The Key to Irunium

V

So they hadn’t been fairy stories, after all.

So here he was, in Irunium.

Great.

So how did he get back?

His whole attention had been directed on getting away from the falling Agusta helicopter and dragging Margie to safety with him. He must, he supposed with a dull headache as a memory of that imaginary steel band encircling his skull, have catapulted himself into this place through sheer cowardice.

The sun still shone. The sand gritted under his shoes. The sky possessed a bluer blue and the grass growing a few hundred feet from where the sand stopped grew a greener green. A clump of orangey trees shaped like tenpins sprouted straight up out of the grass and, looking around him, he saw numbers of these isolated growths dotting the landscape. Some clumps had ocher and jade trees, but most shone with that deep orangey tint. He thought he glimpsed a bird sailing off against a level wash of cloud, but he could not be sure. Judging his position by the sun, he thought that due north of him a dark band stretched across the horizon; again his eyes jumped as he tried to focus, so he wasn’t certain.

As far as he could see, the land alternated in that strange unpredictable way between patches of barren coarse red sand, patches of fine golden sand, and stretches of the blue-green grass that grew in luxuriant profusion, its greenness spotted and set off by the heads of myriad poppy-red flowers. Prestin noticed that there seemed to be no wind; at least, he could feel none and the grasses did not sway—and yet he felt there ought to be wind, and could not define why.

He told himself, I’m here. Bud—I’m here. So I have to get back. But how?

He supposed there must have been a nodal point through which, instead of pushing one of the others, he had himself jumped, willy-nilly. If he could find the same place again—he hadn’t moved more than a pace or two since he’d stopped running—he could… He could—what?

How could he return himself to the familiar world?

What mechanism did he employ? What abracadabra mumbojumbo? What psychological conundrums of mental agility?

He admitted that he did not have the slightest idea of how to get back other than just thinking hard and hoping.

He was damned thirsty, too.

The heat of the sand at last became too obnoxious and he walked across to stand on the grass. He felt he was desecrating it somehow, but his feet could not wait.

A spirit of zealous inquiry possessed him to the partial exclusion of fear—he was badly frightened and guessed dully that he might be frightened worse in the future—but right now he felt inclined to explore. If he was to make his way back to Italy he must work on the problem. Standing still worrying would be no help but exploring might turn up any number of answers.

The dryness in his throat emphasized his thirst and, he supposed with a quick stab of anger, his fear, too.

What to do? He turned around again to look. He saw only the bland otherness of the landscape, the strange bottle-shaped trees, the tall grasses, the sand, the alien emptiness of it all, the faint tantalizing bar of darkness all along the northern horizon.

Well? That strange bar of shadow must be something, even if only a range of mountains. So? Yes. He could not find a way back from here, that was perfectly obvious, and he could not go on living here, without food and water and shelter. At least at the foot of mountains there should be water and food and he could rig up a shelter. What else could he do? Short of break down into madness?

He began to walk.

Just how long he had walked before he saw the dark spot darting over the ground ahead of him he could not say.

He halted, wiping sweat from his forehead, and screwed up his eyes. Then he took off his glasses and wiped the sweat and fogginess from them. By the time he put them back on again the dot had resolved into an animal. At least, Prestin looked again, startled out of the lethargy that had been creeping over him during the monotonous tramp, he supposed it was an animal.

The body of the thing rounded out into a bulbous squab about two feet in diameter, a dark metallic blue. From this a yellow neck, some three feet long, swayed up to support a small cat-like head, oddly intelligent-looking and wise in its bewhiskered furriness. But what shocked Prestin into standing stock-still, frightened to move, were the thing’s legs. It ran on two long dragonfly jointed stalks, with another two projecting straight behind and held clasped together; still two more waved menacingly before it, like pseudo-arms, each ending in a wide-taloned claw. Out of shock Prestin counted the talons, and was relieved, somehow, to find that the thing had four claws, not three like the Trugs.

The thing shrieked a garbled string of invective at him as it came swiftly on.

The danger suddenly shook him out of his shocked stance. But before he could run, a talon struck solidly, sprawling him forward onto the sand; another talon swooped and closed around the back of his neck. He could feel the harsh scraping of bone. He could hear the shrill whistle of the thing breathing through its flattened cat’s nose and he could smell the rank odor of feathers and skin.

Desperately he thrust a hand into his pocket seeking for the small knife he usually carried. He found it and pulled it out. His face thrust hard into the sand as one talon around his neck held him. He realized numbly that he was being held, that the thing was doing nothing else. It had caught him. Now it guarded him. For what? He opened the knife convulsively and struck blindly upward.

