Eternity Road (30 page)

“After they were all inside I waved a green flag at the boat, which told the captain they’d been successful. A little while later the tide turned and started running out. I went back to the
Mindar
. One of the guys we’d just hired on climbed down as soon as I was out of the dinghy and took it back in. His name was Leap, and I don’t remember whether that was a first or last name. Leap was big, grinned a lot, and always had a kind of silly look on his face. He also scared easy.

“Leap was on the beach for six or seven hours and there wasn’t any sign of anybody coming back out of the door in the cliff. So he went up to the summit and called down and didn’t get an answer. He got nervous. Leap was one of those people who never went near Roadmaker ruins, which I think is a smart idea. Especially now. We didn’t have a pre-set signal arranged that covered the situation, so he came back to the beach and waved his arms until the captain signaled for him to return to the
Mindar
. He explained that nobody was answering from inside, that maybe they couldn’t hear him, but that he thought maybe something had happened.

“The captain and me and one of the other hands got some lamps and got in the dinghy and we took Leap and rowed back in to shore. There was still no sign of anyone. We went into the woods and walked around to the back side and climbed up to the summit. It wasn’t a hard climb but it was time-consuming. Getting up there took the better part of an hour. Of course, the captain wasn’t young even then, so he wasn’t in very good shape and he had some interesting things to say about Endine.

“The woods up there grew right over the summit. We knew that, so we took it easy because you couldn’t see more than a few feet in the shrubbery. But when we got to the edge, we could see where they’d been. And the rope ladder still hung down. It was tied to a tamarack tree. The captain leaned over the face of the cliff and called Endine’s name.

“Nothing.

“He looked at me and looked at the rope ladder and I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t like the height and he didn’t like going into a ruin. But he didn’t have much choice, and he couldn’t very well ask anyone else to climb down until he’d done it. So he grabbed hold of the ladder and pulled on it to make sure it was secure.

“He told me to follow him and was about to start when I remembered how Endine’s people had done it. ‘Wait,’ I said. They’d run a safety line to one of the branches. We tied it around his waist. ‘Don’t take it off till you’re inside,’ I told him. He laughed and started hand over hand down the ladder. Pretty soon he was out of sight.

“A couple minutes later I saw that the safety line was free so I hauled it up and looped it around my belt and went after him. The cliff bulged a little at the top so you had to hang a few feet out from the rock. Down where the door was, they’d secured the ladder with two ringbolts, which made it easy to just step off into the passageway, if you could forget where you were. The captain was waiting for me, but there was no sign of anybody else.”

Chaka ordered more wine. “What did it look like in there?”

“Stone walls. Just like you’d expect inside a mountain. A lot of dust. Plenty of footprints. The passageway was about a hundred feet long. It was wide enough to have put the
Mindar
into it. And it was probably twenty feet high. There was a stairway leading down, folding back on itself every ten feet or so until it disappeared into the dark.

“The passageway was broken up by openings along both walls. The daylight didn’t come much past the door and our lamps didn’t help much. I was about to stick my head into the first opening when the captain pulled me back because there was no floor.

“We looked down and it was just a gaping hole. A shaft.”

“How deep?” asked Chaka.

“Couldn’t see bottom. All the doors on both sides opened into shafts. There was also a cross corridor.

“We called Endine’s name again. Still no answer. Lots of echo but no answer.

“The footprints went down the stairway. None came back up.” Knobby shook his head. “I think if it were up to me, that would have been the end of the search. I’d’ve gone back up the ladder and waited for a while and if they didn’t come, I’d’ve left. Know what I mean? But the captain figured he had an obligation. So he took the lamp and led the way. We started down.

“Every floor looked the same: The shafts opened onto each level, and there was the cross passageway beyond. Karik and his people had gone off several times to inspect the area, but the prints showed us they’d always come back and continued down the stairs. We looked in some of the rooms beyond the shafts. They were just rooms, a lot of different sizes. Filled with junk. Chairs and tables and beds that must have been a thousand years old. Some had baths. But everything was under a layer of dust.

“Every few minutes we’d stop and call their names. But we got no answers and I have to tell you, my skin began to crawl. I mean, how big could the place be that they couldn’t hear us?

“Captain Dolbur said he doubted they were still in there. After all, it had been hours since I’d seen them climb through the door. The place was damp and cold and absolutely silent. ‘They found another exit,’ he said. I mean, this was a place where, without the lamps, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. And it felt closed-in. Nobody was going to stay long.

“Then we heard Endine.

“We didn’t know at first it was him. Just a sing-song whine somewhere below us.

“He was sitting hunched up on a landing, his hands wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth. He was bone white and his eyes looked crazy and his hair was matted with blood. There were books stacked in neat piles. Maybe forty or more. One pile was knocked over.

