Scourge of Antares by Alan Burt Akers

Author:Alan Burt Akers [Akers, Alan Burt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781843197560
Publisher: Mushroom eBooks
Published: 1994-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eleven

Dust and fragments tumbled away below. Pausing, I did look down. By this time I was half way up. The ledges slanted from top left to lower right, and the ground looked a good long way off. Dust was already clogging up my hooter, and I sneezed, and took a firm hold, and so swiped away at my nose. Damn dust!

The climb in itself was not particularly arduous. Certainly, it held none of the difficulties I’d experienced before in climbing into danger. I just hoped there were no eyes up there spying on me.

Square cut blocks, mortared together, came into view and I had to skirt around them carefully. My judgment was that this was an outbuilding, possibly a defensive work. Where I needed to go was higher, much higher.

The twin suns of Scorpio moved across the cloudless sky. Some of the strata of the outcrop were sandstone, and this glowed in the light. Beyond that first building the way tended diagonally upward. Craning my head back I stared up. The next building jutted boldly from the cliff face. H’m. There looked to be a wide detour in the climbing itinerary. At once I began inching across the strata upwards and along to the left. This took me back into the shadows for which I was duly thankful. The drop in temperature was marked.

Reaching up past that building protruding out over thin air, I decided it was most definitely a fort, an outwork. The parapet was crenellated, and further back on platforms varters were arrayed, their snouts looking most sinister. Any attack on this place would face severe difficulties. An assault would be a most bloody affair.

Because of the loose stuff everywhere, shale and dust and bits and pieces weathered away, the ascent was slow. The suns moved across the sky, and up and up I went, cautiously.

The top rim of this crag looked for all of two worlds like the teeth of a giant, decayed and broken in. There would be a way into the citadel before I reached as high as that — at least, so I hoped, by Djan!

There is a certain time during a climb when the mind detaches itself from the body. An exhilaration takes over that does not interfere with the technical aspects of climbing. During that ascent I first began to consider what would be looked upon, I suppose, as a ridiculous concept by almost anyone involved. I, Dray Prescot, fully intended to destroy the Dokerty Prism of Power. That was the task set to my hands.

Yes, but — what right had I to destroy a religious symbol? The Prism was regarded as holy. It was sacred to Dokerty. I intended to commit sacrilege. Then my foot skidded and I grabbed on. The phantoms of philosophy whisked away. Yet there is more to this logic chopping you shall hear in due time.

A series of hand and footholds, precarious enough, by Krun, gave way to what could laughingly be called a track, slanting upwards steeply.

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