The grueling toil of the ascent, the bone-deep exhaustion they endured, the oppressive darkness and silence of the stair, was not alleviated by the monotony of the climb.
For there were no surprises on the way back to the surface, only a reversal of the strange—but by now, quite familiar— phenomena they had observed on the earlier journey down.
When there is nothing at all to look at, and even less to think about, boredom can become as wearisome to the mind as hard physical toil is to the body.
They were by now too parched to talk, or even to sing. There was nothing at all to do but to climb, and climb, and climb, until every muscle and nerve and sinew in their bodies ached beyond that caused by any exertion they had ever known before; and there was nothing to look forward to in hope and anticipation except the next rest stop, and the next morsel of food from their dwindling store.
They all knew that it would eventually end, of course, but when it did, it quite took them by surprise and for a few moments their benumbed minds could not quite register the fact.
Tuan uttered a harsh croaking cry, pointing ahead. They looked, to see the light of Will Harbin’s fluoro mirrored in the dull reflective sheen of a huge rectangle of metal.
It was the door that had barred this passageway between two worlds for uncountable hundreds of millennia.
And they had come to the top of the stair at last.
“Thank God,” groaned Harbin wearily.
Tuan and his outlaws muttered a ritual phrase in honor of the Timeless Ones—the strange, shadowy gods of the little-known native religion.
Brant said nothing, but relief was visible in his tired, sagging face. He put one arm about Zuarra, whom he had been helping for most of the last hundred steps, and she lay her head against his chest, and her arm crept about his waist.
The wan light of open day glimmered through the rectangle cut from blackness that was the door to the surface world.
29 Comrades
One by one they filed through the open door, wearily depositing the gear they had lugged all this way on the bare floor of the long, narrow cave which led to the cinnamon sands of the desertlands.
Here, heaped against one wall of the cavern, Brant and Harbin and Zuarra found the equipment they had abandoned at the beginning of the descent—the pressure-still, the tents, the bedrolls.
There was still fresh water in the pressure-still, and they all shared it—only a sip or two apiece, but more delicious than any wine they had ever tasted.
“What did you do with our beasts?” Brant asked of the outlaw chief.
“Tethered them with our own steeds in a deep gully not far to the south,” Tuan replied. “The men of Tuan salvaged the protective fences that Brant and his comrades abandoned earlier, when they fled by night from their encampment. With these, we rigged a barrier which we hoped would hold at bay whatever predators may roam this far to the south of the world. The gully contained much fodder upon which the beasts could freely feed. With the favor of the Timeless Ones, they should all, or most of them, be strong and fit enough to bear us on the rest of the journey.”
Brant nodded. It had come to his notice that Tuan and the other natives—including Zuarra—made more frequent mention of their mysterious gods in speech these past few days.
He grinned inwardly. Could it be that their weird and wonderful adventures in Zhah had given even the savage desert-bandits—religion?
When they were somewhat rested and refreshed, they went to the mouth of the cave and looked out on the familfar scene. Before, the desert wastes had seemed grim and bleak and desolate, but now, somehow, it was like a glimpse of home. They stood and stared for a long time at the gloomy, bruise-purple sky, the small, dull sun, the rolling stretches of the cinnamon sands.
None of them would really miss Zhah, Brant knew with a certainty he could not have explained, even to himself. Not its weird forests or gorgeous flying creatures; not the luminous sea with its shores strewn with opals and nameless gems; not the laughing, naked, golden children or their wonderful floating city.
In time their memories of the subterranean world under the dunes of Mars would lose their freshness and luster, would dim and fade, like half-forgotten dreams.
And in time, perhaps, they would all wonder if their experiences in Zhah had not, after all, been just that: a dream.
From which they must now awake to face the harsher realities of life in the waking world… .
Tuan dispatched half of his warriors to see to their riding-beasts, while the remainder searched the cliffside and its gullies and crevices for provender. They were heartily sick of mushroom-meat by now, and craved meat of another sort.
The men returned with the welcome word that the lopers seemingly had not been disturbed, and were all in apparent health and vigor. And before very much more time had passed, the others came back from their hunt, bearing fat lizards, and a good supply of the fat-leafed, bladder-like plants that the pressure-still would convert into fresh, clean water.
That night, under a blaze of unblinking stars, they feasted magnificently and drank their fill. The outlaws broke into a low, chanting song that Brant recognized as the victory song of returning heroes. He grinned somberly enough.
There were no real heroes, he knew. Only survivors.
They slept in the cave, but he and Zuarra shared one of the tents. It was long since last they had loved together, and he was as hungry for her body as he had been for meat and drink.
They woke at the first light of dawn and made ready for departure. The lopers they saddled, loading their gear and equipment on the pack-beasts. Brant and Harbin could not help noticing that none of their possessions had been harmed or tampered with or plundered. Tuan, when he swore brotherhood even with f’yagha, was, it seemed, the soul of honor.
He even returned to Harbin the two laser rifles with which the scientist and Agila had been armed when first Brant and the women had encountered them.
When they were in the saddle, Brant guided his beast near to Tuan’s to exchange a few last words.
“Whither, now, will Tuan and his warriors wend their way?” he inquired, in the polite and formal dialect of the Tongue.
The outlaw pointed.
“Out into the dustlands, to the edges of that chasm Brant’s people called the Erebus,” said the chieftain. “There the remainder of the warriors of Tuan await his return—unless, perchance, they have long since given him up for dead, and wandered off to loot and plunder the fat merchant caravans farther north!”
They grinned at each other, and then their expressions sobered. For this was to be the final parting of the ways for them. And Brant said as much, a trifle awkwardly. The outlaw chief shrugged carelessly.
“Who knows, O Brant? The world is wide, true, but it is not wide enough to hold two friends apart for long. Mayhap we shall even meet again, to ride together, or to face further marvels. …”
His voice trailed away, and he looked thoughtful.
“What is it, Tuan?”
“It is nothing,” replied the other, slowly. “But … never did Tuan in this life expect to find himself naming one of the f’yagha with the name of ‘friend.’ It is curious how events and happenings can change the hearts of men.”
“I know.” Brant nodded. “First we were foes, although I knew not why. Then we became allies, facing a common peril. Then comrades. And now, as you say it, friends.”