Rokhaset seemed pleased that I"d picked up on the last part. "Exactly right, Clint. I see you have finally penetrated the significance of your original ancestor"s find."
"In a cave, water flowing represents life to you just like to us. So you keep your diamonds and other stones in those pools so they stay a part ofNowe "s essence, right?"
"Very good. Yes, precisely so."
I noticed Rokhaset was staying carefully in the deepest shadows under the tree, and remembered his prior comments. "Hey, you said your eyes might suffer in the sun. I could get you something that probably will help."
"Indeed?"
"Yeah. I"ve done some work with multispectral optics, off and on, and you mentioned your eyes get messed up slowly. I"ll bet the crystals are being affected by the ultraviolet rays, which you"ll never run into underground." I handed him a pair of UV-blocker sungla.s.ses.
He put them on and glanced around with his odd sight. "Extraordinary. There is minor interference from these gla.s.ses in how well Ituran , but I can tell that the faint pain from the light here is considerably lessened."
"I wasn"t sure if the plastic would interfere with your own senses, but the fact that it blocked UV made it worth a try. UV"s generally the culprit in most damage sunlight does."
"I believe you are correct in this case. Thank you." Rokhaset glanced into the pit. "I do not suppose you have a few dozen pairs of these?"
I chuckled ruefully. "Nope, and can"t get any until we get to town."
"Then let us arrange that as swiftly as possible."
The next few hours pa.s.sed quickly. Rokhaset drove his people and their seradatho twice as hard, pausing only to listen when we clarified how the terrain would have to run in order to permit the cars to pa.s.s. Before our eyes, the landscape healed; it was the only way to describe that incredible sight. Stone and soil literally growing up out of the bowels of the Earth, a foundation of limestone covered by soil, and trees and brush somehow moving in over the scar through careful manipulation of the soil and roots.
Finally, the hillside was solid again. "Now, Clinton Slade, it is time for you to fulfill your part of this bargain."
"I"m on it. C"mon, Jodi, we"ve got a withdrawal to do up to the bank, and darn little time to do it in.
We"ve gotta get to town in less than an hour or the bank will close!"
We dashed to the truck and got in. "Strap in tight, Jodi-y"all"s in for a h.e.l.l of a ride!"
Fountaining gravel, we pulled out of the gateway and thundered downhill, plowing over the newly-laid earth and leaving its first set of tire tracks. The new road around the first gash slowed me down some, being as it had to make a sharp curve, but I opened her up again and had all four wheels off the ground at the first drop on the straightaway. We jolted against the harnesses and even with the heavy shocks she nearly bottomed out. "Oy, Clint, slow down! We can"t make any withdrawals if we"re dead!"
"Ain"t no slowin" down, sweetheart. If"n you remember when we drove through last time, takes all of an hour and ten minutes to get to town. And we can"t take that long nohow."
"Your accent"s getting worse, Clint."
"Yeah, I know. It"s "cause o" th"truck," I said stoutly. "A pickup jest naturally brings out th" inner hillbilly in a man."
Pavement, albeit pretty c.r.a.ppy, was now under the wheels and I opened her up as much as I dared.
There"s places where you can make over 70, and others where even a nutcase wouldn"t go past 30 on those roads, unless he was stone drunk. I drove like a stone-drunk nutcase and Jodi just hung on to the doorframe and said nasty words in Yiddish.
We came screaming down the main street with me riding the brake to get down below the limit as we pa.s.sed the town line; I think Sheriff McCloskey almost lit off his lights before he saw it was me. I skidded us into a spot in the parking lot and jumped out for the doors, just as I heard the soft but final click of the bank door being locked for the day.
"Son of a-" I couldn"t quite stop in time to keep from whomping the doors. Arlene Ebsen, the manager, gave me a stern look, but turned around. "Clinton Jefferson Slade, I"ve known you since you were in diapers, and I know your mamma raised you better"n that!"
"Sorry, Miss Arlene, really sorry, but I"ve just gotta get into the deposit vault. Please!"
She pursed her lips. "Clint, you know we like the Slades as our customers, but I can"t just go openin"
and closin" at someone else"s convenience."
"Please, Miss Arlene, I"m beggin" you. I"m right here on my knees, I mean it." And I was. We just couldn"t miss it by this much, we just couldn"t!
She rolled her eyes. "Well, Lord, if it"sthat all-fired important . . . just this once. But don"t try this again!"
The sound of the door unlocking was like the whole weight of my truck lifting off my back. "Hurry up, y"hear?" Arlene said. "That there vault"s on a time lock. Locks itself down in half an hour after closing, less"n someone"s in it, but if someone is in it, it screams fit to wake the dead."
"Don"t you worry!" I said, racing ahead of her, key already out. "Be gone so fast you"ll think I wasn"t even here."
