Part 2

The last was spoken to Parker as the dazed pilot tried to understand what had happened. He could hardly believe his own eyes. Automatically he lifted his hands. Mercedes slid past him, got behind him, taking no chances on getting between him and Retch's gun. He felt her fingers go inside his jacket. Expertly she lifted the gun from its holster.

"Toss me the gun!" Retch said. He caught the weapon the woman tossed toward him, glanced at Parker. "You thought I was going to start shooting at _them_?" He gestured toward the three approaching men. "You made a slight mistake." The grin on his face was wolfish.

"What the hell have I got into?"

"You'll find out, if you live long enough," Retch said. "Just behave yourself and do as you're told and maybe you'll stay alive." Again the wolfish grin showed on his face but under the grin, the words were harsh with meaning.

"Ho, Johnny!" the three men were drawing near the raft. "Ho, Johnny Retch! What kind of a flying ship is this that you have brought back with you?"

Retch turned to the three men. "Gotch! Peg-leg! Masterville!" Retch greeted them as old friends. The one he had called Gotch had spoken. All three of them stared at the raft and its occupants. Mercedes drew bold, appreciative stares. Parker got blank looks. Standing lightly and easily on the water, the three men surveyed the raft with doubtful contempt.

"Does this thing fly through the air like the Jez--" Gotch caught himself. "It looks to me as if it were more fit for sailing on a mill pond back in Devon."

"This is not the ship that flies through the air, that ship was wrecked. This is a rubber boat that it carried."

"Wrecked?" Gotch spoke. "But where does that leave us?"

"Everything has been taken care of," Retch spoke quickly. "You can always trust Johnny Retch to have two strings for his bow."

"Hmmmm. And who is this?" Gotch gestured toward Parker.

"The pilot of the flying ship that was wrecked," Retch answered.

"Ummmm. And what are we going to do with him?" Gotch glanced around toward the still floundering and dying shark as if he regretted their haste in disposing of what might have been a handy scavenger. "Um." He moved around the raft and stood close to Parker, staring at him. The sword in his hands still showed faint traces of red from the blood of the shark.

"We do not need any more men on the island!" Lifting his blade, Gotch glared at Parker.

"Do you, per'aps, need women?" Mercedes spoke quickly. Gotch turned his eyes on her. As he looked, some of the anger seemed to go out of him.

"Perhaps what you need on the island are more women," Mercedes said. She smiled boldly.

* * * * *

Gotch broke into a grin. "But definitely, we need more women, if they are like you."

"Hey, lay off of her, she belongs to me!" Retch spoke violently.

"Come, let us pull the boat to the island," Peg-leg spoke quickly. "We have too many things to do to stand waiting here."

Grumbling, Gotch allowed himself to be persuaded to get in front of the raft and join the other men in pulling it.

Not until then did Parker dare to breathe. "Thanks," he spoke to Mercedes.

"It was nothing, Beel. Anyone could have done it."

"Thanks, anyhow," Parker said. "But what have we got ourselves into here?"

"I do not know for sure, Beel. Johnny, he like me, and he ask me to come along. He say we will both get reech--"

"Shut up!" Retch spoke.

Parker, sitting in the raft, watched the three men tow it toward the shore. He watched their feet. Where they stepped, the water seemed to grow firm. Pirates, cut-throats, killers, they certainly were. But added to that was the equally obvious fact that they could walk on water. In all history, Parker had only heard of one man who could do that, and he hadn't been a man, but a God.

Ahead of them, the island loomed in the sunset; a long strip of white, sandy beach; behind it a thick growth of trees; behind the trees the rocky central mass of the island rising up into the sky. Off to the right, Parker caught a glimpse of a wreck that lay against rocks jutting from the shore. He stared at it. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, it was the wreck of a Spanish galleon, a ship that belonged to the days when Spain had been draining the gold and silver and jewels of the new world into her coffers.

The men stopped, stared uneasily at the shore. Parker could make out two men barely visible between the beach and the grove of trees.

"Rozeno and Ulnar!" Gotch spoke. "Watching us." His lips curled and his hand went automatically to the hilt of the sword he was wearing. "Some day I will slit the throats of that priest and that Indian." Gotch spat into the sea.

"They're not causing any trouble," Peg-leg spoke.

