Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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stopped abruptly, dangling helplessly against the rock face.

"What's going on?" he shouted up at Boris.

"Bloody rope has jammed," Boris yelled back. "Can you see where it is

stuck?"

Nicholas peered up and realized that the rope had rolled into a vertical

crack in the face, probably the same one that had almost stopped the

dik-dik reaching the top.

However, his own weight was almost five times that of the little

antelope, and had forced the rope much more deeply into the crack.

He was suspended high in the air, with a drop of almost a hundred feet

under him.

"Try and swing yourself loose! Boris shouted down at him. Obediently,

Nicholas kicked himself back and twisted on the rope to try and roll it

clear. He worked until the sweat streamed down into his eyes and the

rope had rubbed him raw under the arms.

"No use," he shouted back at Boris. "Try to haul it out with brute

force!

There was a pause, and then he saw the rope above the crack tighten like

a bar of iron as five strong men hauled on the top end with all their

strength. He could hear the trackers chanting their working chorus as

they threw all their combined weight on the line.

His end of the line did not budge. It was a solid jam, and he knew then

that they were not going to clear it. He looked down. The surface of the

water seemed much further than a hundred feet below.

"The terminal velocity of the human body is one hundred and fifty miles

an hour," he reminded himself. At that speed the water would be like

concrete. "I won't be going that fast when I hit, will I? he tried to

reassure himself.

He looked up again. The men on the top of the cliff were still hauling

with all their weight and strength. At that moment one of the strands of

the nylon rope sheared against the cutting edge of the rock crack, and

began to uncurl like a long green worm.

"Stop pulling!" Nicholas screamed. "Vast heaving!" But Boris was no

longer in sight. He was helping his trackers, adding his weight to the

pull.

The second strand of the rope parted and unravelled.

There was only a single strand holding him now.

It was going to go at any moment, he realized. "Boris, you ham-fisted

bastard, stop pulling!" But his voice never reached the Russian, and

with a pop like a champagne cork the third and final strand of the rope

parted.

He plunged downwards, with the loose end of the severed rope fluttering

above his head. Flinging both arms straight upwards over his head to

stabilize his flight, he straightened his legs, arrowing his body to hit

feet first.

He thought about the island under him. Would he miss its red rock fangs

or would he smash into it and shatter every bone in his lower body? He

dared not look down to judge it in case he destabilized – his fall and

tumbled in midair. If he hit the water flat it would crush his ribs or

snap his spine.

His guts seemed to be forced into his throat by the speed of his fall,

and he drew one last breath as he hit the surface feet first. The force

of it was stunning. It was transmitted up his spine into the back of his

skull, so that his teeth cracked against each other and bright lights

starred his vision. The river swallowed him under. He went down deep,

but he was still moving so fast when he hit the rocky bottom that his

legs were jarred to the hips. He felt his knees buckle under the strain,

and he thought that both his legs had been broken.

The impact drove the air out of his lungs, and it was only when he

kicked off the bottom, desperate for air, that -he realized with a rush

of relief that both his legs were still intact. He broke out through the

surface, wheezing an coughing, and realized that he must have missed the

island by only the length of his body. However, by now the current had

carried him well clear of it.

He trod water on the racing stream, shook the water from his eyes and

looked around him swiftly. The walls of the chasm were streaming past

him, and he estimated his speed at around ten knots – fast enough to

break bone if he hit a rock. As he thought it, another small island

flashed past him almost close enough to touch. He rolled on to his back

and thrust both feet out ahead of him, ready to fend off should he be

thrown on to another outcrop.

"You are in for the whole ride, he told himself grimly.

"There is only one way out, and that is to ride it to the bottom."

He was trying to calculate how far he was above the point where the

river debauched from the chasm through the pink stone archway, how far

he still had to swim.

"Three or four miles, at the least, and the river falls almost a

thousand feet. There are bound to be rapids and probably waterfalls

ahead," he decided. "From here it does not look good. I' say the betting

is three to one against getting through without leaving some skin and

meat on the rocks behind you."

He looked up. The walls canted in from each side, so that at places they

almost met directly over his head. There was only a narrow strip of blue

sky showing, and the depths were gloomy and dank. Over the ages the

river had scoured the rock as it cut its way through.

