"Toss the sword," Clay said.
Neidelman's answer was to reach into his belt and remove a handgun. Clay ducked to the far side of the array as the gun roared.
"Out of my way," Neidelman rasped.
Clay knew he couldn't confront Neidelman on these narrow rungs: he'd have to find a place with better footing. Quickly, he scanned the array with his flashlight. A few feet below, at the 110-foot mark, was a narrow maintenance spar. He put the flashlight in his pocket and used the darkness to descend one rung, then another. The array was trembling more violently now. Clay knew that Neidelman couldn't climb as long as he held the gun. But he also knew that the shaking came in waves, and as soon as the vibration ended Neidelman would put a bullet in him.
He dropped two more rungs in the blackness, feeling his way with his hands and feet as the shaking eased. A faint flare of reflected lightning showed Neidelman a few feet below him, hoisting himself toward the maintenance spar with one hand. He was already off balance and Clay, with a desperate movement, dropped another rung and with all his energy kicked out at the Captain's hand. There was a roar and a clatter as his foot connected and the gun fell away into darkness.
Clay slid down onto the spar, his feet slipping on the narrow metal grating. Neidelman, dangling below, howled with inarticulate rage. With a sudden flurry of energy he scrambled onto the narrow platform. Keeping the frame of the array between them, Clay took out his flashlight and shone it at the Captain.
Neidelman's face was streaked with sweat and dirt, skin frighteningly pallid, eyes sunken in the pitiless beam of the light. He seemed wasted, drawn, his body fueled only by the hard core of some inner will, and his hand trembled slightly as he reached behind him and drew out the sword.
Clay stared at it with a mixture of dread and wonder. The hilt was mesmerizingly beautiful, studded with huge gemstones. But the blade itself was an ugly, mottled violet, a pitted and scarred piece of metal.
"Step aside, Reverend," the Captain croaked. "I'm not going to waste my energy with you. I want Hatch."
"Hatch isn't your enemy."
"Did he send you to say that?" Neidelman coughed again. "I had Macallan soundly defeated. But I underestimated Hatch's treachery. Him and his operatives. No wonder he wanted Truitt on the dig team. And I suppose your protest was a ruse to distract my attention." He stared at Clay, eyes glittering.
"You're a dead man," Clay said calmly. "We're both dead men. You can't save your body. But perhaps you can still save your soul. That sword is a weapon of the devil. Cast it into the depths where it belongs."
"Foolish man," Neidelman hissed, advancing. "A weapon of the devil, you say? Hatch may have cost me the treasure. But I still have this. The sword I've spent the better part of my life preparing to claim."
"It's been the instrument of your death," Clay replied evenly.
"No, but it may be the instrument of yours. For the last time, Reverend, stand aside."
"No," said Clay, clinging to the shaking platform.
"Then die," cried Neidelman, bringing the heavy blade around and swinging it toward Clay's head.
Chapter 62
Hatch tossed the now-dead Radmeter away and peered out into the darkness, toward the mouth of the tunnel and the vertical shaft of the Water Pit beyond. There had been vague sounds of voices; the flare of Clay's flashlight, silhouetting the metal skeleton of the ladder array; a gunshot, sharp and clear above the cavernous roar. He waited in an agony of uncertainty, the temptation to creep forward and take a brief look over the edge almost overwhelming. But he knew that even an instant's exposure to St. Michael's Sword meant lingering death.
He glanced back toward Bonterre. He could feel the tension in her body, hear her choppy breathing.
Suddenly, the sounds of a furious struggle erupted. There was the sound of metal striking metal, a hideous cry—whose?—followed by a strangled gibbering; then another great blow and clang of metal. Next came a terrible cry of pain and despair that receded until it, too, died into the roar of the Pit.
Hatch crouched, riveted in place by the horrifying sounds. Then came more: ragged breathing, the slap of a hand against metal, a grunt of effort. A flashlight beam flared upward, searched the wall around them, then stopped, pinpointing the mouth of their tunnel.
Someone was climbing.
Hatch tensed, options racing through his mind. He realized there was only one. If Clay had failed, somebody else had to stop Neidelman. And he was determined it would be himself.
In the darkness beside him he felt Bonterre gathering herself to move, and he realized the same thought was in her mind as well.
"Don't even think about it," he said.
"Ferme-la!" she cried. "I will not let you—"
Before Bonterre could scramble to her feet Hatch jumped forward, half running, half stumbling toward the mouth of the tunnel. He poised on the brink, steeling himself, hearing her feet behind him. He leaped forward onto the metal bridge, ready to grab Neidelman and carry him into the roaring maw beneath.
Three feet down the ladder, Clay was struggling upward, his sides heaving, a large gash across one temple.
The minister wearily placed a hand on the next rung of the array. Hatch bent down, hauling him onto the platform as Bonterre arrived. Together, they helped him into the shelter of the tunnel.
The minister stood silently, leaning forward, head lolling, arms supported on his thighs.
"What happened?" Hatch asked.
Clay looked up.
"I got the sword," he said in a faraway voice. "I threw it into the Pit."
"And Neidelman?"
"He ... he decided to go after it."
There was a silence.
"You saved our lives," Hatch said. "My God, you—" He paused and took a breath. "We'll get you to a hospital—"
Clay waved his hand wearily. "Doctor, don't. Please dignify my death with the truth."
Hatch looked at him a moment. "There's nothing medicine can do except make it less painful."
"I wish there was some way to repay your sacrifice," Bonterre said, voice husky.
Clay smiled, a strange smile that seemed partly rueful, partly euphoric. "I knew exactly what I was doing. It wasn't a sacrifice. It was a gift."
He looked at Hatch. "I have one favor to ask you. Can you get me to the mainland in time? I'd like to say good-bye to Claire."
Hatch turned his face away. "I'll do my best," he murmured.
It was time to go. They left the tunnel and crossed the shaking metal catwalk to the array. Hatch heaved Bonterre onto the ladder and waited as she began climbing into the darkness. As he looked up, lightning blazed across the sky and illuminated Orthanc, a dim specter far above, almost lost among the tracery of supports and beams. Curtains of rain, metal, and soil washed down, ricocheting through the complex matrix of the array.
"Now you!" Hatch shouted to Clay.
The minister handed him the flashlight, then turned wearily to the ladder and began to climb. Hatch watched him for a moment. Then, taking a careful grip, he leaned out over the edge of the platform and shone the flashlight down into the Pit.
He stared after the beam, almost dreading what he might see. But the sword—and Neidelman—were gone. Hatch could see a roiling cloud of mist cloaking the roaring gulf far beneath.
There was another sickening lurch, and he turned back to the array and began to climb. All too soon he caught up with Clay; the minister was clutching a titanium rung, gasping for breath. Another great wave shook the ladder, shivering the remaining struts and filling the Pit with the protest of deforming metal.
"I can't go any farther," Clay gasped. "You go on ahead."
"Take the light!" Hatch shouted. "Then wrap an arm around my neck."