"They're witches, by Gad!" Gotch answered. "They're warlocks, wizards."

"Father Rozeno is a very devout and holy man," Peg-leg said.

"He pretends to be a priest but he is more of a warlock than he is a holy man. As for that Indian, if he ever gives me the chance--" Gotch glared at the figures at the edge of the grove.

"Come on," Peg-leg said.

Mercedes contrived to move closer to Parker. "Beel, what are theese theengs here? I do not understand them. I do not like them."

"Nor do I," Parker said.

A shiver passed over her.

"What's the matter, baby, you cold?" Retch grinned at her. "Don't worry about it. We'll get you warmed up on the island."

Imperceptibly she again moved closer to Parker. "Beel, it ees not good."

"You got into this of your own free will."

"Yes, but I did not know that theengs like theese were going to 'appen. I just thought--"

"Mercedes, if you open your mouth again, I'll knock your teeth down your throat!" Retch said.

Mercedes was silent.

As they came in to the shore, the two men who had been visible on the beach disappeared. Off to the left something else came into view. It was a small cabin plane, wrecked there in what had apparently been an attempt at a forced landing.

Before they reached the shore, the fat sun had wallowed itself out of sight into the sea. In the dusk, the island looked like a vast, rocky pinnacle thrust up out of the Pacific Ocean, or out of the ocean of time--Parker couldn't tell which. Mysterious, silent, it waited in the darkness like a vast sleeping monster on the surface of the sea, a monster on which Spanish galleons and planes had been wrecked. Parker, his nerves jumpy, halfway expected it to vanish beneath the surface before they reached it.

But it didn't vanish. It remained fixed, solid, firm. When they stepped from the raft, the sand under their feet was solid, the crunch of it reassuring.

* * * * *

A breeze whispered through the trees. The island was quiet, too quiet. It seemed to brood in the darkness. In the vast stillness that hung like a pall over the place, the only sound was that of a bird, chittering sleepily in the dark woods.

It was the most out-of-place sound Bill Parker had ever heard.

It seemed to affect the others. At the bird-sound they were suddenly quiet, listening.

"To hell with it, it's nothing," Gotch said. "Come on."

Following a well defined path, they moved inland, toward the base of the cliff. Through the trees, Parker glimpsed fires. As he moved closer, he saw the source of the lights, the cooking fires of a village set against the base of the cliff.

"Ho!" Peg-leg called, announcing their arrival.

As they entered the village, the inhabitants came rushing out to them. They were the queerest lot of human beings Parker had ever seen. Spaniards, bearded grandees in tattered and mended bits of ancient finery, Indians, squat, stalwart, Englishmen, tall and blond, a motley crew.

They looked like the relics of half a dozen different nations, drawn from the fringes of time. Their garments did not belong in the 20th century. Their weapons were knives, swords, bell-mouthed pistols. Their language was a mixture of Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Indian dialects.

"What kind of a mad-house is this?" Parker muttered. "Get away, you!" The last was spoken to a slender Spaniard who was trying to jerk Parker's leather jacket from his back.

The man snarled at him, drew back.

"Get out of our way!" Retch yelled. The crowd made way for him. Calling greetings, snarling, Retch seemed very much at home here.

Mercedes looked hopelessly confused and at a loss. She stared around her as if she was appalled at what she saw. Parker drew the obvious inference. Mercedes had never been here before. All this was as new to her as it was to him. But Retch had been here.

Off in the woodland behind them somewhere a bird chirped, the same sleepy quiet sound that Parker had heard as they landed. Now it was louder, nearer, and even more out of place than it had been before.

The people around Parker also heard the sound. Startled faces turned toward the dark forest.

The sound came again, louder now. Parker was certain it was the call of a bird.

But if it was the chirp of a bird, it was frightening these people. Why should a bird-sound in the night frighten grown men? Utter silence fell. Even Gotch was still. Parker saw that the man's face had turned gray, that all the bristling bravado had passed out of him.

Even Retch, showing signs of strain and growing temper, was silent.

"The Jezbro!" someone whispered.

At the words, the strain and temper coming up in Retch burst the surface. "There is no such thing as the Jezbro!" His voice was almost a scream. "It's only superstitious nonsense--" His shouting voice went into silence as the sound came again.

