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From: mandil_k@hotmail.com (mandil)
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Subject: {ASSM} Masters of the Arches   chapter 18
Date: Fri,  5 Jul 2002 23:10:02 -0400
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.                          Masters of the Arches
                                by Mandil

 

                                Chapter 18

   

He must have past out while lying on the ground between his two women.
He was lying on his back with his head resting against his arm when he
returned back into the reality of the world. Something had pulled him
out of his unconscious state and he tried to figure what it was. He
was now only half aware of his situation since his mind was still
partly out of focus because of his having past out for such a long
time. But in spite of that, he knew that he was in great danger and
that he had to act fast.

 He did turn his head in every direction to look around, of course
noting was moving, but when his eyes came to rest on Nika, he
discovered that she had change position. Even while his eyes were
focused on her, he could hear her mumbling words that he couldn't make
any sense off. She was now resting on her belly, whereas before he had
passed out, she had been lying on her back. More important still, her
body was a dozen feet closer to the river now.

 This suddenly gave him courage. If only, he told himself, he could
drag her body to the river. Why not roll her until she was in the
water, she was less then ten feet from the river now.

With much pain and a tremendous effort of will, he got back on his
feet. He stood over Nika's body for a while then he did bend over and
he placed a hand under her left shoulder and the other around her
waist. He gently lift her shoulder while at the same time he pushed on
her waist until he saw her turn over on back.

 Again and again he repeated this. Sometimes Nika would regain
consciousness for a few seconds and cry out in pain as her aching body
was forced to move. But Vincent didn't pay any attention to her loud
protest since both of their life depended on how fast he could make
her reach the river.

 At last, after what seemed to be a long time to him, she was only one
turn away from the water. Vincent then forced his own protesting body
back beside Verla. He could actually feel his own strength leaving
him, it took him twice as long to roll her and it did caused
excruciating pain in his aching muscles and joints, but he was able to
roll her near the river using the same method he had used on Nika.

 As soon as both women were near the river, he started thinking. There
was no question of pushing both unconscious bodies into the river
since they would drown immediately. He even doubted very much his own
capacity to keep his own head out of the water in the exhausted state
that he was now. He needed something to help them float so that they
would not need to exert efforts all the time to stay above the water.
But in this barren place there was only the yellow grass around them.

 At last his eyes came to rest on their supplies which were in a pile
just a short distance from where the fire had been burning less than
ten hours previously. Yes, he told himself, there was something he
could use there.

 He did experience more pain as he slowly walked toward the pile and
he took out the two water bags that used to belong to Kwola. They were
made of the hide of an antelope-looking animal that Kwola said was
called a 'balu'. After the skin of the animal had been dried in the
sun for several days, it had been coated with the same rubber-like
resinous paste that had been used to make the canoe waterproof.

 Vincent poured the water out of each bag then he blew as much air as
he could inside the bags. Then by mean of a short strip of leather,
which he cut from the rope, he tied the neck of each bag as tight as
he could. On his way back toward the river he felt and when he tried
to stand back on his legs, he found that it was impossible for him to
do so since he was now too weak.

 On his hands and knees he was finally able to get to the two
unconscious women. He used leather strips from the rope and he tied
both bags together. Next he tied both women together also by passing
the rest of the rope under their arms. With the two air bags between
them, he next wrapped the rope around them and around the bags.

 As soon as this was done, he got into the cold water of the river and
he proceeded to drag the bodies of the women. Had the slope along the
bank not been as steep, he wouldn't have been able to do this, but
gravity did help him and once Verla's body was in the water, the
slight pull of the current made it easier for him to pull Nika into
the water.

 Once both unconscious bodies were floating on the water, he placed
one hand around the rope holding the two air bags together and he felt
a certain satisfaction as his body became numb because of the cold
water.

 The current slowly carried them downstream as a single mass. Beside
reducing the pain in all of his joints, the cold water made his want
to sleep and more than once he was tempted to submit to the relaxing
sleep that every cell of his body was craving for. He did close his
eyes once and his grip relaxed on the rope and he was immediately
jerked out of sleep when his face was submerged.

 A few times he had to pull one of the women’s head out of the
water, he did this by pulling them by their long hair.

Gradually, after what seemed to Vincent like hours, the river carried
them toward the forest. By noon, when the sun was directly over his
head, he saw the first trees growing near the bank of the river. By
that time he was so weak that he didn't even try to get them all on
the dry sand. Instead he used his remaining strength to concentrate on
the task of keeping one hand around the rope and his head out of the
water.

 Hours later, he felt a sharp pain on one of his kneecap. The pain was
intense enough to jolt him out of his half unconscious state. Even
after realizing that he was not dead, it took his mind many long
seconds to understand his present situation.