"Damned lucky this is the dry season. What is it like down in here in

the rainy season?" he wondered. He looked up at the high-water mark

etched on the rock fifteen or twenty feet above his head.

Shuddering at the image he looked down again, concentrating on the river

ahead. He had his breath back by now, and he checked his body for any

damage. With relief he decided that, apart from some bruising and what

felt like a sprained knee, he was unhurt. All his limbs were responding,

and when he swam a few strokes to one side to avoid another spur of

rock, even the sore knee worked well enough to get him out of trouble.

Gradually he became aware of a new sound in the canyon. It was a dull

roar, growing stronger as he sped onward  down The walls of the chasm

converged upon each other, the gut of rock narrowed and the flood seemed

to accelerate as it was squeezed in and confined. The sound of water

built up rapidly into a thunder that reverberated in the canyon.

Nicholas rolled over and swam with all his strength across the current

until he reached the nearest rock wall.

He tried to find a handhold, a place where he could anchor himself, but

the rock was polished smooth by the river. It slipped past under his

desperately grasping hands, and the river bellowed in his head. He saw

the surface around him flatten out and smooth like solid glass. Like a

horse laying back its ears as it gathers itself for a jump, the river

had sensed what lay ahead.

Nicholas pushed himself away from the rock wall to try and give himself

room in which to manoeuvre, and pointed his feet once more down river.

Abruptly the air opened under him and he was launched out into space.

All around him white spurning water filled the air, and he was swirled

off balance and tossed like a leaf in the torrent The drop seemed to

last for ever, and his stomach swooped against his ribs. Then once more

he struck with all his weight and was driven far below the surface.

He fought his way up and abruptly burst out through the surface with his

breathing whistling up his throat.

Through streaming eyes he saw that he was caught up in the bowl of

swirling water below the falls. The waters revolved and eddied, turning

in a stately minuet upon themselves.

As he turned, he saw first the high sheet of white water of the falls

down which he had tumbled, and then still turning, the narrow exit from

the basin through which the river resumed its mad career downstream. But

for the moment he was safe and quiet here in the back-eddy below the

falls. The current pushed him against the side of the basin, close in

beneath the chute of the falls. He reached out and found a handhold on a

clump of mossy fern growing out of a crack in the wall.

Here, at last, he had a chance to rest and consider his position. It did

not take him long, however, to realize that his only way out of the

chasm was to follow the course of the river and to take his chances with

whatever lay downstream. He could expect rapids, if not another set of

falls like this one that thundered away close beside him.

If only there were some way up the wall! He looked up, but his spirits

quailed as he considered the overhang that formed a cathedral roof high

above him.

While he still stared upwards, something caught his eye. Something too

regular and regimented to be natural.

There was a double row of dark marks running vertically up the wall of

rock, beginning at the surface of the water and climbing up the wall to

the rim almost two hundred feet overhead. He relinquished his hold on

the clump of fern and dog-paddled slowly down to where these marks

reached the water.

As he reached them he realized that they were niches, cut about four

inches square into the wall. The two rows were twice the spread of his

arms apart, and the niche in one row lined up in the horizontal plane

exactly with its neighbour in the second row.

Thrusting his hand into the nearest opening, he found that it was deep

enough to accommodate his arm to the elbow. This opening, being below

the flood level of the waters, was smoothed and worn, but when he looked

to those higher up the wall, above the water mark, he saw that they had

retained their shape much more clearly. The edges were sharp and square.

"My word, how old are they to have been worn like that?" he marvelled.

"And how the hell did anybody get down here to cut them?"

He hung on to the niche nearest him and studied the pattern in the cliff

face. "Why would anybody go to all that amount of trouble?" He could

think of no reason nor purpose. "Who did this work? What would they want

down here?" It was an intriguing mystery.

Then suddenly something else caught his eye. It was a circular

indentation in the rock, precisely between the two rows of niches and

above the high-water mark. From so far below it looked to be perfectly

round – another shape that was not natural.

He paddled further around, trying to reach a position from which he

would have a clearer view of it. It seemed to be some sort of rock

engraving, a plaque that reminded him strongly of those marks in the

black boulders that flank the Nile below the first cataract at Aswan,

placed there in antiquity to measure the flood levels of the river

waters. But the light was too poor and the angle too acute for him to be

certain that it was man-made, let alone to recognize or read any script

or lettering that might have been incorporated in the design.

