Forty-five minutes of hard riding through the storm brought them to the end of the trail, a tiny plateau protected only by a low earthen wall. Wind and rain lashed them. There was a hitching rail for the animals, room for the three mules and the three of them and not much more.
O’Hara looked up. The cliff disappeared up into the fog.
‘Now what?’ the Magician said woefully. ‘Do we fly the rest of the way?’
There was a bell attached to the face of the cliff and Billy rang it several times before a voice called down from above.
‘Oui? Qui est là?
‘C’est mol— Billy,’ the guide yelled back.
‘Ah, oui, Billee. Un instant.’ A moment later a thick rope dangled down from the darkness above with a basket attached to it. Above the basket was a loop of rope, like the strap in a subway.
‘Who will be first?’ Billy asked and he smiled for the first time.
‘We’re going up the rest of the way in that?’ the Magician exclaimed with alarm.
‘Oui,’ said Billy.
‘I’ll go second,’ the Magician said, hunching his shoulders against the wind and rain. ‘Or maybe I’ll wait here.’
‘A little nervous?’ O’Hara asked.
‘Sailor, I’m scared shitless,’ he said.
‘I will go up first,’ the gangly Haitian said. ‘So they will know everything is in order.’ He gave the flashlight to O’Hara and got in the basket, sitting on his knees and holding the rope strap with both hands.
‘Allez-y! he called to the man above and a moment later the basket rose into the darkness.
‘Allez, my ass,’ the Magician said. ‘What am I doin’ here, anyway?’
‘You told me you were bored and wanted to perk your life up. This is called perking things up.’
‘It’s called freezing things off, that’s what it’s called.’ He stared grimly up into the darkness, listening to the rope groaning and the slow, steady click of the pulley above.
Then the pulley stopped clicking. A few seconds later Billy yelled down, ‘Allez donc! Come up. It is safe.’
‘Merci,’ O’Hara yelled back.
The swing basket dropped out of the darkness. O’Hara helped the Magician into it. The musician clutched the rope handle and clung to the rope. His knuckles were white, his eyes squeezed shut. ‘Things aren’t bad enough, we had to pick the goddamn monsoon season for this gig!’ he cried. His voice was lost to the winds as the basket, buffeted about, was hefted into the rain and strobe-lit by the lightning that zigzagged above the mountain.
When the basket was lowered the third time, O’Hara settled into it and whistled through his fingers. He felt himself being drawn slowly up the cliffside. As he neared the top he could hear the steady clinking of the ratchet pulley. The basket was being raised and lowered like a bucket in a well.
When he reached the top, O’Hara was instantly overwhelmed by the eeriness. It was not so much the place as the ambience of the place: the hooded monk, a faceless spectre bent over the crank of the basket; the monastery itself, an adobe maze commanding the cramped mountain top like some medieval gaol, its squat, weather-scarred buildings, connected haphazardly by roofed walkways; and underscoring it all, a chilling and constant moaning pierced by an occasional scream that reminded O’Hara of Dante’s description of the torments of hell.
Billy and the Magician were huddled in the low arched doorway of what appeared to be the main building.
‘I am Frère Clef,’ the hooded monk said.
‘O’Hara. This is Mike Rothschild, and you know Billy.’
‘Oui. Bonsoir, mon ami.’
‘Bonsoir,’ the Haitian replied.
Frere Clef turned back to O’Hara. ‘You should know that those who have joined our order have taken a vow of silence,’ he said. ‘I am the gatekeeper. By tradition, I alone may converse with visitors.’
He spoke softly, his accent a hybrid. British, a touch of French, perhaps even a bit of Spanish.
‘We understand you are here to see the man with the umbrella and that you are sympathetic with his plight.’
‘That’s correct,’ O’Hara said.
‘Bon. Please follow me.’
Billy elected to wait in the grim anteroom while the monk led O’Hara and the Magician along walkways that protected them from the rain. They went down through the catacomb-like monastery, past doors with barred windows, and suddenly O’Hara realized where the wailing was coming from and why, and the name of the place made sense for the first time.
La Montagne des Yeux Vides: the Mountain of the Empty Eyes.
Well-named. Lifeless eyes peered out at them from behind bars, arms reached out to touch them, and with each crack of lightning, a chorus of woe arose from the lips of inmates.
The monastery was an insane asylum, the silent monks its caretakers.
The Magician cast O’Hara an apprehensive look and rolled his eyes heavenward.
Another crack of lightning, another chorus from the damned.
They entered the last of the buildings and went down a short flight of wide stone stairs. Torches flickered in sconces on the bare walls of the grim, winding hallway. The building, chilled by rain and wind, smelled dank and foreboding.
The hooded man stopped at the first cell. ‘I have told him you are coming,’ he said. ‘But his reaction may be ... a bit startling.’
‘Frere Clef, is Danilov insane?’
‘You didn’t know? Oh yes, Brother Umbrella is quite mad. He seeks repentance in his madness.’ The monk peered through the barred door. ‘You will find that he ... what is the word — meanders? He meanders in and out of the real world.’
‘Are you treating him?’ the Magician asked,
‘lam afraid those who have been sent to Les Yeux Vides are beyond treatment. Brother Umbrella was brought to us by friends, but he asked to be secluded here.’
‘He asked to be brought here?’ said the Magician.
‘Yes. He was suffering extreme paranoia and had become occasionally irrational. He thought everyone was trying to kill him. He even believes his umbrella is deadly.’
Believes! O’Hara thought. Obviously the monks of Les Yeux Vides did not know who Danilov really was. Or care. And they thought his deadly umbrella was harmless.
‘How long has he been here?’ O’Hara asked.
‘Four months. And since coming here, he has slipped further away from reality.’ He pointed to a bell beside the door. ‘You may ring the bell when you are finished. Oh, one other thing. He believes this is his home. He does not realize he is one of them. Good luck.’
The monk unlocked the door and slid back the large shot-bolt lock.
‘Monsieur, you have guests,’ he said and padded silently back up the stairs.
They entered the room cautiously, remaining near the door, and their eyes were assaulted by flickering candlelight. Candles were everywhere, casting a ghoulish yellow light over Danilov’s cell — or cells — for it was actually two cells connected by an arch carved through the stone wall. The main room was a surprise: there was a large oak table, pushed against the wall opposite the arch, covered with papers and notebooks; a large bookcase, choked with books in many languages against another wall; a cot with several down pillows opposite it; a small table beside the cot; a high-backed chair at the desk, and two others shoved haphazardly in corners. The walls were covered with maps, photographs of flowers and wild animals, and a small black-and-white photograph of downtown Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which appeared to be a dismal, grim-looking city.
The other room contained a bed, a night table and a large, bulky free-standing closet. Nothing more.
There was a large vase of daisies on the floor near the desk, where Daniov was sitting, pen in hand, bent over a sheaf of papers and writing furiously.
‘Un moment, un moment,’ he said with the wave of a hand. And when he had finished what he was working on, he turned around. His face told the whole story, for here was a man haunted by his own ghosts, driven to insanity by age, conscience and fear; an assassin, urged further into madness by his own bizarre, self-imposed imprisonment; a madman sequestered among madmen, totally oblivious of his predicament. His cabbage-face was drawn and sunken. Self-destruction lurked in eyes that were listless one moment, bright as a diamond the next. His hair, what there was of it, had turned pure-white and clung, in sweat-matted disarray, to his skull. His palsied hands were knotted with arthritis. Beads of perspiration clung to his worn-out face. He was wearing a pair of soiled, hopelessly wrinkled white pants and a white dress shirt, open almost to the waist.