“I’ve got it!” she said triumphantly. “And don’t worry, I won’t drop it. Just you take the biggest breath you ever took, and …”
And then she was sawing at the ropes while both of them rolled over and over in the water, slicing and sawing and hoping she wasn’t cutting him as well as his bonds.
Finally Hero’s head surfaced; it was as if his entire face was a mouth. He sucked air eager as a vacuum, gasped: “My arms are free! Ula, I love you! Will you marry me? Or better still, give me my knife.”
Almost exhausted, she was glad to hand the weapon over. And floating along beside him as the incoming current rushed and whirled them, and as he sliced himself free of the remaining ropes about his thighs, at last she found strength and air to say: “I may just hold you to that, my lad.”
“Eh? To what?”
“Huh!”
Then he was finished, all limbs freed, buoyant now as a cork as he slipped his knife back into its calf-sheath. And: “Rest,” he said. “That is, as best you can. Air in your lungs and your head uppermost, but let the current do the swimming. We can’t fight it—have to go with it.”
“You state the obvious so beautifully,” she said, reminding him a lot of Eldin. But no sarcasm in her sweet voice, in this rushing, reeking darkness, just a sense of inevitability—maybe finality. She bantered to keep from breaking down. And as if to confirm his guess: “Not much hope for us, David, is there?”
“Eh?” he tried to sound startled, surprised, even astonished at the thought. “What? No hope? D’you know who you’re talking to, lass? Hell’s breath has scorched me and the upper atmosphere frozen me blue, but I’m still here to tell of it. I was once turned into a stone statue on the Mad Moon, remember? In my time I’ve been near-zombified by Zura, husked by Lathi the terqueen, brain-drained by the black god Yibb-Tstll himself! And do I carry a single scar to show for it? So here’s us doing a bit of midnight bathing together—as well we might. What’s so amiss about that, eh?”
Before she could answer, they felt themselves scraped along a low, slimy ceiling sloping down almost to the surface of the swift-flowing water. For long moments it seemed the ceiling must soon sink below the water level, forcing them under, but then the massive, unseen stone surface overhead receded, and with it their awful sensation of claustrophobia.
“Of course,” said Hero, to cover his alarm, “we can get along nicely without that sort of thing! But doesn’t it just go to show how lucky we are?”
“Lucky?” Her voice had an unaccustomed waver.
“Certainly! If Gan had tossed us down here five minutes later, when the tide was that much farther in, that sump back there would have done for us. And—”
“Whoops!” she cut him off, clinging to his jacket and thrusting frantically with her legs.
“What is it, lass?” he tried to keep the sudden panic out of his voice.
“A—a wall,” she breathlessly answered. “Like being in a great pipe. The bore of this sunless river. I’ve just felt it go slipping past. Hero, we seem to be moving terribly swiftly. And I’m sure we’re spinning. Why, I feel quite dizzy—like a twig in a storm-drain! Where will it all end?” Her teeth had started to chatter; Hero’s, too, from the bitter cold.
Where? he thought. I can’t say. But when: pretty damn quickly, at a guess! But out loud: “Where there’s life there’s hope, Ula my love. And we’re a pair of lively ones if ever there was—”
“My sister, Una, will be distraught. My father, too, when he discovers both his daughters are missing.” Her voice was beginning to sound drowsy, seemed too comfortable.
“Lord, but you’re feeling low!” Hero declared. “I tell you we’re not finished, not yet. And as for Una: she’s with Eldin. Need I say more?”
“You’re both big, brave lads,” she answered, her voice drowsier yet, and slowly her grip relaxed where she clung to him. Hero sensed her—no, saw her—drifting away from him. Light? From where?
He reached out a leaden paw and grabbed her, drew her close, shouted desperately: “Ula! No sleeping here, sweetheart—not if you’d wake up again!”
“Umm?—glub!” as she swallowed a mouthful of brine. Then she was kicking, stirring herself, coughing and choking to clear her pipes.
Hero looked wildly about in the near-darkness—but near-darkness, not utter. On both sides walls swept narrowly by, festooned with weed that glowed with its own faint blue luminescence. “Huh!” Hero grunted his scorn. “Light, but not the blessed light of day.”