Jodi waited back by the doors. After Arlene took my key, matched it with hers and opened the safety deposit box, she marched out of the vault heading for the phone. She was probably going to call Father to make sure there wasn"t some reason I might be trying to make off with the family treasures in secret. It didn"t take me long to get out the diamonds, since they weren"t loose but stashed in three little bags. I slammed the box shut again, locked it hastily, and hurried out of the vault towards the outside door.
Pa.s.sing Arlene, who was just hanging up with a slightly bemused expression, I said: "Thanks a million, Miss Arlene!"
I took a bit more time on the drive back. It"d be awfully stupid to get us both killed now that we actually had the diamonds Rokhaset needed and weren"t racing against a specific deadline. But it wasn"t easy, because my foot kept wanting to hammer the gas, and from her expression I think Jodi felt the same way.
We were going to be in good time overall, but still, it felt like every second counted. It was getting dark by the time we made it back to the homestead. I parked the truck and jogged to the front door.
I then faced what might have been the oddest sight I"d ever seen in my life: Rokhaset was sitting at Mamma"s big table, everyone else eating her cooking and him with slices of some kind of stone on his plate, as though he was no stranger a dinner guest than some new neighbor. Strange, yeah, but I felt a huge swell of pride in my family. Okay, so we Slades had been barbarians to these people, but d.a.m.ned if you could call us barbarians now. I wouldn"t bet that one in a thousand families could have a Nome at the table and treat it-him-like proper company.
Rokhaset stood as we entered. "TheH"adamant -do you have it?"
"Right here. Hope it"s still alive, like you call it."
As I put the bags in his hand, he nodded. "I can hear it. Weakened slightly by time away from the heart ofNowe , but still there." He fumbled with the bags a bit, examining what was inside; he didn"t need to open them. I wasn"t an expert in Nome body language, but it seemed to me he slumped a bit.
"My thanks to you for a valiant effort, Clinton Slade," he said finally. "But it is as I feared. There is not enough here-not nearly enough-to provide us with a force to overcome what theLisharithada will have to defend them. We shall do our best, of course; it is our calling and destiny. But we shall never triumph."
I stared at Rokhaset. "No. We can"t let it end like that."
"Of course we can"t, Clint dear. And we won"t," Mamma said tartly. "Mr. Rokhaset, we"ve come invisibly into your homes and taken your diamonds; it"s about time we made it up to you. How do you think a few Slades might change the odds, down there in your little war?"
The High Spirit turned around to face her. "You would fight for us?"
"Well, it"s for my family too, isn"t it? And it"s our fault, as Jodi showed us. Now, I only married into the Slades, but what I was taught was that a Slade admits when he"s wrong and fixes it until it"s right."
"And that"s the G.o.d"s honest truth," Grandpa said forcefully. "d.a.m.n this b.u.m leg! I"d come if I could, but I"d slow y"all down."
"Only a few," Father said. "Not like Nomes; can"t live without light, need lots of spares."
"I"m going," I said.
"And so am I." At the reaction of the others, Jodi snorted. "What? You think I"m not tough enough? I"ve lived in New York for years, that"s more than tough enough to take care of someshlemiels who think they can just start an earthquake whenever they want to. I"m tough enough to keep Clint here in line. You just try me."
Debate in this argument wasn"t going to last long. We knew we had to field a pretty strong team, but a lot of the family had to stay behind, both because of the limits on equipment and because if we failed, the rest of the family had to stay behind to get everything out of the house and save as much of the homestead as possible when the Big One hit. So it was me, Jodi, Father, and Adam.
Rokhaset nodded slowly. "It may work. Never in all these centuries have your people helped us, and with your ability to use theH"kuraden as both weapon and cloak . . . yes, it could be enough. I-"
He froze suddenly. I was puzzled for a moment, then realized that he must be getting news through the same kind of link he had with themakatdireskovi . A few moments later, he looked back at us, and I could tell just by the way he stood that it wasn"t good news.
"It appears that theLisharithada want to make sure we are not able to interfere." Rokhaset sat down slowly. "They have deliberately sealed offNowemosdet between our area and theirs. While we can, especially with the power ofH"adamant , pa.s.s through, they will doubtless have forces waiting there to slow and hara.s.s us. There is no way that aTennathada could possibly reach them."
The room that had been optimistic a moment ago now seemed utterly sunk in gloom. After a few moments in silence, Rokhaset forced himself to his feet. "I must take theH"adamant to my people. It may not suffice, but I must at least make the attempt, and none of my people can come here to fetch it. It requires quite extraordinary efforts by myself and themakatdireskovi to maintain my communication at all. Others of my people would be crippled in the attempt. Farewell, Clinton Slade, Jodi Goldman, and all of your kin."
