the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  "You take them down there, for example. I think they all hate one another. Everyone seems to be secretly tryin' to figure ways to outwit his neighbor or even his brother. Lord knows there's meanness enough in our world, but to these people meanness is a way of life.

  "Not Kawasi's folks. Different as day an' night. But those down yonder--don't you trust anybody. You may think this Tazzoc is on your side. Don't you believe it. He's on his own side an' nobody else's."

  "He wants to save his Archives. He wants them to be used."

  "Maybe. I think prob'ly he does, but that won't change him none. If he can do you in, he'll do it. He will do it even if it hurts him. I seen it happen."

  What was that Erik had said? To trust nobody? Did he know, then? Had he already discovered or perceived what people he was dealing with?

  "How could such a people exist?"

  "You call that existence? They are dying of their own hatred, killing themselves off with their own poison."

  Johnny stopped behind a shoulder of rock where the dim trail took a sharp turn to skirt the valley below. From here the streets and alleys were plainly seen. Only a few people moved about. There seemed to be no wheeled transportation within view.

  "Kawasi's folks now, they'redifferent . Different from us, too. Started as a farming people and kept to it. They spend a lot of time selectin' seed. More'n we do. They see things in seed I never saw an' they discard all they don't want.

  "They've learned how to use water. We waste most of the water we use on plants in the field, or did in my time. They use more plants than we do. Lots of stuff we pulled up as weeds when I was a youngster, they cultivate. All up an' down these canyons and on the mesa tops as well--they've used every bit of space. Miles of the canyon walls have been terraced for crops, an' some of them you can't even see how they got to them to plant.

  "Here I am, talkin' up a storm when you got other things to think about. Trouble is, I've had nobody to talk to in a long time. I learned a bit of Kawasi's lingo but not enough.

  "You be careful down there, d'you hear? I'll be yonder with my Big Fifty and ready to use it if you get out o' there."

  "I'll get out."

  Mike Raglan adjusted the turban and, without a glance backward, started down the path behind the brush. Right below was a place where he could walk into one of the narrower streets that would take him toward the Forbidden.

  His heart was pounding and a feeling of uneasiness crept over him. He was a damned fool. He should go back up there and find a way out and get out. He was a fool to go into that maze, where every other door might be a trap.

  The streets were empty. If anyone observed him, he did not see them. He walked steadily, adopting the gait of Tazzoc as well as he could. At the end of the street the enormous walls of the Forbidden loomed massive and black. Again his hand touched his pistol. If he went out, he would go fighting.

  From long practice his was a photographic mind. He had begun when an apprentice magician in his boyhood, memorizing cards and where they fell, and he had used every device for improving his memory. Before him now was that map, and the inner rooms of the Forbidden were a maze through which he must find a way.

  Were they watching him? Had he been betrayed? Before him loomed the giant wall, soaring high, then sloping back into a rounded roof. A massive gate to his left, and beside it the smaller door. He walked up to it and put his hand on the latch.

  As he touched it he felt a chill. He was still a free man. He need go no farther. He could turn around and walk back and lie to them. He could say the door was locked and that he dare not demand its opening. He could say ...

  He would not, and he would not lie. He had come this far and he would go on, to whatever lay ahead. After all, he had never expected to live forever.

  He glanced to his right. Dimly, he thought he could see the path Johnny would be watching. It led down through some wild brush and then faintly along the mountainside among the rocks. That was the way he would go if he had to escape. Not through the town, which would be a trap, but along that path.

  He lifted the latch and stepped in, closing the door behind him. He was in a wide, stone-paved court, empty but for two of the Varanel who stood together some hundred and fifty feet away, near another wall. They were talking together, paying no attention to him.

  Ahead of him he could see a dozen doors, and to the extreme left a narrow passage leading along one side of the main building. It was the way Tazzoc had said he should come. Holding himself to a slow, methodical walk, he started for that place, but watched the Varanel from the corners of his eyes. They were still deep in conversation.

  He walked on. It was there, not sixty feet away. He counted his steps, mouth dry. He was scared. Apprehensive, at least. Now they had stopped talking and both were looking at him.

  Watching him? No, just looking--probably so used to that robe that they scarcely saw it. He was a part of the surroundings, and he must act accordingly. The slightest wrong move and he was finished.

  How could he find Erik? Capture somebody and force him to tell him? But who would know? Probably less than a dozen even knew there was a prisoner, and fewer would know where he was held.

  One more step and he was past the corner and into the narrow passage. The guards had gone back to talking, and he took that step, then moved from the corner into the deeper shadow of the black wall.

  He was in an arcade, a row of slender pillars on his left, a blank black wall on his right. His footsteps made faint sounds as he walked. There were doors on his right, a row of them. He ignored them and walked ahead. There was the door to the Hall of the Archives.

  Tazzoc had said nobody came there. Or rarely. In the past they had come, but most had forgotten there even were any archives. And they cared less. After all, they might ask themselves, what was there to learn about such a closed society?

  He glanced back. No one. He took the last step and reached the faded green door. His hand went out for the latch.

