Jack of Swords

Chapter Fifteen

Dumarest woke after two hours at the touch of Marek's hand. The man had stood the first watch-a precaution Dumarest had insisted on-and had seemed glad to do it. An opportunity to be alone, perhaps, though he and Pacula had spoken together before she had gone to rest.

"Earl?"

"I'm awake. Anything?"

"No, but Usan is restless and so is the girl. I heard her moaning." His voice held a note of concern. "To be blind in a place like this! Earl, without us she'd wander until she died!"

"You care?"

"Yes. A weakness, but I care. Somehow she has touched me and I-"

"Remember?" Dumarest's voice was soft. "Another girl, perhaps? Another woman. Who does she remind you of, Marek? Your wife?"

"You know?"

"A little. What happened?"

"Something I prefer not to remember, yet I cannot forget. My wife and daughter. She would have been a little younger than Embira. That surprises you?" His hand drifted toward his face. "Always I have looked young. A genetic trait, but that is not important. I was clever, proud of my skill, unable to consider the possibility I could ever be wrong. There was sickness, a mutated plague carried by a trader, and both fell victim. I knew exactly what had to be done. A selected strain of antibiotic, untested, but logically the answer. Something developed by the Cyclan."

Dumarest said flatly, "And?"

"I went to them and begged for a supply. They gave it at a price. My germ plasm for experimental uses-I would have given my life!"

And had given it, in a way; his seed used to breed, the genes manipulated so as to strengthen his trait, raw material used by the Cyclan in their quest for the perfect type.

"And the antibiotic failed?"

"It failed." Marek's voice was bitter. "Had I waited a few more days, a week at the most, all would have been well. A vaccine had been developed and-"

"You didn't know," said Dumarest. "And it wouldn't have helped. You did your best."

"I killed them, Earl. I went begging for the thing which took their life. The Cyclan warned me of the danger but I wouldn't listen. And what did they care? To them it was a test, no more. Had they lived I would have been in their debt and how could I have refused what they asked?"

By a simple rejection, but he wouldn't have thought of that. To him they would have given life and repayment would have been in small ways. Without knowing it he would have become an agent of the Cyclan.

Perhaps he was one? Dumarest studied the man's face and decided against it. His grief was too restrained, too deeply etched into his being. Too honest to blame others he had taken the fault on himself, but never could he forget those who had placed the instrument of death into his hands.

He said, "Get some sleep, now Marek."

"I'm not tired."

"Then rest, close your eyes and relax." He added, "Later Pacula and the girl could need you."

She was restless as Marek had said, twisting where she lay, her lips moving as if she cried out in nightmare. Gently he touched her, his hand caressing the golden mane of her hair, and, like a child, she turned toward him.

"Earl?"

"I'm here, Embira. Go back to sleep now. Relax and sleep. Sleep."

"Stay with me, darling. Stay…"

She had been barely awake and drifted into sleep as he watched. Usan was also restless but with more obvious cause. The wound on her scalp showed an ugly redness, inflammation spreading from the torn area. Beneath his touch Dumarest felt a fevered heat.

Rising he walked to the opening of the chamber in which they had settled. Strands ran across it attached to canteens; if anything touched the ropes an alarm would be given. Turning he walked through the room and out on the colonnade.

The silence was complete.

It was something almost tangible as if sound had never been discovered. A heavy, brooding stillness in which the slight tap of the gun he carried against a pillar roared like thunder. There were no echoes, the sound dying as if muffled in cotton. Standing, he looked at the mist.

At the treasure of Balhadorha.

It was nothing, just mist rising above an open area, the vapor thick toward the center and shielding the ground. Its continuous movement caught and held his attention, plumes drifting to fall, to rise again as if touched by an unfelt wind or stirred by invisible forces. A swirling which, like the leaping flames of an open fire, gave birth to images of fantasy. A chelach, a krell, the face of a man long dead, a smiling woman, the twisting thrust of a naked blade.

Dumarest blinked and they were gone, but the mist remained, a fleecy cloud of bluish gray illuminated by the soaring height of the inverted cone. A kaleidoscope, devoid of color, replacing it with moving form and substance, whisps and tendrils forming patterns and hinting at familiar objects.

Had those who built the city worshiped here? Had they streamed from their chambers to stand in the colonnade, eyes toward the center, attention focused, adoring the mist? There were stranger objects of adoration. On Yulthan men knelt before a mass of meteoric iron chanting to the accompaniment of murmuring gongs. On Kaldarah women praised a mighty tree and wore bells which tinkled with delicate chimings as they danced.

