Undying World

CHAPTER 6

A great hairy frog of a man stood before Blade. By his side was a slim and still lovely woman with snow-white hair. They were backed up by a crowd of armed guards.

«I am Jantor, leader of the Gnomen,» the man said. He turned to the woman. «This is Sybelline, queen.» He looked around him at the bodies and at Sart kneeling near Blade in slavehood.

Jantor fixed his attention on Blade. «You killed them in fair fight?» he asked.

Blade nodded. «Ask your own people,» he said.

There was assent from the crowd. Jantor ordered the bodies dragged away and this was done. Then he advanced to Blade and stared at his genitals.

«You are well equipped. I hope it is not all show. Can you father children?»

Blade began to wish he had a pair of pants. Why this obsession with his potency? The Gnomen had children. There were several staring at him at the moment.

But wisely he asked no questions. He was exhausted and his life depended on Jantor's whim. Both men knew it. Jantor, with a wave of his hand, summoned a hundred men to stand beside him. They were all armed with the cruel iron bars.

So Blade said, «Yes. I can have children.»

Jantor, his great bald head gleaming, smiled slightly and said, «I hope you do not lie to me. I need you. All the Gnomen need you. For I alone of all the men can have children. All these you see are mine-and the work grows too much for me. I am no longer a young man. So you have a choice, stranger. Live and make children, or die here and now. Which will it be?»

Blade decided to try his charm. He smiled back at the toad-like man and laughed. «That is no hard choice to make. And I am called Blade in my own land. Richard Blade.»

Jantor waved a careless hand. «I do not care about your name, nor where you came from. You agree, then? Good! Come with me.»

In all this time the white-haired woman had not spoken. But she had been watching Blade intently with long green eyes. Blade especially noted her eyes, for green was not the color of Gnomen eyes, and he also made careful note of her slim and graceful body, wrapped in a black robe, and her firm and unwrinkled complexion. Only her snowy hair bespoke her age. He guessed then that this woman, this Sybelline, was the real power among the Gnomen.

A moment later his guess was confirmed. Jantor fixed an eye on the anxious Sart and gave an order. «That one to the five-mile pits.» Six armed men moved forward.

Blade held up a hand. He explained that Sart was now his slave. He spoke loudly, firmly, coming on as strong as he dared. He knew that his position was still tenuous, balanced on the razor's edge, but he pressed matters a bit. He could not afford to let Jantor win an unqualified victory.

Jantor grew angry. He did not like being defied. Blade gripped his iron bar and made ready for the rush that would, no doubt, kill him. Then the woman whispered in Jantor's ear for a moment. She smiled at Blade with dazzling white teeth, but did not address him.

Jantor scowled, then shrugged his hairy shoulders in resignation. He nodded at Blade. «Very well. Sart is slave to you from this day on. You are responsible for him. Do not forget that. Under our law a master is responsible for the crimes of his slave, for his every deed. Now will you come with me? There is work to be done.»

For the next several days Blade led a strange existence. He was put out to stud.

There was no other word for it. Blade was spared, given a comfortable bricked-in apartment off a secondary tunnel, and put to work. He was, so to speak, on probation. If he could produce children-the gestation period of the Gnomen women was only seven months-his life would be spared. When Jantor died, Blade might well become King in his stead.

Jantor and Sybelline had not minced words. They were both fundamentalists, pragmatic in the extreme, and had evinced little interest in the big stranger other than his capacity to plant his seed in Gnomen women.

So now Blade was working. He was-and Blade could be vulgar when he chose-screwing for a living, to be more exact, for his life. And he was, thank God, potent again. He had better be. It was hard to believe he had been impotent now that he must achieve erection from ten to fifteen times a day.

At the moment, he was resting between jobs. Sart was in another room preparing a meal. Blade lay on his soft bed and contemplated his surroundings. The apartment was furnished and decorated with articles brought into the sewers from above. He knew by this time that the sleepers aboveground were called Morphi and that they had been asleep for, what he reckoned in HD time, would be a century or more. Other than this he knew very little. He had tried questioning Sart, with little result. The man proved to be, so far, loyal and simple. He simply did not know anything of Gnomen history. By questioning him and studying him, Blade grasped the essential fact about these Gnomen-they had a very brief attention span. About that of a three-year-old in HD. Sart was a case in point. When a thing was past, he forgot it, and he did not think of the future except in terms of punishment. He was, as were all the common Gnomen, deathly afraid of the five-mile pits. But mostly the Gnomen lived in the present.

