Monster Of The Maze

Chapter 13

Blade told his lie, that Galligantus had slipped-mayhap a swoon or fit? — and fallen into the abyss. The junior officer did not believe it and Blade would have died then but for the order of Bloodax that he return safely. Galligantus had passed the order on and so his men dared not slay Blade now. They took him back, bound and with a halter about his neck, and he was once again imprisoned on the tower of rock. Lisma was forbidden to visit him.

But visit him she did, creeping in the dead of night after having bribed the guards. Blade did not ask how. She brought him a long dagger and minced no words as she handed it to him. She would not let him touch her.

«My father broods on this matter,» she told him. «It is not his way to act suddenly. He keeps apart, even from me, and when he comes to a decision it is never changed. In the end, Blade, I think he will find you guilty of killing Galligantus.»

«And what of you, Lisma? Do you think me guilty?»

She sat in the chair, tense, her hands nervous. «Yes. I think you slew Galligantus. Because of what he did to your friend Thane. I can understand that-any Hitt can. And to my thinking it is no great loss-his widow Sariah is not weeping overmuch. But that is not the point-Galligantus was a Hitt chief and a friend of my father. They were boys together. Galligantus was mean and envious, a man not much liked, but he was loyal. My father cannot let the matter pass as nothing, cannot ignore it, for there would be trouble with the tribes. He will punish you in-the end, Blade.»

Blade, seated on his cot, toyed with the dagger she had given him. It had a curved eight-inch blade and was razor sharp. The haft was of polished wood.

«What manner of punishment, Lisma?»

Her blue eyes were soft and moist. A sudden tear ran down her cheek. Yet buried somewhere in those eyes he detected a hardness, an unforgiving hatred, and found it also in her voice when she spoke.

«You will be taken to a mountain top and staked out for the vultures. It will be a slow death and a terrible one. We are quits, Blade, and I have been your fool. But I do not wish you such a death. That is why I gave you the dagger.»

He regarded the weapon with a half smile. «You think I should use it on myself?»

«If you have the courage. It will be better than the vultures.»

Blade nodded. «Yes. I agree to that.»

Lisma left the chair and came to within a foot of him. «I will go now, Blade, and will not come again. It may be that I will have your child. I hope not, for I will have to kill it, god or no.»

He was shocked and let it show. Of all things, he had not expected this. «Kill our child?»

Her blue eyes narrowed and her cold smile sent a chill up his back. He had near forgot that she was a Hitt-and a woman.

«When I sought to have your child without love between us-that was one thing. But then you spoke of love and I gave love and thought you did. You lied, Blade. You gave no love. You lied to me and made a fool of me, thus causing me to make a fool of my father. I want no child from that. Goodbye, Blade. Use the knife.»

She was gone. Blade sat in thought for some minutes before he used the knife. Not as she had suggested.

He found a long pole, taken from the cot frame, and bound the dagger to it with some of his rawhide. It made a crude spear.

He began to build up his fire. When it blazed well he covered it with green wood, for smoke, and went out on the plateau of stone. The wind was brisk, from the north as usual, and it lacked but an hour to sunset. He went to the rampart of boulders and gazed southward. A leatherman glided nearby and scrutinized him with hard eyes, then disappeared under the far rim.

Beyond those peaks lay the thalassic coast, the channel with its coves and inlets, and Blade knew he would find corpses there. And so armor and weapons. The Hitts did not bother to bury the common dead. Could he reach the coast, or even gain near to it, he had a chance. But he must go at once. Any moment now the brooding Loth Bloodax might cease brooding and come to action.

He would have to do it in the dark. He did not like the idea, even with a moon already visible in the east, but it must be done. He dared not wait for another dawn. He would have to take his chances. The balloon was going up-he smiled grimly at the Home-Dimension slang-and he with it, and he had no way of knowing how it would end. He glanced again at the peaks, flaming gold in the crepuscular light, and turned back to the hut. Looking would not solve anything. It was murderous terrain and he would need all his luck.

As the sun slid from view the trapdoor opened. Blade felt a tightness in his chest and held his breath. Were they coming for him now? He reached for the crude spear. If they came, he would fight it out here, for once bound and helpless he would be vulture bait.