The talons shifted a fraction so that he could jump up. He swung around to face the thing. The head weaved bewilderingly, the mouth ricked open and spitting. The talons struck and Prestin jumped sideways. A spot of greenish blood dappled the dark blue body where his knife had drunk.

Menace breathed from the thing like heavy musk in a shuttered room. At first it had only wished to hold him captive, but he resisted and struck back. Now, clearly, the thing would seek to kill him.

The talons lashed again. As he jumped this time, Prestin struck down and sideways with the knife. The blade razored through a talon, half-severing it, and the thing keened a high spitting, splitting shriek.

“You didn’t like that, did you?” said Prestin, panting, sweating, deathly afraid.

Preston could not run, for the thing was manifestly faster over the ground than he; but even if he could have, he felt through his fear, he would still choose to meet it face to face. He had done all the running in this life he would do. He moved in and slashed again and the thing jumped back, whistling.

The long snakelike neck snapped forward like a catapult and the cat’s head leaped at his throat. The fangs gaped wide, white and needle-sharp, showing the inside of the lips a dark green, the throat a bilious green-yellow. Prestin leaped aside, staggered, flung up an arm and felt the puncturing fangs bite through tendon and flesh.

He slashed with the knife again and missed. The head flicked around and then struck in again. He rolled over panting, screaming, and felt the fangs bite into his back and shoulder. He pushed up on one knee as the head flung itself furiously upon him again. He grabbed the neck just below the head and held on like a man on a bucking bronco. The head lunged insanely.

It jerked and screamed and swayed and spat. Prestin hung on. He dropped his knife and clung on now with both griping fists. The taloned claws kept battering at him and he kicked back, furiously slamming his heavy shoes into the dark blue body.

He heard—or thought he heard—a sharp crack.

The neck went limp. The head lolled. He felt warm green ichor welling out of the mouth and running down over his fists. With an exclamation of disgust he threw the thing from him.

The body fell away and Prestin saw the wooden haft protruding from it, the heavy wedge-shaped javelin head half-buried in blue flesh. He sprang up and turned swiftly.

The man laughing at him had a bronzed, dark-bearded face, blue eyes and tousled hair. He waved.

“Molto buono! Ecco—Andate!”

The Italian was thick and muddied, but recognizable.

Speaking the same language, Prestin said, “What—who are you?”

“Never mind that now. Bring the assegai. I need it. And hurry!”

With some repugnance, Prestin tore the javelin free. He felt shakiness and pushed it away; now was no time for reaction to weaken him. But it had been a very close shave…

He ran over to the dark-bearded stranger. The man wore neat enough green tights and a short green jacket. He had a quiver full of the javelins over his shoulder and a short sword at his left side. He wore no hat and Prestin felt cheated: the man should at least have worn a hat with a curly brim and a feather.

“Who are you?” the man said, in a voice that was gruff although not unfriendly.

“Prestin. And you?”

“Only Prestin. Some of you other-worlders have no realization of etiquette in names. I am”—he spoke now with a conscious dark pride, the thick Italian ringing more true—”I am Dalreay of Dargai, Todor Dalreay of the keep and lands of Dargai, nobly born—fugitive!” He finished with hard, hurting bitterness.

“Well,” said Prestin placatingly, “that makes two of us.”

“How so?” The man—Dalreay—could match Prestin’s own shifts of mood and feeling. His dark blue eyes showed a clear determination to surmount his present problems, and, although perhaps not in such a flamboyant way, the same purpose was firmly shared by Prestin.

“Well—you saw! That—that thing was going to kill me.”

“The Ulloa? I don’t think so. They hunt for the Valcini.”

“The Valcini?”

“There is much to learn if you are to stay alive. The first thing is speed. The Valcini will be following that Ulloa, or more of its foul kind may be hunting with it. We must abandon this locality for now. As a fugitive I am well used to that.” Again that soul weariness blurred his words and drew his mouth down in lines of dejection.

He began to walk toward a clump of the tenpin trees and Prestin followed.

At the foot of a jade specimen Dalreay bent and tugged fiercely at a tuft of the coarse grass. Instead of the grass tearing from its roots, a whole square section of ground opened up like a trapdoor to reveal steps cut in the earth leading down into darkness.

“I’ll go first, Prestin. But for Amra’s sake don’t fall on me! It’s a long way down.”