  A sound behind him, a word of objection, or so it sounded. He turned sharply around. It was a small man with thick gray hair and a thin, scrawny neck. The man shook his head, gesturing him away. Then slowly, he spoke, as if feeling for words long unfamiliar. "Do not. They know you come."

  "Thank you, but I must go. A friend is a prisoner."

  The small man furrowed his brow, trying to understand, then shook his head but added, " 'Thank you' is good. Once ... long time back, we speak so. No more. Nothing isthank you now."

  Raglan wanted him to understand. He held his wrists together as if bound. "My friend is a prisoner within. He must be freed."

  The man seemed to grasp the idea but shook his head. "No. Tohil will have him. He will be thrown upon the Tongue."

  What he meant Raglan could not imagine, yet the old man sounded friendly and he was in no position to doubt. "You speak my language?" he asked.

  "I am Camha. When young I was one who learned. The Varanel had seized a man to question, a man from your side, and he gave answers to our talking. It was decided some should learn your speak to cross over. We wished things you possessed and we did not. Five were trained. Then a decision was made. No go. Stay."

  He paused, blinking his eyes slowly. "Amongst us we speak often to keep alive our learning. We have books. We read, and your land is good. We think maybe better than here. Then our books are seized and we are forbidden to speak of your world." He looked off down the long arcade. "Once to read of great books is to taste what is never forgotten."

  "And do you not have books?"

  "Only the word of The Hand. Only what is told us to read."

  "Do you know what this place is? The Hall of Archives?"

  "It is forbidden. We who know of it do not speak of it. We only wish to look, to see."

  "Do you know Tazzoc?"

  "I know, but do not speak. We walk afar from each other for fear."

  "The Hand has great power."

  Camha bobbed his head. "It is true."

  "W
e have a saying that power corrupts."

  "It does. Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing."

  "You wish to go in with me? To the Hall of Archives?"

  Camha shivered. "I have fear. I am an old man. My bones are weak. I have an old wife whom I love and children whom I love, although they ignore me. They fear I am tainted and I am not seen. Yet I love them still. I understand, and forgive.

  "To enter there? Ah, if I could go and come! I cannot. My old woman would be alone then, and it is too late for us to be alone. I must forget the love of learning and remember she who has walked beside me this long time."

  Camha looked into Raglan's eyes. "They would destroy that, also, but love is with us still, here and there. The Hand wishes no loyalty but to him. Such rulers begin by demanding a little and end by demanding all.

  "Go in, and if you escape, bring something out to share. To share with anybody, but to share. Knowledge was not meant to be locked behind doors. It breathes best in the open air where all men can inhale its essence."

  He turned away, then stopped again. "You know what is a maze? It is a maze in there, and if the way is not known, you will surely die. It has been said, by someone, that one should keep to the left. I do not know this to be true. That, too, could be a trick, a device to lure one on in confidence, only to betray.

  "We are betrayers all. Perhaps even I. I am no longer sure. Go, find your way. We have talked this little time, one to another. It has been good, very good! I go."

  Who was Camha? He had entry to the Forbidden. He knew where the Hall of Archives was, and he had spoken well. Again Raglan was alone beside the green door. What awaited him within? Would he find Tazzoc there? Or would the Varanel be waiting? Or the Lords of Shibalba?

  Erik would be guarded. Or would they believe guards essential in such a place? If he was guarded, the guards themselves might indicate his place of imprisonment. This Hall of Archives had once been a temple, and that needed thinking about. A place of worship? Or simply the place from which an oracle had spoken? From which The Voice used to speak?

  That would imply there must be a secret place where The Voice might be, and from which it might speak. In his travels he had visited other such places and there had been a hidden place from which the oracle spoke.

  This Voice, too, had faded out. Its clear message became mere gibberish, like that of the Delphic Oracle and others. But the priests of gods or oracles do not willingly relinquish the power The Voice provides. There had been cases where the priests usurped the power and spoke for The Voice, pretending to be it.

  Hence there had to be a place from which they could speak. If he could find that place, he might reactivate The Voice. The Hand did not come to the Hall of Archives, and according to Tazzoc, no others came. Hence, the place of the oracle might have, over many years, been forgotten.

  Surely, The Voice must not only have had a secret compartment from which it spoke, but also a way to reach that compartment unseen. A passage that might go right to the apartments of The Hand? A way to discover where Erik was kept?

  Someone had said--perhaps it had been Kawasi--that The Hand knew what people thought and said. Even her people knew of speaking tubes, so certainly the older people would know of them as well.

  First, to enter the Hall of Archives. He dropped his hand again to the latch. He opened the door and stepped inside. The heavy door closed behind him.

  It was a harsh, cold, definite sound. The door shut hard, and something clicked in its lock.

  He was inside. Would he ever get out?

  Chapter XXXVI

  The door by which he entered opened on the left of the main hall, a vast space beneath a vaulted ceiling. The floor of the central hall lay some fifty feet lower than the level at which he entered, and on a dais approximately a hundred feet away was a massive table in front of three high-backed chairs. The space in the hall before them was empty.