Sart pushed his head through the door curtain. «It is time, master.»

Blade nodded wearily. «Send her in.»

The woman who entered was short and muscular, with thick, bowed legs. She was bare-breasted and wore the simple denim skirt of the Gnomen women. Her eyes were the usual brown, her nose pug and her mouth wide. She did not smell very clean, but by now Blade was used to that. None of the ordinary Gnomen women were clean. Nor the men, for that matter.

The woman did not look at Blade or speak. She walked to the bed and tumbled on it. Blade sighed and mounted her. It was over soon and she left, still without speaking or looking directly at him.

Blade called to Sart. «I will eat now and have a bath and a change of clothes. No more women for an hour. Tell them.»

«Yes, master.»

Blade lay on the bed, weary, thinking that perhaps it would be best if he got out of this situation-if he could do it alive-and somehow make his way to the giant moon. He had not seen that monster since his descent into the sewers, but he had picked up stray bits of information about it.

The moon, as he thought of it, was inhabited by a superior race of beings called the Selenes. The Gnomen called them orbfolk and were afraid of them. Blade, with the little information he could gather, guessed that the Selenes had warred with the Morphi and the Selenes had won. Somehow they had managed to cut off the power and put the Morphi into a death-like trance. How or why or when, he had no idea. Sart did not know, or would not tell. Blade didn't think that his slave was lying or being devious; the Gnomen were simply a low form of human animal that lived entirely for the present.

Blade moved restlessly on the bed. He heard Sart push through the door hanging and say something to the line of women waiting outside. Blade grinned wryly at the thought of the strange queue-a line a block long of women waiting, hoping to be made pregnant by a strange man.

For a moment, furious impatience raged in Blade. He wanted to be up and out and about, doing and discovering, finding out things, exploiting this Dimension X for England, and yet here he was at stud and no better than any other prisoner-no better off than Sart, really. In fact he didn't have the freedom of Sart, who could come and go as he pleased. Let Blade poke his head out of the apartment and there were fifty men armed with the bars.

Only his sense of humor saved Blade, or had up to now. He finally laughed at himself and took his bath, humming a snatch of remembered tune… I'll never love again… had his lunch and dressed in some of the plastic clothes looted from above. He was stalling as long as he could. He was tired. So far that day he had serviced ten women-he ticked them off on a slate-and he did not really feel up to more female flesh at the moment. If only Jantor or Sybelline would send for him, take some notice of his existence. They ruled, so they must be of good intelligence, and from them he might gain some answers. At least escape from the deadly boredom that pressed in on him like a black cloud. Blade let a curse escape him. All he did-night and day, day and night-was service women. When he thought of all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in despair that he had done back in HD, he could not believe that he was the same man.

He had made Sart bathe and comb out his beard. The man had filled the apartment with his stink. Now Sart took the food tray away and said, «It is time, master. They are growing impatient.»

Blade scowled at him. «Let them be impatient. So am I, to no purpose. I have an idea, Sart. Why not you instead of me? I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I need a rest.»

Sart gave him a shocked look. «That is forbidden, master. Only you are to have the women.»

«Who would know the difference?»

Sart pointed at Blade and then at his own squat and powerful body covered with hair. «The women, of course. They would tell. Jantor and Sybelline would hear. They would kill you and send me to the pits. No, master, you must keep on. Shall I send the next one in now?»

Blade sighed and began to undress again. «Yes, I suppose so. Send her in.»

And it was with the next woman that his boredom and futility began to vanish. He recognized her immediately. It was the young and shapely girl who had clawed him, and who later had been sent to fetch Jantor and Sybelline. And there was something more. This was the third or fourth time she had been to him for copulation. Blade, who was in a foul mood, decided to have some fun with her at least. Why did she keep returning to his bed, over and over again?

When the girl entered and walked toward the bed Blade stopped her. He beckoned. «Come here, girl. How are you called?»

She did not answer. She stood staring at the floor. She wore only the denim skirt, and she was slim and small waisted, with long, well-formed legs.

