Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42] Read online

  “That's better!” Rollo's voice carried satisfaction as well as relief. Whatever he'd done he'd pulled us through the inferno.

  “With a trapped slope like that an’ everything,” observed Llodi, “you'd expect spikes at the bottom. Not straw.”

  “We are expected,” said Mevancy in a choked voice.

  I swung about.

  The wall at my side, built of the same veined marble, contained three doors, all closed. Over them an inscription had been picked out in gold.

  The four of us, we all stood up and looked at that invitation. Beautiful calligraphy in the flowing Kregan script, it caught our absorbed attention.

  ADVENTURERS! WELCOME TO THE REALM OF THE DRUMS! MAY YOUR WAY LIE STRAIGHT AND YOUR END IN FIRE!

  Rollo said in a shocked voice, an exclamation jerked from him: “By the Seven Arcades! May Hlo-Hli smile on us now!”

  Mevancy said: “You know what this means?”

  “It is a legend, a myth from the old days—”

  “The old days of the Empire of Loh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, as we're down here an’ all, you'd better tell us.”

  Rollo sat down, plump, onto the floor.

  We all waited until he'd gathered himself together. He wet his lips. He held both hands together, fingers entwined—and I judged that was to stop his hands from shaking.

  “The city,” he said, at last, “the city above us. That is the City of Eternal Twilight.”

  “Well,” observed Mevancy in a level voice. “That seems a sensible name. They live under the trees.” She was, I saw with pleasure, determined to keep on a level keel in these eerie surroundings.

  “The city was built over a vast underground complex, caverns and caves and chambers and corridors. Rumors passed surreptitiously and some were written down in secret documents. A treasure beyond imagination is buried here. That knowledge was passed down from Queen to Queen, from wizard to wizard. Expeditions went forth to bring back the treasure—”

  “In course,” said Llodi, “none of ‘em came back.”

  “Right.” Rollo stood up. He took a breath. “The whole place is protected. It was said the people of the Realm of the Drums were not of the same stock as those of the City of Eternal Twilight. There are—”

  “There will be,” I said, trying to be casual and yet positive at the same time. “Monsters and Magic.”

  “Monsters and Magic.”

  “Well, by Spurl!” growled out Mevancy. “Let us try to find a way back and tell the others.”

  We all looked back at the opening where that intolerable light blazed down.

  “The ramp will be unclimbable.” Rollo rolled his shoulders. “And I cannot guarantee to pass that awful light.”

  “Then we must find another way out,” snapped Mevancy.

  Now in all this, you will understand, one thought dominated my mind. I had no fears for Delia when she was with Seg and Inch and our comrades. We had a little army and a squadron of vollers up there. They might explore into the corridor with the tall double doors and the statue of the golden xichun and they'd never find the way in past the slab of stone that would look exactly like the rest of the corridor wall.

  I mentioned that to the others, and went on: “We're on our own down here unless—Rollo, can you contact Deb-Lu?”

  He shook his head. He looked not so much sullen as frustrated. “No, Drajak, no. Deb-Lu said there was only residual magic and he was right—for the city. Here there is magic of an order surpassing anything I can achieve. It is all about us.”

  “And presumably concealed from above.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there's only one thing for it. Mevancy is right. We've got to find our way out.”

  “Yeh,” said Llodi. “I just wish I had my strangdja.”

  That must have been jerked out of his hand as we fell, for his had been the two fists wrapped about my legs. Otherwise, we had all our weapons. The noise of the water battered into this small room. I looked at the three closed doors. They were all painted black and looked the same.

  “So that's the way of it,” I said in an extremely ugly voice.

  “The inscription suggests our way should lie straight.” Mevancy's hands rubbed together briskly. “And our end a fiery one. Well, we don't take the middle door!”

  “Right or left?”

  “The noise of the water appears to be coming from the left,” said Rollo.

  “Let's have a look.” I marched across to the left hand black door.

  Now when you go adventuring into places other folk of a mean character have made as unpleasant as they can, there are certain ways of going about simple things like opening doors. I once knew a fellow who carried a large oil can with him and whenever he came to a door that opened towards him he carefully oiled the hinges. That way he could open the door silently. He was caught and devoured by some monster crab beetle going into a room whose door opened away from him.