“I see it,” she said, swimming again, however feebly. “But what is it?”
“Foxfire,” he told her.
“Eh?” She was barely sensible. “Foxes, down here? Shouldn’t think so.”
“You could be right,” he said, feeling a numbness start to creep through his cold, cold limbs and body. “And even if there were, they’d be damned hard to set fire to!” And then, more sharply: “Are you sure you haven’t been seeing Eldin on the sly?”
She made no answer, but snuggled to him, making it hard to swim. He didn’t push her away: maybe it would be better if they simply …
Hero’s feet, drifting lower in water which seemed to have lost much of its impetus, struck bottom. They came free, struck again. The small shocks transmitted themselves through his body to his brain. Bottom …
Bottom?
Disbelievingly, he forced his legs down, felt his feet dragging over an uneven, slippery surface. And wide awake again, once more he stared wildly all about, saw close at hand—an impossible sight!
Framed in weeds and eerie blue light, the angular silhouette of stone steps climbed up out of the underground river to a ledge high above the water’s sluggish wash. Impossible? Maybe not. Hero reached out trembling fingers and touched hard, unyielding stone—cold and slippery as ice, but stone! And already the turgid current was sweeping them past.
Hero scrabbled at the greasy stone, found a crevice, dug in his stiff fingers. And: “Ula!” he cried. “Shake a leg, lass! Finished? Not by a mile, we’re not! Look here—steps ascending out of the water. No wet, weedy grave for us, my girl!”
He drew her closer, thrust her small fingers into the crack he’d found, shifted his own grip higher. And with an enormous effort he drew himself up, dragged Ula after him, dumped her on a wide slab of a step draped in bladderwrack while he sought higher, drier handholds. Then they were out of danger, crawling side by side up the wide stone flight, past the tidemark, finally collapsing in blue-lit sand and shingly debris atop a broad, cavern-enclosed ledge.
Enclosed?—Hero prayed not. No, there must be a way out somewhere.
Not daring to rest now, hugging himself for warmth, the quester stumbled to his feet, forced himself to dance on the spot, getting his hot blood pumping again. From where she sprawled, Ula watched his jigging for a moment, inquired:
“Do you come here often?”
“Only—uh!—in the mating season,” answered Hero at once. And: “Are you going to be a wallflower all your life? Up on your feet and dance, girl. Then when we’re warm—or at least warmer—we’ll try to find our way out of here.”
He drew her up, rubbed her hands, arms, all her limbs, jostled her into motion, into life. And while Ula danced she, too, gazed about her. “A way out?” she echoed him then. “Hero, I don’t see one. This is a cave, surely? A cave, deep underground, on the bank of a subterranean river.”
“Oh?” he answered. “And what of those steps, eh? It was built by men, bless ’em, that stairway. And since it’s unlikely they came up from the river, it seems only logical that they came down to it, right? And if they came down, we can go up.”
“Right,” she said. “Of course. Show me.”
He nodded. “I will, at once,” and proceeded to examine the cave.
But after a minute or so, following him as he did the rounds: “Not so easy, eh?” she said. And this time Hero made no answer.
There had used to be a way down (or up), that much was obvious. But now, where the irregular
ledge-cave narrowed at its rear like a bottleneck, a wall of roughhewn, massive stone blocks reared from floor to high ceiling. They weren’t cemented, those blocks, except where they met the virgin rock, but the face of each measured eighteen inches by twelve at least. Hero rapped on one with the hilt of his knife and it sounded solid through and through. He tried to force the knife’s blade between the blocks and it jammed, so that he must needs wrench it free again. That was how closely they fitted.
“A hammer,” he finally grunted, casting about in the blue-flickered gloom. “That’s what I need. And a damn big one, at that!”
“No big hammers, Hero,” Ula told him, and the cave echoed her words. “Just you and me and us.”
“And the clothes we’re wearing,” he added. “Ula, take off your dress.”
“David?”
He got down on all fours, dug around in the sand and shingle and rubble, found a large rock and weighed it in his hands. Too small. He found another, dug it up, lifted it with some effort. It was rounded, hard and heavy as iron. “Your dress,” he repeated. “I need to make a hammock for this boulder.”
“A hammock?” But she did as he asked.