The chirp was louder now. It was no longer one bird chirping in the dark night, it was a dozen. And it wasn't quite the sound of a bird any longer, it was a musical tinkle, an air-borne throbbing somewhat similar to the sound of a harp, a softly ringing chime. Parker could easily imagine that somewhere among those dark trees was a harper, moving closer.

The harpist did not seem to be upon the ground. He--or she--seemed to be up in the air, somewhere near the tree tops, moving in the dark night.

As the sound came louder, a man in the village suddenly went down on his knees, then another and another, until the whole group, including Gotch, were kneeling. Even Mercedes went to her knees in response to deep internal, superstitious pressures. Only Retch and Parker stood erect as two men strong enough to face the sound coming from the night.

"Get down, you fools!" Peg-leg's voice had real anguish in it.

"Get down, hell!" Retch answered. He had a gun in each hand, his own and the one he had taken from Parker.

"Beel! Beel!" Mercedes was jerking at Parker's leg. "What is 'appening?"

"Something," Parker answered. "I don't know what." There was fear in him. He could feel it in his heart, sense it in his bones, taste in his mouth. He rose above it.

The sound swept through the air. It came out over the trees above them. On the ground, the kneelers moaned in response.

The harping sound leaped up, became a melody of weird notes filling the night air. Mingled with the eerie music were the moans from the prostrate humans.

Looking upward, Parker caught a glimpse of something moving through the sky. It blotted out the light of the stars and it looked a lot like a bird but like no bird he had ever seen before. It was too big to be any bird that had ever flown through Earth's air, but yet it flew. As it flew, it made the sound of a gigantic harp.

* * * * *

The bird passed over the village, moving along the cliff. As it slid into the distance, the harp music faded slowly away, became again the sound of a sleepy bird.

Around the village, the prostrate humans moaned, stirred, began to rise.

"What the hell was that thing?" Parker gasped.

"The damned fools call it the Jezbro!" Retch snarled. "The yellow cowards are afraid of it. I don't know what it is."

Parker was silent. To him, Retch sounded like a man scared right down to the soles of his shoes but desperately trying to pretend he wasn't.

"It was a warning sent by them," Peg-leg whispered, gesturing up toward the cliff in the darkness. "A warning to us to mend our ways."

"It was no such thing!" Retch shouted.

Peg-leg did not argue. He got slowly and silently to his feet. The group was silent, perturbed, and afraid. Even Gotch was silent. Whatever had passed overhead, had cast a pall of fear over them.

"You bilious, yellow-livered cowards!" Retch raged at them.

They made no response. The fear the Jezbro had inspired in them seemed to have made even his anger unimportant.

"But what is the Jezbro?" Parker questioned again. "I mean--"

"I told you it's nothing and that's enough of an answer. Hey!" The guns that Retch held came up sharply as another figure came soundlessly out of the forest and moved toward them. An old, bent, wrinkled Indian who hobbled along with the aid of a staff.

"Oh, it's you, Pedro!" Retch said. "What the hell do you want?"

For all the sign he gave, the Indian, Pedro, did not hear Retch's question. He hobbled straight to Parker.

"_En la manana Padre Rozeno huit nole el hombre e la mujer._ Father Rozeno will see the man and the woman in the morning." The voice was broken with age.

"I don't get it," Parker said. The Indian was already turning. He had delivered his message, his errand was finished.

"That damned Rozeno is not going to see anybody in the morning!" Retch yelled.

The Indian staffed his way into the forest. He still seemed not to hear Retch.

"Tell him they won't be there!" Retch screamed.

Pedro's back went out of the firelight as he moved into the trees.

Retch seemed almost to go mad. His face turned purple. Both guns came to focus on the spot where the Indian had disappeared.

"Why shoot him?" Parker said. "He was just a messenger."

"Damn it!" Slowly, while the group watched impassively, Retch got himself under control. Suddenly he began to laugh. Strangely his laughter in this moment was more horrible than his anger had been.

"He sent for you, and the woman. All right, he'll get you. But I'll go with you. If he wants you, I'll take you to him." Again the laughter sounded.

"Who is Rozeno?" Parker asked.

"He is, or he was once, a Spanish priest. He and Ulnar think they rule this island. They are the two men we saw watching us from the shore. You'll see them in the morning."

