The Towers Of Melnon

Chapter FOURTEEN

They found Bryg-Noz far below, in a small chamber just off the large chamber where Blade had seen the great wands demonstrated. The general of Mir-Kasa's literally «underground» army rose to greet him, hand extended.

«Welcome to our ranks, Blade-Liza. Or am I being premature in welcoming you?» He made a quick gesture, and several men who had been lounging against the wall of the chamber stood up and drew their swords.

Blade laughed. «You obviously don't trust me much more than I trust you. I let Kun-Rala lead me down here because I would like to stay alive a little while longer. And up above that would hardly be possible. There were a dozen or so of Nris-Pol's henchmen pounding on the door behind us as we started down the stairs.» A nod from Kun-Rala confirmed that statement.

Bryg-Noz stared at Blade for a moment, then shook his head wearily. Another gesture caused the men to put up their swords. The leader sighed. «Blade, perhaps you had better tell us what has happened today. Tell all of it, as it has appeared to you, and only what you have seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears.»

Blade did so. As the tale ran on, Bryg-Noz's face grew longer and longer, and he began pounding one fist into the palm of the other hand. Blade saw tears glisten in Kun-Rala's eyes and flow quietly down her cheeks. One of the men by the wall was cursing quietly to himself. Finally Blade came to the end of his tale.

Bryg-Noz sighed again. «Quite a tale, Blade. Now»-and his voice was harsh-«tell me how you understand Queen MirKasa's plans for-for the future of Melnon.»

«You must have heard them often enough,» said Blade.

«I have,» said Bryg-Noz. «I certainly have. But I want to know how they sound to you. You may hear or see them differently from me.»

«Suppose I do?» said Blade. He was even more tired of mystery-mongering and implied threats than he had been up above. «What will you do? If it involves violence, think twice before you do it.» Again the men along the wall drew their swords, but this time Kun-Rala also drew hers. «Please, Bryg-Noz,» she said. «Consider what he has been through today. You are behaving like Nris-Pol himself, with all your threats and growling like a hungry animal.»

Bryg-Noz glared at the girl, but her words seemed to sink in. He sat down again and held his graying head in his hands for a moment. Then he raised infinitely weary dark eyes to Blade and said slowly, «Blade, I apologize. I–I am more tired than any man should be, who has to bear the load I do. If I could just get some sleep … But I must ask you again-tell me how Mir-Kasa's plans look to you.»

Blade told him.

As Blade talked, he saw Bryg-Noz's eyes widen and some of the weariness leave them. Finally Bryg-Noz stood up again and began to pace back and forth, a broad grin on his face.

«I see. I see indeed. And you think that Mir-Kasa cares only for her own power, nothing for the Low People or for the future of Melnon as one people?»

«I think it sticks out like one of the Towers of Melnon themselves,» said Blade flatly.

Bryg-Noz stepped forward and clapped both his hands to Blade's shoulders. «Then I think we understand each other. If you had thought Mir-Kasa really cared for anything else but her own future. — «

«Well, you said no more threats. So I will not make any. But I will ask you this. Would you care to join us and help us to make Melnon a city of free people, neither High nor Low, only of the Towers of Melnon? An end to the wars, an end to the War Wisdom, an end to the Peace Wisdom and our use of knowledge only to benefit a few?»

«That sounds like an ambitious program.»

«It is. But what else can we do? Melnon today is frozen into a tight mold. If we can break the mold, and put something better in its place-«

«Can you put something better in its place?»

«We can try,» said Bryg-Noz simply.

If Bryg-Noz had said anything else, Blade would still have joined the man's movement to «make Melnon a city of free people.» But he would have joined it simply as a means of staying alive until he could get back to home dimension. Preferably with one of the great wands under his arm, but above all with a whole skin. That was as much as he could reasonably hope to bring back to home dimension from this dimension of rule-bound fanatics.

However, Bryg-Noz was an honest man. He had no illusions about his ability to sweep away all of Melnon's past and build its future single-handedly. But he was willing to try. And that kind of revolutionary rather appealed to Blade. Men like that did not operate on the principle of «kill everybody who's against you, and hope there will be enough left to build something bright, shiny, and new.» If Bryg-Noz came to rule in Melnon, the Towers might be doing a good deal better than exchanging one bloody tyranny for another.

So Blade thrust out his hand to Bryg-Noz, and they shook hands until Blade wondered if his arm was going to fall off. Then Bryg-Noz sat down again and gave Blade the explanation the Englishman had been hoping for ever since Kun-Rala dragged him through the doorway.

