Monster Of The Maze

Chapter 17

Janina.

Her call was incessant, and everywhere he looked she beckoned. Blade-Blade-Blade- Come to me. Come to me.

He knew his obsession, grasped the reality of his mental state, and was powerless. She was but a diamond image in a mountain, but to him she was so real that he loved, he rutted, for her.

Blade swam the channel at night, coming to the Hitt shore just before dawn and hiding in a rock-strewn ravine until night came again. Several parties of Hitts passed nearby and he caught enough of their talk to learn that he was still sought. They were searching the coastal areas for him. Good. The last thing they would expect was that he would make for the place of Kings and Queens.

It took him three days, traveling only at night, to reach the high plain on which the mountain of diamonds stood. In all that time he did not eat and drank only brook water. He had cast off his armor for the swim and wore only shirt and kilt, bore only a sword and dagger he had borrowed from a Zirnian officer. Just before dawn on the fourth day he slipped into the mineshaft. He had not expected guards and found none. No Hitt would dare come near the place unless in time of official ceremony.

He found fire stones and struck them to tinder and lit a torch. He crawled through narrow passages and came to the diamond face and gazed into it and saw a thousand Blades staring out at him. Grim-faced, unshorn, starving and light-headed, weird and wild of visage, he stared back and laughed. He lifted his hand in salute.

He found the opening in the face and followed the passage which he and Galligantus had trod alone. Blade sweated now and his breath came short. Soon he would see her again. She was waiting. Janina.

There it was. The wide ledge, the chasm, the gallery beyond people with the diamond images. Blade stepped to the brink of the abyss and held out his torch. He stared down and laughed.

«How do you fare, Galligantus?»

He made his way along the ledge to where she waited a little apart and on her plinth near the edge. She glittered, she gleamed and sparked, her magnificent body drank in the torchlight and shattered it and refracted it in a thousand glorious colors. Janina.

She smiled at him across the chasm. Her arms reached out, she beckoned.

Janina spoke: «You have come at last, my heart. I am glad. I have waited so long. I have waited a thousand years, Blade. I can wait no longer. Come to me.»

Blade laughed and waved the torch. «Be patient a little longer, my love, my Janina. I come.»

As he made his way back to where the chasm was narrowest the crystal came to life in his brain. For days it had been trying to get through and Blade had fended it off, had refused to concentrate or listen, had fought off the computer impulses. Now they were too strong, so strong that it was as if Lord L, in minuscule, was within his brain case and shouting.

Teleportation attempts a failure this time. . unforeseen problems. . prepare return to Home Dimension at once. . bring what you can ….

Blade refused to concentrate. He would not answer. He would not go. What did they know, those fools back in HD? He had found Janina and he did not intend to leave her. She was calling him even now, her voice sweet, low and melodious. «Come to me, Blade. Hurry-hurry.»

Fools! But not Blade. Not any longer. He would never go back. Never back to the blood and the agony and the tears, the stupidity and the greed, the pain and despair and aging, the lust and inhumanity, disease and death. Not Richard Blade. He was too clever for that. Who needed Home Dimension? Janina had waited a thousand years; he had gone into hell six times; now they had found each other and it was enough. Forever it would be enough.

He found a crevice and wedged the torch into it. He ignored the throbbing signals in his brain. He went to the abyss and calculated the leap again. Fifteen feet, give or take a few inches. Once over there would be no returning. Loth Bloodax had made the leap back, but Blade knew that he could not do it. Nor did he want to. He would remain with Janina.

Janina. From down the gallery she called softly. «Hurry, Blade. Hurry.»

Blade backed off and measured his run. At its widest the ledge was thirty feet deep. That much run, no more, and if he faltered he was lost. He went a last time to peer down into the pit. Nothing. Nothing but depth and murk and silence.

The crystal fought through.

Aware your intent … forbid it … prepare to return HD at once. . your mental condition unsatisfactory. .

Pain slashed through his head. Blade sank to his knees and groaned. He fought to his feet and with an enormous effort blanked out the computer impulses. Oh no they didn't! They were not going to cheat him at the last moment.

«Come to me, Blade. Hurry.»

He began to run. He had dropped his swordbelt and his feet were bare. He ran leaning forward, head down a bit, sure-footed, faster and faster and faster.

He leaped. With a last push of his legs he flung himself out and over the abyss. He soared over darkness and the microsecond it took seemed to Blade an eternity. He floated, arms outstretched, fingers tensed into talons, waiting ….

He was going to fall short.

His reflexes were faster than his brain. His hands relaxed and he let his body go limp. His forearms struck the ledge and for a moment he hung by elbows alone while his fingers sought for a fissure, a hair-line crack in the stone-anything.

Blade began to slip. One elbow scraped off the ledge. His weight was dragging him down. His fingers found nothing but smoothness. He tensed them again, hooked them, trying by sheer strength to make his hands and wrists support him. His other elbow slipped off the ledge.