A hand appeared and shoved a bowl of food and a can of water onto the roof, then disappeared. The trapdoor closed. Blade breathed again. He drank the water and wolfed down the food, not knowing when he would eat or drink again. The moon was gibbous, scratching its hump on a far peak, and he must go before it grew too light. He had never known the leather-men to fly at night, but did not preclude it.

He began to work. The balloon was complete, sewn as tightly as he could get it, and, though there would be leaks, he thought it would work. It had better. This pillar, this sandstone phallus on which he now stood, fell away sheer for five hundred feet. A long way to fall.

Thus far he had proceeded on theory, not daring to run a test. When it was full dark, but for the moon, he hauled his bag of skins out on the rock and spread it ready for inflating. He fitted a rawhide tube into the bottom opening and ran it to the hut chimney. Over the chimney top he fitted a leather apron and pushed the tube into a hole left for it. The smoke, thick and greasy, began to filter through the tube and into the balloon. There were many leaks and about this he could do nothing.

Blade had been short of rawhide and, not daring to ask for more lest he arouse suspicion, could not rig a full net over the balloon. He settled for straps tied into the skins near the fringe, knotting them together to give him a handhold. He had no way of making grommets, and if the straps pulled loose, or if the skins tore away. . he did not like to think of it.

By the time the moon was an hour high the balloon was swelling, a puffed and lopsided monstrosity that moved with the wind and tugged at its tethering strip of rawhide. Blade regarded it askance and for a moment even his stout heart quailed. Could this poor thing even get him off the stone tower? Would it not be better to wait, to take his chances and await a better time to escape?

He went into the hut and heaped more wood on the fire. He had come this far with the plan and he would finish with it. He took his homemade spear and went back to the balloon. It was in the air now, tugging ever more fiercely at its halter. Smoke leaped from a score of seams. Blade punched it with his big fist. Solid, crammed with hot air longing to rise. It would not be long now.

A leather-man came over. Blade cursed. He had guessed wrong. They did fly at night, and with the moon so bright they could not fail to see the balloon. See, yes, but would they understand?

The leather-man glided past with the usual hissing sound, not twenty feet above the balloon. For a moment Blade thought the Hitt was going to land on the tower, and he snatched at his spear and stood ready. The leather-man barely cleared the far precipice-they were skilled at that-and drifted down into the valley. How much had he seen or understood? Blade ran to the rampart and peered anxiously down.

Nothing yet. A few fires down there, a few moving torches. Blade ran to the trapdoor. It was light, of wood, and there was no way to secure it from above. He moved the trapdoor a few inches and flung himself on his belly, listening. Voices. Far below. Voices bellowing orders and a tramp of feet and clatter of arms. They were coming. The leather-men had wasted no time.

Torches began to flare in the mountains around him. From the nearest peak, higher than his tower, he saw four lights appear and move in signal. The alarm was out. Go, Blade!

He ran back to the balloon. It was straining at the rawhide leash. Blade disengaged the tube from the chimney and thrust an arm through his knotted holding straps. The spear was in his right hand. He reached and began to saw the restraining line apart just as the trapdoor was flung aside and armed men burst onto the pillar top with a vast hoarse shouting. The line snapped. The balloon leaped upward with a jerk that nearly tore Blade's arm from its socket. The wind caught it and sucked it away to the south. A flung spear missed Blade by a foot and an arrow hissed into the balloon and hung there.

Blade gained altitude fast, but not fast enough. As he was swept away to the south on a freshening wind, a jagged snow-capped peak loomed just ahead. He was below it. His left arm was cramped, painful, and as he was about to shift the spear and use his right arm for support, he saw the familiar silhouette of a leather-man leave the peak and come gliding straight at the balloon. Blade tensed, the spear still in his right hand and ready for thrusting.

The leather-man must have meant to fly into the grotesque smoke-leaking bag that hurtled toward him. He did not understand a balloon and he was afraid, but the torch signals had bid him to stop this thing. To fight it. He tried to obey.

He could not control his crude, bat-winged frame of wood. He missed the bag and flew into Blade. The shock nearly dislodged Blade, and for a moment his feet became entangled in the armature. The leather-man, his arms helplessly pinioned into the wingstraps, glared at him, then shrieked as Blade put the spear-dagger into his throat. Blade kicked free of the contraption and watched it fold and break and spiral down to crash.

