“Yes,” she said.
He had not expected so quick a reply. He’d rehearsed various arguments, how they would remember forever the night and the following day. Haven and their wedding, inextricably linked forever. How, regardless of the way things turned out, the journey home would be difficult and dangerous. (He hadn’t been able to work out why the wedding would make it less difficult or less dangerous, but it would sure as hell make it more endurable.) How there was no need to wait longer. Been through enough. They knew now beyond doubt that they would eventually be mates. That decision having been taken, why delay things indefinitely?
She drew his lips down to hers and folded her body into his. “Yes,” she said again.
Orin Claver was not a believer. Nevertheless, he surprised the Illyrians by showing no reluctance to invoke the Goddess as protector of the hearth.
“We are met on this hilltop,” he began, in the timeless ritual of the ancient ceremony, “to join this man and this woman.” The fire crackled in the background, and a rising wind moved the trees. As there was no one present to give the bride away, Flojian agreed to substitute for the requisite family member.
Claver’s white scarf served as Chaka’s veil. She was otherwise in buckskin. Quait found a neckerchief to add a touch of formality to his own attire.
Illyrian weddings required two witnesses, one each from the earthly and from the divine order. Flojian consequently was drawn to double duty, and stood with the invisible Shanta while his two friends pledged love, mutual faith, and fortune. When they’d finished, they exchanged rings which she had woven from vines and set with stones. Claver challenged any who had reason to object to come forward, “or forever remain silent.”
They glanced around at the dark woods, and Chaka’s eyes shone. “No objection having been raised,” said Claver, “I hereby exercise the authority held by captains from time immemorial and declare you husband and wife. Quait, you may kiss the bride.”
Flojian, sensing that the Goddess was preparing to depart, took advantage of her proximity to ask her to remember her servant Avila.
…A sheer wall rising about two hundred feet out of the water. We could see thick woods at the top…. There was a river on the north side of the bluff, and a pebbled beach….
They looked at their map some more, took bearings on the turn in the channel and the saddle-shaped formation that Knobby had described.
“I’d say that’s it,” said Claver.
They compared it with Ann’s sketch. “He would have been back that way,” suggested Chaka. A quarter-mile or so down the beach.
They stood on wet sand off to one side of the formation. “There’s the discolored rock,” Quait said, drawing a horizontal line in the air with his index finger. “The door.”
They all saw it. Flojian noted the position of a notched boulder on the summit. Chaka produced Silas’s journal and made the appropriate notation: SUSPECTED ENTRANCE FOUND. She dated and initialed it. When she’d finished, they hiked around behind the bluff and started upslope.
By early afternoon they’d arrived at the top. They laid out their gear under a spruce tree and peered over the edge. It was a long way down. The cliff face looked gray and hard and very smooth, save for occasional shrubs. Far below, whitecaps washed over rocks. Flojian looked for his notched boulder, walked a few paces along the summit, and stopped. “Right about here,” he said.
Gulls fluttered on air currents and skimmed the outgoing tide.
Quait nodded. “Til go down.” He was already reaching for a line.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Claver.
“Why not?”
He glanced at his own eighty-seven-year-old body, at the diminutive Flojian, at Chaka. “I know I’m in good shape for my age,” he said, “but I’m still not sure the three of us could haul you back up here if you got in trouble. Seems to me as if the muscle in this operation should be on top and not on bottom.”
There was no arguing the logic. “Who then?”
“Me,” said Chaka.
“No,” said Quait.
Claver nodded. “It makes sense. She’s forty pounds lighter than anybody else.”
Chaka looped a rope around her shoulders. “It’s not a problem,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” said Quait.
But Chaka never paused. “I’m a full member of this mission,” she said. “I’ve taken my chances along with everybody else.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” She tightened the rope and stretched her shoulders.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Quait asked.
“Tree house.” And, when his expression did not lighten, “I’ll be fine, Quait.”
“We should have thought to bring a harness,” said Claver.
They secured the rope ladder to a cottonwood and dropped it over the side. Then they looped Chaka’s safety line around the same tree, left sixty feet of slack, and anchored it to an elm.
“Be careful,” said Quait. “If you need more line, pull once. You want to get hauled out of there, pull twice.”
“Okay, lover,” she said. “I got it. And I’m ready.”
“If the place is really here,” said Flojian, “I can’t believe there’s not another entrance.”
Claver shook his head. “There’d be a lot of ground to search. Let’s use the way we know. Once inside, we can see what else is available.”
Chaka put on a pair of gloves, stuffed a bar into her belt, and walked to the edge.
“Luck,” said Flojian.
She flashed a smile, straddled the ladder, and began to back down over the cliff edge. Quait paid out the safety line.
The ladder’s rungs were wooden. But it was hard to get her feet onto them until the rock wall curved away somewhat. She kept her eyes on Quait as long as she could. She did not look down, but she felt the presence of the void. There seemed to be a damned lot of business with heights on this trip.
But it was surprisingly easy going once she got below the summit.
“Are you okay?” Flojian’s voice drifted down.
She assured him she was and continued the descent. Every few steps they’d ask again and as she got farther away it became more distracting until finally she called up that she’d yell if she needed anything and please otherwise keep quiet.
Once she ran out of slack and had to signal. The rock was rougher than it had looked from above. Vegetation was sharp and prickly. At one point it snagged the ladder and she had to hang by one hand while she worked it free.
Streams of pebbles dribbled past. Vertical fissures appeared. From a dark hole, a pair of eyes watched her.
A sudden burst of wind hit her and she swung gently back and forth, clinging to the ladder. Below her, right where it was supposed to be, she saw the discolored rock. It looked exactly like a set of doors. “A little more,” she called up. “I think we’ve got it.”
There were actually four doors set in the face of the cliff. This was where Showron Voyager’s bullet-shaped vehicle had delivered its passengers. So there had been a terminal here once. Several pieces of iron remained, supports outside, beams inside. And a bench. One of the doors was wedged open. She had some difficulty gaining purchase because the ladder was hanging a couple of feet out, as a result of the overhead bulge. But she swung herself close, grabbed a wiry bush, and tried to get inside.
The scariest part of the entire operation came when she tried to climb off the ladder and get through the doorway. There wasn’t enough slack and they didn’t seem to understand up there that if they kept the safety line tight she couldn’t move. Moreover, she had to hang on to the bush to keep the ladder close until she was safely through the open door. When it was over she wasted no time releasing the safety line. She congratulated herself and called up that she was okay. The high-roofed corridor Knobby had described lay beyond. But it was too dark to see more than a few yards.
