Piers Anthony - Sos the Rope

He roped a beam and hauled himself up, staff jammed down between his back and the pack. There was probably an easier way to ascend, since the many men who had gone before him would not have had ropes or known how to use them, but he had not come to expire the easy way.

Stupid, dislodged, flew up' and perched on the beam, peeking down at, him. The bird never criticized, never got in the way; he winged himself to safety when there was action in the circle or in the tent at night, but always came back. He waited only for the conquest of this particular hazard, before joining his companion. Was this the definition of true friendship?

Sos scrambled to the upper surface of the beam ailslodged the rope. Sure enough, Stupid swooped in, brushing the tip of a wing against his right ear; Always the right shoulder, never the left! But not for long-the outcropping was merely the first of many, vertical and horizontal and angled, large and small and indefinite, straight and looped and twisted. It would be a tedious, grueling climb.

As evening came, he unlimbered warmer clothing from the pack and ate the solid bread he had found stocked for the mountaineers at the, nearest cabin. How considerate of the crazies, to make available the stuff of life for those bent-on dying!

He had looked at everything in that hostel, knowing that he would not have another chance.. . even the television. It was the same silent meaningless pantomime as ever; men and women garbed like exaggerated crazies, fighting and kissing in brazen openness but never using proper weapons or making proper love. It was possible, with concentration, to make out portions of some kind of story-but every time it seemed to be making sense the scene would change and different characters would appear holding up glasses of liquid that foamed or putting slender cylinders in their mouths and burning them. No wonder no one watched it! He had once asked Jones about the television, but the principal had only smiled and said that the maintenance of that type of technology was not in his department. It was all broadcast from pre-Blast tapes, anyway, Jones explained.

Sos put such foolishness aside. There were practical problems to be considered. He had loaded the pack carefully, knowing that a man could starve anywhere if he ventured without adequate preparation. The mountain was a special demise, not to be demeaned by common hunger or thirst. He had already consumed the quart bottle of fortified water, knowing that there would be edible snow at use height to take its place.. Whatever lurked, it was not malnutrition.

What did lurk? No one had been able to tell him, since it was a one-way journey, and the books were strangely reticent. The books all seemed to stop just before the Blast; only scattered manuals used by the crazies were dated after it. That could be a sign that the books were pre-Blast--or it could discredit them entirely, since not one of them related to the real world. They and the television were parts of the elaborate and mystifying myth-world framework whose existence he believed one day and denied the next. The mountain could be yet another aspect of it.

Well, since he couldn't turn his mind off, there was a very practical way to find out. He would mount the mountain and see for himself. Death, at least, could not be secondhand.

Stupid fluttered about, searching out flying insects, but there did not seem to be many. "Go back down, birdbrain." Sos advised him. "This is no place for you." It seemed that the bird obeyed, for he disappeared from sight, and Sos yielded himself to the turbulence of semiconsciousness: television and iron beams and Sola's somber f ace and nebulous uncertainties about the nature of the extinction he sought. But in the cold morning Stupid was back, as Sos had known he would be.

The second day of the climb was easier than the first, and he covered three times the distance. The tangled metal gave way to packed rubble clogged by weeds: huge sections of dissolving rubber in the shape of a torus, oblong sheets of metal a few inches long, sections of ancient boots, baked clay fragments, plastic cups and hundreds of bronze and silver coins. These were the artifacts of pre-Blast civilization, according to the books; he could not imagine what the monstrous rubber doughnuts were for, but the rest appeared to be implements similar to those stocked in the hostels. The coins were supposed to have been symbols of status; to possess many of them had been like victory in the circle.

If the books could be believed.

Late in the afternoon, it rained. Sos dug one of the cups out of the ground, knocked out the caked dirt and held it up to trap the water. He was thirsty, and the snow was farther away than he had expected. Stupid sat hunched on his shoulder, hating the drenching; Sos finally propped up a flap of the pack to shield the little bird.

But in the evening there were more insects abroad, as though the soaking had forced them out, and that was good. He applied repellant against the mosquitoes while Stupid zoomed vigorously, making up for lean times.

Sos had kept his mind on his task, but now that the mountain had lost its novelty his thoughts returned to the most emotional episodes of his life. He remembered the first meeting with Sol, both of them comparatively new to the circle, still exploring the world and feeling their way cautiously in protocol and battle. Evidently Sol had tried all his weapons out in sport encounters until sure of himself; then, with their evening's discussion, that first night, Sol had seen the possible mechanisms of advancement. Play had stopped for them both, that day and night, and already their feet had been treading out the destinies leading to power for the one, and for the other-the mountain.

He remembered Sola, then an innocent girl, lovely and anxious to prove herself by the bracelet. She had proven herself-but not by the bracelet she wore. That, more than anything else, had led him here.

Strange, that the three should meet like that. Had it been just the two men, the empire might even now be uniting them. Had the girl appeared before or after, he might have taken her for a night and gone on, never missing her. But it had been a triple union, and the male empire had been sown with the female seed of destruction even as it sprouted. It was not the particular girl who mattered, but the presence at the inception. Why had she come then!

He closed his eyes and saw the staff, blindingly swift, blocking him, striking him, meeting him everywhere he turned, no instrument of defense but savage offense; the length of it across his body, the end of it flying at his face, fouling his rope, outmaneuvering him, beating down his offense and his defense....

And now the mountain, the only honorable alternative. He had lost to the better man.

He slept, knowing that even victory would not have been the solution. Hehad been in the wrong not totally, but wrong on balance.

On the third day the snows began. He wrapped the last of the protective clothing around him and kept moving. Stupid clung to him, seemingly not too uncomfortable. Sos scooped up handfuls of the white powder and crammed them into his mouth for water, though the stuff numbed his cheeks and tongue and melted grudgingly down into almost nothing. By nightfall he was ploughing through drifts several inches deep and had to step carefully to avoid treacherous pitfalls that did not show in the leveled surface.

There was no shelter. He lay on his side, facing away from the wind, comfortable enough in the protective wrappings. Stupid settled down beside his face, shivering, and suddenly he realized that the bird had no way to forage anymore. Not in the snow. There would be no living insects here.

He dug a handful of bread out of the pack and held a crumb to Stupid's beak; but there was no response. "You'll starve," he said with concern, but did not know what to do about it. He saw the feathers shaking, and finally took off his left glove, cupped the bird in his bare warm palm, and held his gloved right hand to the back of the exposed one. He would have to make sure he didn't roll or move his hands while sleeping, or he would crush the fragile body.