That was the last word Retch said on the subject. He took Gotch apart, to talk to him. Peg-leg found food for Parker, but refused to talk. "Na, na, my son, when the Jezbro passes over us as a great bird--when it goes through the woods at night as a great howling beast--we do not talk about it."

Parker pressed for more information, but the old man turned stubbornly silent. Later he found Parker a place to sleep in his own hut. Parker had the impression that, all during the night Peg-leg, sat on guard at the entrance.

But nothing came in the night. In the morning Retch was there, saying, with grim bitterness, that now it was time to go up the cliff to see Rozeno and Ulnar. Mercedes, looking wan and bedraggled, with hate in her hot black eyes, was with him. So was Gotch. Gotch did not look in the least happy.

"What's biting you?" Parker said to Retch.

"Nothing."

"I get the impression something around here is just about scaring the pants off of you."

"You're crazy!" Retch's voice was a snarl. "I'm not afraid of anything around here--you--or anybody else." As he spoke, the man's face was a mask and his eyes were wild.

"Sure, okay, I get it," the pilot answered.

They moved along the cliff until they came to a ledge that sloped upward.

"We go up here," Gotch grunted.

* * * * *

As they went upward, they rose above the tops of the trees. Sparkling thinly in the morning sunlight, the sea came into sight. Circling the shoreline at a distance of about a mile, a curtain of mist was visible. It seemed to close in above them too, shielding the island like a thin, shining dome.

"That's a strange fog," Parker said.

"It's not a fog," Retch answered. "I don't know exactly what it is, but when it is there, the island is invisible. If you are on the other side of it, you see nothing at all."

"Um," Parker said. They continued upward. The ledge twisted, curved, went around the rising cliff. Slowly Parker became aware that the rising ledge was not a natural formation, it was a pathway cut into the face of the cliff.

At the realization, the pilot felt a touch of awe rise in him. This ledge was old. It must have been cut into this cliff long before Columbus had sailed westward.

Off in the distance beyond the curtain of mist was the coast of California, the beaches bright with bathers, the cities wrapped in warm sunshine, the roads alive with traffic. Over there in the distance were orange groves and millions of people.

Here on this island, behind this mist, unknown to millions of people so close to it, was something that did not belong in the 20th century, or in any other century Parker could imagine.

His back felt cold. In him, somewhere, was gnawing anger. This island, this place, was real. Back in his past a horrible wrong had been done, a wrong that now could never be corrected. He put the thought out of his mind.

The ledge turned into the cliff and became a tunnel that had been carved into solid stone. The walls of the tunnel were as smooth as polished marble. What tools could men have used in the old days to cut a tunnel with walls so smooth that they looked like glass? Modern equipment could not have done the job so well.

Niches in the wall of the tunnel admitted light and gave them glimpses of the island.

"Where the hell will we find--Oh, Pedro!" Retch spoke. The Indian messenger of the night before had appeared in the tunnel. He beckoned to them. They followed him into a large room cut out of solid stone.

It was one of the cleanest and most simply furnished rooms Parker had ever seen. It contained hand-made chairs along the wall and a big table, also hand-made. Light from a wall slit flowed into the room.

Seated behind the table, illumined by the light flowing in from the wall slit behind them, were Rozeno and Ulnar. Rozeno had a thin nose, the narrow face of the typical high bred Spaniard. Ulnar was short and squat, his cheeks were flat, his nose hooked. Both had black eyes that were utterly fathomless.

The faces were old, wrinkled, and kind. Parker took one look at this priest, and instantly liked him. As he glanced at Rozeno, saw the kindness on that face, he also saw, out of the corners of his eyes, Retch drawing a gun.

In that split second he knew why Retch had laughed so violently the night before, when Retch had said that he would go with them to see Rozeno and Ulnar.

Retch intended to kill both of them; to shoot them as they sat there at that table, unarmed and defenseless; shoot them like dogs!

The gun was already in Retch's hand. Parker's fist went out, up, connected with Retch's jaw, a blow that had all the pilot's strength behind it.

Retch's head was twisted to one side. He reeled away from Parker's blow. The snarl that came from his lips was the snarl of a wild animal. Metal thudded as the gun hit the floor. The room echoed with sound--Mercedes screaming. Parker followed Retch, followed him as a dog follows a rat. He caught a wild man.