Obviously Queen Mir-Kasa had no notion of what Bryg-Noz and the other leaders were planning to do with her private army. The revolutionaries were perfectly willing to go along with the queen up to a point-certainly they were willing to overthrow the rule of the High People in the other towers. This was bound to be a bloody mess, but was there any choice? But when the Tower of the Serpent ruled in Melnon, then the ruler of that tower would suddenly find herself-unemployed.

In pursuit of their own goals, Bryg-Noz and his comrades were recruiting among the real Low People, as well as the degraded High People sent down by Mir-Kasa. Instead of the two hundred they had mentioned to Mir-Kasa, they had well over four hundred reliable people and a list of sympathizers four times that strong.

That had been the plan up until today. But with Nris-Pol on the march, plans obviously had to be changed. If Nris-Pol had the kind of power Blade's story suggested he had, the «underground» days of safety among the Low People were about over. Nris-Pol could send spies to the low levels just as well as Queen Mir-Kasa. And when he had discovered what was going on, he could levy a charge of treason against Mir-Kasa herself. Blade had seen what that sort of charge could do. Mir-Kasa would be lucky to escape with her life, and Nris-Pol would rule in the Tower of the Serpent.

And then he would surely find the work chamber where the great wands were stored. What a man like Nris-Pol would do with hundreds of wands that could blast a warrior into red mist at a hundred feet or more was obvious. Tens of thousands of both High and Low People would die when he set out to conquer Melnon, whether he succeeded or not.

Obviously, therefore, the Tower of the Serpent could not shelter the movement much longer. They would have to pack up and flee.

«To the Tower of the Leopard?» asked Blade.

Bryg-Noz jumped up in astonishment. «How did you guess?»

Blade shrugged. «I keep my eyes open. They looked as if they were trying very much to be different from the other towers. And I heard people talk. The Leopards, they say, worry less about High and Low People, and keeping both in their places.»

«They do,» said Bryg-Noz. «So they are the only people we can turn to.»

«What are they going to think about becoming involved in a war against all the other Towers of Melnon?» asked Blade.

«When we show them the great wands, and tell them about Nris-Pol — well, I think they will at least listen. Whether we can convince them or not-that is another matter. But first we must get our people out of this tower, and over to the Tower of the Leopard.»

That, as it turned out, would be relatively simple. There was a tunnel leading from one of the underground chambers to an entrance half a mile out in the Waste Land. It had been there since the tower was built, and had already been used several times by secret groups. Once out of the tunnel, there would be little trouble in making their way to the Tower of the Leopard. And then they would wait for morning, and ask the Leopards for entrance.

«What about taking some of the great wands?» asked Blade. «I think the Leopards would like a demonstration. And they might come in handy as weapons to use when we return to the Tower of the Serpent.»

«So they might,» said Bryg-Noz. «But Mir-Kasa allowed us only the one, and it has almost lost its power. She obviously did not trust us that much.»

«Well,» said Blade, «then somebody had best go up to the work chamber and take a few of the wands with us the night we leave the tower. Who knows where it is, to guide me? I am the newest member of your group, so there is nothing you need me for in the matter of leaving the tower. I am the most expendable. I know the High Levels fairly well, and I am probably the strongest warrior in the Tower of the Serpent if it comes to a fight. But I do not expect that it will come to a fight. I have done this sort of thing before, in England and during my travels, and I have much experience at it.»

Bryg-Noz shrugged. «I believe you, Blade-Liza, and I accept your offer. But you will need a companion, to guard your back.»

«Let me go with him, Bryg-Noz,» said Kun-Rala. «He and I have fought together before. I can disguise myself as a warrior or a master and Blade can disguise himself as a servant that I am leading about. I can carry his weapons under my own clothes and he can wear a carrying frame to hold the wands.»

«Very well,» said Bryg-Noz. «You two have described your duties for the night of the escape. Now we must begin planning for what everyone else will do.» He was not looking at Kun-Rala, so he did not notice the look in her eyes as she gazed at Blade. Blade did.

So he was not particularly surprised when she came that same night to the small, sparsely furnished chamber he had been given. He was drifting quietly off to sleep on the hard mattress on the floor when the door quietly opened and Kun-Rala slipped in. She stood looking down at him, as his eyes opened wide and he sat up facing her.

«What are you doing here?» he asked. He wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or amused.

