Kingdoms of the Wall (16 page)

My breath was loud in my ears; my heart pounded. Perhaps I felt afraid, a little. But Kilarion moved inexorably onward above me and I would not let him think that I couldn't keep up. As I had been trained to do, I plotted my course several moves in advance, constantly working out sequences, calculating, I will go
here
after I have reached
there,
and then I will go
here.

There was one troublesome moment when I made the stupid mistake of glancing back over my shoulder to see how high I had risen. I found myself looking down into a gorge that seemed as deep as the Wall was high. My stomach lurched and my heart contracted as though it had been squeezed and my left leg began to twitch violently, jabbing rhythmically into the air.

Kilarion felt my jouncing motions rising up the rope to him.

"Are you dancing, Poilar?" he asked.

That was all it took, that one lighthearted question. I laughed and the terror drained out of me. I turned my concentration back to the rock.

You
must
concentrate in the most intense way. You must see nothing but the tiny crevices and glittering little crystal outcrops just in front of your nose. I went up, up, up. Now I was spreadeagled to my limits, inching along a pair of parallel ridges that were set precisely two Poilar-leg lengths apart to form a kind of chimney. Now I hung suspended from a horn of crystal no longer than my inner thumb. Now my cheek was flat against the rock and my feet groped for purchase in empty air. My arms ached and my tongue felt oddly swollen.

Then, suddenly, there was a hand dangling in my face and I heard Kilarion's ringing laughter as he reached for my wrist, caught it, and pulled me up across a rough rocky cornice onto a place where I could roll over and He flat.

"You see?" he said. "There was nothing to it!"

We were on top. The climb had taken forever, or else only a moment: I was not sure which. The only certain thing was that we had accomplished it. There had been times along the way, I realized now, when I had been sure we would perish. But now, as I lay laughing and gasping on a horizontal surface, it seemed to me that Kilarion was right, that there really had been nothing to the climb at all.

After a time I stood up. We had reached a broad plateau, so deep and wide that I thought at first that we had reached the Summit itself, the very top of Kosa Saag, for everything seemed flat in all directions. Then my eyes focused on the distance and I saw how wrong I was: for I could see now, so far away to the southwest that it was almost at the limits of my vision, the next stage of the Wall rising above the floor of the plateau.

It was a numbing sight. What I saw out there was a great shining mass of pale red stone, shrouded at the base by a swirl of misty morning air and disappearing overhead in thick clouds. It tapered upward to infinity in a series of diminishing stages. It was like one mountain rising upon another. The whole Wall must be like that, I realized: not a mountain but a mountain range, immense at the base, narrowing gradually as you went higher. No wonder we couldn't see the Wall's upper reaches from our valley: they lay hidden from our view within the natural fortress formed by the lower levels. I came now to understand that in truth we had only begun our ascent. By reaching this plateau we had simply completed the first phase of the first phase. We had merely traversed the outer rim of the foothills of the tremendous thing that is Kosa Saag. My heart sank as I began to comprehend that our climb thus far had been only a prologue. Ahead of us still lay this vast mocking pink staircase outlined against a dark, ominously violet sky.

I turned away from it. We could deal with that awesome immensity later. Sufficient unto the day is the travail thereof, says the First Climber; and He is right in that, as He is in all other things.

"Well?" Kilarion asked. "Do you think the others can get themselves up here?"

I glanced back over the edge of the rock face we had just ascended. The trail at the base of the vertical cliff was incredibly far below us; at this distance it seemed no wider than a thread. It was hard to believe that Kilarion and I had scrambled up such a height of inhospitable stone. But we had. We had. And except for a couple of troublesome moments it had been a simple steady haul, or so it seemed to me in retrospect. The climb could have been worse, I told myself. It could have been very much worse.

"Of course," I said. "There's not one of them who couldn't manage it."

"Good!" Kilarion clapped me on the back and grinned. "Now we go down and tell them, eh? Unless you want to wait here, and I go down and tell them. Eh?"

"You wait here, if you like," I said. "They'll need to hear it from me."

"We both go down, then."

"All right. We both go down."

* * *

We descended boldly, even rashly, quickly swinging ourselves from ledge to ledge with our ropes, hardly pausing to secure our holds before we were off again. The mountain air does that to you, that and the exhilaration of knowing that you have conquered fear and attained your goal. I suppose in our exuberance we might well have levered ourselves right off the face of the cliff into the abyss beyond the trail-ledge. But we did not; and quickly we were down again and trotting back to camp with the news of what we had achieved.

Muurmut said at once, "That way is impossible. I saw it myself last night. It goes straight up. Nobody could climb it."

"Kilarion and I have just climbed it."

"You say that you have, anyway."

I looked at him, wanting to kill. "You think that I'm lying?"

Kilarion said impatiently, "Don't be a fool, Muurmut. Of course we climbed it. Why would we lie about that? Climbing it isn't as hard as it looks."

Muurmut shrugged. "Maybe yes, maybe no. I say that it's impossible and that if we try it we'll die. You're stronger than any two of us, Kilarion. And you, Poilar, you can climb anything with your tongue alone. But will Thissa be able to climb it? Or Hendy? Or that darling little Traiben of yours?"

Clever of him to pick the three who mattered most to me. But I said sharply, "We'll all be able to climb it."

"I say no. I say it's too dangerous."

I hated him for inspiring doubt in us when what we needed now was sublime self-confidence. "What are you suggesting, then, Muurmut? That we sprout wings and fly ourselves to the top?"

"I'm suggesting that we retrace our steps until we find a safer way."

"There is no safer way. This is our only choice. Short of simply creeping back to the village like cowards, that is, and I don't choose to do that."