Something was nagging at me as he left, but it refused to gel. The door closed.
Grandpa slammed a hand on the table so hard it upset three gla.s.ses. "d.a.m.nation! So close!"
Mamma sighed. "I suppose we shall have to prepare for the worst now. If only there was another way."
Suddenly it clicked.Another way! I raced out the door. "Rokhaset! Wait!"
He turned, a dark shadow with faintly glowing eyes. "What is it, Clint?"
"Listen, some people have had a theory for a while now that most if not all of the caverns in this state, maybe farther, are connected somehow. Would you know if that"s true?"
He nodded. "It is true, Clinton Slade, though finding the connections could be difficult for your people, and not all connections are direct. Why?"
"Then we come at them from a different direction, if you can tell us the right route to take! Mammoth Caves, Rokhaset-if there"s a route through there, we can hit "em from behind!"
He stood very still for a moment. "It is possible. Barely possible, Clinton Slade, for the route shall be long even if I can find such a route that you can pa.s.s, but . . . it is worth a try. Get out all the information you have on these "Mammoth Caves" while I deliver theH"adamant . I shall return and we will see if, perhaps, there is one last chance for us all."
10. Paging Arne Saknussemm . . .
"Ireally don"t know about this," I found myself saying for the twentieth time.
Rokhaset waved a hand at me to be quiet, so I shut off the transducer that bounced my voice into his range and turned to Jodi. "I meant Mammoth Caves as an example, I guess. I mean, look how far away it is. You know how long it takes to get through anything except a tourist section of a cave-a lot of the time you wouldn"t measure things as miles per hour, but more like hours per mile. Or hours per hundred yards, in really hairy terrain."
Jodi nodded. "But Rokhaset has some idea of what we"re able to handle, I"m sure. He"s notnarish .
Maybe he knows something we don"t and that"s why he asked for more maps."
"Maybe. But I think I"d best make sure." I got up and went over to where the High Spirit was standing, seeming to look into thin air, and turned the transducer back on. "Rokhaset-"
"A few more moments, Clinton Slade, and then I will answer your questions."
Rokhaset was actually looking at our maps, which hadn"t been easy to arrange. Once more, the fact that themakatdireskovi allowed us to talk as though we both actually understood each other"s language had tripped us up. We"d gathered all the info we had on Mammoth and other, more nearby, caves, only to realize-the next day, when he arrived-that Rokhaset could neither see the pictures and diagrams nor read the words on paper. It had taken a couple hours of panicked discussion, and then a few more of hours of jury-rigging by Jodi, to arrive at a solution. But with the help of an old video camera and some low-power broadcast kit-bashing, Jodi had made it possible for Rokhaset to receive images of the books and maps in the same way they had been intercepting transmissions all along. Another hour had been required to help Rokhaset interpret the diagrams in a way a.n.a.logous to our own so that he could then try to coordinate what he was seeing with what his people knew about the underground world. Now the High Spirit was trying to put together what he knew with what we knew and see if there was, indeed, any chance of us reaching theLisharithada "s domain in time via another route.
A few moments later he turned. "I believe it can be done."
"Are you sure?" I asked. "No offense, sir, but you gotta remember that we"re surface people, and makin"
our way through underground pa.s.sages takes time. h.e.l.l, that"s something like a hundred miles from here.
Even topside I"m not sure we could cover that distance on foot, an" that"s straight-line distance, which ain"t what you"re dealin" with underground."
He made a weird sound I interpreted as laughter. "True and more than true, Clinton Slade; and yet it can be done, I think, though it shall be far from easy." He turned to Jodi, who was testing connections on her latest improvisation. "Are you ready, Jodi Goldman?"
"Try it, Rokhaset. If you can duplicate the transmission pattern, we should be set."
Given the manner in which Rokhaset and themakatdireskovi communicated, and the fact that the makatdireskovi received and interpreted TV and radio broadcasts, Jodi had wondered if it could, through Rokhaset, replicate the transmission in the other direction. After some consulting with the semisentient geobiomystical device and his advisors, Rokhaset had announced that it should in fact be possible; if so, he would have an ideal way of communicating the chosen route to us.
For a moment, the TV in the room just showed wavering patterns of static. Then, so suddenly we jumped, a test pattern and sound appeared, just like on any standard broadcast station. Except, of course, this was on one of the channels that shouldn"t show anything but dead air.
I swore I could almost see Rokhaset grin. "Ah, so it works. Excellent. Then I can show you and you can record this into your portable computers."
We hooked our laptops up through the RF modulator and checked to make sure the signal was being recorded. "Let "er rip, Rokhaset."