He was past the last high peak now and the balloon was still rising. He traveled in the absolute silence that only a balloonist knows. He tucked the spear under his arm and hung on grimly. His arms were already weary, cramping, painful. It became very cold. He wore only his leather battle kilt and a crude woven shirt given him by Lisma. The pain in his hands and arms continued to grow, and for the first time the thought came that perhaps he did not have the strength to see it through. He flexed his fingers and changed grips constantly. If his hands went numb, if his great biceps cramped too badly. .

The moon slid behind a solid bulwark of dark cloud. Blade skimmed along in darkness, a weird and frightening sensation. He might at any moment dash his brains out against a cliff, or any jutting fang of rock could tear the balloon to shreds.

He could bear the pain in his arms no longer. He tried to work a leg up to get a foot through the straps. It was cold. Sweat dried in a frigid glaze on his body. One of the straps pulled loose from the skins.

Blade felt it go. His heart skipped a beat. He swung sideways, down a few inches, off center and so pulling the balloon askew and causing it to leak at a greater rate. Smoke billowed into his face. He was no longer rising as the air in the balloon chilled and lost its buoyancy. He began to sink.

Another strap pulled free of the skins. Blade lurched and dropped and for a moment he thought the last two straps would go. They held. By now the balloon was tilted on its side and losing altitude rapidly. The moon was still hidden and Blade could see nothing in the void below.

Not one fire gleamed, he saw no torch, he was alone in cold and blackness.

Down. The balloon was deflating fast and the speed of his fall increased. He could not gauge his rate of fall, but judged that if he struck anything solid now he was a dead man. At best he would be maimed and crippled. The Hitts would find him and feed him to the vultures yet.

Down-down- The balloon was little more than a shrunken pouch trailing after him in the plunge. It had some braking effect, but not enough to save him.

The moon peered out of cloud again and Blade saw the water just before he struck it. He landed flat out and was hurt and stunned. He made a great splash. He loosed his hold on the straps and kicked away from the balloon and trod water while he got his senses back. He breathed deep and felt himself for broken bones and found none. He swam back to the balloon and pressed out air pockets with his feet until it filled and sank. Then he swam for the shore, for a glint of beach some five hundred yards distant.

Blade crawled onto rough shingle and lay gasping. The long confinement had sapped his strength. But there was no rest for him now. The night was before him-he doubted he had been in the air for more than half an hour-and there was much to do. He must get his bearings, find a hiding place, make decisions. He had escaped his prison, but he had not escaped his peril.

He had nothing. No food, no water, no weapon. He was lightly clad, barefoot, drenched and shivering. And lost.

The bulbous eye of the moon mocked him. Blade shook a fist at it and went looking. For the nonce he did not fear encountering human enemies; nothing stirred about him, no night birds or animals, nothing but the soft wash of surf. This latter encouraged him. The water was salt and it moved and high water was marked plainly on the beach. Tides. It must be the channel. But which side of it?

Bit by bit he explored and found that his cove was roughly triangular and slashed well back into tall cliffs. There were great jumbles of boulders and weird rock formations and there must be caves in which to hide if he must. At the moment a cave, and a fire, were vastly appealing. And food. Blade shivered and grinned and forgot it. He had no food and no means of making a fire, even if he were foolhardy enough to show a beacon to every enemy within eyeshot. He took off his shirt, Lisma's present, and wrung it out as best he could and put it on again and went looking.

The moon had wheeled away and was beginning to wane when he saw the dark thing lying at the edge of the water. Blade approached it cautiously, though without fear, and saw that it was a dead man. A corpse near rotted away. Fish had been at it, maybe animals, and he had to kneel by it and look closely before he made it out to be a Zirnian soldier. One of the thousands who had died on the beach, or the bridge, and had floated far eastward with current to strand on this lonely beach.

The undercloth had rotted away, but the armor was still in fair enough condition, albeit the leather sodden and the metal rusted. Best of all, to Blade, was the sword. It was still in the scabbard. As Blade tugged it away, he saw the arrow still in the bony cage of ribs-the man had died before he could draw sword.