  Even at this very first door I felt back on familiar, if ugly, territory. The standard procedure was to listen and smell and be quiet and judge the opportune moment. Just how our fortunes would fare depended as much on circumstances as the way we bent those circumstances to our advantage. The black door opened silently and the pervasive pearly light showed a narrow flight of stone steps. The steps led up.

  “That's a relief!” said Mevancy.

  Llodi said: “I'll go first.”

  I said: “You'll do no such thing. Use your bowstave to prod the steps.”

  He no doubt thought me a trifle touchy, still he unlimbered his bow and prodded away at the steps. Even then I couldn't be sure if that pressure would simulate the weight of a foot. I needn't have bothered.

  The third step up released a shower of darts that whistled high over our heads from slots. Mevancy said: “Oh!” Llodi sucked in his cheeks. Rollo mumbled something to himself.

  The door at the top was shut and locked and there was no way we could open it.

  “Solid marble by the look of it,” said Rollo, savagely.

  So we trooped down and went along to the right hand door.

  This opened onto a stairway leading down to a door at its foot.

  “Let us at least have a look at the middle door.” Mevancy said.

  Here we found the source of the noise of rushing water. The corridor led straight ahead and a spring welled up just inside the door and the water channeled along parallel to the corridor. All that appeared to be perfectly satisfactory. The oddness lay in the walls. They were formed of packed earth, well soaked by water. Long thin white lines snaked in and out of the earth. My fist gripped onto my sword hilt in instinctive reaction. The wriggling lines in the earth remained still.

  “Of course,” said Mevancy. “With all the granite in the city the trees must have somewhere to stretch their roots.”

  “The stasis spell freezing the people keeps rain off,” pointed out Rollo. “The trees will gain some moisture from rain on their leaves; but this underground water must exist all over the city.”

  A nasty thought occurred to me then that I felt prudent not to communicate to my companions.

  “Do we or do we not go straight ahead?” Mevancy wanted to know.

  “If we go down an’ all we'll be deeper and it'll be harder to get back up.”

  “The question is,” said Rollo with a zephyr of his old arrogance, “do we or do we not obey the instructions in the inscription?”

  “Hardly instructions, Rollo. You're suggesting the words are a challenge?” I said.

  “Implicitly, yes. ‘May your way liestraight.’ What does that mean? Are they wishing us well, or—”

  “They?” snapped Mevancy.

  “Whoever built this damned place. Long dead now, I don't doubt, although with Wizards of Walfarg you never can tell. They had treasures to guard and they knew greedy people would try to steal the treasures. So they protected them as best they could. Dead or alive, Rollo is right, we are responding to a challenge.�
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  “Yeh, and I don't fancy going down, not with whatever horrors an’ all you've promised us down there an’ everything.”

  “But, Llodi,” said Mevancy with a hint of exasperation, “if we don't go down we'll be doing what the inscription wants.”

  This situation was pressing in on my comrades and for all their good humor and courage they were, like me, ordinary human beings. Nerves were being frayed. How long would it be before words grew harder and hard words changed into blows? That I had to prevent, somehow.

  “Let's take a look along the corridor of the roots,” I said. “If it's no good we can always come back and nip down the stairs.”

  Mevancy's sniff was not of the same order as the sniff of Mul-lu-Manting. “Very well, cabbage. You and Llodi go and see, then, we'll—”

  “No, cabbage.” I spoke gently. “We all stick together.”

  “That, I think,” Rollo spoke judiciously, “would be wise.”

  So off we trooped along between the roots which grew everywhere. The water was perfectly sweet and clean and safe to drink. At the far end a door admitted us to another corridor of exactly the same character. I squinted along the wall, and then turned and squinted back the way we'd come.

  “Clever. The corridor is not quite straight with the last. It goes off a fraction, but that's—”

  “That's enough to confuse you altogether later on!” burst out Rollo.

  “Let's go along to the next corridor—”

  “All right, Llodi. But that's all.”

