The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “As I recall it, you were the ratling and I the rescuer,” Carum said, his voice almost back to normal. Then it dropped again. “How could I have let Gorum talk me into …”

  One of the other men put his hand on Jenna’s arm. “They put something in the food, Anna. A sprinkling of some witch’s berry. It takes a man’s will away. Yet we must eat. Each of us has his moments of such despair. Do not tax him with his answers. We are all like that—high with expectation one moment, low and despairing the next. You will feel the corrosion of it soon enough. We are our own worst torturers.”

  Jenna turned back and placed her hand against Carum’s cheek. “It will be better by and by. I promise.”

  “Women’s promises …” he began before his voice bled away, like an old wound reopened.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It be an old bit of wit from the Continent, lady,” a new voice said. “Best leave it.”

  “No—tell me,” Jenna said.

  “No, Anna.”

  “Carum, what do you mean?”

  His old voice was suddenly returned. “It is something Kalas is fond of saying: Women’s promises are water over stone—wet, willing, and soon gone.”

  “Water over stone …” Jenna mused. “I had that advice once, long ago. Be water over stone. It meant something quite different.”

  “Don’t tax me with it, Jen,” Carum pleaded.

  “I keep my promises, Carum, and well you know it. All I need is that light.”

  Carum was about to speak when one of the other men broke in. “It will do you no good, Anna. It does none of us any good. They hold the light up to the hole in the door and then they make us lie down on the floor, one atop another.”

  “One atop another?” Jenna asked.

  “It is a cruel and humbling act,” Carum said. “They do it in the dungeons of the Continent. An invention of Castle Michel Rouge, where most of the instruments of torture come from as well. Kalas has cousins there.” He hesitated, finally admitting, “As do I.”

  “They count us aloud, lady, afore they open the door. After each lock they count us.”

  “Better and better,” Jenna said mysteriously.

  “If you have a plan, tell me.” Carum’s voice was strong and full again.

  “Tell us,” a dozen men’s voices agreed.

  Jenna smiled into the dark, but with her back to the single sliver of light in the door, none of them could see. “Just be sure,” she said to them, “that I lie on top of the pile.”

  The men gave forced, muttered laughs, but Carum added—as if he understood—“It would not do to have the Anna, the White Goddess, lie beneath.”

  Jenna laughed with them, extending the joke. “Though there have been times when I have fancied that place as well …” She was glad they could not see her face, hot with furious blushes. If Carum continued this jest, she swore to herself she would kill him before Kalas ever got the chance. But sensing her desperate embarrassment, he let it go. The men were as buoyant as they were likely to be. Jenna walked over to the door. Holding up her hand into the splinter of light, she watched as Skada’s hand appeared faintly against the far wall. Jenna waved and was delighted to see Skada’s hand return it.

  “Will you be ready?” she called to the wall.

  Thinking she was addressing them, the men cried out, “We will, Anna.”

  “For whatever you require,” Carum added.

  But Jenna had eyes only for the hand on the wall. It made a circle between thumb and finger, the goddess’ own sign. For the first time Jenna felt reason to hope.

  Forcing herself to sleep on the cold stones, Jenna gave her body time to recover from the long climb. She curled next to Carum, breathing slowly, matching her breath to his. When she slept at last, her dreams were full of wells, caves, and other dark, wet holes.

  The clanging of a sword against the iron bars of the window woke them all.

  “Light count,” came the call. “Roll up and over.”

  The prisoners dragged themselves to the wall and attempted a rough pyramid, not daring to complain. Last to sit up, Jenna watched as the sturdiest six, including Carum, lay down on the floor. The next heaviest climbed on top, and then the next until a final skeletal two—obviously long interred for other crimes against Kalas—scaled up to the perch, distributing their weight as carefully as possible. It was easier to see all this because of the additional light from the torch shining through the window in the door.

  The sound of the guard’s voice counting began. “One, two, three …”

  “Wait!” It was a new voice, well in command. Not Kalas’ voice. Jenna was disappointed but not surprised. After all, why should Kalas himself oversee a dungeon full of prisoners?