He gave me a scowling look. "If we all die on this rock-climb of yours, Poilar, how will that get us to the Summit?"

This was opposition purely for the sake of opposition, and we both knew it. There were no paths to follow but this one. I wanted to strike him and break him; but I kept calm and said indifferently, "As you wish, Muurmut. Stay right here and live forever. The rest of us will continue the climb and take our chances on dying."

"Will they?" he asked.

"Let them decide," I said.

So we had what amounted to a second election. I asked who would come with Kilarion and me up the face of the rock, and immediately Traiben and Galli and Stum and Jaif and about half a dozen others raised their hands—the usual dependable ones. I could see doubt on the faces of Muurmut's henchmen Seppil and Talbol, and on Naxa's face also, and on a few of the women's. More than a few, in fact, and some of the other men. For a moment I thought the vote would run against me, which would end my leadership of the climb. Some of the waverers, the most timid ones, edged toward Muurmut as though they intended to remain behind with him. But then Thissa put her hand up high and that seemed to be a turning point. By twos and threes the rest hastened to vote for the climb. In the end Seppil and Talbol were the only ones remaining in Muurmut's camp, and they looked at him in confusion.

"Shall we say farewell to the three of you now?" I asked.

Muurmut spat. "We climb under protest. You risk our lives needlessly, Poilar."

"Then I risk my own as well," I said. "For the second time this day." I turned away from him and went to Thissa, whose decision had swung the vote. "Thank you," I said.

The quickest flicker of a smile crossed her face. "You are welcome, Poilar."

"What a pain Muurmut is. I'd like to throw him over the edge."

She stepped back, gaping at me in shock. I could see that she had taken me seriously.

"No," I said. "No, I don't mean that literally."

"If you killed him it would be the end of everything for us."

"I won't kill him unless he forces me to," I said. "But I wouldn't weep for very long if he happened to have some terrible accident."

"Poilar!" She seemed sick with horror.

Perhaps Galli was right. Thissa was terribly frail.

* * *

For the general ascent we divided ourselves into ten groups, all of them groups of four except for one, which consisted only of Kilarion, Thissa, and Grycindil, because Stapp's death at the lake of pitch had left us with an unequal number. My own group was Traiben, Kreod, and Galli. Mainly we roped ourselves with the men going first and last and the women in between, for most men are stronger than most women and we knew it would be best to have a man below to hold the group if anyone fell. But in my group I took care to have Traiben climb just below me and Galli to have the important bottom spot, for Traiben was weak and Galli was as strong as any man among us but Kilarion. I let Muurmut go up with his friends Seppil and Talbol and Thuiman, even though they were all strong men and would better have been used to bolster some of the women. But I thought, if any of them should fall, let them all fall together, and good riddance.

Once again Kilarion led the way. He was very much more cautious in the climb now with Thissa and Grycindil than he had been with me, and I understood that on our earlier climb he had been deliberately challenging me to keep up the pace. When his group had gone far enough up the cliff so that Grycindil had begun her climb, I started up alongside them, keeping a little to the left to avoid any pebbles that might be scraped loose from climbers above me. Ghibbilau the Grower took the next group up, with Tenilda and Hendy and Gazin. After them went Naxa, Ment the Sweeper, Min, and Stum, and then Bress the Carpenter, Hilth of the Builders, Ijo the Scholar, Scardil the Butcher. And so we all went, group after group. Now and then I heard brittle nervous laughter from below me; but I knew better this time than to look back and see how they were doing.

Midway up, Traiben found himself in difficulties.

"I can't reach the next hold, Poilar!"

"Twist your hips. Angle your body upward."

"I've done it. I still can't reach."

Cautiously I glanced toward him, focusing my vision so that I saw Traiben and only Traiben, nothing below him. He was awkwardly wedged into a barely manageable foothold a few paces to the side of the route I had been taking, and he was straining desperately to get a grip on a jagged knob of red rock that was well beyond his grasp.

"I'll go a little higher," I told him. "When the rope goes taut, it'll pull you closer to it."

I forced myself upward. Lines of fire were running across my chest and back now from the effort of this second climb of the morning. But I pulled myself as far as I could go without making Traiben's weight an impossible burden on me that would rip me loose and send me plunging past him. Galli, far down the rock, saw what I was doing and called up to me that she had a good grip, that she would anchor me while I pulled. But I doubted that even she could hold us all if I fell, bringing Traiben down with me.

"I can't reach it," Traiben muttered. He spoke as if every word cost him a great price.

"Change!" Thissa called, from somewhere far above us. I looked up and saw her peering down at us over the cornice of the plateau. She was feverishly making witchery signs at us, thrusting both thumbs of each hand at us like little horns. "Can you? Make your arm longer, Traiben! Make it stretch!"

Of course. Make it stretch. Why else were we given shape-changing by the gods?

"Do it," I said.

But controlling your Changes is not such a simple thing when you are in terror of your life. I watched as Traiben, trembling below me, struggled to adjust the proportions of his frame, shifting his shoulders about, loosening the bones of his back and arms to achieve the greater reach. I would have gone to him to stretch him myself, if I could. But I had to hold us in our place. His fumbling went on and on, until my own arms began to tire and I wondered how long I could stay where I was. Then I heard an odd little giggle come from him and when I glanced at him again I saw him weirdly distorted, with his left arm far longer than the right and his whole body bent into a tortured curve. But he had
hold of the knob he needed. He hauled himself up; the slack returned to the rope; I pressed myself against the rock until I was limp, and let my lungs fill gladly with air.

After that the rest was almost easy. For the second time that morning I came to the top of that wall of rock. I pulled Traiben over the cornice, and Kreod, and then came Galli on her own, looking as unwearied as if she had been out for a stroll.