A Cleft Of Stars

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  With the sudden flash of thought that is born of deadly danger, my mind took in what the stone post was really for. It was notched at the height of man's throat: the hook on the arm guard was the complementary half of a deadly garrotting setup. One had only to trap one's victim's head against the post in order to break his neck with the hook. But Koen was facing the wrong way for it to operate for me.

  So I feinted and shifted all my force to his gun arm and at the same time deliberately eased off his throat. He fell for it and swung to face the post, exposing his neck to the hook–and the kill. It was all over in seconds and needed surprisingly little effort. I hung on when he went limp and the derringer discharged harmlessly into the ground. I think it must have been a dying nerve reflex which tightened his finger on the trigger. When his body started to sag I braced my knee against the post and jerked him backwards over the edge of the cliff.

  I climbed slowly over the wall and walked towards Nadine, who was still crouched where Koen had thrown her, her glorious hair dusty and dishevelled and a smear of dirt from Koen's hand across her mouth.

  When I came up to her, we simply stared at one another as if in a trance and then I leaned forward and kissed the tiny trickle of blood coming through her torn sleeve. It was salty and warm and near to her breast.

  The gesture brought· her with a blind rush into my arms, her mouth crushed against mine, her words hardly distinguishable through her sobs. She tried to kiss and smile and cry all at the same time, caressing my face and murmuring endearments as if her heart would break. 'Oh my love, my darling, my beloved . . . there aren't words for this sort of thing . . . I want to say prayers and incantations and your name all mixed up together but they won't come . . . Guy, Guy, Guy!'

  She shook all over and held me: she loosened my arm and slipped off the ivory guard; she drew me back farther from the drop.

  Suddenly there was the whang and whine of a ricochet off the stone post and almost simultaneously the blast of a shot from below.

  'Praeger!' I said, moving still farther away. 'But I'm sure he can't see us: that's simply blind anger on account of Koen. The hell with him! Before anything else I'm going to attend to that wound of yours.'

  'It isn't a wound, it's just a scratch. It was only meant to scare me.'

  Nevertheless, I bound up the cut with my handkerchief, thinking that Koen must have been an expert with a knife to have been so precise. As I did so Nadine winced as another harmless bullet bounced off the cliff and screamed into space.

  'We're under siege, Guy.'

  'In more ways than one,' I replied. "Just look at that sky. I'

  ve seldom seen anything more threatening.'

  It was a wild-looking morning. In the early light the clouds were black and ominous and they seemed to block every point of the compass as far as the eye could reach. They were low, too, and the horizon was in-drawn, which added to the feeling of being hemmed-in.

  'This poor light puts paid to our doing anything more about the isifuba board for the moment,' I said. The terror of her experience was ebbing fast but it had left behind a lovely light in her eyes.

  'Let's get our breath back before we start anything else exciting. To begin with, let's learn to live with a siege.'

  I caught her light-hearted mood. 'Right! Then the first thing on my list is to clean myself up at the spring.'

  'Philistine!' she mocked. 'No soul! Mysteries and magic pavements go overboard in favour of a bath!'

  'They'll keep. My dusty body won't.'

  At the spring, which had fashioned a crude basin out of the rock by virtue of centuries of dripping, I stripped and rejoiced in the cool water.

  I rejoined Nadine at the small pyramid of coloured pebbles. The colour had come back into her face and she was smiling and serene.

  'You're not going to have the edge on me – I'm next!' 'It's glorious; absolute heaven.'

  She kissed me before going and her eyes were very bright. I said, 'I'll keep a watch on Praeger.'

  'I'll be back.'