 They were no longer moving. They were all quite immobile in the
shallow water of a section of the river that was much wider. Both Nika
and Verla were still bounded together with the air bags in-between
them, but as it was with him, their bodies were only half submerged
since they had somehow become anchored to a piece of wood stuck into
the bottom of the water. Vincent also noticed that it was getting
dark, and then he passed out completely.

When he recovered part of his senses much later, he felt pain in every
part of his body. Every joint ached terribly when he tried to move. On
the other hand, when he did try to remain still, it was as bad since
the pain seemed to come from every square inch of his flesh, even his
bones seemed to signal pain to his blurred brain.

 With his eyes half opened, he saw the shadow of someone's head just a
few inches from his face. But with the sun in the background it looked
like a ghostly apparition and as for the face he couldn't even see
enough to identify its owner. After a minute of this he once again
passed out.

 The third time he regained consciousness, it was dark again. He
waited and looked around without daring to move his head. But only the
silhouette of the tops of the trees in the background was in his line
of sight. He didn't dare twist his neck since he still recall the
terrible pain he had endure when he had tried to move the last time.
He did remain conscious long enough to think about the fact that it
was now dark and that he was experiencing only a dull ache all over.
He knew he was still extremely weak and most of all he wanted to sleep
which he soon did.

 It was late afternoon when he awoke. He was able to move his head
sideway without any pain and he saw the shape of his two women just a
few feet away from him. The three of them were now on dry ground. How
had they gotten there, he had no idea.

 He then remembered the blurred image of a face he had seen the
previous day. Yes, someone had been in the process of pulling him out
of the water at that time.

 With his mind now fully functioning he began to analyse his
situation. Because of the fact that they were now away from the
radioactive zone, the Rad Virus was probably repairing his dying cells
and replacing the dead ones. He also knew that they were all going to
be as fit and healthy as before if they were given enough time. Even
the pain was almost completely gone now.

 Half an hour later, he was able to get up and walk a little. Nika's
was lying nearby, she and Verla were both stretched on the sand and
they were still sleeping. All around them, he could see footmarks in
the sand and after a closer examination it became evident that both
women were responsible for these sand prints and there didn't seem to
be any traces of strange footmarks.

 Vincent carefully walked over to Nika and he bent his head above her.
She immediately opened her eyes. The moment that she realized that he
was standing over her, she threw her arms around his neck and she
hugged him without saying a word.

"How do you feel?" Said Vincent.

 She kept on hugging him for long seconds then she looked at him. It
was quite evident that she was very glad to see that he was in a much
better shape.

"I am much better, Verla is also doing well. We thought that you were
dead a few days ago."

"Have I been unconscious for a long time?"

"This is the second day that we have been taking care of you. As for
how long you were out before that time, we have no idea since we were
both in a similar unconscious state also."

"So Verla is doing find then?"

"Yes she is. I was the first one to become aware of our uncomfortable
position in the water. It took me over half a day to find enough
strength to drag myself on dry ground. By then Verla was also coming
out of her death-like state and when she became strong enough to walk
a little, we both managed to pull you out of the water. This was two
days ago."

 Verla must have heard them talk and she was soon standing next to
them. She also threw her arms around Vincent and she kissed him
passionately.

"I am so happy that you are going to be well again, for a while we
were not sure if you would recover."

"Don't worry, I feel much better now. But we still have the problem of
finding food, and judging by the emptiness in my stomach, I think it
is a very urgent problem."

"We found some dry berries still clinging to the branches, here eat
this it will help you."

 Verla gave him a small bundle wrapped in a large leaf. Inside were
brown-red, wrinkled berries. When Vincent ate one he thought that it
was the tastiest fruit he had ever eaten in his life. It took him only
half a minute to swallow the two dozens berries.

"We must eat something more substantial and fast, otherwise we will
lose most of our strength and we won't even be able to walk after a
while. We mustn't be more than a few hours walk from our food reserve
of smoked fish. I will rest until tomorrow and then I will go back and
return as fast as I can with our supplies."

"Why go back there to that death trap?" said Verla. "Let us forget the
food and go away immediately, we will find food on the way."

"You seem to forget that everything we own is over there, the map, the
knives, the guns and the food of course. No I will go tomorrow."

"Then we will go with you." Finally said Nika.

 Vincent knew that it was asking too much to expect them to wait for
him while he went back there, beside he doubted very mush that in his
present weak state if he could carry back all of their supply.

"Very well then, you can come for half the distance, the rest I must
walk alone."

 They all agreed to this compromise and the three of them began to
plan their trip for the following day.