On the top step lay a bulky brown canvas bag and this Dalreay lifted and carried by means of a leather strap over one shoulder. Prestin noted the materials from which things were made—Dalreay’s clothes, the javelins, the bag—realizing they would give him a clearer understanding of this world’s technology and culture levels.

With his left hand scraping down the damp, crumbling earth and his feet treading cautiously down one step at a time in total darkness, Prestin descended after Dalreay.

He did not question doing this. He did not stop to argue. He simply felt that under the ground lay a possible haven that most certainly did not exist on the surface of this frightening world.

He started to count the steps. He felt this befitted a quondam scientific mind. After 365 he gave up, not missing the significance of the figure. Dalreay halted a short time after that, one hand behind him to stay Prestin, saying, “We’re nearly there. Now listen to this. You are an out-worlder and therefore can be easily killed. So do exactly as you are told and do not question others too much.” He made a small half-sniggering sound. “As for me, I am Dalreay of Dargai, and I know.” He went on down. “Come.”

Baffled, but strangely trusting this dark, sardonically bitter man—in much the same way he had felt he could trust David Macklin—Prestin went on down.

“Keep quiet from now on.” Dalreay’s hand showed now against a vague pinkish glow from below. His beard was thrust arrogantly up.

Prestin did not answer but by his silence acquiesced to Dalreay’s order.

They both moved down in complete silence, their feet soundless on the cut earth, their hands scraping without noise against the damp dark wall. Prestin could now see that myriads of tiny glittering facets, tiny jewels, had been set in the wall. The pinkish glow strengthened until they no longer needed touch to reassure their balance and the numbers of jewels increased. When they stepped at last onto a stone floor, the glow all about them blazed magnificently from solid walls of gems.

Prestin wanted to cry out in wonder but Dalreay gripped his arm and frowned. They moved on swiftly through a tunnel cut from the heart of a living jewel.

This Todor Dalreay—now that Prestin could see him again by the light of the jewels—seemed to be the archetype hunter, frontiersman, intrepid folk hero. Seemed to be. For, to Prestin, the air of doomed resignation, the bitter anguish with which the strong man had spoken of his home and of being a fugitive, carried overtones of tragedy and despair.

Dalreay now held a javelin easily balanced between the fingers of his right hand, his left clinging firmly to the canvas bag suspended from his shoulder. Prestin followed, treading warily.

The tunnel increased in size and the irregularities of the walls smoothed out until the passageway was as wide and lofty as an Italian basilica of the other dimension. A pair of grooves had been cut in the floor which, Prestin intuitively guessed, were tracks for the carts that carried the jewels cut from the rock.

Dalreay cautioned Prestin to silence yet again. He pressed himself close to the side of the passageway that here curved gently outwards, concealing anything at the farther end from their view. He slowed down and moved cautiously around that convex wall of brilliance. By now the scintillant light was hurting Prestin’s eyes. He wiped away tears and felt the burning sensation that told him in no uncertain terms that he was damaging his eyesight. He pressed both hands flat against the wall and shut his eyes tight, creeping along that way after Todor Dalreay.

He bumped into the tough green-clad huntsman.

His eyes flew open. Dalreay pushed against him with a hard elbow and shoulder and he half-fell sideways into a niche in the wall. Chisel marks showed on the rock and fallen jewels lay scattered on the floor. Noises suddenly spurted from around the bend: harsh footfalls, the clanking of metal, voices raised in arrogant confident tones, laughing, careless, authoritative.

Dalreay put his bearded face close to Prestin.

“Forsaken imps of Honshi guards! For the sweet sake of Amra, don’t let one get away if there are more than two. Here.”

He thrust a javelin into Prestin’s less than enthusiastic hands.

Prestin didn’t like this one bit. It now seemed he had made a serious mistake to come down here at all. The footfalls neared; the strong confident voices and the clanking of metal made a deep diapason with those arrogant fancies of a moment ago. If there were more than three… Well… He gulped. That meant he was to silence his man, at least.

Dalreay had put his canvas bag down, pushing it further into the niche. His whole body was tensed in absolute concentration on one objective. These Honshi guards—whatever they were—would receive scant shrift from Dalreay.

Prestin swallowed and tried to forget he was a civilized man of twentieth-century Europe and America; he tried instead to pretend that he was a lethal and bloody-minded savage from the palaeolithic age, armed anachronistically with a steel tipped assegai.

Three guards rounded the corner. Dalreay spat a single expletive under his breath, “Parduslikaloth!”