A map of Kentucky appeared, with purple highlighting the Slade homestead and bright green marking Mammoth Caves. The highlighting was shaped like an octagon instead of a circle, the way we usually do it, but aside from that and Rokhaset"s apparent preference for using our colors in painful ways, it looked just like one we would produce.
A bright red dot came into view, looking to be somewhere in Muhlenberg County. "TheLisharithada are based here, very nearly halfway between the great cavern complex you call Mammoth Caves and our own homes. You must disrupt their operations here in order to prevent the ritual from being carried out.
"Now, I fully realize the distances involved, and if you indeed had to travel in the normal fashion through ordinary caverns, there would be no way for this to work. However, one of the reasons both we and the Lisharithada have remained in this area for so many ages is simply that more remnants of the Old Ways have survived here than in nearly any other part of the world. One of these remnants is a portion of Nowemosdet ."
I remembered the word from earlier, but I"d presumed it was just a term for cavern. "What"s that?"
"You might call it "Nowe"s Road," I suppose. In the old days there were many interconnected tunnels, like cities, and pa.s.sage between them was made easier by a sort of network of ca.n.a.ls invested with Nowe "s power-theNowemosdet . Two long segments of it still exist in this area. One connects our area with that of theLisharithada , and this is of course what they have closed off to make it difficult to traverse. The other section was traditionally used only by theLisharithada as it goes in the other direction. It is ironic, in a way."
Jodi and I looked at each other. "What do you mean?"
"One could say that it is theNowemosdet that is responsible for our current emergency. You will recall that I did not question you as to what "Mammoth Cave" was; this is because I am all too familiar with that system of caverns, at least in general. While theLisharithada are, as I have described, now very hostile towards your people, the thing that finally pushed them into action is that your people"s exploration of the great cave system is fast approaching the point where you might discoverNowemosdet , which would be potentially disastrous even though you could not normally use it as we would. No matter how natural looking, your people would become curious about a straight-line cavern so long and even in design, and would quickly arrive at theLisharithada "s domain. Thus, despite the fact that parts of what you call Mammoth Cave are of historic significance to us, theLisharithada have determined that they will destroy it all to prevent your continued intrusions."
"And just incidentally kill thousands-maybe tens or hundreds of thousands-of us along with it. Nice people."
Rokhaset gave a humming sound that carried the same force and tone as a sigh. "Once they were. In some ways, they are still very much like us. But withoutNowe "s guidance . . . No matter." The image zoomed in, showing the network of caverns that made up the longest, if not the deepest, cave system known to man, a duplicate of one of the maps we"d shown him. Suddenly, an entirely new network of caverns spread across the map, filling in areas never explored by humans, extending across most of the state and beyond into every area that had stone to support caves-and some, near as I could tell, into areas that normally shouldn"t have caves at all.
Rokhaset didn"t need to tell us whereNowe "s Road was. Even without his highlighting it was sharply obvious, a geometrically perfect line running from near the intersection of Flint and Mammoth"s networks directly to the west-northwest almost half the distance to the homestead. It terminated in another tangle of caverns, and then started again on the other side to end somewhere below our feet.
"As you can see," Rokhaset said, "if you can reachNowemosdet , you will be able to proceed straight to the realm of theLisharithada . Taking into account your size and what I have been able to deduce of your abilities, I here trace the path you must take to reach the Road ofNowe ."
We watched as the route started at the Historic Entrance, following the route for the now-defunct Echo River tour through the Rotunda and the Historic Tour route to River Hall before diverting to pick up the River Styx and the Echo River. Then it suddenly jagged off towards the connection to Flint Ridge, which was near the middle of Cascade Hall.
"Wait up there," Jodi said. "Looks like the connection that leads to the Road is more over to the Flint side, Rokhaset. Why come in through Mammoth?"
"Two reasons, Jodi Goldman. Firstly, if I am not mistaken, Mammoth is more open and will permit you to make better time in all likelihood, even if you must approach over a somewhat longer route. Secondly, the approach from the Mammoth direction will make it easier for you to reach the tunnel here, which is unexplored by your people and eventually leads you toNowemosdet . This tunnel will be found at the very top of the chamber. While maps such as this are terribly inadequate for showing elevation, on the Flint side you would be ascending quite steeply before you even reach the level of this known pa.s.sage.
And then you would have a further difficult climb to reach the critical tunnel."
"Whee. Abandoning the tour in mid-stride. That"ll liven up the tour, sure "nuff."
"Get ourselves banned from the cave too. Oh, well, not much we can do about that,nu ? Just remember to have everything packed and move fast. It"d be embarra.s.sing to have the whole state devastated because we were too slow and some well-meaning tourists caught us." She studied the map. "Still, I don"t want to be anudje , but that stretch ofNowemosdet is like to be forty miles long. And filled with water.