Retch stumbled against the wall, caught himself on one of the hand-made chairs, jerked himself up, and drove at Parker. The pilot met the charge head on. They went down locked together.

Retch was a tornado erupting with violent fury. He threw Parker away from him, leaped to his feet. Parker pulled himself to one knee. The fallen pistol lay in front of him. He snatched it up.

Retch was coming toward him. He saw the gun in Parker's hand, hesitated.

"I'll kill you," the pilot said.

* * * * *

Retch caught himself. For an instant he seemed to hang in the air before Parker, yellow glaring in his eyes as he tried to make up his mind whether or not to buck the gun.

"Get your hands up," Parker said.

Slowly the yellow went out of Retch's eyes.

"Get your hands up!" Parker repeated.

This time Retch obeyed him. Parker backed him against the wall, took the second pistol from his pocket, his own gun.

"Damn you!" Retch snarled. Parker saw that the man was not speaking to him but to Gotch, he saw also that during all this Gotch had not moved. The man stood transfixed; afraid to move.

Parker turned to the two men behind the table. They had not moved either, though Ulnar looked as if he was about to come to his feet. Rozeno sat very still. There was sadness on his face.

"Go away," he gestured toward Retch. "And you, too, Gotch, go away."

"You mean we can go after--" Gotch faltered.

"I don't want to see either of you again," Rozeno said. There was actual living pain in his voice. "Go!"

"Wait a minute," Parker spoke quickly.

"Yes, my son?" Rozeno's face lost its sadness when he looked at Parker, it came alive with sudden animation.

"You don't mean to tell me you are going to let these two go?" the pilot protested.

"Of course."

"But Retch tried to kill you."

"I know--"

"And he'll try it again. There's something here that's driving him crazy. I don't know what it is but he knows. If you turn him loose--I would just as soon turn loose a rattlesnake, Johnny Retch."

Parker's words were hard, blunt, forceful. But for all the effect they had on the old priest, he might as well not have spoken them. Rozeno smiled. "I do not think Retch or Gotch will ever harm us. They have no means to harm us." He made a gesture with his hands, spoke a single word, "Go!"

Retch and Gotch went quickly from the room, like men who were very glad to go.

"I hope you know what you are doing," Parker said, saw that Rozeno was not looking at him. The old priest was watching Mercedes.

"You may stay here, with us," Rozeno added.

Mercedes' face mirrored gratitude. "Thank you."

Rozeno turned his attention to Parker. "You are new to our island, are you not, my son?"

"Yes."

"How did you arrive here? Was your ship wrecked?"

"Yes. Actually, however, we were looking for this island." Swiftly Parker explained what had happened.

"Retch went away, he hired you to bring him back in a ship that flies?" Rozeno seemed a little perturbed.

For the first time, Ulnar spoke, a single grunted sound. Rozeno answered with a swift flow of gutturals that Parker did not understand. Ulnar grunted again, a hot light appeared in his eyes. "Kill him!" His fist came down upon the table.

Again Rozeno looked pained. "I have worked so long and so hard with him, trying to show him the Way, trying to explain to him that killing is not a part of the Way. But the old savagery is still in his heart. Sometimes I despair of him." He shook his head very gently. The light flowing in from behind him made a halo of his long white hair. His eyes searched Parker. They were the kindest and at the same time the keenest eyes the pilot had ever met. They looked at him and through him; they probed deep down inside of him; they seemed to search down to the bottom of his soul. Parker had the feeling he was being weighed, measured, probed.

"It is not often that I offer a choice to those who come here," Rozeno spoke. "Usually they prefer to live in the village at the base of the cliff. You may live here with us, if you wish." The smile on Rozeno's face was a living thing.

Deep down inside of him, Parker felt his soul come to sudden life. "I'll stay here, Father, if I may."

The smile on Rozeno's face became even brighter. "Good, my son. You have made a very wise choice."

Parker was silent, perturbed, suddenly uneasy. Here in this place two old men lived in rooms near the top of a cliff. Down below was a village where brawling men lived, men who could walk on water. In the night, in this place something called a Jezbro went on the wings of a harp. There was magic here, mysteries that went beyond his understanding. What else was here?