  There was a shade of meaning about the way she said it which I didn't catch. I watched her trim figure disappear, then I moved carefully under cover to the strongpoint at the head of the stairway. There was no need for my glasses because I could see Koen lying near my camp with his head slewed unnaturally to one side. Von Praeger, with Dika, was near, his rifle barrel resting on a boulder and aimed at the summit. For a moment I toyed with the idea of taking a pot-shot at him with the derringer but its short range would have been just the waste of a bullet. I wanted him to know that we were in good heart, so I collected one of the shaped stone missiles and pitched it to fall as close to him as I could judge. The result was spectacular. Von Praeger blazed off a whole volley of shots indiscriminately at the spot where the rock had fallen, the stairway and the rocks all round my hiding place. When the racket had died down I risked a glance below but he was nowhere to be seen.

  Then, without apparent reason, but by a compulsion I could not explain, I felt my attention drawn to the tabletop itself. Nadine was standing by the little pyramid, her hair as black as the lowering storm. She was looking across at me, her lips parted, her eyes like stars. Her breasts, dappled with an aureole of drops from the spring, shone luminously white against the backdrop of the storm.

  She was completely naked.

  The blood throbbed in my ears; then I was taking her to me. A dozen strides covered the space which separated us. The tiny living muscles at the corners of her deep eyes spoke a world of obvious and emphatic messages as well as nuances of doubt about her nakedness, a host of nerve-tingling ambiguities, expressing all things since woman was woman. 'It had to be here!' she whispered. 'Love me–love me right here!'

  And the pulse which before had been only in her eyes spread into the thighs and breasts thrust hard against me. But the blaze of emotion which overwhelmed us was matched by the storm, of which we became oblivious. All I know is that a moment before the thunderbolt struck the pyramid and exploded I caught a glimpse of it flaming towards us like a meteor and I threw our locked bodies to the ground out of its path. Then our spellbound world erupted in a burst of flame and dust and at the same time the solid rock under us seemed to split and heave like an earthquake. A fissure opened next to us and raced across the summit like a seam unthreading and there was a heavy rumbling from the heart of The Hill as it started to break in two : while on the river side the tabletop seemed to be toppling over the edge in an avalanche.

  Fear emptied veins which a moment before had been pulsing with love.

  We clung in terror now to one another while rumble succeeded rumble. Until eventually everything grew quiet, except for the sound of the sluicing rain beginning.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The individual drops were huge, falling cold and raw on to our naked bodies and making muddy little explosions all round us. The horizon was down and the east was a dirty grey the rest of the sky was low and black and hostile. There was a hot, wet smell from the demolished cairn, like steam round an old fashioned locomotive. Our cold bodies clung together and I noticed the tiny rivulets of rain that chased down her breasts and puckered nipples. So we lay in an ebb tide of reaction until pools from the downpour began to form round us. Then there was another small rockfall. We couldn't stay where we were.

  We sat up. Her face was white and strained and her eyes great dark pools. She drew my own face against hers and made a tent over our heads with her long hair. It was halfdry inside and warm compared with the cold rain, and the smell of her hair and skin was sweet in my nostrils. She touched my cheeks and eyes and lips with her finger-tips, then kissed me with cold lips.

  'It's the big thing. We'll never know about it unless we have it here'

  'Darling,' I said. 'Darling, darling.'

  The rain broke through her hair and drew an icy line between us where our bodies met.

  'We'll come back. It's not for now. The moment's past'

  What made the bolt strike the cairn?'

&n
bsp; °Some special attraction in those stones, perhaps. The Hill people didn't see it as a heap of stones but as a person, a sort of deity who kept a watchful eye on lovers in order to bind them in their vows.'

  I laughed shakily. 'It certainly put on a king-size show for us.'

  'Queen-size.' She tried to smile, too. 'Which reminds me. All I've gat on is the queen's ring, It's a good thing I didn't leave my clothes in a heap at the spring instead of here.'

  We found our soaking garments and dressed while the rain drove down and it became darker. It must have been about breakfast-time. Nadine had her flying-jacket and tucked her hair under the hood. It seemed to emphasize the shadows under her eyes. I hunched up my shoulders and tried to protect myself against the rain but it was useless. Suddenly I exclaimed. 'We've lost the "King's Messenger"!' '

  No, Guy, here it is. I still had sense enough when I left the spring to put it in my pocket.'

