We made it to the top, where the setting sun was still above the horizon. Looking below, I could see that most of the valley was in shadow now. And the stream was spreading its growing fingers in all directions, rapidly flooding the grain fields and edging toward the huts the clans had built. The waterfall at the far end of the valley was lost in mist now, and I could hear its thundering roar even from this distance.
Working quickly, we tied the ropes to trees and dropped them down to the people waiting below. I ordered the boys to remain where they were, then rappelled down the cliff and started the others climbing upward.
Dal watched with unabashed admiration as the people hauled themselves up the steep rocky wall, pulling hand-over-hand along the ropes.
“Have you seen Ava?” I asked.
“No…”
“Here we are!” she called.
I looked up to see her and the two girls carrying big leather sacks on their backs, grinning wearily as they neared us.
“We’ve got as much of the cut grain as we could carry,” she said happily. “All the seeds that you told us about, Orion. And roots and berries, everything we could find. We’re bringing it with us. We’ll plant the seed next spring.”
I could feel myself smiling broadly. Glancing up at the smoldering volcano, I thought that Ahriman had lost. The idea of agriculture had found good soil here, and it had taken root. And the legends that would be handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of centuries before writing was invented would garble the story of Ararat: it was a woman, not Noah, and she saved the species of grain and fruits that would feed the human race, not of animals who could escape the flood under their own power. Mythology was usually based on a kernel of fact, but what distortions the male-dominated tribes would make of this story!
All through the deepening twilight the clans people worked as they had never worked before. The volcano’s rumblings grew stronger, angrier, and it began to spout black smoke streaked with red flame. The sky turned black, and flashes of lightning strobed the darkness, frightening the people even more. By ones and twos and threes they climbed, scrabbled, groped, inched their way up the ropes we had set out along the cliff face, and hauled themselves up to the safety of the top. The sturdiest of the teen-agers and young men helped the older and less agile. Babies rode on men’s backs. I made the journey up and back down again several times, helping everyone I could.
Dal sat on the rock at the base of the cliff, keeping the people organized down there, calming their fears and holding their panic at bay.
Ararat was growling at us now, and its sullen red glow lit the evening hours for us. I could see boulders the size of a house flying up out of its crater, and burning tongues of lava spilling over the lip of the volcano’s cone. The ground trembled with each roar of the mountain, but there was no true earthquake — not yet.
Slightly more than half the people had made it to the top of the cliff when the flood burst upon the valley. The rock wall where the stream had been gushing forth exploded in a mammoth shower of water and steam, hurling boulders halfway down the valley. The cistern where I had been earlier that day had not only reached its overflow point, but the heat from the tectonic forces that Ahriman had unleashed had turned the cistern into a mammoth tea kettle. The water had finally come to a boil and the expanding steam blew open the side of the mountain like a kiloton charge of explosives.
A wall of white water blasted down the valley, roaring like all the demons of hell let loose at once. Steam hissed into the dark sky and a hot rain began to fall on us.
I was halfway down the cliff, returning to help another pair of people up to safety, when it happened. I could see it all clearly, despite the darkness, and I saw the people still down at the base of the cliff standing frozen in terror as that all-consuming wave hurtled toward us.
“Move, move, move!” I bellowed, letting go of the rope and jumping the rest of the way down the cliff, landing with a shock on the balls of my feet and rolling over twice to absorb the impact.
The people jerked to frantic life, dozens of men and women suddenly scratching up the cliff to save their lives. Others clambered down from the top, risking their lives without a moment’s thought to help their friends and relatives.
Dal got to his feet and leaned heavily on a spear. He was staring at the angry flood of frothing hot water as it surged toward us, swallowing everything in its path.
The volcano erupted truly now, and the ground shook hard enough to knock people loose from the ropes as they climbed up the cliff. They fell; bones broke. Screams of agony and terror pierced the darkness over the roar of the flood and the volcano.
I helped those I could, racing among the fallen to set them on their feet and start them up toward the top again. Teen-aged boys scrambled down to help others.
Then I saw Dal standing there watching us, his face set in a stubborn mask of self-control. He neither frowned nor cried for help. He leaned on his gnarled spear shaft, his injured leg held out stiffly, as he watched his people climbing to safety. Behind him, the raging hot waters of the flood roared and thundered closer, closer.
CHAPTER 32
With a yell, I grabbed one of the dangling vine ropes and ran for Dal. He raised one arm to protest, but I grabbed him and looped the rope under his shoulders before he could stop me.
“Hold on to the spear,” I shouted over the roar of the approaching flood. “Use the strength of your arms to make up for your bad leg.”
“I can’t make it!” he shouted back. “Save yourself, Orion!”
“We’ll both make it. Come on!”
I half-carried, half-tugged him to the base of the cliff and gave him an upward shove. Whoever was on the other end of the rope, up at the top, understood what I was trying to do and began hauling in the rope. Dal used his spear like a crutch as I scrabbled up the cliff beside him. The rain was making the rock slippery, and I nearly fell more than once.
We were barely a quarter of the way up the cliff face when the flood smashed against the base of the rocks, splashing boiling hot foam against me and sending Dal spinning on the end of the rope. He lost his spear and screamed with sudden pain. I automatically clamped down on my own pain receptors as the boiling water seared my legs. Grabbing Dal, I pushed and grunted and shoved the two of us higher. The water clawed at us, trying to drag us down into its steaming clutches.
I got one hand on the rope and gripped Dal around the shoulders with my other arm. Slowly, slowly, we inched up the cliff as the water rose behind us, seeking us, pulling at us, cooking the flesh of our legs as we desperately climbed toward safety.
Suddenly I heard Ava’s voice shouting commands, and we were lifted by what could only be the strength of many hands. Miraculously, it seemed, that strength hauled us roughly up the cliff, out of the water’s boiling grip, and landed us wet, burned, exhausted at the top of the cliff.
I lay there like a fish hauled out of the sea, squinting up through the hot rain at a ring of faces peering down.
“Are you all right?” Ava asked over and over. “Are you all right?”
It was Dal that she was talking to. I sat up, wincing, as I allowed the pain receptors in my legs to resume their normal function. Both legs were scalded, but the damage did not seem too serious. Ava was kneeling beside Dal, already smearing some kind of ointment over his reddened legs.
He turned to me. “You saved me, Orion.”
“As you once saved me.”
“I owe you my life,” he said.
With a shake of my head, I said, “No, you owe your life to your people. Lead them well, Dal. Find another valley and make it your own.”
Ava turned to me. “We will. We will live as you told us to live, Orion. We will start a new life.”