  The voice had a soft purr to it. “You misbegotten miscalculators,” came its smooth mockery. “Don’t deny us the best. His highness, King Kalas, spoke movingly of the lady. Is there not room on top for her?”

  “There is room,” Jenna said, her voice soft so that the speaker had to come closer to the door to hear her. She could only see a shadow, a smallish shadow, almost boy-sized.

  “Always room,” came the purring voice, “because a pyramid is altogether a pleasing figure.”

  Jenna guessed. “The Cat!”

  He laughed. “Smart women are annoying. But I understand I have nothing to fear from you. You have already killed one cat. And I have lives to spare, is that not so?”

  His men chuckled.

  “Climb up, my lady. Ascend your throne.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Ask the men upon whose backs you will make your climb,” the Cat said in his purring voice.

  “We tried denying him his pleasure in the pyramid,” Carum said, “and they simply refused to feed us at all until we lay one atop another.”

  Jenna nodded and kicked off her boots. Then she set her right foot carefully on someone’s buttocks and began the climb. When she reached the top, she lay down gingerly, trying to distribute her weight evenly.

  “Will they bring the light now?” Jenna whispered to one of the men under her.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. “Look, here it comes.”

  Two men—one with a torch—entered the room. The Cat, disdaining to draw his own weapon, entered after them. He was a small, wiry man who looked pleased with himself, like a puss over a saucer of cream.

  The light-bearer stood at the head of the pile of bodies counting them aloud once again. The second went to a corner, sheathed his sword, and dropped a bag that had been draped over his shoulders onto the floor. He emptied its contents on the stone. Jenna made out a pile of hard breads and wrinkled her nose. Then she looked up at the wall nearest the door where shadows thrown by the flickering torch moved about.

  “Now!” she shouted, flinging herself from the pile.

  She calculated her roll to take her into the shoulder of the guard at the pyramid’s peak. His torch flew into the air, illuminating another hurtling body that seemed to spring right out of the far wall. Skada rammed into the Cat, just as he unsheathed his sword.

  Jenna reached for the guard’s weapon as Skada grabbed for the Cat’s, then completed identical rolls in a single fluid motion and stood up.

  At the moment of their impact, Carum and the other captives collapsed the pyramid. The strongest leaped to their feet, surrounding the guard near the bread and stripping him of his sword and a knife in his boot. Holding the torch aloft, Carum laughed.

  “At least one of those lives ends here, my Cat.”

  “Perhaps,” the Cat said, smiling. “But indulge me for a moment and let me ask the lady why at yesterday’s count, there were twenty prisoners in this cell. Yet today, though there should have been twenty-one, a perfect pyramid, there was one extra. Where did the extra come from?”

  Skada laughed behind him. “From a darker hole than you will ever know, Cat.”

  Jenna hissed through her teeth and Skada was immediately silent. But the Cat smiled.

  “Co
uld it be …” he said, his eyes crinkling, “could it be that the stories about you witches raising black demons out of mirrors is true? Mages lie, but images …”

  Skada made a mocking bow. “Truth has many eyes. You must believe what you yourself see.”

  Jenna bowed as well. When she stood straight again, the Cat had a finger to his lips, obviously thinking.

  “I see sisters who may have had the same mother but who had different fathers.” He took the finger away. “It is well known that the mountain women take pleasure with many men.”

  “Some,” Skada said, “take no pleasure with any men.”

  The Cat laughed, and at the same moment leaned forward dashing the torch from Carum’s hand. It fell to the stone floor, started to gutter, and almost went out. Without the light, Skada was gone and the Cat’s sword which had been in her hand clattered to the floor. He bent quickly and picked it up.

  “Like my Lord Kalas,” he said into the dark, “I chew piji. It stains the teeth but gives one wonderful night sight.” His sword rang against Jenna’s.

  “Dark or light,” cried Jenna, “I will fight you. Stand back, Carum. Keep the others out of the way. And do not mover!”

