The Egg of the Phoenix was about a hundred yards straight down. I had had two plans in mind if we ever reached the Tower. There were three openings (out of hundreds) which led to true paths to the Egg—and to the Never-Born, the Eater of Souls, the M.P. guarding it. One was at ground level and I never considered it. A second was a couple of hundred feet off the ground and I had given that serious thought: loose an arrow with a messenger line so that the line passed over any projection above that hole; use that to get the strong line up, then go up the line—no trick for any crack Alpinist, which I wasn't but Rufo was.
But the great Tower turned out to have no projections, real modern simplicity of design—carried too far.
The third plan was, if we could reach the top, to let ourselves down by a line to the third non-fake entrance, almost on level with the Egg. So here we were, all set—and no place to hitch.
Second thoughts are wonderful thoughts—why hadn't I had Star drive us straight into that hole in the wall?
Well, it would take very fine sighting of that silly arrow; we might hit the wrong pigeonhole. But the important reason was that I hadn't thought of it.
Star was sitting and nursing her wounded arm. I said, "Honey, can you fly us, slow and easy, down a couple of setbacks and into that hole we want?"
She looked up with drawn face. "No."
"Well. Too bad."
"I hate to tell you—but I burned out the garters on that speed run. They won't be any good until I can recharge them. Not things I can get here. Green mug-wort, blood of a hare—things like that."
"Boss," said Rufo, "how about using the whole top of the Tower as a hitching post?"
"How do you mean?"
"We've got lots of line."
It was a workable notion—walk the line around the top while somebody else held the bitter end, then tie it and go down what hung over. We did it—and finished up with only a hundred feet too little of line out of a thousand yards.
Star watched us. When I was forced to admit that a hundred feet short was as bad as no line at all, she said thoughtfully, "I wonder if Aaron's Rod would help?"
"Sure, if it was stuck in the top of this overgrown ping-pong table. What's Aaron's Rod?"
"It makes stiff things limp and limp things stiff. No, no, not that. Well, that, too, but what I mean is to lay this line across the roof with about ten feet hanging over the far side. Then make that end and the crossing part of the line steel hard—sort of a hook."
"Can you do it?"
"I don't know. It's from The Key of Solomon and it's an incantation. It depends on whether I can remember it—and on whether such things work in this universe."
"Confidence, confidence! Of course you can."
"I can't even think how it starts. Darling, can you hypnotize? Rufo can't—or at least not me."
"I don't know a thing about it."
"Do just the way I do with you for a language lesson. Look me in the eye, talk softly, and tell me to remember the words. Perhaps you had better lay out the line first."
We did so and I used a hundred feet instead of ten for the bill of the hook, on the more-is-better principle. Star lay back and I started talking to her, softly (and without conviction) but over and over again.
Star closed her eyes and appeared to sleep. Suddenly she started to mumble in tongues.
"Hey, Boss! Damn thing is hard as rock and stiff as a life sentence!"
I told Star to wake up and we slid down to the setback below as fast as we could, praying that it wouldn't go limp on us. We didn't shift the line; I simply had Star cause more of it to starch up, then I went on down, made certain that I had the right opening, three rows down and fourteen over, then Star slid down and I caught her in my arms; Rufo lowered the baggage, weapons mostly, and followed. We were in the Tower and had been on the planet—correction: the "place"—we had been in the place called Karth-Hokesh not more than forty minutes.
I stopped, got the building matched in my mind with the sketch block map, fixed the direction and location of the Egg, and the "red line" route to it, the true path.
Okay, go on in a few hundred yards, snag the Egg of the Phoenix and go! My chest stopped hurting.
Chapter 15
"Boss," said Rufo, "Look out over the plain."
"At what?"
"At nothing," he answered. "Those bodies are gone. You sure as hell ought to be able to see them, against black sand and not even a bush to break the view."
I didn't look. "That's the moose's problem, damn it! We've got work to do. Star, can you shoot left-handed? One of these pistol things?"
"Certainly, milord."
"You stay ten feet behind me and shoot anything that moves. Rufo, you follow Star, bow ready and an arrow nocked. Try for anything you see. Sling one of those guns—make a sling out of a bit of line." I frowned. "We'll have to abandon most of this. Star, you can't bend a bow, so leave it behind, pretty as it is, and your quiver. Rufo can sling my quiver with his; we use the same arrows. I hate to abandon my bow, it suits me so. But I must. Damn."
"I'll carry it, my Hero."
"No, any clutter we can't use must be junked." I unhooked my canteen, drank deeply, passed it over. "You two finish it and throw it away." While Rufo drank, Star slung my bow. "Milord husband? It weighs nothing this way and doesn't hamper my shooting arm. So?"
"Well—If it gets in your way, cut the string and forget it. Now drink your fill and we go." I peered down the corridor we were in—fifteen feet wide and the same high, lighted from nowhere and curving away to the right, which matched the picture in my mind. "Ready? Stay closed up. If we can't slice it, shoot it, or shaft it, we'll salute it." I drew sword and we set out, quick march.
Why my sword, rather than one of those "death ray" guns? Star was carrying one of those and knew more about one than I did. I didn't even know how to tell if one was charged, nor had I judgment in how long to press the button. She could shoot, her bowmanship proved that, and she was at least as cool in a fight as Rufo or myself.
I had disposed weapons and troops as well as I knew how. Rufo, behind with a stock of arrows, could use them if needed and his position gave him time to shift to either sword or Buck Rogers "rifle" if his judgment said to—and I didn't need to advise him; he would.
So I was backed up by long-range weapons ancient and ultramodern in the hands of people who knew how to use them and temperament to match—the latter being the more important. (Do you know how many men in a platoon actually shoot in combat? Maybe six. More likely three. The rest freeze up.)
Still, why didn't I sheathe my sword and carry one of those wonder weapons?
A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever devised. Pistols and guns are all offense, no defense; close on him fast and a man with a gun can't shoot, he has to stop you before you reach him. Close on a man carrying a blade and you'll be spitted like a roast pigeon—unless you have a blade and can use it better than he can.
A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, is always ready. Its worst shortcoming is that it takes great skill and patient, loving practice to gain that skill; it can't be taught to raw recruits in weeks, nor even months.
But most of all (and this was the real reason) to grasp the Lady Vivamus and feel her eagerness to bite gave me courage in a spot where I was scared spitless.
They (whoever "they" were) could shoot us from ambush, gas us, booby-trap us, many things. But they could do those things even if I carried one of those strange guns. Sword in hand, I was relaxed and unafraid—and that made my tiny "command" more nearly safe. If a C.O. needs to carry a rabbit's foot, he should—and the grip of that sweet sword was bigger medicine than all the rabbits' feet in Kansas.