  This time the corridor ended in an intersection of six branches. The stream of water divided into five and sparkled on. Little brick-built bridges crossed the streams. I stopped.

  Mevancy said it for us all. “A maze!”

  “All right, by Jangflor! You win. Let's go down the steps.”

  Had we, I wondered, done the right thing? Perhaps the designers of these underground ways had calculated that we would not go straight on just because of their inscription. Then I ceased to fret over that one. No matter which way we went, we were heading into trouble.

  The pearly light continued to pervade the air. The walls were well-constructed of cut stone. There was, down here, some dust about, but in general the passageways were as clean as though recently swept. We saw no one. That passage opened into a wide, rough-hewn cavern. A large number of small dark objects lay on the stone floor.

  “Keep away from ‘em,” said Rollo. “If we wake them up they'll be fluttering about our ears and biting our faces.”

  We edged around the wall of the cavern and left the bats sleeping.

  “I wonder.”

  “What do you wonder, Mevancy?”

  “Why, the bats have to eat. They fly out over the countryside at night, in this case the rain forest. They have to have ways in and out.”

  “Probably small holes high in the roof.” Rollo made it gentle.

  I was harsh. “They find their food down here.”

  “Well, cabbage, it was just a thought!”

  “D'you want to wake the bats up and find out an’ everything?”

  “I think not.” Rollo was already walking on. “They'd flap about our ears and try to bite us to death.”

  We marched on in silence after that along a short passageway that connected into the next chamber.

  Two steps from the entrance we all halted sharply; very sharply, by Krun! Standing snarling at us with whiskers bristling and black gums pulled back from yellow teeth, a vorlind looked about to spring. This particular vorlind was a big fellow, with a spotted hide of orange and black, a tail that now stood straight out like a poker, and pads and claws that could remove your head as neatly as a headsman's axe.

  We whispered in that cathedral like place as though the vorlind could overhear us. “How much kharrna does he have, Rollo?”

  “It is impossible to say accurately. Another two steps and—”

  “Get around the spotty-lind,” said Llodi in his hoarse voice, using one of the slang names for vorlinds. I wish I had my strangdja!”

  Edging past the vorlind so as not to awaken him was easy enough. The danger might well come from the walls. I never do like leaning against walls in these kinds of situation. I mentioned this to the others, and we kept as much room as possible between the rock and our shoulders.

  Nothing else of interest met our gazes in that cavern so we pressed on to the next. Rollo said he was trying to keep a map in his head. Llodi said he'd have a go, too—an’ everything.

  This cavern stretched away and the pearly light being much reduced here meant we could not see the far end. Those shadows up there looked damned ominous. Cautiously moving forward we followed the center line. The fellow up ahead must have been doing that, just as we were. Little good it had done him. He lay in the path with his head crushed in.

  “By Hlo-Hli, we won't wake him up!”

  “Thassa spotty-lind done that.”

  “Aye.”

  “But,” pointed out Mevancy, “the vorlind isn't frozen here. So—”

  “Just where the shadows cluster thickly, I think,” I said.

  We advanced with great care to see the tableau revealed through the gloom as we drew closer. A man very much like the poor fellow back in the path was marching on. Like his fellow he wore only a breechclout of a mustardy color. He carried a wicker basket on each end of a yoke over his shoulders. Just in front of him marched a guard, a Rapa whose feathers thrust stiffly and whose vulturine beak curved cruelly. He was armored in banded iron and carried swords and a whip. His kind I had met very very early in my acquaintance with the peoples of Kregen. Another slave marched on ahead of the Rapa and other figures were dimly discernable further on.

  To one side and only just visible in the shadows crouched the motionless form of a vorlind, tail outthrust, red eyes glaring upon the men.

  “What a picture!” Mevancy was saying. “Fascinating!” Rollo sucked in his cheeks. Llodi didn't say a word, nor did I. We both heard the coughing snarl from the shadows beside us.

  We swiveled about.

  From the gloom the ferocious form all teeth and claws leaped full on us.