The fingers of his right hand slid into a crack and held. He dangled. The fissure was so minute that only his nails and fingertips supported him. Blade strained. Blade willed all his great strength into his right hand. He sought frantically with his left for another handhold.

He found it, deep and life-saving, wide enough to let his hand slip in and get a firm purchase. With a moan of pain he relaxed his right hand. He dangled for yet another moment, gaining breath and new strength, then lurched up and got his right elbow over the rim. A moment later he was on the ledge, amidst the gallery of Hitt kings and queens.

Light came dim and murky from the flaring torch over the chasm. He made his way carefully through the glinting diamond images, brushing past them, unseeing and uncaring. Janina was waiting for him.

The beeping in his brain came again. Prepare return to HD at once. . prepare return to HD at once. . prepare to

Blade damned them all and closed off his mind. Never. Never go back. Janina was waiting.

She had turned on her plinth. She watched as he left the assemblage of carbonized kings and queens and approached. She smiled.

«You came, Blade. At last.»

Blade halted. She moved toward him. Her body ceased to glitter. No longer did the torchlight strike color from every facet. It laved a body that was warm and white and pink, that breathed sweetly, that gazed at Blade with love and held out its arms to him.

Blade heard a sound and wondered why he groaned. He had her, he had come to Janina, and she was in his arms. Why did he moan?

He kissed each perfect breast. Her fingers on his face were velvet feathers. She whispered of love, of the things they would do, and he knew that all was well. Yes, oh yes, they would do all those things together.

Her mouth was a well of tenderness which drew his tongue deep into itself. Her breath was perfume, her flesh sheer witchery, and her hands on his body were the kept promises of heaven after the lies of hell. Blade sank to his knees and Janina with him. They lay tight locked in embrace, kissing, and she whispered:

«Now, Blade. Now at last.»

She stroked him gently. He was rigid, blood-engorged, ravening and, at the moment, more phallus than man. Such sweet torture was past bearing.

Janina whispered. «Ah, Blade. At last-at last- I will have you in me. Ah, Blade-a thousand years I have waited and been true. Ah, Blade-now.»

Blade entered the valley of pleasure. Long, narrow, steepsided ravine all pink and convoluted. Everything he had ever known, or wished for, increased a thousandfold. He knew then what death was. This was death. And yet not death, for it was life and beautiful beyond telling and when it was over there would be peace. He understood then, for Janina was both life and death, and they were both one.

Never had his lust been so tender. Never had he extended Paradise so long. Janina enfolded him with her legs and arms and caught all of him to and in her and there were still depths in her to seek. On he plunged, deeper into the red ravine.

Janina cried warning, but it was too late. They rolled over the brink of the abyss, still locked together, still loving, still cleaving one to the other.

She whispered as they fell. The last words he ever heard her speak:

«Fall with me, my love. Die with me. Do not be afraid.»

The pain came then, splitting his brain, ripping him apart, and he screamed and clung to her. He knew. In those last moments he knew. He had lost. The computer had won. They were dragging him back to Home Dimension.

«Janina-Janina-JANINA-«

Silence. Yet she was in his arms. Silent. She did not breathe now, he was sure of it, and terror came and a fierce anger. They had killed her.

She was no longer soft. Her body, pressed to his, was hard and hurting and unresponding.

«Janina?»

Silence.

They fell. Fell. On a ledge was the body of Galligantus. A black vulture crouched over it and tore at a bloody hole. They fell.

There was light now and Blade could see the bottom of the pit. Vast and covered with bones and skulls. Obscene things prowled there.

«Janina! I am afraid. Comfort me.»

Silence. She was heavy in his arms, her flesh gone to stones, her eyes flat and unresponding. Blade clung to her and sobbed because she was all he had.

They fell. A pit gaped in the bottom of the abyss and they fell on. Into fire and steam. Into pain.

The pain vanished. They were no longer falling. He gazed about and began to laugh. He was walking in London, in crowded London, and it was raining. Janina glittered in the rain and it fell from her eyes like tears. She was an image, a statue, and she wore roller skates and he was pulling her along behind him on a leash. People stared.

A policeman came up to Blade and said, «You can't go about like that, you know. Not ruddy likely you can't. Not in London Town.»

«What do you mean?»

The bobby took off his helmet and scratched his head. He leered at Janina. «You'll have to get some clothes on her, you know. And put some on yourself while you're at it.

Blade looked down. He was naked.

«The time has come,» the bobby said.

Blade stared at him. «What time?»

«To talk of lettuce and queens,» said the policeman. «And submarines and postage stamps. Any ruddy fool knows that.»

«You're the ruddy fool.» said Blade. «That is not the way it goes at all.»

«Sassinnawficer, are you? Comealongnowgoirg to runuin.»

Blade swung at him and missed. Too late he saw the club coming. Explosion. A little cartoonist sat in his skull and inked in the following: #!****