One man's meat was another man's poison. One man's cross was another man's treasure.

Was Marek right? Was the mist all there was to be found in the city?

If so, what of his hopes of finding the location of Earth?

"Earl!" The cry was a scream cutting the air with the impact of edged steel. "Earl! For God's sake! No! No!"

Embira's voice carrying a raw terror. Dumarest jerked, turned, saw the edge of the colonnade fifty feet away, reached it at a run, the gun cradled in his arms. Sufan Noyoka glared at him, fighting with Marek's aid, to hold a struggling figure.

"Earl!" he panted. "Quickly! The girl's gone mad!"

She was like a thing possessed, her body arching, muscles taut beneath the skin, a thin rill of spittle running from her mouth. Her blind eyes were wide, starting, her face disfigured with pain.

"Embira!" Dumarest reached her, touched her face, her throat. There was no time for drugs. Already the tension of her muscles threatened to snap bone and tear ligaments. His fingers found the carotids, pressed, cutting off the blood supply to the brain. Within seconds she slumped, unconscious, relaxing as she fell. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Sufan Noyoka dabbed at his face. The girl's fingernails had drawn deep furrows over his cheek. "I'd woken and was getting food when suddenly she screamed and went mad."

"Not mad." Pacula eased the girl's limbs and drew hair from her face and eyes. "She must have had an attack of some kind. I was getting water from one of the canteens when I heard her cry out. The rest you know." Pausing, she said bleakly. "Did you have to hurt her?"

"I didn't."

"But the way you gripped! There are bruises on her throat!"

"She will wake feeling no worse than if she had fainted." Dumarest looked at Cognez. "Marek?"

"I must have been dosing. I woke when she screamed. Sufan had hold of her." He added meaningfully, "Maybe that's why she screamed."

"A lie! It happened as I said!" Sufan Noyoka's voice grew ugly. "Is this another of your attempts at humor, Marek? If it is I warn you now. My patience is exhausted. Try me further and I will-"

"Kill me?" Marek spread his arms in invitation. "Then do it now. Do it-and then wonder how you are to escape this maze. Unless the girl recovers who else can guide you? And who will help to carry your treasure?" His laughter held a naked scorn. "The treasure. Sufan, you don't have to kill me. I give you my share willingly."

"That's enough!" snapped Dumarest. He stood, watching the others. "Why did you wake, Sufan?"

"Why?" The man blinked, baffled by the question. "Because I had rested long enough, I suppose."

"Nothing woke you? No sound?"

"No, but if there had been anything surely you would have heard it. You were on watch, remember?"

"Pacula, were the canteens disturbed?"

"No, and I heard nothing. Like Sufan I woke because I had slept long enough."

"It's five hours since I woke you Earl," said Marek quietly. "You should have called me to take my turn on watch."

"Five hours?" Dumarest said. "Pacula, have sedatives ready, Embira may need them when she recovers. Sufan, if you want food you'd better get it ready. Some for the others also."

"And you, Earl?"

"I'm not hungry." It was true, he felt both fed and rested and had no thirst. Even the dull ache of the bruised flesh of his back had vanished.

As Sufan broke food from the packs, crumbling concentrates into water which he placed over a heating element and breaking more from a slab, Pacula said, "What caused it, Earl?"

"Embira?"

"Yes." She glanced at the limp figure. "A fit? A seizure of some kind? But what triggered it? If I thought Sufan was responsible I'd kill him."

A cold statement of fact, the more chilling because spoken without emotion.

"He wasn't," said Dumarest. "She must have caught his face by accident. Perhaps she'd lowered her guard. She was afraid of something lying within the city. I told her to blank it out if she could, but she was asleep and maybe couldn't maintain her defenses." He glanced at the girl as she stirred. "Have those sedatives ready, Pacula. She might need them."

"You could do her more good than drugs, Earl. She needs you."

"Perhaps-but so does Usan."

She lay like a broken doll, her breathing ragged, her face flushed with an unhealthy tinge. As Dumarest touched her she stirred, her eyes opening, the corners crusted with dried pus, her lips spotted with dried saliva. Incredibly she smiled.

"Earl! I was dreaming-how did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I'd want you beside me when I woke." Her voice was husky. "A drink?"

She gulped the water he fetched her, leaning hard against his supporting arm. With a damp cloth he laved her face and cleared her eyes. The stench of her breath signaled inner dissolution. Aware of it she turned her face.

"Here." He handed her the open locket. "You'd better take something."

"For the pain?" Her smile was a travesty of humor. "I'm getting used to it, Earl. You don't have to worry about me." Her eyes moved, settled on where Pacula knelt beside Embira. "What happened to the girl?"