“The captain tried to talk to him, but it was like we weren’t there. He just kept swaying and making this dying sound in his throat.

“The staircase broke away just below the landing. I looked down into a chamber but saw no one, although there were more books down there, scattered around. They’d strung up a line to climb down. I called out a few names but the only thing that came back was echoes.

“The captain joined me. ‘He got hit in the head’s all,’ he said. ‘Other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with him.’

“He leaned out over the stairwell to look down into the lower chamber, breathed my name, and delivered an expletive. There was a body down there.

“The lower chamber was a pretty good drop, maybe twenty-five feet. There were knots in the line to make climbing easier. I held the lamp while the captain went down, and then I joined him. It was Shay.

“The body was wet. It was crumpled up and had a washed-out look. But there was nothing to indicate what had killed him.”

“No wounds?” asked Chaka.

“A couple of bruises. That’s all.

“The walls were damp. There were even some puddles. I should mention, there were four exits from the chamber. There was a long, high corridor leading off opposite sides at right angles to the passageway with the shafts. And a fourth short passage led to an underground lake.

“The tall corridor was lined with doors and they were all open. Except one. We looked in the rooms. They were all there, everybody, some in one place, some in another.” Knobby sat staring at a point in space somewhere over her shoulder.

“They were all dead?”

“Yes.”

“How? What killed them?”

“I don’t know. They were just like Shay.”

“What did Endine say?”

“Not much of anything. He never made sense, that I heard of. The captain didn’t think he ever really came out of the delirium. We brought him back here and tried to turn him over to the surgery. But we heard he was out and gone the same night we brought him in. Just took off.” Knobby sucked in air and refilled his cup again.

“Did you look in the room that
wasn’t
open?”

“We tried. But the door wouldn’t give. On the other hand, to be honest, we didn’t try hard.” He looked at his wine. “This stuff’s not strong enough. Anyway, I heard rumors later he was seen west of Brockett. But I never heard any more about him. Till now.”

“And you never found out what happened?”

“No. We told the story around. People laughed. Blamed us. Some thought we were trying to hide something. Some even thought we murdered the whole bunch. But it was a
demon
. I mean, how do you kill a half-dozen people without leaving a mark on them?”

“What happened to the bodies?”

“We buried them. We brought the bodies out and buried them.” He looked carefully at her. “With honors,” he added.

“Thank you.”

The waiter came with a fresh carafe and filled both cups. “Could they have been drowned?”

Knobby shook his head. “Hard to see how.”

“You talked about tides. And you said there’s an underground lake.”

“No tide is going to come up so fast that you can’t get away from it.”

Chaka felt a chill edging down her back. Her food lay half finished on her plate. “What about the books?” she asked. “What happened to them? The ones on the landing—?”

“We took them back to the
Mindar
. The captain thought they were probably valuable, so we took everything.”

“Did you happen to notice what they were?”

“I’m not good at reading, Chaka,” he said. “I’m not sure. The captain mentioned some titles.
War and Peace
was one of them. And
Don Somebody-or-Other. Bleak House
. Something called
Commentaries on the Constitution
.” He made a face as if thinking about it required a major effort. “That’s all I can remember. It mean anything to you?”

“A little. What happened to them? After you got back to the
Mindar
?”

“He threw them overboard.”

“
Who?
Who threw them overboard?”

“Endine. He came out on deck one day and chucked them all into the water. Every last one of them.”

Chaka’s spirits sank. “You’re not serious.”

“After all the trouble we went to. I could have tossed
him
into the water. But yes, that’s exactly what happened. He brought them out on deck in piles. And he threw them over the side. One by one.”

Chaka stared at him. “You’re
sure
? You saw this happen yourself?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We all stood there and watched him.”

She listened to people talking around them. Someone’s father was threatening to cut off an inheritance. “He didn’t destroy them all,” Chaka said. “He got back home with a Mark Twain.”

Knobby shrugged. “Well. All I know is he got rid of a lot of them.”

“You said the bodies, all except Shay’s, were found in the rooms? Not in the corridor?”

“Yes. The rooms. They were
big
rooms. Bigger than this place. And two stories high.”

“What was in them? The rooms?”

“Just books. And some Roadmaker junk. Lot of those gray boxes you find everywhere.”

“
Books?
” She came alive. “Where are they now?”

“Where are what?”

“The books. The other stuff.”

“Still there, I suppose.”

“You left it?” Chaka couldn’t believe her good fortune.

He shrugged. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we? They wouldn’t have been worth anything to anybody. They were in pretty bad shape.”

“Why?”

“It was damp down there. Wet. Everything was soaked.”

Chaka squeezed her cup until Knobby gently disengaged her hand. “Easy,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“You said before the books were okay,” said Chaka.

