Geoffrey Jenkins - A Cleft Of Stars

'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.

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?'

°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.