Mountain of Black Glass

by Tad Williams

When they heard the stone grind back into place, Paul and Azador leaped up and ran back into the trees as fast as their wobbly legs would carry them.

  Paul lay huddled in the bottom of a culvert filling with rainwater. His heart was still racing but no longer felt like it might actually explode. His thoughts were a jumble.

  "The bastard . . . has our . . . our boat!" Azador was so breathless he could hardly speak.

  Paul lifted his chin out of the water and crawled a little way up the slope. Despite the terror, something else was tugging at him, something to do with Azador . . . and how he had crossed himself. . . .

  "Without it, we will die on this stupid island!" Azador hissed, but he had recovered himself and sounded more angry than frightened.

  . . . But this wasn't even just ancient Greece, this was Homer's Greece, and therefore about a thousand years before . . . before. . . .

  "Jesus Christ!" Paul said. "You aren't from here at all! You—you're from outside!"

  Azador turned to stare at him. With his curly black hair plastered to his head by the rain and his mustache draggled like otter whiskers, he looked a little less boldly handsome. "What?"

  "You aren't from Greece—not this Greece, anyway. You're from outside the system. You're real!"

  Azador regarded him defiantly. "And you?"

  Paul realized he had given away whatever advantage the knowledge might have gained him. "Shit."

  The other man shrugged. "We do not have time for such things. That big bastard will use our boat for his fire. Then we will never get away from here."

  "So? What are we going to do, go knock on his cave door and ask for it back? That's a Cyclops. Didn't you read The Odyssey? Those things eat people the way you eat goats!"

  Azador looked irritated, whether at the mention of reading or the reminder of the goat meat he was not eating. "He will use it for his fire," he repeated stubbornly.

  "Well, if he does, he does." Paul was struggling to think carefully, but the thunder was rattling his skull and he still had not recovered from the spectacle of a very ugly man as big as a two-story house. "Even if we could roll that stone out of the way, we couldn't get inside, in time to stop him. But maybe he'll just add it to the woodpile. Or maybe he'll want to salvage some of the cloth and the ropes." He let out a shuddering breath and took another. "But we couldn't do anything about it anyway—Christ! You saw the size of that thing!"

  "Nobody takes what is Azador's," the other man said harshly. This time Paul thought it sounded less like a code of honor than a symptom of insanity. "If you will not help me, I will wait until he comes out, then cut his hamstrings." He took his knife and waved it in the general direction of the top of the hill. "We will see how tall he is when he is lying on his belly."

  Clearly Azador was going to get himself killed if Paul did not offer an alternative, but just as clearly there were not many alternatives to offer. If they remained on the island, it was only a matter of time until the thing came upon them in a place from which they couldn't escape. It might even have relatives—wasn't there something in The Odyssey about all the Cyclops living on the same island? They desperately needed an idea, but Paul doubted he was going to be able to come up with anything good. "We could build another raft," he offered.

  Azador snorted. "We will cut down trees with my knife? And what will we use for a sail, this diaper I am wearing?" He pointed at himself, then at Paul's tattered chiton. "Or your little towel?"

  "All right, all right!" Paul slumped back against the muddy side of the culvert. The rain was softening a little, but it was still like having someone drum their fingers against his head—not that he was brimming with brilliant plans anyway. An honors degree in Humanities might be a useful thing as far as recognizing various mythological monsters, but it was not all that helpful when facing them in the flesh. "Just let me think."

  In the end, he could think of no better idea than to adapt Odysseus' original scheme to their own slightly different situation.

  "You see, they were inside and needed to get out" he told Azador, who was not at all interested in the scheme's classical antecedents, and was busy lashing the hilt of the knife into the split end of a long deadfall branch. "We need to get in, but we also need him to be sleeping when we do it. It's a pity we don't have any wine."

  "You are right there."

  "I mean like Odysseus had—to give to the monster to make him sleepy." He clambered to his feet. His heart was hammering at the thought of what was to come, but he struggled to keep his voice casual. "Speaking of which, he must be sleeping by now—it's been dark for an hour."