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  * * *

  Chapter twelve

  Llodi dived one way clutching Rollo and I dived the other clutching Mevancy. Both of us clambered to our feet. The vorlind was standing with his massive head swinging left and right. His muscles must have betrayed him after the stasis and his leap failed. His red eyes glared on me and then on Llodi and then his head swung back to me.

  “By Spurl!” spat out Mevancy, sitting up. She held out her arm.

  “No, pigeon,” I said, quickly, jerkily, watching the vorlind and Mevancy from the corner of my eye. “Save ‘em. Later.”

  Llodi was preparing to rush in with me, catch the beast from two sides. I supposed that was what we'd have to do. I hate this kind of thing, where a noble beast is only acting to his nature. Mind you, if his nature is to take my head off, then noble or not, he has to be stopped.

  “Stop, Llodi! I'll shaft the poor thing.”

  My sword snicked back into the scabbard and the Lohvian longbow came off my shoulder. All this took very little time. Had that spotty-lind not suddenly been woken up from stasis he'd have been chomping by now. I fitted nock to string, drew and loosed and the arrow went splunk! into the vorlind just abaft his neck. The vorlind, unlike the leem, has only one heart. He only has six legs, unlike the leem. This fellow just keeled over.

  Rollo lowered his bow where he stood alongside Llodi. “No need for me, then.”

  The lad had been quick, then, recovering and getting his bow ready. As Seg would have done, I took out my knife and retrieved my shaft.

  “The problem is,” Rollo was saying. “Who and what are they?”

  “Friendly or hostile,” amplified Mevancy.

  “If we wake ‘em up we'll have more people to help an’ all.”

  “A shrewd point, Llodi.”

  I said: “We'll have to
nobble that vorlind first.”

  There was a certain sharp brittleness in our conversation. We'd just been through an experience that would affect us. Right now we had to come to terms with our emotions. Mind you, Llodi, a tough bird if ever there was one, whose profession was as a caravan guard, had seen worse sights than a poor dead hunting cat. Mevancy had been through the mill. She was employed by the Star Lords and they do not use weaklings. As for Rollo, young as he was he had seen certain sights in my company already. No, all in all, I felt that our group would retain cohesion and reason.

  Regarding the vorlind, Llodi grunted: “Shaft the beast.”

  “A regrettable necessity,” remarked Rollo, who had quickly picked up my scruples and foibles.

  “Only if we wake ‘em up.”

  “As to that, pigeon, could we walk off and leave that tableau? It's weird enough as it is. But when they unfreeze another poor damned slave is going to have his head taken off.”

  Llodi lifted his bow and let fly. He might be employed as a strangdjim, he remained a Bowman of Loh. I judged the beast would not wake up.

  “Before we unfreeze ‘em,” I said. “Let us scout along their line and see what manner of folk they are. We'll have to watch out for—”

  “Everything, cabbage!” cut in Mevancy.

  “Too right, pigeon. I was, though, talking of vorlinds.”

  “Them and the rest of the nasties an’ everything.”

  What I refrained from telling my companions was that although the evil institution was accepted as an everyday part of normal life down here in Loh, slavery was abhorrent to me. I'd been slave enough times, and had been mercilessly whipped by just such dominating Rapa guards. Oh, yes, by Zair! And slavery had been taboo to me whilst still on Earth.

  So whoever was leading this frozen party had better measure up!

  When we reached the head of the column, of course and as you would expect—how to judge the quality of a man from outward seeming? Much is revealed, of course. More is hidden. This fellow wore a black jutting beard, his face was brown and seamed, he wore expensive and fancy clothes and was girded with swords. His costume had once been white with much gold; now it was grimed and torn. Just abaft him stood a massive Brokelsh, all bristling body hair and pugnacity, carrying armor. To his side another Brokelsh carried the lord's other weapons. The lord himself carried a bow. The lead group were followed by half a dozen guards of various races, then a string of slaves carrying bundles and wicker baskets, more guards, more slaves, until the end was reached where we'd first encountered them. I fancied the slave at the tail end had a bad leg and was hobbling to keep up. In all there were some twenty guards and fifty slaves. I could not see a single female in the party.