  The Cat was not as strong as the Bear, being a small man, and so he could not overcome Jenna with sheer strength. But he was a clever swordsman, quick on his feet, and cunning. Twice his sword stroked open a small wound, once on her right cheek, once on her left arm. But he counted too much on his night sight, thinking it an advantage. What he did not know was that Jenna, like the other Hame warriors, had learned swordplay and wandplay in both dark and lightened rooms. Though she could not see as well as he in the blackness, she had been taught to trust her ears as well as her eyes. She could distinguish the movement of a thrust that was signaled by the change in the air; she could read every hesitation of breath. She could smell the Cat’s slight scent of fear under the piji, the change in the odor of his sweat when he realized that he did not have the upperhand after all.

  She slowed her own breathing to give her the steady strength she needed and with one last twist of her wrist managed to catch up his blade on hers and send it clattering away into the corner.

  “Light!” Jenna called.

  Carum picked up the torch and held it overhead. Once off the cold stone it managed to flutter back into smoky life.

  The Cat stood with both hands held out, almost playful in his surrender, though no one was fooled by his stance. Jenna’s blade remained in his belly. Behind him, Skada had her sword at his back.

  “If you move,” Skada whispered to him, “I will spit you like a sheep over a roasting pit. And I will turn that spit very, very slowly.”

  He shrugged, but with exaggerated care.

  “You have rightly guessed that Jenna and I are sisters,” Skada continued. “And that we are not at all alike. I do not yet have your blood on my blade, though it is she who has sworn your death.”

  Jenna turned to Carum. “Keep the torch high, my king. And stand at the head of the line as we go. Skada and I will take the rear.”

  They left the Cat and his two men locked in the dungeon without any light at all, and made their way up the stairs. Carum held the torch in his left hand, one of the guard’s swords in his right. After him came his men. At the rear was Jenna, the wound on her cheek and arm wiped clean of the fresh blood and already starting to close, though both still stung. And, when the light was right, Skada trotted along behind.

  At each new door they fumbled the locks open with keys they had taken from the Cat’s belt. Carum greeted each released prisoner in turn, both those who had ridden with him and those who had been in Kalas’ Hole for other crimes.

  All in all, they opened eight dungeon doors and gathered almost a hundred men, most still in fighting condition, though they had only three swords and nine torches for weapons. There was not even a chair or a table that might be broken into cudgels.

  “My lord, Carum,” a thin voice cried.

  Jenna strained to make out the speaker in the flickering torchlight. Carum spotted him first and, handing the torch to someone, gave his hand to the speaker. The man was as thin as his voice, and knobby; his hands were too big for their wrists, his nose oversized on a bony face.

  “What is it?” Carum asked.

  “I know this castle well, sir. I have served here all my life, first as serving lad, then as cook’s boy, now as cook.”

  Someone laughed. “Don’t they say: Measure a cook by his belly? This one is all bones.”

  The man shook his head. “I have been in the dungeon four or five weeks now. It thins a man.”

  “Maybe less,” someone cried. “If he cannot remember.”

  “He’s a spy,” another called.

  Carum held up his hand for silence. “Let him speak.”

  “If I do not remember rightly,” the cook said, “it is because time has no dominion here. Day is night. Night is day.”

  “That be true enough,” a man with a blond beard said.

  “To your point,” Carum urged.

  “I know every passage in this castle, every hall and every stair.”

  Coming forward, and heedless of Skada following her, Jenna put her hand on the cook’s arm. It trembled slightly beneath her touch. Skada took his other arm. His trembling increased.

  “Then tell us where this passage leads to.”

  “Out of the Hole, lady.”

  “He is a spy,” came a voice.

  “He must give us more,” came another.

  “And what does the door open into,” Jenna persisted. She suspected he was the kind of man who could not say anything straightaway but must have it pulled from him.

  “An arras, lady.”

  “What does that mean?” asked someone.

  “A curtain, he means. An arras is a curtain,” explained Carum.

  “He is a spy. Spit him!”