  Azador hefted the makeshift spear, satisfying himself with its balance, then stood. "Let's go and kill the big bastard."

  "No, not like that!" Paul felt a sick panic sweep over him: it wasn't the greatest plan in the world to begin with. "Didn't you hear what I was saying? First we have to get the door open. . . ."

  His companion snorted. "I know—do you think Azador is stupid? Go now." He began to scramble up the side of the culvert.

  They stopped on their way back to the hilltop to search for fallen logs of the appropriate width; eventually they found one that seemed acceptable, although it was narrower than Paul would have wished. It was just short enough for the muscular Azador to lift and carry, which he did after handing over his bladed spear. "If you lose my knife," he informed Paul with ceremonial dignity, "I will pull off your balls."

  The rains had stopped, and although the long grasses outside the cave slapped wetly against their legs, the skies were clear and the moon gave them enough light to see the silhouetted bulk of the ridgetop before them. Azador moved to one side of the door, struggling to keep the log from dragging on the ground as Paul picked up rocks. When Azador was in position, Paul took another deep breath, then began to hurl the missiles against the stone that blocked the doorway.

  "Ho! One-Eye!" he shouted as the rocks rattled against the door-stone. "Come out, you fat bastard! Give me back my boat!"

  "Ow! Idiot!" Azador growled as one of the stones caromed from the door and bounced off his leg.

  "Come out, One-Eye!" Paul bellowed. "Wake up! You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny!"

  "I have never heard such stupid insults," Azador hissed, but then the great stone in the doorway creaked and grated as it slid to one side. The dying light of a fire inside made the opening glow like the mouth of hell. A vast shape moved in front of the embers.

  "Who mocks Polyphemus?" The voice boomed across the hilltop. "Who is out there? Is that one of my shiftless cousins?"

  "It is Nobody!" Paul's voice, already a songbird trill in comparison to the giant's rumbling bass, had suddenly become embarrassingly squeaky. As the Cyclops moved out onto his doorstep, the stench of wet fleece and rotting meat wafted out with him; Paul struggled against the powerful urge to scream and run. Remembering that Azador was within the giant's reach and that it was his job to distract the monster gave him back a little courage, but not much. "I am Nobody, and I am a ghost!" he screeched as impressively as he could, crouching low in the grass. "You have taken my ghost-ship, and I will haunt you until the end of your days unless you return it."

  Polyphemus leaned forward and swept his head from side to side, his eye like a wide headlamp as it reflected the moonlight. "A ghost called Nobody?"

  Paul had remembered something about Odysseus using that name, and although he couldn't quite remember why he had, it had seemed like a good touch. "That's right! And if you don't return my boat, I will haunt the hair off your head and the skin off your bones!"

  The giant snuffled, great inhalations of air like a blacksmith's bellows. "For a ghost, you smell much like a man. I think I will find you tomorrow when it is less trouble, and eat you then. Perhaps with a little mint sauce." He turned back into the doorway.

  In despair, Paul leaped up. "No!" He snatched up a stone as big as a grapefruit and ran toward the cave before flinging it as hard as he could. It struck the giant in its thatch of filthy hair and mus
t have bounced off its skull, but the giant only turned slowly, a single shaggy brow lowering over the great eye. "Come and catch me, if you think you're so clever!" Trembling with terror, he stood in place, showing himself to the monster. "Maybe I'll go visit your mother instead—I hear she loves to meet strangers." He waved his arms in a manic semaphore. "Not just meet them either, from what everyone tells me."

  The Cyclops growled and took a couple of steps toward him, looming like the prow of a battleship, stinking like a rendering plant. It was all Paul could do to remain upright. "What kind of little madman are you?" the monster thundered. "You can say what you want about my mother—the old whore never gave me a bone she hadn't sucked the meat and marrow from first—but you have woken me up and wasted my sleeping time. When I catch you, I will stretch you between trees like sheep's gut and play a very unpleasant tune on you."