Blade roughened his voice. «I asked you a question. What is your name?»

She did not speak. Blade studied her. Her breasts were large and high thrusting, with a great deal of point. She was dirty and she smelled a bit, as they all did; her long dark hair was a tangle of medusa snarls.

«Look at me,» said Blade.

Slowly she raised her head. Her eyes, of Gnomen deep brown, had a tint of red in them. She met Blade's gaze for a moment, then lowered her eyes once more, but not before he had seen an intelligence, a comprehension, that none of the other women had displayed.

By now Blade was both interested and irritated. It also occurred to him that the more time he spent with this one, the more rest he would get. He badly needed it. She was the most beautiful of the lot, but he felt no sexual craving. He badly needed a respite.

He stalked to her, seized her by the hair, none too gently, and pulled her head back. He put his face close to hers and growled. «Tell me your name, girl!»

She was trembling. Fear moved in her eyes, fear and something else. Later, remembering, Blade was to recall that she looked at him as a grateful and obedient dog looks at its master.

«Norn,» she gasped. «I am called Norn.» Her voice was high-pitched, quavery with fear, yet not unpleasant.

Blade released her. He smiled. «So you do have a tongue — and a name. Then tell me, Norn, why do you keep coming back?»

The brown eyes widened, then narrowed, then veiled. She shook her head. «I do not understand, master. I do not come back. This is my first time.»

Blade laughed. «You are a little liar, Norn. This is the third, maybe the fourth, time that you've come to me.»

Norn shook her head. «No.»

«Yes, and you do not leave here until you tell the truth and explain why. Sart?»

«Yes, master?» Sart stepped into the room, glancing nervously from Blade to the girl.

Blade kept his eyes on the girl, who once again was staring at the floor.

«Fetch water, Sart, and the cloths and brushes. Hurry up. I am curious about this one. I want to see what she really looks like.»

Sart hesitated. Plainly he did not like this development. «But master, there are so many waiting. The line grows longer all the time. Is it wise to waste time with this one? I do not think that Jantor-«

Blade made an extremely nasty remark about Jantor, and Sart hurried to do as he was told. The girl broke suddenly for the draped entrance. Blade was on her in an instant. She fought him for a moment, kicking and biting and scratching, then suddenly went limp in his arms. She pressed against him and laid her head on his huge chest. Blade, with a sinking feeling, recognized submission.

The girl whispered up to him. «I love.»

That, he thought coldly, is all I need. Yet he did not push her from him. She might be useful and there was something about her as yet unexplained. Meantime, so long as he dallied with her, he would not have to face the impatient queue waiting for him outside. Sart came back with a large jar of water, cloths, coarse brushes and a box of fine white sand. Gnomen did not understand the use of soap. This puzzled Blade, for there was certainly plenty of it in the city above the sewers.

«Hold her,» Blade commanded. «We'll just have a little scrub-down and see what's under the dirt.»

But Norn would not let Sart touch her. She spat at him and clawed at his eyes. She turned to Blade. «You. I love you.»

Direct little creature, he thought, with dismay. But he was in it now; might as well finish up. He thought again of the long line of females outside and grimaced. The longer it took the better.

She took off her little denim mini and stood naked before him. Blade began his task, working as gently as possible with the water and sand.

Norn stood patiently as he scrubbed her. When he finished she emerged glowing and lovely, much younger than he would have guessed. Clean and shining, staring at him with dog-like devotion, she hardly looked fourteen, an extremely well-developed fourteen. As he rather tenderly dried her breasts, he convinced himself that this was no child.

Blade seated the girl on the bed and struggled to comb and brush out the worst of the tangles in her hair. Sart hovered, complaining, until Blade sent him out of the room.

As he left Sart made a final plea. «This is not wise, master. It will surely get back to Jantor and Sybelline that you have taken a favorite. They will send the guards. I do not want you to be slain, master, and-«

Blade grinned. «That I believe. You worry about your own skin and for that I do not blame you. But remember that you pledged obedience to me. So obey.. OUT!»

Blade did what he could with her hair and tossed the comb and brush aside. Her regarded her. Not too bad. He sat on the bed beside her and took her hand. She curled over against him and reached up to stroke his bearded cheek.