  On either side of that space and sloping back to the wall was a series of tiers, resembling bleachers. These were banks of shelves of books, each one bound top and bottom with slabs of thin wood, like Tibetan books. Before each line of shelves was a walk, and at intervals steps leading to the tiers above and below.

  Raglan's eyes searched the room. He saw no one. Behind the three chairs was a concave latticed wall. On his right a stair led down to the main hall, with a line of massive columns, one to every other tier, each at least four feet in diameter at bottom, tapering as they rose. At some time in the distant past ceremonies must have been held here, and the great doors would have been thrown open for processions to enter and approach the dais.

  Once more his eyes swept, then searched, the vast hall. Of course, something or someone might be hiding down there among the shelves of books, or might be watching from behind the lattice of that concave wall.

  Somewhere here were the maps he wished to see, perhaps to find some clue to the place where Erik was held. This hall, vast as it was, could be no more than a mere corner of the huge building that was the Forbidden, and the maze, if it was truly such, lay outside this room. Yet the place where he now stood gave him a sense of great age.

  Tilting his head back, he looked up at the vast space above him. Around the hall, above the tiers of shelves, there were balconies. No doubt it would have been from those balconies that the Lords of Shibalba looked down upon the processions below.

  He was not afraid, he told himself. What he felt was awe, but there was something else, too--some uneasiness such as he had never felt before.

  "The Archives of my people." The voice came from behind him and he almost jumped, he was so startled. He fought down the urge to turn quickly. It was Tazzoc.

  "They are impressive." Raglan nodded toward them. "Those I see seem to be on some sort of paper. I expected clay or stone."

  "Those are stored below, in another room even larger than this." Tazzoc paused. "Do you have anything to compare?"

  "Oh, yes! We have the Library of Congress, and many university and public libraries in my country, but other countries have vast.libraries, too."

  "Onstone ? Orclay ?"

  "Actually, no. Most of those are in museums where scholars may have access to them, but many have been copied and are available in easily held books or on tape."

  "Tape?"

  "A mechanical means of recording books and oral transcriptions. It enables a library such as this to be stored in a much smaller space."

  Tazzoc nodded. "There is a tale--I cannot speak for its truth--that we had such devices many years ago, and that The Hand has them now. It is also said that fresh ones are constantly made to enable him to see whatever he wishes of our activities without leaving the Forbidden."

  "And you do not know where he lives?"

  Tazzoc gestured. "Somewhere in there, at the center of what you call a maze. It is in there your friend will be. Somewhere near the center."

  "You spoke of maps? Of plans?"

  Tazzoc led the way, walking quickly along the face of one tier of shelves. Raglan could see that each shelf held stacks of books tied with string. The wooden backs were inscribed with characters.

  Turning suddenly, Tazzoc climbed a steep stair, passing several tiers of shelves, and then in a back corner he indicated a row of shelves. "It is here."

  "Tazzoc? If we come out of this, there will be a place for you in our world if you wish to go. If not, I believe meetings could be arranged with our scholars. They would be fascinated by your Archives, and you would have a place of honor among them. Above all, copies of your Archives could be made so they would last forever."

  "I would like that." There was pathos in his voice. "Often I am lonely. There is a need to talk, to share thoughts, to learn what others think. Here, I have only the Archives."

  Raglan lifted a book from the shelf and carefully took off the wooden slab that covered it. The
thick paper, not unlike papyrus, was covered with characters. He put it aside and opened out the chart that followed.

  The making of maps and plans must have long preceded what man conceived of as civilization, for the finding of places, the returning to them, or the giving of directions to springs or rivers must have begun shortly after man first began to wander the land. The Egyptians had made a god of Khonsa, the maker of plans, and Raglan had once been permitted to examine the Turin Papyrus, dating from 1320 B.C. which located an Egyptian gold mine. The Romans had drawn careful road maps for the use of their legions or the couriers who followed them.

  The first map was a remarkably clear rendition of the area around the Forbidden. The mountains from which he had come and where the Anasazi had rebuilt their world were indicated only by some jagged lines, although at one point there was a crowded area of squares, rectangles, and small circles that must indicate the ruin he had visited. Near this place was a remarkably well drawn picture of a giant lizard. Tazzoc disappeared into the lower areas and Raglan turned to the shelves. Swiftly, he checked book after book, searching for the plan of the Forbidden. Tazzoc had assured him it was here, although he had not seen it in years. When he reached the very lowest shelf he found it, a larger, flatter book.

  Dusty and old, it had probably not been examined in many years. The top of the tier of shelves on the level below was over waist-high and formed a convenient desk for opening the books. With extreme care he undid the knots that held the pages together, then lifted off the thin slab of wood that was its top. Unfolding the crackling paper, he spread out the plan.

  Remember, he warned himself, you are dealing with an alien mind. Yet the plan before him had been carefully drawn, possibly by the very architect, if such there had been, who designed the building. There was a maze, and, a little back of center, a rectangle that indicated what was probably the focal point, the dwelling and executive mansion of The Hand. Nearby was another area of six rooms of equal size which might be cells for prisoners, and beside them a larger space that might be a guardroom.