The air became somewhat warmer. Here the water still had heat to give up after its long wandering through the arctic regions and its passage through the polar sea.
The ledge was safely traversed: They went on another plateau and came to where, as Joe had said, they would be near the sea. He walked painfully to the edge of the mountain and pointed his lantern beam down on still another ledge.
It began about six feet below the edge of the cliff, was about two feet wide, and continued downward with the same breadth until it was lost in the thin clouds. It sloped at a 45-degree angle to the horizon or would have if there had been one.
“We’ll have to abandon some stuff and make our packs smaller,” Burton said. “Ther£ isn’t enough room for them otherwise.”
“Yeah, I know. Vhat vorrieth me ith that the Ethicalth might’ve cut the ledge in half, Jethuth, Dick! Vhat if they found the cave down there?”
“Then we’ll have to trust to the inflatable kayak you’re carrying to get two of us to the tower. I’ve mentioned that before.”
“Yeah, I know. But that ain’t going to keep me from talking about it. It helpth relieve my tenthyon.”
The sun never came above the top of the circling mountains. Despite this, there was a twilight illumination.
“I fell off the ledge before I got too far,” Joe said. “Tho I don’t know how far the path—thome path!—goeth. It may take a whole day, maybe more, to get to the bottom.”
“Tom Mix said that Paheri, the Egyptian, told him that they had to stop once and eat before they got to the bottom,” Burton said. “That doesn’t mean much, though. The journey was fatiguing, and so they’d get hungry sooner than they usually would.”
They found a shallow cave. Joe, with the help of the others, rolled a big boulder to partially block the entrance and keep the wind out. They retreated to it to eat their meal. Two lamps kept the hollow bright, but they weren’t enough to cheer them. What they needed was a fire, the ancient shifting brightness and crackling warmth which had cheered their Old Stone Age ancestors and every generation since.
Tai-Peng was the only one in high spirits. He told them stories of his antics and those of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cups, the companions of his old age, and cracked many a Chinese joke. Though the latter couldn’t adequately be translated through Esperanto, they were good enough to cause some, and especially Joe Miller, to shout with laughter and pound their thighs. Then Tai-Peng composed some on-the-spot poems and concluded by brandishing his sword at the tower somewhere ahead of them.
“Soon we will be in the fortress of the Big Grail! Let those who’ve meddled with our lives beware! We will conquer them though they be demons! Old Kung Fu Tze warned us that humans must not concern themselves with spirits, but I was never one to pay attention to that old man! I listen to no man! I follow my own spirit! I am Tai-Peng, and I know no superior!”
He howled, “Watch out, you things that hide and skulk and refuse to face us! Watch out! Tai-Peng comes! Burton comes! Joe Miller comes!”
And so on.
“Ve thyould fathe him our vay,” Joe whispered to Burton. “Ve thyure could uthe all that hot air.”
Burton was watching Gilgamesh and Ah Qaaq. They reacted just like the others, laughing and clapping Tai-Peng on. But that could be just good acting by one or both. He was worried. When they got to the cave—if they did—he would have to do something about them. Even if they were innocent, he would have to try to determine if one of them, or both, was X. Either of them could be Loga. Either of them could be Thanabur.
How could he do it?
And what—if anything—was one, or both, plotting?
He ran a scenario through his mind. When they started down the trail, he’d arrange it so that Joe Miller would be in the lead. He’d be second. Ah Qaaq and Gilgamesh would be in the rear. He didn’t want them to be the first to get to the cave— if it was still there and not plugged up.