"A fit, maybe. She screamed and went into convulsions."

Without comment she rose and climbed to her feet, to stand swaying for a moment, gaining strength with a visible effort. Beads of sweat stood on the sunken cheeks and droplets of blood showed beneath the teeth biting her lower lip.

"You're ill, Usan. You should rest."

"I'm dying, Earl, and we both know it. When the drugs are gone I'll be in hell and they won't last much longer. Maybe you should do me a favor. A bullet, your knife-you know how to do it."

"Kill you, Usan? No."

"Why not? Would you deny me that mercy?" Her voice was hard. "Would you?"

"If it was necessary, no." His voice was equally hard. "But you've too much courage to plead for death. What's happened to your spirit? The determination to survive? Have you forgotten that young and lovely body you hope to gain?"

"A dream, Earl and one that's fading. If I leave this place it will be only because you carry me. And then there is the Cloud and the journey to Pane and how will I pay the surgeons? With mist?"

"There could be something."

"Under the mist? Perhaps." Her fingers fumbled at the locket and she lifted pills to her mouth. "Water, Earl?" She drank and waited for the drugs to take effect. It had been a heavy dose, too heavy for safety, but what did that matter now? "Sufan, when do we search?"

He looked up from where he sat, a container in his hand, a spoon lifted halfway toward his mouth.

"Later, Usan, when we have eaten. Then I-"

"Not you, Sufan. Me. I must be the first. You'll not deny me that?"

Dumarest said, "It could be dangerous."

"If so the more reason I should go first. What have I to lose? Earl, arrange it." Then, as he hesitated, she added quietly, "Please, Earl. At least let me be sure there is hope."

The danger lay in the unknown. The mist thickened toward the center of the area, forming an almost solid wall of writhing fog, and once within it orientation would be lost and the woman could wander until she dropped. The ground, too, could be treacherous. At the outer edge it was firm, but deeper in the mist there could be soft patches, holes, anything. And, if treasure did lie in heaps, it alone could provide hazards.

All this Dumarest explained as they stood on the floor of the wide colonnade.

"I know, Earl." Usan was impatient. "I know."

"Go in, find out what you can and return. This will guide you." Dumarest lifted the coil he held, a thin rope he'd made of plaited strands taken from a thicker coil. "I'll tie it around your waist. When you want to return take up the slack and follow the line. You understand?"

"Yes." She sagged a little, then straightened, her breathing harsh. "But hurry, Earl. Hurry!"

The line attached she stepped from the colonnade and beaded toward the mist. The line snaked from where it lay in a coil on the floor, the other end fastened to Dumarest's wrist.

Marek said, "A woman of courage, Earl, but as she said, what has she to lose? How long will you allow her to search?"

"Not long."

"Earl!" Sufan frowned as Dumarest looked toward him. "If anything happens to her, what then?"

"It hasn't yet."

"But if it does? She's old and ill and near collapse. She could die out there, but if she does we must continue to search. I insist on that."

Marek said, "She's gone."

The mist had closed about her, streamers and coils writhing, drifting, reforming as they watched. Dumarest felt a tug at his wrist and looked at the line. It was extended, taut as it vanished into the mist. Gently he tugged at it, again, the cord dipping to lie on the ground.

"How long will you give her?" said Marek. "An hour?"

"More," said Sufan. "We must give her a chance to search. The more we learn the better, and if-" He broke off, but there was no need of words. If danger lay within the mist and she should fall victim to it her death would at least warn the others.

All they could do now was to wait.

Pacula came to join them. She said, "How long are you going to leave her out there? It's been hours."

Hours? Dumarest said, "Get back to Embira."

"She's resting. Asleep. The sedatives-"

"Get back to her!"

Dumarest looked at the line. It lay thin and straight without movement of any kind. If Usan had found something and was examining it the line would present that appearance. If she was moving a little from side to side or returning it would be the same. But too much time had passed. She could have fallen to be lying unconscious or dead.

Marek said, "Hours? Earl, that doesn't make sense. But Usan-you'd better bring her back."

Dumarest was already at work. Quickly he drew in the line, feeling no resistance, continuing to pull it back until the end came into sight.

"She's gone!" Sufan's voice was high, incredulous. "Earl! She's vanished!"

"She untied the line." Marek stooped, lifted it in his hands. "See? No sign of a break. Maybe she saw something she couldn't reach and undid the knot. Now she's lost." He stared at the mist, the vast, shrouded area. "Lost," he said again. "Earl, what happens now?"

Dumarest said, "I'm going to find her."