“More a sling, really,” he said. “And yet not quite. For a sling is for slinging, and this is a shot that will go unslung!” He tore her dress here and there, folded it this way and that, rolled the boulder into its folds, made a stout knot. Then he lifted it and staggered in a circle, hands clasped through the knot. Faster, he whirled, and faster. Round and round—then stepped in close and smashed the thing into the wall knee-high.
The block he’d struck sustained a jagged crack and was knocked back a good six inches. Dust fell in trickles here and there as the gonging of the mighty clout echoed on for several seconds. “Hah!” Hero panted. “A couple more like that and—”
“And my dress will be ruined!” Ula said. “But then, it is already—so you’d best get on with it.”
Two more enormous smacks and the block was knocked right through the wall. By then a neighboring block in the same tier was hanging loose, so Hero knocked that out, too, and the one above, which required the merest tap. All this work had served to warm the quester somewhat, but Ula was now shivering continuously. Aware that he must find or create some warmth for her, and quickly, Hero got down on his knees and thrust head and shoulders through the hole he’d made. It was dark as night in there, but he groped carefully about with one hand, eventually found something that clanked metallically: chains. Hero knew the sound only too well.
He caught up a loop of the heavy links, dragged it through into the faint blue light of the cave. He hauled harder, and a bundle of disintegrating rags was drawn through—all wrapped about a skeletally shrunken corpse!
Hero gave a great shudder and sprang to his feet, and Ula, uttering a small squeak, threw herself into his arms. He got a grip of himself, stared at the mummified skull, which grinned back at him and fixed him with empty socket eyes. Then the skull’s grin seemed to turn to a leer and he kicked it aside. The chain ended in a wide band of dull metal about the skeleton’s neck, coming loose along with the skull.
Hero shuddered again, said: “Huh! Well, that’s one who didn’t get out of here!”
“Oh, Hero!” Ula whispered, hugging him.
He disengaged himself, pushing the skeletal debris aside with his foot, stooped and climbed through the hole. Ula heard him groping about for a moment or two, then silence. “Hero? Hero, what are you doing?” The edge of hysteria was back in her voice.
“Standing still,” his answer came echoing back. “Letting my eyes get used to it in here—not that they’re likely to, for it’s dark as pitch! Now I’m moving again, but cautiously. Feeling along the wall shoulder high.”
“You’re what?”
“Looking for … Ah!”
“Hero?”
“A flambeau and sconce! And a niche in the wall beside them. Containing … firestones! Strikers, and bone dry! The two go together, you see? A torch is no good without the means to light it. Someone put these flints here a thousand years ago—or ten, or more—and they’re still here, just waiting to strike fresh sparks. But to what? Ula, can you get the rags off our long-dead friend out there without turning them to dust?”
Fighting down her loathing, she did as he instructed, passing scraps of parchment cloth through the hole into his eager hands. A moment later she heard the scrape of flint, and Hero’s triumphant “Ho!”—followed at once by a loud gasp, and then complete silence. Yellow, flickering light came through the hole in the wall now. Ula took up the remains of her ravaged dress, pushed them ahead of her through the hole.
She emerged into a place too huge to be taken in all at one glance, straightened up beside Hero, who stood wide-eyed and mouth agape. And following his gaze, finally she saw the reason for his awe and astonishment. Yes, and there was reason galore!
In his nightmare, Eldin the Wanderer read Kuranes’ carner-pigeon message again:
Hero, Eldin—
I shall be as brief as possible:
As you will now know, the seer with invisible eyes is one of mine. His specific task in Oriab is to keep covert watch over a place of ancient evil. I refer to the ruins of Tyrhhia, Yath-Lhi’s city-seat in primeval times, which now lies under the desert on the shore of the Lake of Yath. The place is shunned, or was until recently. Old legends die hard, and such are the legends of Yath-Lhi that none have sought to discover or disturb her immemorial resting place—or the vast treasures which, the olden lore has it, lie buried with her. Indeed, only a handful of mages in all the dreamlands even know the location of Tyrhhia, all of whom are now sworn to secrecy. The reason for such zealous, even jealous, protection of the site and its secret is simple: the so-called Black Princess left behind her a monstrous legacy, a curse which remains extant to this day.