Hoping to devise some way of climbing closer, he tried to use the stone

niches as aids. With a great deal of effort, usin them as foot– and

hand-holds, he managed to lift himself out of the water. But the

distances between holds were too great and he fell back with a splash,

swallowing more water.

"Take it easy, my lad – you still have to swim out of here. No profit in

exhausting yourself. You will just have to come back another day to get

a closer look at whatever it is up there."

Only then did he realize how close he was to total exhaustion. This

water coming down from the Choke mountains was still cold with the

memories of the high snows. He was shivering until his teeth chattered.

"Not far from hypothermia. Have to get out of here now, while you still

have the strength."

Reluctantly he pushed himself away from the wall of rock and paddled

towards the narrow opening through which the Dandera river resumed the

headlong rush to join her mother Nile. He felt the current pick him up

and bear him forward, and he stopped swimming and let it take him.

"The Devil's roller-coaster!" he told himself. "Down and down she goes,

and where she stops nobody knows."

The first set of rapids battered him. They seemed endless, but at last

he was spewed out into the run of slower water below them. He floated on

his back, taking full advantage of this respite, and looked upwards.

There was very little light showing above him, for the rock almost met

overhead. The air was dank and dark and stank of bats. However, there

was little time to examine his surroundings, for once again the river

began to roar ahead of him. He braced himself rilentally for the assault

of turbulent waters, and went cascading down the next steep slide.

After a while he lost track of how far he had been carried, and how many

cataracts he had survived. It was a constant battle against the cold and

the pain of sodden lungs and strained muscle and overtaxed sinew. The

river mauled him.

Suddenly the light changed. After the gloom at the bottom of the high

cliffs it was as though a searchlight had been shone directly into his

eyes, and he felt the force and ferocity of the river abating. He

squinted up into bright sunlight, and then looked back and saw that he

had passed out below the archway of pink rock into that familiar part of

the river which he had explored with Royan. Coming up ahead of him was

the rope suspension bridge, and he had just sufficient strength

remaining to paddle feebly towards the small beach of white sand below

it.

One of the hairy tattered ropes dangled to the surface of the water, and

he managed to catch hold of it as he drifted past and swing himself in

towards the beach. He tried to crawl fully ashore, but he collapsed with

his face in the sand and vomited out the water he had swallowed. It felt

so good just to be able to lie without effort and rest.

His lower body still hung into the river, but he had neither the

strength nor the inclination to drag himself fully ashore.

"I am alive," he marvelled, and fell into a state halfway between sleep

and unconsciousness.

  never knew how long he had been lying like that, but when he felt a

hand shaking his shoulder, and a voice calling softly to him, he was

annoyed that his rest had been disturbed.

"Effendi, wake up! They seek you. The beautiful Woizero seeks you."

With a huge effort Nicholas roused himself and sat up slowly. Tamre

knelt over him, grinning and waggling his head.

(Please, effendi, come with me. The Woizero is searching the river bank

on the far side. She is weeping and calling your name,' Tamre told him.

He was the only person Nicholas had ever met who contrived to look

worried and to grin at the same time. Nicholas looked beyond him and saw

that it must be late afternoon, for the sun sat fat and red on the lip

of the escarpment.

While still sitting in the sand Nicholas checked his body, making an

inventory of his injuries. He ached in every muscle, and his legs and

arms were scraped and bruised, but he could detect no broken bones. And

although there was a tender lump on'the side of his he ad where he had

glanced off a rock, his mind was clear.

"Help me upP he ordered Tamre. The boy put his shoulder under Nicholas's

armpit, where the. rope had burnt him, and hoisted him to his feet. The

two of them struggled up to the bank and on to the path, and then.

hobbled slowly across the swinging bridge.

He had hardly reached the other bank when there was a joyous shout from

close at hand.

"Nicky! Oh, dear God! You are safe." Royan ran down the path and threw

her arms around him. "I have been frantic. I thought that-' she broke

off, and held him at arms length to look at him. "Are you all right? I

was expecting to find your broken bodym–'

"You know me," he grinned at her and tried not to i limp. "Ten'feet tall

and-bullet-proof You don't get rid of Me that easily. I only did it just

to get a hug from you."

