The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 144

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numb hands.

"What are you doing?" she whispered in confusion. She looked down into

the grave and saw the pale shamnia arranged to look like a human body.

"Are you going-'

"Please don't talk," he instructed her softly, as he took her by the

shoulder and led her back amongst the trees.

"Lie here." He pushed her down and made her lie flat, with her face to

the ground. He began piling dead leaves and fallen branches over her.

"Stay here! Do not try to run. Don't. move or speak until we are gone."

He flashed the torch briefly over the mound of dead branches to make

certain she was covered, then he left her and hurried back to the

graveside, unbuckling the flap of his pistol holster as he went. Two

spaced pistol shots cracked out in the night, so loud and unexpectedly

that she jumped and her heart raced wildly.

Then she heard Hammed shout, "Come, you men.

Let's get this thing finished."

They trooped back into the grove, and she heard the sound of their

spades and the thump of earth clods falling into the grave.

nant," a voice

"I cannot see what I am doing, lieute complained. "Where is your

torchlight?"

"You dorA need a light to fill a hole," Hammed snarled.

"Get on with your work. Tramp that loose soil down. I don't want anybody

stumbling on this place."

She lay quietly, trying to stop the wild tremors that shook her body. At

last the sound of the shovels let up, and she heard Hammed's voice

again.

"That will do. Make certain you leave nothing here.

Back to the truck!'

Their footsteps and their voices died away. At a distance she heard the

truck engine whirl and fire. The headlights shone through the trees as

the truck backed and filled, turning in the direction from which they

had come.

sound of the engine had died away Long after thee pile of dead

completely, she continued to lie under the tree shaking with the cold

and weeping branches. She was St. elief.

silently with exhaustion and pain and  softly and off herself and Then

slowly she pushed he branched it to pull crawled to the trunk of the

nearest tree. She, used and then stood there, swaying weakly herself up

to her feet, in the darkness. elmed her. "I have it was only then that

guilt overwh betrayed Mek," she thought sickeningly. "I have told everyI

must get back to thing to his enemies. I must warn him him and warn

him-'

treetrunk and She pushed herself away from the ds the track.

blundered back through the darkness towar he only means of ascertaining

if they had solved Taita's codes correctly was to play out BE&

the moves he had listed. They went very through the tunnels of the maze,

stepping out the carefully moves that he had noted and marking then-' on

the walls in white chalk figures.

There were eighteen moves set out on the winter face of the stele. Using

Royan's first interpretation of the symbols, they were able to advance

through twelve of theseL. Then they found themselves at a dead end,

confronted by a blank stone wall and unable to make the next move.

"Damnation!" Nicholas kicked the wall, and when this had no effect he

hurled the chunk of white chalk at it. "I wish I could get my hands on

that old devil. Castration would be the least of his worries."

"Sorry." Royan scraped the hair back out of her eyes.

thought I had it right. It must be the figures in the second column. We

will have to invert them."

"We will have to start again,'Nicholas groaned.

"Right at the very beginning," she agreed.

"How do we know when we have finally got it right?

he wanted to know.

"If by following the clues we art ive at one of the winning

combinations, a bao equivalent of checkmate, on precisely the eighteenth

move. There will be no logical move after that, and we can assume we

have worked through it correctly."

"And what will we find if we ever reach that position?"

"I will tell you when we get there." She smiled at him sweetly. "Cheer

up, Nicky. It's only just starting to hurt."

Royan inverted the values of the second and third numbers of Taita's

notations, taking the first as the cup value and the second as the file

value. This time they completed only five moves before they were stymied

and could proceed no further.

"Perhaps out assumption about the third symbol being the change of level

is incorrect?" Nicholas suggested. "Let's start again and give that the

second value."

"Nicky, do you realize just how many possible combinations there are,

given the three variables?" She was at last starting to waver. "Taita

has assumed an intimate knowledge of the game. We have only the

sketchiest notions of how it was played. It's like a grand master trying

to explain to a novice the intricacies of the King's Indian Defence."

olas embroidered the simile. "At this

"In Russian!" Nich rate we are getting nowhere in a hurry. There must be

some other way of approaching it. Let's go over the epigrams Taita stuck

in between the notations again.

"All right. I'll read and you listen." She hunched over her notes. "The

trouble is that a subtle variation of the translation might change the

sense. Taita loved puns, and  effect. One wrong twist a pun can rely on

a single word fo or slant to a word and we have lost it."

"Try anyway," Nicholas encouraged her. "Remember that even Taita had

never played bao in three dimensions  be at the very before. if he left

a clue it would have le of beginning of the stele. Concentrate on the

first coup notations and the epigrams that separate them."

"We'll try it that way," Royan agreed. "The first notambers five and

seven and tion is the bee followed by the nu the sistrum."

I have heard that so often Nicholas grinned. "Okayt What follows?,

already that I will never forget it er over the ation." She ran her ring

"The first quot can be known hieroglyphics. "'What can be given a name

What is nanwiess can A be felt. i sail with the tide behind me and the

wind in my face. 0, my beloved, the taste of You is sweet uPon my UPs."'

"Is that all?" he asked.

"Yes, then the next notation. The scorpion and the number two and three

and the sistrum again."  make Slowly! Slowly! First things first. What

can  out of the 1sailing" and the "beloved'T

They riddled and wrestled with the text of the stele, So until their

eyes burned and they had lost track of day or night. They were

eventually recalled to reality by Sapperjs voice echoing up the

staircase. Nicholas stood up from the desk and stretched before he

looked at his watch.

"Eight. 'clock. But I' not sure if that is morning or evenin

Then he started as Sapper came up the staircase, and saw that his bald

head was shining with moisture and his shirt was soaked.

"What happened to you?" Nicholas demanded. "Did you fall into the

sinkholer Sapper wiped his face with the palm of his hand.

"Didn't anybody tell you? It's pissing with rain outside." They both

stared at him in horror.

"So soon?" Royan whispered. "It wasn't supposed to start for weeks yet."

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