Atal of Hatheg-Kla has it that this curse will visit itself first upon him who steals Yath-Lhi’s treasure—and then upon the dreamlands in their entirety! For so it is written in the Fourth Book of D‘harsis, whose glyphs only Atal himself has ever deciphered; and D’harsis was one of dreamland’s greatest mages—that is, before his daemonic demise.
But of course all this is by way of reiteration; you will have had it in some detail from the s.w.i.e. himself. As for the requirement:
The activities of Raffis Gan, Baharna’s Chief Regulator, have recently become a matter of some concern. The s.w.i.e. has reported to me Gan’s “archaeological” interest in the ruins on Yath’s far shore, a region whose very aura has in the past sufficed to keep out curiosity seekers, prospectors, searchers after solitude and others of Gan’s alleged paleological persuasions. And it would appear that Gan’s interest has gone deeper far than that of any mere amateur. I am now driven to the conclusion that he knows the ruins are those of Tyrhhia, and that beneath Tyrhhia Yath-Lhi constructed her treasure-maze, possibly still intact.
What’s more, it seems likely that he is using slaves to excavate the ruins; certainly he is in league with a gang of very dubious Kledans, whose penchant for slaving continues unabated throughout dreamland’s less civilized lands and districts.
Alas, but all of this is hearsay—I have not one jot of solid evidence. And Gan is, after all, Baharna’s Chief Regulator. If the s.w.i.e.’s information is incorrect in any instance, and my own conclusions less than accurate, any unwarranted accusation would constitute a very serious breach of diplomatic etiquette and might well damage beyond immediate repair relations between the mainland (including Serannian) and Oriab. Which is to be avoided at all costs.
To put it in a nutshell: I cannot approach Baharna’s Council of Elders without proof positive of Raffis Gan’s assumed criminal and at best very suspicious and extremely dangerous activities. Such proof will not be easy to come by: the s.w.i.e. has himself twice narrowly escaped apprehension on the shore of Yath, where Kledan guards apparently patrol a wide perimeter.
And so to the crux of this communication: you two are to obtain this evidence
, with dispatch, so that I may then approach the correct authorities from an entirely secure position. The utmost urgency is, of course, imperative. Yath-Lhi was known to be a sorceress of great power; her interest in vampirism—the fact that she herself aspired to leadership of an Undead Legion more monstrous far than Zura of Zura’s zombies—is convincingly recorded in the Fourth Book. In light of which, who can hazard a guess what ghoulish guardians she may have left to watch over her labyrinth, or what aeon-slumbering curse Raffis Gan may yet awaken?
Take care, you two, and may you be successful in this venture as in all the others I’ve set you …
Kuranes.
“Well, Wanderer?” said Raffis Gan’s pale, intense face from behind the thin sheet of smoothed-out paper on which, in a long-dead tongue, the message was written. “Maybe you’ve come to your senses in more ways than one, eh? And now will you tell me what it says?”
And suddenly Eldin knew he was no longer dreaming. His mind had returned from the sub-conscious realms of his dreams within dreams, and he was back in the dreamlands proper, conscious again following his second clout on the head in … in how long? In too short a time, to be sure! Two eggs now, to be counted on the back of his head; and as for Hero …
Hero!
Full memory returned in the next moment—memory and the horror it brought.
“Hero!” Eldin hoarsely croaked, trying to sit up. And even as the hope dawned that perhaps that, too, had been part of his nightmare, so it was dashed. The Wanderer found himself chained below decks in some strange vessel, sensed the rush of water beyond the ribs and planking of the hull, saw that he was still Raffis Gan’s prisoner. For a moment he strained forward, then collapsed again in his chains and lay there, staring almost vacantly into the eyes of his inquisitor. And:
“Gan,” he breathed tonelessly. “You murdered David Hero. Aye, and the girl, Ula Gidduf, too.”
Eldin’s seemingly vacant eyes were red-rimmed, but the Chief Regulator thought he saw blood in their pupils, too, and so kept well back out of reach. “I put them out of my way, Wanderer, that’s all. I had no need of them—but I do have need of you. And my offer still stands: work for me, and I’ll not only spare your life but make you wealthy beyond your wildest flights of fancy!”