She released him hurriedly. "Don't read anything into that. I am kind to

all beaten puppies, and other dumb animals." But her smile belied the

words. "Nevertheless, it's good to have you back in one piece, Nicky."

"Where is Boris?"he asked.

"He and the trackers are searching the banks lower down the river. I

think he is looking forward to finding your corpse."

"What has he done with my dik-dik?"

ainly nothing too much the matter with

"There is cert you if you can worry about that. The skinners have taken

it down to the camp."

"Damn it to hell! I must supervise the skinning and tion of the trophy

myself. They will ruin id' He put prepara his arm around Tamre's

shoulder. "Come on, my lad! Let's see if I can break into a trot."

las knew that in this heat the carcass of icho the little antelope would

decompose swiftly, and the hair would slough from the hide if it were

not treated immediately. It was imperative to skin it out immediately.

Already it had been left too long, and the preparation of a hide for a

full body mount was a skilled and painstaking procedure.

it was already dark as they limped into the camp.

Nicholas shouted for the skinners in Arabic.

"Ya, Kif! Ya, SalinP and when they came running from living huts he

asked anxiously, "Have you begun?" their

"Not yet, effendi. We were having our dinner first."

"For once gluttony is a virtue. Do not touch the creature until I come.

While you are waiting for me, fetch one of the gas lights!" He limped to

his own hut as fast as his aches would allow. There he stripped and

anointed all his visible scrapes and abrasions with Mercurochrome, flung

on fresh dry clothes, rummaged in his bag until he found the canvas roll

which contained his knives, and hurried down to the skinning hut.

By the brilliant white glare of the butane gas lantern he had only just

completed the initial skin incisions down the inside of the dik-dik's

legs and belly when Boris pushed open the door of the hut.

"Did you have a good swim, English?"

"Bracing, thank you." Nicholas smiled. "I don't expect you want to eat

your words about my striped dik-dik, do you?" he asked mildly. "No such

bloody animal, I think you said., "It is like a rat. A true hunter would

not bother himself with such rubbish," Boris replied haughtily. "Now

that you have your rat, perhaps we can go back to Addis, English?"

"I paid you for three weeks. It is my safari. We go when I say

so,'Nicholas told him. Boris grunted and backed out of the hut.

Nicholas worked swiftly. His knives were of a special design to

facilitate the fine work, and he stropped them at regular intervals on a

ceramic sharpening rod until he could shave the hairs from his forearm

with just the lightest touch.

The legs had to be skinned out with the tiny hooves still attached.

Before he had completed this part of the work, another figure stooped

into the hut. He was dressed in a priest's shamma and headcloth, and

until he spoke Nicholas did not recognize Mek Nimmur.

"I hear that you have been looking for trouble again, Nicholas. I came

to make sure that you were still alive.

There was a rumour at the monastery that you had drowned yourself,

though I knew it was not possible. You will not die so easily."

"I hope you are right, Mek," Nicholas laughed at him.

Mek squatted opposite him. "Give me one of your knives and I will finish

the hooves. It will go quicker if I help you."

Without comment Nicholas passed him one of the knives. He knew that Mek

could skin out the hooves, for years before he had taught him the art.

With two of them working on the pelt, it would go that much faster. The

sooner the skin was off, the less chance there would be of

deterioration.

He turned his attention to the head. This was the most delicate part of

the process. The skin had to be peeled off like a glove, and the eyelids

and lips and nostrils must be worked from the inside. The ears were

perhaps the most difficult to lift away from the gristle in one piece.

They worked in companionable silence for a while, which Mek broke at

last.

"How well do you know your Russian, Boris Brusilov?" he asked.

"I met him for the first time when I stepped off the plane. He was

recommended by a friend."

"Not a very good friend." Mek looked up at him and his expression was

grim. "I came to warn you about him, Nicholas."

"I a  listening," said Nicholas quietly.

"In "85 I was captured by Mengistu's thugs. They kept me in the Karl

Marx prison camp near Addis. Brusilov was one of the interrogators

there. He was KGB in those days.

His favourite trick was to stick the pressure hose from a compressor up

the anus of the man or woman he was questioning and turn on the tap.

They blew up like a balloon, until the gut burst." He stopped speaking

while he moved around to work on the other hoof of the antelope.

