But there was still that swirling mass of thick, impenetrable clouds that should
not have been there, at least not all the time and certainly not at that
altitude. He might doubt his preconceptions, but he did not doubt his resolve.
He would go into those clouds.
Still, he almost didn’t make it. Parts of him suffered from frostbite, and it
seemed at times as if his eyes would freeze shut, but he finally made the base
of the clouds. Here he knew he would face the greatest of all the dangers, for
he might wind up moving blind in a freezing, swirling fog. He had always had the
suspicion, now a fear, that the mountain might end right at the clouds and that
he might well step off into space.
The clouds were dense, although not as much as he’d feared, and he had some
visibility, although the wind was up, making every move treacherous. Still,
there was no mistaking the fact that these clouds were nothing of nature; the
air was suddenly relatively warm—above freezing, anyway—and he felt the pain of
his frostbitten extremities along with a welcome relief that the fine mist that
soon covered him remained a mist.
There was, however, a curious lack of odor. The clouds were getting their heat
from somewhere, yet there were none of the earth-fumes he would have expected
from a volcanic area. He continued his climb and was shocked to break out of the
clouds only twenty or thirty meters up from their start. It was not the end of
the clouds; really, but rather a break between two layers of cloud, formed by a
trapped mass of warm air. Above him swirled a solid ceiling of clouds. He did
not worry about them, though; the mountain did not extend any farther than a
dozen meters, beyond the end of the lower cloud barrier.
Up here it did at least look like a volcano, one of those great mountains of the
west. The summit was a crater and appeared perfectly round, but it was less than
a hundred meters across. It was as unnatural as were the clouds and the warmth.
It was certainly the source of the heat: The air seemed to shimmer all around
that basin. Laboriously he made his way, half walking, half crawling, to the
edge, and with hurting eyes he peered down inside and froze in awe and wonder,
his jaw dropping. For a moment he wondered if the climb had cost him his reason.
Faces … Huge faces coming out of the rock wall and extending all the way
around the crater. Men’s faces, women’s faces, strange-looking, alien faces none
of which seemed to have the features of the People.
Demon faces.
Giant faces extended out of the crater wall, carved of some whitish rock or some
other substance. The noses alone were eight or more meters long; the mouths,
though closed now and expressionless, looked as if they each could swallow a
herd of buffalo.
Who carved such faces? he wondered. And why?
About forty meters below the faces was a floor that appeared to be made of very
coarse cloth, although he was sophisticated enough to realize that it must be
metal. The fine mesh of the grating allowed the warm air to rise from inside the
mountain, creating the odd cloud effects and giving the region of the peak its
moderate temperature. The mesh grate also had five circles painted on it, four
in a sort of square surrounding a fifth in the middle, and there were designs in
each circle. He could not make out the designs, partly because of the distance
and the condition of his eyes and partly because there seemed to be material
covering parts of all five circles. The material, whatever it was, was randomly
scattered about and certainly not native to the place.
He stared again at the giant carved faces and felt a chill go through him. They
were certainly both mysterious and awesome; most people who made it this far
would worship them, knowing they had seen the faces of the sleeping spirits of
the mountain. He counted twenty-five faces around the rim just inside the
crater, all expressionless, all seemingly asleep, eyes closed. With a start he
realized that there weren’t twenty-five different faces but only five, each
repeated four more times.
There was the man with short, curly hair, thick lips, and a broad, flat nose.
There was a chubby, elderly-looking woman with puffy cheeks and short, stringy
hair. There was a younger, prettier woman with a delicate face whose features in
some ways resembled that of his own people but whose eyes seemed oddly slanted,
almost catlike. There was a very old man with wrinkled skin and very little
hair. And, last, there was a strange-looking man with a very long face, a
lantern jaw, and a birdlike nose.
Each of these was repeated so that the same five, had their eyes been open,
would have been looking out, or down, at any point within.
Who were they? The ones who built this place? If so, why had they built it, and
why here, and what was the source of the warmth below? Had they built this place
and then added these faces as a monument to their work, a permanent sort of
memorial? Would that question ever be answerable?
He paused, trying to decide what to do next. He’d challenged the mountain and
won, and proved his point, but now what? He’d never taken it any further than
this. Now it seemed idiotic to return below, reversing the climb, facing even
more dangers in the descent than in the ascent if only because, going down, one
was always a bit careless compared to facing the unknown ascent. To go down and
say what? That there were twenty-five huge carved heads of five sleeping men and
women in a crater, and below them a huge net through which blew warm air? Would
he even be believed? Would he believe this sight if he weren’t now seeing it,
and would he believe an account of it if teller and listener were reversed?
Now what?
He needed something tangible to take from this place. He needed more than just
this bizarre vision.
He needed to go down there.
But could he? Was there any place here to fasten a rope securely? Was his rope
long enough and strong enough to bear him down and back out again?