After a moment he said, «Now, my little Norn, let's have some truth from you-nothing but truth. You will no longer pretend to be stupid and you will not persist in the lie that you're in love with me. That is not why you come again and again, and I must know why.»

She brushed her fingers through his chest hair. She let out a long sigh and said, «All right, Blade. You are too clever for me. But it is truth that I love you. I have tasted you. Now no other man will do. Certainly no common Gnoman, even if it were not forbidden. I would have you all for my own, Blade.»

When he cuffed her lightly, a look of ecstasy crossed her face. She brushed her fingers over the spot he had struck, as if it had been a kiss instead of a blow.

Blade knew then that she was telling the truth, but not all of it. He spoke gently. «If you lie again, the next blow will be harder. You come to spy on me, Norn. Is that not so?»

She pressed against him. Her hands sought him and Blade could feel himself being aroused by her touch. He pulled her hands away.

«Admit it, Norn. You spy, don't you?»

She nodded. «Yes. I spy for Sybelline, not Jantor. I am handmaid to Sybelline and she would know everything of you. But the other is also true-my body loves yours and so I must visit you again and again. I knew it was not wise, for now you have found me out, but I could not help myself.»

Her hands were plucking at him again. It was like flower petals brushing his penis. Blade felt a genuine excitement rising in him, the first in all his days of sexual activity. But he pulled her hands away again.

«Later for that. First you must answer questions. Why does Sybelline spy on me? What am I to her? What does she want to know?»

Norn pulled away from him and stretched out on the bed. She propped herself on an elbow, chin in palm, and regarded him for a long time before she spoke. The look she gave him, and her tone, revealed that she had entirely dropped the mask.

«All right, Blade. I did not come here to talk, but if you must talk let us get it over with. I do not know exactly why Sybelline spies on you through me, but I know that she has her reasons. She tells me nothing. I merely obey. My orders were to find out all I could about you, in any way I could. To find out if you are indeed the man you have boasted of being.»

He smiled faintly. «And what did you tell her?»

For the first time he beard her laugh. Her teeth were good. «I told her that you are indeed a man. In a few years, if you work steadily, the Gnomen population will be rebuilt.»

Blade did not show the frown he felt. That idea he did not like at all: stud for an entire nation, quite literally the father of a country. This life was not for him. That very night, he thought, he would contact Lord L through the crystal and ask to be recalled to Home Dimension.

Norn lay back on the bed. She raised her knees and looked at Blade. «Please, Blade. Your slave is right, you know. If we are too long the other women will be come suspicious and report us. Please hurry.»

Blade laid down beside her. She might be a liar and a spy, but he didn't think she was lying about her need of him. If she really was enamored of him, he would be a fool not to exploit it. At the moment he was a sexual captive with no points of advantage, and he could be killed at Jantor's whim or at the whim of Sybelline.

Somehow Blade thought that his best chances lay with Sybelline.

He set out to torture Norn a bit. He penetrated and then withdrew. She moaned and clutched at him frantically. How different from the other Gnomen women he had been servicing like a prize bull or stallion. They all lay unmoving and would not look at him, would not have submitted at all but for Jantor's stern orders.

Norn continued to writhe and moan. «Please, please, Blade. I love you. Hurry-hurry-«

He teased her and held off. «You are not telling me everything, Norn. If we are to be friends I must trust you, and I cannot do that until you tell me everything. Now what is Sybelline up to?»

The girl closed her eyes and gasped. «I know little. This much I can tell you… Sybelline bade me to observe you and, when I thought the time was right, to warn you.»

Blade thrust into her. «Warn me of what?»

Norn groaned deep in her throat. «That trouble is coming. Trouble with Jantor. Sybelline wants you on her side and she will give you great rewards. But you must wait-wait and do nothing. If you act too soon all will be ruined. You are to wait and be obedient and cause no trouble. .»

«I can do little else,» said Blade bitterly. «I'm a prisoner and as helpless as any of you.»

Norn reached for him. She wrapped strong legs about him and tugged him to her.

«Not forever, Blade. I will be messenger. I will visit you again and again and when the time is right I will take you to Sybelline. Now-I have told you all my secrets. I know of nothing more. Will you go on denying me? I love you, Blade. Take pity. .»

Blade took pity. And for the first time in days actually enjoyed it.