“I said the books
on the staircase
were okay.”

“All right. Thanks, Knobby.” She passed him a gold coin. “We’re going to lease a boat and go back up there.”

He was careful to keep the coin concealed as he slipped it into his pocket. “I don’t think you’ll be able to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody’ll go. The place is haunted and everybody knows it.”

“Okay. But
if
I’m able to get a boat, would you show us where this door in the cliff is?”

“I already told you, I won’t go near it.”

“There are two more of those,” she said, looking at his pocket.

“Doesn’t matter. Listen, in case you think I’m just a damned fool, a storm blew up on the way back and we nearly got wrecked. Any kind of bad luck on open water and these boats go down like rocks. Add the currents. And whatever lives in that cliff up there.” He took a long pull of the wine. “Tell you what I
will
do: I’ll make you a map. Take you right to it.” He nodded. “But I won’t go back. And you might think it over, too, even if you are able to get somebody crazy enough to take you.”

Knobby was right. Of the half-dozen captains they were able
to locate, only one showed any interest in making the voyage north. This was the commander of the
Irika
, a listing, battered, foul-smelling cattle hauler. The description, Chaka thought, also fit the captain, an overbearing female with red-lit eyes and crooked teeth. But Quait surprised her by breaking off negotiations after an amicable price had been reached. “That one smelled gold,” he explained later. “She’d have hit us all on the head, taken her fee plus whatever else she could find, and dropped us overboard.”

But they were weary of land travel. If Knobby’s map was accurate, they were still over five hundred miles from their destination. Straight line. Thirty days travel at a minimum. Possibly with the requirement to build another boat at the end of it.

“I’m almost tempted to try our luck with the
Irika
,” said Flojian. “If they
were
to prove untrustworthy, we could disarm them easily enough. In fact, it would give us an excuse to seize the boat.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Chaka with sarcasm. “Then
we
can take it up the coast. Do we even know how to turn on the engine?”

“Yes,” said Flojian. “Actually, I think we do.”

“It’s too complicated,” said Quait. “They
will
try to jump us. We’d have to keep watch over half a dozen people for a couple of weeks. We need a better idea.”

“I might have one,” said Chaka. “There’s a town about thirty miles northeast. Bennington. I think we should ride out that way.”

“To what purpose?” asked Flojian.

“It’s where Orin Claver lives.”

“Claver?” Quait needed a moment to recall where he’d heard the name. “The inventor of the steam engine.”

Flojian smiled uneasily. “The rider in the balloon.”

Like Oriskany, Bennington consisted of a cluster of farms surrounding a fortified manor house. But Bennington was not on the frontier, and the continuing battles being waged against marauders by the Judge were a very occasional thing here. Visitors could feel the sense of tranquility that overlay the countryside. There was no sign of patrols along the approach roads, and children played unsupervised in the fields. Pennants fluttered from the stockade walls, and the gates were unguarded. This was open country, about equally divided between forest and cultivated plots.

Claver lived in a cottage on the main road about an hour east of the manor house. “It’s easy to find,” a cart driver told them. “Just look for the obelisk. You can’t miss it.”

It would indeed have been difficult. The obelisk was visible for miles. It soared into the bright afternoon sky, by far the highest structure in Brockett and its attendant territories. A town had once lived on this site, but it lay buried now beneath low rolling hills, its presence marked only by the monument. There was a plate, carefully preserved, before which they lingered:

WE’LL SEE WHO’S GOIN’ T’ OWN THIS FARM
.

—
Reuben Stebbins, Colonial Militia
Battle of Bennington, May 11, 1776

Claver’s cottage was one of several occupying nearby hilltops. But his was easy to identify: The fields surrounding it were unworked, and in its rear a wooden frame rose higher than the trees. An enormous bag had been draped across the frame. It was the balloon.

There were several sheds, a barn, and a silo. They dismounted, knocked on the front door, and, receiving no answer, walked around back. The sheds were filled with engines and vats and tubs. Every building had a workbench, and the floors were often covered with shavings, the walls discolored with gray-brown splotches. At one wooden table, a row of beakers held liquids of various colors.

They paused before a wicker basket strung with cables. “I think that’s what you ride in,” said Chaka. Flojian inspected it with obvious reluctance. An orange-colored shed was filled with a stench that was still in their nostrils twenty minutes later when an elderly man, covered with sweat, burst out of the woods. “Hello,” he said, waving and barely pausing before disappearing into the barn. They followed him.

“Warm day.” He mopped his brow with a towel. He was wiry and muscular, with long silver hair kept in check by a headband. “You come to see me?”

He was not the frowning, academic type Quait had expected. But there was something vaguely unkempt about the man’s expression, a kind of easy smile operating at cross purposes with intense green eyes. “Are you Orin Claver?”