  I surveyed the tabletop with dismay. 'No "King's Messenger" or anything else is going to be much use to us now, Nadine.'

  'What a shambles!'

  Between us and the way into the underground chamber a crevasse about ten feet wide had opened. It narrowed in the direction of the secret stairway and widened on the opposite side facing the river. Thousands of tons of soil and rock had collapsed into it, forming a rubble-littered sloping ramp from the summit to the terrace.

  The implication struck us both.

  It's the end of The Hill, Guy! Look, anyone can simply walk to the top now. It's not even a climb.'

  'The rock supporting the tabletop must have been eroded and rotten and ready to split and the thunderbolt did the rest. We must get off here - quick. Look there!'

  We were only about a dozen feet away from the crevasse, and soil and rocks were tumbling into it as the rain undermined them. Nadine looked with anguish towards the underground chamber.

  The isifuba board, Guy! We just can't abandon it!'

  The whole place has probably caved in. We can't risk our necks trying to find out. Anyway, the crevasse is too wide to get across.'

  'Where can we go, Guy?'

  'My boat - down that ramp. It's the only route left open.'

  Another tremor shook The Hill.

  'It's breaking up under us, Nadine! Hurry!'

  The tattoo of rain sent muddy runnels pouring over the lip of the crevasse but we picked a spot which didn't look too dangerous. I went first. It was only an eight-foot drop to the ramp but it felt like eight hundred. I was muddied to the knees when I landed and so was Nadine in spite of my help. Soaked, cold and dejected, we struggled and sloshed down the slope with our arms linked. The farther we plodded, the trickier the going became, as we stubbed our feet and shins against obstacles we couldn't see. The rain, too, became heavier.

  'It's developing into a cloudburst!' I called out. 'If this goes on the river will come down!'

  There was a heavy rumble and we froze in our tracks, wondering whether a new avalanche was on its way which might overwhelm us, but it was thunder we heard. Flickering tongues of lightning leapt from cloud to cloud, illuminating the terrace below us like a gigantic flash-bulb. It was the onset of a new spectacular display which blinded, deafened and frightened us. At the same time the wind steadied into the north-east and, since we were heading north, it whipped the sheets of rain into our faces, which had the effect of making the downpour seem to increase in intensity. Everything was now a water-swept haze; the sun, too, had given up and all there was left in the way of light was an opaque dimness, like twilight.

  We still had about halfway to go down the moraine-like incline and plugged ahead doggedly, heads down, slipping and stumbling, sometimes falling waist-deep into softer patches until we looked like scarecrows. Finally, at the level of the terrace, the crevasse broadened out to about three times its upper width. On the open terrace we felt more exposed to the vivid flashes of lightning and one of these underwrote our danger when it struck the wire fence and blazed along it like a magnesium flare. We made our way as quickly as we could through ankle-deep water and where the terrace ended, fronting the river, we found torrents of dirty water pouring over like a small flood. We negotiated the wire where I had originally cut it and it was like crawling under a small waterfall. The thought of another lightning strike to the wire lent wings to our crossing feet and we breathed easier when we were safely through and across the ladder with which I had bridged the rolls of wire. Then we reached the outer limits of the river bed proper and squelched our way slowly and tediously through a semi-liquid mess of mud until we located the boat by the palm clump, and crawled thankfully aboard out of the storm's uproar.

  It was dry and snug in the tiny, low cabin and stuffy, too, because the air in it had heated during the blazing days and had had no opportunity to disperse. The main cabin was for'ard and there was another smaller one aft: they were linked by an open, self-draining cockpit. I had named her the Empress of Baobab because she had bulges where no craft should have had bulges. As a boat she was a herring-gutted bitch; as a sanctuary from the storm she was heaven. It was difficult to hear one another speak above the drumbeat of the rain on the cabin's thin aluminium roof.