"I escaped before he got around to questioning me. He retired when

Mengistu fled, and went hunting. I don't know how he persuaded Tessay to

marry him, ut knowing what I do of the man, I expect she did not have

much choice in the matter."

"Of course, I had my suspicions about him," Nicholas admitted.

They were quiet after that until Mek whispered, "I came to tell you that

I may have to kill him."

Neither of them spoke again until Mek had finished working on all four

hooves. Then he stood up. "These days, life is uncertain, Nicholas. If I

have to leave here in a hurry, and I do not have a chance to say goodbye

to you, then there is somebody in Addis who will pass a message to me if

you ever need me. His name is Colonel Maryam Kidane in the Ministry of

Defence. He is a friend. My code name is the Swallow. He will know who

you are talking about."

They embraced briefly. "Go with GodV said Mek, and left the hut quietly.

The night swallowed his robed figure and Nicholas stood for a long time

at the door, until at last he turned back to finish the work.

It was late by the time he had rubbed every inch of the skin with a

mixture of rock salt and Kabra dip to cure it and protect it from the

ravages of the bacon beetle and other insects and bacteria. At last he

laid it out on the floor of the hut with the wet side uppermost and

packed more rock salt on the raw areas.

The walls of the hut were reinforced with mesh netting to keep out

hyenas. One of these foul creatures could gobble down the pelt in a few

seconds. He made certain the door was wired shut before he carried the

lantern up to the dining hut. The others had all eaten and gone to bed

hours earlier, but Tessay had left his dinner in the charge of the

Ethiopian chef. He had not realized how hungry he was until he smelt it.

The next morning Nicholas was so stiff that he hobbled down to the

skinning hut like an old  man. First he checked the pelt and poured

fresh salt over it, then he ordered Kif and Satin to bury the skull of

the dik-dik in an ant heap to allow the insects to remove the surplus

flesh and scour the brain pan. He preferred this method to boiling the

skull.

Satisfied that the trophy was in good condition, he went on down to the

dining hut, where Boris greeted him jovially.

"And so, English. We leave for Addis now, da?  "thing more to do here."

"We will stay to photograph the ceremony of Timkat at the

monastery,'Nicholas told him. "And after that I may want to hunt a

Menelik's bushbuck. Who knows? I've told you before. We go when I say

so."

Boris looked disgruntled. "You are crazy, English. Why do you want to

stay in this heat to watch these people and their mumbo'jumbo?"

"Today I will go fishing, and tomorrow we will watch Timkat."

"You do not have a fishing rod," Boris protested, but pened the small

canvas roll no larger than a Nicholas  woman's handbag and showed him

the four-piece Hardy Smuggler rod nestling in it.

He looked across the table at Royan, "Are you coming along to ghillie

for me?" he asked.

They went upstream to the suspension bridge where Nicholas set up the

rodand tied a fly on to his leader.

"Royal Coachm " He held it up for her appraisal.

an.

"Fish love them anywhere in the world, from Patagonia to Alaska. We

shall soon find out if they are as popular here in Ethiopia, as well."

She watched from the top of the bank as he shot out line, rolling it

upon itself in flight, sailing the weightless fly out to midstream, and

then laying it gently on the surface of the water so that it floated

lightly on the ripples. On his second cast there was a swirl under the

fly. The rod tip arced over sharply, the reel whined and Nicholas let

out a whoop.

"Gotcha, my beauty!'

 watched him indulgently from the top of the bank.

Sh In his excitement and enthusiasm he was like a small boy.

She smiled when she noticed how his injuries had miraculously healed

themselves, and how he no longer limped as he ran back and forth along

the water's edge, playing the fish. Ten minutes later he slid it,

gleaming like a bar of freshly minted gold as long as his arm, sopping

and flapping up on to the beach.

"Yellow fish," he told her triumphantly. "Scrumptious.

Breakfast for tomorrow morning."

He came up the bank and dropped down in the grass beside her. "The

fishing was really just an excuse to get away from Boris. I brought you

here to tell you about what I found up there yesterday." He pointed up

through the archway of pink stone above the bridge. She came up on her

elbow and watched him with her full attention.

"Of course, I have no way of telling if it has anything to do with our

search, but somebody has been working in there." He described the niches

that he had found carved into the canyon wall. "They reach from the lip

right down to the water's edge. Those below the high-water mark have

been severely eroded by the floods. I could not reach those higher up,

but from what I could see they have been protected from wind and rain by

the dished shape of the Cliff., it has formed a veranda roof over them.