He donned the armor, which fitted well enough with some stretching at the jointures, and plunged the sword into sand to cleanse it. He buckled the weapon about him and felt immensely better. There was no helmet and he did not complain-his luck had been good this night.

Blade searched up and down the cove for something to eat. Clams, mussels, anything at all. He could have eaten a raw horse. He found nothing, but, finally, a cave formed by two tilting boulders. Into this he retired and slept.

With first dawn he awoke. He sniffed the gray air and found it familiar, softer, fragrant, lacking the brisk sting of Hitt air. He scratched his beard, sleepy and puffy-eyed, and pondered. Could it be possible? He had been in the air such a little time-but the wind had been stiff when he took off and had increased as he gained altitude. It was, he conceded, just possible.

Blade came cautiously out of his cave and crawled on his hands and knees down to a rock formation overlooking the beach. There he lay hidden until the sun came up. The warmth was glorious and he reveled in it, turning on his back and letting the rays lave his face. He was nearly asleep again when he heard the muffled clopping of horses on sand and the jingle of armor and weapons. A patrol. Blade scuttled back into his rocks like a lizard.

He peered down at the beach. There were a dozen horsemen led by a sublieutenant. Zirnians. Blade gazed beyond them, out over the water to where land, looking like nothing more than a cloud bank, showed on the far horizon. His sense of terrain had always been acute and now he remembered the maps he and Ogier had studied by the hour. He had done it. He had crossed the channel and had landed but a few miles from where the sunken pontoon had been built. That was Hitt country over there. He was back in Zir.

Blade gave a halloo and began to run toward the beach. The troop of horse reined about in surprise and swords were drawn and spears loosed in their scabbards. Blade stopped and raised a hand, then another, his fingers spread and palms revealed. The sublieutenant spurred toward him with a pennon-bearer at his side.

Blade's luck was holding. The young officer recognized him at once. He saluted and doffed his helmet.

«Prince Blade! We thought you slain or a prisoner of the Hitts.»

Blade grinned hugely. «Prisoner, yes. Corpse, no. Unless I am a ghost. And if I am, I am the hungriest ghost you are ever likely to see. Take me to food at once. What is this patrol and where are you quartered?»

«We have a camp two hours' ride inland, sire. I will take you there. The Captain Ogier will be glad to hear of you.»

The troop reached a defile and turned inland. Blade made a brief inspection of the men and did not like what he saw. Their uniforms were tattered, their weapons dirty and the armor rusty and dented. He noted that some were near to sleeping in the saddle.

He stared hard at the young officer. «These men look worn out, spent. They should be in rest quarters. And why are there so few of you?»

«Captain Ogier cannot spare more for beach patrol, sire. He has few enough men as it is.»

«How is that?» Blade knew that the Zirnian losses had been heavy, but Ogier still had a sizable army when he retreated back across the channel.

The sublieutenant was looking at him in surprise. Blade scowled. «Talk, man! I know nothing. I have been a prisoner of the Hitts, mind you, and they told me only what they wished me to know. What of matters in Zir?»

«They go badly, sire. There is a near state of civil war-though it still smoulders and has not broken into open fighting yet.»

Blade knew then, but still asked the question. «Casta? The black priests?»

«Aye, sire. The black priests. Casta and his whore, the Princess Hirga, live in the palace-city and work day and night to undermine the army. The Captain Ogier and Casta had a meeting, and the rumors are that angry words were spoken and swords nearly drawn. In the end Casta had his way-the black crows are dispersed all through the army to aid discipline and preach loyalty to Casta. They have been given weapons and armor and-authority and no soldier is free to speak what is in his mind-lest he run afoul of Casta. Many of the men have deserted.»

Blade forgot his hunger. Anger filled his belly. «And Ogier stands for this?»

The officer did not meet Blade's eye. He glanced back at his raggle-taggle men and said, «For the time, sire. Captain Ogier bides his time. He camps now on the Plain of Pyramids with half an army. All who would follow him. He confers daily with Casta and they meet halfway between the palace-city and the Plain, for neither trusts the other. You have returned at a bad time, Prince Blade.»

Blade smiled faintly. «On the contrary, lad. Maybe it is a good time. We want no civil war in Zir. Perhaps I can stop it.»

«How sire?»

Blade could not answer. He had not the slightest idea at the moment. But something would come to him. It always did.