Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (49 page)

Six looked over at an obstinate Tallen, who was still standing pugnaciously with both hands clenched into fists. There was a short battle to see who would drop their eyes first, and then Tallen relented. The imposing sight of the enormous black hole yawing in the sky above them made them all fall silent.

WHEN THEY CONTINUED, the going got even more impossible. The mountain was ever steeper, and the rocks loose on the path made the way more and more difficult. And the geysers were reappearing now, some quite close to them. But this time it was almost impossible to avoid passing within their radius of action; there was simply no other way along the passes.

Diva’s eyes shone as a piece of rock as large as her head hit the path just in front of her feet and rolled off down the slope of the ridge, leaving a crater where it had first hit, and a few remaining threads of fire from the lava. She tossed her head back with glee. “That was nearly the end of me!”

Six found he was not quite as amused. “Watch where you’re going, will you Diva?” he grumbled. Then he was forced to duck down as a barrage of smaller pebbles, all white hot and glistening, showered over him.

“Pot and kettle, no-name!” she said, looking visibly shaken. “Mind your own step first.”

Bennel was staring around him in some dismay. He could, he felt, protect Diva from attack by whatever alien happened to live on this planet, but it was going to be far harder to stop annihilation by lava flow.

Tallen was chivvying the canths. “Come ON, you stupid animals, you are going to get us all fried if we stay here!”

Diva bristled. “Do you mind not calling them stupid animals? They can talk across an entire universe, you know!”

“Not if they have been burnt to a crisp out here, they can’t! They need to get a move on, or we will all end up being vapourized.”

Diva muttered something to herself, which made Tallen look at her sharply, but she didn’t elaborate.

Bennel couldn’t help but agree with the Namuri. He hurried to the head of the lead canth, Six’s dapple grey, and began to pull at its headcollar, trying to urge it into a trot. To his surprise, the animal bent down on one knee.

“They want us to mount them again,” he shouted. “Quickly!”

As fast as they could, they all scrambled onto the canths’ backs, and clutched hold of whatever they could to stay on, as both canths immediately broke into a lethal gallop that propelled them towards a distant overhang at a pace which invited a broken leg. The rocks along the path threw up sparks as the canths thundered past, and Six felt that their legs must be undergoing far too much stress on the hard ground. He tried to rein his canth back, but the animal was determined. In the end he had to sit back, and simply try to hold on.

The mad dash through the field of lava vents lasted for nearly an hour, and there were moments when they almost didn’t make it. Six was hit by one tiny piece of flying lava, and as it passed by, it seared a path through his hair, right down to the skin. He was left with the unmistakable smell of burnt hair, and a track along his scalp where it had all been burnt away.

“Next time, duck faster!” shouted Diva, who was directly behind him, and therefore easily able to see the result.

Then she lunged out of the way of a boulder that nearly sliced her own canth in two, and shouted a warning to him as another tongue of lava seemed to launch itself directly at him. He threw himself to one side, and the canth luckily followed his lead, for the lava burnt down onto the path just where they had been standing moments before.

“Maybe we should stop chatting and concentrate on getting out of here?” Bennel, who was clinging on to Diva’s back, ventured. “—If you don’t mind my suggesting?”

Diva laughed again, and gave the seal brown canth its head. “Hold on, then, Bennel. I think things might get a bit rough from now on!”

Bennel found she was right. He had to concentrate so hard on staying on the canth that he was unable to think of anything at all for the next few minutes. The motion of the equine jolted him so much that every part of his body ached, simply from the effort of staying on.

At last they made it to the rocky overhang, and they slid down from their mounts with relief.

Apart from the bald track along Six’s scalp, with singed skin, there were more signs of their dive for safety. Diva’s canth had lost the greater part of its tail, and Tallen was sporting a new scar right down one thigh, where another flame of lava had narrowly missed severing the whole leg.

Diva stared at the damage. “Are you all right?”

Tallen tried to move the leg, with success. “I am all right,” he informed her. “No thanks to you!”

“Oh, so now the lava jets are my fault, are they?” She put her hands on her hips.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No. You just implied I could have done more!”

Tallen shrugged. “If the cap fits ...”

“That is enough. Behave yourselves, both of you.” Six had walked up to them.

Diva turned her impressive eyebrows onto Six, raising one of them expressively, though he appeared not to notice. The Namuri, also caught in her fulminating gaze, shifted from foot to foot, finally spluttered something about feeding the canths, and walked away.

Six put an expansive arm around his wife’s shoulders, although she was still glaring at him. They looked around them at the overhang. It was dark under the shelf of rock which jutted out into the sky. Below the overhang the ground felt damp. They wandered further into the crevice in the mountain. It wasn’t long before they both gave a sharp cry.

“Water!”

Bennel ran up immediately. Sure enough, the surface of the sand right under the rock face glistened damply. The Coriolan ran back to the canths, and slipped a shovel from behind one of the saddles. Then he began to dig frantically around the area marked by the sheen of water.

As soon as they became aware of this, both canths came over. Although they couldn’t fit their whole bodies this far into the crevice, their heads could reach, and they were soon drinking plentifully from the small source Bennel had uncovered.