  Jenna tightened her hold on the cook’s arm. “These men are getting restless and Longbow and I will not be able to control them if you do not speak plainly.”

  “No, listen to me,” the cook said hastily. “This passage leads to an open door in the wall of Kalas’ Great Hall and it is hung over, covered over, by an arras.”

  The muttering men hushed.

  “That is better,” Jenna said, relaxing her grip.

  “Much better,” Skada said from the other side.

  But the cook, once started, seemed unable to stop. “It is a heavy arras,” he said. “One of the finest in the castle. A tapestry dedicated to Lord Cres. He is feasting with his heroes and they are …”

  “Throwing bones over their shoulders to the dogs of war,” Skada whispered to Jenna.

  The cook did not hear and continued in his thin voice, “… hangs over the door. But often King Kalas …”

  The men began to mutter again at that, an angry sound, like bees. Carum silenced them with a cut of his hand.

  “… I mean, Lord Kalas when he dines has the arras pulled back to listen to the cries from the Hole. He calls it seasoning for his meals.”

  Carum’s lips closed tight together but he made no comment other than a nod.

  “Lord Kalas had been away much lately, but he returned precipitously a few days ago. After a message from one of his chiefs.”

  “The Bear!” one man said, turning to stare at Jenna.

  “Na, how could he know all that?” asked another.

  “They tell it to me, the guards,” the cook said quickly. “To crow over it. My pain their pleasure; their gossip my only meat.”

  “I don’t like it, sir. ’Tis too easy,” one of the men cautioned Carum. Several others agreed.

  “But it makes good sense,” Jenna mused.

  “Who guards this arras, this tapestry?” Carum asked in a harsh whisper. “How many? What arms?”

  “It is an open door, my lord. Kalas’ boast is No one escapes from the Hole whole. Sometimes he shows the gaping door to the ladies, just to frighten them a little bit.”

&
nbsp; “What ladies?” Jenna asked, hardly breathing.

  “The ones he captures. The ones he beds. Young ladies, some of them. Scarce more than girls.”

  Jenna shivered, thinking of Alna and Selinda, thinking of Jareth’s Mai, thinking of the children from Nill’s Hame.

  “Do you mean no one guards it?”

  “I mean it opens directly into the Great Hall which is always full of an army of men, especially when Kalas is home.”

  The men mumbled their opinions, volleying them back and forth. Crowding tightly together, they discussed their options.

  “It’s no good then.”

  “We’re doomed.”

  “Better dead at once than dying slowly down there.”

  “Wait,” Skada said. Now that the torches were close together, she held her shape. “Listen. There is something you do not know.”

  Jenna nodded. “There are one hundred armed women on the walls outside who may have already made it to the top.”

  “And fifty armed men battling through the gate.”

  The cook laughed mirthlessly. “There are three portcullises between the gate and the keep. They will not get in.”

  “Whether they get in or not,” Skada said, “they will be a distraction.”

  “They are the mice,” Jenna cried to Carum.

  “And we already have the Cat!” he rejoined.

  “Listen,” Skada said, “we have few weapons but the torches.”

  “Do you mean to burn him out?” asked someone.

  “Trust me,” Skada said. “Set all you can on fire. If it is day and the women have gotten in, they fight—better—near a fire.”

  “Better a hot woman than a cold dinner,” someone called.

  Laughing, they started up the stairs again, but became quiet at the next turning for it was clear the exit out of the Hole lay just ahead.

  Jenna and Skada signaled them on, and they crept silently up the rest of the cold stone steps, amazingly quiet, Jenna thought, for so many men.

  Since only Carum, Jenna, and one other man were armed with stolen swords, they went ahead. Skada, with her shadow weapon, followed close behind. When they reached the last step, Carum poked the sword slowly at the heavy curtain, looking for a way out. Finally Jenna knelt down; she tried to lift the arras. It was a heavy weave and weighted along the bottom. She gestured with her head for help. Two of the unarmed men stepped forward to lift the curtain up, and Jenna and Skada crawled through, sliding their swords before them.