“I’ll have to give full concentration to the crystal,” Chance argued. “You’ll have to fly us there. Just get us down in time. We’ll worry about taking off again once we’re there.”
“It’s suicide!”
“It’s death for Kirsten otherwise! She can’t defend herself from Dread’s salamander. I’m not even certain I can. But we’ve got to try!”
Moore reflected that he had planned to throw away his life a few hours earlier. Why scruple over crashing into the side of a mountain now? “All right,” he shrugged. “I’m with you.”
The lights of Knoxville dropped quickly away below them, and in minutes they were flying over darkened countryside where only an occasional light yet shone. Overhead it was cloudless and clear beneath the full moon — perfect for night flying, and Chance’s new Stinson Reliant responded agilely to the controls.
She was a sweet craft to fly, Moore concluded. He had flown a Reliant a few times before — courtesy of a wealthy acquaintance who got a thrill over having a famous ace for his pilot — so he was familiar with the controls. It felt good to fly again, and Moore let the powerful Lycoming radial full out. The highwing monoplane droned rapidly toward the black mountains ahead.
In the seat beside him in the four-passenger cabin, John Chance cradled the glowing crystal. Its soft luminance seemed to grow brighter as the miles fled past below them.
“We should make it there by midnight,” Chance judged, glancing at his watch. The mountains were coming up fast, and the Reliant climbed to meet them.
“If we can find wherever it is we’re going,” Moore commented, watching the moonlit countryside for landmarks. “That’s Newport coming up on the horizon now. This time of night we’ll be lucky to catch the lights in any of these mountain towns until we get to Asheville.”
“We’ll pick up the French Broad River after Newport,” Chance assured him. “With this moon it should show up quite clearly. The French Broad flows past Dillon, and if we fly along the river, we’ll pass straight overhead, lights or no. Kirsten can’t have gotten too far away from that general area, so we just need to circle and watch the crystal.”
Moore grunted. “And when we get there?”
“If you can land us in one piece, we’ll pick up Kirsten and take off again. Dread has so far shown no desire to attack us on my own ground. We’ll be safe for the moment if we can get back to my house.”
“What about the salamander? Can you do anything against a creature like that?”
Chance shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t know. A fire-elemental has enormous power. It’s an awesome accomplishment that Dread can even control one.”
He touched the inside pocket of his tweed jacket to make certain of the folded envelope with the object he had discovered that afternoon at the site of the wreck. If his reasoning was correct, it held the secret to Dread’s control of the elemental. Chance prayed he wouldn’t be forced to put his deductions to the test. “Assuming one is an adept,” Chance went on, “it isn’t too major a conjuration to evoke a salamander. But the distinction between holding a salamander for a few moments safely imprisoned in a pentagram, as opposed to actually releasing the creature to send it forth against those you wish to destroy — it’s like the difference between just looking at a picture of a tiger in a magazine, and hauling one out of its den by the scruff of its neck to take home to chase mice in your kitchen. You can’t just conjure forth something this powerful and turn it loose — the more so because any such creature bears malice toward the practitioner who has evoked it from its plane. Dread has discovered some means to control the salamander. I’m gambling that I understand his secret, and that I can reverse his sending.”
“Then why bring along the assortment of firepower?” Moore asked, jerking a thumb at the rifle and shotgun. “Will that high-power rifle drop a salamander?”
“No.” Chance grinned mirthlessly. “But I don’t think even Dread is proof against a.416 Rigby. There’s a good chance we’ll catch him off guard by breaking in on him like this.”
Moore felt sudden uneasiness. There was something he ought to tell Chance. What was it? He’d been thinking about it just a second ago… Best concentrate on flying.
The mountains lay below them like worn black teeth. Moonlight made a twisting silver ribbon of the French Broad. Moore flew a course that followed the river’s deep valley. He checked his watch. It was getting on toward midnight.
“That’s probably Dillon coming up now,” he judged. “We’ll know damn soon how good a gambler you are.”
The glow from the crystal waxed brighter, filling the cabin with soft emerald radiance. Chance concentrated on its shimmering light.
High on the side of Walnut Mountain the mists that flowed along the streams and rivers had not crept. The night was crisp and clear without the rain and cloud cover of the previous evening. Looming overhead the full moon shone so brightly as to dim the stars that flecked the sky. In the cove where Wells’s cabin lay, sharp moon-shadows pooled beneath the trees and rocks. If danger prowled in the moonlit hollow, it would make a target as it crossed the clearing.
Wells leaned back in his chair beside the cracked-open cabin door, wishing he could light his pipe. Not wanting to show fire as he waited in the shadows of the porch, he contented himself with chewing on the pipestem. In his lap he cradled his old Winchester Model 95.45–70, and the shotgun stood in easy reach just around inside the door. In the moonlight he could watch the wagon trail that crawled up to his cabin, and the pasture and garden that fanned out from the head of the cove. Beside his chair stretched a blacker patch of darkness that was Ben. The Plott hound sensed the danger that waited beyond the clearing and watched with his master.
Inside the cabin a single kerosene lamp made a soft yellow glow on the smooth-hewn log walls. There was a massive stone fireplace at one end of the front room, and two small windows piercing the wall at the other end. A kitchen jutted off back, and overhead were two low-ceilinged bedrooms. Wells’s wife and youngest daughter had earlier that day taken the truck down to Canton where the middle daughter had just presented him with a grandson. They’d be gone till the first of the week, and Wells was glad that they at least were beyond the evil that closed in upon the cabin.
Where the moonlight lanced past the curtained window, Kirsten crouched on the puncheon floor. The girl had carried down the heavy beveled-glass mirror that had been his wife’s wedding gift from her grandmother. Laying the mirror flat where the moonlight touched the floor, Kirsten knelt motionless beside it. Her green eyes stared without wavering into the reflected moonlight. Once Wells had asked her whether she wanted a sweater, but she remained silent. When he glanced at the mirror he saw no reflection other than the green glow of her eyes. Quickly he returned to his station on the porch.
“Good evening, Hampton Wells.”
The mountaineer all but fell out of his chair. By reflex his thumb hauled back the hammer of the Winchester. Ben showed his teeth in a sudden low snarl. Then neither man nor hound moved.
Standing where the shadow of the porch spilled out into the yard was a tall figure dressed in black. Above the featureless metal mask the silver hair was frost in the moonlight, and the thin-lipped smile was not a pleasant thing to see at night.
Wells would have staked his life that no man could have stolen upon him like that without warning. And indeed, he had staked his life on that firm belief.
Behind the mask, eyes black as chipped flint regarded him. “Sometimes it is necessary to attend to matters for yourself in order to be certain they’re concluded to satisfaction, don’t you agree,” the derisive voice goaded him.