He walked carefully around the crater until he spied something sticking out of
the ground perhaps a meter and a half from the rim. He went to it and then
stopped.
It was a metal stake. A piton, driven expertly into the rock and still
containing the rotting remains of the rope knot, although not the rope itself.
He was not the first to make it up here, that was clear, and he was not the
first to consider the descent into that place.
The piton had not been traded from one of the metal-working nations: Although
rusted, it was too smooth, too regular, too exact, and too strong. This was a
thing of machines, of Council origin or higher. The rope, too, seemed strange
and far too thick and complex to be handmade.
He flattened himself, crawled along the line to the edge, and looked down
between the old man’s face and the face of the woman with the strange-looking
eyes. What had happened? Had the rope rubbed against the crater rim and worn
through? He thought again of the indistinct litter on the mesh floor below and
sighed.
Rope. Rope remains—and human remains as well. Skeletal remains. All the others
who had made it this far were still here.
This place, then, was some sort of trap. No, traps had been set, but this was
far too elaborate to be established simply as a trap. These faces, then,
represented the spirits set to guard whatever was down there. What powerful
thing could be down there that would make people take such a risk?
He peered down, straining to see. Nothing on the grating, certainly; either the
object of his search was below that grate, or there was some way in—a door or
something. He saw what looked like a fresco, a design built into the wall at
about a meter and a half above the grating. He made his way carefully around the
rim, but there was only this one thing on the walls, nothing more. Otherwise,
the pit was plain and featureless.
The faces were not to be trusted. Their features could hide almost anything; the
eyes might open to reveal ports for weapons. However, the one who’d been able to
use the piton had also thought of this and have descended quite clearly between
two faces. Something had still cut the rope and dropped him to the grate below.
The pit represented power—but the pit was also death. He was smart enough to
know that going down in ignorance was no test of honor or courage, just
stupidity. He backed off, then lay there and relaxed for a while and checked his
provisions. There was little left, despite his careful rationing. It had taken
five careful days to get this far, but it might well take two equally careful
days to get back down.
He knew, though, that he would not tempt the pit. Perhaps others, someday,
hearing of it, would explain it to him or give him its mysterious key, but he
did not have it. To descend to the grate was death, either quick from falling or
slow by being trapped down there with only corpses and statue faces for company.
He settled back and decided to get some sleep before attempting any real move
back down to his own domains below. He was quite tired, and the warmth of the
air beguiled him into rest, but he did not sleep easily. He dreamed, and the
dream was a terrible one.
He was standing in the pit, looking up at the far-off opening above. The faces
were there, but they were no longer dead faces but living things, eyes opened,
looking down at him with mixed amusement and contempt.
He tried to look away and found himself deep in skeletons. He backed off in
horror but found his feet tangled in ropes—his own and those of the dead—and
fell with a crash onto the grate, coming face to face with grinning skulls.
Skeletal hands on skeletal arms seemed to reach out for him. He yelled and
somehow pushed them away, then got up against a side wall.
He looked across and saw the inlaid panel clearly now. The same five designs as
were on the floor, but clear, with strange symbols that looked very much like
the cave and rock drawings done by some of his own people. Inside each circle
there seemed to be a small black square, as if a single tile had been removed.
The faces above now seemed to whisper to him with such force that they stirred
up a great wind. They were not speaking his language, yet he somehow understood
what they were saying.
The rings… The rings… The five gold rings, they whispered to him. Do you
have the rings?
What rings are these? he heard himself shouting. I know of no rings!
He doesn’t have the rings, one of the male figures whispered, and the other
male faces took it up. No rings. No rings. He comes without the rings.
No fruit, no birds, no rings, the female faces chimed in.
Then why do you come? the male faces asked him.
I come only to see what is here, to know why this mountain exists on my
people’s sacred land! 1 wish nothing else!
There was a collective sigh from the faces. We’re sorry, they all responded,
their voices echoing eerily around the pit. We’re so very sorry. But, you see,
reconnaissance is not allowed.
And then the skeletons, those remains of the ones who have come before, stirred,
and they seemed to come together and reach out for him, to make him one of
them…
He awoke with a start, feeling the chilled sweat caused by the dream. The wind
was up, and it seemed to be getting colder. The queer cloud cap above whirled at
impossible speed, and the one below seemed to match it. He got hurriedly to his
feet, not really thinking of anything but getting out of this place, getting
away. It was neither cowardice nor a loss of honor to leave; this was beyond his
power, an evil place of magic that would take far more than a warrior to combat.
There was no honor in suicide, and that was what it was to remain here.
Although it was growing late in the day and the region below was bound to be
bitterly cold, he did not hesitate to make his way down as far as he could. He
quickly reached the swirling mass of clouds below and entered them, and was
immediately engulfed in a maelstrom.
The winds were so powerful and so loud that they masked his scream as they blew
him off the mountainside, hurling his body hundreds of meters straight down to
the nearest rocks below.