and hurt like hell; that was bad.
For a few moments I considered taking the fast way down, dropping eighteen feet and taking my chances on a good break-roll. I thought better of it. Garth was right; the circus had been a long time ago, and there was a definite risk that I'd break more than I'd roll. Hanging first from one hand, then the other, I grabbed the hem of my spacious robe, used the material to cushion my palms. That took care of the pain and bleeding problems, but it made my grip on the edge considerably more tentative. The act was going to have to be speeded up.
Overhanging eaves prevented me from climbing up on the roof, which left me a choice of going to my left or right. I went right, swinging and sliding in the direction of another building which looked to have been built very close to the shed.
The muscles in my hands, arms, and shoulders were burning by the time I'd covered the twenty or so yards, but the trip had been worth it; in the narrow alleyway between the two buildings, the walls were no more than three feet apart. I went around the corner, crossed one hand over the other and flipped around so that I was hanging with my back against the corrugated steel wall of the cheese-processing shed.
I'd already lost one sandal; now I kicked off the other, stretched out my leg and planted one foot against the wall of the opposite building. Pressing hard with my shoulders against the shed wall, I firmly planted my other foot, then released my grip. With my body braced between the two walls, I easily 'walked' down the narrow shaft to the ground.
22
The door to Reverend Ezra's office was open, and there was nobody home. The first thing I did after closing the door behind me was to hop up on a windowsill, huddle in my robe, and plant my thoroughly frozen feet directly on the metal shield of a radiator. I'd grown seriously concerned about frostbite, but after about five minutes sensation returned to the toes. I rewarded myself for good behavior by letting my feet toast for another minute or so, then got down and began to search the office.
There was nothing in the Reverend's desk drawer but two well-worn Bibles, dozens of bizarre religious tracts which looked like they'd been run off on a mimeograph machine, and two sticks of Juicy Fruit gum. It was all very depressing; there were no letters, no letterheads, and no address book. So far, all Garth and I had managed to accomplish by infiltrating the commune was to get caught; even if we escaped now, our enemies had been alerted to the fact that we were alive. There were going to be a lot of men in brown uniforms with bony hands scouring this part of the country, hunting for us. We desperately needed to mount some kind of an attack, and to do that we needed an address.
It didn't help my mood to find a toilet behind the door under Siegmund Loge's portrait. I tried the door under Jesus, and barely suppressed a whoop of delight. It looked like the Big Bingo-a room used for the temporary storage of 'offerings' brought for Father by new commune members. In the center of the room was a table apparently used for sorting and repacking; on it were a number of battered boxes and bags, and a variety of articles. There was a built-in shelf running along one wall; packing boxes, strapping tape, and a postal scale. Above the scale, taped to the wall, was a large card with neat, block-printed letters.
RAMDOR
RFD RTE. 113
CENTRALIA PA
Somewhere, I'd heard or read something strange about Centralia, Pennsylvania, but I couldn't recall what it was. I didn't care; having the address was all that mattered, and I was doubly pleased to find our clothes piled on the shelf, next to the postal scale. I discarded my robe, quickly dressed, then walked across the room, went up on my toes and looked out the window.
Parked behind the building were our car and the Willys.
I allowed myself the luxury of humming a few bars of the Hallelujah Chorus.
All that remained was to spring Garth, and to do that I needed a claw hammer or a crowbar.
Fat chance.
I might have been able to find something in one of the cars, but, having come this far, I was unwilling to risk recapture by being in the open any longer than I had to be. Instead, I began to rummage through the items on the table, looking for anything that might be used to pry loose the boards that had been nailed across the door to the cheese-processing shed.
Under a pile of Styrofoam blocks used for packing, I found a long, heavy case covered with fine-grain, beautifully tooled cordovan leather. I snapped open the case, found a huge knife in a leather-and-chrome scabbard inside. I lifted the knife out of the case, pulled it from its scabbard.
Shhh.
Whisper.
The Anvil Ring had delivered themselves of a beautiful piece of work, all right. The blade itself, almost half the size of a broadsword, was in the shape of a Bowie model. The color of the steel was an odd, very pale gray and, when viewed from a certain angle, displayed a rippling pattern of parallel lines; at first I thought the lines had been engraved into the steel, but when I ran my finger across the flat face of the blade I found that they were a part of the metal itself.
The handle was extremely heavy-black stone, probably onyx or obsidian, reinforced with steel bands, decorated at both ends with rings of diamond chips.
It was a hell of a thing to have to use for prying boards loose-Damascus steel or no, I wondered how much pressure the blade could take. However, it was the only thing on the table or in the room that looked even remotely useful, and so it was going to have to do. I slipped the knife back into its scabbard, slipped myself back out into the night after picking up Garth's clothes.
'Hey,' I said, rapping lightly on the door with my knuckles. 'Did you wait there like I told you?'
'Mongo?' Garth's anxious whisper was clearly audible; he'd been waiting by the door.
'You guessed.'
'Did you get an address?'
'Sure did. I wish I could tell you it was in Florida, but it's not. We're going to Centralia, Pennsylvania. It looks like one of the Loges-maybe both of them-is holed up there.'
Shhh.
'What's that?'
'Something I snitched from the collection plate.'
'What?'
'Never mind; you'll see for yourself. Give me a chance to work on these boards.'
There were two heavy planks nailed in a crisscross pattern over the door, anchored to a doorframe of paired two-by-fours. The wood was heavy and gnarled, and looked as if it would present a respectable workout for a chainsaw. I still intended to use the knife to pry the boards loose, but-out of curiosity, and as a kind of test of the blade I undoubtedly was about to snap-I took a casual whack at the edge of one of the planks.
Whisper didn't so much bite into the wood as kiss and seduce it; although I'd virtually done little more than let the blade fall of its own weight, the razor edge slid more than an inch through the wood. The resulting
Whisper was a supremely self-confident knife, and to prove her prowess she effortlessly lifted out a sizable triangular plug of knotted wood when I raised her and-applying only slightly more force-slashed into the plank at an angle to the first cut.
Removing my parka and draping it over my head and shoulders to muffle noise, I squatted down on the frozen ground and began-with growing excitement and not a little reverential awe-whacking away at the planks. In less than ten minutes I'd whittled through both of them, and hadn't even worked up a sweat. I sheathed Whisper, stuck the scabbard into my belt, pulled open the door. A shivering but much relieved-looking Garth stood grinning in a box of moonlight.