«I don't know what I am doing here now either,» she said with an impish grin. «But I know what I will be doing very soon.» She was wearing one of the Low People's green tunics, a normally ugly and shapeless garment that she had belted in to show off her slender waist and young thrusting breasts. Blade could not help letting his eyes stray to those hinted-at breasts, and in return Kun-Rala's eyes drifted over Blade's body. He had thrown off the blankets that had covered him, and was sitting naked on his mattress.

Kun-Rala went over to the door and pulled it shut behind her. Then she came back over to the mattress and sat down at the foot. «I–I have not had much chance to be a woman, Blade. I have had to be a warrior for our cause for-for longer than I want to remember. I am proud of what skill I have as a warrior, even though I know it is not very much. But I want to learn to be a woman, Blade, and I think you can teach me well.»

Blade could not help feeling the beginnings of arousal, but he could also not help wondering if this was the time and place. «Kun-Rala, why now? We-«

«Yes, we may die the night after tomorrow, Blade. We may die together, but that is not all I want us to do together. I want to learn from you more about how to be a woman before I die, if I am going to die that night.» She shivered and held out both slim calloused hands. «Please, Blade-Liza.»

Blade did not need to say «Yes,» because his body was beginning to say it for him. And while Kun-Rala might want to know more about being a woman, she already knew enough to recognize a man's arousal when she saw it. She lay down on the mattress beside him, and her arms went around him. Blade could feel the lines of her body under the thin robe, and his own body said its «yes» even louder than before. She felt his stiffening maleness pressing up against her, and her lips curled in a smile.

He took that smile as a welcome, and his hands moved almost of their own accord to the belt of her tunic. It was a simple length of cord; his powerful fingers had it undone within seconds. Kun-Rala raised her hands over her head as Blade's hands crept down her thighs and under the hem of the tunic. Then they crept back up again, caressing the smoothly curved flesh underneath, raising the robe as they came. A quick jerk, and the robe was off and flung in the corner. Kun-Rala wore nothing underneath it, and the dim light in the room gave her body a weirdly beautiful sheen.

Now Blade's hands could roam freely all over that body, drawing small gasps from her as he touched sensitive areas. Her nipples were particularly responsive-dark delicate buds that sprang startlingly into solid life with a single brush of Blade's fingers. Kun-Rala gave a little choked «yes» as that happened, so Blade's fingers stayed on her nipples for a good long time, until she was gasping and writhing back and forth from that stimulus alone. At the same time her own hands were fumbling their way up and down Blade's body. Their touch was unsure and clumsy but delicate, and the unsureness, the sense that she was feeling her way, was in itself exciting to Blade. He felt a delicious ache growing in his groin, as Kun-Rala's hands crept down over the hard muscles of his stomach, to wrap themselves around him.

But he did not stop his own hands, for he sensed that Kun-Rala needed yet more preparation before she would be lost enough in an erotic fog for him to take her easily. He left off caressing her nipples and gently squeezed and released her small, high-standing breasts in an accelerating rhythm. She threw her head back, and her eyes closed. Blade's other hand could feel the growing wetness between her gracefully rounded thighs. His hand probed that wetness, and Kun-Rala's hips began to jerk from side to side, slowly at first but then faster and faster.

Eventually he saw and felt and heard that she was ready. He rolled over toward her, but as he did so, she rolled toward him, faster than he did. She swung up on top of him, he came up, she came down, and he entered her.

She was so aroused and hungry that her first spasm came almost in the moment of entry. She threw her head back and clawed with both hands at her close-cut hair as her pelvic muscles quivered convulsively and wetness poured from her down around Blade's thrusting organ. Her head went back so far that Blade had the vague fear that her neck would snap. Then she sagged forward, until her swollen nipples almost touched Blade's sweat-soaked chest. But he did not stop rising and falling, and neither did she. So she reached a second climax, and then when she reached her third Blade reached his along with her, and their bodies thrashed and their breaths hissed and moaned together.

She collapsed limply forward on to Blade's chest again, and this time she did not move for quite a while. Neither did he. Finally he found the breath to say, «Kun-Rala, you have been worrying about not knowing how to be a woman? You?» His tone of voice implied, «What an idiotic thing for you of all people to worry about!»

She wriggled happily, understanding his meaning, and her arms went around him again. For a moment he thought she was trying to arouse him again. But she was not. Curled against his chest, she drifted quietly off to sleep, and shortly afterward so did Blade.