Six realized that he was feeling hugely relieved. That gave them a hope of survival! It was only a slender thread, but at least it existed. That was good news.

He watched as both canths drank their fill, and then leant down himself to refill the containers they had brought for the equines. If the worst came to the worst, they could drink this themselves, although there was still quite an abundant supply of waterpacks, which were lighter, and had been easier to bring.

THEIR SPIRITS ROSE, and after eating something, they left the canths chewing on some of the cubes, and explored this strange cleft in the rock. Both Six and Diva could sense that the canths felt they need go no further, that their part of this adventure was over. Both animals were contentedly munching, and had turned their backs on their erstwhile riders.

To one side, the cleft deepened and disappeared into blackness. Diva stepped towards the inky darkness, only to find a tenacious Tallen blocking her way.

“Where do you think you are going, Meritocrat?” he demanded. “Your bodyguards should go first.”

She pushed at him. “Oh, get out of my way, will you, Tallen? In any case, you are not my bodyguard! If anybody is, Bennel is!”

Tallen stood his ground. “You shall not pass!”

The sound of perfectly white teeth grinding together could be heard, but the situation was defused by Bennel, who walked past Tallen quietly and began to explore the shadows.

“Well, then, Namuri. Hadn’t you better take care of
Valhai
Six?” he asked over his shoulder.

Diva pushed past, following Bennel, and Tallen was left with his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Six clapped him on the back. “Good job! Glad to see you are on your toes!”

Tallen wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but eventually he nodded his head, and led the way for Six. He was aware that he had somehow lost the initiative, but was unsure exactly who was to blame for it.

So Bennel was the first one of them to spot what lay in the darkest corner of the ledge. He stopped dead, and Diva walked into him, which caused a few caustic comments.

“This ... this has been made by something ... or someone,” he said. “Look!”

Six came up, and shone a light down, to where Bennel was pointing.

There was a deep ravine, which led down to some unfathomable depths. The rock simply fell away from their position, plunging down a narrow shaft which disappeared into the gloom. It seemed as if the sound of water could be heard coming from the depths.

But that was not the strangest part of the discovery. For, projecting out of the cliff at even intervals, were ancient slabs of stone, forming floating steps which overhung the drop and led downwards. Aeons ago, some race had taken the trouble to hack deep grooves into the solid instellite rock face and slot flagstones inside these grooves. They were secured into place by smaller stones and pebbles, leaving just over half of each rectangular-shaped stone protruding out to form a solid step. The steps ran down towards the bottom of the chasm, glistening slightly with crystals contained in the stones which jutted out. The silver points of light made the steps shine when the light of the beacon reached them. The rocky stairs were not positioned vertically, one beneath the other, but rather horizontally, each slightly lower than the previous one, curving around the chasm and finally disappearing into the gloom. From a distance it looked as if there were a continuous path wending its way down; it was only close up that each step could be seen to be over a foot lower than the previous one.

They stared. There were no handrails or even handholds, and the steps were wet with condensation, and looked slippery. It didn’t appear to be a trip for the faint-hearted. The four stared around at each other. None of them were very pleased at what was clearly expected of them.

Six looked over his shoulder at the two canths. They were gazing at him placidly, but he could almost hear them telling him to continue, to go on. He sighed. “I think that the trimorphs are down these steps,” he said. “We have no choice but to go down.”

Diva peered over the edge of the precipice. “Maybe they will feel our presence and come up here themselves,” she said.

“Not too keen to go down, Diva?” Six’s voice came from beside her. Since they were both staring over the edge, it boomed slightly, reverberating off the rock all around.

“Nothing to do with it,” she said. “Just thought it would be easier.”

“Hmm.” Six was looking doubtful.

She fired up immediately. “I will lead you down,” she said, and began to hunt around for nutripacks to take.

Six took hold of her arm. “Hang on a minute, no need to do your marchioness of dudgeon bit.”

She tried to shake off his arm. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

There was a brief tussle, but Six didn’t let go. “Sacras, Diva,” he said after a while, “I love you dearly, but you are so-o-o difficult to live with.”

She snatched her arm back and her eyes sparkled with rage. “How dare you take hold of me!”

Six was taken aback. “I’m sorry? I’m your husband, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you can manhandle me, Kwaidian!”

Six shook his head. “I think husbands are entitled to try to stop their wives from throwing themselves off cliffs.”

“Rubbish!
No
such thing! I was merely going to lead the way.” Diva tossed her head and moved at least ten feet away from Six, who sighed, and for a moment wished that Ledin had come with them.

“Of course you can go first,” he said, in the end. “But we should rope ourselves together, and establish a moving anchor as we go. Those stones look as if they were designed to make somebody fall off them, and there is no guarantee that some of them will not give way with our weight.”

But Diva wasn’t listening. She had heard him concede, and then lost interest. “Whatever,” she said absently, her mind already wondering what would be at the bottom of the long chasm.

Six’s knuckles whitened. There were times when he could have kicked her. Then he realized that he was in love with her partly because of that huge determination that hid whatever doubts she might be feeling, and his irritation evaporated straight away. He moved over to Bennel, and the two men tried to design a system of roping up which would afford them at least some protection.