“I am. And who are you?”

Quait did the introductions. Claver peered at them closely. It was apparent he didn’t see well. “You talk funny,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“The Mississippi Valley.”

“You’ve come a long way.” The remark was a surprise. Quait had expected the usual shrug. “Surely you haven’t traveled all this distance just to see me.”

“We understand you take people for rides.”

“In the balloon? Yes, I do. Where did you want to go?” He kicked off his shoes and was peeling his garments without apparent regard to social niceties.

“We have a map.” Quait showed him.

Claver threw a quick glance in its direction, nodded as if he’d taken everything in, and flexed his forearms. “Hard to believe I’m eighty-seven, isn’t it?” He grinned. “Well, let’s go inside.”

He was down to a pair of white shorts. They paraded across a spotty grass lawn into the cottage. A bag of walnuts hung just inside the front door. He offered them around. “Good for your digestion,” he said.

Chaka accepted a couple. Claver took one for himself and tossed two more onto the grass. Within seconds a pair of squirrels appeared and seized them.

The interior was bright and comfortable, furnished with hickory furniture and off-white muslin curtains. Claver asked what kind of wine they liked, removed a couple of bottles from a cabinet, and filled three glasses. “There’s cold water in the kitchen if you’d like some,” he said. He indicated a short hallway. “Through there. Make yourselves at home. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

He swept out of the room.

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” said Flojian, when they could hear the shower running. “We’re going to trust this guy to take us up in one of those baskets? What if he has a heart attack up there?”

“If somebody has a heart attack,” smiled Chaka, “I don’t think it’s going to be him.”

Claver returned dressed in black trousers and a white shirt with fluffy sleeves, the sort of clothing that would have looked dashing on a twenty-five-year-old. He was barefoot, and he carried a glass of wine. “Now.” He seated himself beside Chaka. “Tell me why you want to go so far.”

Quait crossed one leg over the other. “Does the name
Haven
mean anything to you?”

“Of course.”

“We think we know where it is.”

Claver’s eyes narrowed. “
Endine
,” he said, switching his gaze to Flojian. “I should have recognized the name. So you’ve come back. After all this time.”

“That was my father,” said Flojian.

“Ah. Yes. Certainly. And you’ve returned in his place to—do what?”

“To find Haven.”

“They didn’t do so well last time. What makes you think
you
can do better?”

“They
did
find it,” said Flojian. “We’ve no doubt of that.”

“It surprises me to hear it. Most of them died out there and the only thing that came back were stories about goblins.”

“They brought back a copy of
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
.”

“Really? How is it I never heard about that?”

“Don’t know,” said Quait. “But we have the book.”

“Listen,” said Chaka. “None of this matters that much anyhow.” She produced a gold coin and handed it to Claver. “We’ll pay you ten of these to take us where we want to go.”

He held the coin to the light. “That’s generous. But the flight’s a fool’s errand. There’s nothing up there to be found, and I don’t care to risk my life and my equipment. Not for ten gold coins, nor for a hundred. I really have no need for the money.”

“How do you know there’s nothing?” asked Quait.

“If there had been something, your father would have recovered it when he had the chance. He came back empty-handed.”

“We have the Mark Twain.”

“
You
have the Mark Twain. I have only your assurances.”

“We wouldn’t lie to you,” said Flojian, his voice rising.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. But your interpretation of events could be mistaken.” He sat back and relaxed. “I’m sorry to say this, but I see no compelling reason to go.”

“You see no compelling reason?” Quait felt anger rise in his throat.

“The place is a myth,” said Claver.

Quait got up and started for the door.

“I was impressed with your steam engine,” said Chaka, not moving.

“Thank you.” Claver flashed another of those smiles compromised by his eyes. His teeth looked strong and sharp. “I’m working on an improved model. The wood-burners aren’t as efficient as they might be.”

“
Coal
,” said Flojian.

“Very good, Endine. Yes, it should improve output.”

“Tell me,” continued Flojian, “have you thought about the possibility of designing a power plant that could take a ship across the sea?”

He laughed. “Of course. It’s coming.”

Chaka could see the framework and the balloon through the window. “Orin,” she said, “if that really is Haven up there, we’d have a chance of finding the
Quebec
.”

Claver stopped breathing.

“Think about it,” she said. “Think what it would mean to find out how to build a propulsion system for an undersea ship. Or do you think it was a coal-burner?”

This time the smile was complete. “It would be nice to find.”

“But the
Quebec
is only a myth,” said Flojian. “Right?”

“Take us where we want to go,” said Chaka. “The worst that can happen is that you’ll come back with ten gold coins. Who knows what the real payoff might be?”