 The sun had barely risen the next morning when they got on their way.
They followed the river upstream for over two hours. After entering
into the forest, they noticed that the height of the trees was
gradually decreasing as well as their number.

Finally they abruptly arrived at the edge of the yellow grass plain.

 Vincent was stunned to see that the current of the river hadn't
carried them further away while they had been in the water. He
estimated that they had walked only about eight to ten miles in the
last two hours. After walking half an hour over the yellow grass, he
was able to see in the distance the position of their camp as well as
their supplies.

 He knew that their food and supplies would be contaminated to some
degree by the radiation emitted from the ground. On Earth, just eating
a few bites of the smoked fish would be dangerous, but not in this
world. Sure enough many of their cells were going to be destroyed by
the contaminated fish, but not enough of them that the Rad Virus
wouldn't be able to replace fast enough. The important thing was to
get as fast as possible away from this highly contaminated ground.

"Stay here," he said to his two women, "I will go alone the rest of
the way."

 Before they had had a chance to protest he was walking away toward
the middle of the clearing where their camp had been. It took him less
than fifteen minutes to get there. Everything was as he remembered
them to be. He had brought the rope with him and he immediately began
to tie the smoked fish into two bundles. Then he gathered the rest of
their gear and he tied them together also.

 When Vincent had rolled both women into the river when he departed
from the camp the last time, only a soft pelt had been covering their
body then, all the rest of their clothing as well as the pelts they
were using as blankets were still there. It was much too cold now to
go around almost naked and he was more than happy to get back their
clothing.

The pouch containing the knives, guns and map, was exactly where he
had last left it, and this he also took of course.

 With the bundle of fish neatly tied on his back, the pouch and
clothes over his shoulder, Verla's spear and Nika's bow and arrows in
his hands he began walking back toward the waiting women. He hadn't
been in the clearing for more than half an hour now and yet he thought
that he already could feel signs of fatigue in his body.

 Before he got half way to the edge of the forest, both Nika and Verla
ran to meet him and between the two of them, they did relieved him of
the bundles of smoked fish on his back.

 By noon of that day, they were back near the river at the exact same
spot they had started earlier in the morning. But now they had plenty
of food and more important still they had their weapons to defend
themselves if they should be attacked by men or beasts.

After their first decent meal in a long time, they rested for the
remainder of the day and by nightfall they were all feeling well
again. Vincent had figure that it would be much better to wait a while
and give a chance to the Rad Virus to use the nutritious elements in
the food they ate and thus repair their damaged body cells.

That night they had their first experience with snow, they spent a
very miserable night in each other's arms trying to keep warm and dry.

It would have been easy to built a fire since there was an abundance
of broken branches everywhere on the ground, and both Nika and Verla
knew how to start a fire using a round stick and dry twigs, but the
smoke would have given away their position if someone was after them.
Even at night there was always the chance that someone could smell the
smoke it not actually see the flames. They had been lucky so far since
no one had detect the fire they had made to smoke their fish and
Vincent didn't want to stretch their luck more than necessary.

The following morning they ate breakfast and once again they undertook
their trek south. In the two inches of fresh snow everywhere on the
ground it was easy to see their tracks, but it didn't worry Vincent
since the snow was already beginning to melt and he knew that in a
couple of hours there would be none left.

 By mid-day they began to see small animals here and there, but
nothing bigger than a rabbit. Had they seen bigger games, Vincent
wouldn't have hesitated one second to use one of the handguns in his
pouch to paralyse it. He had practiced using the gun the previous
night and he knew exactly how to use it even if he didn't understand
how it worked.

That night they ate roasted rabbits. Nika managed to kill two of them
using her arrows, and since they were able to find a small cave by
late afternoon, they decided that a fire could be lit inside the cave.
By burning very dry wood they were able to limit the amount of smoke
to a minimum.

It was the best meal they had eaten in weeks and afterward they felt
warm and cozy inside the cave. Later in the evening, the three of them
stretched themselves near the fire and Vincent made love to both
women. Now that his stomach was full and since they were all feeling
good again, his urge to make love was back.

 For two weeks they went in the general direction of the south.
Sometimes they had to make detours to cross a river or simply to go
around a steep mountain blocking their way. Twice they saw a barren
clearing covered with the yellow grass, on these two occasions they
were careful to stay well away from these radioactive areas.

Vincent figured that there must have been some kind of war long in the
past and owing to the fact that it had taken place so long ago, all
traces of the civilization that had once flourished there, were now
completely obliterated either by the heat of the bombs or by time.

Judging from the electronic map, they had barely covered three
hundreds miles southward in those two weeks time, and even though they
were moving south, the temperature was still getting colder. Worst
still, there was now a permanent thin coating of snow on the ground
which was a dead give away of their passage if someone should happened
to cross theirs tracks.