They appear to be in pristine condition, very much in contrast to those

lower down."

"What do we deduce from that?" she asked.

"That they are very old," he answered. "Certainly the basalt is pretty

hard. It has taken a long, long time for water to wear it down the way

it has."

"What do you think was the purpose of those holes?"

 am not sure he admitted.

"Could it be that they were the anchor points for some sort of

scaffolding? she asked, and he looked impressed.

"Good thinking. They could be, he agreed.

"What other ideas occur to you?"

"Ritual designs," he suggested. "A religious motif." He smiled as he saw

her expression of doubt. "Not very convincing, I agree."

"All right, let's consider the idea of scaffolding. Why would anybody

want to erect scaffolding in a place like that?" She lay back in the

grass and picked a straw which she nibbled reflectively.

He shrugged. "To anchor a1adder or a gantry, to gain access to the

bottom of the chasm?"

"What other reason?"

"I can't think of any other."

After a while she shook her head. "Nor can  She spat out the piece of

grass. "If that is the motive, then they were fairly committed to the

project. From your description it must have been a substantial

structure, designed to support the weight of a, lot of men or heavy

material."

"In North America the Red Indians built fishing platforms over

waterfalls like that from which they netted the salmon."

"Have there ever been great runs of fish through these waters?" she

asked, and he shrugged again.

"Nobody can answer that. Perhaps long ago who knows."

"Was that all you saw down there?"

"High up the wall, aligned with mathematical precision between the two

lines of stone niches, there was something that looked like a has-relief

carving."

She sat up with a jerk and stared at him avidly. "Could it clearly? Was

it script, or was it a design? What you see was the style of the

carving?"

"No such luck. It was too high, and the light is very poor down there. I

am not even certain that it wasn't'a natural flaw in the rock."

Her disappointment was palpable, but after a pause she asked,

"Was there anything else?"

"Yes," he grinned. "Lots and lots of water moving very very fast."

"What are we going to do about this putative has-relief of yours?" she

asked.

"I don't like the idea in the least, but I will have to go back in there

and have another look."

"When?"

"tomorrow. Our one chance to get into the maqdas of the cathedral. After

that we will make a plan to explore the gorge."

"We are running out of time, Nicky, just when things are getting really

interesting."

"You can say that again!'. he murmured. She felt his breath on her lips,

for their faces were as close together as those of conspirators or of

lovers, and she realized the double meaning of her own words. She jumped

to her feet and slapped the dust and loose straw from her jodhpurs.

"You only'have one fish to feed the multitude. Either you have a very

high opinion of yourself, or you had better get fishing."

wo debteras who had been detailed by the bishop to escort them tried to

force a way for them through the crowds. However, they had not reached

the foot of the staircase before the escort itself was swallowed up and

lost. Nicholas and Royan became separated from the other couple.

"Keep close," Nicholas told Royan, and maintained a firm grip on her

upper arm as he used his shoulder to open a path for them. He drew her

along with him. Naturally, he had deliberately contrived to lose Boris

and Tessay in the crush, and it had worked out nicely the way he had

planned it.

At last they reached a position where Nicholas could set his back firmly

against one of the stone columns of the terrace, to prevent the crowd

jostling him. He also had a good view of the entrance to the cavern

cathedral. Royan was not tall enough to see over the heads of the men in

front of her, so Nicholas lifted her up on to the balustrade of the

staircase and anchored her firmly against the column.

She clung to his shoulder for support, for the drop into the Nile opened

behind her, The worshippers kept up a low monotonous chant, while a

dozen separate bands of musicians tapped their drums and rattled their

sistrums. Each band surrounded its own patron, a chieftain in splendid

robes, sheltering under a huge gaudy umbrella.

There was an air of excitement and expectation almost as fierce as the

heat and the stink. It built up steadily and, as the reased in pitch and

volume, the crowd singing inc began to sway and undulate like a single

organism, some grotesque amoeba, pulsing with life.

Suddenly from within the precincts of the cathedral there came the

chiming of brass bells, and immediately a hundred horns and trumpets

answered. From the head of the stairway there was a fusillade of gunfire