is mighty thick, but the strains I was imposing were tremendous. Down I climbed, hand under hand, and the ground slowly rose to meet me. I paused, dragging thick lungfuls of air past my opened lips, flicked the back of my hand across my forehead and eyes, and looked down. I studied the landscape.
Trees, a river, those brown humped-back wild ordels, grass, more trees. I wanted to pick my spot. A few feet further down and my legs wrapped around my bundle. I looked up. What a monstrous sight! A massive oval black shape, square in the sky, soaring up there, disdaining the pull of gravity! The volgendrin! Insupportable weight drifting through the air light as thistledown. The line vanished some distance before the twisted interlacement of vines at the bottom of the floating island. I caught the wind on my cheeks, looked down and ahead, and chose my spot. The knot with which I lashed the line over my shoulder to the main line was made with painstaking care. I did not wish to slip at this last point. The bundle was cut free. I hung on as we sailed over a tree, and then I cast my five fathoms down.
It did not reach the ground. Wind pressure curved the line away. I cursed. But there was nothing I could do about it. Down I would have to go. .
I was concentrating so hard on the length of line, my bundle, the ground rushing past, that the first sign of the exorcs’ attack came with a harsh croaking cry.
My head snapped up.
A thing like a cat, the size of a large dog, with a green leathery skin, hook-clawed webbed feet, pricked pointed ears, a gaping mouth scarlet as the mouth of hell, fanged with four enormous canine teeth, and eyes like crimson pits, lanced ferociously at me. I got up my left arm and the thing spun away, screeching. I was astonished to see the left-hand dagger in that fist.
The exorc’s wings were almost rudimentary. Those thick columns rose from just behind its shoulder blades, one on either side of the spine, and the wings branched from them more like the antlers of a deer than the wings of a bat, but the likeness was plain. It could not fly back up at me. It planed on past, screeching, and the second one followed, hissing. I saw the whiplike tails, barbed, coiling for a slash, but the range was too great.
These exorcs were mere gliders: they could launch themselves from the volgendrins, but they could never fly back.