  'Get dry and help yourself to some of my clothes from the locker,' I told Nadine. 'I'm going over the side with a rope to make her fast. I'm scared of a sudden flood. If the river does come down we could be wrecked.'

  Isn't there an engine?'

  'Of sorts. It's seen better, days. It wouldn't hold her head into a flood.'

  The wind caused me more concern than the rain which it brought slanting and cutting into my face when I opened the door. At sea it would have been considered a moderate gale. It blustered in from one direction only, the north-east, and this is what puzzled and worried me. A normal thunderstorm is usually accompanied by strong erratic gusts, but judging by the lightning flashes, the force of this one was already falling off in intensity. Yet the powerful wind continued. I took a rope and dropped into the mud, which gave off a kind of stale flatus. The palm seemed firmly enough anchored though its trunk was whipping and the tattered fronds streamed like a battle ensign. I was making the rope fast when a brilliant flash spotlit the streaming river front. By its light I saw a propeller turning in the wind some distance up the main river channel and I realized immediately that it was von Praeger's plane. I finished double-lashing the moorings and then hurried back to Nadine.

  'Now we know where von Praeger landed,' I explained. 'I wouldn't have thought it possible unless I'd seen for myself.'

  Nadine had changed into a shirt, sweater and pants of mine. She'd rolled tip the bottoms and tied back her wet hair. There was an air about her almost as withdrawn as on that day I had seen her in the trench during the expedition, and her eyes were equally inscrutable.

  She replied almost detachedly, 'A plane can't offer him any shelter'

  'No. But I know that if I had been in his place I would have beaten it to Rankin's cave post-haste once The Hill started falling down.'

  Her eyelids flickered when I said 'The Hill' as though I'd been discussing a person.

  'Yes.' Her tone remained non-committal.

  'I've got a solid-meths stove in the for'ard cabin and some coffee – I think we could both use some. While I'm still soaked I'

  ll run and fetch it.'

  I wondered what was eating her and I found out when I had changed and we'd had our coffee almost in silence.

  'Guy - are we going to run away? Is this the end of The Hill for us?'

  'I hadn't thought that far, Nadine. We needed shelter and safety and the-boat was our obvious bet.'

  'Do you want to go back, Guy?'

  'My innocence is locked up there and so is whatever Praeger is after.'

  'The other half of the Cullinan.''If we accept that, it makes a mockery of Rankin's admission. He said cut diamonds, not one diamond but many, and certainly never mentioned one great diamond.'

  'It would have been much simpler if he hadn't dragged in that business of the hyena
's blanket.'

  'That takes us right back to square one, Nadine.'

  She came swiftly and knelt in front of the low locker I sat on and rested her arms on my knees.

  'We must go back, Guy! We must!'

  'If there's anything left to go back to.'

  'We must be sure! We know we were on to something with the isifuba board. We can't throw it away.'

  'The decision may be taken out of our hands,' I said. 'Listen to that!'

  The boat rocked under a more powerful gust from the north-east. The rain went on hammering on the deck but the electric storm had clearly lost steam.

  'It's ominous,' I went on. 'It's not an ordinary storm. My guess is that it was a thunderstorm at the start but that wasn't the major thing in itself : it was the small stuff on the fringe of a major blow-up. You don't get rain and wind like this from anything as local as a thunderstorm. It's coming in from the sea. And if I read the signs right, it's a cyclone which has run amok inland from the Indian Ocean, which isn't more than a few hundred miles from here as the crow flies. It's pouring in on that north-easter and it scares the pants off me, especially in this cockleshell.'

  'Let's get back ashore, then.'

  'That's impossible: we're too late. Feel that. She's just starting to ride the water. I went up to my waist in muck over the side just now. There's already enough water in the river to drown us before we could reach firm ground'

  Are we simply going to wait for the river to sweep us away?'

  The boat lurched farther upright and began to snatch at its mooring.