It sounded delightfully obscene. The Honshi guards just looked obscene. Their faces most resembled frogs’, wide and grinning, with large far-spaced eyes, flat wedge-shaped cheeks, gray and yellow, with a lick of blue around the chops. They stood perhaps five-foot-six and strutted on short bent legs; they were tough, nasty and altogether repugnant. They wore metal armor—a reddish metal Prestin thought more likely to be copper than bronze—with tall conical helmets, banded in red and black. From the top of each spiked helmet hung a cluster of hair, still attached to shriveled skin. They looked too small to be scalps.

Dalreay shouted, “Hieyea!” and lunged. His javelin passed clean through the sidepiece of the first guard’s breastplate; the death warrant of that Honshi was clearly written in the sudden spout of green ichor that bathed the woodsman’s hand.

The Honshi carried swords of a similar pattern to that now whipped out by Dalreay: short broad and leaf-shaped like Celtic or Greek swords, they were handy for circling and thrusting, evenly balanced for the short chop to a defenseless neck, but not so good for open attack on an armored man. Broader than the classic Celtic leaf sword, they would be clumsier, too. Prestin hurled himself at the second Honshi, his javelin held like a rifle and bayonet. His mind was clicking along grooves he had forgotten existed.

The Honshi gutturaled deep in his throat. His sword flashed up. Prestin carried on with his lunge; he felt the javelin strike metal, begin to penetrate, and then bend. The force of his rush carried him on and he collided heavily with the struggling Honshi. From the tail of his eye as he sought to grasp the sword arm, he saw Dalreay’s sword go up, in, out, and leave the third guard’s face a bloody mess.

The worst that could happen now was that this second guard would escape. Prestin brought his knee up sharply and pushed hard sideways, his head down and urgently thrusting into the thing’s breastplate, like a front row forward.

They went over together. Then he had the sword arm. He bashed it frenziedly against the floor. The Honshi resisted like a piece of sprung steel. They thrashed about, now one on top, now another, and all the time the thing breathed in hoarse, foul gulps and gasps that filled the air with a stink that made Prestin feel sick.

From somewhere he heard Dalreay say, “If you’d only keep still a moment, Prestin—Ah!”

He was underneath at the time and with a loud and coarse thwack! the thing collapsed on top of him like a bag of hops when the string is cut.

He struggled up, avoiding the green ichor.

“I had him, Todor!” he said indignantly. “I had him beat!”

“Sure.” Dalreay laughed, his face relaxed and filled with satisfaction. He kicked the corpse. “Sure. You had him beat, Prestin. I just helped him on his way.”

Prestin shrugged his jacket back on and tried to wipe some of the muck off. Dalreay began to strip the three dead Honshi of their weapons. He left the armor. Looking on, Prestin bent and picked up a helmet that rolled loose. He indicated the scraps of hair.

“Scalps?”

“Scalps?” Dalreay looked puzzled. “I have learned the other-world language, Eytalian, but this word I do not know—”

Prestin explained.

Dalreay chuckled as though at a huge joke. “The idea is the same,” he said. “But head hair, no. They’re pubic hair. The Honshi must have a sense of humor your redskins lack.”

Prestin didn’t think it was funny. He had been holding the helmet and looking at the hair. He dropped the thing with a clang.

Dalreay chided him. “Here in Irunium a man must be a man, friend Prestin. No state aid here.”

He draped the weapons around Prestin and then dragged his canvas bag out. He wedged it firmly into the angle of floor and wall, piling the three bodies onto it. He seemed to like his work. “We can’t go any farther. These tunnels aren’t being mined now—I’ve had a hand in that—but it seems they are well patrolled. We do it here.”

“Do what?”

But before he had finished, Prestin understood.

Dalreay produced a long length of rope and an ordinary box of terrestrial kitchen matches from his belt pouch. He wedged the fuse well into the bag, and walked back running it through his fingers. Prestin made sure he was not left behind.

When Dalreay lit the fuse, Prestin was irresistably reminded of a man at his devotions.

Then they both hared down the passageway past the glowing jewel-encrusted walls. The swords kept clanking together but Dalreay got a little ahead and Prestin, forgetting about the noise, raced like a madman to keep up. They had almost reached the foot of the earth-cut steps when the explosion boomed, banged, ear-deafened and air-blasted along the tunnel behind them.

Prestin was pitched forward against the jeweled wall.

Dalreay, one foot on the stairs, looked up and yelled.

From above, louder and growing louder every moment, the long, drawn-out rumbling of a rock fall thundered down to bury them alive.