  Almost hysterical with fear, Paul saw a movement in the shadows behind the Cyclops—Azador. Paul began to do a mad dance, darting from side to side through the wet grass, leaping and waving his arms. The giant stepped nearer, the saucer eye now narrowing in a squint, "Does it have the foaming-sickness?" Polyphemus wondered aloud. "Perhaps instead of eating it, I should grind it into paste and spread it on the rocks around the meadow to keep wolves away from the sheep."

  Although he wanted to keep the diversion going, the stink and the horrible bulk of the thing coming toward him were too much for his faltering courage. Paul snatched up the spear and bolted back across the grass toward the forest, praying he had given Azador time, that the man was not foolishly trying to drag out the heavy raft himself.

  The ground shook to a pair of heavy steps, and Paul felt his heart climb up toward his throat.

  A dream . . . I've been in this dream before . . . and the giant's going to reach down and grab me. . . .

  But the steps did not continue. When Paul reached the shelter of the trees a moment later, the huge shadowy shape was still watching. Then it turned and trudged back to the cave. There was a rumble and screech as it pushed the rock back in front of the doorway—was there a hesitation, a moment's pause? Paul held his breath. Only silence greeted him. Nerves like wires crisping in an electrical fire, he staggered back into the deeper shadows.

  "I got the log into the doorway," Azador said when he had caught his breath. "It did not sound like the door closed all the way."

  "Then all we can do is wait until he falls asleep." Paul actually wished that they could wait a great deal longer than that. The idea of creeping into the ogre's cave, with its escape-preventing walls and stench of putrid flesh, was paralyzing.

  Why do I keep getting thrown into folktales? he wondered. Awful ones at that—-like the worst things the Brothers Grimm ever imagined.

  He eyed Azador, who was already settling himself against the sides of the depression, obviously planning to get some sleep. It was a good idea, but Paul's mind was full of flittering thoughts, and behind it all was the great fear of what they were about to do, too great to let him rest. He turned his attention to the mystery man beside him, who seemed to know much about the simulation but nothing about its source.

  "Where are you from, anyway?" he asked quietly.

  Azador opened one eye and frowned, but said nothing.

  "Look, we're stuck here. We have to trust each other. Why are you in this network?" A sudden thought struck him. "Are you part of the Circle?"

  His companion snorted his contempt. "A tribe of gorgio priests and fools." He spat.

  "Then . . . then do you have something to do with the Grail people?" He only whispered the words, mindful of what Nandi had told him about the eavesdropping machineries of the network's masters. "Are you part of the Brotherhood?"

  Azador's expression changed from scorn to something cold and reptilian. "If you ask me that again, then when the time comes that I have to save you from One-Eye, I will let him eat you." His tone had no hint of joking. "They are pigs."

  "Then who are you? What are you doing here?"

  The mustached man sighed, an exhalation of irritation. "I told you. I am looking for a woman who has something of mine. No one takes Azador's gold and walks away with it. I will find her, no matter in what world she hides."

  "She took your gold?"

  "She took something of mine."

  The hair on Paul's neck lifted with a sudden memory. "A harp? Was it a golden harp?"

  Azador stared at him as though he had begun to bark like a dog. "No. A cigarette lighter." He rolled over, deliberately turning his back to Paul.

  A cigarette lighter. . . ? Paul kept thinking the universe around him could not become more strange, but he kept being wrong.

  He woke from a shallow, unsatisfying sleep to find Azador kneeling over him, the blade-end of the makeshift spear near his throat. In the filtered moonlight the man's face looked hard as a mask, and for a moment Paul was quite convinced his companion intended to kill him.

  "Come," Azador whispered. "It will be dawn in another hour."

  Paul climbed to his feet, grogginess and disorientation a thin curtain in front of naked terror. For the first time in a while he thought longingly of coffee—If nothing else, the ritual of making some would postpone what was to come.

  He followed Azador up the hill, sliding a step backward on the muddy ground for every few steps forward. The storm had passed, and when they reached the grassy hilltop, they stood beneath a sky dazzlingly full of stars. Azador held a finger to his lips—quite unnecessarily, thought Paul, who was already frightened almost into immobility by the idea that he might step on a twig and wake the monster.

