“Yoi Sendar is loyal to his master. You forget the torcs the forest folk wore. Where did you think those came from?”
Pandaras struck his forehead and laughed. “I am a fool, master. I am close to a fortune and failed to see it.”
“I am going to ask the Captain for proof of the fee he has promised for making war against the other villages.”
“You have a plan, then. That’s good. You are recovering from your ordeal, master.”
“Money is not important. Things are not important. Look around you if you do not believe me. I do not do this for money, Pandaras,” Yama said. “I do it because I must.”
He explained his plan, then made a show of knocking the boy down and kicking him, drawing his blows as much as possible. When he returned to the Captain, the man grumbled that he was free enough with his time. “I have not forgotten that my time is yours,” Yama said. “I spend a little of it now so that you will win great things later.”
“If that was my slave, I would kill him.”
“He is all I have.”
“You can have plenty of slaves after we have conquered our enemies.”
“You promise much, Captain, but if I am to fight for you I would like to see a token of these riches.”
“You will have enough when our enemies are broken. Most of it must come to me, of course, but you will have your share.”
“I would see something of it with my own eyes,” Yama said. “What harm in that? You have said that you regard it as worthless.”
The Captain stared up at Yama suspiciously. He said, “It will come to you in good time.”
“No man can trust another. You have taught me that. I must see how I will profit before I agree to help you.”
The Captain went cross-eyed in an effort to contain his sudden anger. He said, “I should kill you!”
“Then you would certainly have no help from me.”
The Captain turned away and stamped and breathed heavily until he was calm, then said grudgingly, “It is a matter for all the village.”
The Mighty People argued for a long time, past sunset and into the night. The forest folk lit lanterns and hung them from the lower branches of the cotton trees.
The Mighty People were all in a rage with each other, and nothing was resolved until a man went for the Captain with a long knife and the Captain shot him in the belly. More shouting, this time mostly from the Captain.
The wounded man was carried off by his slaves. Later, the Captain came over to where Yama was sitting with Pandaras.
“We will take you there now,” he said grumpily. “But you must be blindfolded.”
All the villagers came because no one trusted anyone else. They were prisoners of their own greed and suspicion. The Captain was quite happy to explain this as he walked beside Yama. He said that it was a sign of their superior way of life.
“Anyone who goes to the hoard alone is killed by the others and their stuff is divided up.”
“How would you know if someone went there?”
“We all watch each other. No one can leave the village without the others knowing, and if someone does not come when he is called, then he must lose all he owns.” The Captain added, “Also, we keep watch on it. You could not find the place, but even if you did, we would know straightaway.”
As well as being blindfolded, Yama and Pandaras had their arms bound. In case of trouble, the Captain said, although Yama guessed that it was because the Mighty People thought they might have friends waiting in ambush. The filthy cloth tied over his eyes was not quite lightproof—he could dimly see the flare of the torches carried by the handful of forest folk the Mighty People had brought with them—but he did not bother to try and memorize the twists and turns of the path which led always upward. He silently endured the stink of the Mighty People and the spidery feel of their sharp-fingered hands as they guided him left or right. Pandaras began to complain volubly, but then there was the sound of a blow, and the boy said nothing more.
Yama found when the blindfold was at last removed, that he was standing at the edge of a tall cliff. It was too dark to see the bottom, but the Captain told Yama that it was a long drop. “We throw down those who try and cheat us,” he said. “They break on the rocks far below and jackals eat their brains. I’ll do it to you if you try any tricks.”
Yama said, “Do you not trust me?”
“Of course not.” The Captain clacked his lips. He was amused. “And if you said that you trusted me I would not believe you.”
Yama sketched a bow and said, “Then we understand each other completely.”
The Mighty People surrounded them. Several of the forest folk held torches made from the branches dipped in pitch, which crackled with red flame and black smoke. Two held Pandaras, who sat on a flat stone with his arms between his knees and a strip of cloth tied over his eyes. All around was a desolation of boulders and creepers and stunted trees, with the edge of the forest a distant dark line against the black sky. It was midnight. The Eye of the Preservers was almost at zenith, a smudged thumbprint that shed a baleful red glow.
The Captain dropped one end of a coil of rope over the edge. The other was looped around a knob of rock rubbed as smooth as a dockside bollard.
“Climb down,” the Captain told Yama. “There is a cave hidden behind creepers not far below. Look inside and you will see a great store of the old stuff. Our enemies have much lesser stores, of course, but even one tenth of one of them will be a great treasure to a man like you. Do not stay there long, or we will cut the rope.”
Yama held out his bound hands. “You will have to untie me.”
There was an argument about this amongst the Mighty People. Some wanted the Captain to climb down with Yama and others suggested that someone else should climb down, because Yama was the Captain’s property, but no one wanted to volunteer because that meant risking all for the benefit of everyone else. At last the Captain prevailed. Yama would be released from his bonds, but he would have only five minutes to look at the treasure or the rope would be cut.
The rope was knotted at intervals; even though Yama was carrying one of the smoky torches, it was easy to clamber down it. They will kill us, the Shadow said, but Yama ignored the crawling sparks of its voice. A draft of cold air blew from the cave mouth, stirring the leafy creepers which hung over it like a curtain. Yama kicked them aside and, clinging one-handed to the swaying rope, thrust in first the torch and then his head.
Here was the treasure of the Mighty People: broken pottery tumbled in heaps; flaking paintings covered in gray mold; exquisitely carved chairs riddled with beetle and glowing in streaks of foxfire where fungus rotted the wood; intricate metalwork corroded by verdigris.
The Captain’s voice drifted down from above. “You see!” he shouted, “You see that we are a very rich people! Now you must return, or we will cut the rope!”
Yama looked up. The Mighty People stood along the edge of the cliff, silhouetted against the flare of torches. He said, “Now that I have seen your treasure I know exactly how to help you,” and threw his torch onto a stack of chairs half-turned to sawdust by white emmets.
The Mighty People did not realize what had happened at first. Yama had plenty of time to find a good handhold beside the cave mouth before smoke began to pour out of it. The creepers dried and withered in the heat. Howls, from above, then a scatter of rifle shots. Something unraveled past Yama, striking his shoulder as it fell. The rope had been cut.
It was not difficult to climb sideways along the cliff. The creepers were strong enough to bear Yama’s weight, and there were plenty of hand- and footholds. The Mighty People were too busy trying to save their treasure to search for him. They swarmed down the cliff on ropes, but none thought to take anything with which to beat out or stifle the fire. They hung from their ropes and shrieked in rage at each other. One man lost his hold when flame belched out of the cave mouth and he fell screaming into the darkness.