 The rabbit pelts - they were now eating rabbit meat almost all the
time since there were lots of them everywhere - wrapped around their
feet did prevent them from walking bared feet in the snow but it was
not adequate and they had to change them often. Vincent felt very
sorry that he had been made to leave behind his heavy-duty boots and
clothing on the recommendations of Brumelle - the computer underneath
the mountain.

He realized now that he should have kept his riffle also; they could
have carried their clothing and supplies wrapped in a bundle and away
from the eyes of the natives. Beside, now that Valdo knew of their
presence in this world, he could have use all of these items since it
would no longer matter anymore if the local natives would have seen
them with these products of civilization.

One day, in their third week after their narrow escape from death from
the radioactivity, while still walking through the mountain, they saw
in the distance - from the height of a high peak - a wide valley that
was completely bared of trees and covered with the same yellow
sickening grass in some places while in other places the yellow grass
was completely missing.

In these places, bared of the yellow grass, the ground was whitish in
colour. It seemed that whoever had set out to obliterate what had been
there, had been extra careful to do a good job of it. In the distance
he could well distinguish four different overlapping circles of
desolation where even the yellow grass wouldn't grow. A light green
moss covered these instead and the whole valley had a terrifying
appearance of desolation.

They didn't bother to observe the valley for a long time. They made a
wide detour so as to avoid this radioactive region and then they
traveled south again.

 About five miles ahead of the desolated valley, while climbing higher
to cross a taller than usual peak ahead of them, Verla, who had been
walking just in front of Vincent, suddenly sunk into the ground. She
disappeared completely from sight.

 One second she had been walking ahead of Vincent and just behind Nika
and the next second she was gone. Had Vincent not actually seen her
sink into the ground, he would have probably thought that she had
disappeared right on the spot.

He shouted to Nika and they both carefully approached the place where
he had seen her sink into the ground. Then they saw her hands holding
her body weight around a circular metal bar at the edge of a hole that
was less than two feet in diameter. She did not seem to be hurt but
she was also not trying to climb out when they got near her.

"Are you ok?" Said Nika.  

"I have no broken bones, just a few bruises and scratch, but I did get
a good scare when the ground gave way under my feet. But my feet are
now on something hard and I will try to get out."

They both proceeded to help her to pull herself out and few seconds
later she was standing next to them looking down into the dark hole.

"There is a great deal of wind in there and it seemed to be very deep.
It's a good thing that I was able to grab the edge, otherwise I would
have fallen at the bottom."

 Vincent recognized immediately the hole for what it was. The fact
that air was being sucked into the shaft met that it was part of a
ventilation system and it therefore indicated the presence of a very
large underground structure somewhere underneath their feet.

Both women stood well away from the dark hole while Vincent knelt near
its edge and looked into it's dark interior. He could see a circular
ladder descending into the darkness and it was the first stand of this
ladder that Verla had been holding only a minute before.

"Why do you stare down?" said Nika. "We should go away from here,
there can only be bad things in that hole."

"No, on the contrary, we will go down and see what we can find there.
This is a ventilation shaft for an underground complex. We could find
many useful things in there, as for it being bad for us, we don't have
to worry about that or about the inhabitants or their spirits since no
one has been in this place or near it for a very long time."

 His two women were not convinced of that, but since it was his wish
and he was their leader, they stopped arguing about the matter.

 He was the first to descend, taking with him half of their supplies
and leaving the rest for the women. Both women went down after him and
while they were descending on the rust-free metal ladder, he did
encourage them all the way down. After what seemed a very long time,
they finally stepped on the floor of a circular room that look more
like a cage since the circular wall was covered with plastic-like
plates having thousands of apple size holes in them.

There was a single door, which was about three feet in height, and
when Vincent tried to force it open, it wouldn't move. But the instant
he tried to lift it, there was a loud creaking noise and the door
panel did slide up into the wall. They went inside on hands and knees
into some kind of connecting duct made of the same plastic-like
material.

 They were in complete darkness except from the weak glow of the light
coming from the open door at their back. For how long they crawled
inside the restricting channel, he couldn't tell, but twice they came
to a connecting duct that went perpendicularly to the one they were
in. On and on they went until both women were on the verge of panic.

It was now completely dark and windy, but they kept on moving using
the direction of the flowing air as their guide. Then all of a sudden,
they felt that the duct they were in was beginning to turn. After a
ninety degrees turn they saw light a long way ahead of them. It took
them another fifteen minutes of crawling on hands and knees before
they got to the source of the light.

  

                                (end of chapter 18)

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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