  They moved slower and slower as they approached the door of the cave, until it seemed that time itself had become something thick, weighty. Azador leaned into the shadows, then bobbed up, teeth bared in a mirthless grin, and beckoned Paul forward. The log had indeed kept the stone from sealing the doorway: a crescent of orange light revealed the gap.

  The smell was even worse than Paul had remembered, meat and animal musk and sour sweat. His stomach had been squirming since he woke; as they stepped over the log and squeezed through the narrow space into the cave, it was all he could do not to vomit.

  The monster's snores were deep and wet. Paul almost went limp with relief, and was equally heartened to see their raft leaning intact against a stone, but before he had time to savor the feelings Azador led him across the uneven floor. The cavern was high, and the dim glow of the embers did not penetrate every cranny, but he could see the great bulk of the Cyclops near the far wall, lying like a mountain range beside the fire. The sheep were crammed into a wooden pen that took up almost half of the large chamber. Stacked near it were the giant's implements, oddly domestic—buckets of pitch and a pair of shears that although bigger than normal must have been small and delicate as a surgical instrument in the Cyclops' oversized grasp.

  Distracted by his observations, Paul kicked something which rolled across the stone with a heart-stopping clatter. Some of the sheep moved nervously, and for a moment the tone of the ogre's snores changed; Paul and Azador stood frozen until the rhythm stabilized again. The human skull, which had come to a halt upside down, teetering on its cranium, seemed to look back at them with grave if inverted amusement.

  The job was Azador's now, and Paul would have liked nothing better than to stay near the door while his companion got on with it, but shame and something like loyalty forced him on. He groped his way forward a few inches at a time until he stood near the monster's feet, each one as long as he was tall and almost the same distance across, the skin more leathery and wrinkled than an elephant's hide. Azador inched around toward the creature's head, clearly torn as to which of his planned targets to strike, the lidded eye or unprotected throat. The Cyclops lay on his back with head tilted and a massive arm draped across his forehead: the angle was not good for reaching either spot. Azador climbed onto a rock shelf that brought him above the level of the giant's head, looked at Paul for a moment, then gripped the spear tightly and bent his
knees before jumping down onto the Cyclops' chest.

  As he sprang, one of the sheep bleated in alarm. The giant moved only a little, rolling in his heavy sleep, but it was enough for Azador's blade to miss the pit of the throat and tear down the side of the giant's neck instead.

  Polyphemus woke, roaring like a jet engine, and slapped Azador off his chest. Paul's companion flew across the room, thudded into a corner, and did not rise-Still roaring, his voice so loud in that closed place that it seemed he would shake the entire cavern into stone-dust, Polyphemus rolled onto his knees and then rose to his full height.

  His great, shaggy head swung around and his eye fixed on Paul, who took a stumbling step backward.

  I was right, he thought as the giant's bloody hand reached out to close on him and crush him into paste, it really wasn't a very good plan. . . .

  CHAPTER 13

  Tending the Herd

  NETFEED/NEWS: US, China to Cooperate on Antarctica Archaeology

  (visual: Antarctic site seen from the air)

  VO: The discovery of an archaelogical site on the Antarctic Peninsula, previously believed to have been uninhabited until recent history. . . .

  (visual: Chinese and American envoys shaking hands in Ellsworth)

  . . . has brought the two most prominent feuding nations of the Zurich Accord together in a rare show of cooperation.

  (visual: Chinese Cultural Minister Una at press conference)

  Una: "This historic find must be protected. I know I speak for the entire Chinese people when I say that we will work happily and vigorously with the United States and other Zurich nations to keep this unique piece of human history safe so that it can be properly explored and documented.

  It was hard to watch the little kids running around on the playground with their nice Mamapapa-type clothes and their clean faces and not wonder what that would feel like. But although he could imagine a boy like him doing those kind of things, he could never imagine himself doing it—not Carlos Andreas Chascarillo Izabal. Not Cho-Cho.